Part 42 (1/2)

”Your voice did not sound hoa.r.s.e. Perhaps it will be better if we do not pursue the subject further.”

With this the O'Kelly appeared to agree.

”A lady a little difficult to get on with when ye're feeling well and strong,” so the O'Kelly would explain her; ”but if ye happen to be ill, one of the kindest, most devoted of women. When I was down with typhoid three years ago, a tenderer nurse no man could have had. I shall never forget it. And so she would be again to-morrow, if there was anything serious the matter with me.”

I murmured the well-known quotation.

”Mrs. O'Kelly to a T,” concurred the O'Kelly. ”I sometimes wonder if Lady Scott may not have been the same sort of woman.”

”The unfortunate part of it is,” continued the O'Kelly, ”that I'm such a healthy beggar; it don't give her a chance. If I were only a chronic invalid, now, there's nothing that woman would not do to make me happy.

As it is--” The O'Kelly struck a chord. We resumed our studies.

But to return to our conversation at the stage door.

”Meet me at the Ches.h.i.+re Cheese at one o'clock,” said the O'Kelly, shaking hands. ”If ye don't get on here, we'll try something else; but I've spoken to Hodgson, and I think ye will. Good luck to ye!”

He went his way and I mine. In a gla.s.s box just behind the door a curved-nose, round-eyed little man, looking like an angry bird in a cage, demanded of me my business. I showed him my letter of appointment.

”Up the pa.s.sage, across the stage, along the corridor, first floor, second door on the right,” he instructed me in one breath, and shut the window with a snap.

I proceeded up the pa.s.sage. It somewhat surprised me to discover that I was not in the least excited at the thought of this, my first introduction to ”behind the scenes.”

I recall my father's asking a young soldier on his return from the Crimea what had been his sensations at the commencement of his first charge.

”Well,” replied the young fellow, ”I was worrying all the time, remembering I had rushed out leaving the beer tap running in the canteen, and I could not forget it.”

So far as the stage I found my way in safety. Pausing for a moment and glancing round, my impression was not so much disillusionment concerning all things theatrical as realisation of my worst forebodings. In that one moment all glamour connected with the stage fell from me, nor has it since ever returned to me. From the tawdry decorations of the auditorium to the childish make-belief littered around on the stage, I saw the Theatre a painted thing of shreds and patches--the grown child's doll's-house. The Drama may improve us, elevate us, interest and teach us. I am sure it does; long may it flouris.h.!.+ But so likewise does the dressing and undressing of dolls, the opening of the front of the house, and the tenderly putting of them away to bed in rooms they completely fill, train our little dears to the duties and the joys of motherhood.

Toys! what wise child despises them? Art, fiction, the musical gla.s.ses: are they not preparing us for the time, however distant, when we shall at last be grown up?

In a maze of ways beyond the stage I lost myself, but eventually, guided by voices, came to a large room furnished barely with many chairs and worn settees, and here I found some twenty to thirty ladies and gentlemen already seated. They were of varying ages, sizes and appearance, but all of them alike in having about them that impossible-to-define but impossible-to-mistake suggestion of theatricality. The men were chiefly remarkable for having no hair on their faces, but a good deal upon their heads; the ladies, one and all, were blessed with remarkably pink and white complexions and exceptionally bright eyes. The conversation, carried on in subdued but penetrating voices, was chiefly of ”him” and ”her.” Everybody appeared to be on an affectionate footing with everybody else, the terms of address being ”My dear,” ”My love,” ”Old girl,” ”Old chappie,” Christian names--when name of any sort was needful--alone being employed. I hesitated for a minute with the door in my hand, fearing I had stumbled upon a family gathering. As, however, n.o.body seemed disconcerted at my entry, I ventured to take a vacant seat next to an extremely small and boyish-looking gentleman and to ask him if this was the room in which I, an applicant for a place in the chorus of the forthcoming comic opera, ought to be waiting.

He had large, fishy eyes, with which he looked me up and down. For such a length of time he remained thus regarding me in silence that a ma.s.sive gentleman sitting near, who had overheard, took it upon himself to reply in the affirmative, adding that from what he knew of b.u.t.terworth we would all of us be waiting here a d.a.m.ned sight longer than any gentleman should keep other ladies and gentlemen waiting for no reason at all.

”I think it exceedingly bad form,” observed the fishy-eyed gentleman, in deep contralto tones, ”for any gentleman to take it upon himself to reply to a remark addressed to quite another gentleman.”

”I beg your pardon,” retorted the large gentleman. ”I thought you were asleep.”

”I think it very ill manners,” remarked the small gentlemen in the same slow and impressive tones, ”for any gentleman to tell another gentleman, who happens to be wide awake, that he thought he was asleep.”

”Sir,” returned the ma.s.sive gentleman, a.s.suming with the help of a large umbrella a quite Johnsonian att.i.tude, ”I decline to alter my manners to suit your taste.”

”If you are satisfied with them,” replied the small gentleman, ”I cannot help it. But I think you are making a mistake.”

”Does anybody know what the opera is about?” asked a bright little woman at the other end of the room.

”Does anybody ever know what a comic opera is about?” asked another lady, whose appearance suggested experience.

”I once asked the author,” observed a weary-looking gentleman, speaking from a corner. ”His reply was: 'Well, if you had asked me at the beginning of the rehearsals I might have been able to tell you, but d.a.m.ned if I could now![']”

”It wouldn't surprise me,” observed a good-looking gentleman in a velvet coat, ”if there occurred somewhere in the proceedings a drinking chorus for male voices.”

”Possibly, if we are good,” added a thin lady with golden hair, ”the heroine will confide to us her love troubles, which will interest us and excite us.”