De Freyne did not seem to notice the efforts of the two girls in obeying
his instructions to smarten up their appearance: he said nothing. But
for all that, the change did not escape him. Maggy, in the draped
cashmere affair struck him as likely to appeal to a Jew or a gentleman
from Manchester. He had a particular individual of each type in his
mind, and awaited a propitious moment for exploiting her to one or the
other. For the next few days the attention of the girls would have to
be devoted to rehearsals, not men.
De Freyne's exploitation of his chorus naturally had it roots in
commercialism and self-interest. The girls themselves very seldom
thanked him for his introductions. They were astute enough to
understand that the advantage was at least mutual. Not that De Freyne
expected any thanks. It was a trite observation of his that theatrical
people were the most ungrateful lot in the world. He himself was a
shining illustration of the dictum, but that did not lessen its truth.
He got his "turn" from his wealthy stage-door dilettanti. It might be a
social one in the shape of admittance to elevated circles; a select
club, a shooting party, a cruise on a big yacht. Sometimes it was an
invitation by a young and indiscreet member of the peerage to his
country house and a photograph in the illustrated papers to proclaim it.
De Freyne was very partial to reading beneath the group: "From left to
right: The Marquis of Perth, Lady Angela Coniston, Sir Francis
Manningtree, Mr. De Freyne...." This was prestige dear to his heart.
He toed the line successfully between Society and Bohemianism. Most of
the rich rascals and all the rich fools of the world were at his
service.
But what gave him most satisfaction was to be able to put an important
City man under an obligation. It often resulted in special information
concerning stocks and shares that brought him large profits. He would
have sacrificed any girl's reputation for a one-fourth per cent. turn of
the market, and frequently did so.
In this regard he mentally pigeon-holed Maggy. It would not be difficult
to find her a partner in the dance to which he should set the
Mephistophelean measure. Alexandra he looked at with a cold eye. He
wasn't sure of her. He had nothing to say against her looks, but he had
no use for prudish high-steppers. Quick of apprehension where girls
were concerned, he put her down in that category. The chorus would bear
thinning out a bit. As a matter of policy, De Freyne always engaged
more girls than he wanted.
For another week rehearsals went on, growing more frequent and longer.
The clever stage-manager goes nearer creating silk purses out of sows'
ears than any human being. No one in the early days of rehearsal would
associate the pouting, obtuse, wooden young woman with the airy fairy
sylphs who ravish the eye on a first night; yet they are one and the
same, trained by methods similar to those used in schooling performing
animals, by coaxing, bullying and inexhaustible patience.
When the chorus were at last up to concert pitch and the principals
letter-perfect, the dress rehearsal took place. Maggy was in the front
row, looking big and beautiful in a Futurist creation of rose fleshings
and black chiffon. The front row girls were very carefully chosen for
opulence of figure. Alexandra had been relegated to the back. She was
disappointing in tights, which means nothing more than that if a butcher
did not approve her an artist might.
It was over at last, the long performance with its glitter, glare and
gaiety. There was nothing in it, but all London would flock to see it
because the music was catchy and the girls so pretty and the whole show
so symbolical of the light side of life. For several days afterwards
rehearsals were frequent. The usual "cuts" and alterations had to be
made, the show licked into shape.
On one of these occasions Maggy received a message from De Freyne. He
wanted to see her. Leaving Alexandra in the dressing room she went up to
the managerial office. It was nearly one o'clock.
"I'm glad you took my advice," he said in a friendly tone. "You've been
turning yourself out much better."
"Thanks," Maggy answered. "Is that all?"
"No. I'm going to put you in the way of dressing really well. A very
decent chap wants to know you. You'll be lucky if he likes you."
"That's your opinion. Well, he can like me as much as he likes. But
I'm straight."
De Freyne chewed the end of his mustache.
"You get these silly notions from the girl you live with," he said
impatiently. "I'll mix advice with a bit of prophecy. If you don't try
and make yourselves more agreeable you'll find you're in--"
"Queer Street?"
"It's equivalent--Garrick Street and Maiden Lane--out of a shop. It
doesn't hurt you to be nice to a fellow, does it? He may ask you to
lunch. Duchesses lunch."
"I'm not a duchess, and I'm particular who I lunch with."
At the end of her sentence the door opened and a man looked in. He had
heard her, and was amused.
Maggy's look as she turned to acknowledge De Freyne's introduction was
inimical. She knew perfectly well what that introduction portended. She
must be hard. She had repulsed other men. She could take care of
herself. But this man--what was his name--Woolf?--loomed tall and big
over her, big as Fate, possessive. He exercised a spell: he appealed to
her. She knew it in the first moment that she looked at him. She knew
she would like to lunch with him, and that she would inwardly be
disappointed if she had the strength of mind to refuse. When the
invitation came she accepted it with cheeky reservation.
"All right, Mr. Woolf, so long as you don't think I'm Little Red
Riding-hood and included in the menu."
The capitulation satisfied her conscience. Then she remembered
Alexandra.
"I must go and tell my friend not to wait for me," she said.
"Miss Hersey?" supplied De Freyne. "You might also ask her to come in
here in ten minutes, will you?"
"My car's outside," said Woolf. "You'll find me at the stage-door."
Maggy ran along to the dressing room where she had left Alexandra. The
other girls had gone.
"Lexie, I'm going out to lunch," she began breathlessly. "I wish you
were coming too. Do you mind? I shan't be long. I'll cut home as
quickly as I can."
She could not hide her excitement. It showed in an added sparkle of the
eyes, a catch in the voice. Alexandra wondered what else besides an
invitation to lunch could have created this effect. It caused her vague
uneasiness. But prospective enjoyment was so clearly written all over
Maggy's face that she refrained from expressing it.
"Of course I don't mind," she said. "I hope you will enjoy yourself."
"You are a dear!" Maggy felt awkward. "You--you don't think it's wrong?"
"There's nothing wrong in going to lunch with anybody. Especially if
he's--all right, and knows you are, too."
"He's nice, I think."
"I'm glad. But be careful, Maggy."
"Rather!"
Maggy moved to one of the mirrors and took up a powder-puff.
"You've got heaps on already," deprecated Alexandra.
"Have I?" She powdered over the rouge. "I do look rather like puff
pastry--in layers, don't I? Well, I haven't time to take any of it off.
Lexie, De Freyne wants to see you in a minute or two. I don't think
it's anything important. He seems in a good temper. Ta-ta, dear."
She ran out and made for the stage-door where Woolf was waiting for her.
His car, a big open one, was drawn up opposite it. Maggy wished the
girls had not all gone. They had twitted her so often about her lack of
a male escort. Now there was no one to see her get in.
"Where are we going?" she asked. "The Savoy?"
"Not this time," said Woolf. "My house is not far off."
"I'd prefer the Savoy," she persisted, although she had never actually
been to that restaurant.
Woolf was the sort of man who invariably gets his own way with women.
In addition to being characteristically obstinate he was indifferent to
any opinion that clashed with his own. If it was one that suited him so
much the better; if not, he ignored it. So long as he paid the piper he
considered he had the right to call the tune. But before paying he
scanned the bill carefully. He was not a gentleman. He met gentlemen
sometimes, and was adaptive enough to be mistaken for one. He belonged
to one or two nearly-good clubs. He was a man about town in the sense
that he was to be seen wherever money could purchase an entrance.
"You'll be quite chaperoned at my place," he assured Maggy. "I've a man
and his wife."
"I don't need a man and his wife to look after me," she retorted
sharply.
He gave her an attentive stare. "Who does look after you?" His meaning
was obvious.
"Myself, of course. Why don't we go to the Savoy?"
"How persistent you are. Do you want to know why, really? Promise you
won't be offended?"
"If I am I'll hop out."
"Well ... when you let me buy you some pretty clothes I'll take you
there."
He half expected she might "hop out," especially as the car had come to
a standstill in a traffic block. She looked hot-tempered. But Maggy
was too level-headed to be sensitive on the score of clothes.
"I suppose that king in the story wouldn't have been seen with his
beggar maid at the Savoy until he'd dressed her out," she remarked
ironically. "Well, you won't go there with me any time, anyway."
"Why not?"
"Because this young woman provides her own wardrobe."
"We shall see."
Woolf liked her spirit, otherwise her independence might have irritated
him.
Arrived at his house he gave her in charge of his man's wife. Maggy
disliked the woman on sight. There was something furtive about her. She
gave the impression of being one who was used to waiting on ladies in a
single man's house. Sly and secret amusement lurked in her eyes. She
lingered, unostentatiously, while Maggy prinked herself in front of the
glass. After a minute or two she turned, and intimated that she was
ready.
"Wouldn't you like to take off your hat, miss?"
There was something unpleasantly insinuating in the smooth tones.
"No, thanks," said Maggy shortly.
"You've left your purse on the table, miss."
"Have I? There's nothing in it. It'll be quite safe."
The woman led the way downstairs and ushered her into a room
half-library, half-drawing-room.
"Find everything you wanted?" inquired Woolf, coming forward to meet
her.
"Yes, thanks. What a swanky bed-room! Silver hair-brushes and face
powder and hairpins! Is it yours?"
"No, it's the visitors' room. I'm glad you like it."
"I didn't say I liked it. It looked as if you always had it ready for a
lady. I don't like the look of your man's wife either."
Woolf laughed at the downright expression of opinion.
"She's all right," he said significantly. "She's as quiet as the grave
and much deeper."
"She's no good."
"Who _is_! Are you?" He took her hand and tried to draw her to him.
Maggy's form grew rigid.
"Hands off," she said coolly. "There's nothing doing here."
"Won't you let me kiss you?"
"No."
"Why not?"
"For the same reason that I keep my hat on, and you don't. One's out of
respect for me and the other's respect for myself."
"You're a funny girl!" Woolf drew back and looked at her. "Why are you
on the defensive?"
"Haven't I need to be?"
"Not with me, surely. I want to be friends with you."
"Friends!" She threw up her chin aggressively. "I've only got one in
the world."
"And who is he?" Woolf asked with quick curiosity.
"She's a girl. I chum with her."
"Women can't be friends with each other," he asserted didactically.
"Especially when they're of the same profession. A Hottentot woman and
her civilized sister have only one occupation--the study and pursuit of
man. You're like doctors, all at each other's throats. Some of you
practise homeopathy, the others are allopaths. The first marry and take
their husbands in small doses, the allopaths believe in quantity. Your
friend would probably leave you to-morrow if she got a good enough
chance."
"Talk about some one you know," Maggy responded.
The contentious conversation was interrupted by the entrance of Woolf's
man announcing lunch. They went into the dining room. Maggy was hungry
and did justice to an excellent meal. But she refused to drink anything
stronger than lemon squash, and when Woolf pressed her for her reason
for such abstinence she gave him none. She had seen her mother suffer
from alcoholic excess. The smell of spirits always turned her sick.
When they were alone Woolf leant towards her.
"Now let's talk," he said. "What do you want me to do for you?"
"Nothing," replied Maggy shortly.
"Do you dislike me?"
She looked at him and away again.
"No. That doesn't mean you're fascinating. You're the sort of man who
might get round a girl like me if I was fool enough to listen to you.
Lexie--that's my chum--would tell you off at once."
"I should think she's a man-hater." Woolf was beginning to feel a
distinct antipathy towards Maggy's friend.
"No, she isn't. Only men aren't much in our line. You can see prowling
beasts without going to the Zoo."
Maggy's conversational trick of generalizing led away from the point
Woolf wanted to press.
"You doubt me," he said. "You'd believe in me if I wanted to marry
you--"
"Oh, cut it! You don't!" she interjected.
"Marriage is an institution for the protection of women who wear flannel
petticoats. It doesn't follow that a girl can't trust a man because he
offers her a lot more than most wives get."
"He offers her a lot more because he knows it won't last for long. I'm
practical."
"If you were practical you'd listen to my offer."
"Oh, I'll listen."
"Well, I'd like to make you really comfortable. You ought to have a
smart little place of your own, and dainty things, and money to spend."
"It's as old as the hills. I daresay I'm not the only girl you've made
that proposition to. Try somebody else. I'm going now."
"You mean you won't think about it?"
Maggy was silent for a minute.
"Oh, I shall think about it right enough, don't you worry," she said in
an odd voice. "I shall think about it when I'm hungry. I shall think
about it when I'm tired. It's a long way from the theater to King's
Cross Road. I shall think about it when I see the other girls sneering
at me because I haven't got a boy. I shall think about it in the summer
time when people go to the sea and take off their clothes, and I shall
think of it in the winter when I'd like a few more on. You needn't
think I don't know that you're tempting me." Her voice nearly broke.
"Then be friends," urged Woolf again. "What's to prevent you?"
"Lexie. Lexie would be cut up. Lexie has made me think more of myself
since I've known her than I ever did before. If it wasn't for her do
you think I'd traipse home night after night to that slummy little room
that's dear at fifteen shillings a week? _She's_ not used to the life,
and if she can hold out against it I ought to be able to who've never
known anything better. Well, thanks for a nice lunch. You've fed the
hungry. That's one good mark for you."
Woolf led her back into the other room and shut the door.
"You'll kiss me before you go," he said imperiously.
He had her by the wrists. His strong grasp sent a thrill through her.
Though she resisted she wished there were no harm in letting him kiss
her, wished that his offer were not based on wrong-doing. It was not
only because he could give her material things that she was tempted.
She had stumbled across a man who made a direct call to her nature, and
she knew it. De Freyne, callously unselective, could not have
deliberately chosen an individual more likely to encompass Maggy's
surrender. Woolf was not young: nearly forty. But he was so blatantly
good-looking, so--so swaggering. Maggy knew he was selfish and probably
a little unkind, possibly bad-tempered, that he would never care for a
woman in the way that women crave to be cared for, tenderly,
protectively. All the same, she knew that she would get too fond of him
if she saw him often and that he would go to her head....
Even now she felt dizzy. Her habitual self-confidence deserted her.
She experienced an overmastering desire to fling herself into his arms
and cry and cry, to tell him how difficult everything was, and how she
had tried.... But she knew perfectly well that he would not understand.
He was a man who would never understand women's feelings because he did
not think them worth understanding. As long as there were women in the
world, plenty of pretty ones, their feelings did not matter. Flowers
did not feel when one picked them, or if they did, well, that was what
they were there for: to be picked.
"You don't want to kiss me against my will, do you?"
Maggy struggled free. As a matter of fact Woolf's grasp had relaxed.
He was quite ready for the interview to end. He had a business
appointment at three and did not want to be late for it. If Maggy had
offered him her soul at three that afternoon, or what interested him far
more, her substance, he would not have foregone his appointment. That
was the man.
"Well, good-by," he said, without further persuasion. "You can go home
in my car. I'll 'phone to the garage now."
Maggy went to get her purse and gloves. When she returned Woolf was no
longer in the room. It was five minutes to three.
"The car is at the door, miss," the man told her. "Mr. Woolf had an
appointment to keep. He asked me to say would you ring him up any time
you wished to speak to him. This is his telephone number, miss." He
handed her a card.
He helped her into the car and tucked the linen rug round her with just
that touch of familiarity which the good servant avoids. Maggy knew
perfectly well what he and his wife thought about her. Unused as she
was to servants, good or bad, she was quick enough to appreciate that
they took their tone from their employer and his habits.
She leant back in the car and gave herself up to the luxury of being
driven in it. The celerity with which she was whirled from the
affluence of Piccadilly and Regent Street to the grimy purlieus of the
King's Cross Road had a disheartening effect upon her. When the
chauffeur stopped at her door she was sure she saw disparagement in his
face. He would return to his own place and tell Woolf's man and his
wife to what sort of a lodging-house he had taken her, and they would
make impertinent jokes at her expense. She despised herself for caring
what the man thought or said. Alexandra wouldn't have cared a button.
She would have scorned the man for scorning her.
She went upstairs slowly. The period of reaction had arrived. It
depressed her. The lunch was over; the pleasant excitation Woolf's
company had aroused had died down. She felt "flat."
To her surprise Alexandra was not in. She put the kettle on the
gas-ring and took out their tea-cups from the cupboard where they were
kept. She was rather glad she had got in before her friend. It would
show how she cared about her, to have hurried home and made tea....
Good old Lexie!
At the sound of steps outside she called out:
"Hurry up, Lexie. Tea!"
It was Mrs. Bell, not Alexandra.
"I've brought the bill," she observed, depositing a half sheet of paper
on the table. "I'd be glad to have it squared soon. You're still
one-ten behind."
"We haven't got it yet."
"You'll pay me soon? I shall have to let the room if you don't.
Letting's all I have to depend on, you know. By the way, I ought to
have told you, it'll be seventeen and six a week now instead of fifteen.
The rents of these houses have gone up."
"Since I drove here in a car," snapped Maggy. "We'll pay you and clear."
"No, don't do that, dearie. Can't you just give me a bit on account?"
Maggy opened her purse and held it upside down. She had given
threepence to Woolf's woman, and the remaining threepence to the
chauffeur. They had despised the coppers, naturally, and barely thanked
her. They would not have thanked her at all but for the possibility
that they might see her again under more affluent circumstances.
"Something'll happen soon," said the woman, thinking of the car. "I'll
treat you kind because I've a kind 'eart."
She stood away from the door to let Alexandra, who had come up, pass
into the room. Maggy looked up quickly. Something was wrong. She saw
it at once.
"So I'll let it stand over," went on Mrs. Bell. "The bill," she
explained to Alexandra. "It seems as it's not convenient for you to pay
it yet. It's disappointing, but I suppose--"
"How much is it?" asked Alexandra in a dispirited voice.
"Two pounds--five altogether with last week's bill."
To Maggy's amazement Alexandra handed her the amount.
"Write the receipt and go, please," she said.
When they were alone Maggy stood still waiting for an explanation.
"Where did you get it?"
To add to her astonishment Alexandra began to cry brokenly. She had
never seen her give way before.
"Lexie, darling, what is it?" Her voice was sharp with alarm.
Alexandra stopped crying as suddenly as she had begun.
"A fortnight's salary in lieu of notice," she said. "I think I've been
walking ever since. The pavements were hot, and--my head."
Maggy said nothing more. With a world of sympathy in her touch she
unpinned Alexandra's hat. Alexandra sat with her hands in her lap
staring in front of her. Maggy knelt on the floor and gently drew off
her friend's shoes, brought slippers and put them on, after which she
poured out a cup of tea and silently put it before her.
This was dire news. Lexie would tell her more by and by. Maggy knew
she couldn't talk now. She couldn't have said a word herself without
breaking down. Tea would relieve the tension.
There came an irresolute knock at the door, and their landlady thrust in
an arm and a plate.
"Shrimps was passing so I've bought you a pint for a relish, dears,"
came a conciliatory whine.
To save argument Maggy took them and shut the door again.
"W-what a mixture!" she gasped hysterically. "Temptation and tea,
t-tears and--shrimps!"