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Philiberta: A Novel

Chapter XXVI. A New Venture

Chapter XXVI. A New Venture.

'I am awfully sorry,' said Mr. G.

'So am I,' said Philiberta, sadly.

'I was afraid it wouldn't go,' said Mr. G. 'Nobody yearns after Shakespeare nowadays. What does the festive shepherd, come from the bush and plains to knock down his cheque, want with Shakespeare? What the gay digger who has turned his gold dust into coin that is burning to be spent? What the jovial tar after five or six months' liveliness on board an overcrowded immigrant ship? And the aristocratic clerk or draper's man; does he want to have his mind elevated with Shakespeare? Not he. He wants legs. The shepherd wants legs; the digger wants legs; the sailor wants legs. The demand is all for legs. And as the said individuals are the ones that keep the pot boiling for us poor devils of managers, why, they must have what they want; we must give them legs. Will you accept an engagement for the pantomime, Miss Morven?'

'No, I think not,' said Philiberta; 'I think I shall give it up now.'

'Oh, but that's ridiculous,'

'Tell me, Mr. G.—candidly—is my failure due altogether to the public distaste for classical drama, or to my own incompetency?'

'Incompetency is not the word,' said Mr. G., hesitatingly. 'You study well, you have force and power of expression, your voice is good, and you know how to use it. All these things go to make competency. But there is something more wanted to score a real success in parts like those you are bent on. Something I know no name for but genius.'

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'And I have not that?'

'No, you have not got it, Miss Morven, since you will have plain-speaking. After all, plain-speaking in a case like this is kindest.'

'Yes, it is.'

'But genius is not quite the word either,' said Mr. G. 'The something that I mean is rather a gift of perfect sympathy with an audience. Just as one man can play a piano without any study worth mentioning, and another cannot raise a good chord after months of toil. An inferior actor having the gift I speak of has his audience all his own way from the first; while a really talented man, lacking that power, never scores a good number in all his career, and if it is any consolation to you, Miss Morven, I can assure you that for every one who possesses that happy knack in this profession there are ninety-nine who have it not.'

'I don't know that that is very consoling to me,' said Philiberta, smiling sadly.

'Well, cheer up,' said Mr. G., whose liking for and approval of our heroine had increased every day of his acquaintance with her. 'If you cannot do all you wish, do all you can, and make the best of it. That's good advice, though it sounds a little rough. I mean it for your good.'

'I am sure of that,' said Philiberta.

'And there is no saying,' continued Mr. G., 'what the future may bring you. The chances in, this game are as variable as in any other. The great Siddons was a long time winning her first success, and then it came to her—you have read the story?—just when she had least reason to expect it, in a little provincial or London theatre, when her fortune was at its lowest ebb, her purse empty, her children sick, and everything looking as blue as the—dickens. You had better stop on for the pantomime, Miss Morven.'

'No, Mr. G. I feel the strongest repugnance to appearing in anything again where I have so lately made such a signal failure.'

'That is a bit of ridiculous pride that you ought to be page 179ashamed of,' said Mr. G. 'But if you are determined, why, it is no use talking. But we shall be awfully sorry to lose you from the theatre.'

'I am glad to hear you say that, at any rate'

'Do you intend quitting this line altogether, then?'—'Yes.'

'Well, you won't. You can't. Once the glamour of the stage is cast over you, it is next to impossible ever to throw it off. No amount of hardship or disappointment can break the thrall, however it may be weakened. Well, look in at rehearsal sometimes, Miss Morven, if you stay in town. We shall always be glad to see you.'

Philiberta's failure was a terrible shock to her. She had looked to this ambition of hers to fill up the void, the awful void, in her life. Now that the hope was snatched from her, she felt as if drifting aimlessly and helplessly on a dark and endless sea. There was nothing for her, nothing in life but emptiness and barrenness. The sorrow in her heart and her face deepened; the distant look in her eyes, the sad outlook of the soul that had grown too familiar with sadness became more pathetically noticeable. Miss Fitzroy, who would not lose sight of her, told her that if she did not get change of air, she would have an illness.

The pantomime that year was a grand success. The chief rôle seemed purposely created for Miss Fitzroy. No doubt it was, to some extent; for although the piece was a colonial adaptation of an English burlesque, our local manipulator had a fine talent for suiting each part to the characters, who were mostly personal friends. He had adapted especially well the part for Miss Fitzroy this time, and as Prince Something-or-other, in a suit of sky-blue satin and silver, she made both herself and the pantomime the sensation of the year.

Philiberta went to the theatre a good deal. Mr. G. was right—the stage glamour was difficult to cast off. More than once she felt sorry she had not accepted the manager's offer. The work and the excitement would have, at least, taken her out of herself. She began to crave activity again, and while casting about in her own mind for some suitable plan of page 180employment, she one day read this advertisement in a daily paper:—

'Wanted, ladies and gentlemen to form travelling Variety Company. No salaries. Company to share equally risks and profits. Apply—'

The suggestion of travel decided her. She applied, was offered the position of leading lady at once, and accepted as promptly. The members of the company were, with the exception of the manager and Philiberta, all in the last stage of impecuniosity when they started upon this tour 'up the bash.' But they prospered exceedingly. They were not pretentious enough to show in large cities, but kept to small diggings, townships, and agricultural districts, often walking from one place to another from sheer impossibility of obtaining conveyances. Their wardrobes, both private and professional, were extremely modest, hence transit was not much impeded. Their 'make-ups' were of the most primitive kind; yet in most places their advent was looked upon by the people as a veritable oasis in the desert of bush existence. They were well treated everywhere; but particularly at the diggings, where Philiberta realized an experience that previously she had only read of—small nuggets of gold were showered upon her. The other members of the company stayed up till nearly day-break searching out those bits of yellow treasure from the slab floor of the slab shed in which they were performing, but the chinks were wide and the gold elusive, so they did not recover more than an ounce or so among them. One little group of town ships, distant from each other but a few miles, kept the company in the locality right through the winter. Philiberta grew very tired of it all then, variety being necessary to her contentment. But the awful condition of the roads in the season of flood and rain made far travel an impossibility, so she was fain to make the best of it. With the spring the company got further afield, prosperity attending them as long as they kept to the diggings. But the manager waxed ambitious. It had been told to him that if he could get into the big squatting districts towards the close of the shearing season, the shearers' cheques would be page 181spent on the show like water. Philiberta was opposed to the movement for reasons of her own, but she was in a very small minority, and the other side gained. It was necessary now that the company should have a conveyance of its own. After some difficulty, and at an extraordinarily exorbitant figure, the manager succeeded in purchasing a large American waggon and two horses. One of the latter was white and the other cream-coloured, and the manager, who had read of Theodore Hook's trick, bethought himself to take example. Wafers were unprocurable, so he cut small discs of black and coloured paper and stuck them all over the noble steeds with good strong glue. Then another genius painted an extraordinary and startling picture in red and blue on the tarpaulin cover of the waggon, and then that little cavalcade, as it left its last township early one morning, was really a sight to behold. Well, they got out on the plains and lost themselves, Provisions were scant; the weather was fearfully hot, for summer had come down close on the heels of winter; the horses gave out and had to be dragged along by one man with much persuasive profanity, while the others pushed behind the waggon. This over, many miles of sand was no joke. At the close of one awful day they sighted a winding line of timber in the distance that clearly betokened a river or creek-bed. And for this they made with joyful hope and haste. There was water sure enough, but of what a description! Thick and yellow and full of animalculæ of types varied and numerous enough to give months of absorbing occupation to any naturalist. Yet bad as this was, it was infinitely better than their next experience, when after fourteen hours' fatiguing travel over a brown bare waste, they came upon a shallow hole of bright pellucid water that made them life up their voices with one accord in thanksgiving.

'It is brackish and will make us ill,' said Philiberta, who knew by the clearness of it. But even she could not resist it. They all drank abundantly, and the sweet, salt, mineral flavour made them sick, and then they all drank, again, and camped there that night. The manager said he thought the district must be auriferous—he had heard that brackish water was page 182always a sign of gold. Mrs. Martin, one of the ladies, said that if every sand about them were bright gold and diamonds, she would cheerfully give them all to be safe back in Melbourne once more.

Next morning a strange, ominous thirst was upon them, which they strove to slake at the brackish spring. They also carried some of the water with them on their day's journey in billies and bottles. Before noon they were all very seriously unwell; before night they were ill, Philiberta more so than the rest. On they staggered in their pain and tribulation until towards sunset they sighted a thin line of smoke rising straight to the sky, and knew they were within reach of human aid. The women cried hysterically; the men's faces relaxed from the grimness of despair into the gladness of renewed hope.

Philiberta was past caring now, and sank, feebly moaning, by the wayside. The others lifted her into the waggon, and in another hour they had reached the spot whence rose the smoke. There they found a little slab shanty of two rooms set in the midst of this great wild hot waste. One room was a bar evidently; the other seemed to serve every imaginable purpose; for there were the fragments of a meal on the bush-made table, while round the walls were ranged sleeping-bunks, some of which had lately had occupants undoubtedly. There was a fireplace and chimney built of sods, but the fire at present was burning outside. More pretentious colonists than these proprietors of the 'Shearers' Rest' used to carry on all culinary and kitchen operations out of doors in those days.

A string of scraggy dogs bayed out their first impressions of our travellers as the latter slowly approached; then forth from the open one-hinged door issued a huge shock-headed, heavy-bearded, ruffianly-looking man, and an ample, well-spread dirty woman. The man wore greasy moleskin trousers, a greasy Crimean shirt, with the sleeves torn off to save rolling them up, and the neck and front well turned back to reveal the hairy brown breast and bull-like throat. The woman had on a scanty cotton gown, shrunken in front till the lower half of legs as shapely as badly stuffed bolsters were well in view, and torn page 183about the bust till the wearer's charms bulged out in coarse redundancy in many places. Both were barefooted; both were blear-eyed and well sodden with drink; both were sleepy and vied with each other in deep yawns.

'Down, Sunset! Quiet, Dingo! D——your eyes, I'll kick the noisy inside out of all of ye. Lie down, I say. What the—— is this lot?'

Our travellers' tale was soon told, and hospitality, such as it was, promptly and freely tendered by this unprepossessing couple. The woman especially was all alive in a moment at sight of her sex in distress.

The dirty bunk-blankets were tossed out and the bedding from the waggon substituted. The women were helped to bed; the men turned out unceremoniously to take their chances in the shed outside or the taproom. Wholesome tea and poisonous brandy were administered. The inevitable mutton and damper were forthcoming for those who could eat it. After a few hours of intense agony the sufferers recovered a little, all except Philiberta. With, her the worst effects of unwholesome water followed sharp upon the first attack, and the landlady of the shanty announced that the 'young ooman was in for it, and no mistake.' To remove her was impossible; to stay with het almost equally so for the company.

'Go and leave me,' moaned Philiberta. 'Go and leave me. What use is it to stay here risking all your lives for mine?'

'Lord on'y knows how long she'll be bad,' added Mrs. Hawkins, the landlady.

The women wept piteously; the men's hearts ached at the thought of leaving her there, perhaps to die; but, after all, they said, what good could they do by remaining? They could not cure her; they themselves would probably tail ill if they stayed in that arid unhealthy region.

So Pliliberta's few properties and her share of the general funds were left with her; and the show caravan started away with the rest en route for Melbourne,