Part 31 (2/2)

The carpet was of orange, carrying a serpentine design of dead black, two heavy curtains of black velvet hung on either side of a door leading into a conservatory, softly lit by electric lights concealed amid the ma.s.sed blossoms, for it was a night scene that opened the play.

There was a low murmur of applause and pleasure from the crowded theatre, for here was a picture as complete and beautiful as any hardened playgoers had seen for many years. Then the sound died away.

The new actress was upon the stage, the unknown Mary Marriott; there was a great hush of curiosity and interest.

As the curtain rose the girl had been sitting upon a Chesterfield sofa of blue linen at the ”O. P.” side of the stage. For a moment or two she had remained quite motionless, a part of the picture, and, with a handkerchief held to her face, her shoulders shaking convulsively.

She was dressed in an evening gown of flame-colour and black.

In front of her, and in the centre of the stage, two odd and incongruous figures were standing.

One was a shabby, middle-aged woman, pale, shrinking, and a little furtive among all the splendours in which she found herself. She wore a rusty bonnet and a black cape scantily trimmed with jet.

By the woman's side stood a tall girl in a hat and a cheap, fawn-coloured jacket. The girl held a soiled boa of white imitation fur in one restless hand. She was beautiful, but sullen and hard of face.

Not a word was spoken.

It might have been a minute and a half before a word was said. The only sound was that of the sobbing from the richly-dressed woman upon the couch and the timid, shuffling feet of the two humble people--mother and daughter evidently--who stood before her.

Yet, curiously enough--and, indeed, it was unprecedented--not a sigh nor sound of impatience escaped the audience. One and all were as still as death. Some extraordinary influence was already flowing over the footlights to capture their imaginations and their nerves.

As yet they hadn't seen the face of the new actress, of whom they had heard so much in general talk and read so much in the newspapers.

A minute and a half had gone by and not a word had been spoken.

They all sat silent and motionless.

Suddenly Mary jumped up from the sofa and threw her handkerchief away.

They saw her for the first time; her marvellous beauty sent a flutter through the boxes and the stalls, her voice struck upon their ears almost like a blow.

Never was a play started thus before. Mary--upon the programme she was Lady Augusta Decies, a young widow--leapt up and faced the two motionless figures before her. Tears were splas.h.i.+ng down her cheeks, her lovely mouth quivered with pain, her arms were outstretched, and her perfect hands were spread in sympathy and entreaty.

”Oh, but it shan't be, Mrs. Dobson! It can't be! I will stop it! I will alter it for you and Helen and all of you!”

These were the first words of the play. They poured out with a music that was terribly compelling.

There was a cry of agony, a hymn of sympathy, and a stern resolve. An audible sigh and shudder went round the theatre as that perfect voice swept round it.

”What was this play to be? Who was this girl? What did it all mean?”

Some such thought was in the mind of every one.

Such a voice had not been heard in a London theatre for long. Sarah Bernhardt had a voice like that, Duse had a voice like that--a voice like liquid silver, a voice like a fairy waterfall falling into a lake of dreamland. Most of the people there had heard the loveliest speaking voices of the modern world. But this was as lovely and compelling as any of them, and yet it had something more. It had one supreme quality--the quality of absolute conviction.

The new player--this unknown Mary Marriott--was hardly acting. It was a real cry of anguish straight from the heart itself.

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