"Monsieur, I have come to implore you to do something for me. I am
breaking my heart in the profession for want of a helping hand. Will
you be generous and give me a chance?"
"My dear mademoiselle--er--Laurent," I said, "I sympathise with your
difficulties, and I thoroughly understand them, but I have no
engagement to offer you--I am not a manager."
She smiled bitterly. "You are de Varenne--a word from you would 'make'
me!"
I was wondering what her age was. About eight-and-twenty, I thought,
but alternately she looked much younger and much older.
"You exaggerate my influence--like every other artist that I consent to
see. Hundreds have sat in that chair and cried that I could 'make'
them. It is all bosh. Be reasonable! I cannot 'make' anybody."
"You could cast me for a part in Paris. You are 'not a manager,' but
any manager will engage a woman that you recommend. Oh, I know that
hundreds appeal to you, I know that I am only one of a crowd; but,
monsieur, think what it means to me! Without help, I shall go on
knocking at the stage doors of Paris and never get inside; I shall go
on writing to the Paris managers and never get an answer. Without help
I shall go on eating my heart out in the provinces till I am old and
tired and done for!"
Her earnestness touched me. I had heard the same tale so often that I
was sick of hearing it, but this woman's earnestness touched me. If I
had had a small part vacant, I would have tried her in it.
"Again," I said, "as a dramatist I fully understand the difficulties of
an actress's career; but you, as an actress, do not understand a
dramatist's. There is no piece of mine going into rehearsal now,
therefore I have no opening for you, myself; and it is impossible for
me to write to a manager or a brother author, advising him to
entrust a part, even the humblest, to a lady of whose capabilities I
know nothing."
"I am not applying for a humble part," she answered quietly.
"Hein?"
"My line is lead."
I stared at her pale face, speechless; the audacity of the reply took
my breath away.
"You are mad," I said, rising.
"I sound so to you, monsieur?"
"Stark, staring mad. You bewail that you are at the foot of the ladder,
and at the same instant you stipulate that I shall lift you at a bound
to the top. Either you are a lunatic, or you are an amateur."
She, too, rose--resigned to her dismissal, it seemed. Then, suddenly,
with a gesture that was a veritable abandonment of despair, she
laughed.
"That's it, I am an amateur!" she rejoined passionately. "I will tell
you the kind of 'amateur' I am, monsieur de Varenne! I was learning my
business in a fit-up when I was six years old--yes, I was playing parts
on the road when happier children were playing games in nurseries. I
was thrust on for lead when I was a gawk of fifteen, and had to wrestle
with half a dozen roles in a week, and was beaten if I failed to make
my points. I have supered to stars, not to earn the few francs I got
by it, for by that time the fit-ups paid me better, but that I might
observe, and improve my method. I have waited in the rain, for hours,
at the doors of the milliners and modistes, that I might note how great
ladies stepped from their carriages and spoke to their footmen--and when
I snatched a lesson from their aristocratic tones I was in heaven, though
my feet ached and the rain soaked my wretched clothes. I have played good
women and bad women, beggars and queens, ingénues and hags. I was born
and bred on the stage, have suffered and starved on it. It is my life and
my destiny." She sobbed. "An 'amateur'!"
I could not let her go like that. She interested me strongly; somehow I
believed in her. I strode to and fro, considering.
"Sit down again," I said. "I will do this for you: I will go to the
country to see your performance. When is your next show?"
"I have nothing in view."
"Bigre! Well, the next time you are playing, write to me."
"You will have forgotten all about me," she urged feverishly, "or your
interest will have faded, or Fate will prevent your coming."
"Why do you say so?"
"Something tells me. You will help me now, or you will never help me--
my chance is to-day! Monsieur, I entreat you--"
"To-day I can do nothing at all, because I have not seen you act."
"I could recite to you."
"Zut!"
"I could rehearse on trial."
"And if you made a mess of it? A nice fool I should look, after
fighting to get you in!"
A servant interrupted us to tell me that my old friend de Lavardens was
downstairs. And now I did a foolish thing. When I intimated to
mademoiselle Jeanne Laurent that our interview must conclude, she
begged so hard to be allowed to speak to me again after my visitor
went, that I consented to her waiting. Why? I had already said all that
I had to say, and infinitely more than I had contemplated. Perhaps she
impressed me more powerfully than I realised; perhaps it was sheer
compassion, for she had an invincible instinct that if I sent her away
at this juncture, she would never hear from me any more. I had her
shown into the next room, and received General de Lavardens in the
study.
Since his retirement from the Army, de Lavardens had lived in his
chateau at St. Wandrille, in the neighbourhood of Caudebec-en-Caux, and
we had met infrequently of late. But we had been at college together; I
had entered on my military service in the same regiment as he; and we
had once been comrades. I was glad to see him.
"How are you, my dear fellow? I didn't know you were in Paris."
"I have been here twenty-four hours," he said. "I have looked you up at
the first opportunity. Now am I a nuisance? Be frank! I told the
servant that if you were at work you weren't to be disturbed. Don't
humbug about it; if I am in the way, say so!"
"You are not in the way a bit," I declared. "Put your hat and cane
down. What's the news? How is Georges?"
"Georges" was Captain de Lavardens, his son, a young man with good
looks, and brains, an officer for whom people predicted a brilliant
future.
"Georges is all right," he said hesitatingly. "He is dining with me
to-night. I want you to come, too, if you can. Are you free?"
"To-night? Yes, certainly; I shall be delighted."
"That was one of the reasons I came round--to ask you to join us." He
glanced towards the table again. "Are you sure you are not in a hurry
to get back to that?"
"Have a cigar, and don't be a fool. What have you got to say for
yourself? Why are you on the spree here?"
"I came up to see Georges," he said. "As a matter of fact, my dear
chap, I am devilish worried."
"Not about Georges?" I asked, surprised.