Alexandra did not have to avail herself of Maggy's offer of her car for
the purpose of visiting the various agencies. That evening she received
a post-card from Stannard requesting her to call on Mrs. Hugh Lambert at
her house in South Kensington. Mrs. Lambert's name was familiar to her
as that of the wife of a leading actor-manager on whose stage she was
never seen. She toured the provinces with plays of her own, while he
remained in London or visited New York, in both of which cities he was
the idol of a vast number of impressionable women.
You could hardly pick up an illustrated paper without finding Hugh
Lambert's photograph in it. You could buy picture post-cards of him at
every shop where such things are on sale--full-face, in profile, in
costume, out of costume, head and shoulders, half-length, full-length.
How he was able to devote so much time to being photographed and yet get
a reasonable amount of sleep was a mystery that did not seem capable of
explanation. He was immensely popular and very good-looking in an
effeminate way. Before arriving at the dignity of actor-management his
talent for poetic interpretation had been freely recognized. But
success had spoilt him. Now he was mannered. Costume parts were his
hobby. The story went that, at one of his dress-rehearsals in which he
was figuring as a Roman general in gilded armor, he asked a lady present
what she thought of his appearance, and that her answer had been: "Oh,
Mr. Lambert, what a girl you are for clothes!"
As Lambert's reputation had increased, so that of his wife had
diminished. At one time she had promised to develop into an actress of
renown. But for some reason difficult to understand she never quite
succeeded. The critics said she lacked "personal magnetism," that touch
of attractiveness that gets the actress's individuality across the
footlights. The fact remains that she failed to please the public in
the big roles that fell to her in her husband's productions. London
dropped her, and Hugh Lambert's name blazed alone in colored electric
lights across the front of his theater.
Then came a whisper of his marital infidelity. The couple separated.
From this time onwards Mrs. Lambert was seldom seen on the London stage.
Her career was a disappointing one. None knew it better than herself.
Technically and emotionally she was a finer actress than her husband's
leading lady, finer indeed than most of the leading ladies of other
managers. That she became a great attraction in the Provinces was
nothing to her. She loathed the Provinces, their inadequate theaters,
their inferior hotels, and the incessant traveling. At thirty-five she
found herself as it were back at the collar-work of her earlier days of
struggle, and without its compensations. Then, conjugal affection and
the stimulus of ambition still unachieved had made touring bearable and
often enjoyable because she shared it with Lambert.
Now she was alone.
She hated the sordid manufacturing towns and their unsophisticated
audiences, the eternal sameness of the self-vaunted watering-places, the
dull spas where fashionable frequenters of the pump room would
condescend to patronize her whom they would not pay to see in London.
She was a tired woman.
To her came Alexandra at eleven o'clock on the morning appointed. She
had quite forgotten, until her maid brought her up the card, that she
had asked Stannard to find her a small-part actress who would also be
useful as a companion. She saw Alexandra at once.
The impression the latter first got of her was a pathetic one. She
never forgot it. Mrs. Lambert was sitting up in bed. The small oval of
her face was too pale for health, and her dark hair accentuated her look
of fragility. On the dressing-table lay a rich copper-colored
transformation.
"I hope you don't mind seeing me in bed," she said. "I hate keeping
people waiting. It's so selfish. In my time I've sat on dress-baskets
outside dressing-room doors waiting for hours till some selfish wretch
took it into his head to see me, although he'd made an appointment and
knew perfectly well I was there. I vowed I'd never treat any one in the
same way. Sit down somewhere and tell me about yourself. What have you
done?"
"Very little," Alexandra confessed. "I'm almost an amateur."