The appointment was for five o'clock, and Kate would have liked to remain
on the pier with Dick enjoying the summer evening, but he seemed so intent
on returning to their lodging that she did not like to oppose his wishes,
and she allowed herself to be led all the way up the dusty town to their
close, hot rooms that she might try over Fredegonde's music. That he should
wish to hear her voice again in this music flattered her, but she rose from
the piano, her face aflame, when he began to mention an appointment.
'It's too bad of you, Dick, to bring me home and then remember an
appointment.'
Dick overflowed with mellifluous excuses which did not seem to allay Kate's
anger, and as he hurried down the street it occurred to him that he might
have thought of a better reason than Fredegonde for bringing her home.
However this might be, his thoughts were now with Montgomery and Mrs.
Forest rather than with Kate, and it was not till he drew the latchkey from
his pocket that Kate's singing of the waltz returned to him: he ascended
the stairs singing it.
'I think it will work out all right.'
'What will work out all right? You're an hour later than you said you'd
be.'
'Never mind about the hour,' he answered and began to weave a story about
his meeting with a pal from London, as he was leaving the pier the other
day: he hadn't spoken to her about it before, not caring to do so until
something definite had happened.
'What has happened?' Kate asked, and Dick, his face aglow, related how the
pal had spoken of a great revival of interest in comic opera, especially in
French music, and that many city men with plenty of money were on the
lookout for somebody who knew how to produce this class of work and was in
sympathy with the Folies Dramatiques tradition.
Kate, who believed everything that Dick told her, listened with a
heightened temperature. At Margate the admirer of Hervé's music became an
American who wished to see _Chilpéric, Trône d'Écosse, Le Petit Faust,
L'Oeil Crevé, Marguerite de Navarre_, reproduced as they had been
produced under the composer's direction when Dick was stage-manager at that
theatre. The American was interested in Hervé; for he not only wrote the
music but also the words of his operas. Hervé was, therefore, the Wagner of
light comic opera. And if the new venture received sufficient support from
the public Dick would like to add other works by Hervé--_La Belle
Poule_ and _Le Hussard Persecuté_--and having puzzled Kate with
many titles and an imaginary biography of this musical American he fell to
telling her of Blanche D'Antigny, singing all the little tunes he could
remember and branching off into an account of _Le Canard à Trois
Becs_. This last opera was not by Hervé, but the American liked it and
might be persuaded to produce it later on.
'It contained a part,' he said, 'in which Kate would succeed in
establishing herself one of London's favourites;' but his praise of her
singing and acting set her wondering if he were gulling her once more, or
if he still believed in her. It might be that her continued sobriety had
reawakened his old love for her, and she remembered suddenly that she had
never really cared for drink, and never would have touched drink if Dick
had not driven her mad with jealousy. And the fact that her voice had
returned to her helped her to believe that Dick was sincere when he told
her that she would be a better Fredegonde than Blanche D'Antigny, who
created the part originally. Montgomery endorsed this view one evening; he
refused to take 'no' for an answer: she must sing the score through with
him, and several times he stopped playing; and looking up in her face told
her he had never known a voice to improve so rapidly and so suddenly. Dick
nodded his acquiescence in Montgomery's opinion and hoped there would be no
more need to tell Kate lies once she was settled in a lodging behind the
Cattle Market. But in this he was mistaken, for in London the need to keep
up the fiction of Hervé's American admirer was more necessary than at
Margate. Dick had to relate his different quests every evening. He had been
after the Lyceum, but was unable to get an answer from the lessee; he hoped
to get one next week; and when next week came he spoke about the Royalty
and the Adelphi and the Haymarket, neglecting, however, to mention the
theatre in which he hoped to produce Laura's opera. 'The large stage of the
Lyceum would be excellently well suited,' he said, 'for a fine production
of _Chilpéric_,' and he besought Kate to apply herself to the study of
the part of Fredegonde. His imagination led him into dreams of an English
company going over to Paris with all Hervé's works, and Kate obliterating
the Blanche D'Antigny tradition. Kate listened delighted, discovering in
Dick's praise of her singing a hope that his love of her had survived the
many tribulations it had been through; and while listening she vowed she
would never touch drink again. Nor did her happiness vanish till morning,
till she saw him struggling into his greatcoat, and foresaw the long
dividing hours. But he had said so many kind things overnight that she was
behoven to stifle complaint, and bore with her loneliness all day long
refusing food, for without Dick's presence food had no pleasure for her,
however hungry she might be. She would wait contented hour after hour if
she could have him to herself when he returned. But sometimes he would
bring back a friend with him, and the pair would sit up talking of women
and their aptitudes in different parts. As none of them were known
personally to Kate, the names they mentioned suggested only new causes for
jealousy, and the thought that Dick was living among all these women while
she was hidden away in this lodging from night till morning, from morning
till night, maddened her. It seemed to her that having been out all day
Dick might at least reserve his evenings for her; and one night she showed
the man he had brought back to supper plainly that his absence would, so
far as she was concerned, have been preferable to his company. 'I wouldn't
have come back,' he said, 'only Dick insisted;' and interrupting his regrets
that she did not like him, she said: 'It isn't that I don't like you, but
you're used to women who aren't in love with their husbands, and I'm in
love with mine.' The friend repeated Kate's words to Dick, who said he
hadn't a moment till the cast of the new piece was settled, and a few
nights later he brought back some music which he said he would like her to
try over. 'But it's manuscript, Dick. Why don't you bring home the printed
score?' The lie that came to his lips was that the score of _Trône
d'Écosse_ had never been printed, and this seeming to her very unlikely
she said she didn't care whether it had or hadn't, but was tired of living
in Islington, and would like to see something of the London of which she
had heard so much.
'I've been in London all my life,' Dick said, 'and I haven't been to the
Tower or to St. Paul's. However, dear, if you'd like to see them we'll
visit all these places together as soon as _Chilpéric_ is produced.'
With this promise he consoled her in a measure, and she watched Dick depart
and then took up a novel and read it till she could read no longer. She
then went out for a little walk, but soon returned, finding it wearisome to
be always asking the way. So forlorn and lost did she seem that even the
fat landlady, the mother of the ten children who clattered about the head
of the kitchen staircase, took pity upon her and told her the number of the
bus that would bring her to the British Museum, assuring her that she would
find a great deal there to distract her attention.
It did not matter to her where she went if Dick wasn't with her; without
Dick all places were the same to her, and the British Museum would do as
well as any other place. She must go somewhere, and the British Museum
would do as well as the Tower or St. Paul's. There were things to be seen,
and she didn't mind what she saw as long as she saw something new. She
couldn't look any longer at the two pictures on the walls--"With The
Stream" and "Against The Stream," the wax fruit, the mahogany sideboard,
the dingy furniture, the torn curtains; and of all she must get out of
hearing of the children and the surly landlady, who a few minutes ago was
less surly, and had told her of the British Museum, and all the wonderful
things that were to be seen there. But she hadn't the bus fare, and didn't
like to ask the landlady for a few pence. As long as she hadn't any money
she was out of temptation, and it was by her own wish that Dick left her
without money. As she walked to and fro she caught sight of his clothes
thrown over the back of a chair in the bedroom; and he might have left a
few pence in one of his pockets.
She searched the trousers; how careless Dick was: several shillings: one,
two, three, four, five. Five and sixpence. She would take sixpence. As she
walked out of the bedroom clinking the coppers the desire to read his
letters fell upon her, and yielding to it she put her hand into the inside
pocket of his coat and drew from it a packet of letters and some papers,
manuscripts, poems.
'Now, who,' she asked, 'can have been sending him these _Classical
Cartoons_, number four?'
She read of heroes, the glory of manhood collected along the shores of the
terrible river that guards the dominions of Pluto. She knew nothing of
Pluto, but recognized the handwriting as a woman's, and the lines:
'Zeus, the monarch of heaven, clothed in the form of a
mortal,
Kneeling, caressed and caressing, drank from her lips
joy and love-draughts,'
caused Kate to dash the manuscript from her. A letter accompanied the poem
and read:
'My dear, nothing can be done without you, and if you don't come at once we
shall miss getting a theatre this season, and without a theatre we are
helpless.'
Kate did not need to read any more. The letter left no doubt that Dick was
engaged in an intrigue with a woman who had written some play or opera
which he was going to produce, and the envelope out of which she had taken
the letter bore the direction: 'Richard Lennox, Esq., Post Restante,
Margate.'
'So it was lies all the while at Margate,' she said to herself, walking
about the room, stopping now and again to stare at some object which she
did not see. 'There was no American, and no _Chilpéric_, no _Trône
d'Écosse_, no _L'Oeil Crevé_, no _La Belle Poule_, no _Marguerite de
Navarre_. Lies, lies! Nothing but lies! He never intended to produce one of
them, or that I should play "Fredegonde." Lies! Lies! And the great part in
_Le Canard à Trois Becs_ which would establish my reputation in London.
Lies! He never intended to produce one of these operas,' she cried. 'He
shut me up here in this lodging so that I should be out of the way while he
carried on with that What's-her-name.'
Her brain at that instant seemed to catch fire, and snatching up some money
from the mantelpiece, she rushed out of the house tumbling over the
children as she made her way to the front door without hat or jacket. The
sunlight awoke her and she looked round puzzled, and only just escaped
being run over by a passing cart. In front of her was a public-house.
Drink! She went in and drank till she recovered her reason and began to
lose it again.
A 'bottle of gin, please,' she said, and put the money on the counter and
returned to her lodging almost mad with jealousy and rage and thirst for
revenge. 'No, she wouldn't drink any more, for if she were to drink any
more she'd not be able to have it out with Dick, and this time she would
have it out with him and no mistake. If he were to kill her it didn't
matter; but she would have it out with him.' As she sat by the table
waiting hour after hour for him to return, her whole mind was expressed by
the words--'I'll have it out with him'--and she didn't weary of repeating
them, for it seemed to her that they kept her resolution from dying: what
she feared most was that his presence might quell her resolution. To have
it out with him as she was minded, she mustn't be drunk, nor yet too sober.
He might bring home a friend with him, but that wouldn't stay her hand.
Montgomery too had deceived her. Dick was rehearsing his opera; he had
written music for that Mrs. Forest, and this was the end of their
friendship.
Many hours went by, but they didn't seem long, passion gave her patience.
At last a sound of footsteps caused her to start to her feet. It was Dick.
'This is going to be an all-night affair,' he said to himself as soon as he
crossed the threshold. 'I hope you didn't wait supper for me?' His manner
was most conciliatory, and perhaps it was that conciliatory manner that
inflamed her.
'Business, I suppose; I know damned well what your business was: I know all
about it, you and your woman, Mrs. Forest; the theatre she's taken for you;
where you are rehearsing Montgomery's opera. You cannot deny it,' she
cried. 'Mrs. Forest is her name,' and reading in his face certain signs of
his culpability her anger increased, her teeth were set and her eyes
glared.
Dick feared she was going mad, and with an instinctive movement he put out
his arms to restrain her.
'Don't touch me! don't touch me!' she screamed, and struck at him with
clenched fists, and then feeling that her blows were but puny she went for
him like a bird of prey, all her fingers distended.
'Take that, and that, and that, you beast! Oh, you beast! you beast! you
beast!'
Her shrieks rang through the house as she pursued him round the furniture;
he retreating like a lumbering bull striving to escape from her claws.
'How do you like that?' she cried, as she tore at him with her nails again.
'That will teach you to go messing about after other women. I'll settle you
before I've done with you.'
Chairs were thrown down, the coal-scuttle was upset, and at last, as Dick
tried to get out of the room, Kate stumbled against a rosewood cabinet,
sending one of the green vases with its glass shade crashing to the ground,
summoning the landlady.
Dick spoke about his wife having had a fit.
'Fit or no fit, I hope you'll leave my house to-morrow.'
'Meanwhile,' Dick answered, 'will you leave my room?' and he shut the door
in the face of the indignant householder.
Kate, who had now recovered herself a little, poured out a large glass of
raw gin, and to her surprise Dick made no attempt to prevent her drinking
it.
'As soon as she drinks herself helpless the better,' he thought, as he went
into the bedroom to attend to his wounds. The scratches she had given him
before their marriage were nothing to these. One side of his nose was
well-nigh ripped open, and there were two big, deep gashes running right
across his face, from the cheek-bone to his ear. It was very lucky, he
thought, she hadn't had his eye out, and it might be as well to go round to
the apothecary's and get some vaseline, some antiseptic treatment, for
nails are poisonous, he added, and his eyes going round the room caught
sight of his clothes in disorder. 'Ah! she has been at my clothes,' and he
took up the classical cartoons and his letters and put them away into his
pocket, and went into the sitting room, and tried to explain to his wife
that he was going out to see if he could get something from the apothecary
to heal the wounds she had given him.
Kate did not answer. 'She's dead drunk,' he said, and it seemed to him that
he couldn't do better than to undress her and put her into bed, and when he
had done this he lay down upon a sofa hoping that he would wake first, and
be able to get out of the house without disturbing her, leaving word with
the landlady that he would come back as soon as his rehearsal was over, and
make arrangements to leave her house since she didn't wish them to stay any
longer. He fell asleep thinking that he might find his landlady in a
different mood, and might persuade her in the morning to allow them to stay
on. The vase, of course, should be paid for. There was a kindly look in her
pleasant country face when she wasn't angry; his torn face might win her
pity, and not wishing to increase his troubles, she would probably allow
them to stay on; if she didn't he would have to find another lodging that
very afternoon, which would be unfortunate, for his engagements were many.
As it was he'd have to hasten to keep an appointment which he had made with
Mrs. Forest in the National Gallery. 'She really will have to make some
alterations in her second act,' he said, going to the glass. Kate had
clawed him with a vengeance, and he'd have to tell Laura how he came by his
torn face; and after some consideration it seemed to him that it would be
well to admit that he had received these wounds in a conflict with a wife
who was, unfortunately, given to drink. It was on these thoughts he fell
asleep, and overslept himself, he feared, but Kate was still asleep, and
without awakening her he stole downstairs to visit the landlady in her
parlour, but hearing his step she bounced out of the room with a view, no
doubt, to repeating the warning she had given him overnight, but the sight
of his torn face brought pity into hers, and she said:
'Oh, Mr. Lennox, I'm so sorry for you.'
A little sympathetic conversation followed; and Dick went off to meet
Laura, whom he recognized in the woman who leaned over the railings between
the pillars, seemingly attracted by the view across Trafalgar Square. She
still wore her green silk dress, the one which he had first seen her in on
the pier at Hastings, and the long draggled feather boa.
'She doesn't spend money on dress,' he thought as he lifted his hat with
not quite the same ceremonious gesture as usual, for he didn't wish to
exhibit his scars yet.
'So here you are, Dick, and I waiting for you on the steps of this gallery,
glorious with all the imaginations of the heroes.'
'She hasn't seen the scratches yet,' he said to himself, and turned from
the light instinctively, preferring that she should make the discovery
indoors, rather than out of doors. His wounds would appear less in the
gallery than in the open air. 'Why didn't she take a little more trouble
with her make-up?' he asked himself, and then reproved himself for
describing it as a make-up. 'She's not made up,' he said to himself, 'she's
painted,' and he wondered how it was that she could plaster her dark skin
so flagrantly with carmine, and put her eyebrows so high up in the
forehead. 'Yet the face,' he said, 'is a finely moulded one, and compelling
when she forgets her cosmetics,' and while Dick regretted that she didn't
show more skill with these, he heard her telling him that she would prefer
to stop and talk with him in the gallery devoted to the Italian pictures
than elsewhere; 'the sublime conceptions of Raphael raise me above myself.'
And then, as if afraid that her words would seem vainglorious to Dick, she
said: 'You're always in the same mood, never rising above yourself or
sinking below yourself, finding it difficult to understand the pain that
those who live mostly in the spiritual plane experience lest they fall into
a lower plane. Not that I regard you, Dick, as a lower plane, but your
plane is not mine, and that is why you're so necessary to me, and why,
perhaps, I'm so necessary to you, or would be if I'm not. Come, let us sit
here in front of the Raphael and talk, since we must, of comic opera. It's
a pity we're not talking of the _Parcoe_ who have been in my mind all
the morning,' and she began to recite some verses that she had written.
But, interrupting herself suddenly, she cried: 'Dick, who has been
scratching you? How did your face get torn like that--who's been scratching
you?' and Dick answered:
'My wife.'
'Your wife? But you never told me that you were married.'
'If I'd told you I was married I would have had to tell you that my wife is
a drunkard and is rapidly drinking herself to death, a thing that no man
likes to speak about.'
'My poor friend, I didn't mean to reprove you. How did all this come
about?'
It wouldn't do to admit that Kate had discovered Laura's letters and poems
in his pockets, and so he told the story of a former experience with his
wife, and had barely finished it when Laura begged of him to tell her how
he had met his wife. And when he had told her the story, to which she
listened solemnly, she answered, and there was the same gravity in her
voice as in her face: 'All this comes, my dear Dick, of lewdness.'
'But, Laura, I was faithful to my wife.'
'But she was the wife of another man,' Laura replied, 'not that that is an
insuperable barrier, but you brought, I fear, lewdness into your conjugal
life, and lewdness is fatal to happiness whether it be indulged within or
outside the bonds of wedlock. I'm sorry,' she said, 'that you had to leave
Yarmouth before my lecture on the chastity of the marriage state.'
'It wouldn't have mattered,' Dick replied, 'for my wife had taken to drink
long before we met at Hastings.' An answer that darkened Laura's face
despite all the paint she wore, and encouraged Dick to ask her if she had
never felt the thorns of passion prick her when she ran away from her
convent school.
She seemed uncertain what answer she should return, but only for a moment;
and recovering herself quickly she maintained that it wasn't passion, which
is but another name for lewdness, but imagination that had prompted this
elopement, and that if she had gone to Bulgaria it was to seek there a
nobler life than the one she had left behind.
'It was the immortal that drew me,' she said.
'Even so,' Dick answered, 'the mortal seems necessary for the immortal, and
to provide him with a habitation a woman must give herself to a man.'
'That,' she replied, 'is one of the penalties entailed by our first parents
upon women, but one that is entailed upon a condition that you have not
respected, but which I have striven always to respect myself. It would be
impossible for me to give myself to a man unless I thought I was going to
bear him a child.'
It was on Dick's lips to remind Laura that a woman can always think she is
going to bear a child, but he refrained, it seeming to him that his purpose
would be better served by allowing Laura to justify herself as she pleased,
and he waited for an opportunity to speak to her about the alteration which
he deemed altogether necessary in the second act. But Laura was away on her
favourite theme, and in the end he had recourse to his watch.
'My dear Laura, I'm due at rehearsal in ten minutes from now.'
'Well, let's go,' she cried.
'But, my dear, this is what I've come to tell you. The second act,'--and he
explained the difficulty which would have to be removed. 'Now, like a dear,
good girl, will you go home and do this and bring it down to the theatre
to-morrow morning at eleven so that we may have an opportunity of going
through it together before rehearsal?'
In the meantime, Kate lay on her bed, helpless as ever, just as Dick had
left her; and it was not until he had given his preliminary instructions to
the ballet-girls, and Montgomery had struck the first notes of his opening
chorus, that a ray of consciousness pierced through the heavy, drunken
stupor that pressed upon her brain. With vague movements of hands, she
endeavoured to fasten the front of her dress, and with a groan rolled
herself out of the light; but her efforts to fall back into insensibility
were unavailing, and like the dawn that slips and swells through the veils
of night, a pale waste of consciousness forced itself upon her. First came
the curtains of the bed, then the bare blankness of the wall, and then the
great throbbing pain that lay like a lump of lead just above her forehead.
Her mouth was clammy as if it were filled with glue, her limbs weak as if
they had been beaten to a pulp by violent blows. She was all pain, but,
worse still, a black horror of her life crushed and terrified her, until
she buried her face in the pillow and wept and moaned for mercy. But to
remain in bed was impossible. The pallor of the place was intolerable, and
sliding her legs over the side she stood, scarcely able to keep her feet.
The room swam as if in a mist; she held her head with clasped hands; the
top of it seemed to be lifting off, and it was with much difficulty that
she staggered as far as the chest of drawers, where she remained for some
minutes trying to recover herself, thinking of what had happened overnight.
She had been drunk, she knew that, but where was Dick? Where had he gone?
What had she said to him? All mental effort was agony; but she had to
think, and straining at the threads of memory, she strove to follow one to
the end. But it was no use, it soon became hopelessly entangled, and with a
low cry she moaned, 'Oh, my poor head! my poor head! I cannot, cannot
remember.' But the question: what has become of Dick? still continued to
torture her, till, raising her face suddenly from her arm, she hitched up
her falling skirts, and seeing at that moment the bottle on the table, she
went into the sitting-room and poured herself out a little, which she mixed
with water.
'Just a drop,' she murmured to herself, 'to pull me together. It was his
fault; until he put me in a passion I was all right.'
Spreading and definite thoughts began to emerge, and for a long time she
sat moodily thinking over her wrongs, and as her thoughts wavered they grew
softer and more argumentative. She considered the question from all sides,
and, reasoning with herself, was disposed to conclude that it was not all
her fault. If she did drink, it was jealousy that drove her to it. Why
wasn't he faithful to her who had given up everything for him? Why did he
want to be always running after a lot of other women? Where was he now,
she'd like to know? As this question appeared in the lens of her thought,
she raised her head, and although boozed the memory of Mrs. Forest's
letters filled her mind.
'Oh yes, that's where he's gone to, is it?' she murmured to herself. 'So
he's down with his poetess at the Opéra Comique, rehearsing Montgomery's
opera.'
A determination to follow him slowly formed itself in her mind, and she
managed to map out the course that she would have to pursue. It seemed to
her that she was beset with difficulties. To begin with, she did not know
where the theatre was, and she could not conceal from herself the fact that
she was scarcely in a fit state to take a long walk through the London
streets. The spirit drunk on an empty stomach had gone to her head; she
reeled a little when she walked; and her own incapacity to act maddened
her. Oh, good heavens! how her head was splitting! What would she not give
to be all right just for a couple of hours, just long enough to go and tell
that beast of a husband of hers what a pig he was, and let the whole
theatre know how he was treating his wife. It was he who drove her to
drink. Yes, she would go and do this. It was true her head seemed as if it
were going to roll off her shoulders, but a good sponging would do it good,
and then a bottle or two of soda would put her quite straight--so straight
that nobody would know she had touched a drop.
It took Kate about half an hour to drench herself in a basin, and
regardless of her dress, she let her hair lie dripping on her shoulders.
The landlady brought her up the soda-water, and seeing what a state her
lodger was in, she placed it on the table without a word, without even
referring to the notice to quit she had given overnight; and steadying her
voice as best she could, Kate asked her to call a cab.
'Hansom, or four-wheeler?'
'Fo-four wheel-er--if you please.'
'Yes, that'll suit you best,' said the woman, as she went downstairs.
'You'd perhaps fall out of a hansom. If I were your husband I'd break every
bone in your body.'
But Kate was now much soberer, and weak and sick she leaned back upon the
hard cushions of the clattering cab. Her mouth was full of water, and the
shifting angles of the streets produced on her an effect similar to
sea-sickness. London rang in her ears; she could hear a piano tinkling; she
saw Dick directing the movements of a line of girls. Then her dream was
brought to an end by a gulp. Oh! the fearful nausea; and she did not feel
better until, flooding her dress and ruining the red velvet seat, all she
had drunk came up. But the vomit brought her great relief, and had it not
been for a little dizziness and weakness, she would have felt quite right
when she arrived at the stage-door. In a terrible state of dirt and
untidiness she was surely, but she noticed nothing, her mind being now
fully occupied in thinking what she should say, first to the
stage-door-keeper, and then to her husband.
At the corner of Wych Street she dismissed the cab, and this done she did
not seem to have courage enough for anything. She felt as if she would like
to sit down on a doorstep and cry. The menacing threats, the bitter
upbraidings she had intended, all slipped from her like dreams, and she
felt utterly wretched.
At that moment, in her little walk up the pavement she found herself
opposite a public-house. Something whispered in her ear that after her
sickness one little nip of brandy was necessary, and would put her straight
in a moment. She hesitated, but someone pushed her from behind and she went
in. A four of brandy freshened her up wonderfully, enabling her to think of
what she had come to do, and to remember how badly she was being treated. A
second drink put light into her eyes and wickedness into her head, and she
felt she could, and would, face the devil. 'I'll give it to him; I'll teach
him that I'm not to be trodden on,' she said to herself as she strutted
manfully towards the stage-door, walking on her heels so as to avoid any
unsteadiness of gait.
The man in the little box was old and feeble. He said he would send her
name by the first person going down; but Kate was not in a mood to brook
delays, and, profiting by his inability to stop her, she banged through the
swinging door and commenced the descent of a long flight of steps. Below
her was the stage, and between the wings she could see the girls arranged
in a semicircle. Dick, with a big staff in hand, stood in front of the
footlights directing the movements of a procession which was being formed;
the piano tinkled merrily on the O.P. side.
'Mr. Chappel, will you be good enough to play the "Just put this in your
pocket" chorus over again?' cried Dick, stamping his staff heavily upon the
boards.
'Now then, girls, I hear a good deal too much talking going on at the back
there. I dare say it's very amusing; but if you'd try to combine business
with pleasure---Now, who did I put in section one?'
Kate hesitated a moment, arrested by the tones of his voice, and she could
not avoid thinking of the time when she used to play Clairette; besides,
all the well-known faces were there. Our lives move as in circles; no
matter what strange vicissitudes we pass through, we generally find
ourselves gliding once more into the well-known grooves, and Dick, in
forming the present company, had naturally fallen back upon the old hands,
who had travelled with him in the country. They were nearly all there.
Mortimer, with his ringlets and his long nasal drawl, stood, as usual, in
the wings, making ill-natured remarks. Dubois strutted as before, and
tilting his bishop's hat, explained that he would take no further
engagement as a singer; if people would not let him act they would have to
do without him. With her dyed hair tucked neatly away under her bonnet Miss
Leslie smiled as agreeably as ever. Beaumont alone seemed to be missing,
and Montgomery, in all the importance of a going-to-be-produced author,
strode along up and down the stage, apparently busied in thought, the tails
of a Newmarket coat still flapping about his thin legs; and when he
appeared in profile against the scenery he looked, as he always had done,
like the flitting shadow thrown by an enormous magic-lantern.
Kate sullenly watched them, gripping the rail of the staircase tightly. The
momentary softening of heart, occasioned by the remembrance of old times,
died away in the bitterness of the thought that she who had counted for so
much was now pushed into a corner to live forgotten or disdained. Why was
she not rehearsing there with them? she asked herself. At once the answer
came. Because your husband hates you--because he wants to make love to
another woman. Then, like one crazed, she clattered down the iron spiral
staircase to the stage. She did not even hear Mortimer and Dubois cry out
as she pushed past, 'There's Mrs. Lennox!'
In the middle of the stage, however, she looked round, discountenanced by
the silence and the crowd, and, hoping to calm her, Dick advised her, in
whispers, to go upstairs to his room. But this was the signal for her to
break forth.
'Go up to your room?' she screamed. 'Never, never! Do you suppose it is to
talk to you that I came here? No, I despise you too much. I hate you, and I
want every one here to know how you treat me.'
With a dull stare she examined the circle of girls who stood whispering in
groups, as if she were going to address one in particular, and several drew
back, frightened. Dick attempted to say something, but it seemed that the
very sound of his voice was enough.
'Go away, go away!' she exclaimed at the top of her voice. 'Go away; don't
touch me! Go to that woman of yours--Mrs. Forest--go to her, and be damned,
you beast! You know she's paying for everything here. You know that you
are----'
'For goodness' sake remember what you're saying,' said Dick, interrupting,
and trembling as if for his life. He cast an anxious glance around to see
if the lady in question was within hearing. Fortunately she was not on the
stage.
The chorus crowded timidly forward looking like a school in their
walking-dresses. The carpenters had ceased to hammer, and were peeping down
from the flies; Kate stood balancing herself and staring blindly at those
who surrounded her. Leslie and Montgomery, in the position of old friends,
were endeavouring to soothe her, whilst Mortimer and Dubois argued
passionately as to when they had seen her drunk for the first time. The
first insisted that when she had joined them at Hanley she was a bit
inebriated; the latter declared that it had begun with the champagne on her
wedding day.
'Don't you remember, Dick was married with a scratched face?'
'To judge from present appearances,' said the comedian, forcing his words
slowly through his nose, 'he's likely to die with one.' At this sally three
supers retired into the wings holding their sides, and Dubois, furious at
being outdone in a joke, walked away in high dudgeon, calling Mortimer an
unfeeling brute.
In the meantime the drunken row was waxing more furious every moment.
Struggling frantically with her friends, Kate called attention to the
sticking-plaster on Dick's face, and declared that she would do for him.
'You see what I gave him last night, and he deserved it. Oh! the beast! And
I'll give him more; and if you knew all you wouldn't blame me. It was he
who seduced me, who got me to run away from home, and he deserts me for
other women. But he shan't, he shan't, he shan't; I'll kill him first; yes,
I will, and nobody shall stop me.'
Dick listened quite broken with shame for himself and for her; as an excuse
for the absence of his wife from the theatre he had told Mortimer and Hayes
that London did not agree with her, and that she had to spend most of her
time at the seaside. All had condoled with him, and when they were
searching London for a second lady, all had agreed that Mrs. Lennox was
just the person they wanted for the part. What a pity, they said, she was
not in town. At the present moment Dick wished her the other side of
Jordan. For all he knew, she might remain screaming at him the whole day,
and if Mrs. Forest came back--well, he didn't know what would happen; the
whole game would then be up the spout. Perhaps the best thing to do would
be to tell Montgomery of the danger his piece was in; he and Kate had
always been friends; she might listen to him.
Such were Dick's reflections as he stood bashfully trying to avoid the eyes
of his ballet-girls. For the life of him he didn't know which way to look.
In front of him was a wall of people, whereon certain faces detached
themselves. He saw Dubois' mumming mug widening with delight until the grin
formed a semi-circle round the Jew nose. Mortimer looked on with the mock
earnestness of a tortured saint in a stained-glass window. Pity was written
on all the girls' faces; all were sorry for Dick, especially a tall woman
who forgot herself so completely that she threw her arms about a super and
sobbed on his shoulder.
But Kate still continued to advance, although held by Montgomery and Miss
Leslie. The long black hair hung in disordered masses; her brown eyes were
shot with golden lights; the green tints in her face became, in her
excessive pallor, dirty and abominable in colour, and she seemed more like
a demon than a woman as her screams echoed through the empty theatre.
'By Jove! we ought to put up _Jane Eyre_,' said Mortimer. 'If she were
to play the mad woman like that, we'd be sure to draw full houses.'
'I believe you,' said Dubois; but at that moment he was interrupted by a
violent scream, and suddenly disengaging herself from those who held her,
Kate rushed at Dick. With one hand she grappled him by the throat, and
before anyone could interfere she succeeded in nearly tearing the shirt
from his back.
When at length they were separated, she stood staring and panting, every
fibre of her being strained with passion; but she did not again burst forth
until someone, in a foolish attempt to pacify her, ventured to side with
her in her denunciation of her husband.
'How should such as you dare to say a word against him! I will not hear him
abused! No, I will not; I say he's a good man. Yes, yes! He is a good man,
the best man that ever lived!' she exclaimed, stamping her foot on the
boards, 'the best man that ever lived! I will not hear a word against him!
No, I will not! He's my husband; he married me! Yes he did; I can show my
certificate, and that's more than any one of you can.
'I know you, a damned lot of hussies! I know you; I was one of you myself.
You think I wasn't. Well, I can prove it. You go and ask Montgomery if I
didn't play Serpolette all through the country, and Clairette too. I should
like to see any of you do that, with the exception of Lucy, who was always
a good friend to me; but the rest of you I despise as the dirt under my
feet; so do you think that I would permit you--that I came here to listen
to my husband being abused, and by such as you! If he has his faults he's
accountable to none but me.'
Here she had to pause for lack of breath; and Dick, who had been pursuing
his shirt-stud, which had rolled into the foot-lights, now drew himself up,
and in his stage-commanding voice declared the rehearsal to be over. A few
of the girls lingered, but they were beckoned away by the others, who saw
that the present time was not suitable for the discussion of boots, tights,
and dressing-rooms. There was no one left but Leslie, Montgomery, Dick,
Kate, and Harding, who, twisting his moustache, watched and listened
apparently with the greatest interest.
'Oh, you've no idea what a nice woman she used to be, and is, were it not
for that cursed drink,' said Montgomery, with the tears running down his
nose. 'You remember her, Leslie, don't you? Isn't what I say true? I never
liked a woman so much in my life.'
'You were a friend of hers, then?' said Harding.
'I should think I was.'
'Then you never were--Yes, yes, I understand. A little friendship flavoured
with love. Yes, yes. Wears better, perhaps, than the genuine article. What
do you think, Leslie?'
'Not bad,' said the prima donna, 'for people with poor appetites. A kind of
diet suitable for Lent, I should think.'
'Ah! a title for a short story, or better still for an operetta. What do
you think, Montgomery? Shall I do you a book entitled _Lovers in
Lent_, or _A Lover's Lent_? and Leslie will--'
'No, I won't. None of your forty days for me.'
'I can't understand how you people can go on talking nonsense with a scene
so terrible passing under your eyes,' cried the musician, as he pointed to
Kate, who was calling after Dick as she staggered in pursuit of him up the
stairs towards the stage-door.
'Well, what do you want me to do?'
'She'll disgrace him in the street.'
'I can't help that. I never interfere in a love affair; and this is
evidently the great passion of a life.'
Montgomery cast an indignant glance at the novelist and rushed after his
friends; but when he arrived at the stage-door he saw the uselessness of
his interference.
It was in the narrow street; the heat sweltered between the old houses that
leaned and lolled upon the huge black traversing beams like aged women on
crutches; and Kate raved against Dick in language that was fearful to hear
amid the stage carpenters, the chorus-girls, the idlers that a theatre
collects standing with one foot in the gutter, where vegetable refuse of
all kinds rotted. Her beautiful black hair was now hanging over her
shoulders like a mane; someone had trodden on her dress and nearly torn it
from her waist, and, in avid curiosity, women with dyed hair peeped out of
a suspicious-looking tobacco shop. Over the way, stuck under an overhanging
window, was an orange-stall; the proprietress stood watching, whilst a
crowd of vermin-like children ran forward, delighted at the prospect of
seeing a woman beaten. Close by, in shirt-sleeves, the pot-boy flung open
the public-house door, partly for the purpose of attracting custom, half
with the intention of letting a little air into the bar-room.
'Oh, Kate! I beg of you not to go in there,' said Dick; 'you've had enough;
do come home!'
'Come home!' she shrieked, 'and with you, you beast! It was you who seduced
me, who got me away from my husband.'
This occasioned a good deal of amusement in the crowd, and several voices
asked for information.
'And how did he manage to do that, marm?' said one.
'With a bottle of gin. What do you think?' cried another.
There were moments when Dick longed for the earth to open; but he
nevertheless continued to try to prevent Kate from entering the
public-house.
'I will drink! I will drink! I will drink! And not because I like it, but
to spite you, because I hate you.'
When she came out she appeared to be a little quieted, and Dick tried very
hard to persuade her to get into a cab and drive home. But the very sound
of his voice, the very sight of him, seemed to excite her, and in a few
moments she broke forth into the usual harangue. Several times the
temptation to run away became almost irresistible, but with a noble effort
of will he forced himself to remain with her. Hoping to avoid some part of
the ridicule that was being so liberally showered upon him, he besought of
her to keep up Drury Lane and not descend into the Strand.
'You don't want to be seen with me; I know, you'd prefer to walk there with
Mrs. Forest. You think I shall disgrace you. Well, come along, then.
'"Look at me here! look at me there!
Criticize me everywhere!
I am so sweet from head to feet,
And most perfect and complete."'
'That's right, old woman, give us a song. She knows the game,' answered
another.
Raising his big hat from his head, Dick wiped his face, and as if divining
his extreme despair, Kate left off singing and dancing, and the procession
proceeded in quiet past several different wine-shops. It was not until they
came to Short's she declared she was dying of thirst and must have a drink.
Dick forbade the barman to serve her, and brought upon himself the most
shocking abuse. Knowing that he would be sure to meet a crowd of his 'pals'
at the Gaiety bar, he used every endeavour to persuade her to cross the
street and get out of the sun.
'Don't bother me with your sun,' she exclaimed surlily; and then, as if
struck by the meaning of the word, she said, 'But it wasn't a son, it was a
daughter; don't you remember?'
'Oh, Kate! how can you speak so?'
'Speak so? I say it was a daughter, and she died; and you said it was my
fault, as you say everything is my fault, you beast! you venomous beast!
Yes, she did die. It was a pity; I could have loved her.'
At this moment Dick felt a heavy hand clapped on his shoulder, and turning
round he saw a pal of his.
'What, Dick, my boy! A drunken chorus lady; trying to get her home? Always
up to some charitable action.'
'No; she's my wife.'
'I beg your pardon, old chap; you know I didn't mean it;' and the man
disappeared into the bar-room.
'Yes, I'm his wife,' Kate shrieked after him. 'I got that much right out of
him at least; and I played the Serpolette in the _Cloches_.'
'"Look at me here, look at me there,"'
she sang, flirting with her abominable skirt, amused by the applause of the
roughs. 'But I'm going to have a drink here,' she said, suddenly breaking
off.
'No, you can't, my good woman,' said the stout guardian at the door.
'And why--why not?'
'That don't matter. You go on, or I'll have to give you in charge.'
Kate was not yet so drunk that the words 'in charge' did not frighten her,
and she answered humbly enough, 'I'm here wi-th--my hu-s-band, and as
you're so im-impertinent I shall go-go elsewhere.'
At the next place they came to Dick did not protest against her being
served, but waited, confident of the result, until she had had her four of
gin, and came reeling out into his arms. Shaking herself free she stared at
him, and when he was fully recognized, cursed him for his damned
interference. She could now scarcely stand straight on her legs, and, after
staggering a few yards further, fell helplessly on the pavement.
Calling a cab, he bundled her into it and drove away.