Other formats

    Adobe Portable Document Format file (facsimile images)   TEI XML file   ePub eBook file  

Connect

    mail icontwitter iconBlogspot iconrss icon

Philiberta: A Novel

Chapter XXI. Difficulties

Chapter XXI. Difficulties.

Philiberta soon realized the poverty of her chances as a Shakespearian actress. Theatrical managers did not want Shakespeare. Still less did they want inexperienced interpreters of him. They were all very civil to our heroine, but they laughed at her, almost to her face. It really was too absurd—a woman absolutely without the slightest stage experience presenting herself with the request to be engaged as leading lady for classical plays. Why, it even surpassed the audacity of those third-raters who came out sometimes from low provincial theatres in England, with a flourish of play-bills that announced them as stars. It was exasperating to see people with such notions of themselves. Yet one of these managers page 144(of the Royal—the old Royal, you remember) felt a little touched when he saw a pathetic look of disappointment creep over Philiberta's earnest face as he stated his belief that there was no opening, and probably never would be, for her and Shakespeare.

'You see,' said he gently, feeling all the while that it was weak—very weak indeed—thus to hold parley when he ought to make the negative prompt, decisive, and unalterable, 'You see, we can afford to go to the necessary expense of a company and accessories only when the leading actor or actress is a certain draw. Much as we desire to encourage local talent, it hasn't any show in this country yet—except in one or two cases that I know of, and they are not in the heavy line. The colonial public prefers importations. And even importations of the heavy stamp won't go down unless they are very highclass indeed, and can send a splendid reputation before them. Even then the best of them seldom pay a management as well as a good comic singer, or break-down dancer, By-the-bye,' said he, half maliciously, 'you don't think you could do the comic business, do you?'

'I cannot dance break-downs,' said Philiberta, with melancholy dignity.

'And you can't sing?'—'Comic songs? No.'

'Can you sing at all?' inquired Mr. G., with some eagerness, as if a new idea bad caught him suddenly.

'Oh yes, I can sing,' said Philiberta. 'My voice is said to be good,'

'Would you mind letting me hear it?'

'I would rather not. But why?'

'Oh, well—I had an idea that might come to something—if you really are so anxious to adopt the stage as a profession.'

'I am very anxious, but I could never sing comic songs,' said Philiberta, with emphasis.

'But I was not thinking of comic songs just then, exactly. And I cannot say what I was thinking of, unless you will give me the chance of testing your power as a vocalist.'

'Then I will sing, if you like,' said Philiberta.

page 145

'Thanks. Come with me to the proscenium. There's a piano on the stage. You can either accompany yourself, or sing without accompaniment; just as you like. This way.'

She followed him along the numerous passages to the stage.

'Will you have the piano?'—'No, thanks; I will try without.'

'Very well. Stand right up to the front, then, close to the footlights, and wait till I get upstairs before you begin. When you see me over there behind the Governor's box, I shall be ready. Sing anything you like, you know.'

She waited until she saw him right opposite, in the dress-circle, then somewhat confusedly began. She was too nervous and bewildered to choose her song judiciously. Indeed, she could not for the life of her just then remember any one of her best ballads or selections. Nothing would come to her save a mournful Scottish air ('Roslyn Castle') that she had learnt very long ago from John Campbell, and to which she had wedded lines only lately.

'Hear the wail of the wind as it wanders from the sea,
Watch the pale stars that shine so sadly down on me;
Oh, the weird wind is lamenting, the stars in pity shine,
For they know no other sorrow so sorrowful as mine.
The waves are falling heavily with dull and booming roar
On the sands so grey and dim, and I kneel upon the shore,
And I bid the waves be still while I my story tell,
But they come and go unheeding while they moan, "Farewell!"

'Farewell, farewell! like an echo of the day
When the sea unrelenting bore my heart's love away;
And I watched the white sails fading till they vanished from my sight,
And all the bright glad sunlight died away to darksome night.
Weary years have passed, and I am still left here alone
With but the wind and stars and sea to listen to my moan;
Weary years are gone, and I know, ah! so sadly well,
That weary years ago my love bade me a last "Farewell!"

'Oh! I would that the wind would bear my soul away
Over sea, over land, all through the long, long day,
That I might seek my lost love in every land and clime,
Till, finding him, my glad soul might forget this weary time.
I would put my hands in his, and we would soar beyond the sky,
Far past the pitying stars that throb in yon blue dome so high;
But woe is me! I listen to the sea's unceasing knell,
And it tells me hope is gone for aye. Farewell! Farewell!'

page 146

She sang the first verse very indifferently, and then stopped.

'Go on,' called a voice from the far-off box.

So she sang the second, and gaining courage and control of her voice, went through the third of her own accord. Seeing that Mr. G. waited still, she called out, 'That is all. There are no more verses.'

In a few seconds he was with her on the stage again.

'Your voice, Miss——?'

'Morven. Miss Berta Morven is the name I have assumed.'

'Well, your voice, Miss Berta Morven, is simply magnificent. If you will accept, I will take the responsibility of offering you now, on behalf of the management, an engagement in opera bouffe, at a salary of four pounds a week. The opera bouffe season commences in exactly a month from now. Rehearsals begin to-morrow.'

Seeing that she hesitated, nay, looked anything but gratified, he added, 'Believe me, it is an exceptionally good offer. If it were not for your voice, I should never dream of making it. Remember that you know nothing whatever of stage business; you are completely ignorant of a vocation that requires as hard work and long apprenticeship as any other, from music and painting down to carpentering and shoemaking. It is not every day you will hear of a mere tyro getting such a salary as I offer, but it is not every day one hears such a voice as yours, so there is no disinterested generosity on my part. All the same, I repeat that it is an extremely liberal offer.'

'I don't doubt that,' said Philiberta, 'but I think I told you at first that salary was a matter of trifling importance to me compared with the gratification of my ambition. And opera bouffe is not my ambition—not my forte.'

'Excuse me, Miss Morven, but it strikes me you do not really know what is your forte. For that matter I have very rarely met anyone who did. I knew a circus clown once, one of the best clowns ever turned out by those two great manufacturers nature and art. Well, he thought himself a born Virginius, a perfect Lear, a natural Othello. He tried each of these róles at different times, and was simply roared off the boards. The audience didn't hiss him, the show was too page 147utterly comical and mirth-provoking. He could have gone on drawing crowded houses with those parts, for grander burlesques it is impossible to conceive. But no, egad! he wouldn't be laughed at—at least, not in that way. So he went back to his legitimate line, still always immovably convinced that he was wasted, and that if he had been started on the tragedy instead of the comedy track at first, he would have distanced every tragedian in the past and future. It is trite knowledge among professionals that every actor and actress, when having a benefit, will, unless prevented by force or persuasion, play out of his or her own line some piece they fancy, but have no talent for. With such a voice as yours, Miss Morven, your forte should be singing; and you will excuse a man, whose years and experience in this line should entitle him to some little assumption of true judgment, when he tells you that you are probably mistaken in your estimate of your own abilities. Very few people can hope to play Shakespeare properly.'

'But I have read and learned the plays so thoroughly.'

'So have numbers of people, my dear young lady, who couldn't act one fit to be seen. Mind, I don't say it is as bad as that with you. To give my own genuine opinion, I believe you could play Shakespeare in time. But there is so much detail to study, so much outside of mere word, gesture, and costume perfection, so much business to study in short, that it would be madness, even if any management could be found to undertake you, to attempt anything so ambitious until you know more about it.'

'And how am I to know more about it? How am I to learn all this that you say is essential?'

'Why, my dear young lady, I have put the chance in your hands. I offer you the run of the school, with a salary to boot that any novice of two years' apprenticeship would consider magnificent.'

'Then t shall be glad to accept your offer,' said Philiberta, with sudden decision. 'I hope I have not seemed too ungrateful in hesitating so long about it. It was not that I failed to appreciate your liberality.'

page 148

'Oh, say no more about that,' said Mr. G. 'We want a contralto, so there is no obligation.'

'I hope you won't be disappointed in me,' said Philiberta.

'If you never sing worse than you sang to-day, I am not likely to be,' replied Mr. G. 'And now I must get back into my office.'

'I have detained you so long,' said Philiberta, apologetically.

'Oh, that's nothing. Here is the best exit. Allow me—it is dark here, and there is a step. Rehearsal to-morrow morning, at ten sharp, Miss Morven. Good-day to you.'

'Good-day, and thanks. But remember, Mr. G, I do not give up hope of the other yet.'

'What, the high falutin line? Quite right, Miss Morven—quite right. Ambition and perseverance are your best cards in this game. No one has any chance in it without them. Don't be later than ten, please, to-morrow.'

Philiberta was strictly punctual. Indeed, she was almost first at the theatre, and had the edification of hearing later arrivals most eloquently cursed and sworn at by the stage-manager. It came to her rather as a shock to hear the same abusive epithets bestowed on men and women alike freely. But the anathematized fair ones did not seem to mind at all. The young girls laughed; the elder ladies took no notice. One of those, a short stout woman, startlingly near childhood, to all appearance, spoke out once, and said that if the stage-manager 'had eleven kids all born alive and still living, and wanting to be dressed and fed every morning, it would waken him up and stop his jaw a little.'

Some choruses were rehearsed, some seemingly senseless manoeuvres gone through, in none of which Philiberta was required to join; so she sat aside, watching. She had 'a part,' the women whispered among themselves, some of them eyeing her jealously and enviously on that account. Presently there was a pause in the rehearsal. The leading lady was in requisition, and had not come yet. Signor Blankini stamped and foamed, and grew purple to the very top of his bald head. And in the midst of the tornado of temper the leading lady entered-page 149calm, cool, and lovely, moving gracefully across the stage with the utmost leisure, her draperies held daintily up from contact with the dusty floor—a woman of perfect loveliness, with yellow hair framing her charming face, and eyes as beautifully blue as the sky of a fair day in winter. Yet was there over all the beauty an expression of suppressed defiance and mutiny, that would have gone far to spoil any face less perfect.

'Waiting for me?' she said, addressing Signor Blankini with careless amiability.

'Waiting for you!' snarled the little man savagely. 'You take me for one dam fool, Miss Fitzroy; that's what you take me for.'

'Dear me, no,' replied the lady, smiling on him with a kind of languid surprise. 'I have always the highest opinion of your sense and intellectuality, signor; I thought you knew that.'

'The time you should have been here was ten o'clock, Miss Fitzroy. Look now! it is ten minutes after eleven.'

'So I observe, signor; and as I have an important appointment at half-past twelve, perhaps you will allow me to get through my share of this morning's work without delay. Is this my score?'

'Is your other appointment of so much importance that you must be more punctual to it than you are to me?' sneered the signor.

'Yes,' was the answer, given with curt emphasis. 'Now, if you have done, Signor Blankini, I will begin. Mr. Warnecke, the cornet gives me the cue to this passage—may I trouble you?'

Signor Blankini subsided, and Miss Fitzroy rehearsed her music in a modulated soprano of bewildering sweetness. Philiberta listened entranced.

'Now for the duet between the contralto and me,' said Miss Fitzroy.

'Is the contralto part allotted yet?'

'I believe it is allotted to me,' said Philiberta, rising; and just at that moment Mr. G. entered.

'Good-morning, everybody. Sorry I couldn't get in sooner, Miss Morven. Blankini, give this lady the contralto score; will you, please?' Luckily Philiberta had practised singing at sight, page 150so she got through her part fairly well for a first attempt. The music and words were pretty and sentimental—not comic, as she had dreaded.

'You are a novice, I see,' said Miss Fitzroy, when they had finished the duet.—'Quite,' said Philiberta.

'I thought so. Don't be offended if I offer a little advice.'

'Surely not.'

'Then you must not stand like a post all the time you are singing, nor hoist your shoulders up in that peculiar way. You have been used to singing to your own accompaniments?'

'Yes.'

'That is it. It spoils people. It gives them an awkward action of the arms and shoulders—an awkward feeling too, when they come to sing independently. They feel as if their hands should be at work all the time, and the effort they make to keep still causes them to be unnaturally stiff and gawky. But a little practice and a few hints will soon put you right.'

'I hope so,' said Philiberta.

'I will help you all I can.'

'Thanks. That is very good of you.'

'Oh no. Selfishness, pure selfishness, I assure you. If you spoil that duet, you will spoil me to a great extent, and I cannot bear a failure.'

'I will do my very best not to spoil it, then,' said Philiberta, smiling.

'I feel sure of that,' said Miss Fitzroy kindly, 'and your voice is really lovely, you know.'

'Is rehearsal over?' asked Philiberta.

'For the principals—yes, I think so. Signor Blankini, is there another call for to-day?'

'No, mees; there is not. If there was, I should know better than to expect Mees Fitzroy to come.'

'Ah—that is well. Blessed is he that expecteth nothing, for he shall surely get it Which way are you going, Miss Morven?'

'I am living at St. Kilda,' said Philiberta.

'Oh, are you? I live in Carlton. I should prefer St Kilda, only I should always miss the trains; and I am unpunctual page 151enough at the theatre as it is. If I lived further away, I should never get here at all. Well, good-bye, then, till to-morrow.'

They met again next day, of course, and Miss Fitzroy displayed a (for her) remarkable interest in Philiberta's progress. When they were quitting the theatre at the conclusion of that day's rehearsal she invited our heroine to go home with her to luncheon.

'I have a little den of my own,' said she; 'that is to say, I rent it. I hate lodgings; I like to live in my own way, without method or regularity. Will you come?'

'Thanks—yes,' said Philiberta. The 'little den' was a cottage of some five or six rooms set in a tiny garden of the ordinary pattern. There was a bright gay look about it, and a sweet fresh scent of violets and mignonette. The smallness of the interior of the house was relieved by bow-windows in the front rooms, and a broad veranda at the side arranged with blinds into a sort of conservatory, and filled with rare plants and choice vases. The rooms that Philiberta entered were most daintily and exquisitely furnished.

'How do you like it all?' said Miss Fitzroy. 'I am conceited about my house, and like to hear people make remarks about it, though I know it is bad taste.'

Of course then Philiberta praised it; she could not certainly have spoken of it without praises.

'And how do you manage when you travel?' she inquired.

'I never do travel if I can help it,' was the reply. 'As long as I can get an engagement in Melbourne I leave travelling to others. I love Melbourne, and I am fond of this little place. Fond of comfort, too, which travellers don't often get. When I am compelled to go I leave the house to Himmons, who is a jewel of a manager.'

Himmons, a soft-voiced, soft-robed, soft-shod woman, entered at this moment, to say that lunch was ready. And at the same instant came a loud rap at the door.

'Who can that be, Himmons?'

'It's Mr. Parkinsson's knock, miss.'

'Don't let him in then. I won't be pestered to-day with men.

Yet, stay; the fellow is hungry, I expect, and he-may help to amuse Miss Morven. You may as well show him in, Himmons.'