Twopence Coloured (8 page)

“Well,” he said at last. “I suppose it’s because I’m never really happy except when I
am
acting.”

That struck Jackie as being very good. When the time came, she resolved,
she
would never be happy, except while
she
was acting. That was very nice.

“Well, I think you might help me,” said Jackie.

“That’s what I’m trying to do,” said Mr. Gissing, and so the argument went on and on, and round and round. They argued all the way back to their lodgings; they argued on the step, letting themselves in; they asked a rather shocked Mrs. Lover if they could have supper together, so that there should be no pause in their argument; they argued waiting for, consuming, and digesting their supper, until the clock above the ash-strewn fireplace pointed to five-and-twenty past twelve, at which magic moment Mr. Gissing made a concession. This he did not do with the air of a man making a concession, but as one maintaining his own argument: but it was a concession for all that.

“I don’t mind ’phoning up and making an appointment with an agent for you to-morrow,” he said, and Jackie nailed him to it like lightning.

“You
will?
” she said, smiling.

“Yes.”

“Oh, thanks awfully…. I’m sorry to have gone on so, but you’ve no idea what it means…. Of course, I don’t want you to if you don’t really want to,” said Jackie, who only wished now that they could both win the day.

“Very well, then — I won’t,” said Mr. Gissing.

“What time’ll you do it? Shall I be able to see some one to-morrow?”

“I imagine so.”

“Thanks awfully,” repeated Jackie, softly, and, “It’s jolly nice of you, and thanks terribly,” she added.

But Mr. Gissing was not going to kiss and make-up like that. He looked severely at her, and rose to go to bed.

H
E came down to an extremely restive and rather scared Jackie at ten o’clock next morning, to ask her if she still felt the same, and five minutes later they left the house.

With very few words they walked down the cold, sunny street, and he guided her mechanically to the post office.

“This is where we ’phone Mr. Lee,” he said, and went into a box. She waited outside and watched him through the glass. It took about four minutes.

“Well?” said Jackie.

“A quarter to eleven,” he said. “I can see you round there.”

“Do you think there’s any chance of anything?”

“Yes. He thinks he might slip you in unnoticed with Linell. Stephen Linell.”

“Who’s he?”

“Shakespeare. You’ll be jolly lucky if you can get it. He’s going out for fifteen weeks.”

“On tour?”

Mr. Gissing glanced at Jackie.

“Yes.”

There was a pause.

“I hope I can get it,” said Jackie.

They embarked together on the District, and got out at Piccadilly, and walked towards Leicester Square.

“Does one just go in,” asked Jackie, “and ask for Mr. Lee?”

“I think that’s just the thing, really,” said Mr. Gissing.

There was a silence.

“I’m very sorry to see you so frightened, Jackie,” he
said. “Because all this business is made up of going in and asking for Mr. Lee.”

She was too busy pulling round from the “Jackie” to answer at once.

“It’s only the first time,” she said.

“Well, here we are. You go up there, and it’s on the right. Will you join me at lunch?”

“Oh yes,” said Jackie.

“Will you meet me at this corner, then, at a quarter past one?”

“Yes. Rather.”

“If you’re not here, I’ll know that something’s
happened. Good-bye.”

“Good-bye.”

She was walking up the street to her career.

Her career began with a not very impertinent young woman of middling attractions in an outer room. Her career was then suspended for half an hour, which deteriorated her morale at the outset, and during which other submissive individuals intermittently came in and softly tackled the not very impertinent young woman of middling attractions on the subject of their own careers. But at last a giddy moment came when she was running up the stairs; and then she was alone in a room with Mr. Carson Lee.

Mr. Lee — a large, dark, heavily moustached and
abundantly
virile man of about forty-five — was at the telephone: and it was clear, at the moment that Jackie caught him, that the entire business of the theatre had reached a crisis from which it was not likely to pull through. But Mr. Lee was happily in charge, and he was sitting at the machine, like an admiral who had ruthlessly snatched the wireless from the operator, and was issuing his commands and smelling out the position with awe-inspiring rapidity and efficiency.

In these circumstances, he was just able to concede to Jackie a curt and unsmiling nod, as though he knew that
she
had come with news of the fleet in the North (which had doubtless been sunk by now): but otherwise he did not attend to her.

“What? …
What?
… Out of the question! … Wipe it out. Wipe it out…. What? … What? … Well he must come and see me…. What? …
Good.
”

On this last word, which was pronounced with the
minimum
of satisfaction (and the maximum of finality), he thrust the instrument from him, and came over to shake Jackie’s hand.

“Good morning, Miss Mortimer. Glad to see you here. Mr. Gissing ’phoned up about you, didn’t he?”

“Yes,” said Jackie. “That’s right.” But at this moment there was a buzzing at the machine. Mr. Lee whirled himself back into the thick of the battle.

“Hullo-hullo…. Hullo…. Yes…. HulLO…. Yes…. WHAT! … Never…. No. Certainly not.
Never
!”

And the receiver smashed down on that leonine negative. The whole theatre had obviously combined against Mr. Lee, but he was taking a firm stand. Or rather the naval odds were numerically too much for the distressed admiral, but he was going down with flying colours.

“Let me see now,” said Mr. Lee, again rising. “You’ve hardly had any experience at all now, have you?”

“No — I haven’t, really.”

Mr. Lee paced over to the blazing fire, and commenced to warm his back with a kind of expert lasciviousness and a gentle swaying motion.

“Well, I rather think I may have the thing for you. Stephen Linell. If you could get in with him you’d get a fine
all-round
training, and a real start. And of course he’s wanting beginners. (Salary wouldn’t be up to much, of course.) Let me see now….”

He flashed over to the telephone, lifted the receiver, shouted “Get me Mr. Brewster, please,” and paused.

“Let me see now, how old
are
you, Miss — Hullo. Hullo. Mr. Brewster there, please? … Oh…. Well, do you
know where Mr. Linell’s rehearsing to-day? … Oh … Then what time’ll Mr.
Brewster
be back? …. Ah…. Ah…. Thank you.”

He snatched a bit of paper from a partition in his desk, and commenced scribbling upon it. He rose and handed it to Jackie.

“Now if you’ll take that round to Mr. Brewster, in
Glasshouse
Street, you’ll probably catch him; and you may see Linell this morning. Of course, I don’t know whether he’s filled up, but I should think you’d stand a very good chance. You’ve got the right kind of voice and looks, and you could n’t get a better training anywhere. Benson, Greet or any of ’em. Of course there’s nothing to speak of in the way of salary. In fact, it generally means a premium as often as not. But then — —”

Mr. Lee was summoned to the telephone.

“Hullo…. Yes…. Yes…. Oh yes…. What! Good God, man, do they think I don’t know my own business? (The Government itself had evidently turned against him now.) “What! … Well, tell ’em I take complete
responsibility
—
complete
…. Yes…. Good-bye…. Yes…. Good-bye…. No…. No…. Good-bye.”

He returned to the fire. “Well. Yes. That ought to be all right, then. It’s a chance in a hundred, really — placed as you are. Do you know Glasshouse Street?”

“No,” said Jackie. “I’m afraid I don’t.”

He directed her to Glasshouse Street, with some care, and the interview was closed.

“Bosh!” was the last word she heard Mr. Lee (who had returned to the telephone) using, as she ran down the stairs and out into the sunny street. 

*

She walked from the comparative quietude of Leicester Square into the seething vortex of Piccadilly, and was shot out again into the comparatively quiet and seedy environs of Snow’s chop-house and the Regent Palace, and found her way to the address she wanted. This address rather
awkwardly
coincided with a fishmonger’s address, but an assistant
with a glistening dank blush upon his hands directed her to a narrow entrance next door, and after climbing a very great quantity of wooden stairs, she achieved an office.

Here there was another young woman who was sitting in another outer room at her typing. She said that Mr. Brewster might soon be back, and gave Jackie a chair. Then she sat again at her typing. Jackie watched her with interest for an hour and five minutes….

At the end of which period a gentleman came clattering busily upon the wooden stairs, and entered the room.

This gentleman — a short, greying, clean-shaven man in pince-nez and a bowler hat — glanced in passing at Jackie, and went to the other end of the room to take off his overcoat.

“Parry been?”

“No. Mr. Rodd ’phoned, though.”

“All serene?”

“Yes.”

Mr. Brewster hovered over Jackie and took her note. He adjusted his pince-nez, and read it. “Ah, yes,” he said. “I’m rather afraid you’ve come a bit too late, though. I think he’s all fixed up by now. You might try, though. He’s rehearsing at the Lester Halls, Jackson Street, off Tottenham Court Road. If I were you I’d go round. He’s wanting people like you. And if it’s too late now you might fix up for the Spring. He’s going out again, then. Do you know how to get there?”

“No,” said Jackie. “I’m afraid I don’t.”

He directed her with some care. “And tell him I sent you round, will you?” added Mr. Brewster, becoming
modestly
omnipotent.

“Thank you very much,” said Jackie. “I’ll go straight round there now.”

“Good morning.”

“Good morning.”

Jackie was half-way down the stairs, when a voice recalled her.

“I say!”

“Yes,” said Jackie.

“You’ll have to hurry. I’m not sure he does n’t leave off rehearsing early this morning.”

“Thanks,” said Jackie. “I will. Good morning.”

“Good-bye.”

*

(A little uncanny, all this, thought Jackie, as she jumped hastily off one bus on to another at Oxford Circus, and jogged along above the tumultuous tide of Oxford Street. Strange forces at work in herself — these forces that had suddenly snatched her from her ordinary life, and sent her chasing madly about the whirl and roar of London streets, as though she had no longer any will of her own, but was a mere puppet in the mysterious and thunderous drama of the metropolis about her. She could not remember how it had all started…. She had imagined that she was to stoop in order to conquer this morning; but here she was rushing about from one address to another in order to conquer, and it wasn’t the same thing….)

She branched off from Tottenham Court Road into an area of wide squares formed by various new and imposing
Institutes
of various kinds, and she had no difficulty in finding the Lester Halls.

Which Halls reared a very magnificent frontage before the stare of the world, but were sadly lacking in one minute but (to the weak-minded) vital accessory — to wit, a Bell. Now if Jackie had been a strong and decisive character, she would undoubtedly have laughed at Bells and walked straight in (the door was open) to demand guidance: but being a feeble and timorous being (as has been clearly indicated), and accustomed to announcing herself to strangers solely by tentative and wretched tinkling sounds, she was now reduced to walking palely up and down outside the Lester Halls, and wondering what was going to happen next. Happily though, after about ten minutes of this, the undoubtedly official
bucket-clanker and floor-scourer of the Lester Halls came out to practise her violent pursuit on the front-steps, and was able to give Jackie the desired information.

A long, dark passage was pointed at, with a dripping brush, and down this passage Jackie went. It grew darker still as she went along, but her doubts as to the propriety of taking this passage were soon assuaged by a voice coming from behind a door at the far end.

This voice was the loudest and deepest voice that Jackie had ever heard, or could conceive hearing, in her life, and belonged, she naturally assumed, to an ogre who had at that very instant been robbed of his supper. If one elaborated this image by conceiving this ogre as one whose supper (previous to his privation) had been composed of the most delicate little children’s thumbs he had ever before witnessed, let alone tasted; and if, further, one conceived this ogre as one suffering temporarily from twinges of a giant gout; and if, further still, one conceived this ogre as having been on the boards in his day, probably in Shakespeare, and
undoubtedly
at the Lyceum (or its equivalent at the top of the
beanstalk
), where they always shoved him into the heavy parts — some pale notion may be formulated of the voice that greeted Jackie from the other side of the door, and some cause may be discerned for the fact that her piteous knocking with a little gloved knuckle upon the panel of this door elicited no response or invitation from within. Indeed, Jackie was at last compelled to take the handle and walk in unasked.

She entered what appeared to be a large ball-room, with a slippery floor, a piano, chairs all round, and a balcony above. This was peopled, she was surprised to find, almost
exclusively
by children of her own age (from eighteen, that is, to twenty-three): and in the centre, by the piano, was a
selection
of chairs so arranged as to symbolize various
entrances
, seats, trees, tables and such-like, around which the drama (which was “Twelfth Night”) was to be played.

The voice, she was even more surprised to find, was
fulminating
up from the chest of an untidy, fair, and excessively curly-haired young man (rather like a grammar-school
prefect), who was bent practically double in the exertions
attaching
to an impersonation of Sir Toby Belch — which character had undoubtedly, all the Illyrian morning, been inviting an infinite quantity of Plagues (and their like) to fall upon the heads of his opponents; and alluding to
galliards
, corantos, coystrils, sink-a-paces, or similar unknown objects or abstractions, with great gusto and familiarity, as was his wont.

The rest of the company, which was about twenty in number, were sitting around, or standing about, or talking softly, or looking on.

Jackie, who felt like a little girl on her first day at school, excited many vague stares, and adopted a kind of arduously mouse-like and timidly observant attitude pending
cross-examination
. Unhappily, though, she found that she was unable to cancel the natural functioning of the human body with respect to Creaking — and creak she did, to the
consternation
of all. But at last a young man, older than the rest (as though he were their usher), came forth, and she gave him her note. He gave her a chair in return, and told her to wait.

During this the rehearsal had been in progress without stoppage, and in the next half-hour she was given ample opportunity to remark the leading principles upon which the Stephen Linell Shakespearian Company founded its interpretation of the master. Which principles, Jackie
decided
, after some consideration, were almost exclusively Village-Hampden principles. That is to say, each young man, having once passed between the two chairs representing the central entrance, automatically assumed an armour of deep-chested and impenetrable defiance, and having, in the space of time allotted to him, strutted towards, bellowed upon, paced around, thrown metaphorical gauntlets at, and generally held the five-barred gate against his fellows (who were similarly engrossed), would walk off with a magnificent sweep and a cocky air of having delivered a snub to Tyranny, from which it would be very lucky if it again lifted its head. Such was the main principle at work, thought Jackie. There
were many subsidiary principles, of which the moaning or expiring principle (for lovers), and the “La, Sir!” wave-hands-about-with-shrill-chatter principle (for serving women) were the most easily discerned, but these acted merely as set-offs to the prevailing convention of aggression.