MARGOT woke next morning to a premonition of disaster. She had foreseen
that she might lose her job last night; but this morning she realized
it, which is quite a different affair. The evening before, life had
seemed very large and golden, with plenty of opportunity for heroism
on a grand scale, and without the practical peril of misfortune. She
had felt the keen thrill of danger before it had lasted long enough to
attack the nerves. But the hour of sleep had robbed her of her gaiety
of heart. Even the treasures of which it was her wont to take stock
every morning ceased to-day to give her any moral reassurance.
The little room which Margot shared with her mother always filled her
with a sense of pride and protection. It held all the substantial
remnants of Madame Selba’s country furniture. It contained an immense
bureau, four looking-glasses, and three gilt clocks. None of the
clocks would go, to be sure, but one on a handsome blue mat on the
mantelpiece was surmounted by a dome of glass and flanked with terra
cotta vases filled with artificial flowers. It was a magnificent affair
and had been presented to Monsieur Selba on his having passed ten years
in one particular firm. The other two clocks had been gifts to Madame
Selba on her marriage, but the mere fact of the ceremony had appeared
to startle them to such an extent that they had never given a tick
since. Still they were undoubtedly extremely handsome, and there was
room for one on the window-sill, and for the other upon a bracket above
the washstand.
There was a crucifix and a prie-Dieu, given to Margot by her school
friends at the Convent which in her luxurious youth she had attended
for two unforgettable years, and she herself had bought the holy-water
stoup which hung above it, upheld by two slightly irrelevant angels a
little loose of wing, out of her first earnings. There was a linnet’s
cage in the window, built in the shape of a palace, a present to Margot
from a young ironmonger, a man in a social position so inferior to her
own that she had had to discourage him; he had such nice curly hair,
too! But she had prayed for him, and she always took peculiar care of
the birdcage. The bird had died and she had not been able to afford
another one. She looked at it with some impatience this morning: “_Moi,
je trouve que c’est déplacé_,” she said to herself as she got up.
She cast an eye almost depreciatingly upon the heirloom of Madame
Selba’s heart; this was a superb bedstead with brass knobs and a spring
mattress, a bed which had struck the concierge’s wife with envy and was
by no means the secret pride of Madame Selba’s existence.
“You can figure to yourself,” she used to say, “when you look at that
bedstead, that there was a time in my life when I wanted for nothing.”
Margot had to keep the room very tidy, or else there would not have
been much room to move about; the bureau and the bed between them
having rather the air of two prize-fighters getting ready to be at each
other’s throat and only prevented from carrying out this intention
by a small strip of rag carpet and a cane chair. Mother and daughter
could not by any possible means have dressed at the same time, but that
hardly mattered, as Margot got up early to make her mother’s coffee and
went to bed late because of the theatre.
You could see twenty-seven chimney-pots out of the window, and by
sticking your neck at an uncomfortable angle you could catch a distant
view of some green trees not half a mile away. It was, as Margot used
to say, when she felt homesick for open fields and a wide sky, almost
like the country. Madame Selba preferred a view of the street, but that
she could get from the window of the living-room. There was a handsome
public house opposite.
Madame Selba united two passions with equal ardour, a passion for
Margot’s success, and a passion for brandy; that the two passions might
occasionally conflict did not appear to occur to her; but she found it
was more practical to work for the second and to dream of the first. In
her way, Madame Selba was an idealist.
Margot loved her mother deeply, because she was her mother, and it
never occurred to Margot not to love her, because she had always taken
care of her, and because it was Margot’s nature to love.
“What I should do without Mother!” she had often said to herself;
sometimes people said this for her, but with a different meaning.
Madame Selba was a stout woman, who ate heartily; she had never been
able to work. She referred vaguely sometimes to internal troubles.
Margot said, “Mother must be very careful not to overdo herself,” but
no one except Margot ever felt it necessary to urge this caution upon
her.
This morning everything had a most dreary and unreal air (for Margot
felt it extremely unusual not to be cheerful); even Madame Selba,
sleeping heavily upon the pillow with at least three-fourths of
the blanket wrapped about her substantial form, appeared slightly
unattractive. A dreadful idea occurred to Margot--suppose that Jean
should not admire her mother! She reproached herself for thinking it
possible, but she did think it possible.
“I wonder if I should have made that arrangement with him,” thought
Margot as she prepared the coffee. “In the long run I shall make
more, of course, but meanwhile we shall be hard up. I must be more
careful, that is all. It is an extravagance this taking of trams; from
henceforth I will walk to the theatre, and I will not buy a new hat.”
Margot sighed; to buy the new hat would have been flying in the face
of Providence, but not to buy it was to fly even more relentlessly in
the face of pleasure; and Providence might not have minded as much as
Margot.
She tried to sing over the coffee, and she kissed her mother’s very
large and rather unappetizing cheek with the heartiness of inveterate
affection; and then, with sheer terror in her heart struggling against
the dauntless courage of youth, Margot set off to the theatre.
It was an icy winter morning, and it is doubtful what would have
happened to her courage if she had not fortified it by an imprudence.
On her way she passed a flower-seller and bought a bunch of violets.
It was an imprudence, as she confessed to herself, but like many other
imprudences it really looked very well, and it gave her a sense of
defiance. If she was to have her head cut off, she would at least
appear at her best for the execution.
There was a sense of quickened suspense in the very atmosphere of the
Odéon. The great empty theatre resounded to the angry explosions of
Monsieur Picot, the Stage Manager; the retreating charwomen with dirty
buckets almost hurried to get out of his way. The gathered artists in
the wings or on the stage seemed dipped in whispering gloom. They were
all waiting, it appeared, for Liane, and Liane was late.
Monsieur Picot looked at Margot morosely--she had really done well the
night before, several people had congratulated him about it. It did not
occur to him to repeat the congratulations; he merely remarked that
he supposed she thought he liked wasting his time, for the pleasure
of seeing how late feather-headed nincompoops cared to be! She was
mistaken if she thought so, because he held everybody to witness that
he did not! Everybody had been witnessing it for half an hour and knew
in addition that Margot was not wanted till the fourth act, which
was not timed to take place for another hour but there was a general
assent, and everyone cast looks of scandalized indignation upon Margot.
Then Liane arrived. It at once became obvious that the morning’s work,
if it took place at all, would hardly be pleasant.
Liane had a peculiar strained and nervous look in her face, like that
of a horse laying back its ears preparatory to kicking the trap to
pieces. The manager rubbed his hands together and his back cringed with
precautionary amiability. He did not dare reproach Liane for being
late, so he scolded the whole of the rest of the company, who had been
early.
“Now, perhaps, since you are at last ready, you set of wooden-heads!”
he observed with bitter scorn, “you will no longer trespass upon the
patience of Madame!”
Liane raised her head and drew back her lips as if she were smiling.
“First I must ask permission for a few words with Monsieur le
Régisseur,” she said, with terrible humility. Monsieur Picot shook in
his shoes; he begged his _chère_ Madame to do him the great kindness of
waiting until after the rehearsal.
“Until we have those few words there can be no rehearsal, Monsieur,”
she replied, still in the deadly undertone of controlled rage.
The Manager gave himself up for lost.
“Madame!” he said, and bowed the way into his office. The rest of
the company looked at each other and at Margot. They had never liked
Margot, her manner of life disgusted them. A _fille de théâtre_ should
behave like a _fille de théâtre_ and not like a _fille du monde_;
surely the profession was hard enough without that clumsy addition!
Within the Manager’s small office, Liane addressed herself to the
mirror and put an ostrich feather straight; she was never more terrible
than when she was arranging her appearance.
“_Bon!_” she said. “You will have the kindness, Monsieur Picot, to
instantly dismiss the little one who sang last night! her song is not
necessary to the play that is now on, and her taking any part in the
new piece is quite out of the question. I don’t know her name; her
voice is execrable, she puts me out.”
Monsieur Picot shook his head.
“But, Madame,” he said persuasively, “I am simply desolated if she has
displeased you, this little Selba; to tell the truth, I do not find
that she sings so badly. We cannot all have the charm of a De Brances.
But you are fatigued this morning. Sit down for a few moments, try
this armchair, a cigarette _Non_? Ah! I find them such a rest for the
nerves! Your triumph last night, now that was a sensation! In all
probability you suffer this morning from a reaction. Ah! you geniuses!
All alike, all alike! You conquer the world, but that is not enough for
you, if you fail to find yourself amused next morning!”
Liane sat down, but she kept tapping her foot and playing with her muff
during the manager’s speech; at the end of it she breathed quickly.
“A thousand thanks, Monsieur,” she said. “I repeat, I cannot continue
to play a part subject to such interruptions from a cat that squalls, a
toneless vegetable, a dreadful _gauche_, clumsy little insect!”
“Ah, we must arrange something,” said the manager soothingly. “Yes,
yes, we must make a little alteration. I think you only come in
together during the fourth act, before you wind up that magnificent
scene of yours under the pyramid. The voice is that of the little
Circassian slave, which reminds the princess of her youth. Ah, yes! I
thought it went very well last night. I might tell Selba to sing just
a little more slowly, perhaps. You find the tune too light, too gay? A
suggestion of the Princess’s tragedy, _hein_? Madame has always such
talent for _les nuances_. One cannot expect a young girl like Selba to
make the most of her part. They are as ignorant as fleas, these young
girls, all of them! It must often appal the creative genius of Madame!”
“_Mon Dieu!_” said Liane, with a brusque movement of her whole body.
“It is useless that you should try to put me off! You enrage me with
your stale compliments! Make them to this season’s _ingénue_, not to
Liane de Brances! You have heard what I have to say; nor am I alone in
saying it. I do not come before you with personal complaints, I speak
always for the good of the theatre.”
“The consideration of Madame touches me to the heart,” murmured
Monsieur Picot, who detested her. Liane gave him a baleful look and
swept on with her speech.
“It is possible that you have some respect for the opinions of Manet of
the _Comœdia_, and Danton from the _Journal_; they took supper with me
last night, they were trembling with rage. ‘Madame,’ they said, ‘that
little one distracts the part. The song is an intrusion--it is a thing
behind the age, totally unworthy of the Odéon and of you! It is an
atrocious blunder, an infamy!’ I have only this to ask you, Monsieur
Picot, am I to be exposed to the blunders of underlings in this
theatre? If so, let me know it at once. I suppose there are possibly
other theatres in Paris where the name of Liane de Brances is not
utterly unknown, nor her capacities entirely despised.”
Monsieur Picot turned sulky; no man likes to hear his flattery taken
for what it is worth, especially if it is worth nothing, and no
Parisian manager will bear to be spoken of as old-fashioned.
“_Voyons_, De Brances,” he snarled viciously, entirely dropping his
voice of oil and honey. “There are such things as contracts, I would
have you remember!”
Liane rose from her seat with a magnificent gesture of scorn.
“You appear to forget,” she said, “that for the new play I am _en
représentation_, and that the present one runs, I think I am not wrong
in saying, for ten nights longer. I have not as yet signed the contract
for this fresh play. I wish you all success in it! No doubt Marguérite
la Vaillance will make her name and yours in the principal part. She
will render you famous, _parbleu_, that fine, fat, forty-year-old hack!
It remains only that I felicitate you, Monsieur. I take pleasure in
doing so before the public, who will, without doubt, be swift to follow
my example.”
Monsieur Picot wrung his hands in a confusion of rage and terror.
How he would have loved it to have been the neck of the brutally
indispensable woman before him! He had never dealt with any actress
so insolent, so jealous, so terrifically shrewd about business! She
had none of the pleasant failings of the real artist; only success, a
success that reduced him, cowering and malignant, to any terms, even
her own.
“Madame!” he cried, as Liane swept past him towards the door, “pray do
not let us part like this. You know well that Marguérite la Vaillance
is incapable, or any other actress in Paris, of undertaking a part
written especially for you! As to this affair of little Selba’s song,
it is true I should regret greatly having to dismiss her. I tell you
frankly she will get a better place elsewhere if I do. She has a voice
like a little country bird, and in Paris just now they have a rage for
simplicity. Of course, if it is your wish to push her into notice, I
say no more. But you know, De Brances, as well as I do that it is just
these little things--a dismissal on the heels of a success, a story of
jealousy and revenge, that send the public wild about an actress. If
Selba succeeds after I send her away, she will owe her success to you!
_Voilà tout!_” And the diplomatic Manager, certain of his triumph,
shrugged his shoulders. Liane hesitated.
“No one who knows me could suppose me capable of jealousy,” she said,
in a disturbed voice.
The manager’s eyelids fluttered; he bowed.
“Still,” she continued, with more determination,--then the door opened,
and Margot herself appeared. Monsieur Moncet, the _jeune premier_, had
sent her to ask Monsieur Picot to begin the rehearsal, as he had an
urgent appointment to keep and had waited an hour already.
It is a curious thing that the more depraved and cold-hearted human
beings are, the more passionately sentimental they become. Liane was
incorrigibly sentimental, and Margot owed her dismissal entirely to
the bunch of violets. It had been Jean’s custom to present Liane with
violets every day, and for Jean’s sake Liane had temporarily thrust
aside all the more expensive tributes which besieged her door. She drew
back for a moment like a creature about to spring, then she rushed
forward on to the middle of the stage.
“Dismiss that girl!” she shrieked to the Manager over her shoulder.
“What!” she cried, turning on the company. “Am I to be badgered and
interrupted in private conversations by the off-scourings of the
theatre? Has it come to this, that not a rehearsal can be conducted
in a decent manner so as to suit the convenience of the leading
lady, only too patient, only too submissive to the whims of a troupe
of dancing marionettes? Monsieur Moncet, you have a very important
engagement to keep, I hear? Do not let us detain you! Pleasure before
duty is the rule of this company! It would be perhaps a trifle more
_convenable_, Monsieur, if you refrained from sending one of your young
women to interrupt private interviews, with which your affairs--however
pressing--have nothing whatever to do! What, Marie Hauteville, you are
amused!”
“Madame! Madame! _je vous en prie!_” wailed the manager. Liane waved
him contemptuously aside.
“Mademoiselle Hauteville is amused!” she went on, with terrific irony.
“Let the whole theatre wait, then, until she has digested her joke.
What is the rehearsal of a new play compared to the inimitable humour
of Mademoiselle? Cat! Daughter of the devil! Spot of infamy! It is a
joke, then, that I am bullied, betrayed, infuriated by this _canaille_
of a company! Oh, yes!” shrieked Liane, her irony breaking into wild
invective, “it is very amusing, very!” And she collapsed with a scream
of rage into the nearest chair.
“I should like to know what I have done to justify Madame’s attack,”
said Marie Hauteville wrathfully. “I have not taken away any of her
admirers! Thank Heaven, I have no need to adopt _enfants_ from the
country.”
“Mademoiselle, _taisez-vous_!” shrieked the Manager, shaking his fist
in her face.
Liane sprang to her feet.
“What does she say?” she cried. “Is she about to give us a list of her
admirers? I beseech you, let us listen. It will not take long!”
“_Malheur!_” moaned the manager, burying his face in his hands.
“Is this a rehearsal?” shouted the _jeune premier_ “or is it
Pandemonium?”
“It is what you make it,” flashed Liane, turning swiftly upon him,
“with your _cabotine_ messengers and your little _affaires de cœur_,
which you cannot keep to yourself, it seems, but desire to intrude upon
women of reputation!”
“_Et quelle réputation!_” murmured Marie Hauteville, who had found her
voice.
“I will not stay here to be insulted,” said Moncet, who had been
burning to get away for the last half hour. “Mademoiselle Hauteville,
allow me to suggest that you follow my example. Madame de Brances is
suffering from losses; she is not herself this morning.”
“Go, both of you!” said Liane, with a superb gesture of dismissal. “You
are not wasted upon each other.”
The manager raised his head from his hands.
“There will be no rehearsal this morning,” he announced coldly.
“To-night at half-past eleven, please, without fail.”
Then Liane turned to Margot; she felt all the resistless hunger of the
vulgar and violent to wreak their spite visibly upon their victim.
“It appears,” said Liane, regarding her slowly from head to foot, “that
you are to go. It will be a lesson for you, perhaps; a girl like you,
with her way to make, should at least study to appear respectable.”
“From Madame such a warning has special significance,” said Margot
quietly. She had been sick with fright through the loud scene which had
followed her unfortunate message, but when she saw she was herself to
bear the brunt of Liane’s fury, all fear left her.
Liane drew her lips back from her shining white teeth; they looked long
and savage like a wolf’s.
“It is not you alone who will find the significance, _ma fille_,” she
hissed. “Run and tell your silly little Baron that he shall not forget
he has lost a friend and found an enemy.”
Margot put out her hands suddenly, as if something precious which she
held near her heart had been assailed. Had she then brought trouble
upon Jean? Liane laughed. It was a horrible laugh; it made several
people who had not particularly kind hearts feel quite uncomfortable.
As for the Manager, he was so uncomfortable, that when he dismissed
Margot he gave her a hundred francs more than was due to her. Jean
scolded her seriously for taking it. He said she should have had more
pride; he had such an heroic way of looking at things. He did not know
that when Margot had taken the money she had been thinking that she
could feed him up very nicely on that without depriving her mother of
anything. If he had known, he would have been more angry still.
Margot was very unhappy, because she was afraid that Jean despised
her, but she did not return the hundred francs as he suggested. She
preferred that Jean should despise her, than that he should go without
extras for his meals. There was nothing at all heroic about Margot!