Читать книгу The Passionate Quest - E. Phillips Oppenheim - Страница 10

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So, in the eighth month of their great enterprise, the enterprise which was to show them the whole earth and the glory thereof, the three were separated. Matthew flourished in his flat in Bury Street, and, subject to the ministrations of a vigilant valet, departed each day for the city, garbed and tended into the likeness of the class into whose ranks he was determined to pass. Philip found a top room in an old building in Adam Street, a steep climb, but an airy chamber with a three-cornered view of the river. Rosina procured a bedroom which was little better than a cubicle, in a working-girl's club, thereby achieving a disagreeable but obvious respectability. Philip, having at last run to earth his friend's friend, the editor, succeeded in selling him two stories and an article, and faced the world bravely with nine guineas, paid, after many protests, in advance of publication. Rosina, at the end of her second week, parted with her coat again, and, at the beginning of the fourth, decided to give up typewriting for ever. She had what Philip lacked—a singularly robust vein of common sense—and she faced the situation without alarm but at the same time seriously, absolutely determined that under no consideration whatever would she become a drag upon Philip. One by one, she enumerated and considered the various means by which a young woman of moderate ability and rather too prepossessing an appearance might make a living in London. She decided to apply for a position in an office, and, after a prolonged study of various advertisements, she started out one morning with a list in her hand. To a certain extent she was prepared to sacrifice her independence. The idea of spending the day in an office was distasteful to her, but it was obviously inevitable. She put away regrets and faced the situation cheerfully.

On her way towards the first place on her list, she paused for a moment to look at the bills outside the Garrick Theatre. A forthcoming production was announced, and the front of the house was closed. A thin stream of girls and men was making its way down the flagged passage which led to the stage door, and she chanced to overhear the word "rehearsal." With a little laugh and a valiant instinct for adventure, she turned and followed them. As luck would have it, the doorkeeper's attention was momentarily engaged as she passed in single file, with several other girls, before his glass window. She followed them down a network of dark passages, past several doors on which cards were pinned, until she stood at last in what she realised must be the wings of the theatre. Here she had a few minutes in which to collect herself. A young man and a girl were standing in the middle of the stage. A short, olive-complexioned, fat personage, with jet-black hair, was walking around them, with a typescript in his hand, apparently on the brink of tears.

"Rotten!" he cried. "Absolutely rotten! You both enter as though you were walking on stilts, you both say the wrong thing in the wrong way. You, Eric, look like a poop-stick, and you, Madge, like a hairdresser's dummy. God help the play and all of us, I say! Unless you can put a little more life into it, you'll be booed off the stage on the first night."

Rosina, thoroughly enjoying herself, smiled at a pleasant-faced young man in tweeds, who was standing by her side, smoking a cigarette.

"Are these two really so bad," she enquired, "or is it the play?"

"Well, it's scarcely fair to ask me," he replied, "as I happen to be the author."

Rosina, who was becoming an opportunist, did not hesitate for a moment.

"Are you really the author?" she murmured, raising her eyes and looking at him. "How wonderful!"

The young man changed his position a little. He seemed slightly embarrassed.

"Oh, I don't know about that!" he observed deprecatingly. "This sort of thing isn't really difficult to write."

"I heard the little fat man say something about a chorus," she went on, dropping her voice a little and looking at him confidentially. "Do you think I could possibly find a place in it?"

He looked at her in surprise.

"Aren't you in the show?" he asked.

"Not yet," she answered hopefully.

"Then what the dickens are you doing here?"

"I just saw the others coming in and I followed," she explained. "I was on my way to apply for a post at a fruit shop, at two pounds ten a week. I would so much rather go on the stage."

The young man turned and studied her attentively. After all, she decided, he was not quite so young as she had thought at first. He was a little freckled and very much sunburnt, clean-shaven, bald on the top of his head, with humorous mouth and kindly grey eyes. She liked him quite well enough to endure his scrutiny and to smile back at him.

"Sure you're not getting at me?" he demanded. "You're not a leading ingénue in disguise, or anything of that sort?"

"Nothing of the kind," she assured him. "I am a poor but honest girl, seeking to make a respectable living."

The rehearsal was in full swing now. The young man called to his confederate who had been coaching the unhappy pair.

"Sam," he said, "a word with you."

Sam strolled over, fanning himself with the script he was carrying.

"No use pitching into me, Duggie, old chap," he began, deprecatingly. "I'll teach them their job in time, but it's damned slow work."

"I don't want to pitch into you," was the prompt reply. "Is your chorus full up?"

"Abso-bally-lutely!"

Rosina's heart fell like a stone. Her hopes rose again, however, a moment later.

"Then just forget it," the author enjoined firmly. "Sam, old fellow, as a pal, couldn't you run another one in?"

"Oh, my God, Douglas!" the stage manager groaned. "Where is it? Let me know the worst!"

"The worst, in this case, is the best," was the cheerful rejoinder. "Sam, shake hands with Miss—er—Miss—er—"

"Miss Vonet," Rosina intervened. "How do you do, Mr. Sam? I hope you'll let me come into the chorus, and that you won't be as cross with me as you were with those people just now."

The stage manager shook hands, coldly at first but with increasing warmth. Rosina had looked at him.

"Duggie," he remonstrated, "why didn't you bring the young lady along before?"

"She's only just at liberty," the other explained. "Had hard work to persuade her to come into a rotten show like this."

"Better late than never, Miss Vonet," the stage manager declared. "Rehearsal at two-thirty this afternoon. You get a fiver a week when we start, if we ever do. We find the clothes. Don't be late."

The author looked at his watch.

"Time we went and had some lunch, Miss Vonet," he suggested.

"But—"

"Grillroom at Ciro's," he interrupted. "I know what you're going to say—old clothes on, and all that. It doesn't matter a bit. Come along."

He led the way into the street. Rosina walked demurely by his side.

"Of course, I'm not going to refuse a perfectly good lunch," she said, "if you think it really doesn't matter about my terrible clothes. But will you kindly tell me if you really are the author of the play, and what it's all about?"

"My name is Douglas Erwen," he announced. "I am a New Yorker, although I am over on this side a good deal. To a certain extent I wrote the play, but it's one of those silly affairs, you know, with a skeleton plot, a slight book, plenty of songs and dances, and a dickens of a lot of gag. They call me the author," he went on meditatively. "I suppose I do supply them with an idea or two as a peg to hang the rest on. I certainly don't do more."

"What have I to do in the chorus?" Rosina enquired.

"Kind of go-as-you-please," Erwen assured her. "Stroll about most of the time in wonderful clothes, and make imaginary conversation with sticky-faced young men."

"I sha'n't like it," Rosina declared firmly.

"I never supposed you would," was the gloomy reply. "All the same, if you want to get on the stage, it's a start."

"It isn't the stage I'm so keen about," she confided. "It's the five pounds a week."

"Honest?"

She nodded.

"I've been earning fifteen shillings a week by typing," she told him. "I couldn't keep myself on it, so I've spent all my savings."

"Haven't you any home or relatives?" he asked curiously.

"None!"

"No friends?"

"One—a young man whom I am by way of being engaged to. He is very clever, but unfortunately he hasn't any money, either."

"Where do you live?"

"At a girls' hostel in Westminster. It costs just twenty-four shillings a week. When one's earnings are fifteen—well, living becomes rather a problem, doesn't it?"

They passed through the swing doors, into the restaurant. The young man wrote his companion's name in a book, handed his stick and hat to an attendant, and led her down the stairs, past the bar, from which he was vociferously greeted by its various patrons, into a quaintly-decorated grillroom, where he ensconced Rosina at a corner table and took a seat beside her.

"Cocktail?" he enquired.

"I've never tasted one," she confessed. "I think I'd rather not, if you don't mind. I mustn't try too many new experiences in one day."

He ordered one for himself, consulted her taste as to the luncheon and selected some light wine. All the time he was studying her, unobtrusively and in quite friendly fashion.

"Say, are you used to lunching with perfect strangers?" he asked.

"I have never done it before," she assured him, "but then, you see, I have never met a real author who found me a place at five pounds a week and asked me out to lunch as well."

"We are not all to be trusted," he warned her. "Terrible fellows, some of us!"

She smiled into his face. When she smiled, Rosina was very beautiful.

"I should always trust you," she said.

"I hope you always may," he answered, without over-much warmth in his tone. "Rather like putting one on honour, though, isn't it?"

"It is very good for you to be put on honour," she declared.—"What a wonderful omelette! Tell me, have you written many plays?"

"A fair number," he admitted. "Most of them have found their way over to this side, too. Don't tell me that you have never seen one of them!"

"Seen one of them?" she repeated, with a little laugh. "Why, I've only been in a theatre once in my life. It was one of Shakespeare's plays, and we had to leave early so that my uncle shouldn't find out."

"Say, you're not pulling my leg, are you?" he asked suspiciously.

"Everything I have told you has been the honest truth," she assured him.

"Where have you been living, then?"

"Norchester. Doesn't that explain it?"

"Somewhere up in the north, isn't it? But surely you came to London sometimes?"

"Never! My guardian was a strict Nonconformist."

"Look here," Erwen exclaimed, waving his hand across the room, "I must introduce you to Reggie! He looks stupid but he isn't. You will see a lot of him at the theatre. He's putting up the money for the show. Hi, Reggie!"

A sleepy-looking young man, whose chief characteristics seemed to be a rather fat face, an unattached monocle and a friendly manner, strolled across to them.

"Want you to shake hands with Miss Vonet," Erwen declared. "Lord Reginald Towers—Miss Vonet. Miss Vonet has kindly consented to join the company at present rehearsing at the Garrick Theatre."

"In other words, she's in the show, what?" the newcomer observed, with some appearance of interest. "Good business! Where were you last, Miss Vonet? I haven't met you before, have I?"

"I come from Norchester," Rosina replied, "and I don't think you've ever been there."

"Norchester?" the young man repeated, a little vaguely. "One of those funny places up on the top side of the map, isn't it? I meant, what was your last show?"

"I have never been on the stage before," Rosina confided.

"Done any filming?"

"None."

"Absolute ingénue, what?" Lord Reginald remarked. "Very clever of Duggie to find you, I'm sure. Glad we're going to meet at the theatre, Miss Vonet. So long. I'm what you might call booked to lunch with the Lollipop sisters," he added, strolling off to join a little party at the other end of the room.

"My first meeting with a lord," Rosina reflected, gazing after the retreating figure with interest.

"He's none too bright a specimen of the genus, I'm afraid," Erwen remarked. "A good fellow enough in some respects, but a rotter with women. Keep him in his place, Miss Vonet, won't you?"

She laughed softly.

"What is his place?"

"A good arm's-length away from you, and then some," was the prompt reply.

"I'll remember it," she promised.

"He'll ask you to lunch," Erwen warned her.

"I won't go. That's real self-denial, for I don't often get a meal like this."

"You shall lunch with me as often as you like," he invited.

"How do I know that you are to be trusted?" she asked, smiling.

"You will discover that in time," he declared confidently. "Meanwhile, will you have some coffee?"

"Have I time?" she asked. "I don't want to be late."

He glanced at his watch.

"Plenty," he assured her, as he gave the order. "Now look here, Miss Vonet, let me give you a word of advice. Seriously, I think you will have had enough of the stage in a week or two, which is about as long as this thing will run, but in the meantime, be careful of them all across yonder. They're a little accustomed to take liberties with strangers, and they aren't a very understanding lot."

"I don't think any one is likely to take much notice of me, but I will be careful," Rosina promised, as she drank her coffee hurriedly. "Do you mind if I rush away now? I'm so anxious not to be late the first time. Don't bother to come upstairs with me, please," she added, as her companion showed signs of accompanying her. "You haven't finished your coffee yet. I can find my way quite well. And thank you once more for this wonderful lunch."

Erwen remained on his feet for a moment or two, watching her. Rosina, in spite of the privations of the last few months, seemed to have grown more beautiful every day since her arrival in London. Her complexion was exquisitely clear, and, with her slightly increased fragility, her eyes seemed to have grown larger and more lustrous. Not even her closely fitting hat—a very inexpensive little affair it was—could conceal the coils of silky, golden-brown hair; and, notwithstanding her shabby clothes and clumsy shoes, she carried herself with a quiet grace, an indefinable elegance, which attracted the attention of several of the lunchers seated at the tables around the door. She glanced back, smiled at Erwen, and went on her way unruffled. She thanked the man who pushed open the revolving door for her with such a smile that he looked after her, astonished. The smile lingered on her lips as she stepped out of the place and turned towards the theatre. She was on the threshold of adventure at last!

Back in the grillroom at Ciro's, Erwen was talking through the telephone to Sam Benson, the excitable little man whom he had introduced to Rosina.

"Look here, Sam," he said, "about that little girl I asked you to take on this morning. She's on her way over to rehearse now."

"You don't want me to give her a part, I hope?" the stage manager asked anxiously.

"Don't be an ass! She's never been on the stage before and I dare say she'll be a perfect stick. I just want you to be on the lookout and see that none of the fellows get fresh with her over there."

"That's all right, Duggie, old chap," the other promised, in a tone of relief. "Leave it to me. I'll look after her."

"And, say, don't bully her yourself, there's a good fellow. Remember that the great Sarah herself had to have a first showing. And listen here, Sam. Tell her she's paid for rehearsals, and give her a fiver on Friday. I'll settle up with you."

"I'll attend to it. See you later."

Erwen returned to his seat and sipped his liqueur brandy. Having registered a solemn vow, in face of the whole company, that nothing should drag him to rehearsal again until the following week, he was wondering now what excuse he could make for breaking his word.