VII

Peter Sherringham reminded Nick the next day that he had promised to be

present at Madame Carre's interview with the ladies introduced to her by

Gabriel Nash; and in the afternoon, conformably to this arrangement, the

two men took their way to the Rue de Constantinople. They found Mr. Nash

and his friends in the small beflounced drawing-room of the old actress,

who, as they learned, had sent in a request for ten minutes' grace,

having been detained at a lesson--a rehearsal of the _comedie de salon_

about to be given for a charity by a fine lady, at which she had

consented to be present as an adviser. Mrs. Rooth sat on a black satin

sofa with her daughter beside her while Gabriel Nash, wandering about

the room, looked at the votive offerings which converted the little

panelled box, decorated in sallow white and gold, into a theatrical

museum: the presents, the portraits, the wreaths, the diadems, the

letters, framed and glazed, the trophies and tributes and relics

collected by Madame Carre during half a century of renown. The profusion

of this testimony was hardly more striking than the confession of

something missed, something hushed, which seemed to rise from it all and

make it melancholy, like a reference to clappings which, in the nature

of things, could now only be present as a silence: so that if the place

was full of history it was the form without the fact, or at the most a

redundancy of the one to a pinch of the other--the history of a mask,

of a squeak, of a series of vain gestures.

Some of the objects exhibited by the distinguished artist, her early

portraits, in lithograph or miniature, represented the costume and

embodied the manner of a period so remote that Nick Dormer, as he

glanced at them, felt a quickened curiosity to look at the woman who

reconciled being alive to-day with having been alive so long ago. Peter

Sherringham already knew how she managed this miracle, but every visit

he paid her added to his amused, charmed sense that it _was_ a miracle

and that his extraordinary old friend had seen things he should never,

never see. Those were just the things he wanted to see most, and her

duration, her survival, cheated him agreeably and helped him a little to

guess them. His appreciation of the actor's art was so systematic that

it had an antiquarian side, and at the risk of representing him as

attached to an absurd futility it must be said that he had as yet hardly

known a keener regret for anything than for the loss of that antecedent

world, and in particular for his having belatedly missed the great

_comedienne_, the light of the French stage in the early years of the

century, of whose example and instruction Madame Carre had had the

inestimable benefit. She had often described to him her rare

predecessor, straight from whose hands she had received her most

celebrated parts and of whom her own manner was often a religious

imitation; but her descriptions troubled him more than they consoled,

only confirming his theory, to which so much of his observation had

already ministered, that the actor's art in general was going down and

down, descending a slope with abysses of vulgarity at its foot, after

having reached its perfection, more than fifty years ago, in the talent

of the lady in question. He would have liked to dwell for an hour

beneath the meridian.

Gabriel Nash introduced the new-comers to his companions; but the

younger of the two ladies gave no sign of lending herself to this

transaction. The girl was very white; she huddled there, silent and

rigid, frightened to death, staring, expressionless. If Bridget Dormer

had seen her at this moment she might have felt avenged for the

discomfiture of her own spirit suffered at the Salon, the day before,

under the challenging eyes of Maud Vavasour. It was plain at the present

hour that Miss Vavasour would have run away had she not regarded the

persons present as so many guards and keepers. Her appearance made Nick

feel as if the little temple of art in which they were collected had

been the waiting-room of a dentist. Sherringham had seen a great many

nervous girls tremble before the same ordeal, and he liked to be kind to

them, to say things that would help them to do themselves justice. The

probability in a given case was almost overwhelmingly in favour of their

having any other talent one could think of in a higher degree than the

dramatic; but he could rarely refrain from some care that the occasion

shouldn't be, even as against his conscience, too cruel. There were

occasions indeed that could scarce be too cruel to punish properly

certain examples of presumptuous ineptitude. He remembered what Mr. Nash

had said about this blighted maiden, and perceived that though she might

be inept she was now anything but presumptuous. Gabriel fell to talking

with Nick Dormer while Peter addressed himself to Mrs. Rooth. There was

no use as yet for any direct word to the girl, who was too scared even

to hear. Mrs. Rooth, with her shawl fluttering about her, nestled

against her daughter, putting out her hand to take one of Miriam's

soothingly. She had pretty, silly, near-sighted eyes, a long thin nose,

and an upper lip which projected over the under as an ornamental cornice

rests on its support. "So much depends--really everything!" she said in

answer to some sociable observation of Sherringham's. "It's either

this," and she rolled her eyes expressively about the room, "or it's--I

don't know what!"

"Perhaps we're too many," Peter hazarded to her daughter. "But really

you'll find, after you fairly begin, that you'll do better with four or

five."

Before she answered she turned her head and lifted her fine eyes. The

next instant he saw they were full of tears. The words she spoke,

however, though uttered as if she had tapped a silver gong, had not the

note of sensibility: "Oh, I don't care for _you_!" He laughed at this,

declared it was very well said and that if she could give Madame Carre

such a specimen as that----! The actress came in before he had finished

his phrase, and he observed the way the girl ruefully rose to the

encounter, hanging her head a little and looking out from under her

brows. There was no sentiment in her face--only a vacancy of awe and

anguish which had not even the merit of being fine of its kind, for it

spoke of no spring of reaction. Yet the head was good, he noted at the

same moment; it was strong and salient and made to tell at a distance.

Madame Carre scarcely heeded her at first, greeting her only in her

order among the others and pointing to seats, composing the circle with

smiles and gestures, as if they were all before the prompter's box. The

old actress presented herself to a casual glance as a red-faced, raddled

woman in a wig, with beady eyes, a hooked nose, and pretty hands; but

Nick Dormer, who had a sense for the over-scored human surface, soon

observed that these comparatively gross marks included a great deal of

delicate detail--an eyebrow, a nostril, a flitting of expressions, as if

a multitude of little facial wires were pulled from within. This

accomplished artist had in particular a mouth which was visibly a rare

instrument, a pair of lips whose curves and fine corners spoke of a

lifetime of "points" unerringly made and verses exquisitely spoken,

helping to explain the purity of the sound that issued from them. Her

whole countenance had the look of long service--of a thing infinitely

worn and used, drawn and stretched to excess, with its elasticity

overdone and its springs relaxed, yet religiously preserved and kept in

repair, even as some valuable old timepiece which might have quivered

and rumbled but could be trusted to strike the hour. At the first words

she spoke Gabriel Nash exclaimed endearingly: _"Ah la voix de

Celimene!"_ Celimene, who wore a big red flower on the summit of her

dense wig, had a very grand air, a toss of the head, and sundry little

majesties of manner; in addition to which she was strange, almost

grotesque, and to some people would have been even terrifying, capable

of reappearing, with her hard eyes, as a queer vision of the darkness.

She excused herself for having made the company wait, and mouthed and

mimicked in the drollest way, with intonations as fine as a flute, the

performance and the pretensions of the _belles dames_ to whom she had

just been endeavouring to communicate a few of the rudiments. _"Mais

celles-la, c'est une plaisanterie,"_ she went on to Mrs. Rooth; "whereas

you and your daughter, _chere madame_--I'm sure you are quite another

matter."

The girl had got rid of her tears, and was gazing at her, and Mrs. Rooth

leaned forward and said portentously: "She knows four languages."

Madame Carre gave one of her histrionic stares, throwing back her head.

"That's three too many. The thing's to do something proper with one."

"We're very much in earnest," continued Mrs. Rooth, who spoke excellent

French.

"I'm glad to hear it--_il n'y a que ca. La tete est bien_--the head's

very good," she said as she looked at the girl. "But let us see, my dear

child, what you've got in it!" The young lady was still powerless to

speak; she opened her lips, but nothing came. With the failure of this

effort she turned her deep sombre eyes to the three men. "_Un beau

regard_--it carries well." Madame Carre further commented. But even as

she spoke Miss Rooth's fine gaze was suffused again and the next moment

she had definitely begun to weep. Nick Dormer sprung up; he felt

embarrassed and intrusive--there was such an indelicacy in sitting there

to watch a poor working-girl's struggle with timidity. There was a

momentary confusion; Mrs. Rooth's tears were seen also to flow; Mr. Nash

took it gaily, addressing, however, at the same time, the friendliest,

most familiar encouragement to his companions, and Peter Sherringham

offered to retire with Nick on the spot, should their presence incommode

the young lady. But the agitation was over in a minute; Madame Carre

motioned Mrs. Rooth out of her seat and took her place beside the girl,

and Nash explained judiciously to the other men that she'd be worse

should they leave her. Her mother begged them to remain, "so that there

should be at least some English"; she spoke as if the old actress were

an army of Frenchwomen. The young heroine of the occasion quickly came

round, and Madame Carre, on the sofa beside her, held her hand and

emitted a perfect music of reassurance. "The nerves, the nerves--they're

half our affair. Have as many as you like, if you've got something else

too. _Voyons_--do you know anything?"

"I know some pieces."

"Some pieces of the _repertoire_?"