"No. I really want to help Haines."
Now Alexandra had little more than five shillings in her purse. The
next quarterly payment of her annuity would not be due for a fortnight.
In the meantime all she possessed was some old jewelry that had belonged
to her mother. There was the money Maggy had left behind her, but she
was not going to touch that.
"I should like you to teach me. It's very good of you," she said.
"Would you take this instead of money? It's worth a little more than
five five-shilling lessons." She tendered him a ring with a single
pearl in an antique setting. A pawnbroker would have lent her five
pounds on it. She was anxious that he should take the ring. It would
make her feel less under an obligation to him.
Apparently he appreciated her feelings.
"That's very pretty of you," he said. "It fits my little finger, too.
Would you rather I took it?" There was a shade of reluctance in his
voice.
"Much rather."
"Well, thank you very much. Now I must pull you through by a little
teaching. Can you have your first lesson now? No time like the
present, is there? Stand in the corner over there to the right. Now,
sing 'ah' on middle C. Keep your tongue well down. Give it room--give
it room! Swell it out! You'll do very well," he said, after ten
minutes. "To-morrow, same time. I'll drop Haines a line. Don't thank
me, please."
Another girl came in as Alexandra went out. She heard Norburton tell her
she was early.
"Have you heard from Mr. ----" She thought the name mentioned was
Haines, but argued she must have been mistaken. The girl was fair and
short, not at all the type Norburton's friend wanted. Alexandra assumed
she must be one of the singer's private pupils, and thought no more
about her.
For the next four days she came for her lessons, and at the end of that
time Norburton told her he was quite satisfied with the result.
"Haines will be here to-morrow at eleven," he told her. "Don't worry,
you'll get the engagement."
All the same she did worry. She pinned her hopes on it. She had
curtailed her food down to the irreductible minimum. Privation showed
in her looks. She was not a big eater, but her physique demanded good
and nourishing food, which now she never got. She wanted new shoes and
gloves badly. These she could not manage to do without indefinitely.
She began to lose confidence in herself in these days. She knew her
appearance was noticeably shabby, and that she was getting the delicate
look that employers dislike. One cannot say to the man from whom one is
hoping for an engagement: "I'm pale, but I'll look better when I can
afford to feed myself properly. My clothes are shabby, but they would
be in rags if I hadn't looked after them as if they were priceless
brocades. And I'm not poor and hungry and out of an engagement because
I've no talent, but because I've certain principles that I've brought to
the wrong place. Give me a chance and don't ask anything else of me."
At five minutes to eleven the next day she was in Shaftesbury Avenue.
Outside Mr. Norburton's door some ten or twelve girls were waiting. They
looked a mixed lot, all of them anxious, poor and shabby.
"He told me ten," said one of them, "and he's not here yet."
"I've been here since half-past nine," said another.
One bold spirit rapped sharply on the door.
As a result one next to it bearing a brass plate and a solicitor's name
was opened and a man put his head out and angrily demanded:
"Who's making that row? If you're waiting to see the fellow who had
that room, he's gone. Went away yesterday afternoon."
"Meaning Mr. Norburton?" asked one of the girls.
"I don't know what his name was. He's gone, anyhow. It's no good
waiting about and making a noise."
He shut the door. The girls stared at one another blankly.
"I want to know the meaning of this," said one of them truculently.
"P'raps the caretaker can tell us." She clattered down the stone
stairs, and half a dozen of the others followed her.
A fair girl standing next to Alexandra spoke to her.
"Did you want to see Mr. Norburton too?"
"Yes, but I'm afraid I shan't." Alexandra felt faint.
"I don't think we shall either. It's my belief we've been done. Did he
give you lessons?"
"Five."
"I had five, too," nodded the girl. "Two pounds I paid the blighter.
He said I'd suit Mr. Haines a treat. Read me a letter saying he wanted
a fair girl with a good figure and contralto voice-- What's that? It
was a 'tall and dark' to you! My hat! What did _you_ pay?"
"I gave him a pearl ring."
"O-oh!" Her eyes went round. "I saw it on his finger. Then you were
hard up?"
"I had the ring, but not the money to pay him."
"And I had the money. And I haven't got it now."
One of the girls who had gone to make enquiries below came up again.
"Thought I'd come and tell you," she panted. "It's true. He's gone,
right enough. The piano was hired and it's been fetched away. He's done
seventeen of us, the beast! His name isn't Norburton at all, but Easton
or Weston, I forget which. If the real Mr. Norburton or Maurice Haines
heard what he'd been up to they'd prosecute him. He's just been using
their names to cod us. Oh, I'd like to--to--" The unspoken threat
tailed off in a resigned sigh. "Well, there's a voice-trial at Daly's
at 11.30. I'm off."
Alexandra did not move. She was dazed. The other girls melted away, all
but one little creature in black who commenced to sob.
"Don't cry," said Alexandra, touched by her grief. "You must try and
forget the disappointment."
The girl raised streaming eyes. She was very plain and wore her hair
frizzed out all round her head. The fingers through which her tears had
been trickling were red and work-worn.
"I paid him f-four pounds in gold," she wept. "And he s-said my voice
was g-good enough to get me the engagement. And I've given notice at
the place I'm at on the strength of it, and now I'll have to go back and
ask to be kept on. Makes me ashamed of myself, it does, after what I
said to the mistress about gettin' ten pounds a week on the stage. And
now f-four pounds of good money gone!"
"Haven't you any left?"
"I've got eleven saved, but it would have been fifteen," sniffed the
girl. She took it hardly that she had to pay so heavily for her
experience.
"Well, then, cheer up," said Alexandra. "I haven't got fifteen
shillings."
"Not in the world?"
"Not in the world."
"But you're a lady!"
"Am I?" asked poor Alexandra. Tears were not far from her own eyes now.
The girl saw them, and the fount of her own dried up in her compassion
for a disappointment that must be even greater than her own because of
the actual need behind it. A lady, and with less than fifteen shillings
in the world! Why, she had always been able to earn nearly ten
shillings a week, without counting her board and keep. She had always
been able to count on regular employment, plenty of food and a fairly
comfortable bed; and until she had been dazzled by the magnificent
prospect of ten pounds a week and still more by the idea of becoming a
"star actress," she had been fairly contented with her life. She wished
she had never seen that catch advertisement in the newspaper.
"I shouldn't think any more about the stage if I were you," advised
Alexandra.
"I shan't," was the resolute answer. "It's no good, is it?"
"Not a bit of good."
The girl hesitated.
"Do you mind telling me," she said, "if it's very bad. The girls on it,
I mean."
"It's difficult sometimes for them to be good," was Alexandra's
qualified reply.
"That's pretty much what our milkman says. He had a wife he divorced
that used to go on the stage once a year in pantomime."
Alexandra smiled wanly. She was getting accustomed to the democratic
atmosphere of the stage, where social differences are inexistent. The
dragging in of the milkman's wife was only a sharp-cut illustration of
the lengths to which the leveling-down process could go. The life had
robbed her of all surprise at the necessity of having to rub shoulders
with ex-shopgirls and the like; but this was the first time she had
found herself on terms of equality with a domestic servant.
"Dessay I'm well out of it," said the girl philosophically. "I hope
you'll get on, miss."
As she passed Alexandra she stopped, making believe to pick up something
that was not there.
"Oh, look what you've dropped!" she exclaimed, holding out two
half-crowns.
Alexandra had come out that morning with only a few pence.
"It isn't mine," she disclaimed. "If you look in your purse you'll
probably find it's your own money."
The girl made a pretense of doing so.
"No, that it isn't," she insisted. "It must be yours, right enough."
"But it can't be."
Before she could anticipate the movement, the girl slipped past her and
raced down the stairs. Alexandra followed as fast as she could. But the
girl was too quick for her. She was nowhere to be seen when Alexandra
reached the street.
Only then did she comprehend the meaning of the generous subterfuge.
She stood staring down at the money in her hand--two half-crowns, given
her by a servant!