NANCY’S CONTRALTO
The acquaintance began in Bristol by Nancy’s finding a letter waiting
for her at the stage-door on the second evening.
Royal Severn Hotel,
Bristol,
Oct. 11. Tuesday aft.
Dear Miss O’Finn,
Business having brought me to Bristol, I found myself at the
Princess’s Theatre last night, and I want to tell you how very much
I enjoyed your performance of the Baroness—a difficult and ungrateful
part in an absurd production. But apart from your acting I was
tremendously struck by your voice. If it were well trained, I don’t
hesitate to say that you might go very far indeed in grand opera.
Good contraltos are so rare, and good contraltos who can act are
simply not to be found except in the unusual atmospheric conditions
set up by a blue moon. To show my genuine enthusiasm, although my
business in Bristol is at an end, I am staying on another night in
order to give myself the pleasure of hearing you sing a second time.
And will you set the seal upon the pleasure by joining me at supper
in my hotel after the performance? I will call for your answer before
going in front. Don’t concern yourself about “clothes.” Such a supper
as I can offer you will not be worthy of a grand toilette.
Yours very truly,
John Kenrick.
Nancy was not used to getting letters of appreciation from the front
of the house. Adventuresses of the type that she had been playing did
not attract the susceptible pen. She really hardly knew how to reply.
At the same time it was pleasant to be told nice things about one’s
voice and one’s acting. She reread the letter. Rather an affected way
of writing, she decided, when she came to the remark about the blue
moon. Still, the affectation of the host was not sufficient reason to
decline supper with him. Grand opera? The man was mad. Grand opera? Did
he know anything about grand opera? It might be interesting to go out
to supper. After all, if he turned out to be an idle bore she was not
bound to see any more of him. Business might detain him in Bristol;
but she never would, if he were tiresome. Nancy borrowed a piece of
notepaper from the stage-door keeper and wrote a brief acceptance of
the stranger’s invitation.
“I’ve got off with an impresario,” she told the lady who shared her
dressing-room.
“With a what, dear?”
“Or a Lothario. I’m not quite sure yet,” Nancy laughed.
“Have I put too much black on my left eyelid?” the other asked
intensely. “It looks a bit smudgy, doesn’t it?”
“You’re not much interested in my young man,” said Nancy in mock
reproach.
“I’m sorry, dear. I was so fussed by this gard-awful liquid-black I
bought last week at Cardiff.”
“Perhaps it was coal,” Nancy suggested.
“Oh, you don’t think it is really!” exclaimed her companion. “Oh,
whatever shall I do? My god, if I wasn’t a perfect lady I could say
something.” Whereupon Miss Pamela Fitzroy proceeded to express her
opinion of Cardiff chemists and of the liquid-black they supplied to
poor actresses, in very strong language indeed. “What were you saying,
dear?” she stopped suddenly to ask Nancy. “Weren’t you saying something
about getting off with a foreigner? You watch him, that’s my advice. I
had a Spanish boy following me round last tour when I was with the _Fun
of the Fair_ crowd, and what I went through, my dear! He’d only got to
look at me, and I’d feel like ringing the nearest fire-alarm. And then
he got jealous and took to walking up and down outside the stage-door
and glaring at all the men of the company. Of course it used to amuse
them, and they’d whistle _Toreador_ or whatever the song is. In the
end, however, he ran out of money and got pinched for passing a dud
cheque at Bradford.”
“But my young man isn’t a foreigner,” said Nancy.
“Damn and blast this liquid-black,” swore Miss Pamela Fitzroy.
With the consciousness that somebody in front was interested in her
Nancy sang her two songs better that night than she had ever sung them.
She was feeling so much excited over the prospect of going out to
supper while she was dressing after the performance that, though she
knew she was being ridiculous, she simply could not resist saying to
Miss Fitzroy:
“I felt in voice to-night. I really enjoyed singing.”
“That’s right,” her companion replied indifferently. “A short life and
a merry one. Do you know, dear, I think I’ve put on weight. My corsets!
I believe I’ll have to give up drinking Guinness. They say it’s
fattening. What a shame! Still, I don’t want to get too fat. Men don’t
really like massive women nowadays. I wonder why. My dear old mother
says they got had so often when women used to wear crinolines that
they took to thin women in self-defence. You ought to meet my dear old
mother. She’s such a naughty old thing. You know, a real good sport.
Weren’t you saying you were going out to supper with a fellow in front,
dear? Have a good time, and say ‘champagne’ in a firm voice. Don’t let
him think he can get away with Sauterne, or you’ll find yourself going
home on the last tram instead of in a cab. You want to watch these
fellows in the provinces. They think an actress will give them a season
ticket for paradise on a bottle of lemonade and two ham sandwiches.”
Nancy’s admirer was waiting for her outside the stage-door. He was a
tall dark clean-shaven man with a heavy chin and large deep-set eyes.
The impression of his size was accentuated by the long double-breasted
overcoat he was wearing. His voice was deep and sympathetic in spite of
his rather sombre appearance.
“So kind of you to accept my casual invitation,” he murmured. “Come
along, I’ve a decrepit vehicle waiting for us outside the front of the
theatre.”
The dining-room of the Royal Severn Hotel did not succeed any better
than most provincial hotels in suggesting an atmosphere of nocturnal
gaiety. The two waiters looked as if they had been dragged out of bed
by the hair of their heads in order to attend to the wants of the
unreasonable beings who required to be fed at this unnatural hour. Most
of the tables suggested that they would welcome more cheerfully the
eggs and bacon of the morning breakfast than the lobster mayonnaise of
supper. The very flowers in attendance appeared heavy with sleep and
resentful at not being allowed a night’s repose with the other table
decorations that were piled upon one of the sideboards like wreaths
upon a coffin. Half the room was in twilight, so that the portion of it
that was lighted was so uncomfortably bright as to seem garish. At one
end two members of the chorus were trying to make a pair of youthful
hosts feel at their ease by laughter that sounded as thin as broken
glass.
“I’m sorry to inflict this atmosphere of gloom upon you,” said Mr.
Kenrick. “Let’s try to dissipate it in a bottle of champagne. I did
my best to order a special supper, but my efforts were regarded with
suspicion by the management. Your fellow performers over there seem
to be enjoying themselves. Touring with them must be rather like
travelling with an aviary of large and noisy birds.”
“Oh, but they’re such dears,” Nancy exclaimed, in arms against any
criticism of her fellow players.
Mr. Kenrick put up a monocle and looked across at the group for a
moment. Then he let it fall without comment.
“You sang better than ever to-night,” he said gravely.
Nancy felt that she simpered.
“I’m in earnest, you know. What are you going to do about it?”
“My voice?”
He nodded.
“What can I do?”
“You could have it trained.”
“But, my dear man, do you realize that I’m twenty-eight? Rather late in
the day to be cultivating operatic ambitions.”
“Not at all when the voice is as good as yours, and if you go to the
right man.”
“And where is he to be found?”
“Naples.”
Nancy laughed.
“It’s like a fairy-story where the poor heroine is set an impossible
task by the wicked stepmother. How do you think I could afford to go to
Naples?”
“That’s just what I wanted to discuss with you,” said Kenrick.
“But wait a moment,” Nancy interrupted. “I have a little girl.”
“What has that got to do with training your voice?”
“Why, this. Every penny that I can save I am saving for her. She is in
a convent now, and when she leaves school in another twelve years I
want her to have a voice and be able to afford to pay for its training.
I want her to have everything that I lacked. I would be wrong to spend
the money I have saved in building castles in Spain for myself.”
“But, my dear woman, if in another twelve years you are an operatic
star of some magnitude you’ll be able to do much more for your daughter
than you could with what you’ll save as a provincial actress between
now and then. But forgive me; you speak of a little girl. You have a
husband then?”
“My husband is dead. He died nearly four years ago.”
Kenrick nodded slowly.
“And—forgive my bluntness—you have no other entanglements?”
She flushed.
“My marriage was never an entanglement ... and if you mean ‘am I in
love with anybody now?’ why, no, I could never love anybody again.”
“That’s a sad remark for twenty-eight. A woman’s _grande passion_
usually happens when she is thirty-three.”
“Mine won’t,” said Nancy obstinately.
“I shouldn’t dare the God of Love,” Kenrick warned her. “Remember, he’s
a mischievous boy and nothing gives him greater delight than to behave
as such. Never dare a boy to climb an apple-tree or Cupid to shoot his
arrows in vain. You offered him a fine target by that remark of yours.
But don’t let’s begin an argument about love. It’s your voice I want to
talk about. Surely you must realise that you possess a contralto of the
finest quality?”
“I thought it was a fairly good natural voice,” Nancy admitted. “But I
certainly never supposed it was of the finest quality.”
“Not only have you a marvellous voice, but you can act. Very few
contraltos can act. On the operatic stage they usually sound like
governesses who have drunk a little too much at a fancy-dress ball.”
“Rather voluptuous governesses usually,” Nancy laughed.
“Yes, but with the healthy voluptuousness of women who have been eating
plenty of the best butter and drinking quarts of the richest cream. You
would be different.”
“I hate to be rude,” Nancy said. “But do you know, it always seems to
me such a waste of time to talk about impossibilities. Perhaps I’ve no
imagination. I’ll talk as long and as earnestly as you like about the
best way of travelling from one town to another, or of any of life’s
small problems, but to discuss which seaside resort in the moon would
be the jolliest place to spend one’s holidays surely isn’t worth while.”
“But why is your appearance in opera so remote from any prospect of
being realised?”
“I’ve told you, my dear man,” said Nancy impatiently. “I have planned
my life so that my small daughter may have what I could not have.
To indulge my own ambitions at her expense would be wrong. I can’t
pretend that I’m denying myself much, because, to be honest, until I
had your letter I had never contemplated myself as an operatic star. I
knew I had an unusually good contralto voice. I knew that I could act
as well as most women and a good deal better than some. Your letter
was a pleasure, because it is always a pleasure to feel that one has
interested somebody. I am grateful to you for inviting me out to supper
and saying nice things about my possibilities. But now let’s talk of
something else, for you’ll never infect me with any ambition to do
anything that could risk my ability to do what I can for my daughter,
just by acting quietly in the provinces as I am acting at present.”
“Listen to me, Miss O’Finn,” said Kenrick earnestly. “I am a business
man. That is my inheritance from a hard-working father. But I have one
passion, and that is not business. My passion is the opera; my dream is
to make enough money to be able to help the opera in England. But I am
rich enough to do something for the individual artist, and I beg you
to let me help you. Let me guarantee you what you would usually earn
on the provincial stage. Let me pay for your lessons. The _maestro_ I
want to teach you is an old friend of mine. If at the end of six months
he tells me that you are not the finest contralto of the time, why,
then you can go back to your life on tour. At the worst you will have
spent six months in Italy to gratify the whim of an eccentric business
man whose dreams are all of art. At the best you will be able to do
what you like for your daughter in another ten years, and long, long
before that. We’ll not talk about it any more to-night. Go home and
sleep over my proposal. Think over it for a week. I must be back in
town to-morrow. If at the end of a week you feel that you can risk six
months in Italy to have the world at your feet, send me a line, and
I will pay into your account the necessary funds. You can leave this
absurd company when you like.”
“Och, I would have to give a fortnight’s notice,” said Nancy quickly.
Kenrick smiled.
“Very well, give your fortnight’s notice. To-day is the eleventh. If
you settle by next Saturday that will be the fifteenth. On the first of
November you can quit the fogs and be on your way to Naples. It will
probably be fine weather. It usually is about then in the south of
Italy.”
“You seem to have made up your mind that I’m going to accept your
generosity,” Nancy said.
“There is no generosity in gratifying one’s own desires,” Kenrick
observed. “But if you have any feelings of pride on the subject, why,
you can pay me back when your position is secure.”
“But why, really, are you doing this?” Nancy asked, looking deep into
the eyes of her host.
“Really and truly because I believe you have a great voice and may
become a great singer, and because if you did I should get as much
satisfaction from your success as if I had a voice and were a great
singer myself,” he replied.
The thin laughter of the chorus-girls at the other end of the room
commented upon this grave assertion. The waiter put up a grubby hand to
hide a yawn.
When Nancy woke next morning she felt like the heroine of an Arabian
Nights tale who has been carried half across Asia by a friendly djinn.
But when she called at the theatre for her letters, the following note
was a proof that she had not been dreaming:
Royal Severn Hotel,
Bristol.
October 12.
Dear Miss O’Finn,
Do think very hard over our talk last night. You can’t lose anything
by my offer; you may gain a very great deal. In fact, I am positive
that you will. Let me know your decision at my London address, 42
Adelphi Terrace, and I will get into communication with Maestro
Gambone, and fix up your lessons. I suggest you live at an Italian
pensione in Naples. The more Italian you can learn to speak, the
better you will sing it. I’ll find out a good place.
Good luck to you.
Yours sincerely,
John Kenrick.
It was a fine October day of rich white clouds and rain-washed blue
deeps between. A faint haze bronzed the lower air and lent the roofs
and chimneys of the city a mirrored peace, a mirrored loveliness. Nancy
wandered down by the docks and in contemplation of the glinting masts
tried to find an answer to the riddle of her future. Suppose her voice
turned out to be less good than he had supposed? Well, that would be
his bad judgment. But had she the right to accept money from a stranger
in the event of failure? It would be his own fault if she proved a
failure. It was a serious matter to leave a company in which she had
expected to be playing until next summer. What would Sister Catherine
say? Nancy remembered what Sister Catherine had said about Italy that
night they met in the train. Sister Catherine would never be the one to
blame her. She took Letizia’s letter out of her bag and read it through
again.
St. Joseph’s School,
5 Arden Grove,
N. W.
Sunday.
My dear Mother,
I hope you are very well. I am learning Italian with Sister
Catherine. It is very nice. I know twenty-two words now and the
present indicitive of “I am.” I like it very much. We have a new girl
called Dorothy Andrews. She is very nice. She is eight and a half
years old, but she is not so big as me. I must stop now because the
bell is ringing for Vespurs and Benedicsion.
Your loving
Letizia.
She was safe for so many years, Nancy thought. Would it be so very
wrong to embark upon this adventure?
That night, when she was singing the first of her two songs, she tried
to imagine that the piece was _Aïda_ and that she was Amneris.
“If I get a genuine encore,” she promised herself, “I’ll write to him
and accept.”
And she did get a most unmistakable encore.
“Your songs went very well to-night, dear,” said Miss Fitzroy
grudgingly. “Had you got any friends in front?”
The next day Nancy wrote to John Kenrick and told him that she was
going to accept his kind offer, and that on Sunday, October 23rd, she
should be in London.
He telegraphed back: _Bravo will meet train if you let me know time._
But she did not let him know the time of her arrival at Paddington, for
she thought that there was really no reason why he should want to meet
her train. Somehow it made his interest in her seem too personal, and
Nancy was determined that the whole affair should be carried through on
the lines of the strictest business. Besides, she would be staying at
the convent, and it would be so exciting to learn her first words of
Italian from Letizia.