LIKE wildfire the rumour ran. The King had knighted—he had knighted—by
what accident?—Mr. Mary, in lieu of Mr. Fisher, at Mr. Fisher’s own
farewell. In the annals of the stage such an occurrence was unheard of,
unique.
The excitement in the green-room was intense.
“M-m! He is not de first to zell is birs-r-rite for a mess of porridge!”
Yvonde Yalta, the playgoers’ darling, remarked as she poised with an
extravagant play of arms, a black glittering bandeau on her short flaxen
hair.
“A mess of pottage!” someone near her said.
“You correct me? Ah, sanx! I am so grateful, so—_so_ grateful,” the
charming creature murmured as she sailed away.
From the auditorium came a suppressed titter.
The curtain had risen some few minutes since on Mlle. Fanfette and
Monsieur Coquelet de Chaussepierre of the Théâtre Sans Rancune in the
comedietta, _Sydney, or There’s No Resisting Him._
“It’s extraordinary I’ve never seen a man knighted,” a show-girl
twittered, “and I’ve seen a good deal....”
“How do they do them?”
“Like this,” a sparkling brunette answered, bestowing a sly pat on the
interlocutress with the back of a brush.
“Of all the common——!”
“Ladies! Ladies!”
“Who was in front at the time?”
“I was!” Mrs. Sixsmith said, who had just peeped in to exchange a few
words with her friend.
“You were?”
“I was selling sweets in the vestibule and saw it all. Really! If I live
to be an old woman I shan’t forget it. Mr. Mary—_Sir Maurice_—was in the
lobby chatting with Sylvester Fry of the _Dispatch_, when the Royal
party arrived. The King instantly noticed him and sent one of his suite,
quite unpremeditatedly, it seemed, to summon him, and in a trice ... Oh!
... and I _never_ saw the Queen look so charming. She has a gold dress
turning to white through the most exquisite gradations....”
Mrs. Sixsmith was overcome.
“A-wheel,” Miss Sinquier’s dresser disrespectfully said, “how was the
poor man to tell? Both the blighters—God forgive me—are equally on their
last legs.”
Miss Sinquier shivered.
“Is it a good house?” she inquired.
“Splendid. Outside they’re flying five ‘full’ boards.... There’s not a
single vacant place. Poor Sydney Iphis gave half a guinea for a seat in
the slips.”
“Are you here all alone?”
“I’m with Sir Oliver Dawtry,” Mrs. Sixsmith replied, “except when I’m
running about!... Can I sell anyone anything?” she inquired, raising
sonorously her voice. “Vanilla! Caramel! Chocolate!... Comfits,” she
warbled.
“What have you netted?”
“Eighteenpence only, so far;—from such an angel!”
“Comfits, did you say?” a round-faced, piquant little woman asked.
“Despite disguise! If it isn’t Arthurine Smee!”
The actress displayed astonishment.
Nature had thrown up upon her lip and cheek two big blonde moles that
procured to her physiognomy, somehow or other, an unusual degree of
expression.
“My husband has been waiting to hear from you,” she said, “as agent to
this _Miss Sin——_, the new star with the naughty name, and from all I
could make out I understand it would be likely to be a _Double
Engagement._”
“This is Miss Sinquier,” Mrs. Sixsmith exclaimed.
Miss Sinquier blinked.
“Have you done it much?” she asked.
“Often.”
“Where?”
“Everywhere.”
“For example?”
“I may say I’ve played Pauline and Portia and Puck....”
“Mother-to-Juliet I fear’s the best I’ve to offer.”
Mrs. Smee consulted enigmatically the nearest mole in reach of her
tongue.
“Were I to play her in ‘good’ preservation,” she inquired, “I suppose
there’d be no objection?”
“Why, none!”
“Just a girlish touch....”
“Mrs. Smee defies time,” Mrs. Sixsmith remarked.
“My dear, I once was thought to be a very pretty woman.... All I can do
now is to urge my remains.”
Miss Sinquier raised a forefinger.
Voices shivering in altercation issued loudly from a private
dressing-room next door.
“What’s up?”
“Oh, dear! Oh, dear!” the wardrobe-mistress entering said. “Sir Maurice
and Mr. Fisher are passing sharp words with a couple of pitchforks.”
“What!”
“The ‘Farm-players’ sent them over from the Bolivar for their Pig-sty
scene—and now poor Mr. Mary, _Sir M’riss_, and Mr. Fisher are fighting
it out, and Mrs. Mary, _her ladyship_, has joined the struggle.”
“Murder!” called a voice.
“Glory be to God.”
Mrs. Sixsmith rolled her eyes.
“Da!” she gasped, as Lady Mary, a trifle dazed but decked in smiles,
came bustling in.
“Oh, Men! Men! Men!” she exclaimed, going off into a hearty laugh.
“Rough, angelic brutes...!”
She was radiant.
She had a gown of shot brocade, a high lace ruff and a silver girdle of
old German work, that had an ivory missal falling from it.
“Quarrelsome, quarrelling kings,” she stuttered, drifting towards a
toilet-table—the very one before which Miss Sinquier was making her
face.
On all sides from every lip rose up a chorus of congratulations.
“Viva, Lady Mary!”
Touched, responsive, with a gesture springing immediately from the
heart, the consummate Victorian extended impulsive happy hands.
“God bless you, dears,” she said.
“Three cheers for Lady Mary!”
The illustrious woman quashed a tear.
“Am I white behind?” she asked.
“Allow me, milady,” the wardrobe-mistress wheezed.
“I fancy I heard a rip...!”
“There must have been quite a scrimmage.”
From the orchestra, a melodious throb-thrum-throb told a “curtain.”
“Lady Mary—_you_, Mum,” a call-boy chirped.
“Me?”
“Five minutes.”
Lady Mary showed distress.
“For goodness sake, my dear,” she addressed Miss Sinquier, “do leave
yourself alone. I want the glass.”
But Miss Sinquier seemed engrossed.
At her elbow a slip of a “Joy-baby” was holding forth with animation to
Mrs. Sixsmith and Mrs. Smee.
“That was one of my dreams,” she was saying, “and last night again I had
another—in spite of a night-light, too! It began by a ring formed of
crags and boulders enclosing a troop of deer—oh, such a herd of
them—delicate, distinguished animals with little pom-pom horns, and some
had poodles’ tails. Sitting behind a rhododendron bush was an old
gentleman on a white horse; he never moved a muscle. Suddenly I became
aware of a pack of dogs.... And then, before my very eyes, one of the
dogs transformed itself into a giraffe....”
“You must have been out to supper.”
“It’s true I had. Oh, it was a merry meal.”
“Who gave it?”
“Dore Davis did: to meet her betrothed—Sir Francis Four.”
“What’s he like?”
“Don’t ask me. It makes one tired to look at him.”
“Was it a party?”
“Nothing but literary-people with their Beatrices.... My dear _the
scum_! Half-way through supper, Dore got her revolver out and began
shooting the glass drops off her chandelier.”
“I should like to see her trousseau,” Mrs. Sixsmith sighed.
“It isn’t up to much. Anything good she sells—on account of bailiffs.”
“Pooh! She should treat them all _en reine._”
Mrs. Smee looked wise.
“Always be civil with bailiffs,” she said; “never ruffle them! If you
queen a sheriff’s officer remember there’s no getting rid of him. He
clings on—like a poor relation.”
“Oh, well,” Mrs. Sixsmith replied, “I always treat the worms _en reine_,
not,” she added wittily, “that I ever have....”
Miss Sinquier twirled herself finally about.
“There,” she murmured, “I’m going out into the wings.”
“When’s your call?”
“After Lady Mary.”
For her unofficial first appearance she was resolved to woo the world
with a dance—a dance all fearless somersaults and quivering
_battements;_ a young Hungarian meanwhile recording her movements
sensitively upon a violin.
She was looking well in an obedient little ballet skirt that made action
a delight. Her hair, piled high in a towering toupee, had a white flower
in it.
“Down a step and through an arch,” a pierrette who passed her in the
corridor directed her to the stage.
It was Miss Ita Iris of the Dream.
Miss Sinquier tingled.
How often on the cold flags of the great church at home had she asked
the way before!
“Oh, Lord,” she prayed now, “let me conquer. Let me! Amen.”
She was in the wings.
Above her, stars sparkled lavishly in a darkling sky, controlled by a
bare-armed mechanic who was endeavouring, it seemed, to deliver himself
of a moon; craning from a ladder at the risk of his life, he pushed it
gently with a big soft hand.
Miss Sinquier turned her eyes to the stage.
The round of applause accorded Lady Mary on her entry was gradually
dying away.
From her shelter Miss Sinquier could observe her, in opulent silhouette,
perfectly at her ease.
She stood waiting for the last huzzas to subside with bowed head and
folded hands—like some great sinner—looking reverently up through her
eyelashes at the blue silk hangings of the Royal box.
By degrees all clatter ceased.
Approaching the footlights with a wistful smile, the favourite woman
scanned the stalls.
“Now most of you here this afternoon,” she intimately began, “I will
venture to say, never heard of Judy Jacock. I grant you, certainly,
there’s nothing very singular in that; for her life, which was a
strangely frail one, essentially was obscure. Judy herself was
_obscure._... And so that is why I say you can’t have ever heard of
her!... Because she was totally unknown.... Ah, poor wee waif! Alas,
she’s dead now. Judy’s among the angels ... and the beautiful little
elegy which, with your consent, I intend forthwith to submit, is written
around her, around little Judy, and around her old Father, her
‘_Da_’—James, who was a waiter. And while he was away waiting one day—he
used to wipe the plates on the seat of his breeches!—his little Judy
died. Ah, poor old James. Poor Sir James. But let the poet,” she broke
off suddenly, confused, “take up the tale himself, or, rather—to be more
specific!—_herself._ For the lines that follow, which are _inédit_, are
from the seductive and charming pen of Lady Violet Sleepwell.”
Lady Mary coughed, winked archly an eye, and began quite carelessly as
if it were Swinburne:
“_I never_ knew _James Jacock’s child....
I knew he_ had _a child!
The daintiest little fairy that ever a father knew.
She was all contentment._...”
Miss Sinquier looked away.
To her surprise, lurking behind a property torso of “a Fawn,” her
pigtails roped with beads of scarlet glass, was Miss May Mant.
“Tell me what you are up to?” she asked.
“Sh——! Don’t warn Ita!”
“Why should I?”
“I dodged her. Beautifully.”
“What for?”
“If she thought I was going on the stage, she’d be simply wild.”
“Are you?”
“I intend tacking on in the Pope’s Procession.”
“That won’t be just yet.”
“Oh, isn’t it wonderful?”
“What?”
“Being here.”
“It’s rather pleasant.”
“Can you feel the boards?”
“A little.”
“They go _right_ through me. Through my shoes, up my legs, and at my
heart they sting.”
“Kiss me.”
“I love you.”
“Pet.”
“Do I look interesting?”
“Ever so.”
“Would you take me for a Cardinal’s comfort?”
Lady Mary lifted up her voice:
“_Come, Judy, the angel said,
And took her from her little bed,
And through the air they quickly sped
Until they reached God’s throne;
So, there, they dressed her all in white,
They say she was a perfect sight,
Celestial was her mien!_”
“Lady Violet Sleepwell admires Ita.”
“Indeed.”
“She’s a victim to chloral.”
“_Rose-coiffed stood J.
Amid the choir,
Celestial-singing!_”
The august artiste glowed.
“Ita thinks she drinks.”
“I shouldn’t wonder,” Miss Sinquier replied, covering her face with her
hands.
Through her fingers she could contemplate her accompanist’s lanky figure
as he stood in the opposite wing busily powdering his nose.
The moment, it seemed, had come.
Yet not quite—the public, who loved tradition, was determined on
obtaining an encore.
Lady Mary was prepared to acquiesce.
Curtseying from side to side and wafting kisses to the gods, she
announced:
“The Death of Hortense; by _Desire._”
------------------------------------------------------------------------