“THE STAR TURN.”
Claudia had never been behind the scenes of a theatre, and she found the
_va et vient_, the bustle and hurry of a music-hall almost bewildering,
so that she received the vaguest impressions of her journey through to
the front. She felt, rather than saw, the gloomy floor space behind the
set littered with properties, all looking very ludicrous and childish. A
man was evidently doing a song and patter turn to judge from the guffaws
from the front of the house. She could see above her head men up in the
flies controlling the limelight and the curtain, all of whom were in
their shirt-sleeves. In fact, Jack was the only conventionally dressed
person she had seen since she entered the theatre.
She was hurried along to a small door, which she found gave access to
the house—Jack was evidently known to the man in charge, who nodded
familiarly and called him “Capting”—and having descended some dusty,
red-covered steps, she found herself suddenly in a little box in full
view of the audience. Her first impression was that she had never seen
so many people so tightly squeezed together before, and so intent on the
comedian with the red nose and battered silk hat who was holding forth
from the middle of the stage. All the theatres she had ever seen had been
more or less roomy, but these people reminded her of an old-fashioned
solid bouquet, except that there was practically no colour in the house.
In a West-End theatre various bits of colour strike the eye, especially
in the stalls and dress-circle; but as the curtain descended to great
applause she saw that the house was a study in black and white—the
clothing black, the faces white. There must have been some bits of
colour, but they did not show. Her second impression was that she had
never before realized how toiling humanity in a mass can smell. It was
the odour of toil and scanty bathing, mingled with the inevitable orange
and the reek of gas.
A number went up in the slot at the side—twelve—the star turn of the
evening, The Girlie Girl.
The orchestra struck up one of her popular songs, and the audience, and
especially the gallery boys—they looked to Claudia as though they were
hanging on the ceiling by their eyelashes like flies—began to cheer and
beat time to the music. She happened to glance at Jack, and she was
amused to see a complacent smile taking the place of the dumbly-worried
look he had been wearing since the episode of the pendant.
“They adore her,” he whispered. “She believes in making friends with the
gallery boys. She says it’s the secret of her success.... I say, Claud,
what could I do about that beastly pendant? She doesn’t see things as we
do. She’s like a blessed babe, or a savage, in some things.”
A huge burst of cheering stopped any further conversation, and Claudia
found herself looking down at her sister-in-law laughing and kissing her
hands to the gallery. In the limelight she looked extraordinarily pretty
and alive, and there was no man present that could have failed to see
the _gamine_ charm of her, though he might not have wanted to espouse
her. Her blue eyes laughed in a friendly fashion at the house and her
pretty feet began to dance to the measure while she waved aloft a sort of
d’Orsay walking-stick tied up with green and orange ribbons.
Her voice, though sweet—unusually sweet for the music-halls—was nothing
wonderful, and Claudia detected already signs of hard wear. She had a
few particularly good notes in her top register, but it was not for her
voice that she was so applauded. There was an air of infectious gaiety,
a “I-like-you-and-you-like-me” camaraderie that made the vapid song and
words—how incredibly bad the words were!—seem amusing.
The song was all about a ladybird and a rose in an old-fashioned garden.
The rose was sweet and innocent, and the ladybird “knew a bit.” It
was neither funny nor frankly improper; but the audience roared with
laughter, especially when she completed each verse with a huge wink. At
the end of the song she threw a kiss deliberately up to their box, which
made the entire audience turn and look at them, and reduced Claudia to a
state of helpless and fiery embarrassment.
“All right, boys, it’s my husband,” called out the Girlie Girl, with
a chuckle, as she departed into the wings. There followed a burst of
yelling, cat-calling and clapping, with cries of “Good luck!” “Send us a
bit of cake, Girlie,” “Keep him in order,” “Wish you joy!”
Claudia was sorry she had not put on a veil or a more shady hat. She knew
that her face was scarlet. She had never been in such a scene in her
life, and she took no pleasure in being conspicuous at any time. Jack was
looking sheepish, but evidently he was more used to such things.
The audience went on singing the chorus of her last song while Fay was
changing in the wings. Then the orchestra struck up another tune as
she appeared in a smart little _vivandière_ costume of blue, with red
facings, and a cap that was stuck coquettishly sideways on her huge
bunch of curls. This time she led the singing of the chorus from the
stage, every now and then ceasing to sing herself, and beating time with
encouraging gestures to the rather hoarse, flat voices of the crowd. It
was a wonderful sight to Claudia, who was so fascinated that she forgot
her embarrassment and leaned forward. As she looked round the house all
the lips seemed moving—men and women, boys and children.
The audience would not part with her, and after taking eight curtains she
came back to sing the last verse once more.
“Now boys, I want you to sing _loudly_ this time. Let’s raise the roof
and take the slates off. Shan’t be coming to Milton Green for a long
time. Don’t whisper—_sing_. All of you sing, Tom and Bill, and Kate and
Mary. Sing out as you would if you got your wages doubled to-morrow.
Now....”
“I’m one of the King’s little drummer-boys,
And I serve....”
The packed audience positively yelled, and Fay laughing, kept on
encouraging them with remarks:
“Go it, boys!... It’s a cure for sore throats.... Get it off your
chests.... Bill, you’re not opening your mouth wide enough; no flies
to-night.... Mary, a bit louder....”
Then how the tragedy happened no one ever quite understood. Fay was
laughing and kissing her little hands up to the gallery, as alive as a
piece of quicksilver, when the heavy curtain came down suddenly, and
before anyone could shout, struck her. Claudia, who had risen in horror,
caught a look of almost childish surprise in the blue eyes before Fay lay
flattened out on the ground the two pretty arms thrown out helplessly in
front of her, the curtain, as it were, cutting her in two.
For a moment there was a horrible awed hush; then a woman in the audience
gave vent to a piercing shriek, and immediately a tumult of cries and
shouts filled the auditorium. Claudia, who had been almost stunned by the
suddenness of the thing, had just time to see the men fighting their way
to the front, apparently with some vague idea of raising the curtain off
the little body, when she saw the curtain move up a few inches and half
a dozen hands gently drag the body behind it. She turned to Jack. He was
staring down at the stage, his face ashen grey, his eyes starting out of
his head. But he made no movement to go to his wife.
“Jack,” she panted, “we must go round. Quick! Don’t you want to get to
her?”
Still he did not move, nor did he seem to hear her. He was still staring
down at the stage.
“Jack!” she shook his arm. “Rouse yourself! Come quick!”
He seemed to awaken with a shudder, and she drew him into the shadow of
the box.
“I can’t,” he said, with dry lips and shaking from head to foot. “I
can’t.... Is she dead?”
Claudia was unaware of the great weight of the curtain, and tried to
speak encouragingly.
“No, no, of course not.... Jack, you must go to her.”
“I can’t stand things like that,” he whispered, passing his hand over
his clammy forehead. “You know I never could.... Oh, my God! she’s dead!
Fay’s dead, and I saw her killed!”
Claudia remembered that he never could stand ugly sights or any kind
of illness or decay. His ordinary good-nature entirely deserted him at
such times. He had refused to go and see an old schoolfellow in his last
illness, and had always tried to escape visiting his grandmother, who had
died slowly of cancer.
“Jack, you _must_!” cried Claudia hotly, propelling him to the door.
“Don’t be a coward. Perhaps she’s only stunned and wants you. You’ve got
to play the man, or I’ll never speak to you again.”
Even the biting contempt in her voice did not rouse him; but he allowed
himself to be dragged like one in a dream through the door and up the red
stairs.
“For the sake of your manhood and the honour of the Iversons, if not for
poor Fay, pull yourself together,” said Claudia sharply, as they stepped
upon the stage.
A group of men were bending down over something that had been laid on
a pile of coats. Others were crowding together, talking in excited,
frightened whispers. The stout lady came rushing on the stage, sobbing
hysterically and wringing her red hands. The orchestra commenced to play
again.
A man came pushing his way after them through the door from the
auditorium. Accustomed as she was to the conventional garb of West End
physicians, Claudia was surprised to hear this man in a pepper-and-salt
suit say: “I’m a doctor. Let me go to her.”
Jack was still dazed. With a last glance of contempt at him, Claudia went
forward and took command of the situation. “Please, doctor, do all you
can. I am her sister-in-law. Tell me what we should do.”
She followed him towards the little group, inwardly shrinking and
desperately frightened, but outwardly calm and collected. She stood with
the stage hands, as one of them. She could see by their faces that they
feared a bad verdict.
Various hoarse whispers reached her while she waited, feeling as though
the world had suddenly turned topsy-turvy.
“ ... The next turn ... can’t go on.... Let the orchestra play.... Tell
the audience she isn’t badly hurt ... turned my blood cold.... Hadn’t
time to shout.... Who dropped the damned thing?... Must have broken her
spine.... Rather anyone than The Girlie Girl.”
The doctor had risen from his examination and was coming towards her. She
nerved herself for a shock; but she could hear her own heart thumping
against her ribs.
“Not—not——” She could not get the words out of her dry lips.
The doctor gravely shook his head. “No, she’s alive. Bad injury to the
spine, I should say. Get her to a hospital”—then taking in the quality of
the woman who had said she was the sister-in-law—“or to her home at once
and call in a specialist.”
Claudia read the look in his eyes, which was compounded of pity and deep
emotion. She had seen that look once in the eyes of a man who had been
entrusted with the task of breaking the news of her husband’s death to a
poor woman on their country estate.
“Is she—very bad?” she whispered. “Will she die?”
“I’m afraid not—yet.”
Claudia reeled up against a piece of scenery. She never forgot that
moment. The orchestra playing a rag-time melody, the stout woman sobbing,
the regret in the eyes of the doctor.
“You mean——”
“It’s not likely she will ever move off her bed again. She’s paralysed.”