Chapter VII

WITHOUT, it was a pouring night of rain and wind; and the wet pavements shone like the surface of a black lake, streaked and patched with yellow reflections. Pedestrians scudded under umbrellas; taxicabs, with their drivers in oilskins, skated up, deposited their fares, and skated away again. The vast motorbuses went by like drunken elephants, sliding a step, and recovering, empty on top, crammed within. The crowd, gathered outside the wet and flapping awning at the entrance, was thin and discouraged, yet watched with patient admiration the white-furred women, group after group, escorted by irritated looking husbands and brothers, skip from their long cars and up the steps into the bright entrance-hall of the Opera House. The commissionaire, with the huge carriage umbrella, wearing a long military coat over his uniform, was exceptionally prompt in clearing the trampled red carpet of those who were only too anxious to get under shelter within.

Within, the huge Opera House looked larger than usual in the faintly misty atmosphere that had crept in through the passages and entrances, and the roof seemed like a firmament. The place was filling fast, though it was yet more than ten minutes before the curtain would rise, since it was known that, for the first time in London, the rule would not only be made, but kept, that the doors were to be shut, as in Bayreuth, one clear minute before the first note of the overture. Metzing, it was said, had insisted upon this; and the knowledge that Bayreuth methods were to be followed throughout had actually increased the sensation that a Wagner season at this time of the year would have caused, anyhow. All seats had been disposed of for the first performance, a full ten days ago.

All over the house, at present, sounded an incessant low murmur of talking, the soft pad of footsteps and the noise of swinging doors. It was an extremely representative house, not merely of the kind of people who held boxes as a matter of course, but of the well-known Wagner enthusiasts; since it was rumoured that Metzing had come over three times from Dresden, and that the season was to be one of genuine artistic merit. The papers had done their duty. It was to be a new departure altogether; Lohengrin was to be played for the first time in England without any cuts at all. Mr. Harrison, the son of the great stockbroker, was not bothering about the financial side; he wished just to give England its chance of seeing Wagner, not merely of hearing him — of seeing him, as the composer himself had always demanded, and as Bayreuth had always provided; that the drama was to be the point, and the music, as perfect indeed as it could be, yet subsidiary, as was the new scenery, to the play. All these things had been done justice to in the papers, and, upon the programmes that lay in every seat, were printed little extracts from Wagner's own letters to the same effect.

A further feature of the extraordinary campaign was the fact that the syndicate of newspapers that had just been formed, owned and directed by Henry Blankney, had chosen to take up the movement, as it had previously taken up the desirability of vegetable oil, under various disguises, forming a part of every one's daily food, and the question of bee-culture in the suburbs; and day by day had half a column on the front pages of all its journals, contrasting English and German education to the condemnation of the former, and finding one reason, at any rate, for its inferiority, in the neglect of the opera. Every little town in Germany, it was pointed out, had some kind of an Opera-house; while England boasted scarcely more than three or four, all told. Was it not obvious that such a difference must have a far-reaching effect upon the imagination, and therefore upon the whole outlook, of the two populations? Here at last, however, was a genuine attempt to repair the defect; here was a new English prima, dorma, for example, trained indeed in Germany, owing to the deplorable lack of serious musical tradition in England, yet herself wholly English, and an actress no less than a singer, according to the maestro's own desire. There followed, on no less than four occasions in the last fortnight a portrait of Miss Marion Tenter-den, and once of Professor von Giinther, who had first discovered her genius.

It was not surprising then, considering the power of repeated suggestion and the sheeplike docility of the English public that, by the time that the hidden trombones sounded the Lohengrin motive as a signal that in three minutes the doors would be shut, the house was practically full in every part; nor that as the great red curtains slid aside, showing the drop behind, a profound silence fell, and the chatter died.

By this time Marion's dressing-room was indeed a little home of tragedy. A quarter of an hour ago the last touches had been put to her face, and the black-skirted, white-aproned dresser had gone out silently, shutting the door behind her without a sound. Mrs. Quirk had never before seen so silent a prima donna. Marion, after dressing, had sat down in her wrap before the huge dressing-table, with its threefold tilted mirror, and thenceforth had not spoken more than six words: she just nodded or shook her head in answer to questions. Then, when all was done, she had just said:

" Now go away, please."

When the door was shut, Marion had at first sat still, staring at that set unfamiliar face that posed as her own.

" Is this me? " she had whispered, seeing her honest wonderment reflected in the pale strange face that looked at her so unmovingly. Then she had stood up suddenly, taken a few quick turns and sat down again.

" Yes: that is really me! " she said again.

It seemed to her quite impossible a few minutes later that really that could be the orchestra that she heard. She hesitated a moment, till she perceived that not only was it the orchestra in very truth, but that the overture — that astounding microcosm of the entire drama — telling the whole story in pure sound — was at least half done. Why, Metzing could hardly have had time to get to his place. Then she remembered that it was nearly an hour ago that she had spoken to him on her way to her dressing-room. He had probably dined since she had seen him. He would have had no trouble about food! For herself, she had pretended to dine at half-past five, in the house on Campden Hill, with poor

Maggie staring at her. She had consumed, she remembered, half a plate of clear soup, two mouthfuls of roast chicken and an orange; and it had seemed to her a feat of real endurance to have got through so much.

Then, suddenly, it occurred to her that some awful mistake had been made, that it must be about nine o'clock; and that they must be playing the overture over and over again in despair, because Elsa could not be found anywhere! Was she absolutely certain that a call-boy hadn't been for her at some remote period and told her to be ready? Was she, perhaps, in the wrong dressing-room? So vivid was the appalling fear that she actually stood up; and then came a reassurance.

The dresser, it appeared, could not have quite closed the door, for something pushed softly against it, and it opened. Marion stared a moment; and then her heart leapt in amusement and relief, for in came a very small black kitten, purring and rubbing itself against the door-post. A tiny bell tinkled at its neck. The girl stooped and picked it up, remembering the famous superstition; then as she heard footsteps pass swiftly down the passage outside, she saw that a card was attached to the collar, and on it, two words were written — " For Luck " — in Max's handwriting. Why, he had bribed some one to do it, ther, to cheer her up! Max! She kissed the kitten; and at the same instant a bell rang sharply by her dressing-table. That was her first signal.

Max found it very hard to decide on the particular form of hypocrisy that should cloak his emotions that evening, from his family. It was easy enough at dinner: he had talked naturally and freely, and had even given an exposition of the opera they were to hear, to Gerald, who was saying, quite untruthfully, because he thought it naive and amusing, that music was to him nothing but a confusion of disagreeable noises.

"Well: that's all right, old chap," Max had explained, " because the story's the point. You don't go to Wagner to hear the music, any more than you go to see the people "

" But that's exactly what I do," said Gerald.

" Well: you've got to attend now, anyhow," remarked Max.

" And little Miss Tenterden's going to do all that? " said Gerald, when the tale had been related. " Ton my word, I'd no idea of it. Who's Lohengrin? "

" A man called van Roth, a German."

" Why can't they get an Englishman, eh? "

" Because there isn't one fit to sing the part," Max had said unpatriotically. " It's a very extra special performance to-night, you know."

All that had been easy enough, even if a little feverish; but the fever seemed to have left him so soon as he sat down behind his mother in the little box on the second tier, and a paralysing sort of calm to have taken its place. Norah, after an attempt to make him look at the people in the house, had left him alone: and his mother had not troubled him. He was glad of that.

For he could not get out of his head the exceedingly resolute tone in which Marion had told him that she really meant what she said when she declared that if she failed she would not see him again. At first he had thought little of it; he had thought it to be the semi-hysterical exaggeration of a very nervous girl, for it seemed to him that such a proposal marked the very height of morbidity. Yet he had not succeeded at all in reassuring himself, since, upon reflection he had come to see that at any rate it was a real point of view, however little he might sympathise with it — a real point of view quite tenable by one who took her art very seriously. Failure, in fact, to such a temperament as Marion's, would show that she was not an artist, and if not an artist, nothing. Of course he continued to argue with himself that that way of looking at things would pass, and that her failure might even cause her to turn to him with a passion that success might modify; yet, as the curtain brightened at the close of the overture, he once more was convinced that his life as well as hers hung on the next two or three hours. In any case he had his plans ready: whatever happened he was to go round, not to the stage-door, but to a little private entrance on the third tier of boxes and ask to see her. He had even taken the precaution to tip very heavily a certain attendant — the same who had promised to provide the black kitten at the right moment — and felt himself fairly certain of getting at least as far as the passage in which her dressing-room was.

At the close of the overture, while the inner curtain was actually beginning to move, Gerald turned from •where he sat by Norah.

" Very pretty, old chap! " he whispered sharply. "Why! What's up "

Max made some violent gesture with his head, and the ladies said nothing: at least Lady Merival said nothing, and Norah made no sign.

The scenery was indeed a revelation. It was not a slavish following of Bayreuth, although in its splendour it sought to imitate Bayreuth's spirit; and in its lavishness and reality it reproduced surely what the Master would have desired — a convincing frame to a drama to which even the music must be but secondary. So, too, with the music. Metzing, who had acquired with regard to Lohengrin that kind of proprietary right which Richter always enjoyed with regard to the Meistersingers, had succeeded in getting his lesson home upon the orchestra; and as the curtain rolled up upon the scene in Brabant, upon the shining waters of the Scheldt, up which presently would move the swan-boat and the peerless knight in silver armour, and upon the company gathered there, the music had produced upon that vast audience, exactly as the Master would have wished, not a sensation that something had been performed, but was to be; not that an overture had been played, but that a story had been sketched in hint and glimpse which now was to unroll itself.

Max knew well by now at what point Elsa would appear; and as the moment drew near he actually shut his eyes. The scene seemed too brutally real, the singers too sturdily competent. It was inconceivable that she could be adequate. There was Ortrud, a great German, superb and dominant; there was Friedrich, a mighty man of sinews, and the splendid King. How could little Marion take her place among these? He shut his eyes: he even pressed his hand over them to keep them down; he longed to escape — to cry out to this great audience to be compassionate — even to go away — " their money must be returned at the doors,"

he whispered to himself. Then, he looked; and she was there.

Ill

As Marion came on to the stage, it seemed to her that body and soul were two things, not one, and separated entirely from any conscious point of union. She, the real Marion, was detached and aloof, considering with a kind of pity that poor walking image in white that people called Miss Tenterden, and who was now pretending to play Elsa in Richard Wagner's opera of Lohengrin. Ah! how unhappy Miss Tenterden was! Certainly she looked all right, though very unusual in her black hair; and how mad it had been of her to press the point! Why had she not been content with just escaping notice and being an ordinary flaxen Elsa, obedient to tradition, and lifeless? Why, too, had she ever dreamed that personality counted? Of course it did not. Tradition alone counted — tradition and correctness and a knowledge of what notes were to be sung, and what gestures were to be performed. Poor Miss Tenterden! who tried to be original! Silly little fool! Why, even now, she was wondering whether she could remember the first phrase! As for those long passages later on; why, they were gone like mist from a looking-glass. Poor Miss Tenterden!

... Well: she had got through so far all right. It was a curious sensation; but Marion, the soul-part, actually heard Miss Tenterden's voice three or four times: it sounded very hard and shrill; but at least it was correct. Ah! but this was no test!

Even the relation of the dream was comparatively easy; it was only the telling of a story. Wait until

Lohengrin comes! That will be the test. Meanwhile, poor Miss Tenterden must just do her best — she's not doing it actually badly, so far — must just act and sing to this stage crowd, for there is no one else there. There is only a huge dark empty space at one side, where the audience is said to be. They do not matter. Not even Max matters.

With the first call of the trumpets Marion awoke back again. But the awakening was not yet complete. Only she was aware that she was no longer wholly aloof from Miss Tenterden, and no longer actually despised or pitied her. After all, their interests were identical. They both desired Lohengrin.

And, at the second call, they were in no sense two, but one; and that one a young girl, crammed with romance, still " in white " but no longer " with sad and resigned demeanour," but expectant and urgent that the knight of her dream shall come, all in silver armour, as she has seen him, with the golden horn. Why is he so long in coming? Still the whole world waits: still the waters of the Scheldt are empty. Lohengrin! Lohengrin! Ah!

Then, he who came, motionless in feature and limb, moving on his swan-boat, shining and splendid, was to her no longer an actor — no longer van Roth, the stout German who wore a full-skirted frock-coat and muttered to himself; and no more was he just Lohengrin; but, as the music pealed under Metzing's quivering hand, till the air was eloquent as no voice ever could be, for it was a thousand voices, each a part of a mighty whole dreamed by a man to whom music was more than life — as the triumph rose to bliss, and the bliss to ecstasy, he became to her that perfect counterpart of her being, without whom, in Richard Wagner's gospel, no soul can be complete: that heavenly other-self with whom marriage is indeed made in heaven, that perfect knight from the Mount of Salvation — in a word he became that for which her friend had grown to stand: and it was not only Elsa who cried to Lohengrin, but Marion who cried to Max.

" I am very sorry, Miss Tenterden," said Mr. Harrison, suddenly barring her way, as she hurried up the passage at the end of the First Act; " but you really must go on again. We shan't be able to get on till you do. You're fearfully rushed, I know: but it's their own fault. And if they aren't out till midnight, they've only got themselves to blame."

So Marion, for the fourth time, stepped into the glare of the footlights, and bowed to the great dark space that shook and roared and sobbed. And she bowed and smiled to Max, and to Max only; and the tears ran down her face.

Max sat perfectly still behind his mother, as she got up at the end and began to look for her cloak. At that moment he could not have moved if the theatre had been on fire; as indeed in another sense it had been, and still smouldered.

Eight times had Marion been called before the curtain; and each time she brought some one with her. The first time it had been Lohengrin, the second time Friedrich and Ortrud, the third time Henry the

Fowler, the fourth time Gottfried and the Herald, the fifth time Four Nobles of Brabant, the sixth time Four Pages, the seventh time Lohengrin again, and the eighth time the black kitten. And at that the audience had laughed aloud in sheer delight, and the roar became a rattling murmur.

As he sat there he caught fragments of sentences through the open door, near which he was sitting, from the crowd that poured past.

— " The extraordinary childishness, so to speak "

— " Not another voice like hers in England: and I don't believe even in "

— " But the acting is what beats me

Why has nobody ever heard of her "

These were a few specimens that remained in his memory.

Even Gerald had been eloquent in his way. He had stared at Norah with tight lips and large eyes, and had stated that he was blowed. Norah had said nothing; nor had her mother; but Norah had looked once at Max; and he had understood.

He stood up at last with a start, remembering prudence even in that mad minute; but he could not speak. He put the cloak over his mother's shoulders.

" A really remarkable demonstration," she said. " I wish your father had been here. We must see if Miss Tenter den can't come and dine with us quite quietly one day next week: or perhaps the week after."

It took ten minutes to get out, and another five before they could find the motor. Somehow the news had spread that something remarkable had happened; and the crowd was double the size it had been as they came in, although it was close on midnight. Even a few of the audience, in cloaks, were standing in the wet on the further side of the street, staring up at the Opera House as if for some manifestation.

Max had laid his plans well. He put the three inside, and lit a cigar; and they supposed, naturally, that he meant to sit by the chauffeur. He was determined to have no questions now; he meant to think of a good lie by to-morrow morning: he had not had time to make one yet.

" Home," he said to the chauffeur.

" You're not coming, sir? "

" No."

He saw his mother lean forward as the car started. He laughed, threw away his cigar and went back into the Opera House, up the steps, forcing his way as well as he could through the crowd that blocked the entrance.

He found the little door all right. He had taken the precaution after the second act to identify it. And his friend was waiting there.

" I can take you round to the back door of the dressing-room, sir. You can't get in at the front." * As he went along the passage, hearing the hum of voices, he caught a glimpse of a cross-passage filled with people. The attendant, when they were out of hearing, spoke behind his hand.

" They're all at her, sir," he said. " Mr. Harrison — he " He broke off. " That is the door, sir."

Max slipped something into his hand: and tapped. A shrewd hard face looked out.

" This isn't the way " began a woman's voice.

" I am Mr. Merival," he said. " I think Miss Tenterden — — "

The face relaxed into a smile.

" Yes, sir: come in, sir. Miss Tenterden left particular orders "

So this was the dressing-room. He looked at it vaguely.

" Miss Tenterden is out in the corridor, sir," said the white-aproned woman. " She'll be in presently. The gentlemen are all talking to her."

" Yes, yes," said Max.

He hardly noticed that the dresser had slipped out again, so fascinated was he by the dressing-room, by the mirrors, the great dressing-table, the countless boxes and cupboards. He could hear voices talking, talking.

The end came suddenly. He looked up, and she was there, still in her dress of the last act, glorious, resplendent, looking at him.

" Elsa," he said, and stretched out his hands.