The Quaint Companions. Merrick Leonard
spoken to her. Such a thing to say! And she didn't tell me who it was for ever so long."
He understood that he had been referred to as a "nigger." She deprecated her blunder to the younger woman with worried eyes, and the latter struck in hastily:
"I was just telling Mr. Lee what I want to do, mother. He thinks he might help me."
"Oh, now I'm sure that's very kind of him indeed! You see, Mr. Lee, it's not altogether nice for Ownie here, and of course having had a home of her own, she feels it more still. Well, dear, you do, it's no good denying it! If she had something to take her out of herself a little it would be so good for her in every way; and we always thought she would make money with her voice – it's a magnificent one, really."
Mrs. Harris shrugged her shoulders. "To talk about its being 'magnificent' in front of Mr. Lee is rather funny. But if I could make even a second-rate position," she went on, "I should be satisfied. I'd try for an engagement in a comic opera if I thought I could act, but I'm afraid I should be no good on the stage, and one has to start in such tiny parts. We had a lady staying with us who used to be in the profession, and she was telling us how hard the beginning was."
"And do you imagine that concert-engagements are to be had for the asking?" he said. "Good heavens! But of course you don't know anything about the musical world – how should you?"
"I don't imagine that they are to be had for the asking," she returned a shade tartly; "but if one can sing well enough, the platform must be easier for a woman like me than the stage, by all accounts."
"Accounts," he echoed, "whose accounts? I could give you accounts that would make your hair stand up. Do you know that professional singers, with very fine voices, come over from the Colonies to try to get an appearance here and find they can't do it? They eat up all the money that they've saved and go back beggared. They go back beaten and beggared. It is happening all the time. My dear girl, you couldn't make a living on the concert-stage under five years if you had the voice of an Angel."
"Not if I had bad luck, I daresay," she muttered.
"I tell you nobody can do it – it isn't to be done. It would take you five years to earn a bare living if you were a Miracle. The Americans and Australians try it for two or three and clear out with broken hearts and empty pockets. It's killing; they starve while they are struggling to be heard. I'll give you an example; a singer with a glorious voice came to England —I say it, 'glorious.' I won't mention his name, it wouldn't be fair; but, mind, this is a fact! He had worked hard in his own country – they believed in him there; they got up a benefit for him before he sailed. He had three thousand pounds when he landed – and he spent every penny trying to get a footing here and went home in despair… Do you know that when I give a concert, even artists who are making a living go to my agent, and offer him twenty, twenty-five, thirty guineas to be allowed to sing at it?"
"They pay to be allowed to sing?" said Mrs. Tremlett. "But why should they do that?"
"Because they can't get into a fashionable programme without; and it's worth paying for. Singers who have been at the game half their lives do it, I tell you. I'm not supposed to know. I don't get their money; I leave the agent to engage the people to support me, and if he makes a bit extra over the affair – well, he forgets to talk to me about it! But it's a usual thing. 'Easy for a woman'?" He turned to Mrs. Harris again, and rolled his black head. "Easy? Poor soul! She looks so fine, doesn't she, when she sweeps down the platform in her satin dress and lays her bouquet on the piano? Oh, dear Lord! if you knew what she has gone through to get there. And what it has cost her to get there. And how she has pigged to buy the bouquet and the satin dress. You think if you can sing, that's all that's wanted, do you? You can wait and beg for years before an agent will hear your singing. And when you are heard at last – if your production is first-rate, and the quality pleases him, and you are a smart and agreeable woman, and you have found him at the right moment – he will ask: 'How many pounds' worth of tickets will you guarantee?'"
"And in spite of everything, some women get on!" she said. "One would think nobody had ever had an immense success, to hear you talk. One would think there had never been a Patti, or – "
"Ah, Jehoshaphat! An immense success? With an immense success – when it comes – you're the cock of the walk. When a woman has made an 'mmense success' she can fill the Albert Hall, and move the world. She can move even the English, and hold them breathless in the gallery, though they have got no chairs and the notices forbid them to sit on the floor. The singers who make 'immense successes' are the kings and queens. They mayn't be able to act, or to talk – they may be as stupid as geese; but God has given them this wonderful power; nobody knows why… And sometimes with His other hand He gives them a black skin; nobody knows why!"
At the unexpected reference to his colour, Mrs. Tremlett started as if she had been pinched; and her daughter murmured:
"Well, I thought you might be able to do something for me. I see you only think that I'm very foolish."
"I haven't heard you yet. I just warn you what sort of a life it is at the beginning. I'd do any blessed thing I could for you. What is your voice? Come, sing to me now!"
"Oh! not now, Ownie," exclaimed the landlady; "the drawing-room people are in, dear, and you know they complain so of every sound."
"You are still called 'Ownie,' I see," he said.
"Mother used to call me her 'little own, her little ownie,' when I was no higher than that, I believe " – she raised her hand about a foot from the table – "and I have been 'Ownie' ever since; I suppose I shall never be anything else now, though I was christened 'Lilian Augusta.' My voice is contralto. I'll sing to you the next time you are here – if the lodgers are out," she added with a harsh laugh. "One must consider the lodgers. The lodgers heard Baby crying in the night and were surprised we didn't keep it in the coal-cellar. At least that's what they seemed to mean."
"Oh, my dear," protested Mrs. Tremlett feebly, "I'm sure they didn't mean that. Mrs. Wilcox had gone to bed with a bad headache, and was just dropping off to sleep. She only said – "
"She complained when she thought it belonged to the dining-rooms; when she heard it was mine, she was astonished at the impudence of a landlady's daughter in having a baby. Oh, I'm not finding any fault with what she said" – but her tone was very resentful – "a lodging-house isn't the place for a child, I know! It's a little hard on poor Baby, perhaps, that's all."
Lee felt very glad, when he rose, that the piano had not been opened. That she was inhabiting a castle in the air he had no doubt whatever, and he flinched from the task of shattering it. The woman of thirty-two who had had "a lot of lessons" was now a pathetic as well as an alluring figure to him; and she did not lose her pathos in the following days, for he often met her, and she never failed to recur to her desire. In their earliest meetings she was considerably abashed in walking beside him, and being conscious of his colour at every step, always declared herself bound for the least frequented parts. But soon she lost much of this embarrassment, and even came to take a nervous pride in the increased attention she attracted. She reminded herself that it was not as if she were with an ordinary negro, or as if he were a famous negro who wasn't recognised. Nearly all the people they passed knew he was Elisha Lee, and there was nothing to be ashamed of in being seen with him. He looked less repulsive to her, too, on acquaintance. She now remembered having noticed niggers with much wider nostrils than those that had looked so wide to her a week ago; and his lips didn't seem to protrude so much as they had done at first. It was a pity they were so dark. If it hadn't been for his lips he really would not have been repugnant at all; there was nothing to make one shudder in a merely black skin when one grew used to seeing it, and he carried himself splendidly. As to his ears, if they had only been white, they would have been the prettiest ears she had ever seen on a man; little delicate ears, set close to his head. And he could interest her. Like most of his People, he told a good story well, and he was full of anecdotes of the musical celebrities. It made her feel nearer to the platform, to be admitted to the artists' room in his confidences.
But though she hankered after the platform, and spoke of her ambition daily, she was not an ambitious woman in the sense in which many women are ambitious who besiege the offices of the musical and dramatic agents. She was a dissatisfied