Читать книгу At the Sign of the Silver Flagon - Farjeon Benjamin Leopold - Страница 6

The Leading Lady was fond of money, and the theatre was doing so well that her dividend every week was a very handsome one, three times as much as she could expect to get elsewhere; but what woman is prudent when her vanity is hurt? A man with a large bump of caution occasionally hangs back, and calculates consequences. A woman never does. The Leading Lady in a towering passion confronted Mr. Hart, the manager, at the end of the performance.

"Here comes a tragedy," thought he, as he looked into her wrathful eyes. There was a smile on his face, nevertheless.

"I leave the company!" she said abruptly, with heaving bosom.

"My dear lady!" remonstrated the manager.

"To-morrow. I shall take a place in the coach that starts at eight o'clock."

She knew well enough what the result would be if she left; the company would collapse. A man might be spared, and his place filled, or his parts doubled, but the loss of a woman would inflict irreparable injury upon the prospects of the theatre. Mr. Hart knew this also.

"You don't forget," he said gravely, "that we have your signature, and that if you leave without consent we can make you pay heavy damages!"

"That for my signature! that for your heavy damages!" Each time she snapped a disdainful finger.

"My dear lady," he said, in a soothing tone, "you are excited, you are overstrained. We have taxed you a little hardly. We'll play light pieces for a night or two, and give you a rest."

Inconsiderate man He could not more successfully have fanned the flame in her breast.

"You'll play no light pieces to give me a rest! Play light pieces, and give her the opportunity of taking leading characters! The shameless hussy! Not if I know it!"

Mr. Hart began to understand. This colloquy was taking place on the stage; the theatre was clear, the curtain was up. Down the stairs which led to the ladies' dressing-room tripped Margaret, fresh, and bright, and happy, with her bunch of flowers in her hand.

"Good night, Mr. Hart," she cried gaily.

In the shadow of the door which led on to the stage a man was waiting for her-Philip. They met, clasped hands-her supple fingers lay in Philip's great palm as in a nest, and he imprisoned them, be sure! – and walked out, side by side, chatting confidentially, with their heads close together. The Leading Lady saw this, and her anger rose higher; but still it was bitter gall to her to reflect that if she went away, the field would be clear for her rival.

Mr. Hart felt that he was on the horns of a difficulty; he could spare neither one nor the other of the ladies.

"You're the manager of this company," said the Leading Lady, "and you ought long ago to have put down such shameless goings on. Did you see the way they went out together, and do you think people are blind? We shall be the talk of the town; but I'll not be implicated in it. My name musn't be used lightly." The manager smiled grimly. "I leave to-morrow. Understand that."

"I decline to understand it. You will fulfil your engagement, and if it is necessary for me to take steps to prevent your departure, I must do so for the sake of the others. I will swear a declaration against you!"

He was aware that he was talking the most arrant nonsense, but he relied on the feminine mind to assist him with its fears, and with its ignorance of legal subtleties.

"I shall be sorry to do so against a lady whom I esteem and respect so much, and of whose talents I have so high an opinion, but no other course will be open to me. If I allowed you to go, the diggers would rise against me. And quite right they would be! Why, my dear lady," he said, cunningly, "you know as well as I do that we are nothing without you-that you are the soul of the company-that there is not your equal on the colonial stage!"

The Leading Lady began to soften beneath the influence of such gross flattery, but it would not do to give way at once.

"I will not stop to be insulted!"

"No one shall insult you."

"But some one has-you know who-and she shall not do so again-no, not if you swear a million declarations!"

"Come, now, tell me all about it," said the manager, taking her arm, and walking slowly with her up and down the stage. "By the way, the Honourable Mr. Simpson, the Warden of Moonlight Flat, said last night, when you were playing Ophelia-you know him; he was in the theatre with the Commissioner of the Goldfields and the Resident Magistrate-"

"Yes, yes," said the Leading Lady impatiently, "what did he say?"

"That your Ophelia was equal to anything he had seen on the London stage, and that he believed you would create a sensation there. He is first cousin to the Earl of Badmington, you know, who has a theatre in London. I thought you would like to hear it. He is very anxious to make your acquaintance-as all gentlemen of taste and refinement would be."

He glanced slyly at the Leading Lady, whose head was nodding gently up and down, in sweet contentment.

"And now, my dear lady, tell me your grievance."

"It's yours as well as mine, but if you like to stand it, I shan't. If bouquets of flowers are to be thrown on the stage, they must be thrown to me-do you understand, sir? to me, as the Leading Lady, and as the star of the company!"

It happened that Mr. Hart had been busy elsewhere during the episode that had very nearly brought the ship to wreck, and had heard nothing of it. He asked the Leading Lady for an explanation, which was given to him.

"And if you don't stop these shameful goings-on," were her concluding words, "I give you fair warning, I will not stay with you. I have a character to lose, thank God!"

Which was to be construed in so many queer ways, that Mr. Hart could scarcely refrain from laughing. "Confound Master Philip!" he thought, and said aloud, "Well, well, my dear creature, I will see to it. And no flowers shall be thrown-by Mr. Philip Rowe, at all events-on the stage to any one but you."

This difficulty being soothed over, he went in search of Philip Rowe, and found him leaning against a fence outside the hotel, gazing up at a light in a bedroom window on the first floor.

"Rehearsing 'Romeo and Juliet?'" asked Mr. Hart kindly, taking the young man's arm.

Philip blushed, and stammered some unintelligible words.

"That is her window, Philip," said Mr. Hart, "so you will not make the same ridiculous mistake that I did for a fortnight together, gazing up every night at the light in my lady's bedroom, and working myself into a state of gushing sentimentalism over the slender waist and the graceful turn of the head I saw shadowed on the blind, until I discovered that I had been watching the bedroom window of a black footman."

This was a piece of pure invention on the part of Mr. Hart.

Philip, having nothing to say in reply, shifted one foot over another restlessly. If he could have retired with a good grace, he would have done so, but Mr. Hart had hold of his arm. Mr. Hart continued:

"Putting sentiment aside, a nice scrape you were almost getting me into to-night. Ah! you may stare, but I should like to know what you mean by throwing flowers to my singing Chambermaid-who is not by any means clever, let me tell you, and will never make her fortune on the stage-when we have in our company a lady who plays leading characters, and who knows every line of Juliet's part?"

"Ho, ho!" laughed Philip; "Juliet was a girl of sixteen or seventeen, and your Leading Lady is forty."

"Woe for your life if you said so in her presence!" exclaimed Mr. Hart, with a quiet chuckle; "it would not be worth a moment's purchase. Forty, sir! and what if she is forty? – which she is not by five years-she is the only woman that can play Juliet to your Romeo."

"Hush!" whispered Philip. "She is opening the window."

Margaret, alone, in her white dress, was indeed opening the window. She did not know-not she! – that her lover was below, nor that her form could be seen, for she had extinguished the light in the room. Her shadow might be discerned, but what is there in a shadow? She sat down by the window, and rested her head on her arm. The graceful outlines of her arm and neck and bended head were clearly visible, and the lover feasted his eyes upon them. She held in her hand the flowers which Philip had thrown her! Her lips were upon the tender leaves-sweets to the sweet. He saw her kiss the flowers, and his soul thrilled with rapture. The night was beautifully still; not a sound was stirring; and as far as eye could see the white tents of the diggers were gleaming. So Margaret sat and mused, and Philip looked on and dreamed. Here, in the new world, but yesterday a savage waste, the old, old story was being enacted with as much freshness as though the world were but just created. What wonder? Because the sun has risen a few million of times, is the dew on the leaves less sweet and pure in the early morning's light than on that wondrous day when Adam awoke and found Eve by his side?

So Margaret sat and mused, and Philip looked on and dreamed; and I think that Margaret peeped through the lattice-work of her fingers, and saw with her cunning eyes that her lover was there, worshipping her.

How long they would have thus remained, Heaven only knows. Mr. Hart gave them at least twenty minutes, and then touched Philip's arm. Philip started, and Margaret at the window started also, and with a swift happy glance outwards, and with wave of the pretty hand and arm, closed the window. Philip was standing in the light, and Mr. Hart, like a kind and careful friend, had crept backward in the shade; so that Margaret, when she cast that straight swift glance in her lover's direction, saw only him. Surely as the hand-love's white flag of recognition-waved towards him, it had touched her lips first, and she had sent a kiss into the air-which he received in his heart. It stirred tender chords there, and through his veins crept love's fever, which turns dross into gold, and makes a heaven of earth!