For a few years after that particular disagreement nothing of special
note happened. Hal got quickly through her course of shorthand and
typewriting and became Mr. Elliott’s private secretary and general
factotum, which last included an occasional flight into journalism as a
reporter. Naturally, since this sometimes took her to out-of-the-way
places, and brought her in contact with human oddities, she loved it
beyond all things, and was ever ready for a jaunt, no matter whither it
took her.
Brother Dudley was discreetly left a little in the dark about it,
because nothing in the world would ever have persuaded him that a girl
of Hal’s age could run promiscuously about London unmolested. Hal knew
better. She was perfectly well able to acquire a stony stare that
baffled the most dauntless of impertinent intruders; and she had,
moreover, an upright, grenadier-like carriage, and an air of
business-like energy that were safeguards in themselves.
A great deal of persuasive tact was necessary, however, to win Dudley’s
consent to a year in America, whither Mr. Elliott had to go on
business; but on Mrs. Elliott calling upon him herself to explain that
she also was going, and would take care of Hal, he reluctantly
consented.
Curiously enough, it was that year in a great measure that changed the
current of Lorraine’s life. She came to the cross-roads, and took the
wrong turn.
Perhaps Miss Walton, with her knowledge of girls, could have foretold
it. She might have said, in that enigmatical way of hers, “If Lorraine
comes to the cross-roads, where life offers a short cut to fame,
instead of a long, wearisome drudgery, she will probably take it. Hal
will score off her own bat, or not at all. Lorraine will only care
about gaining her end.”
Anyhow the cross-roads came, and Hal, the stronger, was not there. As a
matter of fact, for some little time the two had not seen much of each
other. Lorraine was touring in the provinces, and rarely had time to
come to London. Hal was tied by her work, and could not spare the time
to go to Lorraine.
There was for a little while a cessation of intercourse. Neither was
the least bit less fond, but circumstances kept them apart, and they
could only wait until opportunity brought them together again. Both
were too busy for lengthy correspondence, and only wrote short letters
occasionally, just to assure each other the friendship held firm, and
absence made no real difference.
Then Hal went off to America, and while she was away Lorraine came to
her cross-roads.
It is hardly necessary to review in detail what her life had been since
she joined the theatrical profession. It is mostly hard work and
disillusion and disappointment for all in the beginning, and only a
very small percentage ever win through to the forefront.
But for Lorraine, on the top of all the rest, was a mercenary,
unscrupulous, intriguing mother, who added tenfold to what must
inevitably have been a heavy burden and strain—a mother who taxed her
utmost powers of endurance, and brought her shame as well as endless
worry; and yet to whom, let it be noted down now, to her everlasting
credit, no matter in what other way she may have erred, she never
turned a deaf ear nor treated with the smallest unkindness.
It would be impossible to gauge just what Lorraine had to go through in
her first few years on the stage. She seemed to make no headway at all,
and at the end of the third year she felt herself as far as ever from
getting her chance.
That she was brilliantly clever and brilliantly attractive had not so
far weighed the balance to her side. There were many others also clever
and attractive. She felt she had practically everything except the one
thing needed—influence.
Thus her spirits were at a very low ebb. She was still touring the
provinces, and heartily sick of all the discomfort involved. Dingy
lodgings, hurried train journeys, much bickering and jealousy in the
company with which she was acting, and a great deal of domestic worry
over that handsome, extravagant mother, who had once taken her, in
company with the so-called uncle, to the select seminary of the Misses
Walton.
How her mother managed to live and dress as if she were rich had
puzzled Lorraine many times in those days; but when she left the
shelter of those narrow, restricting walls, where windows were
whitewashed so that even boys might not be seen passing by, she learnt
many things all too quickly.
She learnt something about the uncles too. One of them was at great
pains to try and teach her, but with hideous shapes and suggestions
trying to crowd her mind, the thought of Hal’s freshness still acted as
a sort of protection and kept her untainted.
A little later, after she had commenced to earn a salary, she found
that directly the family purse was empty, and creditors objectionably
insistent, she herself had to come to the rescue.
There were some miserable days then. It was useless to upbraid her
mother. She always posed as the injured one, and could not see that in
robbing her child of a real home she was strewing her path with dangers
as well, by placing her in an ambiguous, comfortless position, from
which any relief seemed worth while.
Then at last came the welcome news that Mrs. Vivian had procured a post
as lady-housekeeper to a rich stockbroker in Kensington, who had also a
large interest in a West-end theatre.
Lorraine read the glowing terms in which her mother described her new
home and employer with a deep sense of relief, seeing in the new
venture a probable escape for herself from those relentless demands
upon her own scanty purse. A month later came the paragraph, in a
voluminous epistle:
“Mr. Raynor says you are to make his house your home whenever you are
free. He insists upon giving you a floor all to yourself, like a little
flat, where you can receive your friends undisturbed, and feel you have
a little home of your own. I am quite certain also that he will try to
help you in your career through his interest in the Greenway Theatre.”
If Lorraine wondered at all concerning this unknown man’s interest in
her welfare she kept it to herself.
A home instead of the dingy lodgings she had grown to hate, and the
prospect of influential help, were sufficiently alluring to drown all
other reflections.
When the tour was over she went direct to Kensington, to make her home
with her mother until her next engagement. She was already too much a
woman of the world not to notice at once that her mother and her host’s
relations seemed scarcely those of employee and employer, and there was
a little passage of arms between herself and Mrs. Vivian the next
morning.
In reply to a long harangue, in which that lady set forth the
advantages Lorraine was to gain from her mother’s perspicacity in
obtaining such a post, she asked rather shortly:
“And why in the world should Mr. Raynor do all this for me, simply
because you are his housekeeper?”
A red spot burned in Mrs. Vivian’s cheek as she replied: “He does it
because he wants me to stay; and I have told him I cannot do so unless
he makes it possible for me to give you a comfortable, happy home
here.”
Lorraine’s lips curled with a scorn she did not attempt to conceal, but
she only stood silently gazing across the Park.
She had already decided to make the best of her mother’s deficiencies,
seeing she was almost the only relative she possessed, but she had a
natural loathing of hypocrisy, and wished she would leave facts alone
instead of attempting to gloss them over. Ever since she left school
she had been obliged to live in lodgings, because her mother would not
take the trouble to try and provide anything more of a home.
It was a little too much, therefore, that she should now allude to her
maternal solicitude because it happened to suit her purpose. She felt
herself growing hard and callous and bitter under the strain of the
early struggle to succeed, handicapped as she was; and because of one
or two ugly experiences that came in the path of such a warfare. She
was losing heart also, and feeling bitterly the stinging whip of
circumstances. As she stood gazing across the Park, some girls about
her own age rode past, returning from their morning gallop, talking and
laughing gaily together.
Lorraine found herself wondering what life would be like with her
beauty and talent if there were no vulgarly extravagant, unprincipled
mother in the background, no insistent need to earn money, no gnawing
ambition for a fame she already began to feel might prove an empty joy.
She had not seen Hal for a year, and she felt an ache for her. In the
shifting, unreliable, soul-numbing atmosphere of her stage career, she
still looked upon Hal as a City of Refuge; and when she had not seen
her for some time she felt herself drifting towards unknown shoals and
quicksands.
And, unfortunately, Hal was away in America, with the editor to whom
she was secretary and typist, and not very likely to be back for three
months.
No; there was nothing for it but to make the best of her mother’s
explanation and the comfortable home at her feet.
As for Mr. Raynor himself, though he seemed to Lorraine vulgarly proud
of his self-made position, vulgarly ostentatious of his wealth, and
vulgarly familiar with both herself and her mother, she could not
actually lay any offence to his charge. And in any case, he undoubtedly
could help her, if he chose, to procure at last the coveted part in a
London theatre. With this end in view, she laid herself out to please
him and to make the most of her opportunity.
And in this way she came to those cross-roads which had to decide her
future.
Before she had been a week in the house, Frank Raynor deserted his
housekeeper altogether, and fell in love with the housekeeper’s
daughter. Within a fortnight he had laid all his possessions at
Lorraine’s feet, promising her not only wealth and devotion, but the
brilliant career she so coveted.
The man was generous, but he was no saint. Give him herself, and she
would have the world at her feet if he could bring it there. Give any
less, and he would have no more to say to her whatsoever.
It was the cross-roads.
Lorrain struggled manfully for a month. She hated the idea of marrying
a man better suited in every way to her mother. She dreaded and hated
the thought of what had perhaps been between them; yet she was afraid
to ask any question that might corroborate her worst fears.
All that was best in her of delicate and refined sensitiveness surged
upward, and she longed to run away to some remote island far removed
from the harsh realities of life.
Yet, how could she? Without money, without influence, without rich
friends, what did the world at large hold for her?
How much easier to go with the tide—seize her opportunity—and dare Fate
to do her worst.
At the last there was a bitter scene between mother and daughter.
“If you refuse Frank Raynor now, you ruin the two of us,” was Mrs.
Vivian’s angry indictment. “What can we expect from him any more? How
are you ever going to get another such chance to make a hit?”
“And what if it ruins my life to marry him?” Lorraine asked.
“Such nonsense! The man can give you everything. What in the world more
do you want? He is good enough looking; he could pass as a gentleman,
and he is rich.”
A sudden nauseous spasm at all the ugliness of life shook Lorraine. She
turned on her mother swiftly, scarcely knowing what she said, and
asked:
“You are anxious enough to sell me to him. What is he to you anyway?
What has he ever been to you?”
Mrs. Vivian blanched before the suddenness of the attack, but she held
her ground.
“You absurd child, what in the world could he be to me? It is easy
enough to see he has no eyes for any one but you.”
“And before I came?”
Lorraine took a step forward, and for a moment the two women faced each
other squarely. The eyes of each were a little hard, the expressions a
little flinty; but behind the older woman’s was a scornful,
unscrupulous indifference to any moral aspect; behind the younger’s a
hunted, rather pitiful hopelessness. The ugly things of life had caught
the one in their talons and held her there for good and all, more or
less a willing slave, the soul of the younger was still alive, still
conscious, still capable of distinguishing the good and desiring it.
The mother turned away at last with a little harsh laugh.
“Before you came he was nothing to me. He never has been anything.”
Without waiting for Lorraine to speak, she turned again, and added:
“If you weren’t a fool, you would perceive he is treating you better
than ninety-nine men in a hundred. He has suggested marriage. The
others might not have done.”
“Oh! I’m not a fool in that way,” came the bitter reply, “but I’ve
wondered once or twice what your attitude would have been,
supposing—er—he had been one of the ninety-nine!”
Mrs. Vivian was saved replying by the unexpected appearance of Frank
Raynor himself. Entering the room with a quick step, he suddenly
stopped short and looked from one to the other. Something in their
expressions told him what had transpired. He turned sharply on the
mother.
“You’ve been speaking to Lorraine about me. I told you I wouldn’t have
it. I know your bullying ways, and I said she was to be left to decide
for herself.”
Lorraine saw an angry retort on her mother’s lips, and hurriedly left
the room. She put on her hat and slipped away into the Park. What was
she to do?… where, oh where was Hal!
Within three months the short cut was taken. Lorraine was engaged to
play a leading part at the Greenway Theatre, and she was the wife of
Frank Raynor.