Twopence Coloured (11 page)

I
T is half-past four o’clock on Sunday evening, and the train is on the last lap of its journey to Manchester — streaming blindly but resolutely through the falling and enveloping night.

It is the fifth hour of the journey, and the windows sweat a grey patchy dew, and reflect the compartment. This
contains
, in all, eight of her fellow-professionals. And none of these speak a word; but all are sprawling or lying back in varying attitudes of resentful lethargy — militant lethargy even, for they are Amazons even in repose and defeat, and they grudge every moment of this forced submissiveness. Indeed the Stygian light falling down on them from the sickly little bulb above, reveals lines of ill-temper and determination which, could they be seen and recalled, would cast an
interesting
aspect over the winning warm smiles and delectable kickings which will divert a northern city to-morrow night. But to-morrow night is now unspeakably remote….

Jackie has a corner seat, and opposite Jackie is Miss Stella Hawke, who is the eldest girl of the entire garden of girls. She is a girl of forty years, in fact, and she is a formidable girl. With her history, Jackie, along with others, is acquainted — that history being simple and consisting of the notorious fact that Miss Hawke is one who has been (in the existing phraseology) “sent back to the chorus.” Which means that Miss Hawke, at some period in the past, has sunned herself in the especial favour of the Sultan, and, having at last worn out her charms in that service, is now the object of a merciful and entirely matter-of-fact system of, as it were, half-pay. So long as her lost master lives she will remain in his
choruses
, though, with increasing age, she may not keep her hold
in the No. 1 companies. She has, indeed, little to look forward to: but she is at present a lusty and unrepentant old pensioner, and has from the beginning struck a chill into the heart of Jackie, to whom she has never addressed a word, and to whom she will, as a point of pride, never address a word so long as they are thrown together.

But for all that she is not uninterested in Jackie, and, if Jackie but knew it, she has summed Jackie up and disposed of her in her own strange, hard, and perhaps even kindly way. But although she has summed Jackie up and disposed of her, there is something in Jackie which causes her to be recurringly not quite satisfied with the summing-up and
disposing
, and from this fact certain difficulties are at this very moment arising.

For Miss Hawke (who is naturally a deceptive creature), while at this moment feigning to be asleep, is actually
opening
her eyes, every half-minute or so, with a sudden pop, and drinking in as much of her junior’s face and demeanour as it is humanly possible to do in the time and in conjunction with ostensible oblivion. And Jackie is also fast asleep, but is also popping. And a quantity of simultaneous poppings are taking place which are proving ruinous to the peace of mind of both parties. But neither of them is able to leave off….

And so the train streams on, or slows down, or stops
hissingly
for ghostly joinings, and conversation is reopened, and fades out, and begins again, and excludes Jackie (whatever else it does), and the Stygian light burns on….

And all at once she begins thinking about him again. And foolishly imagining things….

If, for instance, by some miracle, he was there to meet her, at the other end….

Standing there to meet her — in front of them all….

And if, miraculously, he put her into a taxi and told her that this had got to Stop….

And if she asked him what had got to Stop…. And if he said that she knew what he meant…. And if she said she didn’t….

And if he said he loved her — beyond everything in this world — loved her and loved her and loved her….

And if she said she always had, from the beginning….

She wonders what he is doing at this moment. Touring the country, like herself — probably in a train….

She will write to him when she gets to her room this
evening
. Sit up in bed and write to him….

Or if this wasn’t a train going to Manchester at all, but a train going to Dover (like the train she went on when she went to Switzerland) — and if they were together…. And if she held his arm, as they left the train, and the sea was ahead….

If the sea was ahead for their venturing — a calm sea, and yet just flecked with foam — and stars overhead, and a wind, and a moon half hidden…. The old, dark sea ahead, for their venturing….

And if she smelt the sea…. And if she smelt the sea! …

Jackie’s landlady at Manchester was Jackie’s first taste of theatrical landladies, and a bustling woman of about forty named Mrs. Grounds. Grounds was alive, though seldom in evidence, and a Character. His affectionate wife, indeed, had constant occasion to allude to him as a Puzzle, a Problem, a Customer, a Proposition, a Desert Sphinx if you Like, a Facer, a One, or, fractionally, a One and a Half or Not Half a One — mystery and monosyllables being the leading traits of this Character. Jackie was of the private belief, in her very slight acquaintance of this individual, that he was, if the truth were known, a mere bundle of affectation; but she was alone in Manchester and had no choice but to adopt the more
mysterious
and adulatory interpretation of his manners. Also his wife took pleasure in recording, firstly, that he would Do Anything for you if you only Tackled him on the Right Side, and did not Cross, Rub Up, or Brook him; secondly, that a large amount of his apparent surliness was to be palliated by
his own arrogant confession that he had been Brought Up in a Hard School; and lastly, that whatever he did it was Only his Way. And with these assurances Jackie had to be content.

It was a very successful first night, and an experience of panic which Jackie never forgot. From the moment of
entering
the harem, at seven o’clock, there was an air of hurry which nearly sent her out of her mind. It was as though the Sultan, while having given the date of his return, had arrived six hours before he was expected and thrown
everything
and everybody into scampering terror.

Jackie never forgot the dressing-room, where she found herself with seven or eight others; she never forgot the blazing electric bulbs, lighting the red-ochre walls, and
reflected
by blazing little mirrors on the wooden shelf all round; she never forgot the mad disorder of everything; the smarm and smell of greasepaint — Number 9 — Number 5 —
Number
2½ — carmine — blue pencil — the clouds of powder and the scent of flesh. She never forgot the torrents of strident and lewd imprecation pouring forth around her with the monotony of a solemn, set incantation. She never forgot the call-boy’s raps upon the door, his buoyant
“Arfnar
Peas!”
at the half-hour — his sinister
“Quartnar
Peas!”
at the quarter. She never forgot the savage over-emphasis and
over-colouring
and intensification of trembling beauty when all were made up — the scarlet and blue and pink and white — as though all had been dipped in some sickly rainbow essence….

She never forgot the running down the cold stone stairs — the first clashings of the orchestra — the lining up for the opening chorus — the flowing murmur, talkative and genteelly zealous, of the stalls and circle — the stir and more callous expectancy of the high, packed gallery….

She never forgot how the curtain softly and suddenly arose amid the noise — how its rising gave the same breathless,
irrevocable
and utterly elusive sensation as a diver might feel
in mid-air — how, for a moment after its rising, all
consciousness
was lost, and the body functioned like another body altogether, which, by some infinitely happy chance, knew the business in hand….

And then all at once she had run off the stage, and was in the semi-darkness amid the electricians, and the
stage-manager
, and his assistants, and shifters of various kinds, and a very pale and trembling comedian who had not yet gone on….

Jackie had imagined that all except the most mechanical exertion would cease after that first night, but here she was mistaken.

The fact that the reception in the press next morning was decidedly lukewarm and mixed gave Jackie some sly
pleasure
, of course (for she had a grudge against her employers and employment which no appeal to her pity could ever placate). But when, at the call next morning, she found herself, with the rest, being held personally impeachable for this, she was less pleased. There was, in fact, on the part of her superiors, an atmosphere of authoritative scolding — a self-important air of calm in a crisis — and an amount of talk about Saving the Day, Working Together, and Pulling this fantastic and offensive balderdash Round, which she found incredibly nauseating. The more so in that it was indulged in principally by the constellation, to whom it was obviously all part of the fun. Jackie soon discovered, indeed, that in such circles a crisis of some sort was little short of
indispensable
, for if you haven’t a crisis there is absolutely no means in this world of setting in and being Absolutely Frank, and (after all) having Nothing but the Interests of the Show at Heart, and Laying all your Cards upon the Table, and Only wanting to Do what’s Right, and only Wishing you could See it as they did, and so forth, and at last explaining
everything
beautifully, and kissing and making up, and going out in a large and large-hearted manner to the bars…. And
after all, if you can’t be Absolutely Frank, and have Nothing but Interests of Shows at heart, and Lay Cards (at the right moment) upon Tables, what is the use of being this type of actor?

The tragedy with Jackie and her chorus girls was that they were given the scolding but deprived of the
highmindedness
. And inasmuch as to spread yourself out in every branch of austerity, altruism, benevolence and brotherly attachment is the cardinal prerogative of their profession, they were conscious of being deprived of something essential to their spiritual welfare, and suffered accordingly.

Indeed they were at last compelled to look for some crisis in their own ranks.

This they could do with some assurance of success,
knowing
that the unwritten law which had held in check the hostile ranklings obtaining all throughout rehearsals, was
automatically
repealed with the first night of the show, after which all vendettas might confess themselves and proceed in the open. And in this instance, sure enough, they had, ready to hand, the case of Miss Royal Fayre and Miss Pinkie Dove, who having nourished, each against the other, the secret viper of scorn, hatred, and conscious superiority for the last five weeks, on Tuesday night were led into what they both
querulously
and simultaneously declared they had no intention of being led into — namely, a Scene.

The finer details of this Scene — although it was enacted in a public passage shortly after the finale, and witnessed by both Miss Cherry Lambert and Miss Dot Delane — never came to light. But it appeared that Miss Pinkie Dove, acting under the belief (true or false it is not known) that her
opponent
had Passed a Remark about her while she (Miss Dove) was leaving the stage, confronted Miss Royal Fayre at the next opportunity to ask her (as a Simple Question) whether she had done so or not.

To which Miss Royal Fayre, shirking the issue, had
retorted
that in so far as she (Miss Fayre) had not Started Interfering with no one, no one need not Start Interfering with her.

To which Miss Dove had rejoined that she was merely asking a Simple Question.

They then both began that violent and inharmonious
disclaiming
of any personal participation in a Scene. Which gave way at last to a sudden dreadful lull, and a certain amount of fatal muttering. Which was followed, all at once, by a lightning blow across the cheek, delivered by Miss Royal Fayre upon Miss Pinkie Dove.

One of the Assistant Stage Managers coming along at this moment — a Mr. Wicks, who prided himself greatly upon his tact with the Girls — found both antagonists staring at each other in an entranced manner, and Miss Royal Fayre heatedly absolving herself for her unladylike, her almost Scenic act, with the plea that Miss Pinkie Dove had called her a Name. It was plain that Miss Fayre had been called many things, but never, in the entire course of her career, a Name. But Miss Dove offered to call her a Name again. As for Mr. Wicks, he thought that one shouldn’t worry about Names, embraced both girls round the shoulders, alluding to them as Pinkie and Royal, and told them to Come Along — as though he were a kind of mild policeman of the passions and was making a gentle arrest. Where they were to Come Along to he neither said nor knew, and his limp authority was treated with the neglect it deserved. Similarly he failed to cajole them with the dictum that we should all Live and let Live. It was not, indeed, until Miss Cherry Lambert and Miss Dot Delane came forward to support him, that the parties were separated and dragged to their respective rooms, where the affronted Named one, on the one hand, took to tears, and the bestower of the affront, on the other, examined her slapped cheek in the glass and paced dramatically up and down, threatening to Teach her assailant any amount of things —

or merely What For, being but the more outstanding items on that ghastly scholastic schedule.

This was all over the theatre in a trice, and the
highmindedness
at once began. Impartiality being the leading
characteristic
of highmindedness, there were no factions caused, but all were united in a fanatical desire to see the adversaries Shake Hands. The perfect efficacy of this ritual was treated as axiomatic, and the actual spiritual reconciliation of the couple was either implicit or of no account — what Pinkie and Royal had to do was to Shake Hands. It was the
battle-cry
of the altruists. “Come along, Pinkie, Shake Hands,” urged Miss Cherry Lambert, and “Now then, Royal,” urged Miss Effie Byng, “aren’t you going to Shake Hands?”