Miss Lealy now went off into a panting description of her early school-days in Wilkesbarre (her Home Town), which lasted well into the entrée, and then into even earlier days in a convent, which brought her to the subject of religion. At this she at once accused Mr. Gissing of being Wicked, and an Atheist, and asked Jackie if she was a Catholic. On finding that she was not, she at once urged her to become one, without delay; because, after all, Martin Luther, who started all the trouble, only did it because he wanted to marry a silly old nun, didn’t he? To which summary theology Jackie could not but assent, with the nod of one convinced, and would clearly be in the confession-box before an hour was over. Whereat Mr. Gissing said that if Miss Marion Lealy wanted converts she shouldn’t be divorced so much (which was rather unfair, because she had only done it twice); and Miss Lealy, who took all remarks from him as coming from the promptings of the Foe, refuted him with the explanation that she was not a Good Catholic.
There was then a long pause, which Miss Lealy broke with a benign “Well, you’re a verrer pretty little girl, Jackie,” and by asking her if she was in her own profession. Jackie smiled, and Mr. Gissing answered for her.
“No,” he said. “But she’s trying to be.”
“Have you done anything, Jackie?”
“No. Nothing,” said Jackie, weakly.
“I guess you can dants, an’ sing, an’ all that?”
Jackie put forward her accomplishments in these directions.
“Why don’t you come out in ‘Little Girl’ with us, then, Jackie?” asked Miss Lealy.
This was a difficult question to answer. At a first glance it would have appeared that there were innumerable, and even obvious, reasons why she should not join Miss Lealy in “Little Girl.”
“We don’t begin rehearsin’ till to-morrow, and if I spoke to Mr. Ronaldon I’m sure I could get you in.”
“Could you really?” asked Jackie, very eager, when Mr. Gissing cut in:
“Now, be careful, Marion. She can’t do that, you know.”
“Why not, pray?”
“She can’t. You don’t want to be a chorus-girl, do you, Jackie?”
“I should love to be one,” said Jackie.
“Whart’s wrong with a chorus-girl, anyway? I got started as one, anyway, an’ you’ve got to get Ex Perience. Don’t you listen to him, Jackie.”
“I forbid it,” said Mr. Gissing.
“Who ’se you to forbid? Will you come in ‘Little Girl,’ Jackie, if I can get you in?”
“Rather,” said Jackie.
“You don’t understand, Marion. It’s not her line. She’s not used to it. She’s Alone in the Great City, and it’d be a crime. Who’s going to look after her?”
“Waal, she’ll be in my show, won’t she, and I’ll be there? An’ d’ you think she’s goaner be seduced or something? You don’t know your chorus-girl if you think that.”
“I know my chorus-girl lots better than you, and I tell you I forbid it. Besides, it’s a foul life, and you know it.”
“Would you really like to come, Jackie? An’ you’re not scared?”
“Yes. I really would,” said Jackie. “And I’d love it.”
“Well, I’m goaner ’phone,” said Miss Lealy, and left the table.
There was a silence.
“I would n’t do it, honestly,” he said. “You’d hate it. You’d be far happier with Linell. And you’d have to go on tour with this, just the same. They’re going to Manchester and God knows where, before it comes to Town. Don’t do it, please.”
“But why not? I’ve got to get experience; and here I’d be starting from the very beginning, wouldn’t I? You don’t realize how terribly badly I want to succeed. And I won’t stay a chorus-girl, after all, will I?” pleaded Jackie.
“I wish to Heaven I’d never brought you here.”
Miss Lealy returned. “I’ve fixed up to take you round to Mr. Ronaldon at three,” she said.
“Oh, thanks awfully,” said Jackie.
Mr. Gissing continued to plead with Jackie and to revile Miss Lealy, but without result.
“And what about Mr. Linell’s post-card, to-morrow, saying that he can have you?” he asked, as they got up to leave.
“Oh, I forgot that, really,” said Jackie. “But I don’t expect he will. Do you?”
“And, anyway,” said Miss Lealy, decisively, “it’s no use startin’ off all scrupulous like that.”
V
Mr. Gissing left them outside, vaguely saying that he would see Jackie in the evening, and within an hour of that the whole thing was settled. She was taken in a taxi by Miss Lealy to the large offices of Messrs. Ronaldon, Maxwell & Co., in Soho: she was introduced to a middle-aged man who said that he was pleased to see her, but did not substantiate that asseveration by speaking to her again throughout the interview: and she was then taken by Miss Lealy, in another taxi, to the Empress Theatre, Shaftesbury Avenue. Here she was led, trembling, on to a grey, large, bare and dismantled stage, in the front of which, up against the fire-curtain, a small but imposing gentleman was standing at a table in converse with one who appeared to be an assistant. To this gentleman Miss Lealy introduced Jackie with “This is Miss Mortimer, Mr. Crossley.”
Now this small but imposing gentleman, who had been in telephonic communication with his superiors, was fully aware of Jackie’s identity a few moments before the actual introduction, and knew that he had little choice in the matter of approving her. But there are different ways of doing these things (it must be remembered), and one way is to look rather jumpy at having your conversation broken into, glance at you vaguely, suddenly shout out something to an assistant the other side of the stage, and walk mistily away muttering “She’ll do, she’ll do, she’ll do,” from the unutterable depths of an omniscient and omnipotent detachment. This way is a rather good way — being presumably the way that Julius Cœsar (just after triumphal entry into Rome) would have employed when answering off-hand a question about the new Aquilifer; and Mr. Crossley (who, by the way, bore a seedy but close personal resemblance to that conqueror) employed this way himself. It was, of course, a method which stole the confidence of the aspirant, generating, in him or her, a degrading desire to throw broken and jagged ends of bottles, or such-like, into the face of its serene exponent; but it was effective enough in getting you three pounds ten a week and a chance of evening employment for months to come; so you couldn’t really grumble. Jackie didn’t, anyway.
CHAPTER IV
REHEARSAL
I
IT was some three weeks later, on the bare stage of the Clarence Theatre, Shaftesbury Avenue, that Jackie had a nightmare. She kept on thinking that she was going to wake up from this nightmare, but she never did. She dreamed that she was on the bare stage of the Clarence Theatre, Shaftesbury Avenue. The time was half-past twelve in the morning: the curtain was up, revealing the deserted stalls, and the dusky echoing tiers of circle and gallery, which loomed semi-circularly in the feeble light gleaned from the half-lit stage; and she was deliberately facing this inhuman (and yet somehow critical) wilderness of dumb seats, and she was supported on each side, as though being carried away after an accident, by two long rows of scented, exceptionally solid, insouciant, rather surly and rhythmically shuffling feminine flesh.
And after every five steps or so to the right, Jackie, along with her rows of supporters, gave a large kick (in a spirit of invitation rather than ejection) out at the solid wilderness in front; and after every five steps or so to the left, she did the same in that direction. And each kick was a kind of culmination or punctuation. The mind waited for it, as for a promise, teasingly, humorously, and yet withal deliciously withheld.
And after each five kicks or so she would leave off stepping and kicking, and commence marking time, like an effeminate little soldier — not emphatically, but with a faintly collapsing right knee, followed by a faintly collapsing left knee — an equal amount of times on each — a devout balance and mathematic exactitude being the si
ne qua non of this type of performance.
And when she had done this for some time, she did a little more stepping and kicking, and then all at once cast off her support, as though suddenly cured of her accident, and turned right round, to reveal her back (which was another climax), and came back to the old position, fitting in again, and entwining her arms, with the slick perfection of a mechanism.
The whole row then moved a little way backwards, and commenced to sway — going right over from left to right, and from right to left, like a lot of inverted pendulums of girls.
Which was taken up in a minor key a few moments later by a process of affectionate (if slightly accelerated) Nodding, in which each girl rested her pretty head first on the shoulder of her right neighbour, and then on the shoulder of her left neighbour, without favour to either, for something over a minute.
And so on and so forth — all in the strictest obedience to the dictates of a not very well behaved, but exceedingly well-shaved (though still blue-cheeked) little person, not at the moment in the theatre to witness the enactment of his ingenuity.
II
Jackie, in fact, was at her art.
Or at least at the rehearsal of her art, and giving her small share to the chorus rendering of that most hopeful number in “Little Girl” — “Tea Time in Florida.”
Which was (it may be added) also:
My baby’s knee time in Florida,
Oui-oui-oui-oui time in Florida,
and
Just you and me time in Florida,
into the bargain, and was an exotic time of day altogether.
And in some dark and obscure way, the Noddings above-mentioned, together with the swayings, the turnings, the shufflings, the time-markings, and the kickings, were expressive, were cumulatively expressive, of tea-time in Florida.
Dark and obscure to the uninitiated alone, who might chase eagerly some elusive relationship, some artistic mystery or subtlety just beyond their ken. But to the initiated as clear as day.
For tea-time in Florida involves a little maid, a whole host of little maids in fact, to serve the tea. And a whole host of little maids involves a whole host of little uniforms, with the pleasantest little skirts up to the knee, and the most ravishing little pinafores in front, and the pinkest and most delightful of frail underwear beneath. And when once you have reached that, your kickings, at least, explain themselves. As do also your sudden turnings, which cause the air to achieve the same effect. And as for your swayings, and your noddings, and your side-steppings, they are merely your rhythmic vehicle, your delicious delayings and lingerings over the essential glory. In fact, the not very well behaved, but exceedingly well-shaved (though still blue-cheeked) little person, knows what he is after, and deserves his cigar. And Jackie knows what he is after too, and can conceive without difficulty her uniform when the great night arrives: and she is not enjoying her art at all. In fact, she would far rather try some other art (Brick-laying, for instance), any day. And that is why it is all like a nightmare, from which she is momentarily hoping to wake up, but from which she cannot succeed in waking up.
III
There was, at the moment, no music coming from the piano at the right of the stage, the time being given by a middle-aged little gentleman, with the appearance of a nagging hen, and a nagging hen’s outlook on life, who beat the air excitedly, and who occasionally came forth to some member of the row to shout “ONEtwothree, ONEtwothree, ONEtwothree” at her face for some time, before looking mollified and becoming general again.
And in the absence of the piano, the click-shuffling noise set up by the exertions of this pulsating line, together with the little rustle of skirt with skirt and bare arm with arm, and yet another impalpable disturbance of the air wrought half by breathlessness, half by sheer vitality — were the only noises to be heard. And they were quiet but very terrible noises in Jackie’s ears.
There was, indeed, something deadly about rehearsal without music — something deadly about rehearsal altogether. And much as Jackie dreaded the actuality and the first night, the thought of it did not cast the same shame upon her soul as she felt now. For with a certain musical abandonment and spontaneity (which would probably obtain on the first night), the thing might be carried off without degradation. But this rehearsing — this cool, exacting preparation, this steady making-ready, this eager subservience, was too much for her.
Eager subservience to whom? As Jackie looked out at the darkened auditorium, and the dumb stiff seats arrayed therein, she could already visualize the soul and appearance of that many-headed provincial overlord (in a plush seat) for whom this organized Pride of Flesh was in such detailed preparation. Like some patient, couching tarantula, the ghost of this monster was waiting out there in the darkened stalls — waiting for her self-esteem. And yet still she shuffled on, and kicked, and turned about, and still she did not wake….
The long line supporting Jackie reached a distinguishable climax of effort, and all at once ran off to the right, like beads sliding off a suddenly broken thread. Whereat the hen became querulous, and the chickens, breaking into groups, put their hands on their hips and sneered very prettily, or stared into the distance, or were silently pert. Jackie attended illy and dumbly. They then reassembled, and started it all over again, but this time with music. Also they sang the words this time — a thin, tinny, and far from pleasurable piping sound, just prevailing over the hammering of the piano and the shuffling of feet. And at this point Jackie, as she always did where she could, began to cheat — not contributing to the noise, but moving her lips and humming softly in a base counterfeiting of her duty.
The names of the individuals of this energetic team were, reading from left to right: — Miss Janie Dunstan, Miss Royal Fayre, Miss Honour Lang, Miss Effie Byng, Miss Betty Hamilton, Miss Dolly True, Miss Dot Knowle, Miss Lalla True, Miss Biddy Maxwell, Miss Jackie Mortimer, Miss Dot Delane, Miss Belle Hawke, Miss Mary Deare, Miss Elsie Rutland, Miss “Lovey” Shiel, Miss Hazel Parry, Miss Pinkie Dove, Miss Cherry Lambert, Miss Alice Crewe, and Miss Lizzie Snell.
CHAPTER V
THE OTHER GIRLS
I
THE process of becoming acquainted with the Misses Dunstan, Fayre, Lang, Byng, Hamilton, True, Knowle, True, Maxwell, Delane, Hawke, Deare, Rutland, Shiel, Parry, Dove, Lambert, Crewe and Snell, had been a far from engaging process for Jackie, and at once an abrupt and laborious process. Abrupt, in that she had been thrown upon them and amongst them (on a wet Wednesday morning following the Tuesday afternoon of her acceptance), without a moment in which to collect herself or adjust her ideas towards them, in a little room for dressing next to a rehearsal room in Soho: laborious, in that Jackie, who was the friendliest and most accommodating creature as a whole, found from the first that there was something ineradicably antagonistic towards her, and even something ineradicably antagonistic in herself, which was going to render even common intercourse far from easy.
Her Occidental and Edwardian training, indeed, could not but rebel at her inclusion in this querulous harem of aromatic, coarse-tongued, and supercilious competitors — this assembly of brides sacred, and in training, to some sensuous consummation — this band of foul-mouthed yet ingenuous nymphs. And her first few moments in that dressing-room were very possibly the most hideous moments of her existence so far.
It was as though she had been thrown amongst a different, a more aggressive and vital, type — a type of Amazons as it were: and amid this flaunted meretriciousness, these swayers and swingers of the flesh, she was revealed as an inferior. Her delicacy and fastidiousness would be of no more avail to her, in such a circle, than the same qualities in a Greek slave would have availed him in the days of Roman ascendancy — rather less, in fact. In a society of this kind she had no place, and was plainly too weak to survive for long.
On a drizzling Wednesday morning, then, and in a little room above a public-house in Soho, Jackie received her first impression of her fellow-professionals: and in a large room next door, co
ntaining a piano and some wooden chairs, she faced the ordeal of her first rehearsals. The actual stage at the disposal of the company was, of course, during these preliminary days, made over exclusively to the stars, who would rehearse for some weeks in lofty secrecy before taking their place before their chorus under the final production of Julius Cæsar. And up here in this room, though everything was a little more personal, it was also a little less terrifying, and, under the supervision of an alert and affable little Frenchman, who was held in great derision by the Amazons, but who treated Jackie with the utmost patience and consideration, she just managed to scramble through her first steps. (All this was taking place, of course, in the days before chorus-work had commenced its more positive intrusion in the sphere of acrobatics.)
Not that Jackie, who was naturally the least experienced there, escaped disgrace entirely. For her little Frenchman was not her only instructor, and many a time was the long chain broken, and a silence made, while the faulty little link Jackie was blown into a red heat to be forged again.
From 11 a.m. to 1 p.m., and from 2.30 p.m. to 5.30 p.m. — these were Jackie’s working hours. And in several lunch intervals, of course, she had to go to Bond Street or Regent Street for fittings — fittings from which she emerged neither satisfied nor happy, being overborne by the cunning and energy of her companions, and compelled to snatch at what cast-off bones of millinery at their sartorial banquet she could procure. She had lunch, as a rule, at the Lyons Corner House, in Coventry Street, and was quite happy in there with the bright lights, and the orchestra, and her book. (For she had stuck to her book bravery against the combined hostility and inimical stares of the nymphs, who were of a Dionysian rather than Apollonian temper.)
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