The autumn passed; and the obscure days of the London winter set in. Adrian Herbert sat daily at work in his studio, painting a companion picture to the Lady of Shalott, and taking less exercise than was good either for himself or his work. His betrothed was at Windsor, studying Greek with Miss Cairns, and music with Jack. She had carried her point with Mrs. Beatty as to the bandmastership; and Jack had been invited to apply for it; but he, on learning that a large part of his duty would be to provide the officers of the regiment with agreeable music whilst they dined, had unexpectedly repudiated the offer in an intemperate letter to the adjutant, stating that he had refused as an organist to be subject to the ministers of religion, and that he should refuse, as a conductor, to be the hireling of professional homicides. Miss Cairns, when she heard of this, in the heat of her disappointment reproached him for needlessly making an enemy of the colonel; embittering the dislike of Mrs Beatty, and exposing Mary to their resentment. Jack thereupon left Newton Villa in anger; but Miss Cairns learned next day that he had written a letter of thanks to the colonel, in which he mentioned that the recent correspondence with the adjutant had unfortunately turned on the dignity of the musical profession, and begged that it might be disassociated entirely from the personal feeling to which he now sought to give expression. To Miss Cairns herself he also wrote briefly to say that it had occurred to him that Miss Sutherland might be willing to join the singing class, and that he hoped she would be asked to do so. Over this double concession Miss Cairns exulted; but Mary, humiliated by the failure of her effort to befriend him, would not join, and resisted all persuasion, until Jack, meeting her one day in the street, stopped her, inquired about Charlie, and finally asked her to come to one of the class meetings. Glad to have this excuse for relenting, she not only entered the class, but requested him to assist her in the study of harmony, which she had recently begun to teach herself from a treatise. As it proved, however, he confused rather than assisted her; for, though an adept in the use of chords, he could make no intelligible attempt to name or classify them; and her exercises, composed according to the instructions given in the treatise, exasperated him beyond measure.
Meanwhile, Magdalen Brailsford, with many impatient sighs, was learning to speak the English language with purity and distinction, and beginning to look on certain pronunciations for which she had ignorantly ridiculed famous actors, as enviable conditions of their superiority to herself. She did not enjoy her studies, for Jack was very exacting; and the romantic aspect of their first meeting at Paddington was soon forgotten in the dread he inspired as a master. She left Church Street after her first lesson in a state of exhaustion; and, long after she had come accustomed to endure his criticism for an hour without fatigue, she often could hardly restrain her tears when he emphasized her defects by angrily mimicking them, which was the most unpleasant, but not the least effective part of his system of teaching. He was particular, even in his cheerful moods, and all but violent in his angry ones; but he was indefatigable, and spared himself no trouble in forcing her to persevere in overcoming the slovenly habits of colloquial speech. The further she progressed, the less she could satisfy him. His ear was far more acute than hers; and he demanded from her beauties of tone of which she had no conception, and refinements of utterance which she could not distinguish. He repeated sounds which he declared were as distinct as day from night, and raged at her because she could hear no difference between them, He insisted that she was grinding her voice to pieces when she was hardly daring to make it audible. Often, when she was longing for the expiry of the hour to release her, he kept her until Mrs Simpson, who was always present, could bear it no longer, and interfered in spite of the frantic abuse to which a word from her during the lesson invariably provoked him. Magdalen would have given up her project altogether, for the sake of escaping the burden of his tuition, but for her fear of the contempt she knew he would feel for her if she proved recreant. So she toiled on without a word of encouragement or approval from him; and he grimly and doggedly kept her at it, until one day, near Christmas, she came to Church Street earlier than usual, and had a long conference with Mrs Simpson before he was informed of her presence. When he came down from his garret she screwed her courage up to desperation point, and informed him that she had obtained an engagement for a small part in the opening of a pantomime at Nottingham. Instead of exploding fiercely, he stared a little; rubbed his head perplexedly; and then said, "Well, well: you must begin somewhere: the sooner the better. You will have to do poor work, in poor company, for some time, perhaps, but you must believe in yourself, and not flinch a the drudgery of the first year or two. Keep the fire always alight on the altar, and every place you go into will become a temple. Don't be mean: no grabbing at money, or opportunities, or effects! You can speak better than ninety-nine out of a hundred of them: remember that. If you ever want to do as they do, then your ear will be going wrong; and that will be a sign that your soul is going wrong too. Do you believe me, eh?"
"Yes," said Madge, dutifully."
He looked at her very suspiciously, and uttered a sort of growl, adding, "If you get hissed, occasionally, it will do you good; although you are more likely to get applauded and spoilt. Dont forget what I have taught you: you will see the use of it when you have begun to understand your profession."
Magdalen protested that she mid never forget, and tried to express her gratitude for the trouble he had taken with her. She begged that he would not reveal her destination to anyone, as it was necessary for her to evade her family a second time in order to fulfill her engagement. He replied that her private arrangements were no business of his, advising her at the same time to reflect before she quitted a luxurious home for a precarious and vagabond career, and recommending Mrs Simpson to her as an old hag whose assistance would be useful in any business that required secrecy and lying. "If you want my help," he added, "you can come and ask for it."
"She can come and pay for it, and no thanks to you," said Mrs. Simpson, goaded beyond endurance.
Jack turned on her, purple and glaring. Madge threw herself between them. Then he suddenly walked out; and, as they stood there trembling and looking at one another in silence, they heard him go upstairs to his garret.
"Oh, Polly, how could you?" said Madge at last, almost in a whisper.
"I wonder what he's gone for," said Mrs. Simpson. "There's nothing upstairs that he can do any harm with. I didn't mean anything."
He came down presently, with an old wash-leather purse in his hand. "Here," he said to Madge. They knew perfectly well, without further explanation, that it was the money she had paid him for her lessons.
"Mr Jack," she stammered: "I cannot."
"Come, take it," he said. "She is right: the people at Windsor pay for my wants. I have no need to be supported twice over. Has she charged you anything for the room?"
"No," said Madge.
"Then the more shame for me to charge you for your lessons," said Jack. "I shall know better another time. Here: take the money, and let us think no more about it. Goodbye! I think I can work a little now, if I set about it at once." He gave her the purse, which she did not dare refuse; shook her hand with both his; and went out hurriedly, but humbly.
Three days after this, Adrian Herbert was disturbed at his easel by Mr. Brailsford, who entered the studio in an extraordinarily excited condition,
"Mr. Brailsford! I am very glad to— What is the matter?"
"Do you know anything of Magdalen? She is missing again." Herbert assumed an air of concern. "Herbert: I appeal to you, if she has confided her plans to you, not to ruin her by a misplaced respect for her foolish secrets."
"I assure you I am as much surprised as you. Why should you assume that I am in her confidence?"
"You were much in her company during your recent visits to us; and you are the sort man a young girl would confide any crazy project to. You and she have talked together a good deal."
"Well, we have had two conversations within the last six weeks, both of which came about by accident. We were speaking of my affairs only. You know Miss Sutherland is a friend of hers. She is our leading topic."
"This is very disappointing, Herbert. Confoundedly so."
"It is unfortunate; and I am sorry I know nothing."
"Yes, yes: I knew you were not likely to: it was mere clutching at a straw. Herbert, when I get that girl back, I'll lock her up, and not let her out of her room until she leaves it to be married."
"When did she go?"
"Last night. We did not miss her until this morning. She has gone to disgrace herself a second time at some blackguard country theatre or other. And yet she has always been treated with the greatest indulgence at home. She is not like other girls who do not know the value of a comfortable home. In the days when I fought the world as a man of letters, she had opportunities of learning the value of money." Mr. Brailsford, as he spoke, moved about constantly; pulled at his collar as if it were a stock which needed to be straightened; and fidgeted with his gloves. "I am powerless," he added. "I cannot obtain the slightest clue. There is nothing for it but to sit down and let my child go."
"Are you aware," said Herbert thoughtfully, "that she has been taking lessons in acting from a professor of music during the last few months?"
"No, sir, I certainly am not aware of it," said Brailsford fiercely. "I beg your pardon, my dear Herbert; but she is a damned ungrateful girl; and her loss is a great trouble to me. I did not know; and she could not have done it if her mother had looked after her properly."
"It is certainly the case. I was very much surprised myself when Miss Sutherland told me of it, especially as I happened to have some knowledge of the person whom Miss Brailsford employed."
"Perhaps he knows. Who is he and where is he to be found?"
"His name is an odd one—Jack."
"Jack? I have heard that name somewhere. Jack? My memory is a wreck. But we are losing time. You know his address, I hope."
"I believe I have it here among some old letters. Excuse me whilst I search."
Herbert went into the ante-room. Mr. Brailsford continued his nervous movements; bit his nails; and made a dab at the picture with his glove, smudging it. The discovery that he had wantonly done mischief sobered him a little; and presently Adrian returned with one of Jack's letters.
Church street, Kensington," he said. *Will you go there?"
"Instantly, Herbert, instantly. Will you come?"
"If you wish," said Adrian, hesitating.
"Certainly. You must come. This is some low villain who has pocketed the child's money, and persuaded her that she is a Mrs Siddons. I had lessons myself long ago from the great Young, who thought highly of me, though not more so than I did of him. Perhaps I am dragging you away from your work, my dear fellow."
"It is too dark to work much today. In any case the matter is too serious to be sacrificed to my routine"
Quarter of an hour later, Mrs. Simpson's maid knocked at the door of Jack's garret, and informed him that two gentlemen were waiting in the drawing room to see him.
"What are they like?" said Jack "Are you sure they want me?"
"Certain sure," said the girl "one of 'em's a nice young gentleman with a flaxy beard; and the other his father, I think. Ain't he a dapper old toff, too!"
"Give me my boots; and tell them I shall be down presently."
The maid then appeared to Mr. Brailsford and Adrian, saying, "Mr Jax'll be down in a minnit," and vanished. Soon after, Jack came in. In an instant Mr. Brailsford's eyes lit up as if he saw through the whole plot; and he rose threateningly. Jack bade good morning ceremoniously to Herbert, who was observing with alarm the movements of his companion.
"You know me, I think, sir," said Mr. Brailsford, threateningly.
"I remember you very well," replied Jack grimly. "Be pleased to sit down."
Herbert hastily offered Mr Brailsford a chair, pushing it against his calves just in time to interrupt an angry speech at the beginning. The three sat down.
We have called on you, Mr Jack," said Adrian, in the hope that you can throw some light on a matter which is a source of great anxiety to Mr Brailsford. Miss Brailsford has disappeared "
"What!" cried Jack. "Run away again. Ha! ha! I expected as much."
"Pray be calm," said Herbert, as Mr Brailsford made a frantic gesture. "Allow me to speak, Mr Jack: I believe you have lately been in communication with the young lady."
"I have been teaching her for the last four months, if that is what you mean."
"Pray understand that we attach no blame to you in the matter. We merely wish to ascertain the whereabouts of Miss Brailsford: and we thought you might be able to assist us. If so, I feel sure you will not hesitate to give this gentleman all the information in your power."
"You may reassure yourself," said Jack." She has got an engagement at some theatre and has gone to fulfill it. "She told me so a few days ago, when she came to break off her lessons."
"We particularly wish to find out where she has gone to," said Herbert slowly.
"You must find that out as best you can," said Jack, looking attentively at him. She mentioned the place to me; but she asked me not to repeat it, and it is not my business to do so."
"Herbert," cried Mr. Brailsford, "Herbert."
"Pray: remonstrated Adrian. "Just allow me one word—"
"Herbert," persisted the other: "this is the fellow of whom I told you as we came along in the cab. He is her accomplice. You know you are," he continued, turning to Jack, and raising his voice. "Do you still deny that you are her agent?"
Jack stared at him imperturbably.
"It is a conspiracy," said Mr Brailsford. "It, has been a conspiracy from the first; and you are the prime mover in it. You shall not bully me, sir. I will make you speak."
"There, there," said Jack. "Take him away, Mr Herbert."
Adrian stepped hastily between them, fearing that his companion would proceed to violence. Before another word could be spoken the door was opened by Mrs Simpson, who started and stopped short when she saw visitors in the room.
"I beg pardon— Why, it's Mr Brailsford," she added, reddening. "I hope I see you well, sir," she continued, advancing with a propitiatory air. "I am honored by having you in my house."
"Indeed!" said the old gentleman, with a look which made her tremble. "So it is you who introduced Miss Magdalen to this man. Herbert, my dear boy, the thing is transparent. This woman is an old retainer of ours. It was her sister who took Madge away before. I told you it was all a conspiracy."
" Lord bless us!" exclaimed Mrs. Simpson. "I hope nothing ain't happened to Miss Magdalen."
"If anything has, you shall be held responsible for it. Where has she gone?"
"Oh, don't go to tell me that my sweet Miss Magdalen has gone away again, sir!"
"You hear how they contradict one another, Herbert?"
Mrs Simpson looked mistrustfully at Jack, who was grinning at her with cynical admiration. "I don't know what Mr. Jack may have put into your head about me, sir," she said cautiously; "but I assure you I know nothing of poor Miss Magdalen's doings. I haven't seen her this past month."
"You understand, of course," remarked Jack, "that that is not true. Mrs. Simpson has always been present at your daughter's lessons. She knows perfectly well that Miss Brailsford has gone to play at some theatre. She heard it in—"
"I wish you'd mind your own business, Mr Jack." said the landlady, sharply.
"When lies are needed to serve Miss Brailsford, you can speak," retorted Jack. "Until then, hold your tongue. It is clear to me, Mr Herbert, that you want this unfortunate young lady's address for the purpose of attempting to drag her back from an honorable profession to a foolish and useless existence which she hates. Therefore I shall give you no information. If she is unhappy or unsuccessful in her new career, she will return of her own accord."
"I fear," said Herbert, embarrassed by the presence of Mrs Simpson, "that we can do no good by remaining here."
"You arc right," said Mr Brailsford. "I decline to address myself further to either of you. Other steps shall be taken. And you shall repent the part you have played on this occasion, Mrs. Simpson. As for you, sir, I can only say 1 trust this will prove our last meeting."
"I shan't repent nothink," said Mrs. Simpson. "Why shouldn't I assist the pretty—"
"Come!" said Jack, interrupting her, "we have said enough. Good evening, Mr Herbert." Adrian colored, and moved towards the door, "You shall be welcome whenever you wish to see me," added lack; "but at present you had better take this gentleman away." Herbert bowed slightly, and went out, annoyed by the abrupt dismissal, and even more by the attempt to soften it. Mr Brailsford walked stiffly after him, staring indignantly at Mrs Simpson and her lodger. Provoked to mirth by this demonstration, Jack, who had hitherto behaved with dignity, rubbed his nose with the palm of his hand, and grinned hideously through his fingers at his visitor.
"As I told you before," said Mr. Brailsford, turning as he reached the threshold, "you are a vile kidnapper; and I will see that your trade is exposed and put a stop to. "
"As I told you before," said Jack, removing his hand from his nose, "you are an old fool; and I wish you good afternoon."
"Sh—sh," said Mrs Simpson, as Mr Brailsford, with a menacing wave of his glove, disappeared. "You didn't ought to speak like that to an old gentleman, Mr. Jack."
"His age gives him no right to be ill-tempered and abusive to me," said Jack angrily.
"Humph!" retorted the landlady. "Your own tongue and temper are none of the sweetest. If I was you, I wouldn't be so much took aback at seeing others do the same as myself."
"Indeed. And how do you think being me would feel like, Mrs. Deceit?"
"I wouldn't make out other people to be liars before their faces, at all events, Mr Jack."
"You would prefer the truth to be told of you behind your back, perhaps. I sometimes wonder what part of my music will show the influence of your society upon me. My Giulietta Guicciardi!"
"Give me no more of your names," said Mrs. Simpson, shortly, "I don't need them."
Jack left the room slowly as if he had forgotten her. Meanwhile Mr. Brailsford was denouncing him to Herbert. "From the moment I first saw him," he said, "I felt an instinctive antipathy to him. I have never seen a worse face, or met with a worse nature."
"I certainly do not like him," said Herbert. "He has taken up an art as a trade, and knows nothing of the trials of a true artist's career. No doubts of himself; no aspirations to suggest them; nothing but a stubborn narrow self-sufficiency. I half envy him."
"The puppy!" exclaimed Mr Brailsford, not attending to Adrian: "to dare insult me! He shall suffer for it. I have put a bullet into a fellow—into a gentleman of good position— for less. And Magdalen —my daughter—is intimate with him—has visited him. Girls are going to the devil of late years, Herbert, going to the very devil. She shall not give me the slip again, when I catch her."
Mr Brailsford, however, did not catch Magdalen. Her clear delivery of the doggerel allotted to her in the pantomime, gained the favor of the Nottingham playgoers. Their applause prevented her from growing weary of repeating her worthless part nightly for six weeks, and compensated her for the discomfort and humiliation of living among people whom she could not help regarding as her inferiors, and with whom she had to co-operate in entertaining vulgar people with vulgar pleasantries, fascinating them by a display of comeliness, not only of her face, hut of more of her person than she had been expected I to shew at Kensington Palace Gardens. Her costume shocked her at first; but she made up her mind to accept it without demur, partly because wearing such things was plainly part of an actress's business and partly because she felt that any objection on her part would imply an immodest self-consciousness. Besides, she had no moral conviction that it was wrong, whereas she had no doubt at all that petticoats were a nuisance. She could not bring herself to accept with equal frankness the society which the pantomime company offered to her. Miss Lafitte, the chief performer, was a favorite with the public on account of her vivacity, her skill in clog-dancing, and her command of slang, which she uttered in a piercing voice with a racy Whitechapel accent. She took a fancy to Magdalen, who at first recoiled. But Miss Lafitte (in real life Mrs. Cohen) was so accustomed to live down aversion, that she only regarded it as a sort of shyness—as indeed it was. She was vigorous, loud spoken, always full of animal spirits, and too well appreciated by her audiences to be jealous. Magdalen, who had been made miserable at first by the special favor of permission to share the best dressing-room with her, soon found the advantage of having a good-natured and powerful companion. The drunken old woman who was attached to the theatre as dresser, needed to be kept efficient by sharp abuse and systematic bullying, neither of which Magdalen could have administered effectually. Miss Lafitte bullied her to perfection. Occasionally some of the actors would stroll into the dressing room, evidently without the least suspicion that Magdalen might prefer to put on her shoes, rouge herself, and dress her hair in private. Miss Lafitte, who had never objected to their presence on her own account, now bade them begone whenever they appeared, at which they seemed astonished, but having no intention of being intrusive, retired submissively.
"You make yourself easy, deah," she said to Magdalen. "Awe-y-'ll take kee-yerr of you. Lor' bless you, awe-y know wot you are. You're a law'ydy. But you'll get used to them. They don't mean no 'arm.
Magdalen, wondering what Jack would have said to Miss Lafitte's vowels, disclaimed all pretension to be more of a lady than those with whom she worked; but Miss Lafitte, though, she patted the young novice on the back, and soothingly assented, nevertheless continued to make a difference between her own behavior in Magdalen's presence, and the coarse chaff and reckless flirtation in which she indulged freely elsewhere. On Boxing night, when Madge was nerving herself to face the riotous audience, Miss Lafittc told her that she looked beautiful; exhorted her cheerfully to keep up her pecker and never say die; and, ridiculing her fear of putting too much paint on her face, plastered her cheeks and blackened the margins of her eyes until she blushed though the mask of pigment. When the call came, she went with her to the wing; pushed her on to the stage at the right instant; and praised her enthusiastically when she returned. Madge, who hardly knew what had passed on the stage, was grateful for these compliments, and tried to return them when Miss Lafitte came to the dressing, flushed with the exertion of singing a topical song with seven encore verses and dancing a breakdown between each.
"I'm used to it," said Miss Lafitte. "It's my knowledge of music-hall business that makes me what I am. You wouldn't catch me on the stage at all, only that my husband's a bit a swe11 in his own way—he'll like you for that—and he thinks the theatre more respectable. It dont pay as well, I can tell you; but of course it's surer and lasts longer.
"Were you nervous at your first appearance?" said Madge.
"Oh, wawn't I though! Just a little few. I cried at havin' to go on. I wasn't cold and plucky like you; but I got over it sooner. I know your sort: you will be nervous all your life. I don't care twopence for any audience now, nor ever did after my second night."
"I may have looked cold and plucky," said Madge, surprised. "but I never felt more miserable in my life before."
"Yes. Ain't it awful? Did you hear Lefanu?— stuck up little minx! Her song will be cut out tomorrow. She's a reg'lar duffer, she is. She gives herself plenty of airs, and tells the people that she was never used to associate with us. I know who she is well enough: her father was an apothecary in Bayswater. She's only fit to be a governess. You're worth fifty of her, either on the boards or off."
Madge did not reply. She was conscious of having contemplated escape from Miss Lafitte by attaching herself to Miss Lefanu, who was a ladylike young woman.
"She looks like a print gown after five washings," continued Miss Lafitte; "and she don't know how to speak. Now you speak lovely—almost as well as me, if you'd spit it out a bit more. Who taught you?"
When the pantomime had been played for a fortnight, Madge found herself contemptuously indifferent to Miss Lefanu, and fond of Miss Lafitte. When the latter invited her to a supper at her house, she could not refuse, though she accepted with misgiving. It proved a jovial entertainment—almost an orgie. Some of the women drank much champagne; spoke at the top of their voices; and screamed when they laughed. The men paid court to them with facetious compliments, and retorted their raillery with broad sarcasms. Madge got on best with the younger and less competent actors, who were mostly unpropertied gentlemen, with a feeble amateur bent for singing and acting, who had contrived to get on the stage, not because they were fit for it, but because society had not fitted them for anything else. They talked theatrical shop and green room scandal in addition to the usual topics of young gentlemen at dances; and they shielded Magdalen efficiently from the freer spirits. Sometimes an unusually coarse sally would reach her ears, and bring upon her a sense of disgust and humiliation; but, though she resolved to attend no more suppers, she was able next day to assure her hostess with perfect sincerity that she was none the worse for her evening's experience and that she had never enjoyed herself as much at any Kensington supper party. Miss Lafitte thereupon embraced her, and told her that she had been the belle of the ball, and that Laddie (a Gentile abbreviation of Lazarus, her husband's, name) had recognized her as a real lady, and was greatly pleased with her. Then she asked her whether she did not think Laddie a handsome man. Madge replied that she had been struck by his dark hair and eyes that his manners were elegant. "There is one thing" she added, "that puzzles me a little. I always call you Miss Lafitte here, but should I not call you by your real name at your house? I don't know the etiquette, you see."
"Call me Sal," said Mrs Cohen, kissing her.
When the pantomime was over, and the company dispersed, the only member of whose departure she felt a loss was Miss Lafitte; and she never afterwards fell into the mistake of confounding incorrigible rowdyism and a Whitechapel accent with true unfitness for society. By her advice, Madge accepted an engagement as one of the stock company of the Nottingham theater at the salary— liberal for a novice—of two pounds per week. For this she did some hard work. Every night she had to act in a farce, and in a comedy which had become famous in London. In it, as in the pantomime, she had to play the same part nightly for two weeks. Then came three weeks of Shakespeare and the legitimate drama, in which she and the rest of the company had to support an eminent tragedian, a violent and exacting man, who expected them to be perfect in long parts at a day's notice. When they disappointed him, as was usually the case, he kept them rehearsing from the forenoon to the hour of performance with hardly sufficient interval to allow of their dining. The stage manager, the musicians, the scene-painters and carpenters even, muttered sulkily that it was impossible to please him. He did not require the actors to enter into the spirit of their lines—it was supposed that he was jealous of their attempts at acting, which were certainly not always helpful—but he was inflexible in his determination to have them letter-perfect and punctual in the movements and positions he dictated to them. His displeasure was vented either in sarcasms or oaths; and often Madge, though nerved by intense indignation, could hardly refrain from weeping like many other members of the company, both male and female, from fatigue and mortification. She worked hard at her parts, which were fortunately not long ones, in order to escape the humiliation of being rebuked by him. Yet once or twice he excited her fear and hatred to such a degree that she was on the point of leaving the theatre, and abandoning her profession. It was far worse than what Jack had made her endure; for her submission to him had been voluntary; whilst with the tragedian she could not help herself, being paid to assist him, and ignorant of how to do it properly.
Towards the end of the second week her business became easier by repetition. She appeared as the player queen in Hamlet, the lady-in-waiting in Macbeth, and the widow of King Edward IV, and began to feel for the first time a certain respect for the silently listening, earnest audiences that crowded the house. It was the first dim Stirring in her of a sense that her relation as an actress to the people was above all her other relations. If the tragedian had felt this between the audience and the company of which he was a part, he might have inspired them to work all together with a will to realize the plays to the people. But he was a "star," recognizing no part and no influence but his own. She and her colleagues were dwarfed and put out of countenance; their scenes were cut short and hurried through; the expert swordsman who, as Richmond and Macduff slew the star thrice a week in mortal combat was the only person who shared with him the compliment of a call before the curtain. Naturally, they all hated Shakespeare; and the audiences distinctly preferring the tragedian to the poet, never protested his palming off on them versions by Cibber or Garrick as genuine Shakespearian plays
On the second Saturday, when Madge was congratulating herself on having only six days more of the national Bard to endure, the principal actress sprained her ankle; and the arrangements for the ensuing week were thrown into confusion. The manager came to Madge's lodging on Sunday morning, and told her that she must be prepared to play Ophelia, Lady Ann, and Marion Delorme (in Lytton's "Richelieu") in the course of the following week. It was, he added, a splendid chance for her. Madge was distracted. She said again and again that it was impossible, and at last ventured to remind the manager that she was not engaged for leading parts. He disposed of this objection by promising her an extra ten shillings for the week, and urged upon her that she would look lovely as Ophelia; that the tragedian had made a point of giving the parts to her because he liked her elocution; that his fierceness was only a little way of his which meant nothing; that he had already consented to substitute "Hamlet" and "Richelieu" for "Much Ado" and "Othello" because he was too considerate to ask her to play Beatrice and Desdemona; and, finally, that he would be enraged if she made any objection. She would, said the manager, shew herself as willing as old Mrs Walker, who had undertaken to play Lady Macbeth without a moment's hesitation. Madge, ashamed to shrink from an emergency, and yet afraid of failing to please the tyrant at rehearsal, resisted the manager's importunity until she felt hysterical. Then, in desperation, she consented, stipulating only that she should be released from playing in the farces. She spent that Sunday learning the part of Ophelia, and was able to master it and to persuade herself that the other two parts would not take long to learn, before she went to bed, dazed by study and wretched from dread of the morrow. "Hamlet" had been played twice already, and only the part of Ophelia and that of the player queen needed to be rehearsed anew. On Monday morning the tragedian was thoughtful and dignified, but hard to please. He kept Madge at his scene with Ophelia for more than an hour. She had intended to try and fancy that she was really Ophelia, and he really Hamlet; but when the time came to practice this primitive theory of acting, she did not dare to forget herself for a moment. She had to count her steps and repeat her entrance four times before she succeeded in placing herself at the right moment in the exact spot towards which the tragedian looked when exclaiming "Soft you now! The fair Ophelia." For a long time she could not offer him the packet of letters in a satisfactory manner; and by the time this difficulty was mastered, she was so bewildered that when he said, "I loved you not," she, instead of replying, "I was the more deceived," said "Indeed, my lord, you made me believe so," whereupon he started; looked at her for a moment, uttered imprecations between his teeth, and abruptly walked off the stage, leaving her alone, wondering. Suddenly, she bethought herself of of what had done; and her cheeks began to tingle. She was relieved by the return of Hamlet, who, unable to find words to express his feelings, repeated his speech without making any verbal comment on her slip. This time she made the proper answer and the rehearsal proceeded. The new player queen suffered less than Madge had done a week before, the tragedian treating her with brief disdain. He was very particular about Ophelia's chair and fan in the play scene; but when these were arranged, he left the theatre without troubling himself about the act in which he did not himself appear. Madge, left comparatively to her own devices in rehearsing it, soon felt the want of his peremptory guidance, and regretted his absence almost as much as she was relieved by it. The queen, jealous, like the other actresses, of Madge's promotion, was disparaging in her manner; and the king rehearsed with ostentatious carelessness, being out of humor at having to rehearse at all. Everybody present shewed that they did not consider the scene of the least importance; and Madge sang her snatches of ballads with a disheartening sense of being unpopular and ridiculous.
The performance made amends to her for the rehearsal. The tragedian surpassed himself; and Madge was compelled to admire him, although he was in his fiftieth year and personally disagreeable to her. For her delivery of the soliloquy following her scene with him, she received, as her share of the enthusiasm he had excited, a round of applause which gratified her the more because she had no suspicion that he bad earned the best part of it. The scene of Ophelia's madness was listened to with favor by the audience, who were impressed by the intensely earnest air which nervousness gave Madge, as well as by her good looks.
Next day she had leisure to study the part of Lady Anne in Cibber's adaptation of "Richard III," which was rehearsed on the Wednesday; and this time the tragedian was so overbearing, and corrected her so frequently and savagely, that when he handed her his sword, and requested her to stab him, she felt disposed to take him at his word. In the scene from Richard's domestic life in which he informs his wife that he hates her, he not only spoke the text with a cold ferocity which chilled her, but cursed at her under his breath quite outrageously. At last she was stung to express her resentment by an indignant look, which fell immediately before his frown. When the rehearsal, which, though incomplete, lasted from eleven to four, was over, Madge was angry and very tired. As she was leaving, she passed near Richard, who was conversing graciously with the manager and one of the actors. The night before, he had threatened to leave the theatre because the one had curtailed his stage escort by two men; and he had accused the other of intentionally insulting him by appearing on the stage without spurs.
"Who is that little girl?" he said aloud, pointing to Madge.
The manager, surprised at the question, made some reply which did not reach her, his voice and utterance being less sonorous and distinct than the tragedian's.
"Unquestionably she has played with me. I am aware of that. What is she called?"
The manager told him.
"Come here" he said to Madge, in his grand manner. She reddened and stopped.
"Come here," he repeated, more emphatically. She was too inexperienced to feel sure of her right to be treated more respectfully, so she approached him slowly.
"Who taught you to speak?"
"A gentleman in London," she said, coldly. "A Mr Jack."
"Jack:" The tragedian paused. "Jack!" he repeated. Then, with a smile, and a graceful action of his wrists, "I never heard of him." The other men laughed. "Would you like to tour through the provinces with me—to act with me every night?"
"Oho!"said the manager, jocularly, "I shall have something to say to that. I cannot afford to lose her."
"You need not be alarmed," said Madge, all her irritation suddenly exploding in one angry splutter. "I have not the slightest intention of breaking my present engagement, particularly now, when the most unpleasant part of it is nearly over." And she walked away, pouting and scarlet. The manager told her next day that she had ruined herself, and had made a very ungrateful return for the kindness that she, a beginner, had received from the greatest actor on the stage. She replied that she was not conscious of having received anything but rudeness from the greatest actor on the stage, and that if she had offended him she was very glad. The manager shook his head and retired, muttering that a week's leading business had turned her head. The tragedian, who had been, for so terrible a person, much wounded and put out of heart by her attack, took no further notice of her, demanding no fresh rehearsal of Ophelia, and only giving her a few curt orders in the small part of Marion Delorme. At last he departed from Nottingham; and Madge, for the first time since his arrival, lay down to sleep free from care.
Her next part was that of a peasant girl in an Irish melodrama. She looked very pretty in her Connemara cloak and short skirt, but was hampered by her stage brogue, which only made her accent aggressively English. During this period, she was annoyed by the constant attendance in the stalls of a young gentleman who flung bouquets to her; followed her to her lodging; and finally wrote her a letter in which he called her a fairy Red Riding Hood, describing his position and prospects, and begging her to marry him. Madge after some hesitation as to the advisability of noticing this appeal, replied by a note declining his offer, and requesting him to discontinue his gifts of flowers, which, she said, were a source of embarrassment, and not of pleasure, to her. After this, the young gentleman instead of applauding, as before, sat in his stall with folded arms and a gloomy expression. Madge, who was by this time sufficiently accustomed to the stage to recognize faces in the audience, took care not to look at him; and so, after a week, he ceased to attend and saw him no more.
The Irish melodrama passed on to the next town; and an English opera company came in its place for a fortnight, during which Madge found the time hung heavy on her hands, as she took no part in the performances, though she went to the theatre daily from habit. She was glad when she was at work again in a modern play with which a popular actress was making the tour of the provinces. This actress was an amiable woman; and Madge enacted Celia in As You Like It at her benefit without any revival of the dread of Shakespeare which the tragedian had implanted in her. She was now beginning to tread the boards with familiar ease. At first, the necessity of falling punctually into prearranged positions on the stage and of making her exits and entrances at prescribed sides, had so preoccupied her that all freedom of attention or identification of herself with the character she represented had been impossible. To go through her set task of speeches and man oeuvres with accuracy was the most she could hope to do. Now, however, there mechanical conditions of her art not only ceased to distract her, but enabled her to form plans of acting which stood the test of rehearsal. She became used to learning parts, not from a book of the play, but from a mere list of the fragments which she had to utter; so that she committed her lines to memory first, and found out what they were about afterwards. She was what is called by actors a quick study; and in Nottingham, where, besides the principal piece, one and often two farces were performed nightly, she had no lack of practice. In four months, she was second in skill only to the low comedian and the old woman, and decidedly superior to the rest of the stock company, most of whom had neither natural talent nor even taste for the stage, and only earned their livelihood on it because, their parents having been in the profession, they had been in a manner born into it.
Madge's artistic experience thenceforth was varied, though her daily course was monotonous. Other tragedians came to Nottingham, but none nearly so terrible, nor, she reluctantly confessed, nearly so gifted as he who had taught her the scene from Hamlet. Some of them, indeed, objected to the trouble of rehearsing, and sent substitutes who imitated them in every movement and so drilled the company to act with them. Occasionally a part in a comedy of contemporary life enabled Madge to profit by her knowledge of fashionable society and her taste in modern dress. The next week, perhaps, she would have to act in a sensational melodrama, and, in a white muslin robe, to struggle in the arms of a pickpocket in corduroys, with his clothes and hands elaborately begrimed. Once she had to play with the wreck of a celebrated actress, who was never free from the effects of brandy, and who astonished Madge by walking steadily on the stage when she could hardly stand off it. Then Shakespeare, sensation drama, Irish melodrama, comic opera or pantomime, new comedy from London over again, with farce constantly. Study, rehearsal, and performance became part of her daily habits. Her old enthusiasm for the mock passions the stage left her, and was succeeded by a desire to increase her skill in speaking by acquiring as much resource in shades of meaning as Jack had given her in pure pronunciation, and to add as many effective gestures as possible to the stock she had already learnt. When she was not engaged at the theatre she was at her lodging, practicing the management of a train, trying to acquire the knack of disposing her dress prettily in the act of sitting down, or arranging her features into various expressions before a mirror. This last branch of her craft was the most troublesome to her. She had learned from Jack, much to her surprise, that she could not make her face express anger or scorn by merely feeling angry or scornful. The result of that method was a strained frown, disagreeable to behold; and it was long before she attained perfect control of her features, and artistic judgment in exercising it. Sometimes she erred on the side of exaggeration, and failed to conceal the effort which her studied acting required. Then she recoiled into tameness and conventionality. Then, waking from this, she tried a modification of her former manner, and presently became dissatisfied with that too, and re-modified it. Not until she had gone through two years of hard study and practice did she find herself mistress of a fairly complete method; and then indeed she felt herself an actress. She ridiculed the notion that emotion had anything to do with her art, and seriously began to think of taking a pupil, feeling that she could make an actress of any girl, the matter being merely one of training. When she had been some four months in this phase, she had a love affair with a young acting manager of a touring company. The immediate effect was to open her eyes to the fact that the people were tired of her complete method, and that she was tired of it too. She flung it at once to the winds for ever, and thenceforth greatly undervalued her obligations to the study it had cost her, declaring, in the teeth of her former opinion, that study and training were useless, and that the true method was to cultivate the heart and mind and let the acting take care of itself. She cultivated her mind by high reading and high thinking as far as she could. As to the cultivation of her heart, the acting manager taught her that the secret of that art was love. Now it happened that the acting manager, though pleasant-looking and good-natured, was by no means clever, provident, or capable of resisting temptation. Madge never could make up her mind whether he had entangled her or she him. In truth love entangled them both; and Madge found that love suited her excellently. It improved her health; it enlarged her knowledge of herself and of the world; it explained her roles to her, thawed the springs of emotion that had never flowed freely before either on or off the stage, threw down a barrier that had fenced her in from her kind, and replaced her vague aspirations, tremors, doubts, and fits of low spirits with an elate enjoyment in which she felt that she was a woman at last. Nevertheless, her attachment to the unconscious instrument of this mysterious change proved transient. The acting manager had but slender intellectual resources: when his courtship grew stale, he became a bore. After a while, their professional engagements carried them asunder; and as a correspondent he soon broke down. Madge, did not feel the parting: she found a certain delight in being fancy-free; and before that was exhausted she was already dreaming of a new lover, an innocent young English-opera librettist, whom she infatuated and ensnared and who came nearer than she suspected to blowing out his brains from remorse at having, as he thought, ensnared her. His love for her was abject in its devotion; but at last she went elsewhere and, as her letters also presently ceased, his parents, with much trouble, managed to convince him at last that no she no longer cared for him.
It must not be supposed that these proceedings cost Madge her self-respect. She stood on her honor according to her own instinct; took no gifts, tolerated no advances from men whose affections were not truly touched, absorbed all her passion in her art when there were no such deserving claimants, never sold herself or threw herself away. would content herself at any time with poetry without love rather than endure love without poetry. She rather pitied her married colleagues, knowing perfectly well that they were not free to be so fastidious, reserved, and temperate as her instinct told her a great artist should always be. Polite society pretended to respect her when it asked her to recite at bazaars or charity concerts: at other times it did not come into contact with her, nor trouble itself as to her conformity to its rules, since she, as an actress, was out of polite society from the start. The ostracism which is so terrible to women whose whole aim is to know and be known by people of admitted social standing cannot reach the woman who is busily working with a company bound together by a common co-operative occupation, and who obtains at least some word or sign of welcome from the people every night. As to the Church, it had never gained any hold on Madge: it was to her only a tedious hypocrisy out of all relation with her life. Her idea of religion was believing the Bible because God personally dictated it to Moses, and going to church because her father's respectability required her to comply with that custom. Knowing from her secular education that such belief in the Bible was as exploded as belief in witchcraft, and despising respectability as those only can who have tasted the cream of it, she was perfectly free from all pious scruples. Habit, prejudice, and inherited moral cowardice just influenced her sufficiently to induce her to keep up appearances carefully, and to offer no contradiction to the normal assumption that her clandestine interludes of passion and poetry were sins. But she never had a moment of genuine remorse after once discovering that such sins were conditions of her full efficiency as an actress. They had brought tones into her voice that no teaching of Jack's could have endowed her with; and so completely did she now judge herself by her professional powers, that this alone brought her an accession instead of a loss of self respect. She was humiliated only when she played badly. If one of the clergymen who occasionally asked her, with many compliments, to recite at their school fêtes and the like, had demanded instead what it could profit her to gain the whole world and lose her own soul, she might have replied with perfect sincerity from her point of view that she had given up the whole world of Mrs Grundy and gained her own soul, and that, whether he considered it judicious to mention it or not, the transaction had in fact profited her greatly.
But all this belonged to a later period than the novitiate of two and a half years which began at Nottingham. These thirty months did not pass without many fits of low spirits, during which she despaired of success and hated her profession. She remained at Nottingham until July, when the theatre there was closed for a time. She then joined a travelling company and went through several towns until she obtained an engagement at Leeds. Thence she went to Liverpool, where she remained for three months, at the expiration of which she accepted an offer made her by the the manager of a theatre in Edinburgh, and went thither with a salary of five pounds a week, the largest wage she had yet received for her services. There she stayed until August in second year of her professional life, when she acted in London for the first time, and was disgusted by the coldness of the metropolitan audiences which were, besides, but scanty at that period of the year. She was glad to return to the provinces, although her first task there was to support her old acquaintance the tragedian, with whom she quarrelled at the first rehearsal with spirit and success. Here, as leading lady, she attempted the parts of Beatrice, Portia, and Lady Macbeth, succeeding fairly in the first, triumphantly in the second and only escaping failure by her insignificance in the third. By that time she had come to be known by the provincial managers as a trustworthy, hard-working young woman, safe in the lighter sorts of leading business, and likely to improve with more experience. They hardly gave her credit enough, she thought, for what seemed to her the slow and painful struggle which her progress had cost her. Those were the days in which she was building up the complete method which, though it was a very necessary part of her training, proved so short-lived. She had had to exhaust the direct cultivation of her art before she could begin the higher work of cultivating herself as the source of that art.
Shortly after her flight from Kensington, her twenty-first birthday had placed her in a position to defy the interference of her family; and she had thereupon written to her father acquainting him with her whereabouts, and with her resolve to remain upon the stage at all hazards. He had replied through his solicitor, formally disowning her. She took no notice of this; and the solicitor then sent her a cheque for one hundred pounds, and informed her that this was all she had to expect from her father, with whom she was not to attempt to establish any further communication. Madge was about to return the money, but was vehemently dissuaded from doing so by Mrs Cohen, who had not at that time quitted Nottingham. It proved very useful to her afterwards for her stage wardrobe. In defiance of the solicitor's injunction, she wrote to Mr Brailsford, thanking him for the money, and reproaching him for his opposition to her plans. He replied at great length; and eventually they corresponded regularly once a month, the family resigning themselves privately to Madge's being an actress, but telling falsehoods publicly to account for her absence. The donation of one hundred pounds was repeated next year; and many an actress whose family heavily burdened instead of aiding her, envied Madge her independence.
She wrote once to Jack, telling him that all her success, and notably her early promotion from the part of the player queen to that of Ophelia was due to the method of delivering verse which he had taught her. He answered, after a long delay, with expressions of encouragement curiously mixed with inconsequent aphorisms; but his letter needed no reply and she did not venture to write again, though she felt a desire to do so.
This was the reality which took the place of Madge's visions of the life of an actress.