I COME TO ANCHOR
I HAD got my agreement I proceeded to make use of it. I wanted it for its effect upon three people.
From Somerset House I drove straight (by omnibus) to Mariana’s.
Mariana, ever soft and peach-like, was seated in her snuggery, as she called it, her attention being entirely concentrated on certain alterations in a dainty flowery brocaded dressing-gown which her French maid was arranging for her. ‘T was a sweetly pretty brocade — sprays of pink roses on a delicate elusive honey-coloured ground; and Mariana, who loved the pomp of steward and seneschal, was justly proud of it. “Bravissima!” she cried. “C’est charmant!”
I burst in upon her, in a short serge skirt, big with my agreement, but anxious to look at first as if nothing out of the common had happened. Mariana, graciously smiling and extending one plump hand — Mariana’s white hands have inspired sonnets — languidly inquired how I did — and whether I had seen the criticism of Marguerite in last night’s St, James’s. I replied that I had not. She selected it out for me from a copious bundle of press cuttings on flimsy pink slips; there were at least a round dozen of them:—” Signora Lupari’s remarkable impersonation”; “Signora Lupari’s unequalled organ”; “her childish grace”; “her delicious singing”; “a Marguerite as guileless as Goethe drew her.” I ran my eye over it with a sense of sickening. “That must be the great pitfall of these press-cutting agencies,” I ventured to remark. “So bad for one’s vanity! A man — or a woman must see all that the newspapers are saying about herself, without equally seeing what the newspapers are saying about other people. Which, of course, must tend to give one a false impression of one’s own relative importance.”
“But the criticisms are so often hostile,” Mariana lisped out in her softly infantile voice — Mariana’s childishness was part of her stock-in-trade — a valuable element of her charm, most carefully cultivated. “The wretches say such vile things! Oh, sometimes they ‘re just horrid!” And she made a wry face, as if somebody had offered her a draught of nasty medicine.
“Still, the drawback to the actress’s or singer’s profession,” I mused on, in an abstract way—” viewed as a career, I mean — must be the effect it has on character.”
Mariana faisait la moue — I am afraid there is no English for it, nor indeed for most of Mariana’s face-play. “The effect it has on character! Oh, dear Rosalba, what on earth do you mean? Why, do you know you are talking exactly like that poor dear John of yours? It must be catching. Effect upon character! What a comical idea!” And she laughed her musical little laugh of disdain. “As if one went upon the stage for its effect upon character!”
“When I see the influence the stage has upon some actors and actresses,” I went on calmly, “it makes me almost decide for myself — to keep off it.”
“That’s easily done, dear. It’s one of the simplest professions to keep out of in the world. — Elise, mon enfant, would you make this bodice so that just a suspicion of a camisole — a dainty little coquette of a lace-edged camisole — should peep out at the neck? Cut low in a V. Comme ça — don’t you think so?”
“Then you seriously advise me to decline the stage?” I went on, fingering the brocade gingerly.
“To decline it? My dear girl, who invited you to go on it?”
“I have a tempting offer,” I answered.
Mariana let the V-shaped bodice drop from her caressing fingers, and uttered a sharp cry of startled surprise, which would have been worth money in Lucia. “You! An offer!” she almost shrieked. “Rosalba! How disgraceful! It is an infamy — an infamy! To trade upon my name and artistic reputation!”
“It is a very splendid offer for a beginner,” I continued, in a casual voice, holding the brocade to the light as if its texture interested me. “Twenty guineas a week; with a rise if I catch on. That’s not so bad, is it?”
Mariana gasped and stared. “Are you mad?” she said at last, with her full neck craned forward, “or has somebody been imposing upon you?”
“Neither,” I replied carelessly, examining the threads of the brocade and turning it over in the light “This is a bona fide offer.”
My sister clutched my arm. “My dear child,” she exclaimed, in a profoundly shocked undertone, “you have no idea what sort of men these theatrical agents are. Some of them are wretches — wretches. They will offer you anything till they get you in their clutches. Then, they take advantage of your guileless nature. You have allowed them to deceive you. ‘T is your innocence — your innocence!”
“That’s just what my manager said,” I replied, with an infantile smile like Mariana’s own. (After all, there is a wonderful underlying family likeness in sisters!)— “He said.”
— and I mimicked his cracked voice, bitter sarcasm and all—” ‘Innocence! Innocence! To get your agreement stamped at Somerset House! Innocence, quotha, innocence!’”
Mariana’s grip on my arm was like a steel vice. “Burminster!” she cried, in a voice of horror — for she recognised the squeaky unctuousness of the accent—” Burminster! You have seen him!”
“Yes, dear. No agents for me! Why pay ten per cent to somebody else for doing ill what you can do well yourself for nothing?
I have got Mr. Burminster’s agreement duly stamped in my pocket. John was always strong to you on the necessity for getting your agreements stamped. It is money out of hand, but it shows people you mean it.”
She drew back, incredulous. “Rosalba, you are jesting!”
“Never more serious in my life, dear. — What an exquisite colour! — Twenty guineas, and prospects.”
“But you are unknown — an amateur. And Burminster, who has the pick of the talent of London — in his own odious line! I refuse to believe it.”
“Behold this walrus tooth!” I answered, after King Alfred’s Olaf, producing the agreement, with its little red government mark in the corner. “‘Rosalba Lupari; — Henry Delamere Burminster; — mutually agreed; — twenty guineas weekly; — in witness whereof’; — all perfectly regular!”
She read it, and handed it back to me, as white as the sheet on which I now write these words. There is nothing the regular profession hates like music-halls. “This is abominable!” she cried; “disgraceful! My sister to tread those boards! You two have hatched a conspiracy against me. E iniquo, iniquo! I knew you were unprincipled, Rosalba! I knew you were wicked—”
“‘Your guileless nature! Your innocence! You have allowed them to deceive you!’” I murmured in Mariana’s own voice.
She took no notice, continuing her angry harangue. “But I never knew you would turn against me like this. Dio mio! It is positively shameful. I shall never speak to you again.”
“What? Neverer than before?” I murmured, for I knew that threat.
She went on, unheeding. “I shall apply for a mandamus or a habeas corpus or something to prevent you. An injunction, I think it is called. I know the judges can grant one.”
“Some loops of Honiton would look nice,” I interposed sweetly, handling the bodice; “don’t you think so?”
Mariana was the tragedy queen. “Here am!” — she rolled it out in her penetrating voice—” a singer on the highest operatic stage; by dint of hard work I have gained my position; and now Burminster comes to you — a creature in the music-hall line — a contractor for tight-rope dancers and performing dogs — and offers you a bribe to sell him your name — my name — to drag in the dirt on the floor of his vile places among the cigarette ends and the orange-peel. I shall protest against it, I will. It’s — it’s an abominable outrage!”
I do not care to bandy adjectives. So I let her go on for twenty minutes — I love Mariana as Constance in King John — then I pocketed my agreement, waved my hand to her, and left. But if you ask me why I got up this gratuitous little scene, I can only answer, ’twas my devil who suggested it.
It was rough on Mariana; I admitted it to myself as I went back to Auntie’s. Naturally, she objected to my taking to an inferior branch of the profession which she adorned, and so spoiling her artistic and social future. But I had my living to earn. And besides, I chose to give Mariana this fright, because I thought it might act as a moral shower-bath. Shower-baths are so good for one: the nervous shock and so forth! Mariana lives too much in cotton-wool — asparagus and chicken-cutlets; — occasional contact with the realities of life is a useful tonic.
The second was John. He had promised to come round to Auntie’s that afternoon, on a matter of business. I had begged him earnestly to give me a little note, as far as he could remember, of all the sums he had spent on my education and keep—” the ducats, John, the mere ducats” — and of course he had refused — for John is a gentleman. But when I pointed out to him that it would only save me labour, since otherwise I must go hunting up Miss Westmacott and calling at Peter Robinson’s to ask for details, he gave way at last with evident reluctance. “After all,” he said, “your estimate” — for I had jumped at one—” is ridiculously in excess. If you want to know the truth, you may as well know it;’ t is a question altogether removed from the sphere of practical politics. You can never pay the amount; so I will tell you if you insist upon it, as near as I can conjecture. But recollect, Rosalba, I do it under protest.” So he came in the afternoon and brought a rough draft of the calculation with him. “It has distressed me to put it down in black and white, my dear girl,” he said, wincing; “but since you demand it as a right, and choose to consider it as a debt, I have stretched a point to oblige you. Though I have been more than repaid already, Rosalba, by many pleasant hours spent in your charming company.”
“Very nicely said, John,” I replied, dropping my admired curtsey. (John is famous for these formal old-fashioned compliments. They have a distinct flavour of Oxford donnishness.) “But that pleasure was reciprocal. Fair exchange will not cover the outstanding debt. We have still the ducats to reckon with.” Since I had been relieved from the necessity for marrying John, I really began quite to like him.
He smiled at me most agreeably. John has excellent manners. “But I do not expect repayment immediately,” he went on. “You might give me a bill — to be met, let us say, on the Greek calends.”
“I could meet it sooner,” I replied demurely. “In fact, I think I might begin to meet it on the calends now next ensuing.”
“The first of next month? My dear Rosalba, impossible!”
“Mariana earns her living — and more — on the stage. I am Mariana’s sister.”
“Mariana! ah, yes, but her voice! her training! Mariana has genius. Don’t deceive yourself, my dear child. It is not easy to earn money in London nowadays.”
“Oh, I don’t know about that,” I answered lazily, as though it mattered little. “If one has the artistic temperament, you understand — Twenty guineas a week — that’s a capital offer!”
“Twenty guineas a week! Only stars earn so much. And you, to put it mildly, are a star of as yet uncertain magnitude. Shall we say the tenth — provisionally?”
“My dear John! your astronomy is ungallant!”
“This is a question of business.”
“But surely Mr. Burminster must know best,” I exclaimed with my most provoking smile. “He puts me down at twenty guineas.”
“Politeness! His way of making himself agreeable to the Lupari’s sister. It is one thing, Rosalba, to do these things as an amateur for the occasional amusement of one’s private circle; quite another thing to appear as a candidate for the suffrages of the cold, critical public. Most amateurs find that out to their cost when they try to earn their living by their art. Burminster’s praise was mere blague — a casual opinion dropped hastily in some drawing-room where you met him. The wicked old creature said it to be pleasant.”
“Then why did he put it on a stamped agreement?” I asked, pulling it out and looking at it as if it were something to which I attached the very slightest importance.
John’s colour changed at once. “An agreement?” he cried with a start. “Let me see it!”
I handed it to him. “I have followed your advice, you observe,” I said sweetly. “I have had the thing stamped. I can’t tell you, John, how many things I have learned from you!”
He read it from end to end with a face growing more and more serious at each clause, as he plodded on through its business-like provisions. He saw Burminster meant it. Austerity! I never knew what the word meant before. His lips grew hard; his chin grew adamant. He handed the document back to me without a word of comment, but with a pained expression on his face that pained me.
“Splendid terms, aren’t they?” I observed, playing with my chatelaine, but with a mist in my eyes — John was so genuinely shocked.
“Splendid terms — well, ye-es,” he answered slowly at last “And so they ought to be — a music-hall!” His tone became grave. “It is much you have to sell, Rosalba — a young girl’s life — a young girl’s happiness — perhaps” — he winced at saying it, but he said it like a man, and I respected him for his frankness—” a young girl’s innocence!” He took my hand in his and leant over towards me anxiously. “I have no right, dear,” he went on, in quite a fatherly voice, “to interfere with your life now; it is your own; dispose of it. But — I have been your guardian for some years, and I am still deeply interested in you. For your own sake, therefore, I beg you to reconsider this question before it is too late. You have left yourself a loophole of escape, I observe; avail yourself of it. I should never cease to regret it if you accepted this hateful, this odious offer. Above all, if you accepted it in order to repay me, Rosalba, I could not take the money so earned. I could not take it. It would be the price of a soul — of a pure soul, tainted. It might be the price of your life — it must be the price of that first bloom of your innocent girlhood which we all so admire. Do not, do not destroy it. For your own sake, I implore you, decline this specious proposal. Decline it, dear child! Your future is dear to so many of us!”
I am not concerned to deny that tears stood in my eyes. I had not looked for this. Contrary to my expectation, John had transcended himself. I thought he would have been struck with horror at the idea that the girl whom he had designed for the honour of becoming Mrs. Stodmarsh should perform at a music-hall — a common, low London music-hall. I thought he would think of himself and the blow to his own dignity. Instead of that, he thought of me — the danger of it, the unworthiness. I felt it was sweet of him. After all, John was a kind, good fellow!
Not but that I detected some faint undercurrent of the other feeling in him as he went on; but sense of the degradation for me was uppermost. It touched me to the heart. I saw how much he liked me. At last, I burst out laughing — to keep back my tears. “John,”
I cried, “you are a dear! I will not trick you longer. I am not going to accept this offer. I never meant to accept it. It is all a little comedy. I went to see Mr. Burminster because I felt sure I could earn money that way if I tried; and I wanted to show you I could really earn it But I am not going on the stage — not even on the regular stage of the theatre; I feel there are sufficient reasons in my case to keep me off it. It is one of my métiers — but not the only one; and there I should be poaching on Mariana’s preserves; I prefer to rear my own pheasants. Even if I do not take to music-halls, some other sphere of usefulness will be open to me, I am certain. When I signed this agreement, I took care to make it binding on Mr. Burminster, but not on me. That was because I never meant to avail myself of it. And one of the reasons why I did not mean to avail myself of it was because I felt it would be a bad return for all your endless kindness to me if I were to let the world see that the girl who was so long engaged to be your wife had gone to the music-halls. You are a proud man, John, and I should shrink from so humiliating you. I never meant to go; I only wished to prove to you that if I went, I could repay you.”
John wrung my hand hard. “Thank you, Rosalba,” he answered; “thank you! You have relieved my mind — for your own sake most. Do you know, now we stand on different terms, I think I like you better than ever.”
“I am sure I like you better, John.”
“And I believe you will repay me. I do not want the repayment. I can never use it myself. But I see you mean it, and I honour you for meaning it. Rosalba, you are a gentlewoman.”
“John, you are so kind, I almost feel as if I need not repay you.”
He bowed with his stately, antique courtesy. “I am glad we have had this interview, my child. It sets things on a pleasanter basis between us. We can meet henceforth more frankly in society, with no sense of an estrangement.”
“Estrangement! On the contrary, this is our first rapprochement.”
“My dear little girl, how nice of you to say so! I have undervalued your good qualities.”
He looked quite handsome as he stood there, with his close-shaven face relaxed, his uncompromising chin less square than was its habit, and the doctrinaire corners of his official mouth unwontedly softened. I took a step forward. “John,” I burst out, “I declare I am quite fond of you! You were my guardian once, and I owe you a great deal — no, not the ducats” — for he made a little gesture of deprecation—” not the ducats, but gratitude. For the last time in my life — there can be no harm in it just this once as between ward and guardian — I am going to kiss you — spontaneously to kiss you.”
And I kissed him.
The third person to whom I showed the agreement was Dudu. He happened to drop in at Auntie’s unexpectedly that evening. He happened to drop in unexpectedly most evenings, indeed — and I expected the unexpected. To say the truth, I waited for him.
His countenance fell when I showed him the document with great joy; and he fingered his moustache dubiously. “O Dru!” he cried, in a voice of unspoken remonstrance.
“It is a lot of money,” I observed obliquely. “Yes, I know; a lot of money; but still—”
“And I have to repay John for all that he has spent on me.”
“But, Dru! A music-hall!”
“Why not?” I tantalised him.
“Well, it’s not quite the places—”
“The place — ?”
“For you — a tender little wayside flower to wither in that odious atmosphere!”
“And what claim have you to object, sir?”
“Surely I must guard my future wife from all hateful influences!”
I tore up the agreement and clasped my hands above him, laughing. “I did it to show John I could repay him if I would,” I cried—” and to tease my future husband!”
He caught me in his arms. And that was the only way Dudu ever proposed to me, or I accepted him.