NEW FRIENDS
Jessie Kennedy turned out to be a very companionable little person, and
after this first interview the two girls spent a good deal of time with
each other.
But the question of funds was of infinitely greater consequence than any
social intercourse, and with alarming rapidity Evarne had arrived at the
point when her resources were no longer represented by even the smallest
gold coin of the realm. This thoroughly aroused her, and the very next
time she was again put off by excuses, her usual gentleness was swept
away beneath one of those torrents of hot wrath that were a heritage
from her mother. Her beautiful dark eyes seemed to positively flash fire
as she fiercely declared that this sort of thing would have to stop,
that Mr. Punter's action in offering her this mock engagement, and so
preventing her from seeking genuine work, was absolutely unjustifiable
and infamous; that it was not far short, if at all, from cheating and
defrauding! She concluded by hotly stating that if Mr. Sandy could not
or would not come, his part, in mere justice to others, ought to be
given at once to an actor who would take it. She finished up by the
statement that she was voicing the opinion of others besides her own.
These words did not fall on barren ground. Mr. Punter definitely settled
on the evening of the following day for the long-deferred first
rehearsal, and further announced that Mr. Sandy had now finally lost his
splendid chance, for Pat should go out immediately and telegraph for Mr.
Heathmore, an even better actor, whom he knew to be anxiously longing
for the opportunity of appearing in "Caledonia's Bard."
On the strength of all this Evarne allowed herself to be pacified, and
was amiably willing to admit that perhaps the real blame rested with the
faithless Mr. Sandy alone. Hereupon Mr. Punter had a suggestion to make.
"My wife and I have been talking the matter over, and we have decided to
offer you--you, Miss Stornway--the _rôle_ of 'Highland Mary' in place of
that of 'Bess.' It is not a very long part, and you'll soon learn it.
Your remuneration then would be twenty-three and six in place of a
guinea. There now! Does not the notion appeal to you?"
"I don't mind," replied the girl dubiously. "If you could have told me
sooner than the very day before the rehearsals are at length to
start--but there, if you give me the script at once, I'll commence to
study it. But what about costumes?"
"Quite simple! Mrs. Punter herself has resolved to undertake the _rôle_
of 'Jean Armour,' so she will buy one of your dresses for the purpose.
She says the blue cotton you showed her will serve nicely for you to
wear when you go to meet 'Burns' in the glen, and with the money she
gives you for the other you can buy some white stuff and make a robe
that will do to die in, and likewise for the vision."
"I agree then, willingly. Who is to play 'Bess'?"
"We see no reason why Miss Kennedy should not undertake that inferior
part. Madame Cheape--our 'Clarinda,' you remember--will arrive in a day
or so, thus all the female _rôles_ will be most satisfactorily filled."
As Evarne walked back to Shamrock Street, she thought somewhat ruefully
that she had fallen among a very queer and reckless--not to say
shady--set of people. Everything connected with them and their
enterprise seemed a matter of makeshifts. She could not help smiling to
recall the grandiose announcements printed at the head of the official
notepaper. "Company of Star Artistes," indeed! Fancy herself, then,
never having yet set foot upon the boards or spoken one word in public,
being created leading lady amid these universal stars! Still, it was
such a silly soft part in such a silly soft play she had to act, that
she was troubled by no apprehensions as to whether she was sufficiently
powerful, or emotional, or capable, or anything else. She was fully
convinced of her ability to rise to equal heights with the other
stars--at all events as far as those constellations, Mrs. Punter and
Jessie, were concerned.
The following evening, sure enough, rehearsals of a sort did indeed
commence. Mr. Heathmore was not forthcoming, and "Caledonia's Bard"
without "Bobbie" was even worse than "Hamlet" without the "Prince of
Denmark." Still, it was a comfort to make a start of any sort.
Jessie Kennedy at once brought up Harry Douglas, and presented him to
Miss Stornway. He was undertaking two minor _rôles_ in addition to
managing the limelight and helping to shift scenery, and within the
first five minutes' conversation this all-round genius had incidentally
remarked that for several years he had been a professional lightweight
prize-fighter.
Two men--besides the ubiquitous "Bobbie"--had dialogue parts with
Evarne.
Joe Harold--who played her stage father--she had heard much of already.
Jessie had procured him this engagement, and had confided to her new
friend that ere the tour ended she hoped to have brought to pass another
engagement of a more romantic and lasting type. He was absolutely the
dearest boy alive, she declared. He was a Jew, his real name being Joe
Moses, but no one would ever guess it. He hadn't got a hook nose, and he
would share his last penny with a pal. He had only one failing in the
world, sometimes he took a "wee drappie" too much to drink, but she
would help him to conquer that weakness. He was a commercial traveller,
but, being out of a job, had been pleased to join her in "Caledonia's
Bard."
John Montgomery--the stage doctor who had to aid "Bess" to persuade
"Mary" to die respectably in bed--had great pretensions to good looks;
moreover, he was both tall and stalwart. But he was no more a
professional actor than the remainder of the company--as a rule he
earned his bread as a compositor.
There was, indeed, one taller than Montgomery, one whose height numbered
two or three inches over six feet, but who paid for longitude by a
painful meagreness. Archie--for so Jessie called him--was, in very
sooth, a protracted tragedy. The son of a groom, he had been, until the
age of fifteen or thereabouts, the tiniest, lightest little chap
imaginable. Always amid horses, his one ambition was to become a jockey,
and he might have succeeded in attaining this aspiration, had not cruel
Nature taken it into her head to make him grow! He had sprouted almost
visibly, beneath the horrified eyes of his horsey friends, and ere he
came to eighteen years had reached the proud--yet hated--height of six
feet three. Poor Archie's ambition being thus hopelessly blighted, he
had made no effort to settle to any less fascinating career, but earned
his daily bread by doing more or less badly whatever came next to hand.
Of such consisted the "star company"! Evarne deemed them all quite
suitable individuals to be thus secretly conglomerated in an empty room
of a deserted house hidden away behind a hoarding and seemingly
forgotten in the very heart of Glasgow. Strange fate that had brought
her to form one of the conspiracy!
The rehearsals now proceeded daily, Mr. Punter always giving the cues of
"Burns's" and "Clarinda's" parts. The chief difficulty lay in
remembering "who was whom" at any given moment. Without exception, all
the men played a couple of characters, in some cases even three separate
and distinct _rôles_. Mad-looking Charles Stuart appeared as a prince
and as "Clarinda's" footman--a proceeding that appeared to Evarne as the
height of absurdity. Charlie swore he had no intention of visiting the
barber, and no one, having once seen that weird head above royal robes,
could possibly fail to recognise it again, even though the appended body
might, next time, chance to be clad in servant's livery. They would at
once discern the prince in disguise in "Clarinda's" establishment, and
would accordingly look for intricacies of plot--doomed to be
disappointed.
If it had not all been really a matter of such serious consequence to
her, the girl would have spent her time during these rehearsals in
struggling with inopportune laughter. As it was, her expression grew
habitually more and more serious as the conviction forced itself like
unto a barbed arrow into her brain: "This play is to fail! It is bound
to fail! It can never succeed, never; and what can I do then?"
For the present, at all events, there was neither inaction nor
loneliness. She made the more intimate acquaintance of Joe Harold and
John Montgomery by inviting them, together with Jess, to her lodging one
evening for a little private rehearsal of the death-bed scene. To her
amusement the men had purchased sausage-rolls, cakes and ginger-beer
from the shop round the corner, and the business over, they produced
these edibles and invited themselves and their hostess to supper.
The unappetising topic that opened the meal was the universal poverty
that prevailed. All had been out of work for some time, it appeared,
and, like Evarne, were subsisting painfully on a few paltry and
fast-failing savings, until the first week's salary from Mr. Punter
should arrive to relieve the situation.
It was the second time in her short career that Evarne had been
introduced into an absolutely fresh world. Live and learn! Had the girl
given her opinion a month ago, it would probably have been to the effect
that all commercial travellers, compositors, and daughters of
scene-shifters (for this Jess owned had been her father's avocation in
life) were necessarily common and uneducated--even though worthy enough
folk. But there was very little either in the speech or ways of her
three humble friends that could have appeared either absurd or offensive
to the most dainty lady in the land, while Mont, the printer, was
remarkably well-informed, handsome, and interesting. Thus for so long,
at all events, as Evarne and her commercial traveller and her printer
had mutual interests in "Caledonia's Bard," she found them infinitely
more congenial than had been the majority of those men in the higher
walks of life whom Morris had presented to her.
As a matter of fact, the nature of the society by which she had been
surrounded in those bygone days had, from first to last, presented
itself as one of the drawbacks of her unfortunate position. Time's
progress had, to some considerable extent, blunted the keenness of her
susceptibilities in this direction. Still, she now found it passing
sweet to receive once again that vague indescribable deference and
respect that distinguishes so subtly--perchance so unconsciously--a
man's manner towards a "good" woman, from that which he assumes to one
whose morals are understood to be "easy."
Yet more strongly did she experience a similar charm in the society of
Jessie. The young girl--"who would sooner marry Joe with all his faults
and without a penny, because she truly loved him, than marry a lord she
didn't care for"--might not have been as witty, as merry, as brightly
amusing as some other women whom Evarne could have named, but she was
the first self-respecting and respectable member of her own age and
sex--save Margaret--whom the girl had known since she left
Heatherington.
Those years given to Morris--however brightened and redeemed by her
pouring forth the most disinterested and sweetest affection--had been
really very lonely--very desolate. When she had first been thrown into
contact with the female associates that Morris's men friends had been
willing to introduce to her, she had instinctively disliked and shrank
from them, even although she had been far too childishly innocent at
first to realise to the full the depravity of these "kept" women.
Even in the days of her naïve ignorance of the real nature of their
purchased love--when the consciousness of her own high impulses,
combined with the all-embracing instinct of charity in her disposition,
had led her to attribute only her own really beautiful motives and
emotions to these other women, who led lives outwardly corresponding to
her own--she, and they likewise, had felt that there was really nothing
in common between them. They belonged to different worlds.
And even now, between Evarne and her lowly Scotch friends--honest and
agreeable though they might be--there was still a barrier, that of
caste, culture, habit. It might be totally disregarded amongst them by
common consent, but was not thus easily annihilated. They were of an
entirely different station--of another stamp--from the daughter of the
refined Oxford student, with his lengthy pedigree and old traditions.
They and their equals could never have entered thus intimately into her
daily life had she not been _déclassée_. In one way or another, Evarne
was indeed cut off from all open companionship with those men--and
especially those women--who would have been really suited to one
possessed of her training, her general refinement, her personal
character and nature. Had her few brief years of love's happiness
foredoomed her to lead for evermore the lonely life? Was it partly this
that was foreboded in the grim smile of Sekhet?
But as comrades the four amalgamated splendidly, and at length the date
on which the tour was to really start was actually settled. Mr.
Heathmore and Madame Cheape were going direct from their homes to Ayr,
since "Bobbie's" birthplace was to have the honour of witnessing the
first performance of "Caledonia's Bard." The other members of the
company were to leave Glasgow on Monday, rehearse with "Bobbie" for the
first time that same evening, and open on Wednesday night.