It was the strangest thing to wake in the morning and to realize that
she was alone, living on her own responsibility, in London; the
strangest thing to walk into her sitting-room and see breakfast laid for
her.
"Oh, I can't live by myself," she cried; "it's such a mad thing to do."
But hundreds did it, why not she? Courage! She had started on her way
through the world, and it would be better to begin at once arranging the
work she meant to do. She knew the name of Mr. Farley's theatre; she
wondered if it would be better to go and see him rather than to write.
It was so difficult to explain things in a letter, and she had learned
already that to get to any place she didn't know in London it was only
necessary to take a cab and to pay the man at the end of the journey.
She was too impatient to wait long, and it was only eleven o'clock when
she inquired for Mr. Farley at the box-office of the theatre, and was
directed to go to the stage door. The stage door was down a court, ugly
and narrow; the door-keeper, in a little office on the right, inquired
her business. Her name was written on a slip of paper and sent up to
Mr. Farley, and after she had waited some minutes in an ill-kept passage
a boy came and asked her to follow him--across the stage, that looked
like a staring desert, and past the scenery leaning against the walls,
lath and canvas and card-board and crude colors that brought home to her
uncomfortably the realities of the life she was seeking; up a little
staircase and into a comfortable, well-furnished room, hung with signed
portraits of celebrities. Mr. Farley came forward to meet her; he shook
hands and looked at her approvingly, for he had already divined the
object of her visit.
"And what did Miss--Miss Hannah was it--say to this scheme?" he asked,
with a smile, when she had stated her ambitions.
"She doesn't approve of it; but my mother will trust me."
"And does any one know that you are in London?" he asked, his thoughts
running to Tom Carringford.
"No one; I wrote to Miss Hunstan, but she is at Bayreuth. I don't want
any one else to know, Mr. Farley--my life is my own to live," she added,
quickly, "and I want to begin at once. Can you let me 'walk on' as Miss
Hunstan did once?"
The girl had some stuff in her, he thought. "Certainly you shall walk on
if you like, Miss Vincent; we can easily make room for one or two
more," he answered. "But, understand, it means hard work; you will have
to come to rehearsal and perhaps to wait about for hours, and when we
begin to play you will have to come down every night, of course, and
nothing must make you late or careless--ill or well you must be here. No
excuses allowed; your work must come before everything else, and to
begin with you will get a guinea a week. Young ladies are apt to think
they have only to run on the stage to become actresses, but you will
find that nothing is done without hard work and patient waiting, unless
you are a genius; if you are, we shall discover it. We begin rehearsing
at 11.30 to-day; you can wait, if you like." And so he dismissed her,
realizing that he was a different person altogether in the theatre from
the Dawson Farley of Mrs. Lakeman's drawing-room or the garden at
Woodside Farm. Nevertheless, he had been interested by her visit. It was
very odd, he thought, this girl coming from the atmosphere in which he
had seen her last week to lonely lodgings in Westminster. Very odd
altogether. Lucky for her that she had got into Mrs. Gilman's, a
respectable house, and a nice woman. He had half a mind to telegraph the
whole thing to Mrs. Lakeman, and suggest that she should invite Margaret
to Scotland; it would be far better for her than staying in London; but,
after all, it was no affair of his, and he disliked mixing up business
and private matters. Still, when he wrote to Pitlochry, he made up his
mind he would tell Mrs. Lakeman about Margaret; she was a clever,
practical woman, and would know if anything ought to be done for the
girl.
Meanwhile, Margaret had been given over to the stage manager, and waited
eagerly for the rehearsal to begin. It was uglier than she had expected.
The gaping, empty theatre, covered with holland sheets; the dusty stage,
with its whitewashed walls, and lumbering scenery packed together,
standing up against them; the every-day clothes of the actors and
actresses, made it all so vastly different a matter from seeing a play
at night from the stalls with her father; but it was absurd of her, she
thought, not to have remembered that it would be so; "it is like being
at the back of the world," she thought. The company was a good-sized
one, and Margaret, shy and awkward, stood apart, looking at it. Some of
its members were ladies and gentlemen; they glanced at her, curiously
wondering who she was, but only for a moment; they were intent on their
own life battle. Some were not ladies and gentlemen, but tawdry
make-believes, or shabby and anxious-looking. One or two of them looked
as if they would have spoken to her, but she gave them no chance. When
Dawson Farley came on he was busy and full of the responsibility of a
great speculation; he had forgotten all about her. Even in that first
day she realized that she was a little unit of no account in an
important whole. True, when she had to go across the stage at the end of
the first act, he turned his head for a moment. She walked well, he
thought; if he heard that she was intelligent, he might some day give
her a small part. She was beautiful; he realized that. Ten years ago the
story of Louise Hunstan might have been repeated (on his part), but now
he was wiser. Then it struck him, as he waited in the wings, that her
mother had looked ill the other day, like a woman who was not going to
live long, and that if she died Mrs. Lakeman might want to marry her old
lover, Gerald Vincent. Perhaps it would be wise if he tried to hurry
things up a little.
Margaret had discovered that it was only a little way from the theatre
to Great College Street, and she walked back from the rehearsal. After
the stuffiness and dimness of the theatre she was glad to be in the open
air again, and all manner of new experiences suggested themselves. She
looked at the people she passed in the narrow streets near the stage
door; they seemed to have suffered so much, to have hoped for so much,
and each one to have a strange little history of some sort. A first
glimmering of the temptations of life dawned upon her, the expression of
a woman's face, or a man's casual speech, brought home to her a sense
of some things at which Hannah had railed. Hannah had only known of them
by instinct, or she had railed at them parrot-like, because she had
heard others do so; but under it all lay a foundation, though she had
never dug to it. Gradually Margaret realized that of all people and of
all things there was a justification, from a given point of view, and
that, even if it had made no difference to a condemnation, it should
never be forgotten.
The morning, the third day of Margaret's stay in London, brought her a
letter from her mother--a simple, trusting letter with not a shadow of
reproach in it. "I wish you hadn't left us so, Margey, dear," she said,
"for it has made Hannah very angry, and I don't think it would be any
good your coming back just yet, but if you want anything write to me. It
is a good thing that you are living in a house with such a nice woman.
Perhaps you could write to Sir George Stringer, for he knew your father
when he was young, and would help you to do what was best. Hannah is
packing your trunk to send up, but I am afraid to say anything to her.
When she goes to Petersfield at the end of the week I'll send you some
eggs and butter and flowers, but I don't like to say anything about it
now, for it's no good making her cross. I wrote to Mr. Garratt, and told
him you had gone to London, and I sent him back the letter, as you
asked me. I'm not very well, but you must not be anxious. I think it's
the trial of Hannah's temper when you were here. Perhaps, after all,
it's as well that you are away for a bit. She may have got over it a
little in a month or two. I think I ought to tell you that she is very
angry indeed about your being an actress. She says old Mr. and Mrs.
Barton, of Petersfield, will say I am doing very wrong in giving my
consent, but I have never believed in the world being as bad as they do,
or could see why the theatre should be wicked. Your father said once
that everything was just what we made it, and it could always be made
good or bad, and I want you to remember that about your life. It is what
I have always felt about your father, and that God, who knows him, will
be satisfied, no matter what people say."
Margaret kissed it, and gave a long sigh of thankfulness. "She isn't
angry," she said to herself, "and she understands. My mother always did,
bless her." She rose and walked up and down the little drawing-room. She
had not known till now how much she had longed for a letter, for some
sign that she had not done a wicked or foolish thing when she fled from
home. "Now I feel as if I can go on," she said, "and who knows but that
some day I shall be a great actress as Miss Hunstan is--she has my
letter this morning, I wonder what she'll say when she writes to me."
The little clock on the mantel-piece struck ten. As if in answer to it
there came a double knock to the street door, the sound of a voice and
some hurried steps, and the next moment Tom Carringford walked in.
Margaret started to her feet with a cry of surprise:
"Oh," she said, "how did you know I was here?"
"Miss Hunstan wired--had it ten minutes ago--so got into a hansom and
came at once. And now what is the matter?" he asked, just as if he had a
right to do so. He sat down in the easy-chair facing her, his face
beaming with happiness, even though Mr. Garratt rankled in his memory.
"Why are you in London? You said something about coming, in the wood
that day, but I didn't think you meant it."
"I am here just as Miss Hunstan is. I have taken these rooms, and want
to be an actress as she was."
"What for?"--his eyes were full of astonishment--"and what does your
mother say to it?"
"She understands. She knows that I can't go back till my father
returns."
"And what about Mr. Garratt?" his tone was brisk and gay, but he waited
eagerly for her answer.
"Oh!" and she grew crimson, "I did so want to tell you about Mr.
Garratt, but I didn't feel I could unless you asked me. He came to see
Hannah--"
"I don't believe that," he laughed. "I saw Hannah, you know."
"And then he thought--that--he liked me--and he said--well, he said
things--you know," she added, rather lamely.