The Price She Paid Part 43

Had Mildred looked the usual sort who come looking for jobs in musical comedy, Mr. Crossley would not have risen--not because he was sn.o.bbish, but because, being a sensitive, high-strung person, he instinctively adopted the manner that would put the person before him at ease. He glanced at Mildred, rose, and thrust back forthwith the slangy, offhand personality that was perhaps the most natural--or was it merely the most used?--of his many personalities. It was Crossley the man of the world, the man of the artistic world, who delighted Mildred with a courteous bow and offer of a chair, as he said:

"You wished to see me?"

"If you are Mr. Crossley," said Mildred.

"I should be tempted to say I was, if I wasn't," said he, and his manner made it a mere pleasantry to put her at ease.

"There was no one in the outside room, so I walked on and on until your door stopped me."

"You'll never know how lucky you were," said he. "They tell me those fellows out there have shocking manners."

"Have you time to see me now? I've come to apply for a position in musical comedy."

"You have not been on the stage, Miss--"

"Gower. Mildred Gower. I've decided to use my own name."

"I know you have not been on the stage."

"Except as an amateur--and not even that for several years. But I've been working at my voice."

Crossley was studying her, as she stood talking--she had refused the chair. He was more than favorably impressed. But the deciding element was not Mildred's excellent figure or her charm of manner or her sweet and lovely face. It was superst.i.tion. Just at that time Crossley had been abruptly deserted by Estelle Howard; instead of going on with the rehearsals of "The Full Moon," in which she was to be starred, she had rushed away to Europe with a violinist with whom she had fallen in love at the first rehearsal. Crossley was looking about for someone to take her place. He had been entrenched in those offices for nearly five years; in all that time not a single soul of the desperate crowds that dogged him had broken through his guard. Crossley was as superst.i.tious as was everyone else who has to do with the stage.

"What kind of a voice?" asked he.

"Lyric soprano."

"You have music there. What?"

"'Batti Batti' and a little song in English--'The Rose and the Bee.'"

Crossley forgot his manners, turned his back squarely upon her, thrust his hands deep into his trousers pockets, and stared out through the window. He presently wheeled round. She would not have thought his eyes could be so keen. Said he: "You were studying for grand opera?"

"Yes."

"Why do you drop it and take up this?"

"No money," replied she. "I've got to make my living at once."

"Well, let's see. Come with me, please."

They went out by a door into the hall, went back to the rear of the building, in at an iron door, down a flight of steep iron skeleton steps dimly lighted. Mildred had often been behind the scenes in her amateur theatrical days; but even if she had not, she would have known where she was. Crossley called, "Moldini! Moldini!"

The name was caught up by other voices and repeated again and again, more and more remotely. A moment, and a small dark man with a superabundance of greasy dark hair appeared. "Miss Gower," said Crossley, "this is Signor Moldini. He will play your accompaniments."

Then to the little Italian, "Piano on the stage?"

"Yes, sir."

To Mildred with a smile, "Will you try?"

She bent her head. She had no voice--not for song, not for speech, not even for a monosyllable.

Crossley took Moldini aside where Mildred could not hear. "Mollie,"

said he, "this girl crept up on me, and I've got to give her a trial.

As you see, she's a lady, and you know what they are."

"Punk," said Moldini.

Crossley nodded. "She seems a nice sort, so I want to let her down easy. I'll sit back in the house, in the dark. Run her through that 'Batti Batti' thing she's got with her. If she's plainly on the fritz, I'll light a cigarette. If I don't light up, try the other song she has. If I still don't light up make her go through that 'Ah, were you here, love,' from the piece. But if I light up, it means that I'm going to light out, and that you're to get rid of her--tell her we'll let her know if she'll leave her address. You understand?"

"Perfectly."

Far from being thrilled and inspired, her surroundings made her sick at heart--the chill, the dampness, the bare walls, the dim, dreary lights, the coa.r.s.ely-painted flats-- At last she was on the threshold of her chosen profession. What a profession for such a person as she had always been! She stood beside Moldini, seated at the piano. She gazed at the darkness, somewhere in whose depths Crossley was hidden. After several false starts she sang the "Batti Batti" through, sang it atrociously--not like a poor professional, but like a pretentious amateur, a reversion to a manner of singing she had once had, but had long since got rid of. She paused at the end, appalled by the silence, by the awfulness of her own performance.

From the darkness a slight click. If she had known!--for, it was Crossley's match-safe.

The sound, slight yet so clear, startled her, roused her. She called out: "Mr. Crossley, won't you please be patient enough to let me try that again?"

A brief hesitation, then: "Certainly."

Once more she began. But this time there was no hesitation. From first to last she did it as Jennings had coached her, did it with all the beauty and energy of her really lovely voice. As she ended, Moldini said in a quiet but intense undertone: "Bravo! Bravo! Fresh as a bird on a bright spring morning." And from the darkness came: "Ah--that's better, Miss Gower. That was professional work. Now for the other."

Thus encouraged and with her voice well warmed, she could not but make a success of the song that was nearer to what would be expected of her in musical comedy. Crossley called out: "Now, the sight singing, Moldini. I don't expect you to do this well, Miss Gower. I simply wish to get an idea of how you'd do a piece we have in rehearsal."

"You'll have no trouble with this," said Moldini, as he opened the comedy song upon the rack with a contemptuous whirl. "It's the easy showy stuff that suits the tired business man and his laced-in wife. Go at it and yell."

Mildred glanced through it. There was a subtle something in the atmosphere now that put her at her ease. She read the words aloud, laughing at their silly sentimentality, she and Moldini and Crossley making jokes about it. Soon she said: "I'm ready."

She sang it well. She asked them to let her try it again. And the second time, with the words in her mind and the simple melody, she was able to put expression into it and to indicate, with restraint, the action. Crossley came down the aisle.

"What do you think, Mollie?" he said to Moldini.

"We might test her at a few rehearsals."

Crossley meekly accepted the salutary check on his enthusiasm. "Do you wish to try, Miss Gower?"

Mildred was silent. She knew now the sort of piece in which she was to appear. She had seen a few of them, those cheap and vulgar farces with their thin music, their more than dubious-looking people. What a come-down! What a degradation! It was as bad in its way as being the wife of General Siddall. And she was to do this, in preference to marrying Stanley Baird.

"You will be paid, of course, during rehearsal; that is, as long as we are taking your time. Fifty dollars a week is about as much as we can afford." Crossley was watching her shrewdly, was advancing these remarks in response to the hesitation he saw so plainly. "Of course it isn't grand opera," he went on. "In fact, it's pretty low--almost as low as the public taste. You see, we aren't subsidized by millionaires who want people to think they're artistic, so we have to hustle to separate the public from its money. But if you make a hit, you can earn enough to put you into grand opera in fine style."

"I never heard of anyone's graduating from here into grand opera," said Mildred.

"Because our stars make so much money and make it so easily. It'll be your own fault if you don't."

"Can't I come to just one rehearsal--to see whether I can--can do it?"

pleaded Mildred.

Crossley, made the more eager and the more superst.i.tious by this unprecedented reluctance, shook his head.