She betook herself to the Queen's next morning less buoyantly than
she had anticipated. Her meeting with Heriot had depressed her. She
retained much of the nature of a child, and laughed or cried very
easily. She had met Heriot laughing, and he had been serious and sad.
With some petulance she felt that it was very unfortunate for her that
he had fallen in love with her, and chosen that particular day to tell
her so.
She entered the stage-door with no presentiment of conquest, and
inquired of the man in the little recess if Mr. Casey was in the
theatre. Stage-door keepers are probably the surliest class in
existence. They have much to try them, and they spend their official
lives in a violent draught; but if there is a stage-door keeper sweet
and sunny in his home, he provides an interesting study for the
dramatic authors.
The man took her measure in an instant, saving in one particular--she
was prepared to give him a shilling and he did not guess it.
"Mr. Casey's on the stage," he said; "he won't be disturbed now."
"If I waited, do you think I might see him?"
"I couldn't tell you, I'm sure."
He resumed his perusal of a newspaper, and Mamie looked at him through
the aperture helplessly. There was the usual knot of loafers about
the step--a scene-hand or two in their shirt-sleeves; a girl in her
pathetic best dress, also hoping for miracles; a member of the company,
who had slipped out from rehearsal to smoke a cigarette.
Cerberus was shown where his estimate had been at fault. He said "Miss"
now: "If you write your business on one of these forms, Miss, I'll send
it in to Mr. Casey."
He gave her a stump of pencil, and a printed slip, specially designed
to scare intruders. She wrote her name, and Mr. Casey's name, and could
find no scope for euphemisms regarding the nature of the interview she
sought. She added, "To obtain engagement as extra lady," and returned
the paper with embarrassment; she was sufficiently unsophisticated in
such matters to assume that her object had not been divined.
"'Ere, Bill!" One of the scene-hands turned. "Take it in to Mr. Casey
for this lady."
The man addressed as Bill departed through a second door with a grunt
and a bang, and she waited expectantly. The girl in her best frock
sneered; she could not afford to dispense shillings, herself, and
already her feet ached. The door swung back constantly. At intervals
of a few seconds a stream of nondescripts issued from the unknown
interior, and Mamie stood watching for the features of her messenger.
It was nearly a quarter of an hour before he reappeared.
"Mr. Casey can't see you," he announced.
The stage-door keeper heard the intelligence with absolute
indifference; but the girl on the step looked gratified.
"What shall I do?" asked Mamie.
"I can't do no more than send in for you, Miss. It ain't much good your
waiting--the call won't be over till three o'clock."
"Could I see him then?"
"He'll come out. If you like to take your chance----"
"I'll come back at three o'clock," she said. It was then eleven.
She turned into the Strand--the Strand that has broken more hearts than
Fleet Street. Here a young actor passed her, who was also pacing the
inhospitable pavements until the hour in which he hoped to see patience
and importunity bear fruit. He wore a fashionable overcoat, and swung
his cane with a gloved hand. Presently he would seek a public-house
and lunch on a scone, and a glass of "mild-and-bitter." If he had
"bitter," he would be a halfpenny short in his homeward fare to Bow.
There a musical comedy actress went by, who had "married a swell."
His family had been deeply wounded, and showed their mortification by
allowing her to support him. She had had three children; and when he
was drunk, which was frequently, he said, "God forbid that they should
ever become damned mummers like their mother!" A manager had just told
her that "she had lost her figure, and wouldn't look the part!" and she
was walking back to Islington, where the brokers were in the house. A
popular comedian, who had been compelled to listen to three separate
tales of distress between Charing Cross and Bedford Street, and had
already lent unfortunate acquaintances thirty shillings, paused, and
hailed a hansom from motives of economy. It was the typical crowd
of the Strand, a crowd of the footlights. The men whose positions
had been won were little noticeable, but the gait and costume of
the majority--affected Youth, and disheartened Age--indicated their
profession to the least experienced eyes. Because she grew very tired,
and not that she had any expectation of hearing good news, Mamie went
into Mr. Passmore's office, and sat down.
And she did not hear any. After an hour she went away, and rested next
in the anteroom of another of the agents, who repeated that "things
were very quiet," and that "he wouldn't forget her." Seven or eight
other girls were waiting their turn to be told the same thing. At a
quarter to three she went back to the Queen's.
"Is he coming out now?" she said. "Am I too soon?"
"Eh?" said the stage-door keeper.
"You told me he'd be out about three. I was asking for Mr. Casey this
morning."
"Oh, were you?" he said. "There's been a good many asking for him since
then." He gradually recalled her. "Mr. Casey's gone," he added; "they
finished early. He won't be here till to-night."
There was a week in which she went to the stage-door of the Queen's
Theatre every day, at all hours, and at last she learnt casually
that as many extra ladies as were required for the production had
been engaged. There were months during which she persisted in her
applications at other stage-doors and hope flickered within her still.
But when September came, and a year had passed since her arrival, the
expiring spark had faded into lassitude. She tried no longer. Only
sometimes, out of the sickness of her soul, the impulse to write was
born, and she picked up a pen.
Then it was definitely decided that she should return to America.
It was characteristic of her that she had no sooner dried her eyes
after the decision than she was restless to return at once; Duluth
was no drearier than Wandsworth. Externally it was even picturesque,
with the blue water and the sunshine, and the streets of white houses
rising in tiers like a theatre; in Duluth the residents "looked down
on one another" literally. The life was appalling, but when all was
said, was it more limited than Aunt Lydia? And if, in lieu of acting,
she dared aspire to dramatic authorship--the thought stirred her
occasionally--she could work as well in Minnesota as in Middlesex.
Cheriton had remitted the amount of her passage, and suggested that she
should sail in a week or two. She had not received the draft two hours
when she went up to town and booked a berth in the next steamer.
When it was done, she posted a note to Heriot, acquainting him with her
intention. His visits had not been discontinued, but he came at much
longer intervals latterly, and she could not go without bidding him
good-bye.
She sat in the Lavender Street parlour the next evening, wondering if
he would come. Almost she hoped that he would not. She had written,
and therefore done her duty. To see him would, in the circumstances,
humiliate her cruelly, she felt. She remembered how she had talked to
him twelve months before--recalled her confidence, her pictures of a
future that she was never to know, and her eyes smarted afresh. She had
even failed to obtain a hearing. "What a fool, what an idiot I look!"
she thought passionately.
Tea was over, but the maid-of-all-work had not removed the things; and
when Heriot entered, the large loaf and the numerous knives, which are
held indispensable to afternoon tea in Lavender Street, were still on
the big round table. The aspect of the room did not strike him any
more. He was familiar with it, like the view of the kitchen when the
front door had been opened, and the glimpse of clothes-line in the yard
beyond.
"May I come in?" he said. "Did you expect me?"
"Lor, it's Mr. Heriot!" said Mrs. Baines. "Fancy!"
She told the servant to take away the teapot, and to bring in another
knife. He wondered vaguely what he was supposed to do with it.
"I thought it likely you'd be here," said Mamie; "won't you sit down?"
"I only had your letter this morning. So you are going away?"
"I am going away. I bow, more or less gracefully, to the inevitable."
"To bow gracefully to the inevitable is strong evidence of the
histrionic gift," he said.
"I came, I saw, I was conquered; please don't talk about it.... It was
only settled yesterday. I sail on Saturday, you know."
"Yes, you wrote me," murmured Heriot. "It's very sudden."
"I'm crazy to do something, if only to confess myself beaten."
"May I offer you a cup o' tea, Mr. Heriot?" asked Mrs. Baines.
She always "offered" cups of tea, and was indebted to neighbours for
their "hospitality."
He thanked her.
"You will miss your niece?" he said, declining a place at the table, to
which she had moved a chair.
"Yes, I'm sure!" she answered. "I say now it's a pity she didn't go
with her father last October. Going in a vessel by herself, oh, dear! I
say I wouldn't have got accustomed to having her with me if she'd gone
with her father. Though that's neither here nor there!"
"Yes, I think you may believe you'll be missed, Miss Cheriton," he said.
"I say it's very odd she couldn't be an actress as she wanted,"
continued Mrs. Baines. "Seems so unfortunate with all the trouble that
she took. But lor, my dear, we can't see what lies ahead of us, and
perhaps it's all for the best! I say perhaps it's all for the best, Mr.
Heriot, eh? Dear Mamie may be meant to do something different--writing,
or such like; it's not for us to say."
"Have you been writing again?" asked Heriot, turning to the girl.
"A little," she said bitterly. "My vanity dies hard--and Aunt Lydia has
encouraged me."
Heriot looked a reproach; her tone hurt him, though he understood of
what it was the outcome.
"I should be glad if you had encouragement," he replied; "I think you
need it now."
But it hurt him, also, to discuss her pain in the presence of the
intolerable third. He knew that if he remained to supper there would be
a preparatory quarter of an hour in which he was alone with her; and it
was for this quarter of an hour that he hungered, conscious that during
the opening of the lobster-tin two destinies would be determined.
"That's right, Mr. Heriot," said Mrs. Baines placidly. "I'm glad
to hear you say so. That's what I've been telling her. I say she
mustn't be disheartened. Why, it's surprising, I'm sure, how much
seems to be thought of people who write stories and things nowadays;
they seem to make quite a fuss of them, don't they? And I'm certain
dear Mamie could write if she put her mind to it. I was reading in
the paper, _Tit-Bits_, only last week, that there was a book called
_Robert Ellis_, or some such name, that made the author quite talked
about. Now, I read the piece out to you, dear, didn't I? A book about
religion, it was, by a lady; and I'm sure dear Mamie knows as much
about religion as anyone."
"My aunt means _Robert Elsmere_," said Mamie, in a laboured voice. "You
may have heard it mentioned?"
"You mustn't expect Mr. Heriot to know much about it," said Mrs.
Baines; "Mr. Heriot is so busy a gentleman that very likely he doesn't
hear of these things. But I assure you, Mr. Heriot, the story seems to
have been read a great deal; and what I say is, if dear Mamie can't be
an actress, why shouldn't she write books, if she wants to do something
of the sort? I wonder my brother didn't teach her to paint, with her
notions and that--but, not having learnt, I say she ought to write
books. That's the thing for her--a nice pen and ink, and her own home."
"I agree with you, Mrs. Baines. If she wants to write, she can do that
in her own home."
"Not to compare it with such a profession as yours, Mr. Heriot," she
said, "which, of course, is sensible and grave. But girls can't be
barristers, and----"
"Will you open the window for me?" exclaimed Mamie; "it's frightfully
warm, don't you think so?"
She stood there with her head thrown back, and closed eyes, her foot
tapping the floor restlessly.
"Are you wishing you hadn't come?" she asked under her breath.
"Why?"
"One must suffer to be polite here."
"Aren't you a little unjust?" said Heriot deprecatingly.
"You have it for an hour," she muttered; "_I_ have had it for twelve
months. Have you ever wanted to shriek? _I_ wanted to shriek just now,
violently!"
"I know you did," he said. "Well, it's nearly over.... Are you glad?"
"Yes, and no--I can't say. If----"
"Won't you go on?"
"If I dared hope to do anything else.... But I'm not going to talk like
that any more! I'm ridiculous enough already."
"To whom are you ridiculous?"
"To my own perception--you!"
"Not to me," he said.
"'Pathetic'? Yes, to you I'm 'pathetic.' You pity me as you might pity
a lunatic who imagined she was the Queen of England."
"I think you know," said Heriot diffidently, "that neither the Queen
nor a lunatic inspires in me quite the feeling that I have for you."
She changed her position, and spoke at random.
"This street is awfully stupid, isn't it?" she said. "Look at that man
going up the steps!"
"Yes, he is very stupid, I daresay. What of it?"
"He is a clerk," she said; "and wheels his babies out on Sunday."
"Mamie!"
"Come and talk to Aunt Lydia again. How rude we are!"
"I want to talk to _you_," he demurred. "Aren't you going to ask me to
stay to supper?"
The suggestion came from the widow almost at the same moment.
"I think we had better have the lamp," she went on. "The days are
drawing in fast, Mr. Heriot, aren't they? We shall soon have winter
again. Do you like the long evenings, or the long afternoons best? Just
about now I always say that I can't bear to think of having to begin
lighting up at five or six o'clock--it seems so unnatural; and then,
next summer, somehow I feel quite lost, not being able to let down
the blinds and light the lamp for tea. Mamie, dear, shut the window,
and let down the blinds before I light the lamp--somebody might see
in!" She suggested the danger in the same tone in which she might have
apprehended a burglary.
Under a glass shade a laggard clock ticked drearily towards the crisis,
and Heriot provoked its history by the eagerness with which he looked
to see the time. It had been a wedding-present from "poor dear Edward's
brother," and only one clockmaker had really understood it. The man had
died, and since then----
He listened, praying for the kitchen to engulf her.
When she withdrew at last, with an apology for leaving him, he rose,
and went to the girl's side.
"Do you know why I came this afternoon?" he said.
She did know--had known it in the moment that he opened the window for
her:
"To say 'good-bye,'" she murmured.
"I came to beg you not to go! Dearest, what do you relinquish by
marrying me now? Not the stage--your hope of the stage is over; not
your ambition in itself--you can be ambitious as my wife. You lose
nothing, and you give--a heaven. Mamie, won't you stay?"
She leant on the mantelpiece without speaking. In the pause, Mrs.
Baines' voice reached them distinctly, as she said, "Put the brawn on a
smaller dish."
"You are forgetting. There was ... a reason besides the stage."
"It is you who've forgotten. I told you I would be content.... It
wouldn't be repugnant to you?"
"To refuse while I thought I had a future, and to say 'yes,' now
that----How can you ask me? It would be an insult to your love."
"I do ask you," he urged; "I implore."
"You implore me to be contemptible. You would have a disappointed woman
for your wife. You deserve something better than that."
"Oh, my God," said Heriot, in a low voice, "if I could only tell you
how I ache to take you in my arms--as softly as if you were a child!
If I could tell you what it is to me to know that you are passing out
of my life and that in two days' time I shall never see you again!...
Mamie?"
The heavy shuffle of the servant was heard in the passage.
"Mamie?" he repeated desperately. "It will be worse over there."
Her eyes were big with perplexity and doubt.
"Mamie?"
"Are you sure you--sure----"
"I love you; I want you. Only trust me!... Mamie?"
"If you're quite sure you wish it," she faltered,--"yes!"