The Grey Wig: Stories and Novelettes

'I shan't take yours.'

'Nobody arxed you, miss,' he said. 'And, besides, mine is copyright-Jolly Jack Jenkins. I make a fiver a week by it.'

'A fiver!' The bass chorister suddenly took on an air of Arabian nights. At this rate she could buy back the family castle. Her struggling brothers-how they would bless their magician sister-Mick should have a London practice, Miles a partnership in an engineering firm.

'You come with me and see Fossy,' continued Jolly Jack Jenkins.

Eileen declined with thanks. It took a week of Sundays to argue away her objections-religious, moral, and social. To play Rosalind to fashionable London was one thing: to appear at a variety theatre or low-class music-hall, which nobody in her world or Mrs. Lee Carter's had ever heard of, was another pair of shoes. Yet strange to say, it was the last consideration that decided her to try. Even if admitted to the boards, she could make her failure in secure obscurity. It would simply be another girlish escapade, and she was ripe for mischief after her long sobriety.

'But even your Mr. Fossy mustn't know my real name or address,' she stipulated.

'Who shall I say you are?'

'Nelly O'Neill.'

'Ripping. Flows from the tongue like music.'

'Then it's rippling you mean.'

'What a tongue! Wait till Fossy sees you.'

'Will he ask me to stick it out?'

'Oh, Lord, I wish I had your repartee. But I'm thinking-Nelly O'Neill-doesn't it give you away a bit?'

'Keeps me a bit, too. I shouldn't like to lose myself altogether-gain reputation for another woman.'

Fossy proved to be a gentleman named Josephs, who in a tiny triangular room near the stage of the Half-and- Half listened critically to her comic singing, shook his head and said he would let her know. Eileen left the room with leaden heart and feet.

'Wait for me a moment, please,' Jolly Jack Jenkins called after her, and she hung about timidly, jostled by dirty attendants and painted performers. She was reading a warning to artistes that any improper songs or lines would lead to their instant dismissal, and regretting more than ever her incompetence for this innocent profession, when she heard the bass chorister's big breathing behind her.

'Bravo! You knocked him all of a heap.'

'Rubbish! Don't try to cheer me.'

'You!' Jolly Jack Jenkins opened his eyes. 'You taken in by Fossy! He'll suggest your doing a trial turn next Saturday night when the public are least critical, you'll make a furore, and he'll offer you two guineas a week.'

'A pleasing picture, but quite visionary. Why, he didn't even ask for an address to write to!'

'Oh, I dare say he thought care of me would find you. No, don't glower at me-I don't mean anything wrong.'

'I hope you didn't let him misunderstand-'

'You asked me not to let him know too much. Fossy has to do so much with queer folk-'

'Yes, I saw he had to warn them against improper songs.'

Jolly Jack Jenkins exploded in a guffaw.

'I'm sorry I came,' said Eileen, in vague distress.

'Fossy isn't,' he retorted. 'He was clean bowled over. In that Irish fox-hunting song all the gallery will be shouting 'Tally-ho!' Where did you pick it up?'

'I didn't pick it up, I made it up for the occasion.'

'By Jove! I have to pay a guinea to a bloodsucking composer when I want a song. Oh, Fossy's spotted a winner this time.'

'Why is he called Fossy?'

'I don't know. Nobody knows. I found the name, I pass it on.'

'Perhaps it's a corruption of Foxy.'

'There! I never thought of that! You are a-!'

The jolly chorister's mouth remained open. But the prophecy that had already issued from it came true in every detail.

XIII.

Despite her private stage-fright, Nelly O'Neill, the new serio-comic, made a big hit. Her innocent roguery was captivating; her virginal freshness floated over the footlights, like a spring breeze through the smoky Hall.

'Well, you are an all-round success,' cried Jolly Jack Jenkins, pumping her hand off at the wings, amid a thunder of applause, encores, and whistles.

'You mean a Half-and-Half!' laughed Nelly through Eileen's tears. She had given herself to the audience, but how it had given itself in return, flashing back to her in electric waves its monstrous vitality, its apparently single life.

The Half-and-Half was one of those early Victorian halls of the people, with fixed stars and only a few meteors. The popular favourites changed their songs and their clothes at periodic intervals, but they would have lost favour if they had not remained the same throughout everything. A chairman with a hammer announced the turns, and condescendingly took champagne with anybody who paid for it. Eileen soon became an indispensable part of this smoky world. She signed an agreement at three guineas a week for three years, to perform only at the Half-and- Half. Fossy saw far. Eileen did not. She jumped for joy when she got beyond eyeshot. She felt herself jumping out of the governess-life. Second thoughts and soberer footsteps brought doubt. She had intended telling Mrs. Lee Carter as soon as the trial-performance was over, but now she hesitated and was lost. Half the charm lay in the secret adventure, the dare-devilry. Besides, as a governess she had a comfortable home and a respectable status, and she had already seen and divined enough of the world behind the footlights to shrink from being absorbed into it. What fun in the double life! She had never found a single life worth living. She would belong to two worlds-be literally Half-and-Half. Nelly O'Neill must only be born at twilight. But she felt she could not be out uniformly every evening without some explanation.

'Mrs. Lee Carter,' she said, 'I have to tell you of a peculiar chance of augmenting my income that has come to me.'

Mrs. Lee Carter, wearing plumes and train for a court reception, paled. 'You are not going to leave me!'

The naive exclamation strengthened Eileen's hand.

'I don't quite see how to do otherwise,' she said boldly.

'Oh, dear, I wish I could afford more. I know you're worth it.'

Eileen thought, 'If you'd only give your guests good claret instead of bad champagne!' But she said, 'You are very kind-you have always been most considerate.'

The plumes wagged.

'I try to please all parties.'

Nelly O'Neill thought, 'And to give too many.' Eileen said, 'Yes, you've given me my evenings to myself as it is, and considering the new work is only in the evenings, I did think of running the two, but I'm afraid-'

'If we lightened your work a little-' interrupted Mrs. Lee Carter, eagerly.

'I shouldn't so much ask that as to have perfect freedom like a young man-a latch-key even.' Never had Eileen looked more demure and Puritan.

'Oh, I hope you won't be working too late-'

'The people who go there are engaged in the daytime. I'd better be frank with you; it's an extremely unfashionable place towards the East End, and I quite understand you may not like me to take it. At the same time I shall never meet anybody who knows me. In fact, it's a dancing and singing place.'

'Oh!' said Mrs. Lee Carter, blankly. 'I didn't know you could teach dancing, too.'

'You never asked me.... Of course, if you prefer it, I could come here as a day governess and leave after tea.... You see it's a longish journey home: I'm bound to be late....'

'What's the difference? Come and go as you please.... Of course, you won't mind using the back door when there's a party ... the servants....'