Heriot betook himself there on the following day with a curious
eagerness. If the girl he had noticed should prove to be Cheriton's
daughter, how odd it would be! He at once hoped for the coincidence,
and found the possibility a shade pathetic. It emphasised his years to
think that the ill-kept child of the dirty studio might have become
the girl he had admired. His progress during the interval appeared
momentarily insignificant to him; he felt that while a brat became a
woman he ought to have done much more. He was discouraged to reflect
that he had not taken silk; for he had always intended to take silk,
and had small misgivings that he would have cause to repent it. His
practice had indicated for some time that he would not suffer by the
step, and yet he had delayed his application. His motto had been, "Slow
and sure," but it seemed to him suddenly that he had been too slow; his
income as a Junior should not have contented him so long.
He pulled the bell, and was preceded up the stairs by a maid-servant,
who opened a door, and announced him to the one occupant of the room.
Heriot saw that she was the girl of the balcony and the terrace, and
that she moved towards him smiling.
"I am Mamie Cheriton," she said. "My father is expecting you."
Her intonation was faintly American, but her voice was full and sweet.
He took her hand with pleasure, and a touch of excitement that did not
concord with his countenance, which was formal and impassive.
"I am glad to make your acquaintance, Miss Cheriton."
"Won't you sit down?" she said. "He will be here in a minute."
Heriot took a seat, and decided that her eyes were even lovelier than
he had known.
"When I saw you last, you were a child," he remarked inaccurately.
"Yes; it must have astonished you meeting my father again after so many
years. It was funny, your being here, wasn't it?... But perhaps you
often come to Eastbourne?"
"No," said Heriot, "no, I don't often come. How does it strike you,
Miss Cheriton? I suppose you can hardly remember England, can you?"
"Well, I shan't be sorry to be settled in London; it was London I was
anxious to go to, not the sea-shore.... Do you say 'sea-shore' in
Europe, or is it wrong? When I said 'sea-shore' this morning, I noticed
that a woman stared at me."
"One generally says 'seaside' over here; I don't know that it's
important."
"Well, the 'seaside' then. The seaside was my aunt's wish.
Well---- Well, I'm saying 'well' too often, I guess?--that's American,
too! I've got to be quite English--that's my first step. But at least I
don't talk like Americans in your comic papers, do I?"
"You talk very delightfully, I think," he said, taken aback.
"I hope you mean it. My voice is most important, you know. It would be
very cruel if I were handicapped by having anything the matter with my
voice. I shall have difficulties enough without!"
"I'm afraid," he said, "that I'm unfortunate. I wish I could have done
something to further the ambitions your father mentioned."
She smiled again, rather wistfully this time.
"They seem very absurd to you, I daresay?"
He murmured deprecation: "Why?"
"The stage-struck girl is always absurd."
Recognising his own phrase, he perceived that he had been too
faithfully reported, and was embarrassed.
"I spoke hastily. In the abstract the stage-struck girl may be absurd,
but so is a premature opinion."
"Thank you," she said. "But why 'stage-struck,' anyhow? it's a term I
hate. I suppose you wanted to be a barrister, Mr. Heriot?"
"I did," he confessed, "certainly. There are a great many, but I
thought there was room for one more."
"But you weren't described as 'bar-struck'?"
"I don't think I ever heard the expression."
"It would be a very foolish one?"
"It would sound so to me."
"Why 'stage-struck' then? Is it any more ridiculous to aspire to one
profession than another? You don't say a person is 'paint-struck,' or
'ink-struck,' or anything else '-struck'; why the sneer when one is
drawn towards the theatre? But perhaps _no_ form of art appears to you
necessary?"
"I think I should prefer to call it 'desirable,' since you ask the
question," he said. "And 'art' is a word used to weight a great many
trivialities too! Everybody who writes a novel is an artist in his own
estimation, and personally, I find existence quite possible without
novels."
"Did you ever read _Mademoiselle de Maupin_?" asked Miss Cheriton.
"Have _you_?" he said quickly.
"Oh yes; books are very cheap in America. 'I would rather grow roses
than potatoes,' is one of the lines in the preface. _You_ would rather
grow potatoes than roses, eh?"
"You are an enthusiast," said Heriot; "I see!" He pitied her for being
Dick Cheriton's daughter. She was inevitable: the pseudo-artist's
discontent with realities--the inherited tendencies, fanned by
thinly-veiled approval! He understood.
Cheriton came in after a few minutes, followed by the aunt, to whom
Heriot was presented. He found her primitive, and far less educated
than her brother. She was very happy to see dear Dick again, and she
was sorry that she must lose him again so soon. Dear Mamie, though,
would be a consolation. A third-rate suburban villa was stamped upon
her; he could imagine her making hideous antimacassars for forbidding
armchairs, and that a visit to an Eastbourne boarding-house was the
event of her life. She wore jet earrings, and stirred her tea with vast
energy. With the circulation of the tea, strangers drifted into the
room, and the conversation was continued in undertones.
"Have you been talking to Mamie about her intentions?" Cheriton
inquired.
"We've been chatting, yes. What steps do you mean to take, Miss
Cheriton? What shall you do?"
"I propose to go to the dramatic agents," she said, "and ask them to
hear me recite."
"Dramatic agents must be kept fairly busy, I should say. What if they
don't consent?"
"I shall recite to them."
"You are firm!" he laughed.
"I am eager, Mr Heriot. I have longed till I am sick with longing.
London has been my aim since I was a little girl. I have dreamt of
it!--I've gone to sleep hoping that I might; I couldn't recall one of
its streets, but in dreams I've reached it over and over again. The way
was generally across Lincoln Park, in Chicago; and all of a sudden I
was among theatres and lights, and it was London!"
"And you were an actress. And the audience showered bouquets!"
"I always woke up before I was an actress. But now I'm here really, I
mean to try to wake London up."
"I hope you will," he said. Her faith in herself was a little
infectious, since she was beautiful. If she had been plain, he would
have considered her conceited.
"Have I gushed?" she said, colouring.
He was not sure but what she had.
"She's like her father," said Cheriton gaily; "get her on the subject
of art, and her tongue runs away with her. We're all children, we
artists--up in the skies, or down in the dumps. No medium with us! She
must recite to _you_ one of these days, Heriot; I want you to hear her."
"Will you, Miss Cheriton?"
"If you like," she said.
"Dear Mamie must recite to _me_," murmured Mrs. Baines; "I'm quite
looking forward to it. What sort of pieces do you say, dear? Nice
pieces?"
"She knows the parts of Juliet, and Rosalind, and Pauline by heart,"
said Cheriton, ignoring his sister. "I think you'll say her Balcony
Scene is almost as fine a rendering as you've ever heard. There's a
delicacy, a spiritual----"
"Has she been trained?" asked Heriot; "I understood she was quite a
novice."
"I've coached her myself," replied Cheriton complacently. "I don't
pretend to be an elocutionist, of course; but I've been able to give
her some hints. All the arts are related, you know, my boy--it's only
a difference in the form of expression. They're playing _Romeo and
Juliet_ at the theatre here to-night, and we're going; she never loses
an opportunity for study. It's been said that you can learn as much by
watching bad acting as good. Will you come with us?" he added, lowering
his voice. "You'll see how she warms up at the sight of the footlights."
"I don't mind," said Heriot, "if I shan't be in the way. Suppose we all
dine together at the hotel, and go on from there? What do you say?" He
turned to the ladies, and the widow faltered:
"Lor, I'm sure it's very kind of you to invite me, Mr. Heriot. That
_would_ be gay, wouldn't it!"
She smoothed her flat hair tremulously, and left the decision to her
brother and her niece.
Heriot took his leave with the understanding that he was to expect
them, and sauntered along the Parade more cheerfully than was his wont.
The girl had not failed to impress him, though he disapproved of her
tendencies; nor did these appear quite so preposterous to him now,
albeit he thought them regrettable. He did not know whether he believed
in her or not yet, but he was conscious that he wished to do so. His
paramount reflection was that she would have been a wholly charming
girl if she had had ordinary advantages--a finishing governess, and a
London season, and a touch of conventionality. He disliked to use the
word "conventionality," for it sounded priggish; but "conventionality"
was what he meant.
At dinner, however, and more especially after it, he forgot his
objections. In the theatre he watched Miss Cheriton more attentively
than the stage. She herself sat with her eyes riveted on it, and he
could see that she was the prey to strong excitement. He wondered
whether this was created by the performance, which seemed to him
indifferent, or by the thoughts that it awoke, and he resolved to ask
her. When the curtain fell, and they went out, he wasn't sorry that
Cheriton derided his suggestion of a cab and declared that the walk
back would be agreeable. He kept by the girl's side, and the others
followed.
She did not speak, and after a minute he said:
"Will it jar upon you if I say, 'Let us talk'?"
She turned to him with a slight start.
"Of course not! How can you think me so ridiculous?"
"Yet it did!" said Heriot; "I could see."
"I know exactly how I appear," she said constrainedly. "I look an
affected idiot. If you knew how I hate to appear affected! I give
you my word I don't put it on; I can't help it. The theatre gives me
hot and cold shivers, and turns me inside out. That isn't prettily
expressed, but it describes what I mean as nearly as possible. Am I
'enthusing' again?"
"I never said you 'enthused' before. You're not my idea of--of 'the
gushing girl' at all."
"I'm glad to hear it. I was very ashamed when you had gone this
afternoon." She hesitated painfully. "I wish I could explain myself,
but I can't--without a pen. I can write what I feel much better than I
can say it. I began to write a play once, and the girl said just what
I felt. It was a bad play, but a big relief. I've sometimes thought
that if I walked about with a pen in my hand, I should be a good
conversationalist."
"Try to tell me what you feel without one," said Heriot.
"You encourage me to bore you. Mr. Heriot, I yearn, I crave, to do
something clever. It isn't only vanity: half the craving is born of
the desire to live among clever people. Ever since I can remember
I've ached to know artists, and actors, and people who write, and do
things. I've been cooped among storekeepers without an idea in their
heads; I've never seen a man or woman of talent in my life, excepting
my father; I've never heard anybody speak who knew what art or ambition
meant. You may laugh, but if I had it, I would give five hundred
dollars to go home with some of those actresses to-night, and sit mum
in a corner and listen to them."
"Don't you think it very likely you might be disappointed?" he asked.
"I don't. I don't expect they would talk blank-verse at supper, but
they would talk of their work, of their hopes. An artist must be an
artist always--on the stage, or off it; in his studio, or in his club.
My father is an instance: he could not be a philistine if he tried. He
once said something I've always remembered; he said: 'God gave me my
soul, child; circumstances gave me an hotel.' I thought it happily put."
Heriot perceived that Cheriton had thought so too, as the "impromptu"
had been repeated.
"What a different world we should have lived in by now if he had kept
in his profession!" she exclaimed. "I quiver when I realise what I've
missed. People that I only know through their books, or the newspapers,
would have been familiar friends. I should have seen Swinburne smoking
cigars in our parlour; and Sarah Bernhardt would have dropped in to tea
and chatted about the rehearsal she had just left, and showed me the
patterns of the new costumes she was ordering. Isn't it wonderful?"
In sympathy for her he said:
"It's possible your father might have remained in England without
becoming intimate with celebrities."
She looked doubtful. "Even if he hadn't--and one likes to believe
in one's own father--the atmosphere would have been right. They
mightn't have been Swinburnes and Bernhardts that were at home in our
place--they might have been people the world hasn't heard of yet. But
they would have talked of the time when the world was _going_ to hear
of them. One can respect an obscure genius as much as a famous one."
They had reached the door of Belle Vue Mansion; and when he was
begged to go in for half an hour, Heriot did not demur. They had the
drawing-room to themselves now, and Cheriton descanted with relish
on the qualifications for a successful actress. He had no knowledge
of the subject, but possessed great fluency, and he spoke of "broad
effects," and "communicable emotion," and "what he might call a matter
of perspective" with an authority which came near to disguising the
fact that there was little or no meaning in what he said. The girl sat
pale and attentive, and Mrs. Baines listened vaguely, as she might have
done to a discourse in Chinese. Relatives who came back from America
and invited her to stay with them in a house where she cost two guineas
a week, must be treated with deference; but the stage and the circus
were of equal significance to her mind, and she would have simpered
just as placidly if her niece had been anxious to jump through a hoop.
Her chief emotion was pride at being in a room with a barrister who,
she had learnt, was the brother of a baronet; and she watched him
furtively, with the anticipation of describing the event in Lavender
Street, Wandsworth, where the magnate was a gentleman who travelled in
a brougham, and haberdashery.
"Would it be inconsiderate to ask you to recite to-night, Miss
Cheriton?" inquired Heriot. "Don't, if you are too tired."
She rose at once, as if compelling herself to subdue reluctance, and
moved towards the bay of the window slowly. For a second or two after
she stood there she did not speak, only her lips trembled. Then she
began Portia's speech on Mercy. In recitation her voice had the slight
tremolo that is natural to many beginners who feel deeply; but its
quality was delicious, and her obvious earnestness was not without
effect. Conscious that her gestures were stiff, she had chosen a
speech that demanded little action, and it was not until she came to
"Therefore, Jew, though justice be thy plea," that her hands, which
she had clasped lightly in front of her, fell apart. With the change
of position she seemed to acquire a dignity and confidence that made
the climax triumphant, and though Heriot could see that she had much to
learn, his compliments were sincere.
When he bade her good-night, she looked at him appealingly.
"Tell me the truth," she said under her breath; "I've only had my
father's opinion. Tell me the truth!"
"I honestly believe you're clever," he answered. "I'm sure of it." He
felt his words to be very cold compared with the sympathy that was
stirring in him.
The proprietress, who had entered, hovered about with an eye on the
gas, and he repeated his adieux hurriedly. The interest that he already
took in the question of Miss Cheriton's success surprised him. The
day had had a charm that was new, and he found that he was eagerly
anticipating the morrow.