It was three hours later when Joan awoke in a daze. Her healthy youth
had insisted on this repose after the sleepless night. A curious,
heavy depression was upon her. She looked around the strange room in
surprise. It was not its strangeness that puzzled her--new bedrooms had
become normal--but this one, although small, was so comfortable. Surely
she must be in a private house. And why should she be sleeping in her
clothes?
Suddenly the events of the last twenty-four hours came back. She
started up in horror. How could she have been such a wretch, a
heartless brute? As she reached the upper landing, the sound of the
same loud breathing coming from her grandmother’s room struck her
ears with positive relief. She peeped in. Granny was lying apparently
in exactly the same position as when she had left her. Yes, the
patient’s condition was unchanged, the nurse corroborated. She did
not mention that there had been paroxysms of pain, nor that the
temperature had gone up another degree. What was the use? Dr. Strachey
did not anticipate any immediate collapse. The following night would
be the critical time, he said. It was this verdict that had made the
nurse break her promise of summoning Joan. For her own part she much
preferred not to be worried by the presence of relations in the sick
room; besides it had been evident that the girl was exhausted. She
would need all her strength for what lay before her, the nurse had
felt, with a touch of unprofessional pity.
Joan sat down by the bedside. At first she felt fortified by her
sleep, but as she listened to the quick, gasping breathing, the old
horror again began to grip her. Presently the nurse handed her a
letter. “From Miss Bland,” she said. Partly to distract her mind, Joan
noiselessly opened it. Enclosed was the tariff of the nursing home. The
charge for the best rooms was seventy dollars a week. In all cases the
payment must be in advance. This was underlined in red ink.
Well, she couldn’t pay in advance because she had not got the money.
And Granny had none either, for she had spoken of having to cash a
cheque directly they reached Norfolk. How much was there left of her
last Saturday’s salary, Joan speculated. She did not like to open
her purse under the nurse’s inquisitive gaze, but she could easily
reckon it up. The last hotel bill had been $4.80, and tea on the cars
seventy-five cents, and the taxi this morning, five dollars. How
extortionate, Mr. Montgomery had thought it, but to Joan, who had
retained her old standard in taxis, it had seemed most reasonable. That
made ten dollars fifty-five cents, and then there had been one or two
little tips. So there would be about a dollar left--and these people
asked her for seventy! Well, they must just wait, that was all, in
spite of their red ink.
But suppose they wouldn’t wait. Suppose they turned Granny out--sent
her to the hospital. It might kill her. Oh, they couldn’t be so cruel,
so wicked and cruel! But suppose they were? She dare not run the risk,
Joan felt. She must get these people their seventy dollars. But how?
In books people sold their jewellery. If only she had some jewellery
to sell. Her mind went back to the argument with Granny in New York,
when she had refused to take the trinkets that her father had given
her. But she had given in about the fur coat. Why, that was valuable!
She remembered Mrs. Dupuy discussing the price with the shopman. It had
cost eight hundred dollars. Of course, then it was all right. Her fur
coat would pay for lots of weeks.
Her grandmother still lay immovable. It was the torpor of exhaustion,
but Joan thought she still slept. So, telling the nurse that she had to
go out on business, but would soon be back, the girl crept out of the
room.
The easiest way to take the coat would be to wear it. Underneath Joan
had on a tailormade street suit. How fortunate that it was of Scotch
tweed and thick. She went out quickly, but once in the street, she
hesitated. Probably her best plan would have been to take the coat to
a high-class furrier, but selling clothes was connected in the girl’s
mind with extreme indigence, so she asked the way to “a very poor
district.” The policeman looked amused as he gave the direction. He
thought she was a society woman who was trying her ’prentice hand at
slumming. “There’s a queer lot of crooks about in them streets,” he
warned her. As a matter of fact, either out of solicitude for her youth
or for her costly furs, he had not told her of the really rough quarter
down by the docks, but had only indicated a thoroughfare of moderate
indigence.
As Joan went along, she looked about her with interest. It was the
first time she had been in the South, and the Spanish oaks, with their
dangling trails of old man’s beard, gratified her eyes. Chiefly,
however, she was fascinated by the chattering knots of darkies, whom
a gleam of watery sunshine had brought out of their congested wooden
shanties. Joan almost laughed aloud as she noticed the coiffure of some
of the girls--innumerable, miniature pigtails each curled round and
speared with a hairpin. It was the nearest that they could achieve with
their short ‘wool’ to the hairdressing of their white sisters. And how
different their gestures were, Joan realized with keen interest, and
the intonation of their voices! Granny had told her that she once acted
a negro Mammy, but she did not seem to have cared about it. Why, Joan
felt enviously, she would simply love to do it! She began murmuring
phrases to herself, trying to give them the queer, sing-song darkey
cadence. Suddenly she pulled herself up. How could she be so heartless?
To be thinking about acting when Granny was so ill!
She soon found herself in the kind of street she wanted. A large
placard, “Cast off wardrobes purchased,” announced the end of her
search. In the window a discarded naval uniform figured prominently,
together with a pile of dirty satin slippers and a large bowl of false
teeth. Above the latter dangled a notice, “Acceptable Gifts.” Possibly
it had fallen from some other object. Who could want other people’s
teeth? Joan speculated with amusement.
However, it would not do to loiter. She nerved herself and took off
her coat to her job. As she pushed open the door, she thought it was
the most uninviting shop she had ever seen. And what a horrible smell!
The proprietor, a rather corpulent, oily man, came forward rubbing his
hands obsequiously. This well-dressed lady must have taken a fancy to
something in the window. “What can I show you, Madam?” he asked.
Joan explained, the hot colour flaming into her cheeks. The man’s
manner changed at once. He took the coat and examined it minutely. The
dirt in his nails, as he pawed it about, made her feel sick. Once he
wetted his finger so as to part the fur and examine the skin. Anyway,
she couldn’t wear it after that, Joan felt. When he had finished, he
glanced at the girl curiously. Probably the young lady had got into
debt, and didn’t like to tell her poppa. The question was did she know
the value of her coat. “Dis is a good coat, and so I will give you”--he
paused. “I will give you fifty dollars.”
“What?” Anger came to Joan’s help. “How dare you offer me such a sum!”
“Na, na, fifty dollars does not grow on every bush. Well, for de sake
of your pretty face, we’ll say fifty-five, though I swear to you, I
will be de loser on it.”
Before the philanthropist had realized what was happening, Joan had
snatched up her coat and marched out. “Not so quick, my dear, not so
quick. Maybe we can make it a little more,” he called out and shuffled
after her. He had, however, to make the circuit of the counter, and
so by the time he had reached the shop door, his prey was irrevocably
lost. Indeed, the girl was almost running to get away from this
detestable place.
Half unconsciously she retraced her steps, and found herself nearing
the nursing home. She paused wondering what to do next.
Should she throw herself on Miss Bland’s mercy, and offer her the coat
in lieu of payment? She hated the idea, but it might be the best plan.
“Miss North!” She suddenly heard Mr. Montgomery’s familiar voice behind
her. “I was just coming up to enquire.”
“Granny is about the same.” Joan told him what had passed since he had
left them on the doorstep of the nursing home some five hours earlier.
As she spoke, Mr. Montgomery had been glancing at the fur coat over her
arm. “Don’t you think, Miss North,” he now suggested kindly, “that it’s
a bit risky to take off your furs. One feels warm in the sun, but this
is a tricky climate. It’s so damp, you know.”
“I have been walking quickly. I am quite hot.” This, indeed, was
true. The argument with the cast-off clothes dealer had in itself
considerably raised her temperature. Suddenly she decided to confide in
this new friend. “Besides, I am trying to sell my coat.”
“Dear, dear, that’s bad.” The little man’s voice was comprehending and
sympathetic. He did not question her decision, as Joan had feared he
might. Instead, he reassuringly told her that he knew of a place in the
town, where they’d do the square thing and give her a decent price.
“I can’t remember the address, but I can show it you,” he said. Mr.
Montgomery’s acquaintance with the cheap hotels and pawn shops of the
South and Middle West was probably unrivalled!
As they were walking along, however, the little man seemed to reflect.
“Are you sure you can spare that fur coat, Miss North?” he suggested.
“The nights are still real cold, even down here. Ain’t you got any
jewellery now, or something in that line, that you’d miss less?” As
Joan shook her head, he continued with some hesitation; “I’ve noticed
Miss West wearing a nice ring.”
“I’m not going to steal Granny’s jewellery when she is ill and
helpless. I haven’t sunk as low as that!” Joan blazed out passionately.
“Well, I didn’t mean to offend you,” Mr. Montgomery deprecated, rather
amazed at his companion’s violence.
But Joan also had cooled. “I don’t suppose I should mind the idea
so much,” she began penitently, with a recollection of all Mr.
Montgomery’s kindness, “only you see, I feel I’ve been such a beast.”
There was a tremor in her voice. “All this time I have been wanting
the weather to be bad. Yes, I have been actually glad at the snow and
the cold and everything, so that it should make Miss Bransom ill--not
really ill, only enough to give me my chance--and I never even thought
of Granny. And now instead of Miss Bransom being ill, it’s----” Joan
turned her head aside quickly.
Mr. Montgomery’s soft heart was touched. “Anyway your wanting the
blizzard didn’t make it,” he suggested with sound common sense, “so I
don’t see you need blame yourself. I often think what a mercy it is,
we haven’t got command of the elements--there’d be more worry than
ever. But, look here, Miss North, about this fur coat, you said you
were going to sell it. Don’t do that anyway--just pawn it. Of course,
you won’t get so much on it now, but then next fall, if you’ve a good
engagement, you can get it back.”
Joan acquiesced. “And I couldn’t very well be offered less than for
selling it,” she observed cheerfully. “What do you suppose a horrid,
dirty little man wanted me to take--fifty dollars!”
To Mr. Montgomery, it sounded a very nice sum, but he made no comment.
“Do you know what the coat cost?” he asked instead.
“Yes, eight hundred, and I’ve not had it two months.”
“What!” The actor stared incredulously. “Eight hundred--eight hundred
dollars? My! I didn’t know a coat could be that costly.” He had been
carrying it for Joan, and he now gazed at it hanging over his arm
with an almost comic awe. “I’d be afraid to wear it! Eight hundred
dollars--enough to keep a family for a year. I suppose you ain’t Miss
Pierpont Morgan in disguise by any chance?”
Joan flushed. The laughing suggestion was too near the truth to be
comfortable. “Oh, the coat was a present,” she said hastily. Then it
struck her he would only think her grandmother had given it and still
be suspicious. “It was a present from a gentleman.”
Mr. Montgomery gave her a startled look. What a pity, he was thinking;
a terrible pity. Then with the charitable morality of the stage, he
concluded it was none of his business. Besides the girl’s words might
bear another explanation. Her next remark almost convinced him of it.
“Would it be bothering you too much to come into the pawnshop with me?”
she remarked. “You see I only left school at Christmas, so I don’t know
very much about things of this sort.”
“No, it ain’t usually part of the scholastic curriculum. Of course,
I’ll see you through.” But how young she must be, Mr. Montgomery was
thinking in surprise, much younger than he had imagined. It made her
acting more wonderful than ever! Why, if she had only just left
school, she wouldn’t be more than eighteen--perhaps less--not more than
three or four years older than his Sadie. Suppose one of his little
girls were ever in such a plight. “I hate you having to come into this
thing at all,” he said with a rush of paternal tenderness. “I’d send
you home right away, but folks might wonder what I was doing running
around with a lady’s eight hundred dollar coat--think I’d lifted it off
an automobile maybe! So I guess you’ll have to come along to carry it
off.” He realized suddenly, as his awakened eyes rested on her, that
her tweed costume was of quite a different cut from any to which he was
accustomed. Yes, he had seen clothes like that on the swells in Central
Park.
Despite Joan’s attire and despite Montgomery’s haggling, the utmost
that could be raised on the fur coat was two hundred dollars. However
the girl was jubilant. It was with difficulty that Montgomery kept
her from taking a cab back to the nursing home. Instead, he insisted
on further delay in the shape of lunch. “It’s late, and they may have
finished up there,” he wisely observed. Gratitude made Joan consent.
Just as they were separating at the door of the nursing home, he
suggested he might see her round at the theatre later on.
“At the theatre?” The girl had absolutely forgotten her professional
engagement. “Oh, at six o’clock. Do you think I need come? It’s such a
farce, and Granny might be awake then and wanting me. I have been out
so long to-day already.”
As she truly said, it did seem a farce. “I guess that will be all
right,” Mr. Montgomery agreed. “I tell you what, I’ll get down to the
theatre early myself, then we can always tell Clark that I could have
’phoned you if you had been wanted. Well, good-bye. I do hope Dr.
Strachey will say Miss West’s better next time he comes. I’ll be round
first thing to-morrow morning to ask.”
Joan found when she got into the hall, that she had only been gone a
little over two hours, although it seemed so much longer. A passing
nurse informed her that Miss West’s condition was unchanged. Reassured,
the girl decided that, before going up to the sick room, she had better
have her interview with Miss Bland. The superintendent--a stout,
black-gowned figure, with a flabby, yet hard-looking face--was sitting
writing in a comfortable, little office. She looked up with cold,
hostile eyes as Joan walked in. Of course the girl had come to say she
couldn’t pay. It was really scandalous. As for Dr. Strachey he was a
soft-hearted fool.
“I have come to pay the week in advance,” Joan observed.
At the words and the sight of Joan’s bulky pocket book, Miss Bland’s
face underwent a sudden change. “That is very good of you, Miss,
er--” “North,” Joan interpolated--“Miss North, but there was really
no hurry. Unfortunately we are obliged to make a rule as to advance
payment, owing to some people being so unscrupulous, but, of course,
we had no anxiety in your case.” As Miss Bland was cooing these vague,
mellifluous phrases, she got out and signed a printed receipt form in
an incongruously definite manner. “Yes, seventy dollars, that is quite
correct--exclusive of medical attendance and drugs. As I was saying
we have had patients actually brought to this house, who had not a
dollar in their pocket. As though that class of person can expect the
advantages of a nursing home.”
“No, of course not,” Joan agreed. “That class of person ought just to
be satisfied to die.”
Miss Bland looked up sharply. Was the girl making fun of her. Joan’s
face was blankly innocent; her dramatic talent was not confined to the
stage. “Well, perhaps one can hardly say that,” the lady superintendent
replied with a lurking discomfort. “But we have an excellent
hospital--at which Dr. Strachey also visits.” She felt uneasily that
it might be better to change the subject. “Dr. Strachey tells me that
you have no friends in Norfolk, Miss North. If you care to stay in the
Home for a few days, the little room you have already occupied is quite
at your disposal. We rarely require it for patients. There would be a
nominal charge of five dollars a day for board and attendance.”
With her recent experience Joan was amused at the ‘nominal’ charge.
However, she accepted gratefully for one night. The fur coat justified
that. “Now I must go to my--to Miss West,” she said.
Of the afternoon that followed, Joan never afterwards consciously let
herself think. It was too horrible. Indeed, she sometimes felt that
she was never quite the same again. Some of the gay assurance of youth
was irretrievably lost. In those black hours, a doubt, a fear of life,
had come to her, which, until then, had been unknown. That morning her
horror had been that her grandmother should die. In the afternoon, as
she sat watching the paroxysms of pain, as she heard the awful struggle
for breath, it was changed to a horror that her grandmother should go
on living like this. “Can you do nothing--nothing?” she cried at last
to the nurses, tears rolling down her white cheeks.
“She’s probably unconscious,” they told her. But at the sound of the
girl’s voice, the sick woman’s hand had moved, as though seeking
something. Joan took it in her firm clasp and the groping fingers
were still. The nurse ceased to urge that Miss North was only causing
herself unnecessary distress by remaining in the room.
Naturally these attacks were intermittent, or the patient could hardly
have lived through the afternoon. During the intervals the figure lay
motionless as before, only stirred by the dreadful breathing. It was in
one of these pauses that a message came to the sick room. “A gentleman,
Mr. Montgomery, wants to see you downstairs,” the nurse whispered to
Joan. “It is most urgent, he says.”
The girl looked round dazed. However, her grandmother’s clasp on her
hand had loosened; she was lying quite still. Mr. Montgomery had been
so very kind. It would be better to run down for a minute and see what
he wanted.
The little man was standing in the reception room. There was no one
else there. He looked distressed and nervous. The manservant, who had
opened the door, had told him that Miss West’s condition was very
serious. Mr. Montgomery did not offer any sympathy as Joan came in,
although his eyes rested pityingly on her colourless face. “You have
got to come with me, Miss North. Miss Bransom can’t appear to-night.”
Joan stared at him. Then his words penetrated her consciousness. “I
can’t come,” she whispered. “Didn’t they tell you? Granny is worse.”
“The show must be given. People are lining up already.” Mr. Montgomery
was inexorable.
The blood rushed to Joan’s face. “Then Miss Bransom must give it,” she
cried. “All these weeks I have longed to play and she wouldn’t let
me. Now because she knows I can’t leave Granny, she says she will not
appear.”
Her companion felt relieved at the outburst. Anything was better than
that unnatural white calm. Miss Bransom’s throat was relaxed, he
explained, choosing his words carefully, as though speaking to a child.
The fatigue of the long journey had tried it. She could not speak above
a whisper. “Do you think she would give up one of the best houses of
the season just to spite you?” he asked almost sternly. “Why it is our
opening night here; we shall have all the press. And every seat is
sold.”
“But I can’t come,” Joan repeated dully. “Don’t you understand? They
think Granny is---” Her voice failed her.
“You must come.” Mr. Montgomery crushed down the sympathy he was
feeling. “If you don’t appear to-night it will kill you with the
management; it will kill you with every management in the country. You
will never get another engagement. What will you live on--and your
grandmother--when she gets better.”
“If I don’t act, we shan’t need my salary,” Joan replied enigmatically.
“And your career--are you willing to give that up, too?”
The words were ill-advised; they pricked the girl’s galled conscience.
“I shall be glad to give up my miserable career,” she broke out. “I’ve
thought too much of it already. I’ve sacrificed Granny to it--now I’ll
sacrifice it to Granny. It is my right punishment.”
“But suppose Miss West doesn’t want it sacrificed?” Montgomery
suggested. Then he told himself that brutality might be the greatest
kindness--besides, he must hurry, time was getting on. “Look here,
Miss North, you say you have thought too much of yourself--you’re
still doing it. You talk as though your appearing to-night were a
question for you to decide--a question of your feelings. It ain’t.
It’s nothing to do with you, nor with your Granny either. You’re on
the salary list of this company, and you owe it to us not to shut
down the performance.” He paused and then went on more slowly. “And
that’s not all; there’s something more to it--something bigger. You’re
new to this business and you don’t understand. But an actor’s not an
individual; he can’t have the privilege of private feelings like other
people. What he’s got to think of, first and last, and all the time, is
the audience. My God, don’t you think we’ve all been through it?” the
little man burst out with unexpected passion. “Once my wife was sick
and I had to leave her--not with every care like this--Get your hat.”
Joan was staring at him curiously. Something new had come into her
face. “But if I appeared, I’d be so bad, that it would ruin the
performance just the same,” she said slowly.
“You’ll be all right. I will answer for that. Now, hurry, or Clark will
be committing suicide.”
The theatre was on the direct car line, so they got there a little
after half-past six. Although Mr. Clark had not yet taken the
irrevocable step foreboded by Montgomery he was very near it. What a
happy place the world would be, if all the leading ladies could be
eliminated, he was thinking, as he frenziedly paced up and down. It
was like Miss Bransom to have left it to the very last minute to tell
him she’d got no voice, just because with her damned selfishness she
couldn’t bear to give up the part. And now Montgomery’s news about
Miss North! Why the goodness couldn’t the mother have chosen any other
day to fall ill. Well, the girl would just have to come, that was all
there was to it. If she didn’t, he’d he’d--oh here she was. His face
cleared. “Hurry, hurry, Miss North. I’ve got a lady waiting from the
best modiste to alter your gowns. You’re about Miss Bransom’s height,
and that’s the one bit of luck about it,” he muttered to himself.
Like a lay figure Joan submitted to the various dressmaking and
dressing operations. It was only the gown for the second act that
needed much alterations. The others fitted fairly, and the big
scene was played in an accommodating negligée. All the time, though
Joan’s body was in the stuffy, little dressing room, her thoughts
were----“It’s a wonderful house, they say,” the dresser announced, as
she put on the finishing touches.
The audience had been exceedingly disappointed when they had heard that
the star could not appear. However, very few troubled to get back their
money. With American kindliness they gave the understudy a clap as she
came on. “Poor girl, she must be nervous--they say it’s her first
appearance,” a whisper went round.
But Joan did not feel nervous; she did not feel anything, except dazed
and frightfully tired. It was as though she had had a blow on the head.
The lines were so familiar that she could not go wrong, but it all
sounded dull and mechanical. Yes, it was dragging horribly. There was
no contact between her and those rows of white faces beyond the lights.
Or were they real faces at all? Perhaps she and they were dream figures
in a dream world.
In the wings Mr. Clark was raging futilely. “And to think what a
performance she could have given,” he almost sobbed. “Isn’t there any
earthly thing you can suggest to pull her together?” He turned fiercely
on Montgomery, who happened just then to be ‘off.’
That little man of resource recommended champagne. So the property boy
was sent scurrying off for _Mumm_, extra dry. As he returned, Clark and
Montgomery snatched the bottle from him and invaded ‘Vivi’s’ dressing
room. Fussing like two clucking hens with a very large chick, they
stood over Joan until she drank some.
“Second Act” shouted the stage manager’s assistant outside.
When Joan went on again, the audience hardly recognized her. She looked
alert, vital. As she began to speak there was a sudden, surprised
attention. The effect of the wine had been magical, probably because
she was quite unused to it. Her fatigue seemed to have dropped away.
She was still conscious of a vague sense of depression, but as she went
on, it faded into the infinitely remote. She was Vivi and no one else.
Presently there came a burst of clapping; then another; then applause
at frequent intervals. “She’s getting it across! Lord, she’ll slap the
show through yet,” Mr. Clark exclaimed rapturously.
The excited manager insisted on repeating Joan’s modest potion before
the third act. Whether this was the cause or not, the girl gave a
wonderful performance. The audience was impressed, startled, perhaps
shocked. The silent attention of the house was almost painful. One
woman was carried out in hysterics. At the end an uproar broke loose.
The applause was like a cannonade as Joan came forward. Flowers rained
upon the stage. Women waved their handkerchiefs. Men stood and shouted.
Such a scene had never been known in Norfolk. The curtain went up and
down fourteen times, while Joan, first in various combinations and then
alone, stood silently bowing.
The fourth act was very short. Joan carried it through in quiet,
decisive triumph. The audience dispersed still under the spell of the
great central scene. Who was this girl, everyone was asking? Indeed,
Joan was asking it herself as the curtain finally descended.
Suddenly the stage became crowded with people. Everyone was shaking her
hand, congratulating her. Mr. Clark was flurrying about wildly, talking
about the next evening’s performance. He indiscreetly hoped aloud that
Miss Bransom’s voice would remain in abeyance. The advance manager,
wearing a brown bowler tipped very far back, was agitatedly improvising
an account of the new star’s career for a group of pressmen. Strange
faces passed before Joan as in a phantasmagoria. One alone stood out,
a typical American hatchet face of the intellectual type with clear
grey eyes and a humorous mouth. “I’m sorry, Miss North,” this man said
quietly, as he clasped her hand in his long, bony one. What was he
sorry for, passed dimly through the girl’s mind. Then Mr. Terence came
up. He was presenting someone who was vaguely familiar to her. Who
could it be? No--yes--it was Eustace Chalfont, her mother’s tame poet.
How surprising! Would he recognize her? That would be very improbable,
Joan felt. Apart from her present make-up, Mr. Chalfont would hardly
see in her the funny pig-tailed schoolgirl whom he had last met. The
poet’s first words revealed all absence of suspicion. “Dear lady,”
he said, almost fondling her hand in both of his. “A marvellous
performance! Why does not America know you to worship at your shrine?
In what enchanted castle have you been held captive?”
The spell of the acting had been broken by this sudden apparition out
of her past, real life. She was Joan Vandeleur. And Granny? How could
she stand there talking when Granny was so ill. “I must go back. I must
go back at once,” she cried suddenly.
Mr. Montgomery had been standing near protectively. “Come,” he said,
and escorted the girl off the stage. As they got near the back door,
she began to make her way out, oblivious of her costume. “You must
change first,” Mr. Montgomery reminded her. She fled to the dressing
room and wildly pulled off her gorgeous evening gown with the dresser’s
deprecating help. In an incredibly short time she reappeared in normal
attire. A motor was waiting for her--at the expense of the management,
Mr. Clark whispered. Apparently for stars who could afford to pay, such
things were provided gratis. Mr. Montgomery got in with her, eclipsed
under the floral tributes which Joan had utterly forgotten. He added to
his kindness by saying nothing. A crowd had gathered, and they raised a
cheer as the auto drove off.
The face of the man who opened the door at the nursing home from being
coldly impassive had now become distinctly interested. “The press
people have been keeping us pretty busy on the ’phone all the evening,
Miss North,” he said with American familiarity combined with a certain
deference. “They wanted all the particulars that we could give them.”
Joan stared in absolute bewilderment. “How is--” she began, and dared
not trust herself to finish.
“How is Miss West?” Mr. Montgomery interposed sharply--“Miss North’s
mother?”
“I haven’t heard lately. I think she was about the same. Supper has
been left for you in the dining-room, Miss North. Shall I fetch you
some vases for your flowers?” The man evidently could not give up his
sensation. Death is a common incident in a nursing home, but this was
the first time he had been associated with the début of a theatrical
star.
Joan was already running upstairs. By the time she reached the landing
her heart was pounding so, that she could hardly breathe. She clutched
at the banisters and listened. Her grandmother’s door was a crack open,
but no sound came from it. Or was it only that her own pulses were
throbbing so loudly she could hear nothing else? She began to shake
all over; she dared not push open that door. At last, by an almost
impossible effort, she nerved herself to do so. The figure under the
bedclothes lay very still. Two nurses were on the other side of the
room. They turned as the door opened, and one came softly out on to the
landing. “The breathing is much better,” she whispered. “Dr. Strachey
thinks the serum is already having an effect. The temperature has gone
down too.--May I congratulate you on your triumph, Miss North? One of
the staff was at the theatre, so we have heard all about it.”
“I am so tired,” Joan said weakly, “so very tired.”