False goddesses

HANDBOUND
AT THE

UNIVERSITY OF
TORONfTO PRESS

FALSE GODDESSES

-^

VLSE GODDESSES

By

RACHEL FERGUSON

.«>•

LONDON
LEONARD PARSONS
DEVONSHIRE STREET

First PublishfcJ 1923

Leonard Parsons Ltd. Printed in Great Britain

CONTENTS

BOOK I.

Page
OVERTURE 9

BOOK II.
PLAY 31

BOOK III.

INTERVAL '^3

MN

Book I

OVERTURE

"THE BEAUTY-PARLOUR"

MUSICAL EXTRAVAGANZA

Production by

MARX OELERMANN

Featuring

Miss AUBREY PROVOST

Book by WALLACE TAVERNER. Lyrics by TRENT COPELAND.

Music by KRANZ and d' ALVAREZ.

Staged by TANNER DREXEL. Dances by L. E. PIROTTI.

Costumes by GUILLAUME. Hats by DESIREE.

Boots and Shoes by DANTRY. Wigs by CASTELLANO.

Musical Director, VITTOR d' ALVAREZ.

Chief Electrician, A. E. JONES.

Box Office (Mr. TEMPLE), lo to lo.

All this assorted information reared majestic-
ally about town on vast hoardings. Mr.
Oelermann had brought yet another success to
New York. Could you have found time to
visit the show itself, you would have discovered
that this redundancy of postered details by no
means exhausted the list, for the programme
carried on the good work omitted by the

9

FALSE GODDESSES

placards. The minor artists were variously

' ' submitted , " " offered , " or " presented . ' '

The upholstery throughout, cigarettes used,

pianos, acoustics, refreshments, special matinee

teas, printing and disinfectants were lighdy

touched upon, to say nothing of the printed

words of the great hit of the production, allotted

of course to Miss Aubrey Provost. Rumour

had it that lady wished to omit it at matinees

owing to the dearth of business men.

" Won't you come and kiss me?

" I'm waiting here !

" You really cannot miss me

" The gangway's clear,

" Now all you have to do

" Is come on two and two

" Just forget your wives

"And have the time of your lives!

" Won't you come and kiss me?

"Now don't be shy!

" It so easy when you've had one try ,

" Come and say ' ta-ta '

" To a little shooting star,

"Come on hoys and kiss me on the — sly!"

This invitation offered, amid subdued titters
of anticipation, the house would be plunged in
darkness, a white screen lowered and the words
bioscoped upon it while the invitation was pre-
sumably being taken advantage of ; then up
would go the lights and screen to reveal the
singer sitting demurely in the centre of the
stage nursing a large baby-doll.

Quick work even for America ! This

number always went big".

lO

OVERTURE

And in the hall-bedroom of a semi-theatrical
boarding-house, two privates in Oelermann's
army sat up in bed eating their breakfast and
reading their mail ; (breakfast in bed was lo
cents extra, but they treated themselves to it in
honour of fetching up again in New York after
weeks on the road.)

Even tumbled and drowsy from sleep they
presented a marked contrast, for Mary Stella
Conder was, in addition to being a striking
type, far more refined in voice, habits, and
features than was her companion, Ethel Brail,
who, pretty enough in a somewhat obvious,
golden-hair 'd way, was distinctly of the bour-
geoisie. Mary too was taller than the other,
who, owing to her lack of inches, was perma-
nently relegated to the ranks of dancers. Her
yellow hair lacked the unsubtle gloss of Ethel's
own ; her square rather beautiful mouth was cut
on petulant lines, and her eyes were clear and
grey and utterly opposed to the more useful
bright blue of her friend.

Mary had willingly drifted to New York in
an English opera company, playing small parts,
a few years before, and when the American trip
"was concluded and the company about to return
to England, had instantly decided to remain
behind. She was always sure of some kind of
a job with her voice, figure and appearance,
and, better still, of keeping herself when out of
one on her minute income, which came to her
on the death of her parents who would have

II

FALSE GODDESSES

been actively inimical to this mode of life. They
had only permitted their child lessons with the
best teachers under pressure.

Mary's father had been an authority on
colour-prints, and her mother "county,* but
in such reduced circumstances that she found
herself almost penniless in the very early twen-
ties. She had, thanks to her satisfactory con-
nections, been offered the post of secretary-
feed-the-parrot companion to a certain acid old
dame of title living grimly in the Midlands, sur-
rounded with priceless oh jets d'art and far too
many men-servants. It was while good-look-
ing Stuart Conder was dispatched to Wykham
Holt by his firm to value certain prints, and to
treat if possible for a certain Bartolozzi, that he
had met his pretty wife, whose spirit was not yet
quenched by her environment.

And now their only child sat up in the tumbled
bed of a cheap American boarding-house, in a
slightly soiled wrapper, and partook of break-
fast in company with the not-very-remote
descendant of a plumber. Later in the day she
would — still in the same company — board a car
to an enormous theatre where she would display
herself in several giddily conflicting changes of
costume.

Of the entire company they were the only
English girls. Ethel's real name happened to
be Bounce. Concealing this skeleton-in-the-
cupboard from the dressing-room took her all
her time. But in spite of her elaborate and

12

OVERTURE

pathetic precautions, Nemesis descended in the
form of a letter from her brother in England.
Commonplace, unimaginative, and very much
the married man, he had from the first ob-
stinately refused to recognize his young sister
under any other name than her own, and had,
despite her urgently expressed request that all
communications be sent to her at her rooms,
written on one occasion a letter which traced its
way through the States to the theatre in the
town the company was visiting. The result
had been immediate and tragic. Ethel, de-
manding her mail at the stage door, had been
informed that there was 'nothing for Miss
Brail,' and was no sooner settled in the dressing-
room than the call-boy poked his head in, shout-
ing : " Letter for Miss Bounce ! Anyone here
name o' Bounce." In a flash Ethel decided to
give up her letter, preferring its loss and a quiet
life, but even as she did some agonized mental-
arithmetic the boy clinched the matter by
again shouting " Miss Bounce, Miss Ethel
Bounce \" as he grinned and ducked to
avoid a fusillade of powder-puffs. Well, it
might be something important — one never
knew, so she faintly extended her hand — and
endured hades for several weeks. The actual
chaffing lasted quite a fortnight, as someone
was always ready to stoke the fires when they
showed signs of dying out, and when the poor
jest was finally in tatters, the company " cats "
took it up. From this Mary Conder rescued

13

FALSE GODDESSES

her, made room for her in her own dressing-
room, which, being given up to small-part, one-
song or understudy girls, was somewhat less
crowded. She was unable to stand furtive tears
in odd corners of the theatre, and had de-
liberately taken up the cudgels, praying only
for the time when matters would right them-
selves again. For a litde of Ethel, she found,
went a very long way, as the latter was given to
putting her combings in the slop-pail and
tumbling into bed without doing her hair, to say
nothing of flicking her cigarette ash in a fine
frenzy of emancipation over whatever came
handiest. The poor girl was really extremely
harmless and good, but the new life and country
had gone to her head. It was the cause of
acute discomfort to Mary, who felt responsible.
Then, too, Ethel had managed to assimilate the
theatre slang which she even carried home with
her to launch at Mary's head. Her conver-
sation became full of nerve-racking ' ' some
shows," "by hecks," and "say kids"; but
when she addressed Mary Conder as ' ' say
cutie," the latter pulled the preposterous
stuffing out of Ethel, who thereafter became
comparatively normal in her speech, saving up
her finest efforts for the theatre.

By the time the company anchored in New
York, the joke perished of inanition, and Ethel
returned to her own quarters, her heart full of
affection and gratitude for Mary.

Ethel bumped down the tray on a chair

14

OVERTURE

already heaped with her clothes beside the bed,
and began to smoke. She read her solitary
letter and yawned.

" Anything amusing? " asked Mary.

" Beastly dull. My brother. He treats me
as if I was about two. Pretty fair cheek
although of course he's miles older than me."

" He's married isn't he?"

" Lord yes, got two kids already. They re
only babies really — the boy's not yet six."
Then with a gust of nerves : ' ' Oh I wish to
heavens he wouldn't call me Bounce ! I
should've thought it was best kept dark as a
name, but he seems to enjoy shouting it out all
over the shop and making me look a fool. I
suppose he doesn't like the idea of ' aunty '
being on the stage." She banged her head
back against the pillow.

Do you like his wife ? ' ' Mary diverted the
conversation.

" Oh yes. She's a good soul. If ever you
go over again you must look 'em all up. She's
one of your mother-and-home sort — miles too
good for James," she added viciously.

But once inside the theatre Mary's self-
imposed duty to Ethel ceased, and she was free
to be with Jasmine.

They had wasted little time, these two, in any
cautious fencing, which will only admit to
intimacy after months, during which time each
is en garde. They had looked at each other
and known from the first. Mary, two years

15

FALSE GODDESSES

older than Jasmine, was yet willingly under the
dominion of the other and would have admitted
it quite openly, with a happy laugh. But she
also knew that she was in safe hands.

Jasmine Shelley was a tall young woman of
possibly twenty -five years, and as she had been
on the road in a one-song capacity with the
company since its beginnings, she had been
promoted when the show arrived in New
York — having been tried on the dog and found
acceptable by that chancy animal — to another
song, a mode of reward not much in vogue with
the Oelermann management, which, in com-
mon with some of its English confreres, pre-
ferred on coming to town to scrap those
battered by the tour and replace with fresh
urban beauty.

Jasmine Shelley was still in the chorus, still
stood with the massed crowd of ornamental
cowgirls in the great Prairie scene, but — she
wore a blue shirt instead of a scarlet one as did
the others.

She had married young Garth van Osten
several years before, and the reckless ex-
periment had been an unusually happy one.
Garth was rapidly coming to the front as a
reliable jeune premier, and his business
qualities, looks, manner and brains had quickly
left a gap in the chorus in which he once had
pranced together with many other young men,
browned to spurious health and with eyelids
brightly blue.

i6

OVERTURE

Femininely stepping in the ensembles,
prancing in their frock-coats and glistening top-
hats, they were a perennial joke to Jasmine and
Garth. But in the see-saw of theatrical life it
was pure chance if they played in the same
town, let alone in the same company, Garth
being increasingly sure of New York engage-
ments, while Jasmine had, in common with hosts
of her sister artists, to take what came along.

They had one child, a litde girl, and in the
early days, when rapid decision and movement
were imperative, she was something of a problem
to the young parents. During the first years of
her life little Babs van Osten found a home
with Jasmine's mother, and upon her return
from the tour of the States and her establish-
ment in New York, Jasmine reft her daughter
from Mrs. Shelley's unwilling hands and placed
her in a tiny Harlem flat under the doting sur-
veillance of a coloured girl from Mrs. Shelley's
Virginian homestead.

At this time Garth was about to start out on
the road himself in a Broadway success, playing
the lead which he had understudied in New
York. Jasmine shrugged her shoulders and
accepted the situation with her customary
frivolous philosophy.

" Seems like we must get divorced," she had
once remarked with a twinkle, "at least we
sh'd see each othur in the witness box."

It was Jasmine Shelley who, dressed and
made up as an ancient and gin-sodden scrub-

17 B

FALSE GODDESSES

lady, tottered diagonally into the stage man-
ager's private room and picked a raucous
quarrel with him then and there, drew a bottle
from her frowsy petticoat, drank, brandished it
at him, and sank upon the floor with her crepe
bonnet obscuring one eye ; it was Jasmine,
absently nibbling at her bunch of mimosa, which
later she would throw to the audience at the
finale of the Springtime scene, who swallowed a
mouthful of mimosa-pills and exploded in a
shouting cough which rang through the theatre
damaging Miss Provost's top note ; it was Jas-
mine who worked a prize sell on an English
Bishop.

He was their unwilling vis-a-vis at table
d'hote in the hotel where she and Mary
Conder had been obliged to put up owing to lack
of professional accommodation in a town which
was not broken in to productions of the Oeler-
mann magnitude. The Bishop, who was
accompanied by his unattractive wife, son and
daughter, had, upon the girls' arrival, made
enquiries at the Bureau and returned to the
lounge trembling with offence. Being a person
unable to let sleeping dogs lie, he talked " at "
the two at meals until Jasmine leant across and
told him, among many other things, that per-
sonally she herself had never worn a skirt as
short as his. "Our legs have to be worth
showing." What added fuel to the Bishop's
fire was the fact that hitherto the ' ' theatrical
persons" had given no loop-hole for definite

i8

OVERTURE

complaint. But Jasmine was getting danger-
ous. The son — a young man with prominent
teeth and fat pink eyes — had seen fit to make
elementary advances to her.

The local news rag came out on Saturday,
and on that afternoon the Bishop and his wife
were to entertain some chance-met friends in
their private sitting-room.

In the journal that week appeared an ad-
vertisement : —

WANTED for big- production :
Dancers in all styles. Must be young-
and really pretty, or useless. Good
salary. Rehearse immediately. —
Apply (with practice skirt) Room lo,
Hotel.

Room lo was the Bishop's bed-room, and it
quickly became infested with girls of every
height and type, all made up, all carrying des-
patch-cases. The manager thought the Bishop's
visiting-list an odd one. As the latter failed to
come down for his tea, his wife, with apologies
to the cathedral-close friends, went up to fetch
him — and there was a certain constraint.

On Sunday morning early Jasmine and Mary
left to brighten some other town.

Jasmine's song catered for her in no wise,
being on the one-little-kiss lines, but her humour
got the better of it, and she emphasized the
cloying pathos and rendered it like a dirge with
her mouth pulled down until — one night some-
body laughed.

19

FALSE GODDESSES

She shot up to the dressing-room.

After that, she guy'd the ballad off its hind
legs with an appreciation of its bathos which
she compelled the shouting audience to share.
She even "addressed the audience" between
verses, and thereby rendered herself liable to
instant dismissal at the option of the manage-
ment, as per the printed terms of her contract.

And, greater than the tribute to her new-
fledged personality recently accorded by the
public, was the unconscious meed paid by the
friendly chaff of the few-liners.

7 he stage manager had, it appeared after-
wards, received the full blast of her performance
from his place by the switchboard, and, annoyed
at first, had later given way to laughter, and
opined that J as had gingered up the show with
even the deadheads eatin' her an' wantin'
more ! Then he told Oelermann. The great
man had been going the rounds of the vaude-
ville shows in search of novelties : he brushed
into a stall at the last minute and awaited
Jasmine Shelley's entrance.

He saw of course that it was good — he sank
the man in the impresario — but even he did not
see quite how good it was. " That flouted feel-
ing " clouded his perceptions, but in a general
way he recognized that here at least was a girl
able to undertake any role at short notice. He
offered her without enthusiasm the post of
understudy to Miss Aubrey Provost, who was
no less a person than Mrs. Marx Oelermann.

20

OVERTURE

This lady shone solely by virtue of her
domestic relation. Upon her marriage she had
leapt like a smut into the public eye. She was
detested by the company, fellow stars, chorus
(especially the chorus), musical director, dresser,
call-boy, even down to the humblest scrublady
twitching holland covers off the fauteuils in the
chilly merciless light of early morning. Her
method was simple. Her mezzo-soprano,
unable to compass high or low, would
be just audible in the verse, owing to her
having tantrum 'd the orchestra into pianissimo
at rehearsals, and, this over, the real business
began with the sudden awakening to life of
d'Alvarez' baton on the entrance of the chorus,
who executed patterns, movements, and en-
gineered surprises of an amazingly elaborate
nature. This was the result of endless and
deathly rehearsals insisted upon by Miss
Provost, and condoned irresolutely by her
husband. The patterns, positions, surprises
and illusions having been performed to the
satisfaction of the house, which liked value for
money, it was Miss Provost's little way to get
her human decor off the stage a few bars before
.the conclusion of her number. TKe generous
applause for the real workers (who were pant-
ing upstairs to make another change), she took
to herself, blowing propitiatory kisses with a
smile which was wiped from her lips the instant
she pushed her way into the wings.

There was more than a rumour that once,

21

FALSE GODDESSES

when young Hervey Viner had torn the train of
her gown by stepping on it in the sketch, Miss
Provost managed later, when struggling with
the burglar, to throw a vase at his face which
caught him on the temple. He managed to play
to the curtain, and even to stand bowing with
the merry Aubrey, before walking off and col-
lapsing in the arms of his dresser.

There had almost been a nasty scandal over
that affair, and Miss Provost subsequently found
such discomfort from an unfortunately sprained
ankle incurred in her dance in the Tropical
scene, that she was forced to relinquish her part
for the week (see daily papers). There was
also — to cite one of many such incidents — the
time when Booby Larkspur, a troupe dancer,
really did succeed in spraining her ankle, and
appeared among the others skilfully bandaged
under her pink tights. Miss Provost roundly ac-
cused her before the rest of ' ' playing for sympa-
thy" from the audience, and sharply ordered her
to remove the bandage before the next number.

At the end of the week she got her notice.

When Jasmine Shelley was given the lead to
understudy, the chorus confidently expected
things to happen.

After weeks of routine Aubrey Provost had a
violent quarrel with Oelermann, the cause of
which never became known to the company,
and threatened to "down his show," by which
she meant that she would refuse to appear. She
did not drive to the theatre until the show had

22

OVERTURE

been running over an hour ; and it was a shock
to see ' ' that Shelley ' ' talking to the stage man-
ager during a wait and wearing her — Aubrey
Provost's — own gown which, Jasmine, built on
finer lines, had some difficulty in wearing.

"Oh. So yaw the understudy" she re-
marked in her hard voice, and looked at the
usurper scornfully. The stage-manager be-
came exceedingly active at the switch -board.

Jasmine smiled. " You wur a little late Miss
Pravust, so Mistur Oylurmn's asked me t' take
it on. It was a bit've a rush as I waited till the
last minute thinking you might turn up."

"Well, I'm here now. Tell them tew keep
the curt'n down after the sketch. Yew'd better
take off those things an' get back into the
chorus, or whatever 'tis yew dew."

"Guess I can't do that Miss Pravust.
Mister Oylurm'n told me to play to the end."

"Well, Mr. Oelermun's made a mistake.
If he speaks tew yew about it, tell'm I told yew
tew change."

" Sahry, thayur's my cue." Jasmine walked
on to the stage.

Miss Provost, as she watched for some hitch
or "dry," prayed that points might miss fire,
that even the limes might fail.

Since the part had been written around Miss
Provost's hair and teeth by the groaning
author, to whom that lady was a peculiar hete
noire, a Ninetta Crummies, it did not suit
Jasmine Shelley, so she altered the method of

23

FALSE GODDESSES

treatment and brought out the drama in the
playlet which had hitherto been smothered in
pearl-powder.

Oelermann joined his wife in the wings.

To him she turned, glad of something imme-
diate to rend.

" What's the meaning of all this? " she cried

shrilly.

" Sh-sh," he answered. " They'll hear you

from the front."

" I don't care a damn if they dew. What's
that six-footer of a girl dewing in my gowns?
She'll ruin 'em ! What's she dewing here at
all? I s'pose yew've got your eye on her that
yew shove her intew my part behind my back
just because I was a few minutes late."

"That'll do Aub. We can't suspend the
bill because you don't choose to stroll right into
the theatre until an hour after the curtain goes
up.

"An hour! And if I come in tew hours
late I go on, get that? I'll bet there's no slips
in the programme even, either. Why they
might think it was me thrashing around
the stage an' queerin' the play, carryin' on
like a dime mellerdrammer. I'm queen of
this theatre I'll have yew know! What yew
think they'll think when they come here thinkin'
they're goin' t' see me, and then a plunging
beanstalk from the chorus comes on, under my
name tew ! ! " At that moment, the curtains
swished to, and Jasmine Shelley and Hervey

24

OVERTURE

Viner walked off to sustained applause. Seeing
the couple, Viner fled. Jasmine stood her ground.

"Well, that needn't be done again till nex'
time," she remarked with a grin.

" I s'pose yew think you're made now.
Marx, tell this woman tew go."

Jasmine's lips tightened. " Thayur's no
need t' lose your hayur Miss Pravust," she said
quietly, "but if Mister Oylurm'n wants me
t'finish t'night, I'm purfectly agreeable." She
pulled off Miss Provost's leghorn and swung it
by its velvet loops.

" Now, now, quit that Aub. Miss Shelley
helped us out of a nasty place and saved me all
the dollars I should 've lost if the house 'd got
wise you weren't appearing t'night," he added,
staggered at his own impromptu diplomacy.
" The least we can do is t'let her play through
for t'night, an' besides it's best not t'unsettle
the audience. My rule is that whoever has to
appear plays to the curtain — for the sake of the
show. I can't stand for a shuffle right in the
middle."

" Either She goes or I do, for keeps,"
screamed Miss Provost. " If you're tired of
me I'm tired of yew, see? There isn't another
theatre in Noo York where I'd get treated as I
am here, an' by my own husband tew. It'll
make nice readin' in the noospapers won't it,
only I'll bet yew'll get ahead of me with some
faked-up story, yew little liar ! Oh Marx, I'm
so miserable ! "

25

FALSE GODDESSES

She flung herself into his arms and wept
waterblack, her scarlet hair upon his shoulder.
That was the equivalent to the minute of towel-
flapping- and water-blowing accorded the prize-
fighter between rounds, and she soon reared
up, after a few kisses of which the entering
chorus, a stage-hand, and several lime-men
were the witnesses, and directed her spleen once
more upon Miss Shelley.

' ' Yew there still .'* Go back tew your dress-
ing-room, yew've queered the show enough for
one evening. It'll take me all I know tew repair
the damage tewmorrow night."

The waiting chorus began to whisper.

"Queered the show?" said Jasmine re-
flectively, in her resonant voice.

" Yes, queered it. Making a funeral out o'
the finale an' workin' it like a mellerdrammer
in your great common voice. I thought" — with
hysterical pertness — ' ' the job of an understudy
was to understudy, an' not go puttin' over
any Mrs. Siddons stuff. Why didn't yew try
tew copy me ? ' '

" Cahmmon voice." Jasmine seemed struck
with the term. "Copy you Miss Pravust? All
right. I'm on." She disappeared among the
crowd . ' ' You wait , ' ' said M iss Shelley , and went
in search of Mary Conder. ' ' Dinkie, that woman
makes me sick, but I'm going to fix hur."

" But Jas, this is such a chance for you.
She'll get you fired if she gets her knifs into
you." %

26

OVERTURE

"Fired? Hah! I'd be fired a mile a
minute for the sake of this one evening. Here,
come on, quick ! " She ran to the dressing-
room and tossing on a kimono, swept a lump of
grease over her make-up.

Jasmine what are you doing? "

" You shut up my dearust. I'm Aubrey
Pravust ! "

Jasmine wiped away the sunset mess on her
face, and with immense pains proceeded to
build up a pink-and-white maquillage strangely
unsuited to her dark hair, eyes, and tan-
coloured skin. She painted out with a stick of
pale pink her generous mouth and powdered it
before applying a scarlet cupid's bow the size of
a button. Then

" Give me that wig deeur." Mary, dazed,
handed the golden bunch of curls, a facsimile of
which every girl in the chorus wore as walking-
dolls. The wig adjusted. Jasmine dusted it
with bronze powder, pulled down the leghorn
and advanced with a vainqueuse mince,

" Come with me texv buttercup land

" Let me take yew by the hand

" Daisies in the grass

" Nodding as we pass

" In that place of wonder

" Nothing, our true love shall sunder,

" Come with me "

"Tscha !" said Jasmine, "come with me right
down on the stage is more our programme."
Arrg^-in-arm they hurried downstairs.
T)elermann and his wife, who clasped him by

27

FALSE GODDESSES

the hand, sat in their private box and awaited
the second half. When a second Aubrey
Provost, taller, broader, tripped on, he gave a
smothered curse. The original watched like a
rattlesnake.

It was a brilliant piece of impersonation that
Jasmine put over that night, exaggerated, but
not offensively so. Aubrey's walk, Aubrey's
fixed smile, her embryonic dancing, all, all were
given. In the thundering finale of the produc-
tion number, where the chorus dressed as Kate
Greenaway lads and lassies threw real flowers
to the audience, she contrived to shy an enorm-
ous cowslip ball at the Oelermann box. It did
not miss Mrs. Oelermann. The curtai .s fell
upon Jasmine's smile, which was not wiped from
her lips the moment she returned to the wings.

And then — right on her triumph, tragedy ;
the harlequin-pattern of life and death, laughter
and tears . . . the express message handed to
her even as she sat regaling the room with
further imitations. She read the terse message
with wild eyes. The whiteness of her face was
concealed.

And so she left Oelermann's, and flew to
Babs. There was also another gap in the com-
pany caused by the action of Mary Conder,
who left to be by the side of the girl she loved
better than anyone on earth.

Four months later. Jasmine Shelley sat in
Oelermann's ofiice. She disdained the vul-
garity of black for the dead. To him she talked

28

OVERTURE

as one business man to another. Oelermann,
who away from the mosquito-stings of his wife
was a kindly man, made certain promises, and
calling a stenographer from an outer room,
dictated some letters.

But why the change of name ? * ' He
addressed an envelope.

" Oh well, I just want t'cut that right

out," she answered quietly. "Change o'
business, change o' name. I might as well go
the whole hog."

Well , good luck to you wherever you go
my dear, I believe you 11 make good. Your

performance of ah my wife was a

remarkable one," he added. " Only if I were
you, I shouldn't make a speciality of guying all
the leads you understudy. I hope I shall hear
of you some day."

They shook.

"All the best."

29

Book II

PLAY
I

When James Bounce, House and Estate Agent
(and Decorator) had built up a sound connec-
tion in East Acton, he put into operation a
scheme long" debated bv himself and his wife in
the increasingly confined and inadequate space
of their home above the business.

They succeeded in uprooting themselves and
family from their somewhat squalid environ-
ment, and moved, after much discussion, to
Monk's Green, which was just coming into its
own as a good art-and-water suburb. Jimmy
Bounce, junior, a capable youth then in his
twentieth year, was recalled from his commercial
college in the City and installed as overseer of
the Acton interests, and Mr. Bounce, while his
wife wrestled with the curse of the moving in,
opened a branch of the business in Marylebone
road, where it rubbed shoulders with a stone-
mason's yard and a professional lady who, from
a chronic state of being "at liberty," had
retired behind a dingy brass plate bearing the
inscription :

31

FALSE GODDESSES

MISS LUCY WALTERS.

Elocution Lessons.
Pupils also taken for Mandoline and Piano.

A room was found for Jimmy near the Acton
office, the rooms above sub-let, and it was
arranged that he should migrate to Monk's
Green for week-ends. Meanwhile, the rest of
the family after having snacked off packing-
cases and slept in improbable corners for a
month, to the incredulous delight of the child-
ren, gradually settled down. Mrs. Bounce,
after perusal of its prospectus, decided upon the
nearest High School, one station away by
Underground, for the girls, and began to take
her social bearings.

Alice was the eldest girl and the ' * musical
one." She did not noticeably resemble either
of her parents, but was what some people take
refuge in describing as "bonny," meaning to
convey a face of no definite style or period.

Bessie, the second girl, was the plain one of
the family, her father over again. From a
stout and puffy schoolgirl, she became a stout
and puffy young woman. She had no special
talents, was somewhat lethargic and unenter-
prising, conventional to the core. She looked
upon all man-kind with a sort of sacred awe.

Ella, the baby, had absorbed all the looks and
was a replica of what her mother had been in her
youth. She was the fluffy goldenhair'd type
that attracts male admiration, but it was more
than likely that later, if she was not exceedingly

32

PLAY

careful, she would coarsen and overblow as
Mrs. Bounce had done.

Ella 'recited.' The stage was an idee fixe,
a whim that did not cause her mother much
anxiety, being a form of spring-rash which, she
understood from other friends with daughters,
was entirely natural to the age.

II

The circumstances leading to the presence of
Leah Lawrence under this kindly commonplace
roof were not hedged with mystery. Her
mother, a professional singer, had, upon her
arrival in Australia, seen fit to place her four-
year-old daughter in safer hands than her own,
and sent an allowance for her expenses, which,
as Leah grew older and her mother better known
in the concert world, became more ample.

At the time of the Bounce's progress to the
rarer social air of Monk's Green, she was in her
early teens ; a curious type, noticeable anywhere
even then, with her shock of lustreless primrose
hue'd hair, sloe-dark eyes, brows and lashes,
and square, discontented mouth.

In other circles and other clothes she would
have been the delight of artists, and her face
would probably have become familiar to the
chosen and elect at precious little exhibitions of
the latest palette modes. But Acton and

33 C

FALSE GODDESSES

Mimosa Road, Monk's Green, to say nothing
of the early authority of Mrs. Bounce, who
followed the herd in the matter of hard and
hideous "misses" hats, thick navy serges,
ribbed woollen stockings and button ankle-
jack boots, placed Leah's opportunities in
abeyance.

Every year punctually, inevitably, the
Bounces packed incredibly vast quantities of
luggage and went on the last day of July to
Shanklyn for the whole of August. One year
they had sampled Ramsgate, but the groove
was too deep and too smooth for such innova-
tions.

Ramsgate, for Leah, was composed of beach
niggers (it was something before the vogue of
concert-parties), harbour, and hot asphalt.
They had rooms in the Paragon facing the sea,
and lying upstairs in her bed, Leah would be
afraid of the swivelling red eye of the light-
house at the end of the jetty. It seemed to make
animate the pictures on the walls. She dis-
covered that if she looked at an object long
enough, and without blinking, it would always
move, or change into something else. She
would glare at the moulded cornice until it began
to swing like a see-saw. Once in church during
the sermon she had stared at Mrs. Bounce until
the whole church was blotted out, engulfed in
blackness, and near pevv^s and windows flickered
to extinction. Mrs. Bounce turned into a
negress before her eyes, woolly hair and thick

34

PLAY

lips complete. It was perilously fascinating- to
watch the familiar features glooming away, and
some new, strange head leering, dominating the
old. And the heads were never the same. But
they had one thing in common ; they were never
' English,' and therefore always faintly malig-
nant. At the crisis of the apparition, Leah's
skin would tingle. This was always the signal
that the show was over. It was all very well in

the daytime, but at night ! Once, unable

to endure it all, she woke up Ella, who slept
with her, and drew her attention to the fact that
the children in "Give Doggie Some" had all
changed places. Poor little Ella whimpered
with fright, but Mrs. Bounce came upstairs and
spoke in comfortable commonplace of to-
morrow's excursion to Pegwell Bay, so the
children, reassured by the hint of permanence,
slept. It was good to know that when they had
got through the tiresome but essential busi-
ness of unconsciousness, the transformation
scene would be set for them as soon as they
awoke, and "Cousin Arthur," the smallest of
the niggers, clapping his bones at 11.15, the
shrimp or mackerel-monger bellowing outside
while they sat bathed in sunlight at the break-
fast table, and the asphalt, speeded up for the
day to its usual heat, cracking and bubbling tar.
All her life long Leah recalled those family
journeys, from the moment when they trundled
from home in two fusty cabs piled with luggage
and topped by a tin bath, oval and mustard-

35

FALSE GODDESSES

coloured, in which things were packed, to the
pilinfT in to the reserved compartment in the
gloomy, echoing station that smelt of liquid
smuts, oil and hardboiled eggs. A reserved
compartment on these occasions was a necessity
if the journey was to be endurable, with four
fidgety little girls, and train-valiant little boy, to
say nothing of the cheap nurse-maid which they
shared among them. 1 hey had a succession of
these flawed jewels. That year's incumbent
had been a Lily Punnet, and from that time on,
Leah turned against the name of Lily, and
associated it with scumbled flaxen hair, weak
eyes, and a lisp.

The salient features of the journey itself were
sudden tunnels which were only mitigated by
the lighting of matches to illumine the murk by
Mr. Bounce, and the rattle out into sunshine
again. Then when the novelty palled, Lily
would take Ella into her corner and murmur,
monotonous and subdued above the noises of
the train, stories and jokes from coloured comic
papers which Ella adored and "Ally Sloper's
Half Holiday." Leah and Ella relished the
girls in tights, they painted them in the lodgings
on wet days.

And lunch.

Crumby, exciting ; hard-boiled eggs that it
was permissible to rap against the door to crack,
and the chilly fleshiness of them. . . . Sand-
wiches smeared with paste that was the very
essence of train journeys, mixed biscuits, and a

;6

PLAY

banana apiece. This over, the children sat
gritty, wriggling, crumpled and bored. Crumbs,
egg-shells, spilled salt, twisted papers every-
where ; hampers lolling open — nowhere to rest
your head, and after the first few hours, how
your clothes and boots galled you ! . . .

And then mellow little Shanklyn at last, and
immediate bed.

Life at Shanklyn was a careless sunny affair,
the morning centred in the rush for the bathing-
machines from which the children eventually
emerged to choose among the beach's attrac-
tions, and eat chelsea buns which were hawked
round on a tray by a boy.

Miss Flatman, the proprietress of Alberta
Villa, was an imposing figure who "did" for
the whole party through the medium of slaveys.
She took orders for meals from Mrs. Bounce as
she cleared breakfast — the only work she was
ever actually seen to perform in person. But
the menial flavour of the act was redeemed by
her conversation, at once erratic and condescend-
ing. She related anecdotes, — or what her lis-
teners could only assume were such — at im-
mense length. It was only when she relapsed
into sudden silence that realisation came that
she had reached the end of her story ; there was
no other satisfactory indication that her .point
had been made. Her talent for verbiage
sounded plausible until critical attention was
accorded. Not until then did the listener per-
ceive with admiration that it was all about

FALSE GODDESSES

nothing. She also threw her audience off the
scent by beginning in what seemed the middle
of an idea. Leah called her "The Pageant"
in allusion to her stately advance. With her
dead and didactic eye and metallic voice, she
gave an effect of some large organized progress.
" Here comes the Elizabethan section," and
the girls would strangle laughter, as patient,
bewildered Mrs. Bounce coped with Miss Flat-
man's stories, culminating in a species of pom-
pous shout with which occasional sentences were
delivered.

"Ha, ha! Good morning. It seems

strange to have fine weather at last. M 'sister-
in-law, my brother's wife, lives down at Broad-
hanger, they were married at St. Luke's.
Round the Corner. They never thought it
would suit them, not at all ! and it was remark-
able that we had the Reverend Claythorpe with

us. He was here with his wife little girl

very ill , (she was lame of course). We

said we couldn't take them in and they had the
top floor which made things Very Awkward.
Yes. H'm." Long pause. " This poor little
girl — we all thought it was diphtheria, and of
course her father was — out all day. (That was
the year we had an accident on the pier). And
having a clergyman in the house, we decided to
risk it. And the poor little baby — of course
Lady Marlowe was staying with us at the time
— hex daughter was engaged. To Be Mar-
ried. Ha, ha ! And what shall I do with the

38

PLAY

mutton, Mrs. Bounce? Shall I hash it or will
you have it cold ? With A Salad ? ' '

And, tray in hands, she would impel herself
to the door with an expression mirthless and
disapproving.

Leah and Ella had a small bedroom which
they shared with Lily Punnet. Lily took her
supper with the slaveys and Leah would listen
for them to pass the door, creaking and gig-
gling at ten o'clock. On Wednesdays it was
worse, for Lily took her afternoon off, and fre-
quently came back late, waking up Leah who,
furious, stared at her as she undressed. Lily
would go to the evening fetes with her friends
and Leah watched the confetti being shaken out
of her underwear. In the morning it lay, a
rainbow mosaic, on the floor. Miss Punnet on
these gala nights would come in creaking with
ponderous care, concealing a bright "tiddler"
behind her back. But Leah always saw. The
children were never allowed to participate in the
night life of the place. Mrs. Bounce said the
fetes were "common and rough." This was
one of the endless restrictions which checked
holiday pleasure. Leah and Ella would listen
to the swishing past of the laughing concourse
at eleven, or even later. It was thrilling, but a
little terrific. So might the sansculottes have
swept to the chateau of some hated aristo ; it
only needed the slightest re-adjustment to
change the comedy tones into wave upon
wave of menacing snarls, the " tid-

39

FALSE GODDESSES

dlers " into pitch-forks, the confetti into
stones ....

Leah wanted to go to a gala evening — if only
to lay that ghost. There never seemed to be
money for any amusement not approved or dis-
pensed by Mrs. Bounce. Mr. Bounce was
often "good" for stray sweets, fruit, and
donkey rides, but approaching him for the treats
took time. It often happened that the pleasure
was forthcoming when their mood for it had
passed.

One evening, Mr. and Mrs. Bounce went to
a gala themselves, up some mysterious avenue
like a mountain pass, grotto-like and dank with
dripping ferns in the day ; a place of facetious
horseplay and paper lanterns by night.
They returned early, hot, indignant and
crumpled. Mrs. Bounce had lost her feather
boa. . . .

Leah and Ella both fell in love with the same
pierrot. They were not alone.

An unnumbered quantity of matronly hearts
were annually fluttered by this devastating per-
son who, Ella said, had " eyes like smouldering
black-beetles," a slow sad smile, and a sweet
drawling voice that lengthened each word to
treble its span.

Leah, masterful and enterprising, got the best
of it, while Ella, sheltered, orthodox and timid,
tried, at first to outdo her, later, in despair,
merely to equal her.

Ella, seeking for material to w^orship, wrote

40

PLAY

on a piece of paper the initials of the beloved,
and slept with it under her pillow. Leah short-
circuited the situation and got an authentic photo
signed by The Hand itself.

In the little concert-hall, Leah, when the col-
lection came round, furtively kissed the hot
penny before reverently consigning it to the bag,
feeling that perhaps it might prove to be the
actual coin that he would reserve for his own
private spending. She wondered what he would
buy with it. Sweets surely, or perhaps a
bun?

She felt that she was feathering his nest for
him out of her savings.

That was during the first half of the pro-
gramme, but as the second part drew near, she
became taut with nerves. She knew that he
would sing last but two before the end. The
turn after his song was " sketches at the piano "
given on a clear stage while the rest of the party
retired from the platform, therefore he would
obviously be behind the scenes. So at the mo-
ment the humours of the "village choral society"
w^ere launched, it would be her cue to make
a bolt for the back entrance at the pier-head
which she had long ago located.

Her exit was scPmeteoric that the Bounce
party was paralysed. But scrappy whispers
were passed along to Lily, who reluctantly
thumped on her heels in pursuit.

In the narrow passage behind the little stage
Leah, by some extraordinary fortune, hit upon

41

FALSE GODDESSES

the right door. The room was empty, but
Leicester Carlysle's shaggy white coat, in which
she had watched him walking off the pier every
morning from the performance, hung behind the
door. Some of his songs, all stamped " Profes-
sional Copy," were stacked in a corner, and a
neat trunk filled up a space facing the
door.

And Pagliaccio stood framed in the doorway,
crisp and dainty in his pierrot clothes, and he
stared at little Columbine sitting on his trunk in
her brief muslin skirts, swinging her brown legs
down which the socks were slipping, and he
smiled kindly, sweetly, as only Leicester Car-
lysle could.

" Well dah ! and what can I do for you? "
he said in his soothing drawl, and Columbine
gave a little gasp as she did each morning when
she entered the sea.

But Leicester Carlysle had heard that gasp
before in his time, and took her presence quite
for granted.

It was always someone, only this someone
happened to be younger.

He sat by her on the trunk and put his arm
round her, and Miss Lawrence, aged eight, bra-
zenly put her own round his laundered frill and
kissed his powdered cheek.

He was immensely pleased, and lifted her on
to his knees with a courteous ' ' do you
mind? "

They both knew she did not.

42

PLAY

Leah pulled nervously at one of his big black
pompoms, not knowing how to unload all that
pent-up conversation of which the pitiless
minutes were depriving her.

"Well, darling, and how do you like the
show? " he asked her, smiling into the eyes so
like his own.

" I think if you sang louder they'd hear
you better," said Columbine, not dreaming of
insult to her beloved Pierrot.

"My God," answered Carlysle, "what a
criticism! I'll remember," he promised her,
" and if you can't hear me you must come round
again and let me have it straight from the
shoulder . ' '

I can sing your songs," boasted Leah.

" No ! by Jove though, can you? come on,
let's have it." And Leah, raising her yellow
head from his frill, sang one of his most popular
numbers that had mown down the susceptible in
swathes before him, and caused endless blame-
less fathers of families dully to wonder at their
wives' sudden frostiness, and the peevishness
they seemed invariably to bring back with them
from the seaside.

The song was " Little Dragonfly," and Leah
sang it in a high clear voice, but dead on the note
and perfect in time, and enriched it with uncon-
scious copies of Carlysle 's own charm of manner,
sudden pauses and smiles. She even copied his
drawl, thinking it part of the song. Carlysle
called in one of his pierrettes to listen.

43

FALSE GODDESSES

" Capital dah ! I wish I could do it half as
well. What do you think of my little fairy,
Estelle ? Isn't she a peach ? ' '

And Estelle, the contralto pierrette, a pretty
dark girl, warmly agreed.

Then he had given Leah the photograph al-
ready signed, but he solemnly assured her that
it was his own writing, and leading her to the
exit, bowed his Columbine away with a grave,
sweet smile.

Back in Alberta Villa, Leah triumphantly
brandished the photo at Ella, and Miss Bounce,
aged seven, showed her hand in a refreshing
manner, and burst into a dismal wail.

As she grew older, each year on the return
journey from the seaside, it seemed to Leah,
gazing out on the autumn night at strange rows
of houses cut by brilliantly lit streets, that Lon-
don was an easy place to conquer, that this was
the last time she would so return, a nonentity
powerless in the Bounce grip. By this time
next year, or long before, she herself would be
placed, free, in a position to dictate her own
movements, no longer to leave Monk's Green
each year for one month exactly in a patriarchal
herd. The very unfamiliarity of the nearer
suburbs helped this idea. London was so vast !
There was room and to spare for her. And the
sensation of fateful activity would gather as the
train reached London itself, and would be only
dispelled by the hideous details of the family dis-
embarcation, and a sudden sharp word from Mr.

44

PLAY

or Mrs, Bounce. Even the crowded discomfort
of the jolting home in cabs could not harm her
much. Anything- might have happened in her
absence, and the future be awaiting her in some
dramatic form in Mimosa Road.

Some letter perhaps

And realities would close in upon her from
the instant the servant (in a violently new apron)
stood at the open door, and they all crowded into
the still and unnaturally clean hall, to the sick
moment when Leah rummaged the accumulated
pile of circulars stacked on the "settle," and
found nothinor for herself.

So it was not to be yet ? Next year per-
haps And she no longer wondered why

she had so far failed to achieve ; she began to
remember the old difficulties

Ill

James Bounce had picked up enough hints from
progressive clients to render him proof against
the decorative pitfalls of his Acton abode. In
that crowded dwelling, the art side was repre-
sented by pictures of the send-fifty-coupons-for-
grand-free-gift variety, with wall-papers chosen
from the "stickers" in stock, furniture in sets,
and vases in pairs. But once established in
Mimosa Road, Monk's Green, he made a fresh
start, turned over a more artistic leaf, and

45

FALSE GODDESSES

achieved in the result the triumph of possessing
a home very like every other in the road.

On Sundays the Bounces went to church as a
matter of course. It was all of a piece with the
Sunday joint, and to Leah, as an emotional
experience, equally uninteresting.

Had Mr. Bounce dared, he would have been
" Chapel," but his wife, after a discreet canvass
of their growing list of acquaintances, was
" High." To her High Church or Low
Church meant high class or low class ; the grades
between she would probably have stigmatized as
cranky.

Of the real admitted cranks of the Highest
Thought Centre she had nothing to say. They
were obviously outcasts, late-unclassifieds,
hobby-mongers. Even to discuss them sa-
voured of frivolity, and tolerance only meant
that your own church was weakening its hold
upon you.

To Leah, the merely spectacular side of the
services at St. Cuthbert-on-the-Cart was so fas-
cinatingly elaborate as to savour of a religious
pantomime. The groupings, the serried lines
of slim tapers upon the altar, the pairings-off and
bowings of the choir boys, and the procession of
banners, headed by a clumping silver crucifix,
that swayed and billowed round about the church
on festival days was a most satisfactory exhibi-
tion.

" Let us go forth in peace," sang the vicar
a semi-tone flat, and the organ would blare out

46

PLAY

in an excruciatingly higher key. And go forth
they did, walking carefully out of step by the
vicar's orders. To march smacked of irrever-
ence. Up and down, obscured by the altar as
they passed shuffling behind it, led by the vicar
himself, stiffened and jewelled like Queen Eliza-
beth, and walking like a pair of compasses. At
sermon time the only hitch in the perfect stage-
management occurred. The pulpit was situate
almost at the doors, and as there were no pews,
it was encumbent upon the congregation to rise
and turn each his chair round to face it. This
upheaval was carried out to the accompaniment
of a fusillade of falling umbrellas and prayer-
books.

Leah wondered what it was the vicar said
which appeared to begin, " and now the father
and the son," mumble mumble mumble, and she
searched for it everywhere in the prayer-book,
but it always eluded her.

As a child the word ' ' vouchsafe ' ' at once at-
tracted and mystified her. She thought it might
be a gutter-spout. It sounded rather like one.

A choir-boy cast a glamour over her owing to
his solo verse which included an astonishingly
high note. Youth — he was little older than her-
self— beauty and fame. She wondered if the
other boys were jealous, but decided they too
acquiesced in his glamorous isolation. They
were obviously deeply religious ; they led the
adults in reverence. They must sometimes miss
the peg-tops and marbles of human boys ?

47

FALSE GODDESSES

And the smell of the church . . . individual,
but indescribable. Like the Bank. . , .

Christmas service she loathed. She feared
the crowds, and had once seen a woman faint
because of the flowers and the heat, and had
never forgotten it. Besides, the carols made
her cry, and she always wanted to get home and
look at her presents again, and find out if the
postman had been.

She had read of young girls going through
religious phases, and wondered that the same
thing had not happened to her. It would have
to be very carefully concealed of course ;
religious attacks were such bad form.

She could not have given her religious views
as a broad whole, however crude, her mind was
too distracted by the details of trappings and
panoply at St. Cuthbert's. She could have
told you all about them. With regard to wider
issues she was perfectly content to remain in the
dark.

She " saw " a spirit as a wraith-like silvery
wisp of unconvincing, unloveable perfection ; a
formless swirl of smoke, and yet endowed with
some semblance to humanity, if the picture-
books were to be believed. Heaven was a
definite place, like Clapham Junction, but
literally "beyond the clouds," built of white
marble and o-old, like a music-hall without a
ceiling, and the Dead a community dressed
uniformly and unbecomingly in white, and
engaged in mawkishly playing upon musical

48

PLAY

instruments in a state of beatification for which
there existed no satisfactory reason.

She saw the whole arranofement as a sort of
permanent Cook's Tour among marble vistas,
under the supervision of a mild looking gentle-
man whose hair, parted down the middle, grew
far too long, and who wore without exception
complicated garments of draped blue and red.

She clung to the dear reality of what she
understood, of people she had loved. . . .

That these should come to nothingness,
should lie rotting on their backs for one to tread
upon, was the only sacrilege.

Hell she dismissed as kitchen gossip ; other-
wise she grew to regard it as a species of comic
relief, and wondered that the pantomimic
humours of it never struck the grown-ups.

IV

In the Mimosa Road house the small oblong
drawing-room was on the ground floor, leading
by three steps into the garden. Below, the
Underground railway, from its seemly ob-
scurity, took it into its head to emerge at this
point, like a rowdy serpent, and at regular
intervals would boom its long tail of returning
shoppers and business men and girls past the
terrace of back-gardens, home to similar suburbs
further afield.

The Bounce girls rather liked this.

49 D

FALSE GODDESSES

Leah and Ella's bed-room overlooked the
railway, and the hoardings with their chintz-
coloured advertisements of music-halls, soap,
and coffee essence, and the high bank of slimy
grass topped by tenements (Ancient Lights).
They would sit at their window, to which they
had dragged the table with its skew-eye cloth
covered with lesson-books, and, in the intervals
of committing the brainless ravings of Cas-
abianca or his like to memory, they would gaze
out, fascinated by the London dusk, the rumb-
ling advent of the punctual serpents with their
black rows of little doll-heads silhouetted
against the orange light of the compartments.
Foggy evenings too had their charm, for then it
was a dim and blurred serpent that glided by to
the ' noises off ' of fog signals.

Here on November evenings, filled with a
good stodgy tea, and warmed to suffocation by
the gas-stove, it was pleasant to think how
dreary the little garden must be looking, with
its drooping clumps of dahlias, sodden and drip-
ping, but prim to the end, like one's great-
grandmother caught in a storm.

Here, "prep" over, it was good, if they
were at the time on speaking terms, to indulge
in gossip as scurrilous as their imaginations and
vocabularies permitted, on the sins, faults, and
personal appearance of the mistresses at school,
and to recount the things one " nearly " said to
Miss Spriggs w^hen she only gave one B minus
for a composition one esteemed a cynical gem of

50

PLAY

wit. The talk was all of what they " nearly"
said or did, " I feel inclined to," or "another
time I shall," or again, " The next time she
does."

Then there were the joys of spending" their
pocket-money on fireworks, Catherine wheels
the size of a halfpenny which they pinned,
thumping their fingers with the heel of an old
shoe, to the shed in the garden. Bland little
discs which hung awry while they lit matches,
shivering with cold and excitement, and applied
to its tip, when one of three things always hap-
pened. It would start with an unnerving
"Whoosh" which jerked it off on to the
path where it lay kicking, fall off unlighted, or
revolve so rapidly that they only got their
breath again what time the little twinkling
passion-flower had whirled its life away. Then
the children would rush forward to press their
noses against the iridescent black mark it had
left, and inhale the "heavenly" smell.

The Christmassy feeling usually came on the
second week in November, steadily gaining
momentum until it expired in the anti-climax of
Christmas Day itself. It meant a subtle,
gradual change in the shop windows, and going
out in a "barge" with Mrs. Bounce to local
bazaars, and even London ones as well. It
meant supremely the pantomime, and, as
adjuncts, scintillating wax dolls in stiff tarlatan
and tinsel, with babv-ribbon wound criss-cross
round their chumpy legs, ardently coveted by

51

FALSE GODDESSES

the little Bounces, who hated ordinary dolls.
Above all Christmas was coming when the
grocer round the corner began to supplement
the post-office space by railing off a small island
of counter to cope with the rush. Then cata-
logues from the big shops rolled in, thumping
richly on the matting, and almost torn piecemeal
in the struggle for " first look in " ; and the lists
of graded hampers with contents would be
greedily perused. (A pound looked so rich, so
almonds-and-raisin-y when written " per lb.").

Then, as the final days drew near, Mrs.
Bounce, wearily and without joy, would labour
at her bureau, wrapping up exciting parcels,
sending cards, and remembering relations she
had overlooked at the last dreary moment. The
two younger Bounce children were awed and
quiet at these times, and came to associate
Christmas with some secret unhappiness which
they supposed they would understand one day.
But Leah was only enraged.

Why be so deliberately joyless ? She would
fume when Mrs. Bounce, nearly weeping,
could not find the string, or dropped her scissors
for the third time with a clash on to the floor.

Of course there were few sensations to equal
the early waking in the very small, grey hours
of Christmas morning, the chilly groping for,
and finding, of the woolly stockings filled with
rustling tissue-paper lumps. Although they
disbelieved in Santa Claus, they would have
nevertheless felt deeply injured had they actually

52

PLAY

seen Mrs. Bounce come in to fill them. Year
after year they hoped they would not be awake
when she did come in, and year after year they
managed, or she managed, that they should be
asleep.

Christmas breakfast was an ordeal which, as
the Bounce girls grew up, became annually more
acute. There were presents of course, but they
must be thanked for publicly, and the girls must
pin bright smiles on their faces and say gracious
words to which their tongues had long been

strangers. They must even kiss the

ordeal that takes place in so many millions of
dining-rooms on Christmas morning. They are
all playing parts " for one performance only,"
and, like most amateurs, debarred from the
easing power of a long run, are stiff with self-
consciousness. How much better, thought
Leah, if the presents could be conveyed per
neutral serving-maid to each door, and there left
to await reply which could be dispatched through
the self-same domestic on her return, with words
deemed suitable as thanks after the most search-
ing investigation.

Under existing conditions, you must begin
whooping with tentative joy on sighting your
gift, continue to whoop as you fight with the
strings and wrappings, gradually timing your-
self to rise to a climax as they fall apart and
reveal — a silver shoe-horn.

FALSE GODDESSES

V

Next door to the Bounces, on the right, lived
the Cedric Vernons.

Vernon was private secretary to an important
theatrical agent, and Mrs. Vernon — a solid
good-natured woman, looked as if she had in her
younger days serio-comic'd on the Halls. She
had a roystering smile which displayed a large
and dazzling gold tooth, and scanty but periodic-
ally waved and tijited mahogany hair. She
went through life diffusing stuffy blasts of Cali-
fornian Poppy. She called it p'ffume. The
Vernons had one child. Her parents had not
attempted to combat Diana as a name, and, from
the moment she could lisp, and stagger upright,
she was encouraged to perform like a poodle
(under the name of "Wee Di ") at local and
other functions, and on those Sunday evenings
when the Vernons gathered to their bosoms
theatrical and variety friends of various degrees
of obscurity, w^th a sprinkling of mere neigh-
bours by way of ballast.

Diana attended the kindergarten section of
the High School, and the young Bounces and
Leah Lawrence called for her each morning at
nine at Mrs. Vernon's earnest request. At
school, she attained reclame by reason of her
connection with the stage, and of the fact that
she had actually sung and danced at a charity
matinee at the local Empire. She was taken

54

PLAY

up and noticed by the elder girls, and became
positively odious instead of merely incipiently
so, and far too big for her high suede boots.

Two afternoons a week Mrs. Vernon, by pre-
vious arrangement, secured her daughter's im-
munity from " prep," and herself conducted her,
precociously clad, with bobbing sausage-curls
and high heels complete, and with silk stockings
upon her over-shapely legs, to a professional dan-
cing academy off the Tottenham Court Road.

Mrs. Vernon had lumbered in to investigate
the weekly Higfh School class when first Diana
joined, and raked the room with an experienced
and disparaging eye.

Nothing doing here ! Hudson's Academy it
must be. They meant business, and were the
recognized short-cut to the stage for juvenile
talent.

So at a harre, and garbed in a ballet-skirt
resembling a cutlet frill, Wee Di with hlasee
nonchalance performed plies, battements, and
kindred rhythmic labours in company with a host
of other Wee Di's, while the mothers sat round
and talked " shop," past, present, and to come.

VI

Monk's Green sounded remote country to the
uninitiated acquaintance who had been pressed
to "come over for the afternoon," and it
usually resulted in his incredulous arrival by

55

FALSE GODDESSES

Underground from London in exactly ten
minutes, and the consequent cooling of heels in
unfamiliar roads for some half-an-hour before he
could with decency ring at the bell for his tea.

This wide-awake suburb had its own edition
of Bohemian life, and, like many similar com-
munities, was firmly determined to be London-
in-a-nutshell.

It had its Shakespeare readings, with light
refreshments to follow ; gatherings brightened
by the presence of those members who always
read the ' ' cuts " in a loud and cheerful voice ;
its Browning Society (not quite so popular this),
and its Highest Thought School, which pos-
sessed a small hall of grave artistic restraint, and
a beautiful carpet. The irreverent alluded to it
as the " sacred pile."

Here were held regular Sunday services by
ladies and gentlemen of usually transatlantic
origin, and curious double-barrelled names. The
speaker of the evening would veer round to
another subject which, in its treatment, can-
celled out every thought that the speaker of the
morning had revealed. But, in addition to this,
there were week-day discourses.

On Tuesday next at 3. Mrs. Mary C. Placer Spout

will speak upon :

"THE GARDEN OF EDEN."

(Admission i/-).

Next Friday, Mr. E. C. Finsbury-Parkes.

"THE cos^^c om in relation to the

PLASMIC OM."
There was an Amateur Dramatic Society

56

PLAY

which, in the intervals of muddling its accounts,
and the inevitable heartburnings when Mrs.
Black was given the solo dance in Act 2 because
her husband was on the Committee, achieved
some surprisingly good performances. This
condition was probably due to the fact that the
neighbourhood was becoming a very warren of
out-of-work professionals ; a circumstance that
the genteel residents — those with husbands or
fathers in the City — combated in vain ; for there
are some suburbs that seem to attract the lesser
stage folk in their armies.

The young people of Monk's Green were
naturally, though unflamboyantly, footlights-
mad. The unspoken understanding, if of the
female sex, with their parents, being that it was
" only to pass the time."

Of the Society Mrs. Vernon was a feature as
befitted a lady who, many years ago, had
heavily trodden the boards, and perchance, who
knows?, stood the almost-obsolete " chairman"
a drink. Ella Bounce was found to be a great
acquisition when vapid ingenues or cheeky
"flappers" were required; Bessie had been
tried but found wanting, and Alice was too busy
hammering on the piano in order to pass her
teacher's examination to do more than occasion-
ally attend the performances. Even stout Mr.
Bounce had once been pressed into the service
when a cast of unusual magnitude had absorbed
those ordinarily destined for the ranks of supers,
and perspiring, chuckling, and delighted, he

57

FALSE GODDESSES

had trotted on like a prosperous Smike as a
general rebellion.

Leah Lawrence joined blindly for the fun of
the thing when the aroma of school life still
clung about her. Had she joined later, she
might have hesitated. She could not take diver-
sions in her stride ; something inexorable de-
manded instant and supreme success in whatever
she undertook.

I suppose I'm not a sport," she ruminated,
groping for reasons.

She remembered that once at school she had
refused to compete for a very special prize of-
fered for a subject on which she was particularly
good. This latter fact was the secret reason
for her refusal ; the imperative necessity of
shielding herself. Her pride must be kept in-
tact . And even when the repairs had at last
been executed, there was the plausible reason for
failure that must be prepared in haste for the
general public.

Perhaps the world saw her a mass of conceit ?
Had it a definite opinion of her up its sleeve ?
Leah put the harassing thought aside.

Her actual performances were always discon-
certingly uneven.

Leah was at her best at understudy rehearsals,
for, by that time, she had had opportunity to
note in what divers ways her principal fell short.
She was not creative as an actress. When an
excitable miss "threw up her part and swept
from the building," Lrah shone in the role, and

58

PLAY

consciousness of virtue. Tears and temper
steadied her. When the Committee cast, it was
always completely in the dark as to how she
would acquit herself. Her capabilities of sur-
prise, pleasurable or otherwise, were endless.
It could not classify her ; could not, as with Ella,
say to itself, " H'm, Miss Bounce — ingenue ! "
Leah was sure of a good part because she
" looked interesting." That at least was unde-
niable ; but it was also said of her behind her
back that she " acted best off the stage."

When Dicky Thurloe, robust and healthy,
was cast for the part of an aged and pathetic old
man, despairing at his own absolute inability to
portray the character, he retired to sit by Leah,
whom the Commitee really felt it had catered for
at last in a role of the audacious-outdoor-ofirl
type. To her he groaned his fill, and Leah,
feeling extremely efficient as soon as she heard
that he himself did not, picked up his part,
glanced through it, and shyly offered to show
him her interpretation. Stimulated by his grati-
tude, she did so until, realising an unusual silence
in the room, she raised her eyes from the script
to find the rehearsal suspended and the members
listening. To her astonishment they applauded
and Dicky patted her on the back.

But you cannot give an old man part to a
girl !

Tn her own slangy rollicking role, Leah
proved so poor that it was given to the under-
study. Rollick she could and would had it been

59

FALSE GODDESSES

disapproved, but to stand there licensed to get
laughs, to revel ! Her mind became a charnel-
house of dismal thoughts, and her behaviour cor-
rect in the extreme.

Anne Sleath, art student at the Academy-
Schools, was a great friend of Leah's since the
night when a chance meeting in a theatre queue
had begun the acquaintance. She vociferated
to be made a member, but found that Monk's
Green was too tiresome a journey after a trying
day with the antique.

Anne was about the show-girl height, some
five feet ten inches, with auburn hair which she
did in a different style almost every day, beautiful
clear blue eyes, good teeth, and figure of a gra-
cious angularity that added to her height. She
was a hearty soul, brimming with life and scan-
dalous gossip. She was a social hold-all of con-
fidences. She had a tiny house in Barnes where
her friends would repair (she seldom troubled to
go to them) and where someone was generally
lounging and smoking at ease and temporary
suspension from stress in her passe little draw-
ing-room. It was pleasant to have their foes
lashed for them, and they could always depend
upon Anne to do that.

"Come in old precious!" she would cry,
irrespective of sex, and the old precious would
sink in silence into an arm-chair whose cretonne
covers shrieked aloud for the wash-tub. In her
chequered career, Anne had served many ap-
prenticeships, including that of the theatre ; but

Go

PLAY

there was scarcely a theatre in London in which
she had walked on that she had not, sooner or
later, walked off under a cloud of stage-mana-
gerial displeasure. Pioneers from the ranks are
not encouraged.

VII

At the time of the removal to Monk's Green,
Leah Lawrence offered little to the domestici-
ties but chancy moods (and perhaps her mother
was to thank for that) . Then Leah was " on "
to things quicker than the stolid little Bounces.
Her sense of humour left the Bounces far
behind, bewildered, but content, for, as com-
pensation, they had their own jokes which left
Leah cold. Prim little concepts of fun which the
atmosphere of the High School only fostered,
and which would doubtless degenerate later,
when in male society, into "playfulness."

Early days at school held for Leah vague dis-
comforts of juxtaposition with Ella.

Leah had been tentatively placed in a higher
form, but the afterwards depended upon herself.
She marked time watchfully. If Ella shaped
creditably, it meant hard work for Leah.
Luckily, Ella seemed satisfactorily normal in her
regard for instruction, although displaying at
times a disconcerting aptitude for arithmetic.
Leah took refuge in a lusty contempt for this
particular manifestation, deliberately fell behind

6i

FALSE GODDESSES

with her own sums, spread it about that she had
no talent that way. " I ahvays think if you can
add that's all that matters."

"But you don't want your children — when
you're grown-up and married — to be bad at
arithmetic just because you were," said Miss
Barker, in the unbendings of recess. Miss
Barker ' ' took ' ' the history and literature
classes ; she could afford to be jocose. She was
attracted by the pretty child, so insurgently
unlike the others.

"Oh I can't bother about them, besides,
I don't mean to marry," answered Leah noisily.
She always tried to make points with the mis-
tresses.

Committed to this line, she was more careless
than ever ; she now had a reputation to live down
to. What a thousand pities Miss Barker was
not more attractive, besides being of that in-
human order, a mistress ! Leah thought she
would be easy to acquire. But Miss Barker was
quite out of the lists. Leah had made as much
headway with half the other teachers — more
with one or two whom she decided were ' ' worth
while." There was the visiting dancing mis-
tress, who, not being a part of the school
scheme, was placed within the bounds of amor-
ous possibility. Besides, her romantic craft —
she was a mediocre performer but a good in-
structor— made her a person apart. She
brought with her hints of the outside world where
Things were going on while you stuffed your

62

PLAY

head with matter deemed necessary to youth —
like chicken-pox or measles — and which you
would discard with the serene compliance of the
authorities the moment you left school. But
dancing was life ; that alone you expected to
meet again. It was such a delightful thing that
Leah wondered why it w^as included in the
course.

Miss Vane singled her out from the first
lesson, which automatically precipitated things
with Leah. Miss V^ane came twice a week, for
the juniors and seniors. From the start Ella
was nowhere, and pranced with her knees well
bent in the remoter rows. Leah led the juniors.
Quite soon she was told off to " show ' ' the
seniors. Bessie was hopeless, and spent half
the lesson on a chair, or out of the room in
search of a glass of water. Alice had extra
music in the dance hour, and slaved in an upper
class-room bent over the keys, missing the vi-
gorous exercise below. Miss Vane's standards
were not high. The girls began with clubs,
balls, and skipping-ropes, and, after a prolonged
period of "fancy" dances, the lesson degene-
rated into bumping and jolting in couples round
the room. This was the " ball room class."

Leah was becoming spoilt. Her unique posi-
tion in both classes was undisputed ; it was the
only triumph she achieved. She reigned on
Mondays and Thursdays.

The question of a "heart-attack " over Miss
Vane lapsed in a few weeks. Leah found her

63

FALSE GODDESSES

hands too full with her performances. Love was
essentially an idle emotion, and the almost sick-
ening stimulation of the two classes took every-
thing out of her. And Ella began to make her
uneasy. It started harmlessly, with a strictly
conventional passion for Miss Barker. She left
no hackneyed ruse untried. Punctuality, a clean
blackboard, bunches of flowers — all played their
respectable parts. Leah was loftily amused.
Ella was "such an obvious child," a typical
school-girl Leah called her. Sixteen showed
fifteen how the thing should be done, and Ella
gaped at the possibilities sketched by the reck-
less pioneer. Afterwards Leah was sorry for
having revealed some of the methods of her own
superior campaigning, for Ella struck out a line
of her own, and working frantically, secured a
remove into the form where Miss Barker
taught. Leah's form. That solution Leah was
scornful of ; her own ends she wrested through
personality alone. She rejected labouring for
love.

Leah was disliked by the majority at the High
School, but the minority she dazzled. She in-
spired various transitory adorations, but, her
vanity gratified and at rest with the acquisition
of some carefully-made slave, would be left to
stand, forlornly, in the play-ground filled with
rage that must be concealed, while the slave
paraded enlaced with another girl, whom Leah
had never dreamed of reckoning with.

The impression of success was impossible to

64

PLAY

sustain. And Leah, talking very brightly, very
rapidly, to sundry nonentities, always with one
furtive eye on the deserter, would sub-
consciously feel that the break should have been
definite, if break there had to be. A thing of
spoken words and, if possible, of reasons.

It was a faint echo of the lower-middle-class
instinct for a 'scene.' But this jolly pro-
miscuity— this leaking away without good-bye,
was beyond her. It hurt. When Leah loved,
she loved. Hitherto she herself had proved
fickle in the end. She felt she should be always
warned against possible coming lapses. Other-
wise it was — unfinished. It was the dramatic
instinct, another heritage from her unknown
mother.

Leah was an inveterate poseuse. She re-
hearsed in a world of her own, and presented the
results to her associates. From about the age
of seven, it seemed to her that she was a
character in a novel, and she would imagine
what the remarks of the Bounces would look
like in print. There was no definite plot, nor
did she herself pose as the heroine, she simply
" saw " them all, herself included, as giving out
fragmentary printed matter.

Perhaps at breakfast one of the girls would
say :

"Ughl How beastly cold to-day!"
And Leah, throwing this material into form
would silendy round off the remark ; ' ' said
Bessie Bounce with a shudder." When life

65 E

FALSE GODDESSES

ceased to appear in book form, Leah and the
Bounces automatically became actors in some
play, and then their remarks needed no mental
rounding off, but became sheer dialog-ue. When
one of them left the table or walked out of the
room, they seemed to Leah to be simply obey-
ing a stage direction.

At school, she had bursts of high spirits which
were the result of a desire to make a sensation ;
helped in the first instance by the perusal of
those school-girl stories in which " Fascinating
Rose" or " Madcap Maggie" ruled the idol-
ising community with flashing smiles, bewitch-
ing laughs, and tossing hair that fell "far below
their waists."

Unfortunately the last essential was impos-
sible of realisation. But Leah went in for the
other lures, and at odd moments would, sitting at
her glass, unconsciously rehearse one par-
ticularly difficult stage direction ; namely that
one in which the mouth of Angela Mauleverer,
the witch of the school, "trembled with sup-
pressed merriment." The result looked to Leah
like a painful nervous affliction, but later, in the
cloak-room, she found it went much better. She
was at her best with an audience.

Then there was the tiresome business of
Stella Mainwaring ; (see "A Bevy of Maid-
ens "). The speciality of this young dazzler,
who possessed besides the usual assets of ador-
ing whimsical father in Ireland, (" Wisha
Mavourneen, but it's a broth of a counthry it

66

PLAY

is"), the ability to 'answer' the mistresses at
school with a delightful impertinence that caused
the latter to " smile in spite of themselves," and
to be so audaciously demure in the doing, that
retribution never, never fell upon her. Leah,
seeing herself in the part, would render original
versions ; but she always either under or over-
did it, or was blunt to rudeness. Sometimes
she succeeded, and made a haul of at least one
new slave, but on one of the unfortunate occa-
sions she was informed that the headmistress
wished to see her at noon the following day.
She began to plan with some pleasure the
lines on which the interview should be con-
ducted.

The book of the words, she thought, might for
instance run as follows : (see " Naughty Nan,"
Messrs. Longbow and Venture, 6/- net).

Head : " Well Leah, sit down my child. I am dis-
tressed Leah Lawrence that you have been
sent to me just like this. Miss Sprig-g-s tells
me that she cannot understand you this
term."

Leah : " You see, Sprig-g-y er, Miss Spriggs,

" {with a ''twinkle of fun").

Head : "My Child, I Am An Older Woman Than
Yourself. During all the years that I have
kept school, I have never met a character
that exhibits such incomprehensible frivolity
together (very gently) with such Grand
Possibilities as does your own. You see I
am giving- you the perfect frankness which
I ask from all my pupils."

Leah : (tears brimming her eyes). " Oh Miss
Ragget, I don't know why God made me
67

FALSE GODDESSES

so hateful. (WitJi cm iyigenuons out-
burst). Something- seems to get inside me
and make me say things Just To Shock
People. I'm a Horrid Girl ! "

Head: {stuiling iiivolunlarily). "I do not think
things are as bad as you make them out my
dear, and for the rest, you know my
methods,. I do not punish. I suggest to
you that you should merely make a full and
most complete apolog-y to Miss Spriggs
before the whole school to-morrow."

Leah : {bursting into tears). " Oil how I love you !
How we all love you ! You are the Truest
Influence in our lives. How could I ever
trouble you? Why, I love you dearly ! "

Head : " Now leave me my dear child. You were
always my favourite, Leah Lawrence."
(Kisses her with solemn tenderness upon the
brow). Slow Curtain.

But Miss Ragget plunged into the business
with such abruptness that Leah, having no time
to select an expression, was left stammering
idiotically, just a scared school-girl.

"I'm sorry that you have been sent to me at
last Leah. Sit down. I am sure Miss Spriggs
would not have done so unless it had been really
necessary, although she has often felt obliged to
speak to me about you. And not only Miss
Spriggs, but several of the other teachers."

Awful ! What on earth had they been
savino- ? And which ones could it have been ?
This wasn't fair, it was hitting in the dark.
When a mistress was stuffy with you it was
her business to say so, and refer you on to get
rowed by the Chief Constable in a decent way.

68

PLAY

" Oh," managed Leah on a broken note of
interrogation.

" Yes. You know Leah, I should like us to
understand one another "

Ah ! that was better. Miss Ragget was lead-
ing up to Leah's cue for " I love you
dearly."

But even if the cue emerged from all this
illegitimate gSLgging, Leah knew herself unable
to take it. A fund of commonsense held her
back from her proper position on her knees by
Miss Ragget's lap. Besides — she did not love
Miss Ragget. How thrilling it would be if she
could manage to. But your schoolmistress is of
course your natural enemv.

The subject of her thoughts was speaking
again.

" You know, Leah, I think you're too old to
go on like this. It looks bad to the younger

ones, and I am so proud of my First Class .

It's so unlike you. It's really unworthy of you.
(Cue?) All your teachers are noticing it."
(Horrors !)

" I don't think I've done anything so very
dreadful," plunged Leah. But the other passed
this over. " Now you mustn't be kept any
longer from your class. Go now dear, and let
me hear better things of you."

And the worst of it was, that, in a species of
for-the-good-of-the-community way, that recks
nothing of the tortuous processes of emerging
individual characters. Miss Ragget was right.

69

FALSE GODDESSES

She had conducted the interview ' ' as one lady
to another."

Confound her !

But all the same, Leah fancied she had
created a good deal of interest in that quarter.

About once a year the High School girls were
given an inadequate scope for their energies, in
the shape of a Greek play. Miss Ragget, with
a certain suppressed, smiling confidence, loyally
trusted her girls. Three had passed the ' Senior
Cambridge ' !

As " Maidens," Class Three, with hair
bound unfamiliarly with tape, walked chanting .
"off" into the pantry; ("it will sound so ,
distant "), and those with long parts remained
jammed behind the book-case until their
cue in order to avoid being raked by the
audience.

The girls were messily made up by a mistress
in a distant class-room, and wet white sponged
on to inky hands. The audience, composed in
bulk of parents, behaved beautifully under
heavy provocation.

Bessie Bounce was chosen by the faculty to
play Alcestis. In her home-made gown of
butter-muslin Ella said she looked like a clas-
sical bolster. Leah was a mere "maiden,"
being in a class below, and filled in with ' general
utility ' as someone was always ill at the last
moment. She knew everyone's lines, and at
the dress-rehearsal for servants, and pupils not
appearing, she was called upon to amalgamate

70

PLAY

the parts of three absentees, which she did with
considerable skill. Ella was only a spectator.

The Headmistress in person conducted the
endless choruses in an angle of the wall, and,
with the music and a full fountain-pen, angularly
sawed the air, with results to the wall-paper
and whoever happened to be dressing the stage
in her vicinity.

There was a bright moment when somebody's
venerable father's beard slipped and Kung
pendant throughout the whole of a scene, and an
even brighter one when the conductor, in a
musicianly rhapsody, flipped a splash of red ink
on Bessie's nose. There was "The Terrible
Episode of the Black Kitten." In an oration,
including sundry requests for the personal
arrival of Zeus, the actor alluded to "This
welcome stranger," and the school cat, diabolic-
ally timing its entrance outside the door, blew in
sideways up to the footlights as would a popular
comedienne sure of her welcome. There, in the
flattering silence consequent upon its appear-
ance, it coolly surveyed the audience, turned,
and walked up-stage to the minute conser-
vatory which was the Palace of the wavering
Admetos.

And prim little Lettice May correctly com-
mentinor :

This best of wimming bound for
realms below."
Fleshy Eileen Standish "did" Hercules,
or Heracles — Miss Ragget was a little pre-

71

FALSE GODDESSES \

cious , and roystered ' off ' in a lady-like

manner.

" Ha Ha" she piped politely, and smashed
the saucer she had begged from the kitchen. So
thin, so homely was the sound produced, it gave
an effect of contretemps.

Over-tall Freda Layton made a diverting
" Death."

" " All things thou cans't not have, my rights
for me ! ! " " (And will there be anything
further Madam .'*)

A faint interest and a little regret was roused
in Leah when Alice left school. She was now
nineteen, and from henceforth she would con-
centrate upon her musical career. Her studies
she could pursue at home for the time that might
elapse before she obtained a post, and in the
general sense, she was " finished." Leah was
sorry for Alice ; there was, she thought, precious
little to show that it was her last day. Alice for
some reason — and no one seemed to know if it
was one of choice or finance — was to be regarded
in the future as a ' worker.' She slid therefore
from school into life without those pleasant
social God-speeds that mark the launching of
the average girl. She didn't seem to mind.
Leah did not think she had made much impres-
sion upon the life of the school. For that matter
neither had the other Bounce girls. Alice,
normal and healthy, was merged in the senior's
world; Bessie, who "found it difficult to keep
up with the work," as the Headmistress, quot-

72

PLAY

ing from reports, told Mrs. Bounce, hung on to
whoever noticed her, vacantly staring about
when vivacious knots of classmates gathered
together. Ella, comparatively, had the greatest
success ; but convention stood at her elbow
during her occasional moments of audaciousness.
Speaking generally, Leah thought Ella came
under the small-fry heading.

Leah wondered if the two elder girls ex-
perienced the sentimental crises she herself did.
They seemed to her singularly passionless.
Ella hardly counted ; she was always with the
majority ; Bessie's heart appeared to be an organ
of her body alone. She had not even the dog-
like devotion which generally accompanies
sluggish natures. Alice was always modified
and decorous in her affairs. vShe was liked by
all the mistresses, who imparted a suggestion of
fellowship in their dealings with her. She even
* went to tea ' with one of them. Poor old
Alice ! She was devoted to Miss Ragget, who
promised her references whenever she asked for
them. So Alice left.

Leah thought " If I can't do it better than
that ! " . . .

Rebecca Kingsly was the daughter of an
artist, and was the central figure in one of
his best-known posters. Her purple-bronze
hair kinked about her face, and her green
eyes were humorous. She wore exhausted-
looking Liberty dresses, and scarf-swathed hats
at school. Her parents would not hear of the

73

FALSE GODDESSES

orthodox wear ; so Rebecca went her own way.
The drawing-mistress, in sympathy with her
pupil's state of mind of which her frocks were a
symbol, called her "The mischievous Bot-
ticelli."

Rebecca Kingsly was witty, and could
imitate. She and Leah evolved a repertory of
turns. She was especially happy in her im-
personation of Miss Vane, and burlesqued the
dances openly in class. Leah and Rebecca were
now with the seniors. Rebecca tolerated Miss
Vane because of Leah, but herself took private
lessons with Falutino. She was a beautiful
dancer, and sickened Leah of her own perform-
ances. She imbued Leah with contempt of the
class, and Leah g-ot excused from attendance.

Rebecca dominated Leah, who bowed to the
inevitable. Leah deeply attracted the other,
and their passionate admiration of each other's
looks and ways waxed daily.

" I don't know which I admire the most, but
I know who I like the best," said Leah. " I
think each thing you do more perfect than the
last," Rebecca would answer, kissing Leah's
hand and rubbing it against her tanned cheek.
Then almost simultaneously : " Let's do Miss
Barker and Worm-i'-the-bud." This was Miss
Proctor, the drawing-mistress.

Leah ' lived ' at the Kingsly's house at first ;
the Mimosa Road hospitalities were impossible
for many reasons. Mr. Kingsly was interested
in his daughter's friend, and made a sketch ofi

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PLAY

her of which he made no public use, to Leah's
great disappointment. A reproduction of the
poster in which his daughter figured hung
framed in Rebecca's bed-room. Leah asked for
a copy, but Rebecca was curiously shy of
making use of her father in any way that con-
cerned his profession.

The freedoms of life, foreshadowed by
Rebecca Kingsly's clothes, began dimly to open
up desires and speculations in Leah Lawrence.
They definitely dated from the day when
Rebecca dressed Leah in one of her frocks, and
they came down to tea in Jasper Kingsly's
studio.

Leah, singularly backward, recognized with a
shock that she herself was pretty. This altered
life. The company of her fellows at school had
done nothing to quicken her perceptions ; the
looking-glass meant nothing. Fashion-papers
belonged to the grown-ups, and by their essen-
tial dullness were outside her orbit. The dis-
cussions of the girls and their delight in an im-
pending new frock, together with long technical
descriptions of the same, only accentuated to
Leah her glimpsed apartness. She was rather
like a boy. . . . The other sex she never
thought about ; she only knew that the girls who
discussed ' men' at school were the wrong sort.
These girls ignored her, bored her. But friend-
ship with Rebecca Kingsly stimulated in her the
essential and unutterably trivial apprehension of
costume. Inevitably with this came the belated

75

FALSE GODDESSES

beginnings of ' the money sense.' She even
contemplated asking Mrs. Bounce as to her
financial standing.

The auxiliary realisation that her own clothes
were hideous marked an epoch. At this time
she was swept from discovery to discovery.
Intensely conscious of her frock, she waited on
Mrs. Kingsly with tea and cakes.

To the unexpected visitor, a brother artist of
Kingsly's, tentatively dropping in from his own
studio for tea, Leah seemed eminently in the
picture, and his eye, restless for effects, lit with
instant commercial appreciation upon the two
girls sunk upon the divan at the further end of
the room. And then Mrs. Kingsly handed him
his cup, and the speculative interest was gone as
he thanked her.

"Cannon, this is Miss Lawrence."

Mrs. Kingsley perfunctorily murmured the
introduction. Cannon put down the cup
and gave Leah his peculiar wringing hand-
shake.

"So it is a girl," he smiled. " I thought it
was an orchid." Rebecca's Liberty crepe clung
in its sticky folds to Leah's body, its viperous
purple showered with irresponsible yellow ovals
rimmed with scarlet. And then Cannon tramped
out in the wake of Rebecca's father to his own
studio.

Leah could not remember what response she
had made to this. She supposed, with fatalistic
resignation, that it had been inadequate. " What

^6

PLAY

does one say to a remark like that ? ' ' she smiled
at Rebecca. '/* Goodness knows," laughed the
artist's daughter, "try 'don't mention it,' or
' the pleasure is yours ' next time — if there is
a next time." But her fingers were enlaced in
Leah's, and they lay, shoulder to shoulder, on
the cushions, and Mrs. Kingsly played
minuets and rigaudons, even mazurkas, on
the spinet, and the rustling notes chimed out
faded gallantries. The coquetry of all the
ages.

Versailles ; the whispering of tinted taffetas,
gleam of light on satin, soft breeze from the
lake ; mockery sparkling through the velvet
mask, lasciviously demure. " Lud, Sir, I
protest ! ' '

Years later, the candelabra brilliance of an
'Assembly.' Soft dependence in tarlatan
armed back to mamma. Flap of cards in the
adjoining room, aristocratic raddled harpies
biting their painted lips. Mrs. Grimsby, flash-
ing her acid glances, plumed toupee a-bridle ;
she was ever a bad loser. . . .

And later still : To-morrow George is to dine
at five with The Family, and escort Amelia to
Cremorne. . . .

Work became only a background to thought.

People that had paid Leah compliments were
right after all ! Until now, flattery had been a
tiresome form of chaff.

Leah fervently longed for lessons to cease, to
know how she stood in the world.

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FALSE GODDESSES

Rebecca was extremely popular at school ; she
possessed those qualities which Leah so egre-
giously lacked. The cliquish and conventional
respected a genuine free-lance. The budding
snob in them bent to her clothes and her father's
name. Leah was nowhere. She had not even
the dancing-class now. More and more Rebecca
became absorbed into, and associated with, cer-
tain units. Leah's position was awkward and
unhappy in the extreme. She could no longer
blind herself into belief that Rebecca was wholly
hers ; she seemed to be everybody's, in an easy
degree. Leah considered that she had "intro-
duced" her to the school, and now, like a
ladder, she was kicked over. Leah would stand
morosely by at recess while the other expended
herself. She shrank from reproaches, they in-
vited the beginning of the end ; brought in to
the light what she still tried to bury. The others
had been " different " ; this was real.

Leah could have stood the mass, but when it
became apparent that Rebecca responded to the
vociferous or pressing affection of individuals,
she grew miserable and showed her hand. One
younger girl, Alison Taft, became noticeable ;
and rioted in spring-madness over Rebecca
Kingsly, who took her up. They would have
formed a trio of friendship but for Leah. She
set herself to winning the child, and succeeded,
up to a point. Alison would dog her footsteps
— if Rebecca was not by ; when she appeared,
she would shout and transfer the clinging of her

78 I

PLAY

I bony little arms. " You and Rebecca are the
' most scrumptious people in the world," she
cried to Leah. And once, when they were stand-
! ing round the biscuits and milk, and when Leah
was trying not to see that her share of these
refreshments was being saved for Rebecca, who
had not yet appeared; "If I can't have
Rebecca, I'll have you."

Leah never spoke to the child again.
But in the main Rebecca stood by Leah. The
very routine of their intimacy now became a
stumbling-block. They had been accustomed to
wait for each other in specified corners of the
building, to refresh themselves with mutual
sight, if only for a minute, before separating to
classes. Seats together at lectures and any
public assembling of the school were a necessity
recognized by the whole school. But that had
been the first to go. Rebecca's appearance in
the lecture-hall was gradually wont to be the
signal for a scramble to sit beside her. The
number of scramblers was now quite formidable.
The girls, respecting Leah's claim in all other
particulars, seemed to regard the semi-recrea-
tion of a stray lecture as public ground, in which
she who timed and pounced had fairly earned
the privilege.

Stern as Napoleon Leah watched the strug-
gle. Very soon the spectacle was intolerable.
Leah would come in late that Rebecca might be
hedged about. Then, with an easy mind, she
could sit where she chose enclosed with her own

79

FALSE GODDESSES

devotees. Across the rival camps she sent fur-
tive glances — when Rebecca was not looking.

The going home together had been the crux
of the day. But would these conditions hold
good now .-* Leah was at sea as to her own
attitude ; there appeared to be no middle course.
And Rebecca ; what did she mean to do ? The
sentimentalist in Leah urged that the fault should
not be on her side.

With compressed lips and uneasy eye she took
up her stand at the end of the corridor outside
the senior class-room, an old tryst. As doors
slanmied and the passages rang with voices
above the clamour of the recess bell, she moved
away. Rebecca didn't deserve it. This, after
all, would set the tone of future encounters. The
onus of choice should rest upon Rebecca. She
was sure to wriggle out of it somehow. Leah,
similarly cornered, would have given kiss or
blow, but Rebecca — she had her doubts. The
artist's daughter, despite her Bohemian front,
was more fundamentally normal than Leah, and,
like a tactful hostess, would skim over an
awkward situation. She appeared to Leah
to be becoming more ' ' ordinary ' ' every
day.

Rebecca stood at the end of the corridor, a
girl upon each arm pulling at her and gabbling.
" There you are ! " she sang out, " I've been
looking for you everywhere." Custom caused
one of the girls to stand aside as Leah advanced
uncertainly. Rebecca took her arm in a busi-

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PLAY

ness-like way. The four went down to the cloak-
room.

Leah dressed slowly. She Intended to give
Rebecca time to be off with her admirers.
" Hurry up Leah, you're not staying for gym
are you?" Rebecca had forgotten that Leah
never did. Once the detailed course of their
joint lives had been as an open book, avidly
perused. Rebecca, Leah diagnosed, was pro-
bably suffering from mental indigestion. Her
hands shook as she fumbled about. At the door
someone tried to chat. Leah rushed past in the
wake of Rebecca.

This was going to be a fight to a finish — one
way or the other.

She asked Leah, walking home, "what had
changed her ? Ally says you never speak to
her now. You're not half such fun as you used
to be. Everyone thinks so."

Leah said nothing. She was stunned. Re-
becca chatted breezily and Leah tramped
speechlessly beside her, like a churl. Jolly
school chat at first ; Leah thought ' ' strip that
sickly rag off her and she's pure High School
underneath." Rebecca changed to polite small-
talk. She seemed intangibly to reprove Leah
for her suburban sulks. She had the advantage
throughout. In the main road there were more
girls waiting. Rebecca, good form personified,
bade Leah good-bye at the Underground and
turned away in their company.

Leah shuffled on blindly, she could not face

8i F

FALSE GODDESSES

the station. And suddenly, preposterously, in
the middle of the street, she was crying ; thick
tears that glazed her cheeks and rolled enormous
on to her satchel.

Deliberately she wrenched Rebecca from her
life. She had put all her eggs into one basket,
as usual ! Well, if Rebecca was blind to her
misery and only noticed the result on the social
life of the school, then Leah had no use for her.
The right word would have brought her run-
ning. Without it, she kept her rule remorse-
less.

Rebecca, piqued, callously went her easy way
of triumph. Leah lost her "remove" and
drifted.

VIII

The Monk's Green " Literary Circle " met at
each other's houses once a week in its first en-
thusiasm, and afterwards, once a month ; to it
the youthful members were surprisingly faithful.
No one was prepared to state who had
founded it, knowing the trouble he would resur-
rect for himself if he ventured on a definite
name. Leah Lawrence asserted that the
founder was herself. In proof, she said that,
walking home with Dicky Thurloe, who came
into his own in the summer months as the best
tennis player in Monk's Green (and hibernated

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PLAY

the rest of the year), she had said how awfully
jolly it would be if Those Who Wrote could
meet ' ' and have a good jaw once a week ! ' '
She had won an essay competition in a children's
paper.

But, as usual, the palm was wrested from her.
Dicky mentioned the matter to Cynthia Dart,
the ' ' belle ' ' of the tennis dances who herself
wrote trickling little odes for the Parish maga-
zine. The latter was smitten hip and thigh with
the idea, and crystallised the scheme in the form
of printed membership cards which she freely
circulated. One fell into Leah's hands. She
canvassed her friends, but her claims passed
over them with the more solid proof of the
cards. On every hand she heard of " Cyn-
thia's " literary club.

Exhausted with passion, Leah told herself
that she would not go near the Circle. When
the evening came, she went. The question of
the foundation was never broached, and in the
spectacle of pose and careless costume that the
majority of members had assumed, she found so
much cause for mirth that she resolved to over-
look the matter. She found in the meetings
something solid to fall back upon in the months
to come.

That she was the youngest member was balm
to Leah. The veteran, Angus Macmahon, was
twenty-two. Ella, bowing ungraciously to the
inevitable, was not present. Leah had feared
trouble with her ; Ella had a fighting spirit akin

83

FALSE GODDESSES

to her own. But she had her trump card ready ;
by no elastic stretch could Ella be accounted eli-
gible. Who wanted a person of fifteen and a
half of no literary pretensions ? Alice never
gave trouble. Her wishes were always easily
manipulated. She dumbly acquiesced in Leah's
far-sighted organisation.

On the evening itself, Bessie was discovered
"ready" in the drawing-room. This was a
shock to Leah. She decided upon elab-
orate surprise, and hooded the venom of her
look.

" Oh, going out too ? "

"Well, yes. It's the meeting to-night isn't
it ? " Suspicion loomed in her eye.

"Oh, I didn't know — I mean, are you join-
ing too ? We only meant it for people who
write, you know."

" You'd rather I didn't come? "

How common she was when she tried to be
dignified ; all her phrases ran to the obvious.
How thickly unconscious of the possibility of
exclusions on the part of the Circle. It was like
her to say nothing until the night itself, and then
be waiting, trussed for the outing. It was not
guile either. ...

" Oh, of course not," a row w^as a thing to
be avoided. Bessie embroiled the whole house
in her discontents. But all the same, Leah did
not intend to let her off too lightly.

"You see — we haven't settled yet about

bringing in out friends."

84

» >

PLAY

Bessie's face crumpled like a baby's. " You
little beast ! " she said slowly, and swung out of
the room.

" You unnecessary fool," muttered Leah. A
scene was now inevitable ; that being so, she
wished she had made the matter even plainer
while the other was there.

Mrs. Bounce came in emanating- unease. Her
brows sketched enquiry. Leah, chafing to be
off, meant to be done with the matter before she
left. She did not intend to return to more
scenes.

" L'm afraid Bessie's upset. It's the first
meeting of the Literary Circle you know,
and of course I've got to go as I started it
all. I didn't know she expected to come too."

" No, I know dear, but they won't mind, I'm
sure.

" Well they won't say so if they do, but you
see, the whole point is to keep it to people who
write."

" Yes, yes, of course. I'll try and put it to
her afterwards. But couldn't you go and say
something to her ? — Tell her it's all right. Quick
dear before she takes her dress off, there's a
dear girl."

Leah wasted no time. She knew she would
find Bessie in uncouth abandon on her bed.
" She's the sort that takes to her bedroom like
some people take to drugs," Leah had once said
to Alice. She hurried upstairs, pausing at the
door to summon her " bright " manner.

85

FALSE GODDESSES

" Come on Bessie, I'm just off. We shall be
late." No answer.

Leah opened the door. One to Bessie. She
was sullenly staring out of the window, her cape
in a bunch on the floor.

" Come on, I'm just off. We shall be late."

" You'd better go then." The figure at the ,j

window did not turn.

Business of diplomacy.

" Well, we might as well go together. 'Save
the Dart's maid."

" Thanks ; I see you don't want me. I don't
suppose any one '11 notice I'm not there." ("She's
elementary," champed Leah to herself.)

" Oh, I say, don't be absurd. Who said we
didn't want you? We — shall be awfully pleased
if you'll come, of course."

But why the necessity to placate the girl ? j
Anything for peace. " We shall just do it if
you hurry. Oh, good ! you've got on your
green. It makes me look a dowdy wreck, but
that can't be helped. Your cloak't^n the floor."

Ugh ! that awful frock ! Fussy, gathered on
the hips, up in front and down at the back, one
of Miss Mitton's failures, displaying meaty ankles

in "openwork" stockings . Bessie was

visibly recovering. Mrs. Bounce, immeasurably
relieved, and telegraphing secret gratitude to
Leah, watched them go. " Enjoy yourselves,
girls ! ' '

Appeased, Bessie strutted by Leah's side.

When the first diffidence had worn off, it be-

86 i

PLAY

came a scramble as to who could create and
serve up the most misunderstood personality to
the company ; but the members invariably for-
got, and the lapse would occur increasingly early
in the evening. Generalities were touched
upon ; " happiness " defined, each member con-
tributing. " A rest you've really earned after
work you honestly enjoy," said Leah, adding
guiltily, "sorry to make a song and dance about
it."

"To be champion of England," said Dicky
Thurloe.

He wore a velvet jacket and a large loose tie.
Cynthia chid him very charmingly for both of-
fences, and re-tied his neckwear. With her,
ancient Eve had triumphed over transient high
thinking, and her " electric " blue semi-evening
dress represented the best that Mallowes,
Monk's Green, could achieve.

"I'd like to marry," said Bessie. She was
always a bar behind the conversational score.
But the Circle was unmoved. It was "the
thing" to have an open mind, and quite hope-
lessly ' ' fubsy ' ' to shrink from discussion of
awkward subjects.

From mention of marriage, the talk veered
with daring to "parents." "You can't fight
fair with 'em," ruminated Angus Macmahon
morosely.

The Circle drew him out, but he seemed
grateful, relieved at unloading some of the con-
gested thoughts of years.

87

FALSE GODDESSES

"There was always trouble at home," he
added. " Father and the maids ... no won-
der my mother skipped it."

" Who with.-* " Cynthia's tone was flippandy
tolerant. She was a little shocked.

"Oh, God knows."

" She'll come back after many years to claim
' her boy,' " Cynthia tittered.

" I very much hope not. I'm not used to
beinor ' cared for,' and I don't want to get soft."

' ' I3ut what did you think at the time ? About
your mother, I mean." Leah recognized
Bessie's best " gentle " manner.

" Oh, Dad told me she was ' staying with
friends,' and of course I believed it, being a kid.
I got used to it after a bit, and then I forgot
about it. There was no melodrama business.

'Sorry to be so boring ." He rose to go

and his eye fell on Bessie. The girl in her ill-
made green began calculating how she could
time her departure to coincide w^ith his, and
avoid blatancy. Crudely she skirmished.

Leah noted her manoeuvres almost before

she had resolved upon them. Bessie was afraid
of her. Leah moulded her at will. Bessie was
an organ, and Leah had learnt her stops.. By
certain combined manipulations she could
achieve foregone results. It amused her to do
so.

On the landing, Bessie, guessing what was
coming, waited breathless, the chill after the hot
room obliterated by her excitement.

88

PLAY

" You're a sweet thing," said young
Macmahon, and gave her the kiss she was
stamping for. She saw the affair ending in an
engagement. She did not propose a meeting ;
her upbringing peered forlornly out on occasions
and acted as a dreary brake to enjoyment.
Besides, she hoped he would suggest the next
move.

He offered her instead a taxi, which she
nervously refused.

He ' saw ' her to the top of Mimosa Road,
and told her to ' take care ' of herself, and
Bessie, her shoes giving her hades, her elation
dead, and her hair blown wispishly round her
face, assented with a horrid jauntiness.

At the gate Leah overtook her. This
finale was too good to miss. Bessie
deserved it.

Well ' ' — light banter — ' ' did you enjoy it ? "

" Yes. It was great fun. When's the next
meeting?" "Oh no you don't," thought
Leah. This was intolerable. She would sooner
resign than drag Bessie at her heels to future
meetings. What a hide the creature had 1
Rage made Leah reckless.

They groped into the dining-room and Leah
turned up the light.

" Well, you managed to scandalize them any-
way." Leah smiled as she drew off her gloves.

" What do you mean .^ " Bessie was angry
but anxious.

"Saying you wanted to be married; I

89

FALSE GODDESSES

couldn't have done it — myself. Still, of course
it was only us so it didn't matter."

Bessie gaped, furious.

" Oh, you little brute," she said slowly.
She banged upstairs kicking the rods at every
step. Leah knew she herself was safe ; this row
would not percolate further. Bessie and Leah
both knew that Mrs. Bounce would agree with
Leah upon the subject.

She clicked off the light. She only left off
smiling when she banged into the side-
board.

Leah's own exit from school was not clean-
cut. When it became obvious that the time was
near she campaigned her last hours, grouped her
audience, arranged situations. There should be
exchanges of addresses, photos and souvenirs —
or perhaps a joint gift from her class ? Her
portrait in demand. What a pity about Alison
Taft ; the child would have been useful with her
clinging arms. . . . Should the class decide to
combine in a present, Rebecca would have had
to give too. What a score ! But she was in a
higher form ; another world, now. She might
conceivably leave first ?

When the last day came, Leah was in bed
with a chill. Ella attended, but did not seem to
be conspicuously burdened with offerings when
she came home. Between punctual spasms of
pain Leah was grateful for this. She went her-
self two days later to collect her scattered
property, and met no one but cleaners.

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FALSE GODDESSES

Leah was now seventeen and a half and
would not have left school for one more year but
for the interweaving of another's ambitions with
her own life. Ella, always the most imperious
and tiresome of the sisters, had sprung a mine
upon the family, and a crisis arose with which
Mrs. Bounce felt totally unable to deal.

IX

When the Bounces and Leah left the High
School for "good," none but the latter per-
ceived that the pleasant, exciting emancipation,
which chiefly meant to them leisured breakfasts
at last, might be protracted into an intolerable
and permanent hiatus.

Alice alone was catered for ; she had thumped
the keys for months past for the privilege of
doing so with pupils for the rest of her life ;
Bessie was sleek with freedom, and the morn-
ings, she thought, could be very acceptably
dallied through in filling vases, flicking dust, and
taking the dog for walks ; the afternoons with
friends, matinees, and remnant sales in town ;
the evenings at dances, the picture-palace, or,
fmit de mieux in the bosom of her family.

Ella was merely marking time, passionately
anxious to be off on tour. She did not doubt
that it would eventually make of her a London
favourite. Cedric Vernon had been responsible

91

PLAY

for this mischief, with a careless compliment and
unremembered offer of work if ever she decided
to 'dazzle London,' and had found himself
confronted with the timid but determined
apparition of Ella in his office, and forced to
make good. After an interval, he put the tour
in her way, and Ella, ignorant of theatrical
values, snapped at it.

She ought not even to have left school, but
Mrs. Bounce resigned, and hating to " spoil her
chances," thought hazily of classes after the
termination of the tour. Fortunately for Ella
she knew nothing of the hazards of securing
rooms ; she did not picture her daughter wander-
ing late at night in strange towns with lodgings
not fixed up previously and the toss-up, when
found, whether they will be clean, with aired
bedding, to say nothing of respectability.

Vernon jotted down a list of reliable rooms,
cautioning Ella against trusting to those who
wave apartment-cards at the incoming train.
He also placed her under the wing of the girl
who was playing second lead, and begged her to
"keep an eye on the child for God's sake ! "
Miss Taverner was bored.

This concession had been wrested at the cost
of endless scenes. Ella, fighting for her way,
was unhampered by tenderness. Parents were
well-meaning obstacles who must be outwitted,
overcome. In past years there had been a law
concerning "no sweets before breakfast."
This was the same idea, on a larger scale.

92

PLAY

Parents — mothers particularly — had a devilish
knack of putting their finger on one's most
private pleasures. Ella supposed that, as with
the sweets, they wished to dole out life's sugar-
plums. Smilingly inculcating moderation. . . .

Ella knew perfectly that the talk of classes
was only a palliative to her mother's conscience.
Mrs. Bounce was weary of siege ; beside herself
for her precious little daughter. At the price of
defeat she bought back Ella's hugs and kisses.

This was all very well, and would mean for
Leah more room to move in the bed-room, but
it also meant that Leah's own schooldays must
end. It was out of the question to continue
while her junior was emancipated. She put it
at once to Mrs. Bounce v/ho, weakened with the
great indulgence, had no more opposition left in
her. It would only mean the household of
women re-united in a lump instead of little by
little. Leah was sorry to leave school, but it had
to be. Realising that this was the time to strike
while petitions were granted for the asking,
Leah opened the question of her finances. Mrs.
Bounce, with relief, instantly referred her to
Mr. Bounce ; money matters were the man's
affair. If there w^as one dispute he could settle
"all by himself, then let him ! Leah rather
believed that Providence had arranged the
stages of this petty revolution of Ella's in order
to make things easier for herself. Who cared
about Ella's tour ? Her own economic freedom
was obviously the motive behind. Why, she

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FALSE GODDESSES

might have gone on for years begging for fal-lals
like Ella ! Coaxing set her teeth on edge ; that
was Ella's great forte. When she whined for
something coveted by herself and Leah, the
latter always sided with Mrs. Bounce in an un-
flinching crusade against underhand methods.
As often as not Ella's wish was granted, and
with it, Leah's ; Mrs. Bounce was rigidly just.
Leah, contemptuous of the methods that had
obtained the object, always accepted its dual
bestowal upon herself. But she would as soon
have gone without it. It was loathsome to be
associated with Ella's graspingness. Rebecca
had provided the impetus ; Ella's little ways,
accepted until now, clinched the matter. Surely
at her age girls had their allowances ? Leah was
foggy on the subject, had never talked of these
things with her contemporaries. They belonged
to the unknown country of "after school." They
were on a level with " coming out." But now
that Ella had speeded up her own and Leah's
affairs, she was faced with the immediate neces-
sity of premature investigation

Tiresome little idiot ! chopping into other
people's futures. . . .

The discussion with Mr. Bounce was straight-
forward, and on the whole satisfactory. Apart
from the facts themselves as to her possessions,
with which she would shape her life later, it
made for self-respect to have a ' business ' talk.
She would probably make capital out of that
afterwards to friends, and to the Bounce girls.

94

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Mrs. Lawrence sent a sum for Leah's keep
which naturally the Bounces pocketed, and a
further sum held by Mrs. Bounce for Leah's
personal expenses. It seemed that the drafts,
which were remitted through an Australian
Bank and not by Mrs. Lawrence direct, arrived
half-yearly and on no specified date. Leah,
rejecting the majority of Mr. Bounce's state-
ments, gathered that she was to consider herself
in receipt of ^40 a year, free of any Bounce
claims. It used to be only ;£2o for her own
wants, and the schooling money paid separately,
said Mr. Bounce.

Leah went upstairs and thought. ;{J40 meant
to her a lump sum, and that would be a stupend-
ous windfall to play with, had not the question
of dress begun to nag her. Having money
chiefly meant giving presents to people you
loved.

There was no one at the moment. . . .

She alternated between the sensations of the
nouveau riche and a o-rowinor conviction that the
sum would not last her three months.

She had seen fur coats priced at eighty
guineas. . . . She wondered if 'the others'
knew, and resolved to keep them in the dark ;
then she told everyone.

Alice said she knew all the time. Bessie
made Mrs. Bounce a scene until she too was
pensioned off, in a lesser degree. Leah thought
Bessie a rum 'un. She had all Alice's oppor-
tunities for collecting gossip about Leah's

95

FALSE GODDESSES

affairs, but the only thing she clutched at was a
tardy personal dignity, purchasable with cash.
And yet she was not a snatcher, like Ella. Sulks
and scenes were her means of expression ; she
never cajoled. Leah did not think she had tl\e
brains for that. It had needed Leah's example
under her very nose to goad her into action.
Bessie was intensely imitative ; it was her only
virile characteristic.

Ella took the £40 news with maddening con-
descension.

" I'm to get two pounds a week, and that's a
hundred a year," she said, referring to the tour.

"The tour won't last for ever, or anything
like a year, and out of your two pounds you'll
have to pay for everything — except fares."

Ella was easily crushed ; Leah was the only
person who could do it.

Bessie, beside herself, wrested £2^, a year
from the family exchequer ; that fact came out
at once, she grumbled it savagely to the girls.
News was always easy to extract from her ;
Leah and Ella excelled at it. However un-
willingly, it was always given, and Bessie left
squeezed dry and resentful. " Let's hope the
poor old thing never has to appear in court,
they'd turn her inside out almost before she got
a sniff at the Bible." Bessie amused Ella.

Bessie soon cheered up, and with ready
money in her purse, confident, floral hats soon
framed her face. From under these she stared
with her customary air of sodden astonishment

96

PLAY

upon the world. Temporarily united, Leah and
Ella would rush away to giggle. Sometimes
they chaffed her, but guardedly, " pulled her
leg" at table, with a wary eye on Bessie, like
the doctor who holds the pulse while the dentist
administers gas. They did not intend to let
themselves in for a storm, but there was fas-
cination in going near the verge.

Her scenes were more terrible than Ella's,
who might conceivably grow out of the habit.
The others were loved in Mrs. Bounce's just
way. She was inclined to lean upon her eldest
daughter, but Alice, practising steadily, with a
post in view, must not be troubled.

Leah, aloofly criticising, thought that Ella
was as a gusty, cutting east wind, with plenty
of wailing through key-holes, and capricious
showers. Bessie's discontents were drouth,
thunder muttering and menacing, the whole
world oppressed, apprehensive. She rather
thought that it was Bessie's maturity that made
her inexcusable. Her unready tongue unloosed,
venom stumbled out like a drunkard. Leah and
Alice thought Bessie's lack of reticence appal-
ling. Alice never admitted it ; she would will-
ingly have undertaken the easy job of shaping
the girl and guarding her goaded mother, whom
she loved, from the ' variousnesses ' of Bessie
and Ella ; but there never seemed to be time.

Ella discovered it wasn't much fun comment-
ing on Bessie's hats, because she seemed to like
it. She loved being noticed, and would shift in

97 G

FALSE GODDESSES

delighted consciousness. Leah and Ella as-
sumed elaborate detachment ; it was slightly
amusing to watch Bessie wriggling for attention.
Ella called her hats ' the llm'.' Bessie's sartorial
aspirations, as it were, began and ended at her
head. Big, flower-laden ' trays ' rocked above
shabby coats and skirts. When she had a new
dress she wore it until her family writhed at sight
of it. Then Mrs. Bounce would expostulate
against " scuffing out," and the garment would
be sulkily hung in the wardrobe to re-appear,
pulled and crumpled, on legitimate occasions
only. She always rendered her shoes shapeless,
and weary bundles were everlastingly in dock at
the shoemakers. It was a common occurrence
to see her in the drawing-room ' down to '
coloured satin party slippers worn in conjunction
with thick stockings.

There were no excitements about Alice's
clothes. She merely wore 'quiet suits.'
Mrs. Bounce took a firm line with Ella,
and her daughter fretted but obeyed. " I
don't get any fun out of nice things," she com-
plained. " Mother marshals them so."
It was true. Mrs. Bounce, anxious that she
should look her best at all times, awarded best
wear rather in the manner of a good conduct
stripe. The result was that Ella was always
acutely self-conscious.

Her affairs disposed of, Leah, feverish for
action, decided to fill in with singing lessons.
Miss Angela Strickland was a well-known and

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PLAY

first-rate teacher ; she was secretly enchanted
with Leah's possibilities. She had wormed the
careless information from Leah that her mother
was a singer, and told her that if she worked,
there was no reason why she herself should not
sing some day in Grand Opera. Leah's voice
was full of latent power.

Fired with the discovery of this unexpected
asset, Leah began to practice, straining her
voice for hours at a stretch, and, expecting to be
put on to operatic numbers after her sixth lesson,
was completely put off the whole business when
Miss Strickland kept her to a routine of voice-
production, of seizing Leah's ribs and shriek-
ing, "You're going up! You're going
up 1 1"

So, to her increasing ennui, broken by fits of
uncontrollable laughter, they yapped and popped
at each other until the hour.

But Leah had been popped at and pushed
about long enough, and suddenly ceased the les-
sons just as they were taking a turn for the
better.

Coincident with this, the vicar of Monk's
Green announced an entertainment in the Town
Hall for his Sick Fund, and dispatched the
curate with the best digestion to imperil it at
tea-parties canvassing for talent. The Reverend
Hugh Stacey, a nice youth and good football
player, went swilling and begging down the
length of Mimosa Road until he reached the
Bounces.

99

FALSE GODDESSES

The family, save Mr. Bounce, were all in.
Bessie, brightening visibly, after a dismal after-
noon of trying to understand with the aid of
fashion-paper Himsies the true inwardness of
making a blouse (" cut down the dotted line "),
Leah exhausted with a resurgescence of hard
work at her singing, on lines laid down by her-
self, and Ella, joyous, having perfected the few
lines of her part. Mrs. Bounce, after a drabby
matinee of pricing saucepans in the High Street,
welcomed the young man, and, after having
plied his protesting inn'ards with tea, he boyishly
burst into the matter in hand.

"I'm told I shall find you all a very tower of
strength," said the Reverend Hugh, with his
best house-to-house manner, and producing a
note-book, he ran over the list of promises for
which he had, so to speak, bartered the coats of
his stomach.

Mrs. Vernon had promised to tell stories and,
if required, to give some of her low-life

cameos ' ' ; Wee Di (here the curate

cleared his throat) was to contribute a * ' fancy ' '
dance, he himself would sing, one of the Rice
girls would "give" a banjo solo, and Cynthia
Dart spoke of a classical interpretation of the
mow-at-the-shadows-and-flop-on-the-floor type .
This was not Stacey's description. The Reve-
rend Hugh, seeking his fountain-pen, looked
expectant.

ril accompany," Alice volunteered, with
ready good-nature. Bessie, after endeavouring

lOO

PLAY

to recollect a school recitation, spoke of selling
programmes. " You will recite for us of course,
Miss Bounce?" — turning to Ella. The child,
with professional nonchalance, said she would
" do sorriething." " And what may I put you
down for, Miss Lawrence .f* "

A sudden resolve was born in Leah.

She would burst upon Monk's Green as an
operatic star, and when, many years later, her
name was a household word in Continental opera
houses, she would look back with tender amuse-
ment at the unprepossessing barn, rude shelter
of genius. She would even return just once and
sing her most celebrated songs, make a little
speech of gratitude and affection for the little
room which had " given her her chance."

Leah carelessly answered : " Oh, a song I
think," and burnt for the curate to go that she
might run upstairs and rummage in her music-
case.

She decided almost at once upon that Brock's
Benefit of vocalisation, the Jewel Song, and
hopelessly overweighted her undeveloped voice
with its intricacies.

On the night, after an afternoon spent in shi-
vering with nerves on her bed, she walked on to
the platform, embellished by the curate's ideas
on ferns and crepe paper, and faced the public.

When she had finished there was a polite
spattering of applause.

Leah descended the steps to a place that had
been kept for her by the side of Mr. and Mrs.

lOI

FALSE GODDESSES

Bounce. And then Ella, in girlish muslin,
walked to the exact centre of the stage, and, to
Leah's stupefaction, gave a song and dance from
some musical comedy that had hagridden the
playground and cloak-room in the past, and ren-
dered it with so much sprightliness, such conven-
tional apeings of the lady who had first set Lon-
don whistling it, that the audience could not have
enough of her, in spite of the fact that her little
voice was obviously untrained, and her dancing
steps deficient of technique.

Leah sat stiffly upright. She was trying to
postpone gauging the effect this evening would
have upon herself. How dare Ella go ma-
rauding from her recognized little forte of reci-
tation, and succeed in a line that she had never
intended to make her own ? It was poaching
... it was unscrupulous ... it was un-
economic.

And she, Leah, who " had it all in her," was
an unremembered failure. Ridiculous per-
haps?

And there was the going home to be endured ;
the sandwich-reminiscences. Leah realised the
future ; saw that Ella might conceivably come to
be in request. And she herself could do nothing
about it, was indeed impelled to a spurious
warmth of appreciation. She had hopelessly
given herself away by her own performance ;
Ella might hold that weapon in reserve. No,
generosity was Leah's cue.

Leah, shadowed, apart from the family

1 02

PLAY

group round the table, listened to the comments.
Mr. and Mrs. Bounce seldom praised, but any-
one could see they were pleased under pretence
of "taking Ella down." And Ella consciously
dominated, overwhelmed with her prettiness
and youth. She was above herself . She praised
everyone; how good Alice had been. "I
always say a good accompanist is every-
thing." And how nice Bessie looked, and
nearly all the turns were ripping weren't they?
Studious ignoring of her own. And was that
real Opera Leah had sung ? ' ' Good Heavens
— with an affected shrug — " I could never do it.
It was all I could do to get through my own ! "
Then she added " They seemed to — like
yours."

Leah smiled brightly ; it seemed to crack the
skin of her lips.

And she had to sleep with all this. . .

But Ella would be gone soon for weeks,
thank goodness. Of course it would be a great
score if Ella was dismissed from the company
for incompetence ; but perhaps, on the whole it
would be better if she remained in it. Any petti-
fogging success she might make would be a fair
price to pay for her absence from home.

Leah now doggedly put all thoughts of sing-
ing from her.

Once at Anne's sagging garden studio Leah
discovered that she could draw. She had of
course begun with Anne, and then deliberately
turned the sketch into a caricature so cruel, so

103

FALSE GODDESSES

funny, that it had awoken a fresh train of ideas
in her mind. She set to work with enthusiasm,
but in pursuit of some promising new interest,
had left her drawing half-finished. She found
that there was nothing flatter than an old enthu-
siasm. Anne, mired with modelling clay, said
that it was comparable only to the endeavour to
fan the embers of " a dead pash'."

Now, in the hiatus that once more threatened
to dominate her life, Leah turned again to art in
a spirit of defiance. Interest gripped her as she
began a series of caricatures ; before she had
completed them, she began to map out a large
portrait of Anne. Then the inevitable First
Difficulty presented itself, and she returned, dis-
couraged, to her singing. She found that, in the
interval, her voice had "gone back." She
bought new songs as a species of appetiser, but
never learnt them through, though she sang the
more effective passages very prettily ; then
overcome with lack of incentive and depression,
she would drop it all for weeks.

She deplored her inability to concentrate as
much as anyone.

X

Leah, with assistance, and constant reference
to Mr. Bounce, opened an account at the family
Bank. She amused the kindly and slightly

104

PLAY

epris head cashier with her naive iprnorances, and
reliance upon his every word. He asked dis-
concerting questions, which Leah, her face
pressed against the grille, countered with flip-
pancies. ' ' How would you like it ? " , he would
pause over blocks of notes. " Very much," she
would answer, and they giggled together. Her
pass-book was Greek to Leah, all her accounts
she worked out on scraps of paper. To know

how the money had gone ' ' gave curious satis-
faction, but in all her tortuous processes, she
generally forgot what she was trying to prove.
It had been the same at school. Sums of the
" I go into a shop and I buy ' ' type would be
set, and Leah would bring the answer out cor-
rectly, as far as figures went, only in farthings
instead of butter. She discovered she had a
few pounds to her credit, in addition to her al-
lowance ; her friend the cashier told her this in a
bewildering and technical mizmaze of words.
Leah wanted to draw it out at once, but was un-
able to express the desire in professional lan-
guage. In any case, she " hated asking for it."
Mr. Hawley, a mere youth, made her feel ter-
ribly young.

Alice secured a place as junior music teacher
at the Monk's Green Academy of Music. She
was to start with fifty pounds a year. From the
morning she quietly left the house at ten o'clock
with her case, while Mrs. Bounce nodded and
smiled at the window, she was ruled out of
family concerns. And Ella left one Sunday

105

FALSE GODDESSES

morning- with a tremendous fuss and harrying of
the household, to join the company at King's
Cross. Her mother, packing a " treat " lunch,
and cushioning her departure as far as lay in her
power, hoped that she might be allowed to come
to the station ; but Ella diffused without actual
words an atmosphere of discouragement, and, by
a skilful disposition of her luggage, rendered a
second in the taxi impracticable. Throned in the
car, Ella was all smiles, and allowed herself to
say those things her mother had longed to hear
during the last days. Mrs. Bounce came up the
path rather slowly, and did not appear until
lunch. . . .

With Alice and Ella embarked upon life, the
house seemed curiously moribund and per-
meated with a settled sadness. It seemed to
Leah that the walls were sternly watching her
in disapproval at her own presence there.
Everything had happened too quickly. They
had none of them had a chance . . . youth had
not mellowed within that house. Leah thought,
"it's always stagnation or explosion here."
With characteristic detachment she did not re-
gard herself as a youthful figure in this family ;
she was the perpetual observer, tasting life
through her intermittent and passionate affec-
tions. Leah was miserable just now, in a super-
ficial way. Bessie was out of the question as
souffre-doideur. There was no hope of dis-
coveries in that direction. They had not even
the same friends. The Bounce girls and her-

io6

PLAY

self lacked talent or inclination to "pass on"
girl friends. They had their own houses to
which they went for tea, and such restricted inter-
course, and kept to them. Ella's face was un-
known in the Parley's drawing-room where
Alice had a standing invitation, and played duets
with the musical Parley daughter. Bessie had
no visiting-list ; she became known only through
being seen in her own house on those occasions
when hospitality was returned. Mrs. Bounce
called the parties " working people off." There
was a depressing lack of spontaneity in these
entertainments. In this way Bessie secured
occasional invitations from her sister's friends
who did not see their way to excluding her.
Leah drew an even closer net round her friend-
ships. Ella said Leah never liked anyone under
thirty. Leah brought little grist to the social
mill, who might have brought the most. Old
school-friends didn't count ; all the Bounces
knew them by heart. Mrs. Bounce was disposed
to be uneasy at what she described to herself, in
want of a fairer definition, as secretiveness. She
carefully adopted a light manner over the ques-
tion of Leah's mysterious attachments. " You
must ask her to the house," she occasionally
hazarded, when some new name percolated to
the family, and Leah was looking happy. And

Leah would brightly assent, and somehow

the tea-party never took place, and the name re-
mained a name alone. Once, cornered, she had
introduced "her latest," as Alice, untroubled

107

FALSE GODDESSES

by emotions, smilingly said to the Bounces.
They had had tea in the garden, which Mrs.
Bounce regarded as a treat. It was owing to
this bribe that she imao-ined she had overcome
Leah's curious unwillingness. Of course it had
not been a success ; Leah could have told them
that. She was sixteen then, and loves were fra-
gile and needed incredibly careful handling. The
central figure in that episode had been a member
of the Dramatic Society's orchestra.

Miss Turner was a pale, passable girl of about
twenty-six. Leah admired her playing at re-
hearsal, and from the instrument to the human
agent behind was but a step. Doris Turner's
shortcomings of looks, dress, and savoir faire
had to be accepted, and, as the faint flame was
assiduously fanned, they became entirely sub-
merged. Miss Turner had no sense of humour,
but Leah, after slight hesitation, poising over
this new flower, decided that it would not match
her type ; and anyway, she herself had enough
for two ! Doris laughed in the right places seve-
ral times. The family was assembled in force,
and Leah introduced her friend with the shy
reverences of the lover. Mrs. Bounce and Alice
had " taken to " Miss Turner, and from the
moment she crossed the threshold, Leah's
ardour waned ; the bloom had been rubbed off
with the Bounce's vigorous kindly hands. Leah
had many failures. She closed it with sudden-
ness ; " tepped off," Ella called it.

Leah did not mean to have her divinities

io8

PLAY

popularized by the Bounces ; in any case they
were precarious enough ! She tried the ruse of
never mentioning the names of those with whom
she was, according to Ella, " an mieux." Ella
had been at the moment, at the feet of the
French mistress at the High School, and was
not making headway . Mademoiselle Flaubert
was a character, and spurned adoration. She
had a scathing tongue and treated her class like
dogs. Their ardour was in flames, but they
feared her more than God. Recognized
methods of ingratiation were universally aban-
doned. She got more work out of the class
than any other mistress. When Ella, faint with
homagre, laid her head aofainst her desk, Made-
moiselle dispassionately levered it up with a pen-
cil, continuing the lesson as she did so. Leah,
with a sarcastic half-smile, had entered the lists.
Within a fortnight. Mademoiselle Flaubert
kissed her behind the black-board. ... It had
been a strained fourteen days, and none of the
girls believed her.

From the provinces Ella sent many incoherent
letters and local papers, heavily marked where
her own name occurred.

Leah belittled the whole affair and was
acutely bored.

XI

Leah's life for the next six weeks was deter-

109

FALSE GODDESSES

mined by the intrusion of what she regarded as
an impertinently unimportant medium.

Mrs. Vernon, rustling in, begged somebody
to escort Diana to the Varsity where she was to
sing at an audition, and Leah, bored but polite,
volunteered. It would consume half the morn-
ing, anyhow !

She and Diana, the latter clasping a large
parcel, a thumbed roll of music, and a dis-
patch-case of leatherette, went to town by
Underground and bus, mainly in silence. Diana
leading, they passed through the swing-doors
and into a narrow passage, past the sergeant's
den ; two steps down, and pushing aside a
dusty portiere, they walked into gloom. Leah,
her duty over, creaked on to a dress-basket
and peered about her.

The stage was unexpectedly small, and the
whitewashed walls added to the chill discomfort ;
unwieldy "props" belonging to the current
turns w^ere pushed into corners. A lamp and a
velvet table, fringed with tarnished gold and a
medallion crusted with winking sequins, the
whole mounted on steel supports, obviously be-
longed to a juggler. A large bamboo pole sug-
gested some hurrying Japanese "family" of
acrobats ; there was even a boat turned on end
and a creel full of property fish. Leah managed
to discover by reference to the labels on the
dress-basket, that it was the paraphernalia of
The River Picnic Sketch Co. A loose-box in
the prompt corner, Diana told her, was the

no

PLAY

quick-change room. It had no roof ; the lime-
men could watch the girls and comedians in ad-
vanced stages of undress. . . .

Standing by a piano on the O.P. side was a
thick-set man with a fat sardonic face. His silk
hat was pushed far back ; he looked prosperous
and patronizing. An older man with thin hair
and nervous hands strummed with mechanical
brilliance, breaking off to refer from time to time
to manuscript sheets. Neither seemed to de-
sire to get to business.

The herded masses of applicants talked cheer-
fully among themselves. Leah wondered why
they did not approach the man who was ob-
viously the controller of their chances ; some
etiquette kept them from intrusion upon his ad-
vertised leisure. Nobody appeared to listen
when anyone sang. She heard him tell a girl
who was taking her music from the pianist that
she was " too short." And he had heard her
sing the whole song through in silence ; an en-
couragement that many had failed to obtain. It
was very confusing. ..." We'll let you know
in a few days. Have we your address?"
Leah thought, "I'm glad she's got the
job." . . .

She watched the singer push her way out,
looking composed. This happened several
times, and the girls would leave, colliding with
the incoming trickle of aspirants. It was, Leah

thought, rather like a musical At Home,

with an inexplicably macabre element. Devita-

III

FALSE GODDESSES

Used. . . . And yet they were young and well-
groomed ; better than herself, with shoddy ex-
ceptions. But while the address formula un-
evenly proceeded, she was curiously pleased for
the girls' sakes. She imagined the home-
coming ; their mothers waiting to hug and con-
gratulate . . . they interested her. She began
to listen to conversations. Many of them seemed
to know each other. " Weren't you at Daly's
the other morning?". . . "I don't believe
they took anybody." . . .

But they did not appear to be talking
" theatre " to any great extent. She was at a
loss to define the impression they conveyed ; a
business-like lassitude ; a species of negative
fearlessness in face of the rather awful ordeal ;
some philosophy that was too disorganized to
include jealousy of each other. . . .

A desire for enlightenment filled Leah. She
wanted to take the nearest girl by the arm and
wring something positive out of her. " Where
do you live.'*" "Who with?" " Do you want
to do big things on the stage? " And, " How
do you manage to dress so well ? ' ' And above
all, "What do you — all of you — feel about —
all this ? "

Two girls were leaving. One said : " I can't
wait any longer." "There's a voice-trial at
the Shaftesbury at 3 , coming ? ' ' answered the
other. "Yes. Lve got a card for it." And,
as they went out, Leah's matter-of-course appli-
cation of normal standards underwent a change.

112

PLAY

It now seemed impossible to believe that these
girls were factors in any home-life, even of such
a menage as Diana's. It was as though they
must have miraculously sprung, in a Minerva-
and-Zeuslike manner, "fully armed" from the
head of — say a theatrical agent. . . .

Ultimately a voice was raised in a ballad of
the my-garden-roses-you-and-love type ; Mar-
cus Ernst cut it short with a husky "who's
next ? ' '

The question seemed to Leah impossible of
solution. Mr. Ernst had no list of names ; but
the same laws which restrained the girls from
mobbing the manager before the audition began
applied to the way in which they came forward,
without vulgar, collective rushes, one by one,
quietly detaching themselves, like penitents to
the confessional. . . . Diana Vernon stepped
forward. She handed a letter to the impresario
which he casually opened and scanned. Mr.
Vernon had procured her her chance through his
firm. Mr. Cranbourne, of Cranbourne and
Leicester, Theatrical and Variety Agents, was,
through Vernon's secretarial capacity, at all
times available for the placing across lunch-tables
of relations and friends. The partners had done
business with Ernst in the past, were keeping
their eye on the producer, who might one day
institute an agency of his own in connection with
his ventures. The manager grinned, and shook
hands with Diana ; he wasted no time in giving
her a hearing. She had changed her frock and

113 H

FALSE GODDESSES

put on pink satin ballet shoes ; she was clasping
a large doll. Leah, craning to look, felt fiercely-
sorry for her. Poor little kid ! Mrs. Vernon
oug["ht to be ashamed of herself !

The pianist played a prelude. "One
chorus," commanded Diana.

It was a grotesquely sophisticated exhibition.
It seemed to Leah as if the soul of a departed
eye-to-business comedienne had managed to
insinuate itself into the body of a child, there,
backed by years of experience, coldly to exploit
its charm and appeal.

When Dolly-dear had been put to bed, and
the last line, " sleep sweetly till the morn " had
trebled to silence, the child walked composedly
over to the manager and conferred with him.
Then she returned to Leah. "Engaged, my
dear ! And now I must positively fly and
change." She ran off, occasionally gambolling
upon her toes. " Next," croaked Mr. Ernst,
and his eye fell gloomily upon Leah ; he had
seen her with Diana. Unnerved she stammered

It isn t me.

The cigar was removed with deliberation.
"Want a shop?" grunted Marcus.

"I? Oh— er"—
Can you sing then ? ' '

Here was something tangible.

" I yes. I hav'n't brought one though."

She was scared at the brusque way life was rush-
ing upon her, and of the guise in which it rushed.
Sing a scale then . ' '

114

PLAY

Leah complied. To herself her voice seemed
clear ; it appeared to fill the theatre for her after
its long rest. Marcus listened and stared with
Hebraic impassivity.

" All right, ni send you a call."
She thanked him with an inexplicable humble-
ness. And so, in spite of herself, began a new
epoch.

XII

Leah did not receive a call until the company
had been rehearsing a week. She never saw
Diana Vernon out walking now, she was re-
hearsing, her mother told Leah the morning
they met in the baker's shop. Mrs. Vernon
had been taking her daughter to and fro for a
week now, and was, in addition, in "servant
difficulties," she breathlessly explained to Leah.
" But I'm glad you two girls are to be there to-
gether, it'll be company for you. 'Never bin
on before ? 'Daresay you'll feel strange at first.
y , You won't see much of Baby though after the
I rehearsals are over, she's with the other child-
ren in the Bally. I tell you I sh'll be thankful
when she's over the licensing age ; it cuts into
my evenings something shocking turning out at
nine to fetch her, and her Daddy's too tired to
go after his work. Well — so long."

115

FALSE GODDESSES

When the call did come, Mrs. Bounce propped
It on the toast-rack, and Leah pounced upon it.
She was feeling hurt with the management for
keeping her out of the fun. . . It commanded
her attendance at 12.30, which seemed odd. She
never discovered whose mistake that was, but
when she reached the Hall, she found the
rehearsal in full swing.

When the scene had sorted itself in some
measure, one of the first persons she saw was
Adela Heathcote, a tall handsome girl whom she
had often met at Anne Sleath's house. They
had never taken to each other much. She had
studied at the Gower Dramatic School, and was
there considered a Shakespearean actress of pro-
mise. She was always given the be^st parts.
Her rather austere personality, and inability to
join in any fun, had imposed itself on the stu-
dents, who took everyone at their own valuation.
Her manner, when Leah pushed eagerly for-
ward, suggested that, as they were both in-
volved in calamity, they had better make the
best of it.

" Hul-lo ! What are you doing in this gal-
ley?" demanded Leah.

Adela Heathcote shrugged.

"Oh I wish to God they'd get on!" she
broke out, consulting her wrist-watch.

" Come on. Salmon's in season," suddenly
barked a voice from the stalls. Leah giggled.
"Once through," continued the voice, "and
then you can go to lunch."

116

PLAY

" Everybody back in an hour," shouted Mar-
cus, when the chorus, heartily accompanied, was
concluded. Thankfully the company pushed
out of the swing-doors.

Leah only identified two of the girls who had
attended the audition. The chorus boys, loung-
ing in from the bar outside, did not impress her,
with their hand-me-down suits and cheap hom-
burgs. She thought one of them awful ; he
talked with strident " naows " and "haows,"
possessed a brilliant fence of unconvincing teeth,
and looked as if he slept in his clothes. He was
in jovial conversation with two girls. She no-
ticed that in the matter of talk he seemed to be
doing all the work. The girls merely assented,
or asserted. She supposed that as they were all
earning together, the need for social blandish-
ment was over ? . . . He would break into
brays of laughter at the top of a voice that would
have done credit to a costermonger with a
barrow.

" What is it ? " Leah asked Adela.

" Fred Fillip. He plays headwaiter in the
Restaurant scene, and works a number with
Hall in the Carnival at the end. I saw them
rehearsing it yesterday ; it was rather stupid and
full of gags they'd copied from Tosti and
Vale — all that burlesque opera business. I
heard it years ago," said Miss Heathcote
wearily.

Leah looked at her curiously. Adela — " The
Heathcote" — had, she thought, rather "come

117

FALSE GODDESSES

on " since the old days. Viola and Olivia, and
The Second Mrs. Tanqueray would be all the
better for the experience !

The call next day was for 1 1 . At a quarter
past twelve Marcus "and suite" filed leisurely
into the stalls where they talked for twenty
minutes. In the interval between finishing one
cigar and lighting another, he tossed an " open-
ing chorus " to the company.

I can't hear a word they're singing. What
on earth's it all about.'*" said Leah, when the
show-girls came in to different music, nicely
marking their status. Apparently Marcus
shared her opinion, for he took the baton
from the conductor's desk, tapped, and the
girls checked, as though shot, in mid song.

" I want to hear this," he rouped. " Put
your copies away, it's more than time you all

knew it. Take it from me no, start again.

Give them the prelude INIorley."

'^ Hullo Audience, hullo!

" We're very pleased to see you here to-night,

" And we all hope that you

" Will find something bright and new

** And make many new pals

" From this garden of girls,

"Hullo Audience, hullo I

" With pleasure let us fill your cup

"And all he happy, jolly

" Put an end to ^nelancholy

" Lights up ! Lights up ! "

Tap, tap, tap, tap. " Who's singing ' We're
very pleased to see you here to-night ? "

ii8

PLAY

Silence.

"It's 'We're very pleased — pause — to
see you,' and so on. Accentuate the * Hullo
Audience ' in the first line ; make it bright.
Hullo audience, hullo ! ! ! and so on."

They made another start. He stopped them.
Some of you are hanging on to the ' lights
up' too much. Don't sing ' Li-ii-ii-ghts up.'
This isn't Grand Opera. It's ' Lights up,
lights — pause — up ' ! ! ! shout it, don't sing it.
Remember that. Again." He turned away.
When the company, working now, had con-
cluded, there was another wait while the discus-
sion continued. At length ; " Miss Marston.
Isn't she here ? What.'*"

A girl with a dead-white skin, who had been
deep in conversation with one of the comedians
in a dark corner, got slowly up and came down-
stage. "Sorry," she said smiling. "What
are we doing ? ' '

" Just run through your number. Miss Mars-
ton," the manager smiled affably. "What's
the first one ? ' '

Little Miss Modiste,' " she answered in-
differently.

" Just walk it, will you ? You come on from
the back right on the opening chorus. We'll
have the doors up to-morrow. Now. You say
' Good morning. Sir,' to the Dude, ' Can I sell

you a chapeau .-* ' and Bentley where the

devil's Bentley? Oh, for God's sake old

chap 1 You say ' No, Miss, but let me be your

119

FALSE GODDESSES

chap, oh ! ' see? Now. Stand by. Clear off
boys. All in your places for this number.
Now, er — lights up lights up," he muttered
rapidly. Morley played the prelude, and Miss
Marston strolled down-stage, hands clasped
under her chin, her eyes on the ground. She
was frowning with thought and humming her
prelude. She sang under her breath, to save
her voice, the chorus of mannequins as they
would on the first night. The number itself had
a catchy refrain and was full of innuendoes.
Marcus Ernst knew his Varsity. Each chorus
concluded :

" But then I'm so modiste
I'm a model sort of girl ! "

and the whole concluded with a hat parade.

At the command, the girls began to pass
across to the refrain. Tap, tap. "Stop it, Mor-
ley. That won't do ; this is a hat parade, not a
funeral," he shouted venomously. "Take it

separately. Miss you start and when

you get here ," he indicated the centre of

the stage * ' stop and turn your head half

round, then walk off. When I say next. Miss

you follow on at once. Keep it up.

Keep it bright."

" Miss " wearing a black velvet jockey-
cap, swayed affectedly across, and vanished into
the wings.

" Next ! ! ! " Miss Heathcote followed on.
She moved well, passing the ordeal unmolested.

120

PLAY

The men were gathered upstage smoking. In
one of the rests, Leah noticed a massive figure
leaning against the piano. Idly she smiled
at him. He instantly came over to her
chair.

"Hullo, Fairy!"

"I'm so bored," said Leah. "Come and
amuse me." She was enjoying herself. " This
show seems frightful rot, doesn't it ? " she added.

Wayne Pritchard was playing heavy lead ;
she could not know that he was a personal friend
of the management. She treated him as she
might any port-in-storm derelict introduced at a
party.

He smiled affectionately. The girl attracted
him ; so did her friend " the tall girl."

But Miss Heathcote ignored everyone.

The jealousy of one of the show-girls became
aroused against Leah. In the pause. Miss
Baby Shayle would canvass her fellow syrens,
endeavouring to inflame them against ' ' the
damned new girl." She and Leah had taken an
instant and instinctive dislike to each other.
Leah kept this to herself. But her adaptability
was strained to breaking-point. Adela didn't
seem anxious for anyone's regard ; but then even
here she created a kind of atmospheric awe
around herself. Leah put it down to her height.
She knew she herself could never win out ' ' in
that way." The social side was obviously her
only chance. Over the matter of Miss Shayle
and her emotions Leah found that her friends

121

FALSE GODDESSES

were inclined to "take her part. ' ' She was rather
flattered over the whole business, although it
was not pleasant to be cunningly shovelled out
of place during the ensembles. And she did it
all under the manager's eye ; Leah even trem-
bled for her ! If Mr. Ernst noticed local scuf-
fles, he said nothing that directly implicated Miss
Shayle. . . .

No one jostled Adela ; Ernst gave her three
lines in the hat-shop scene. These were cut out
at the dress-rehearsal.

Leah discovered that her friends held no brief
for her. She seemed, if anything, to be losing
ground with them every day. Each morning
brought them all nearer the time when they
would be parcelled out in lots, regardless, and
camped in dressing-rooms. It was, Leah
thought, all right so far ; but she had already
sensed the cold-shouldering power possessed by
the girls. A power of combination used, appa-
rently, in this direction alone, and which, if di-
rected toward their common good, might con-
ceivably place the management practically at
their mercy. But it seemed to cut both ways.
Trouble brought out their all of sympathy and
caustic advice ; even their money. She thought
it a pity you had to be in extremis, so to speak,
before you could hope to get into touch with
your neighbour in the line . . . but then on the
other hand nothing was permanent or rooted . . .
A given time for lunch, then back on the
stroke to idle for an hour or more. Rehearsal

122

PLAY

till five o'clock, and the children, though never
called for to rehearse, must remain. They had
been patiently sitting on the stage since eleven
that morning, and were dismissed with the rest
of the company, having done nothing all day.
None of the girls attempted to " mother " them,
the feeling seemed to be that their presence im-
plied emancipation. Leah, hesitating over the
prettiest of the " poor babes," preferred on the
whole to side with prevailing opinion. And
they were really rather awful little beasts ! If
you spoke at all, it must be on an equality. They
were perfectly capable of keeping their end
up !

Diana, Leah noticed, fitted completely into
the children's scheme. So far, she herself had
barely spoken to the child. Diana had given
her a critical little nod of encouragement at the
first rehearsal, and had then become absorbed in
discussion with her set. At other times she sat
with her little fur coat thrown round her shoul-
ders, and a suggestion of complacent ennui on
her face ; like a leading-lady — seen through the
large end of an opera-glass. . . .

Mr. Ernst seemed incapable of preparing a
definite plan of work from day to day. He
tapped capriciously for whatever scene or num-
ber that occurred to him. Daily his company
mustered in force from distant suburban homes,
to curse, and watch the chorus, who filled any
hiatus created by the principals.

As the revue shaped better, and the time to

123

FALSE GODDESSES

within a week of production arrived, rests grew
shorter ; in the heat of last-minute inventions
Mr. Ernst discarded hat, collar, coat and waist-
coat. The choruses gained incisiveness, the
dancers whirled, and were barely finished than
" salmon " was laconically commanded.

Since the day of Leah's summons, the accom-
panying business had been constructed. Now
the chorus wheeled on covered barrows dotted
v/ith little saucers in which lumps of pink cotton-
wool would be placed on the first night. They
even let down a " street " backcloth.

Suddenly in the middle of the scene, " I don't
like that. Cut it out." The barrows were
wheeled away while Mr. Ernst planned a substi-
tute. The ballet fared no better. " It'll have to
come out," he said intermittently right up to the
dress-rehearsal.

Diana, in face of impending calamity, unbent
to Leah as they went home.

XIII

Bobby Dainton, concealing the fact that he had
been at Eton and Oxford, saw, in excursions
into revue, an escape from the dullness of his
country home. Everything amused him. He
entered Leah's life at her elbow with a whiskey-
and-soda, cakes, and entreaty in his eye. She
had not noticed him before. He had strolled

124

PLAY

into the Varsity at the last moment. He had
seen the prehminary notice of the show in the
Era, and, bored with the lunch offered him at
the club, buttonholed Ernst even as he was
stamping at his chorus. Ernst had engaged
him at once, ' on his face,' and his latest recruit
had rapidly assimilated the arrears of work, per-
forming the movements with a bright grin and
a crisp sense of time.

Soon Leah Lawrence was conscious that he
was in love with her ; he guarded her from un-
specified harms with every reverence of his
nature. Sweets and cigarettes fell out of her
dispatch-case. . . .

This was a new, curious, and slightly repel-
lent experience. She was fond of Bobby and
accepted the situation, of course ; to the seeker
after knowledge he must offer up his best. Leah
knew and cared nothing about the ' manage-
ment ' of men of which she heard so much and
read more. She snubbed and encouraged him
turn about. Even the heavily over-womaned
atmosphere of Mimosa Road had never
quenched her partizanship of her own sex.
Familiarity had bred preference. Bobby was
an innovation. She had no system, let him kiss
her whenever he wished. She saluted this
necessity who exacted such tokens from others.
Luckily she had fallen into good hands. Dainton
was a gentleman. She never mentioned his
name in the Bounces' home.

He grew daily more depressed and self-

125

FALSE GODDESSES

abasing. From the day he joined the company-
he had spoken openly of his feeling for herself.
Leah thought it all very interesting and rather
pathetic. She was uneasy for his sake, much in
the way his own mother might have been, that
he should have fallen into the power — for that
was what it amounted to — of such a specimen
as herself. In the words of the lower classes,
they had ' ' picked each other up " . . . poor
Mrs. Dainton ! . . . She experienced little of
the fabled joy of being loved ; rather she felt a
faint contempt for Bobby for being so easily
'taken in.' And he made her feel a fool. Leah
had grown accustomed to doing the spade-work
of love. Bobby, glorying in it, had taken her
employment from her ! But she soon learnt to
fall into step with the new regime. There were
spaces in which she was content to relax in the
peace of it. . . .

As rehearsals grew later, and regular meals
impossible, tea-parties were formed on the stage
and would consume on baskets, boxes, and even
on chairs, food fetched from an Italian restaurant
opposite the hall by Bobby Dainton. Leah and
Adela had their own coterie. Even Diana had
become entangled in an affair with a chorus boy,
and it was never safe to look in suddenly at any
dark corner. The stairs, Dainton said, were
now surprise-packets, and places to be avoided
by the strait-laced.

Leah would occasionally accompany him out
to lunch as a reward for 'services rendered.'

126

PLAY

There was always Pritchard to fall back upon,
in case Bobby began to be a bore. She and
Bobby came in for plenty of chaff. "Now
you're married we wish you joy," sang one of
the girls, as Miss Lawrence and Mr. Dainton
turned down the alley to the stage-door after
lunch. The singer had come out of the Ladies'
Saloon Bar of the public-house opposite with
one of the comedians.

Leah wrote at this time to Anne Sleath :

"Congratulate we Anne! I've got a job in a
chronic revue called 'Lights Up.' Don't have a
jit I I nearly did when I got it I They say its
booked at the Varsity for several weeks certain,
and then it'll do a tour of tJie suburban halls, any-
way it'll be in town for ages before going to the
provinces. I sha'n't go if it does unless they give
me a part. They are an awfully jolly lot and %ve
have huge fun. Adela Heathcote is in the
chorus. I was simply floored to see her in a
show like this ! "

and so on.

Anne replied :

" Many congrats old child on securing a job..
It sounds all right. Life being a dreary desert
as we have so often agreed, I have been doing
some film work at the Middlesex studio down at
Kingston, a ghastly journey. I made myself
affable {as is my way) to the producer, an old bird
with a roving eye who chirrups to the name of
Petley, and lo ! he did give me a part. I have
just had a frantic search for your letter but ran
it to earth in the sink where I always look when
in despair."

127

FALSE GODDESSES

Three days before production, the question
of a new title for the revue was mooted, but
"Lights Up" was finally adhered to. Some
friend of Mr. Ernst's suggested that it would be

rather a novelty ' ' if the opening chorus were
sung in darkness until the words "lights up,"
when the scene could be legitimately illumined
in one dazzling fiash. The idea was adopted.

" I should call it ' The Morals of Marcus
giggled Leah.

" OR, ' The Importance of Being Ernst,' "
said Bobby Dainton.

The chorus was despatched to the costum-
iere's.

" You'd better be undressing while I fit
these," said Madame, taking trails of filmy
mauve from the attendants. The girls were
fawningly enthusiastic.

' ' I hope we have lots of time to change ; the
restaurant scene comes bang after the bally an'
we're all on in it for the tablo, my god ! " Then
Miss Baby Shayle caught sight of Miss
Lawrence and stopped smiling.

" Oh I say, take me next dear, I shall nayver
get to the Corinth in time an' I bin fined twice
this week. Don't these rehearsals make you
sick?" The auburn-haired girl, working in a
musical-comedy at another theatre, would have
barely worked out her notice before the Varsity
premiere. The girls were posed in the positions
they w^ould take up when the curtain rose.
Madame had costumed former productions for

128

PLAY

Mr. Ernst ; he was expected any minute. The
fashionable figures suggested to Leah the half-
unconscious attitudinizing o£ dinner-guests
before the gong booms a release. The salon,
large, and cherishing an effect of home-like
informality, heightened the resemblance. The
chorus stood, carefully, for three quarters of an
hour before the manager appeared. The smoke
of his cigar permeated the room ; as it was not,
strictly speaking, a rehearsal, he did not remove
his hat. He appraised the sniggering girls with
a sort of saturnine content while the modiste
palpitated round him, or darted forward to push
some girl into position. When Madame spoke,
Mr. Ernst did not actually refuse to listen . . .
he even bent his head to her level to have a
remark repeated.

Leah's frock for the hat-shop scene dis-
appointed her. Somehow, the best hats and
frocks had been picked before she was ready.
She supposed the others had some sort of an
understanding with the black-gowned, golden-
haired elderly head of the establishment. They
certainly exchanged business-like reminiscences,
obscure references. . . .

Madame had offered Leah no choice of gown
or hat. She gave Leah the impression of find-
ing her personally uninteresting. Miss Shayle,
on the other hand, and two of her friends, had
had, apparently, not only the pick, but had
quite privately taken gowns from someone else.
It was an educative lesson in chicanery. And

129 I

FALSE GODDESSES

there was not a suspicion of any unpleasantness
from the victims.

In her singularly tasteless costume — for the
house was, in its private moments, a reliable
and modish one — Leah did not imagine she
would shine. In her hat, an abomination in
orange-coloured tulle which clashed to excruci-
ation with her pale hair, she thought she had
never looked plainer. Now in Miss Shayle's
triumphant model of silver gauze and black
cock's feathers, she had looked singularly strik-
ing. She had tried it on furtively while the
owner was undressing in one of the little
cubicles. . . .

The fitting of the costumes for the ' ' Beautiful
Night of Stars" number was soon disposed of.
Economy had been exercised in their design and
execution. As the song was sung in twilight,
Madame had agreed that the ' practicable ' moon
would ' ' soften ' ' the effect of what was little
more than fish-netting cut into jags. It
didn't matter even if they fitted, if they were
long enough to cover the carnival dresses.

When Miss Shayle saw Miss Lawrence as a
French clown, she raised her eyebrows at a
friend, and quite unobtrusively said " Christ ! "
Then she drew the rest round her to comment
on her own garment. Leah turned white ; but
then they had been rehearsing since ten-thirty
that morning, and Marcus had turned up in time,
and it was now six-thirty. The assistants were
.shrouding the smaller show-rooms.

130

PLAY

Her legs were dully aching ; all the same it
was fun, terrific fun, she told herself. She sat
down, and looked round for Adela Heathcote.
Authority had gowned her friend with instinctive
regard to the impression she created. Catch
Adela being made a fool of in a scarlet curly wig
with a cameo gibus secured by an elastic ! Leah,
catching sight of her peaked little face in
a pier-glass, so garnished, exploded in a
laugh.

Then final rehearsals with scenery still left to
the imagination, although one or two properties
began to creep in. Carpenters and electricians
hammered ceaselessly ; they had survived many
such melees, had seen many reputations gained
and lost. Half the company was suffering with
feverish colds which bred on the draughty stage.
One or two, including Leah, lost their voices,
and were reduced to moving their lips whenever
the manager's beady eye turned in their direc-
tion.

XIV

The dress-rehearsal was perforce held at mid-
night owing to the performance at the Varsity.
Adela and Leah ran up many flights, which
smelt of pipeclay, tobacco, and drains, to the
dressing-room. All the best places had been

131

FALSE GODDESSES

taken, and they found the usual dearth of hooks,
which were loaded with the revue changes, and
lack of looking-glasses, and chairs. Most of the
chorus had brought their own glasses, which
they propped upon open make-up boxes.

They insinuated themselves into half their fair
share of space on the long wooden ledge, to be
greeted with a " Here move along you ! You
can't expect to have the whole place to your-
self," and " My God ! don't upset my candle,"
from their kimono-clad neighbours.

The room itself, which could comfortably have
seated twelve, now contained twenty girls, a
dress-basket, the changes, and piles of outdoor
clothes.

In the rooms below, the men roared comic
song's.

As the evening wore on, the language in
Leah's room became a thing to marvel at, and
the unventilated atmosphere thick with odours
of humanity and greasepaint. Chaos prevailed.
Clothes and tempers were lost. The milliner
had sent two assistants, who quietly sorted hats
and frocks lifted out of the hamper. The dresser
churned her way round the room trying to
satisfy five vociferations at once.

" I don't think I can stand this," muttered
Leah to herself, running about to find an inch of
space in which to put her coat, hat and furs.
Even the wash-basin in the corner was full of
gloves and shoes.

She made up standing, dodging her head from

132

PLAY

side to side in the hope of getting a glimpse of
herself in the glass which was squarely blocked
by two girls in camisoles and knickers. Thank-
fully she descended in the futile creation and
tulle hat, which she had placed at a daring cant.
She thought that she resembled a kitchen-maid
on Hampstead Heath, but she was com-
plimented by Pritchard and petted by Bobby
Dainton, miserably jealous.

Pritchard was attired as a Naval Officer, and
looked well, in a passe way. Bobby was an
attache from some unspecified Wardour-street
Principality. She looked at them amazed.

What on earth have they got on uniform
for? " she enquired of Adela.

Why er the restaurant scene I

suppose."

Owing to the way in which the scenes had
been rehearsed, Leah had formed no connected
idea of what, if anything, the show was about.
She spent that night in a perpetual state of
astonishment at episodes she did not seem to
have seen before. The scenery added to the
strangeness, as did the numbers, now tentatively
rendered by the full orchestra, who, accustomed
■to blaring chorus-songs, made at first a singular
hash of the witching nuances of the ballet music.
They dragged, they hung fire, with sonorous
unearthly brays from the trombone. Leah
shivered with feeble laughter.

" Will I do ? " she said, giving both hands to
Pritchard.

^33

PALSE GODDESSES

" Very nice, little girl." He gave her a
shop-soiled ogle.

If the pauses between numbers had been long
at rehearsals, to-night they were endless. No
one seemed to expect to begin. The chorus
passed in informal review before Mr. Ernst,
who was in the stalls with sample posters await-
ing selection for the embellishment of the
Varsity's dingy exterior.

Leah had been the first down. Even the icy
stage was preferable to the girls upstairs, and
anyway it wasn't quite so bad now the lights
were on. They would faintly warm the place in
time. Mr. Ernst passed her without comment,
he had seemed to admire Miss Heathcote,
although he did not commit himself. He bandied
a joke with Miss Shayle, and the others got off
with monosyllables or grins when they made
their tardy and brilliant appearance. Leah
noticed it all, she had an idea that mental notes
of these graded receptions might help her
to comprehend everybody's standing in the
theatre.

The full lighting effects were not attempted.
Leah and Adela struggled with incipient in-
fluenza. Mentally they were rapidly exhausted ;
it was excitement alone that saved Leah from
physical collapse.

You do look charming to-night ' ' murmured
Bobby Dainton.

"Not in this hat!" answered Leah,

flipping it at him on its elastic. When it broke,

134

PLAY

she leapt upstairs and mended it with a safety-
pin looted from somebody's place.

She ran into the arms of Pritchard, who was
waiting- for her at the foot of the stairs.

" Ah, at last ! " he whispered. " Give me a
kiss little girl."

" But why.f* " said Leah, interested.

"Oh of course don't if you don't

want to." He fell back a step, annoyed.

"Oh well ," Leah kissed him

gingerly while he said something she could
not catch. She did not wish to be disoblig-
ing, and the old beast was only an old fool !
She danced off in search of further amuse-
ment. . . .

At two o'clock, an unostentatious move was
made to the bar where hot drinks were served
at the expense of the management. They had
left off at the ballet, the girls flitted in in chiffon,
bare-legged and in dressing-slippers. The
children were sitting with their mothers in the
stalls. Mrs. Vernon and Diana were having a
picnic in the third row ; the Japanese hamper was
full of paper bags, and they drank in turns out
of a thermos. The mothers, Leah noticed as
she joined the queue at the bar, had wrapped up
their kiddies, and the sleepy ones bunched inert
against their shoulders, their bright eyes peep-
ing open, fighting against sleep. . . .

Pritchard advanced upon Miss Lawrence
bearing steaming comfort ; he collided with
Dainton, who hesitated, and withdrew.

135

FALSE GODDESSES

" I was looking for you." He handed the
cup.

"Oh, thanks so much. Hi! Bob! don't
desert your pard ! ' '

At four o'clock, the rehearsal drew to a
scumbled close, and the company was faced with
the problem of getting home. The management
was obliged to pay for taxis, and there was an
universal husding into clothes. Garments mis-
laid at the beginning of the evening now were
definitely lost. Their owners were too light-
headed with fatigue to care. Sketchily dressed,
with make-up indifferently wiped off, they
emerged into the grey, unearthly stillness of the
Strand. It possessed a dignity entirely alien to
its working hours when seen in the half-light of
the coming dawn. . . .

Leah Lawrence and Miss Heathcote, the
former in shoes but no stockings, and the latter
revealing the absence of a blouse under her fur
coat, anxiously scanned the thoroughfare for a
conveyance. The pavement and road was fill-
ing with groups similarly occupied. One of the
show-girls was reclining in a car at the wheel of
which crouched a male figure muffled to the ears.
Miss Vincent said : " How many can we take ? "
to the driver. Kicking aside rugs, he stood.
" Where's everybody going? " The girl leant
over the side. "Anyone for Piccadilly? Or
Knightsbridge ? We're going to Golder's
Green."

They sorted claims. Miss Heathcote lived

136

PLAY

with her mother at Swiss Cottag-e, Leah
arranged to be dropped at the Piccadilly Tube.
It was past five now ; she thought the trains
would be running in another hour, anyway an
immediate rest, even of five minutes or so, was
the immediate necessity. They climbed in ; two
girls and a man hung on to the doors ; three more
found room inside. Half asleep, Leah found
energy to chuckle at the spectacle they pre-
sented, had there been eyes to see. Six painted
and dishevelled females racing, shameless,
through the silence.

In the east appeared a faint, chill primrose
light. . . .

XV

The management, Leah realised at lunch time
next day, had omitted to inform the company at
what hour they were expected at the hall, Mrs.
Vernon and Diana were out shopping when,
lunch over, she went next door for mformation.
The maid-of-all-work offered little enlighten-
ment beyond the tentative remark that 'igh tea
-was at ar parse six. Leah approached Mrs.
Bounce upon the sul^ject of a similar meal for
herself ; and the latter sighed faintly, and said
she would see what could be done, and Leah
mustn't mind not having soup, and perhaps they
could make a better arrangement later. She
was a firm stickler for sane meals.

FALSE GODDESSES

The Daily Mail was not much help.

THE VARSITY.— Every evening at 8. TO-
NIGHT Mr. Marcus Ernst presents an
orig-inal rdvue entitled " Lig^hts Up ! " with
Miss Tabsie Marston, Wayne Pritchard,
Chinley Wag-g-er, Varsity Kids, and a host
of pretty g'irls.

Preceded by varieties.

Leah's tea-supper, a species of unhappy-
marriage of unusual elements, seemed to choke
her. At half-past six she was in the Strand.
She did not so much hurry as hurl herself along.
Passing the yawning waste that was the Tivoli,
she speculated upon the turns that once had
lived, and dressed and had their being and their
day where now debris was heaped . . . surely
the place must still possess vital vibrations ? . . .
She thought that, should a private dwelling ever
arise over the spot, comedians would haunt it,
be discovered in the drawing-room, or in the
bed-rooms, making up. . . .

The Varsity was now bright with posters of
turns ; but the revue dominated the whole.
Unexpected crannies were hung with framed
photographs of the principals as they had
appeared in past 'successes.' She stood and
counted the turns. Five, and an overture
(Zampa). She had no idea how long the revue
would play ; they had never had a non-stop run
through for timing.

As she was turning away, Bobby Dainton
came out of a tea-shop. He saw her, and
hurried joyously forward. He exclaimed :

138

PLAY

"You dear! Have you had somethinsf to
eatr

When ought we to be in ? "

*' Oceans of time. I shouldn't think you
wanted to get in a second before you need ! "
They strolled along, Leah was quieter now, but
the measured pace he set was agonizing. She
was a mass of excitement and sickly appre-
hensions. But Bobby soothed her, as he had
never yet failed to do.

"Well, what do you think of our posters?
Modest, what? Shrinking litde E ! "

" Rotten, except that one of Miss Marston
with the futurist design of hats all round her.
The others are so full of detail that they convey
nothing to one. One wants a poster one can
take in at once from the bus."

I fancy our Hebrew fairy doesn't mean to
keep the one you like. I heard him tell Morley
that it was too quiet, but he loved the one of the
waiter kissing the girl — you know, the one with
' A Bird in Hand ' written underneath ; he
means to have it enlarged to cover the whole
front."

" Of course. He would."

A shower swept the pavement in a silvery
gust. Stimulating queues now waited, and there
were nudges and comments as they turned down
the passage. A piano-organ was playing over
the way.

'"'' Tinkle tinkle tinkle h-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r (arpeggio),
'^ Chunk chimk, Click! (tune changed).

FALSE GODDESSES

The dressing-room now looked tidier, the
dress-basket was gone, and a long table had been
brought and placed down the centre by the
sergeant, who also sent up two chairs for Miss
Heathcote and Miss Lawrence. He had elected
to make them his favourites from the first re-
hearsal. The good-natured old dresser presently
came in with a cheery greeting. Miss Heathcote
was the next arrival. Mrs. Trumpet rambled

down the passage with a " Well, you won't

want me just yet lydies."

"How much does one give her?" Leah
lowered her voice.

"Sixpence on Saturday night, and a dis-
graceful imposition too."

" I thought it was a shilling? "

The other laughed contemptuously. "So it

is in a decent theatre. You don't want to

give her more than the others, do you? "

Leah hastily disclaimed, and changed the
subject.

How much d'you think she gets a week,
poor old thing ? ' '

"As little as they dare offer. They save her
salary out of us. We practically pay her ; they
count on that."

" And what am I to give John ? "

" What you like ; he's been jolly decent to us.
Half-a-crown'd do ; I shall give him five
shillings when I leave."

A modified repetition of the previous night
began.

140

PLAY

Wiser now, Leah came on to the stage in a
thick dressing-gown. Adela, who had worn
hers at the dress-rehearsal, discarded it minutely
to examine herself in the full-length mirror near
the scene-dock. A bearded foreigner stood
talking to Morley, the pianist. Leah was con-
scious that he was staring ; he had fixed his eyes
on Miss Heathcote, and was muttering to his
companion. Later, John, the sergeant, handed
her a card. " It's an invite Miss," said John,
husky and grinning. Miss Heathcote glanced
at the card without em.otion. She retained it
listlessly.

" I told 'im you was engaged for this evenin'.
Don't you go Miss. I seen too much o' that
there card business," said John. He was think-
ing of his children at home.

"Thank you John," said Miss Heathcote,
quietly.

"Thank you Miss." The sergeant de-
parted with a world of kindliness in his sunken
eyes.

" I say Miss Heathcote, you're doing well !
'First evening of production, too. Engliss
womarn, you lov' me, yes ? no ? " hissed Bobby.
"But honestly," his eyes fell on Leah, "if
there's any nonsense at any time I can
always be there to see you home — or any-
thing."

"'Oh, help ! Bobby ! She's not Amelia Sed-
ley ! " Leah was impatient.

"No, no, I know. But — well you never

141

FALSE GODDESSES

know. Oh I don't mean to suggest that there's
any chance of a melodrama that you can't
manage for yourselves. These chaps always
know who they can try it on with, and if the
girls go out to supper with the first sweep that
takes a fancy to her from the front, they've only
themselves to blame."

Now the show was working in harness with
the regular bill, quiet was imperative, and Mr.
Ernst leashed until "Revue" flashed out on
each side of the stage, and the power which he
had enjoyed for weeks, and which was now

wrested from him by a famous shire

comedian, became his once more. But at last
the comedian walked off, the glittering curtains
clashed to, his front-cloth was rolled up, and
then pandemonium .

A shouting cursing crowd of scene-shifters
unrolling the carpet, stands of hats rushed on,
the dainty chorus straggling down to get horribly
in the way, to be pushed by brawny hands intent
on urgent business, to trip over weights, and get
nearly crushed by the rapidly-descending back-
cloth, with its flimsy doors.

In a quarter of a minute Mr. Ernst dismissed
several limelight men and a scene-shifter, in a
torrent of abuse. They were stolidly indifferent.
Order was at length restored, the hands cleared
off, and, dulled by the thickness of the curtains,
came the well-known music, of which the now
confident orchestra rendered a selection of the
most catchy numbers. With a word of encou-

142

PLAY

ragement, the recovering Mr. Ernst passed out
to his box.

The girls scurried to places ; " R-rrrumble,"
went the drums, out went the lights, the curtains
swished apart, and the music burst at them,
drowning their voices

XVI

Upstairs, in stifling number 13, began a cheer-
ful uproar of screams, laughter and criticism as
the girls prepared for home.

The door suddenly burst open, and the last
arrival, a futurist pierrot, struck an attitude.

"Girls," she screeched, "there's a call for
to-morrow II" She smote them to silence. At
last: "What bloody sauce," snarled Miss
Shayle, unpinning a glittering band from her
silvery curls. Then the chorus of comment was
loosed.

" Damn him ! P'raps he'd like us to sleep in
the blasted place to be ready sooner in the morn-
ing." The slender-legged speaker smeared her
pretty face to commonplace with grease from an
enormous tin. Miss Shayle capped it with a
remark that brought Miss Heathcote to her feet,
composed and icy.

" Miss Shayle, we don't want that kind of
thing here or I shall speak to Mr. Ernst." It
was the misguided superb. Into her fine voice

143

FALSE GODDESSES

she had thrown the additional weight of past
elocution lessons. The girls exchanged looks in
which genuine bewilderment gave place to scorn.
This was unheard of. Several of them had
worked together under Ernst's management be-
fore, while the new recruits were, on the whole,
acceptable. There had been, certainly, one or
two girls who were "queer," but they had
never gone down from the front, or with the
management, and had generally got their no-
tices, thank God !

When she could speak. Miss Shayle said :
" Oh, my Lord, girls, say your prayers, there's
a lady among us. She'll report you all to the
man-agement ! " Turning away, she remarked
to the girl sitting next her : " Did you hear
that?" Miss Vincent did not answer. She
rose, grabbed her purse and gloves, blew out
her candle, called " good-night s' Trumpet," to
the dresser, who smiled and responded. She
rushed to the door, jarring the table and upset-
ting Leah's glass which crashed to the floor and
broke, with a careless "sorry kid!" then
slapped a friend upon the back with an
affectionate "Bye-bye, bitch!" and slammed
out.

Leah picked up the glass ; she was trembling.
The girls associated her with Miss Heathcote ;
she thought Adela had gone rather far. . . .

She herself had lost ground with Miss Vin-
cent, the motor episode had not been the thin
end of the wedge after all. Miss Vincent didn't

144

PLAY

seem to recognize her ; the ' ' kid ' ' was a con-,
cession to accident. . . . Leah, catching some-
one's eye, smiled timidly. She felt publicly dis-
graced by Adela's action. . . .

Once outside the room, she almost clung to
her. They were both pariahs. . . .

In the congested passage to the street they
found Bobby Dainton, who had performed a
quick-change in order not to miss Leah Law-
rence as she came out.

" Oh here, save me," she muttered to Miss
Heathcote. She wished to talk over the even-
ing with Adela. " I don't want to go home
with Bobby, he always insists on coming miles
out of his way — I let him once, after rehearsal."

" You've only yourself to thank. You have
encouraged him. You let him kiss you."

Apparently Adela was not too upset to meddle
in other people's affairs !

" Oh everyone kisses Bobby! besides, he's
not the only one ! "

Adela answered conclusively : " He's not like
the rest. You don't want to make him un-
happy."

"I'm sure I don't know what he expects ! I
think I've been jolly nice to him ! " Leah blew
a kiss to John, who beamed and saluted.
" There he is waiting. Oh — do something ! "

" Say you're coming home to supper with
me," suggested the other contemptuously.

The trio walked to the station ; Miss Heath-
cote conscientiously gave her invitation. Mr.

145 K

FALSE GODDESSES

Dainton found himself deserted on a wind-swept
pavement.

In the lift, and on the platform, Adela was
unapproachable .

' ' What did you do about that supper-card ?, "
Leah tried.

" Tore it up, of course."

The train roared out of its black circle that
was the tunnel, creating steady gusts of cool yet
stuffy wind.

But you kept it when John gave it you? "

" You can't offend them." She spoke autho-
ritatively.

Leah thought she was becoming as incompre-
hensible as the others.

It left her feeling singularly deserted and
childish. Dear old Bobby !

Leah was allowed breakfast in bed the follow- |
ing morning. Bessie, a little crustily, brought it
up together with the Daily Mirror and a letter i|
which arrived by a messenger-boy. Bobby of
course ; wailing over last night. But it was, she |j
realised, her first love-letter.

The eleven o'clock call dragged on, lunchless,
till three. The company was apathetic, and the
work, now the show was launched, lacked point.
The jokes (" give it out, Wagger, you'll get a j
laugh on that ! ") seemed shamelessly stale. No
one seemed to know if the show was a success.
Bobby told Leah he thought it was, as the hu-
mour was written in, apparently, while the
Censor slept. Leah said she "didn't under-

146

PLAY

stand it," Miss Heathcote said she tried not to
listen. Even Mr. Dainton professed himself
" floored " by the very local allusions which the
audience simply "ate," and which provoked
knowing laughs all over the house.

During the progress of the first week, the
chorus settled down in the dressing-rooms, and
personalities began to emerge. Leah attempted
amenities which were stared down, or went un-
heard in the chatter. Little Miss Dane had at-
tracted her ; she was pretty and quiet looking,
but Miss Dane, she soon discovered, initiated
the stories with Miss Ellis, the oldest woman in
the room. They capped each other, once they
began. Leah tried not to listen, but it was al-
ways possible to catch the scabrous beginnings ;
and the trying to elucidate them for oneself was
the worst of all. She became morbid in the
oversexed atmosphere. She began to wait for
the stories and enjoy them ; would have bet-
tered them to win approval, only she knew none.

Treasury was paid after the Saturday matinee,

and the carnival revellers gathered laughingly

outside the loose-box. " No wonder they pay

us in the change-room," said Baby Shayle,

. rather wittily.

Leah entered in her turn. Mr. Ernst gave
her her salary and her notice. " I shall have to
cut down the chorus " . . . Oh well ! she might
have known it ! Life gave her no time to test
its possibilities ; it offered disagreeable preli-
minaries and then turned her off. She believed

147

FALSE GODDESSES

there was a quality about her that attracted mis-
fortune. . . .

She returned to the dressing-room, clasping
her envelope, and it seemed desirable, the girls,
in their crisp frocks, like very old friends. . . .

Bobby received the news in stunned disgust.
Leah was too upset to be flattered. Adela,
pressed, gave aloof sympathy. But there had
been other surprises and indignations. Even
some of the principals were weeded out. They
were wonderfully soon forgotten in the shifting
and shuffling. New scenes, songs, and business
were constantly introduced. The Hat-shop
scene was transferred to the end, and the curtain
now rose on the carnival. Rehearsals were held
every morning.

" If this show had a plot," said Bobby, " it
wouldn't be possible to turn it upside-down, and
for it not to be a penny the worse." "They
seem to make a virtue of its being all about no-
thing," answered Leah. "Think of the cri-
tiques you read after some new revue ! * This
bright little show possesses frankly but the
frailest of plots, which in later scenes is entirely
lost sight of ; but it is the medium for much excel-
lent fooling from Messrs. Green and Gage, and
agile dancing from the Six Starfishes.* "

Leah's last night came.

" D'you like leaving? " asked Baby Shayle,
powdering her arms.

" Damnable. Have a port with me," said
Leah.

148

PLAY

"Why, how d'you know she's going?"
shrilled another girl.

" She told me ! " answered Baby, winking at
Leah.

And so back to Mimosa Road.

XVII

That night Leah slept soundly. In the morn-
ing, the position she had envisaged descended
remorseless and accurate upon her.

The family gathered round the breakfast
table, and the first bomb burst.

"Well dear, you're not going back to the
theatre any more then ? We shall have you for
supper, as usual, that'll be nice." Mrs. Bounce
poured tea.

Mr. Bounce's contribution was more deadly.

" You'll hardly know what to do with your
evenings. You'll be quite the lady of leisure
now."

But the best for the last.
And what are you going to do with yourself
, all day?" Alice always tried to enter into as
much family life as she had time for.

Leah answered : " Oh, I've simply Heaps to
get through ; there hasn't been a minute what

with rehearsals ." She even smiled

brig-htly ; but her teeth gritted, and the hot,
facile tears filled her eyes. Shamed, she left

149

FALSE GODDESSES

the table before anyone had finished. The door
closed on the family ; she stood forlornly in the
hall . . . there would always be Bobby. . .

Her parting with him had taken place in the
dim dustiness that was the scene dock. They
had picked their way gingerly to each other ; too
hasty movements would have been attended with
farce. Holding Leah to him, he had impressed
the temporary nature of the parting upon her
. . . and now she was drifting about the
hall. . . .

This was Sunday. Sunday ! Obligatory
church. But the problem of after-lunch con-
fronted her. But after all, it was quite legitimate
to rest on that day.

She had visualised unease before, from the
moment she left school in fact, but the accidental
intrusion of the Varsity episode into monotony
she had construed as the beginning of life. Its
abrupt termination left her unprepared. Well,
for the moment the machinery of domestic life
must be worked to the uttermost. But she was
not a Bessie, or an Ella ; the freaks of the latter
were only a flash in the pan. For that matter
she was not an Alice. Routine was not for such
as herself ; Alice was an excellent cog in the
wheel ; was of the type that is always ' happy in
her work '

On Monday, Leah came down late for break-
fast in order to fill in an hour dressing and doing
her hair after the meal. But her toilette took
less time than ever it had seemed to take before,

150

PLAY

and the servant was clamouring outside to come
in and "do" the room. There was still the
washing to put down. That took five minutes.

Leah went downstairs to lure the dog from his
kennel for a walk, but she collided with Bessie
whose copyright she was infringing. She could
not dispute the point as she would dearly have
loved to do, in case Bessie, who had a certain
brutish directness that "got there," crashing
through finesse, should ask her reasons for her
sudden solicitude for Nero's welfare. She stood
speechless, facing Bessie over the kennel top.
Finally :

Oh are you taking Nero out ? I thought I
would." But Bessie possibly had her own diffi-
culties.

"He comes with me always ; I take him after
Lve dusted the drawing-room. He wouldn't
miss it for anything, would you old boy? " she
answered, smarming the animal.

"And neither would his mistress," thought
Leah, acidly.

" Let's both go."

Leah excused herself, awkwardly. They
never did. She was not quite reduced to that
yet ! Dodging the family, she stole again to the
bedroom. No luck ! May was still splashing
and thumping about. Offer to help her? No.
That might establish a precedent, and snare her
gradually into becoming a " home-bird."

Jauntily she presented herself before Mrs.
Bounce, and offered to do the errands. In any

151

FALSE GODDESSES

case, the street seemed the obvious place for the
morning. Mrs. Bounce was gratefully pleased.
She accepted the offer simply, in all good faith,
giving Leah a basket and money and " the list."
Leah impetuously whirled along the High
Street. She found the errands evilly simple ;
she did them in less than half-an-hour. She
envied those people who ' never knew what they
wanted,' and dawdled, and priced, who per-
formed a variety of surprise visits to shops not
upon the programme, and so spent the whole
morning in a most gratifying manner, even con-
triving, as a last touch of desirability, to be late
for lunch. When Leah shopped, it became
merely a matter of entering, paying, and hurry-
ing home. She always took out with her just
sufficient money, and had never " run up " a bill
in her life. How heavenly to be dunned ! Not
to be able to pay ! She promised herself debts,
one day. She appeared to herself to be cast
for the role of Amelia, after all. And she
wanted to play Becky. . . .

She dumped the purchases in the hall, shouted
that "she couldn't stop a minute," and ran out
again. She lagged when out of sight. She
lingered in the streets until the clock, with hands
that had never seemed to move, pointed to 1.35.
But she was five minutes late for lunch. Her
own purchases consisted of a bag of acid-drops.

Sometimes the list of things she had never
done, never been, overwhelmed Leah. She
had, for instance, never been a godmother or a

152

PLAY

bridesmaid, had never " appeared in " or been
" presented at " court, christened a ship, played
Bridge, had a baby, stolen, had the measles,
fainted, or chosen a frock. She had never had
her boots or gloves made to order, been insulted
in the street, had a scent named after her, or
paid "country house visits,"

Things could not go on like this !

She extracted one comfort from that Monday.
Mrs. Bounce reproved her for unpunctuality,
and said she must not "overdo things." She
added that Leah would have ' ' all the rest of the
time" to do them in. It was a promising re-
mark spoilt. Leah smiled wanly with the man-
ner of an exhausted society woman. After
lunch, she put on her best clothes, discarding
most of her frocks and casting hat after hat from
her with cumulative dislike and impatience, and
went the round of her friends.

They were all out.

On Tuesday, she abandoned Monk's Green
as hopeless, and went to town. She was in the
grip of an adventuress mood. She had tried
to dress the part. She looked like a musical-
comedy Cossack. She deluged herself with
scent, remains of a birthday present, painted
herself with lip-salve, powdered, screwed on a
pair of theatrical earrings, and looked at herself
in the glass.

She created plenty of sensations in the neigh-
bourhood on the way to the Underground, but
the effect seemed to wear off nearer London.

153

FALSE GODDESSES

She had chosen a certain ornate cafe within a
minute of Piccadilly Circus, and which had be-
come the rendez-vous of all extremes of society.
Women of the streets quietly took their tea and
cakes scrawled with buttery sugar vis-a-vis with
matrons from Tooting ; later, minor actresses
and chorus girls would monopolize the place with
their blue-chinned escorts. A domestic note
was struck by family parties, parents, and tiny,
bright-eyed children, perched on high chairs,
amid the racket from the Hottentot Syncopated
Band. . . The first impression resolved itself
into scented heat, noise, and a superficial glaze
of raflishness. But it suited Leah. Everyone
smoked until the air was grey, a canopy undulat-
ing with the banging of the pneumatic swing-
doors. The music, too, gave her a countenance,
with its exciting, gappy rhythms ; she felt she
could commit any foolishness were she accompa-
nied by sufficient noise. She recognized that it
was fortunate that the only melodies which pene-
trated Mimosa Road were the Saturday piano-
organ and the weekly band that blew and
groaned round the lamp-post near the gate,
while the family was at supper.

Leah, wandering self-consciously among the
crowded tables, moved to one, small, and unoc-
cupied ; she was instantly conducted from it by
a waiter to a larger, filled with an uninteresting
family and their paraphernalia. She could have
killed him. She squeezed into the empty place
still crumby, and slopped. The waitresses hur-

154

PLAY

ried by, preferring to serve men. Her meal
precariously cast before her, Leah revived.
Afterwards, she blew clouds of smoke into the
sensitive eyes of her family, until they rose.

She looked about her.

She seemed rather to have fallen between two
stools in the matter of her costume ; no one mis-
took her for a lady of the pavement ; but her
attentions with the carmine had precluded them
from rating her as a casual suburban visitor. No-
thing more promising presented itself than sun-
dry entanglements of the eyes with foreign-look-
ing men who, absorbed with their companions,
made no attempt to join her at her table. Glanc-
ing furtively about, she fell to envying the pave-
ment women. They knew their ground, and,
the basic fact of their position thoroughly under-
stood on either side, could afford to shelve it, and
devote the rest of the time to a more educative
companionship with men than was remotely pos-
sible to Leah and her like. It was a pity you
had to become a social outcast before you could
arrive at the semblance of real emancipation !
The medicine once swallowed, remained free-
dom, physical freedom, not the vague ideal held

up by orators. " What larks they must

have." She did not realise that she had spoken
aloud.

The key of the street. . . .

Liberty without any nonsense. With the
Bounce girls, and the many thousands of families
of which they were typical, a man was an event.

155

FALSE GODDESSES

They were forced to consider him, willy nilly, as
a possible husband. Perhaps they skated over
surfaces together — played at emancipation — but
it was a farce, ending, if they were lucky, in an
assured future of a tiatness at once responsible
and unstimulating. . . .

Saddened, Leah rose. She glanced round
fmally in search of adventure.

She travelled back to Monk's Green with the
vicar. At the end of that week, Leah dedicated
Sunday to frivolity, and went to Anne's, to
gather news and complain unashamed. At
Anne's there was no stigma, rather a common
interest attaching to failure, in all its branches.
Besides, if everything else failed, Anne could
always make you shriek with laughter.

It was in such a mood as Leah's that the major-
ity of her friends visited Anne. Leah wondered
what mo7ide would predominate ; she hoped that
it would prove, in the main, to be theatrical.

It was.

Daphne Rorley was there, a fair girl with a
pathetic face that belied her pushful nature —
which however availed her little, in her profes-
sion— and patient brown eyes. Anne called her
" Rorthne." Stella Beresford was an unknown
dancer who was gradually giving it up, and
losing the world an artist ; she was a fellow stu-
dent of Adela Heathcote's at the Gower Dra-
matic School. A massive woman completed
the party. She played comedy leads ; her name
was Honor Meredith. She was concluding an

156

PLAY

anecdote amid shouts of laughter as Leah slid
in and subsided with a tired grin.

" And I went to the agent's about the dow-
ager part at the St. Luke's, and he looked at
me and said : ' No use to us, I'm afraid.
You see dear, you're not what I call a comic
fat.'"

Anne was actually in a job ; she had been re-
hearsing while Leah was at the Varsity. Her
friends expressed themselves as ' frightfully
bucked.'

" Oh Anne," Miss Rorley suddenly wailed,
"the Old Buffer won't have me in his new
show ! There goes my one good introduction ! ' '

" Damn him."
Who did he keep on ? " A cigar had made
Miss Beresford a trifle husky.

" Dora Vardon, and of course the old lot
who'll only walk-on if they live to a hundred."

" I don't wonder they kept Dora," said
Anne, who was making herself a winter toque
out of the jigsaw pieces of an old muff, with
Parisian cunning. "She's just the sort they
love — fat and wenchish. I'm glad she's got her
foot in there. She's had rotten luck till now."

" Did you try for it?"

" Oh yes, I went down. Harbin sent for
me. I must say he's been pretty decent and
always tries to get me back. I wore that green
frock — the Old Devil loves bright colours. I
saw he didn't recognize me, and he was on the
point of taking me, when his rotten old memory

157

FALSE GODDESSES

gave a lurch and he remembered who I was,
and that he didn't like me."

Stella giggled.

" Oh, Anne, do you remember when I turned
up at the Corinth at 1 1 in the morning in
fancy-dress to dance at that audition ? ' ' Anne
nodded. " One never gets anything through
those damned voice-trials."

" The pianist assed up the music, and I
forgot the steps, and oh it was awful I "
Poor child ! Have a cigarette."

"What happened about the Corinth? "

" No go," answered Stella. " I faded away,
ate an enormous lunch, and received sympathy
from the family. It's at times like this that one
appreciates one's home."

I can't think what you three want to go on
doing this kind of thing for." Anne's brother
was supine on the sofa with a pipe. His name
was Chetwyn ; they all called him * ' Tomes
because he was engaged in a publishing
firm.

No one answered him ; they had all heard
what he had to say before. He loved a lazy,
smoke-puffing argument, and would nail ten
colours to ten masts in the space of as many
minutes. When howled down, he would grin
sleepily.

" I met poor little Sylvia the other day,"
chuckled Anne. "She went to see Dudley Gags,
and he instantly asked her to go for a week-end
to Eastbourne. She told him for a thin man he

158

PLAY

had got a lot of side, and hit him over the head
with her umbrella."

" Why do they do it ? " said Mrs. Meredith,
plaintively, " You'd think they'd be so dog-
sick of women they'd be only too thankful to get
away from 'em."

" What does one do when chased round the
table?" enquired Miss Rorley. "You can't
say ' sir-unhand-me-I-have-a-brother,' etc.:
what is the answer ? ' '

"A lemon." Anne sneezed.

" Look at that little ass Dorothy Dobell,
she's been at the Tiara three solid years. Why
she's aivfiil ! She can't walk across the
stage ! " shrieked Anne.

" How did she get it? "

" Paid. Her father's got pots. The Old
Buffer daren't sack her ; Daddy D's got shares
in the syndicate."

" Ld rather chuck it than pay for a part."
Daphne Rorley lived at home, and dressed on
thirty pounds a year.

" My dear Daphne," from the sofa, " you've
got to fight 'em with their own weapons. Pay
large sums ! Be a wrong 'un ! Be Somebody's
daughter ! They'd shove you in then if you had
one eye and a hump."

" I've got the hump all right," said Miss
'Rorley.

" My advice to you girls is, marry a fat Jew
agent, and now there's tea, and forget the sub-
ject DO." He heaved himself off the sofa.

159

FALSE GODDESSES

XVIII

When Leah had been home ten clays, and the
old conditions had closed upon her, she received
a wire from Bobby Dainton :

Can you meet me one o'clock piccadilly
tube lunch out hobby

She despatched an affirmative to the Varsity.
She arrived at the tryst ten minutes before the
time. He was enchanted to see her, and they
pushed their way to La Petite Ecossaise, throw-
ing scrappy news and enquiries at each other.
They secured a remote corner, and he gave
Leah the menu.

" Couldn't come sooner. Marcus kept us at
it till nearly one. I was getting frantic. I say
love, you're looking rather done up."

" Meaning, of course, I look a ghoul."

" You look charming, it's that filthy knocking
about in the chorus. I wish I knew someone
to think of you "

" Oh well, I'm home now."

" Yes, I'm sure you are wise."

" How's Adela?" asked Leah restively.

"Adela? M'm. Heathcote? Oh, I've
hardly spoken to her since you went. There
was only one girl in the show for me, and she
left."

Any more changes ? ' '

" New dancer, pretty rotten, oh yes ! and
we've got a new number."

1 60

PLAY

Any good ? ' '

" I can hardly judge. The Shayle is my
partner, and I spend most of my time repulsing
her advances." They laughed intimately.
" By the way," his eyes were twinkling, " I
met my mother in Regent Street yesterday, and
she asked me what I was doing now. I told her
I had gone back to the 'varsity ! "

' ' Oh Bob ! I rather love you ! ' ' Then he
began to rummage his pockets. " By the way,
Leah, I had rather a notion the other day. Why
shouldn't we do a double turn on the halls ? "

Oh my dear soul ! ' '

You can sing and I can hop about ; look

here ' ' he produced a crumpled sheet of

paper. " I sketched out an act at rehearsal one
morning. We must work together. I simply
can't stick the Varsity, now you aren't there."

" But Bobby, we couldn't tour together, even
if we got booked," she objected, ingenuously.
" And anyway, how'd we get started? "

The Babes in the Wood looked at each other.

" I d'no." said the Boy Babe.

" I'll ask Anne, she always knows every-
thing," promised Leah.

The result was discouraging. Anne Sleath
adduced the inside knowledge of friends who had
' been there ' before. It seemed that in eight
cases out of ten, getting an act booked involved
the purchase of costumes, wigs, and possibly
properties ; the hire of scenery or curtains, tips
to carpenters, the procuring of Band parts. The

i6i L

FALSE GODDESSES

reward usually being criticism from some second-
rate agent sitting smoking in a stall — if he came
at all — or the alternative of the act being given
free for the week on the chance it may * go
down.' " Of course," said Anne, "some out-
lying halls make a speciality of introducing new
turns, but they naturally cater for a pretty low
public which doesn't understand a show of any
artistic merit unless it has made good in the
West- End first. But you, poor children, would
come on labelled guilty until you were proved
to be innocent, in a manner o' speaking. They
wouldn't give you any quarter — except a bad
quarter of an hour, and would rejoice aloud at
any hitch."

Shortly afterwards, " Lif^hts Up " finished at
the Varsity, and Bobby Dainton, unwillingly,
joined the tour.

162

Book III

INTERVAL

I

It was while the militant suffrage movement was
at its height, and Clement's Inn a hive that
despatched bees to all parts of the country to
sting wincing politicians, that Leah Lawrence
and the Bounces were accounted ready to be
launched upon such society as Monk's Green
offered. So they went to local dances, when
quiet whitefaced women met in Intercession
before carrying out a raid on Parliament Square,
and crossed themselves, not knowing what of
horror the end of the day might hold.

The movement affected the Bounces vari-
ously. Alice marched in the Teacher's section
in processions, but declined — having an eye to
her employment — to commit herself further.
Bessie was strictly 'constitutional,' and made
strange and hideous ' art ' bags of purple suede
in the privacy of her home to be sold for the
cause. Ella, touring, kept her opinions to
herself.

It was left to Leah to take it hard, to offer

163

FALSE GODDESSES

strength and emotions to the business. She
secretly prided herself upon her passionate ad-
herence, until a terrible thing happened.

Alice went to Holloway ; in a real van.

Shaken out of herself for the first time at some
unusually brutal demonstration, seeing some girl
she knew personally dragged on her back over
benches and thrown savagely downstairs at some
meeting she had been sent to interrupt, Alice
had cut a music-lesson to hurl a brick through a
West-End draper's window. She was now
parading round the prison-yard and wondering
timidly what the family would say.

Upstairs in the bed-room, Leah sat on the
sofa staring vacantly before her. Alice, of all
people ! What right had she to push in ? Who
could have foreseen that a Bounce would snatch
advancement from such a source ?

Leah lost no opportunity of informing her
partners at dances that ' she never meant to
marry.' She scared away one young man who,
with but a little of the usual indecent manoeuvr-
ing, would have offered himself, and bored or
amused all the rest who had no intention of pro-
posing. It displeased Leah to hear other girls
elaborately announce a similar intention ; it not
only, she felt, spoilt her market, but was, in
addition, a brazen means of saving their faces in
the event of their never getting an 'offer.*

Leah's attitude was strengthened by the
spectacle of Bessie displaying her fatty charms,
anxious to please, clumsily seeking to wrest a

164

INTERVAL

home of her own from condescending youth
clustering round the doors and eyeing the
modern slave-market before choosing. And
knowing no fear of refusal. And Bessie was a
bad saleswoman. . . .

Had Leah cared to, she could have achieved
an unsensational success at any dance. But
some devil was always in possession, and only
the husk of her sat there.

Men became, on a sudden, hateful, monstrous.
And the ball-room ! Her social sense, clawing
at her elbow, warned her that she was not bear-
ing neglect successfully. It was the playground
— life-size ; only in the playground there was
always the nonentity who could be hired with
smiles to act as buffer to defeats. Sometimes
the barely concealed unwillingnesses of certain
of her partners caused Leah a sour amusement.
She was obviously a freak. Well, better that
than nothing! Cynthia Dart, and her like,
represented the apex of the social triangle ; the
base was composed of those who were neither
beauties nor failures, but the suburban backbone.
Alice, for instance, would never be successful,
but, on the other hand, she had plenty of part-
ners. Yet Alice would never know — or miss —
the stray kisses in the palmleaved alcoves. Ella
in time would get plenty, but not an accompany-
ing proposal ; men were not the fools they used
to be over a golden head ! Once, Leah would
have accepted the kiss, and refused the proposal,
now, she would refuse both — and miss neither.

165

FALSE GODDESSES

Alice had once tried to bring up her own
partners to Leah, and Leah was not grateful at
the moment, or afterwards. " But I'd like you
to have some nice men friends," Alice had
hesitatingly apologized. " My dear, does
one.'* " Leah rapped out, " By the time a man
cares enough about you to want to be your
'friend,' you may be jolly sure he's fallen in
love, and is trying to lead up. There are too
many of us in the world for a man to need to have
women friends. If he wants a ' pal,' he mixes
with his fellows. He only comes to us in the
last sentimental resort."

And Alice could not refute her ; could not
point to family examples of platonic success.
She only sadly sensed that there was something
wrong, somewhere ; medium between the pathos
of Bessie's efforts to wedge herself into the
marriage-market, and Leah's crude wrenchings
away from it. And a single name might save
Leah from belief in her dangerous attitude.
Alice saw that Leah's views were in a molten
state, and was anxious they should not crystal-
lise.

" But you like Dicky Thurloe, and Angus
Macmahon?" she protested. "Of course I
do," Leah assented promptly. The bumping
impacts of their exchange of ideas at the meet-
ings of the Literary Circle had comfortably
scraped away all sentiment, save for the
occasional stiflingly feminine intrusions of
Cynthia and Bessie into the discussion.

1 66

INTERVAL

Well, even the suffrage movement was closed
to her now ; that chance of achievement ruled off
the list. Leah could not "copy." She bore
Alice singularly little ill-will for her unconscious
share in this move. Alice, Leah guessed, was
constitutionally unable to follow up a success.
The prison episode would lead to nothing.
Alice always comfortably forgot, and could be
generally imposed upon.

Leah gave up active participation in the
suffrage campaign ; she believed in it too much,
in herself too little, apart from the Alice
affair. . . .

In the reaction of thought, she determined to
pick up social threads. She would see what it
felt like to relax. It might be rather fun. It
would certainly be restful.

Mrs. Craven was giving a dance at her large
house in Basil Road. When the invitations
came, Leah found that she had not been in-
cluded. Mrs. Craven had heard her baldly ex-
pressed opinions at other dances, and welcomed
the absence of one more girl to partner.

So Bessie went alone, in bursting pink.

But there soon came another opportunity.
The Dramatic Society gave a dance, and Leah
went. Here she found that the garment of her
suffrage incarnation still hung upon her in their
eyes, and the jibbing youths giving dances at
the representations of the stewards, found
plenty of opportunities of escape from the strong-
minded young person. So Leah sat out dance

167

FALSE GODDESSES

after dance, while amenable and deferent feather-
brains gyrated their full programme to a finish.

II

Mrs, Clifton was the nearest approach to a
"greatest friend ' that Mrs. Bounce possessed.
They had known each other almost from girl-
hood. Mrs. Clifton was subjected, in her inter-
course with the other, to precisely the same
policy of curious, unsocial superficialities that
were accorded the merest acquaintance. Invita-
tions somehow always came from Margaret
Clifton, and her rare presence in the Bounce's
house was attended with all formality. Mrs.
Bounce did not understand the art of enjoying
her friends ; and yet she was devoted to Mrs.
Clifton, in an abstract way. Leah, at leisure
now to dissect others, thought it extraordinary
of Mrs. Bounce. About four times in the past
three years, she herself had actually glimpsed
Mrs. Clifton. Now she came into focus one
afternoon at tea. She was on the lenient side of
middle age, with dark hair successfully under-
going the greying period. Her smile was charm-
ing and exhausted. Leah was glad to see that she
had ideas about dress, even though the design
was falteringly executed, and in timid materials
that seemed to have lost the courage of their
convictions at the last moment. Mrs. Clifton's
conversation was not witty, but Leah, remem-

i68

INTERVAL

Bering to whom it was directed, made allow-
ances. One never knew. . . . Long before
she left, Leah had decided that Mrs. Clifton was
wasted upon the Bounces. In order to ascertain
if this was indeed so, she would have to organize
one more meeting, and quickly. She did not
intend that the visitor should vanish for another
seven months or so. It was tiresome that the
next visit must again be under the auspices of
Mrs. Bounce ; but Leah conceded her her own
drawing-room — for the present. The Bounce
element made for preliminary confusion, but
once past this reef Leah would steer in her own
waters. She asked immediately that Mrs.
Clifton should be invited again, and was pre-
pared for Mrs. Bounce to laugh ; but she gladly
consented. She seemed struck with the idea that
her friend should come to her house twice in a
fortnight.

This time Leah came out into the centre,
rejoicing that Mrs. Clifton had passed the test.
Outflanking Mrs. Bounce, she conducted her to
the door.

Mrs. Clifton lived in a small house in Annes-
ley Road. Leah succumbed to misgivings when
she saw the windows hungf with bead curtains.

The afternoon was a success ; Mrs. Clifton
was lonely, and this girl re-created for her the
atmosphere of protective affection in which she
was happiest.

Leah was to take her to a theatre at the end
of the week. Margaret chose and re-chose

169

FALSE GODDESSES

from the paper with childish excitement, which
tenderly amused Leah. Returning to Mimosa
Road from her first visit, she was well pleased.
Mrs. Clifton, or Pusscat, as Leah had named
her to her face before tea was cleared, accepted
the situation very satisfactorily.

Leah was managing her allowance very badly.
Her system of disbursements was as bad as
Bessie's, although the results were more
pleasing. Leah was now in receipt of £65 a
year, but this was to include "everything."
Bessie had made a minor scene when this intel-
ligence percolated to her brain. Mr. Bounce
gave her an additional five pounds to keep her
quiet, but she often borrowed from Leah, who
in the beginning was willing enough. Now, on
principle, and of necessity, she refused, which
did not make for harmony. Arriving, as her
allowance did, bi-annually, it was a temptation
to overdraw after arid months of scrimping and
waiting on the next draft. Luckily holidays
only occurred once a year, and the fare was
reasonable. Clothes were the difficulty ; there
was an increasing number of figures in Leah's
life to dress to. She lacked the patience to make
her own hats, blouses, and underw^ear as Alice
did ; Leah's effects had to be made at once, for
many reasons. Ella was more easy to suit than
Leah, whose daring colouring looked merely
ridiculous in tulle and ingenue chin-straps. Ella,
too, had regarded Leah as her banker before
she left home, but she seldom ventured to bor-

170

INTERVAL

row gold ; small change covered sweets and ices.

Now there were presents to be made to Puss-
cat, theatres, chocolates, flowers, and concerts
which Leah hated. She had taught her to
smoke, had given her a gim-metal case with her
initials in silver in the corner, and saved on a
pair of outdoor shoes which let in the water the
third time she wore them. Margaret Clifton
was a willing pupil, she acquiesced in all Leah's
manoeuvres. Gradually the Bounce element
was eliminated.

Impelled by a sense of fitness, Mrs. Clifton
paid more frequent visits to Mimosa Road,
always informing Leah beforehand. It often
happened that Mrs. Bounce was out. Bessie
was generally in, waiting for her tea, and Leah,
indicating her away from the teapot, took com-
mand, while Bessie had to hand cakes. In
revenge, she refused to budge after the meal.
Leah was unruffled, the situation amused her too
much, and besides, Pusscat was always at hand
when wanted. Too much so. . . .

Ill

Ella returned from her tour depressed and
peevish ; she spent the mornings at the agents,
and filled the afternoons with shop-gazing, or
mooning in her bed-room. The vague question
of classes was not mentioned, for she had now
definitely thrown in her lot with the rest of the

171

FALSE GODDESSES

'hundreds and thousands,' and yearned for the
exciting nights and the demoralizing days of
loafing of the past months.

More than her share of the bed-room became
strikingly disfigured with theatrical post-cards
which were tacked or propped up and left to
slide behind furniture. The servant refused to
dust them and complained bitterly to Mrs.
Bounce, who reasoned with Ella. Her daughter
asked what maids were for, and the photographs
remained, filmed and curling at the corners.
Leah took up the contest, disgusted at the slut-
tish muddle, and siding with Mrs. Bounce, but
Ella in her raw uppishness was a far more
difficult piece to move in the domestic game than
either of the elder girls. Leah found herself
wrangling. . . . This last phase of Ella's filled
her with an intolerable sense of retrogression, it
stifled her to participate in stale enthusiasms.
There was very little hairbrushing confidence
between them ; they fought as bitterly as an
unhappily married couple when the door shut
them in for the night.

Lying in bed Leah planned a strategic shuffle
of the household. She herself could sleep with
Alice or Bessie — but then they shared a room too.
Besides, they might have the sense to jib at shar-
ing with Ella ; she was the youngest. The attic
that Jimmy roughed it in was out of the question,
being kept for his week-ends. Leah, in extrem-
ity, even considered asking for its use for the rest
of the week ; she thought she could put up with

172

INTERVAL

Ella for the Saturday to Monday. But that would
involve a mild form of " living in her trunk,"
and shifting piles of clothes upstairs and down.

There was one chance left, the spare-
room, accessible at all times of the year.
But it would mean that — should it fall to her
lot — she would have to " do " it herself ; the
servant certainly would not. Leah didn't quite
" see " becoming a servant, while Ella had her
own pigstye done for her. Lying sleepless, she
planned and weighed until her head felt numbed ;
she could never sleep after a quarrel. She
would lie, her working brain maddening her, her
forehead hot, hands and feet ice-cold, shivering
with anger, and muttering beneath the sheets.
At the finish of one clash of wills, her plans half-
complete, she threw aside diplomacy and told
Ella she was going to ask Mrs. Bounce for the
spare-room.

Ella was taken aback ; she wanted time to
think out her own attitude. Changes like this
were cataclysmic. But there was Leah facing
her, a yellow-headed menace. . . .

" I think I ought to have it if mother lets us
each have a room. I don't see what you want
to upset her at all for. I hate sharing too."

" Well take it, take it, only make your mind
up one way or the other. I can't stand this any
lonorer."

The idea excited Ella. She longed to work
for her own hand without appearing in league
with Leah against Mrs. Bounce.

173

FALSE GODDESSES

"Well," — Leah put down her comb —
" who's going to ask her? I don't care who
does it, so long as it gets done. ' ' She had driven
Ella into a corner.

"Oh, you I think. It was all your idea.
Don't drag me into it."

Ella was a domestic deadhead. Leah told
herself Ella " went in on her hair." She knew
she was her mother's favourite. Ella knew that
Leah would not take mean advantages. That
was the only comfort. . . .

Leah got the spare-room, and the drudgery
that would go with it, after a debate with the
slightly scandalised Mrs. Bounce. It was a
better room, and Ella was 'on' to that point at
once, but Leah used the argument of the
house-work in connection with it as a whip
to lash her with, and Ella gave it up with-
out another word. She wasn't going to
"mess about like a skivvy." It came as a
pleasant surprise to her that Leah would have
to turn to.

That night, in the vast double bed, Leah lay
at peace. She was exhausted.

A month later, Alice came out of gaol, and,
after a breakfast of honour w^ith her fellow felons,
w^hich she was unable to touch, was sent home
in a cab. Her teaching work had been in-
dulgently kept open for her ; meanwhile she was
too ill to attempt it.

Leah tried to be kind to Alice, but the words
stuck in her throat.

174

INTERVAL

" The doctor says I must feed up," she said
with complacency.

" I was fed up long ago," answered Leah
coldly, and resigned herself to sundry stagger-
ings up and down stairs with trays, and to a
period of sweeping and dusting.

" Feel better to-day ? " she would ask, mean-
ing " get up and get a move on, damn you ! "
" Yes thanks dear," weakly from the bed.
Leah thought out remarks that should not reveal
the state of her own nerves.

Leah took to rising early, and long walks
before breakfast. She had no ' health ' theories,
they were too much trouble ; she merely sought
relief in playing harmless tricks with routine.
She wrenched herself from sleep to skim about
Monk's Green. The keen air seemed to
strangle her, she liked her day well aired before
she emerged. She had believed that these
excursions into the silent, unused morning would
give her fresh aspects, powers, but they only
depressed her, sent her back to Mimosa Road,
hollow, shivering, and unable to eat her break-
fast. They lengthened the day incredibly. She
tried cold baths ; they were the conventional and
intensely respectable panacea for all disorders.
They made her heart thump and the room go
black ; she would be chilled to the bone for hours
afterwards ; her fingers turned white and * died.'

Suddenly, Bessie smugly announced her en-
gagement to a member of the Dramatic Society.

175

FALSE GODDESSES

Eustace Burrowes had been cast for a scene with
her in some former production. It was of course
left to Bessie to fan the dying embers at the
dance.

Mr. and Mrs. Bounce accepted the news
without excitement ; they only wondered such
announcements had not been made before.
With three daughters it was not too much to
expect. Le^ih, amused, prepared to study the
couple. Alice was more pleased than anyone,
certainly more demonstrative of satisfaction
than the bride-elect. Alice experienced moments
of uneasy perception in which it seemed to her
that the family was not making a very good
show. She looked upon Bessie's engagement
as their justification. Such things were not for
her. The best of her hours were occupied in a
world of women, where the male element was
non-existent ; the ' waste pieces ' of the day
received her tired, and unattuned to con-
quest. . . .

Ella's sensations were those of mirth and
outrage. The first wedding should have been
her own, if looks still counted, and, failing that,
Alice's. Alice was not actually plain. Jimmy
didn't count. Ella took the line, in public, of its
* being the best thing that could have happened,'
for Bessie. "We're all so pleased about

it !" Her audience quite appreciated

the innuendo.

Eustace would come to supper on Sun-
days and ' tasty dishes ' and wine replaced

176

INTERVAL

the cold remnants and brutally British salad
usually accounted enough. ' Company ' to any
meal, if it only involved the laying of one extra
place, was always an occasion of restless unease.
Informality was only a name to Mrs. Bounce,
and the house would hum, and preparations be
on foot, from the moment she went into the
kitchen after breakfast, to the time when, per-
spiring slightly, she fastened her creaking silk.
Even then she could not let the table alone, and
the dining room was perpetually liable to suffer
rushing visits and aimless last tweaks. This
was an opportimity of grievance to Ella. " One
can't ask people in casually, it puts mother out
so." She succeeded in imbuing her sisters with
this view, and even Alice began to complain.
Alice and Bessie, led by Ella, found it wonder-
fully interesting to voice daring desires in each
other's rooms. Once the idea had gripped them,
they exhumed ancient wrongs. Alice con-
tributed the yearning for a private sitting-room
where, unmolested, they could receive their own
friends. " This is a filthy hole ! Whenever I
do ask anyone in, there we all are bunched round
in the drawing-room."

" It's jolly good of them to come at all."

" You can't really talk ."

"And mother makes such a business of it.
My friends'd be much happier with a bag of buns
on my bed."

And I can't afford to take them out to tea all
the time ."

177 M

FALSE GODDESSES

Eustace Burrowes was clerk to a firm of stock-
brokers ; but he had sufficient prospects to render
him a catch.

Ella, looking very pretty, entered the room,
and, seeing the young man, flashed him a pro-
fessional smile, to keep her hand in. When
supper was over, the family and Eustace herded
out to the drawing-room. Bessie, though ob-
viously anxious, was ready for sentiment, and
made sundry tentative movements in the direc-
tion of the garden. Leah watched, fascinated.
Bessie in the role of chosen female was a
preposterous sight ; her amateurish efforts to
segregate Eustace were both pathetic and in-
decent. She typified to Leah the whole suburban
social system. She was at any man's mercy,
and armed at no single point. Even Ella would
have managed better ; her methods might lack
delicacy, but she would keep what she had won.
There was nothing tentative about her. Mrs.
Bounce, the worst of the evening over, sug-
gested a "little music," and Eustace, recol-
lecting Bessie, invited her to play. "Alice's
our musician," rumbled Mr. Bounce.

When Alice had finished, Mr. Burrowes,
remembering his mother's tea-parties, said " Oh
yes," in dreamy gratification, and, "what was
that ? " Mrs. Burrowes always said one of these
things, and sometimes both.

"Give us ' The Bird on Nelly's Hat,' Ella,"
Mr. Bounce chuckled, "She's a naughty little
girl, Burrowes, aren't you Baby?" Eustace,

178

INTERVAL

shedding" shyness, leant on the piano and punc-
tuated the song with laughs. Bessie, propped
on her chair, smiled very ably through it all.
She always found her face gave her trouble when
her sisters were acclaimed for their parlour-
tricks. She knew just enough not to sulk.
Ella's song broke any ice remaining. She and
Burrowes discovered they both ' ' loved ' ' the
same comedians, and, in a crescendo of laughter,
they gave imitations, each pulling the other up
for unremembered points. "No donkey! he
always whistles that through his teeth ! " " Yes
my love, but I can't do it, so what happens? "
Exhausted with giggles, they gulped lemon-
ade. . . .

When Eustace had been ' ' lighted down ' ' the
path and disappeared up the road, the storm
broke.

Bessie was in tears, while her father, shocked,
retreated to his study at the back of the house.
Mrs. Bounce, slighdy dazed, attempted com-
fort, and Leah, pitiful, amused, and exasperated
by turns, hovered near the door. Ella was
enjoying herself, the momentum of success was
still sweeping her along.

" My dear girl I only smiled at him ! You
didn't want me to make a face did you ? "

"Oh don't be a fool," snuffled Bessie
savagely.

It appeared that Ella always got everything ; it
was always the same, it always would be the
same ; that she, Bessie, wouldn't have him at a

179

FALSE GODDESSES

gift now and that Ella had better take him as she
seemed to want him, and so on, until Bessie,
bulbous and unappetizing, hobbled off to
bed.

Leah, Mrs. Bounce, and Ella, were left like
actors waiting a cue. At length their eyes met.

" My gum ! " said Leah.

" Isn't she aivfid? " responded Ella.

" She'll be all right to-morrow, you'd better
go to bed dears." Mrs. Bounce sighed as she
twitched the room to rights, and shut the lid of
the piano.

During the next few days Bessie was forbid-
ding, ate her food morosely, and occupied her
time in unguessed ways. A lumberingly tactful
father waited for his hareem to subside, thankful
for the sheltering arms of the Marylebone Road.
Ella, in the last stages of idle misery, was strong
in consciousness of virtue. Leah, in the general
upheaval, felt singularly well-dressed and bright.

Meal-times these days possessed a nightmare
quality what time the yapping gong summoned
a troop of females to escape from their own limit-
ations and broodings. Leah, looking for trouble,
magnified their table-manners into crimes against
civilisation, and would sit trying not to weep with
nerves when Mrs. Bounce crashed toast with her
" Crrrump \\ wark wark wark," or Bessie,
stupidly unconscious of offence, smacked her
lips. Her bovine placidity infuriated Leah ; as
she crumbled her bread she made up a song in
her head :

1 80

INTERVAL

" There sits fat Bessie
" Punc-/i/a//)' eating/'

which set itself to a maddening little polka-
mazurka tune. The girls, at these periods of
suspended activity, loyally refrained from ques-
tioning each other as to their plans for the day,
anxious to evade the ' ' oh nothing particular
which would accentuate an intolerable condition
of affairs. The meal over, Leah pictured them.
. . . Bessie glooming out of the window,
emptying drawers for diversion, and waiting for
the release of tea ; Ella lying down with a book
and a bag of sweets, Leah herself prowling the
house, and driven into the streets at last.

Alice had done the best for herself, for she was
legitimately out all day, and Ella, at precarious
intervals, was also from home. Mrs. Bounce
hardly counted in the rush for success. No one
expected anything from her. She had done
her duty to the State, and there was an end of
the matter. Even Bessie, to the public, had a
small but definite place as " home-bird."

But the troubles of the Bounces in their che-
quered advances upon the road to matrimony
seemed apart from her own affairs. She could
visualise no goal but her fetish of achievement.
Some achievement.

What in God's name did she want?

She had often wondered if it would be pos-
sible to cut loose and start afresh awav from the
Bounces ; had been passionately sure it was the
onlv solution, when emerging from an engage-

i8i

FALSE GODDESSES

ment with some member of the family. She
would at least have done something ; she would
have 'run away from home.' But of course
that was rather vieiix jeu. Millions of business
girls lived alone ; even the " bachelor girl " was
out-of-date.

IV

Alice obtained occasional engagements to ac-
company at local concerts. Her friends were
always glad to "help her to" stray guineas.
Through the Academy of Music she acquired
a quantity of acquaintances, and several friends.
At the big concert engineered by a London
agent and all the influential of Monk's Green,
Alice secured the post through Miss Raggett,
who had a friend on the Committee. Verdune
the 'cellist brought his own man. The concert
was in aid of the Waifs and Strays, and Odara
Tyndal was to sing.

Leah took half-guinea stalls for herself and
Mrs. Clifton. Mrs. Bounce and Ella sat in the
cheaper seats. Mrs. Clifton wore an evening-
dress suggested and supervised by Leah, who
only entrusted her with the actual sewing. The
lurid spray of orchids was Leah's gift, she her-
self had directed its arrangement. She had no
patience with women who ' ' tucked posies at
their belts." The result was a little too empha-
tic for Monk's Green, but effective. And then
Odara Tyndal sang, and Leah, at her emerging

182

INTERVAL

from the curtains, dragged her eyes even from
amused criticism of Alice's dress.

The singer was a woman of middle height, of
a foreign cast, which her orange-coloured sheath
gown accentuated. Her rust-toned hair, brushed
sheer back from her forehead, looked as though
it had been chiselled out of bronze and then var-
nished. All her lines were clean-cut. A flat-
petalled poinsettia spread carmine fingers above
her ear. Her method was cool and without
blandishment ; her reserve was in itself a man-
nerism. She sang " Plaisir d' Amour ne dure
qu'un instant." She was down to sing " Elsa's
Prayer." She refused encores of which she
might have had many. In the second half

The Psalm of Life ' ' appeared against her
name. She sang " // Bacio."

Leah, craning to see — their seats were near
the exit — crushed against Mrs. Clifton, who
whispered " I know her slightly." Leah did
not even hear. She said good-night at the end,
and went to the artist's room, Alice providing a
raison d'etre. They were having coffee ; several
men waited outside. Leah smiled upon the
couple. Alice took up her duties. " Leah,
come and be introduced to Madame Tyndal."

" How do you do, Madame," said Leah inge-
nuously, " I did love your singing so, more than
anything else."

Several of the artists were scattered about the
room. It was in these ways Leah made enemies.
Madame Tyndal bowed. She was incurious ;

183

FALSE GODDESSES

she was acclimatised to potential friendship in
these green-rooms. She seldom utilized it.
"You care for music, yes?" then to Alice,
" my dear, fetch me another cup of coffee ."

Leah did not intend to let it go at that.
Madame Tyndal had taken a fancy to Alice, or
to her talents as an accompanist — Leah hoped
it was that — and Alice met her intermittendy to
fill in when the singer's pianist was indisposed.
Leah was glad that the anaemic honours were to
Alice, failing herself. Alice never bothered
about anyone.

Odara Tyndal rang Alice up one morning and
Leah answered the call. She expressed her
inability to remember Leah, and to convey a
message to " Miss Bunch " through the medium
of the telephone. She invited Leah to come to
her flat and receive the message. " I am sure
I shall remember you when I see you." She
apologized for putting Leah to the trouble.

At the flat, Leah was unable to decide whe-
ther Madame Tyndal remembered her or not.
She was charming, with the effect of sunshine
through ice. Leah, working for a thaw, con-
fidendy expanded. Without a memorable invi-
tation she found herself drifting along the pas-
sage to lunch.

Leah considered her own voice as a topic, but
rejected it ; the other might demand a sample.
They began with a cunning curry, — and the
Bounces. Leah managed to dispose of Alice by
dessert.

184

INTERVAL

" Help yourself to walnuts, little Miss ? "

" Won't you call me Leah ? "

" I never touch them, they give me the
colique," Leah's appetite for nuts vanished.

But in the drawing-room over coffee, Odara
addressed her as ' Leah ' several times, as it
were inadvertently. "It's so — cosy in here."
Leah dragged the cretonne pouf to the singer's
feet and sat down. They smoked.

Ella said once that where Leah sat was a sure
barometer of the state of her feelings. If she
sat on a chair, matters were normal ; if on the
arm of the visitor's chair, it was an affair either
in the first or middle stages. A place on the
floor indicated a corresponding abasement of the
spirit. . . .

" Now tell me about yourself."

Leah was not deceived. She guessed that
the other, replete with lunch, hoped to open an
egotistic dam that might help her to " nod off."
A certain type of woman always asked you
' about yourself.' Leah had met it before. And
was it worth it ? Was this going to be worth it ?
She always rode hell-for-leather towards her
fancies. And the tide of her ordinary life would
turn in time, obliterating the debris of this emo-
tional excursionist. She recognised all ; and the
pursuit of happiness went on. . . .

How callously beautiful Odara Tyndal
looked ; a black impressionist figure with antique
poison-ring leering on her finger, greenish lights
in her hair. Leah thought she would be beau-

185

FALSE GODDESSES

tiful dead, kinder, more approachable. She was
of the type that electric light must not profane,
the unwavering illumination of candles in early-
Italian sconces must surround her at the end.
Cheerfully Leah planned her funeral. Buried
at night as was the Italian custom ; bannered
procession winding to the mountain church ;
monks and acolytes chanting, torches flaring and
smoking ; domed flint walls, fitfully lit. . . .

Odara looked white to-day ; Leah supposed
she painted for the platform. Already Leah
planned presents for her. To make a good
show was of course out of the question, the
woman obviously had everything she wanted.
Leah rather believed that she herself was at the
moment in low funds. Then the gifts must
touch a more personal note ; single flowers
were expressive of devotion — with a dash of
pathos.

" Come to tea on Friday in next week, it's my
At Home day, and bring Miss Bounce," said
Madame Tyndal over the telephone. Leah was
engaged for that afternoon ; she and Mrs. Clifton
were to lunch and tea in town. She accep-
ted the invitation, omitting Mrs. Clifton's
name.

Replacing the receiver, she considered, then
rang up Margaret Clifton, who begged her to
come round to tea.

She found Margaret drying her hair in the
bath-room ; the stifling intimacies of hot shampoo

^i86

INTERVAL

filled the place. Pusscat looked unbecomingly-
tousled ; a domestic witch of Endor. Leah was
not flattered. She thought : " People with
grey hair oughtn't to be seen until it's done."
Suddenly she disliked Mrs. Clifton. She sat
upon the edge of the bath and a feeling of hope-
lessness overcame her. What was it the Bible
said about falling into a pit that thou hast digged
for them ? And now she was like to be crushed
under the momentum of this friendship. And
Pusscat was waiting for the ceremonies of affec-
tion that Leah herself had taught her to expect.
But Leah meant to spare her these. It seemed
to her the decent thing to do. It had got to
end somewhere, and soon, then why not in the
reeking bathroom? And Pusscat, scurrying
about, twisted her hair tightly in a towel and
swooped to embrace Leah. Women over forty
oughtn't to frisk ! And the fumes of pine
shampoo filled the universe. . . .

At tea, they discussed woman's place in the
world ; Margaret Clifton was ' sound ' upon the
subject. Leah had converted her in the early
staofes.

"We're still only here on sufferance," said
Mrs. Clifton.

At Odara's on Friday — Alice could not come
— Leah met a quantity of men and women in all
relations to fame, and all disconcerting. Odara
sanor, and it was all very tiresome.

She waited on her next invitation. It came
to her as a minor revelation that Madame Tyndal

187

FALSE GODDESSES

had annexed her, in reversal of the usual order.

Odara never kissed her, but retained alle-
giance with mannerisms . . . nothing you could
take hold of afterwards, as justification for de-
monstrations of devotion ; leaving you a pro-
claimed fool.

Leah called her ' Odara ' to the Bounces, she
worked off steam that way, and in one other. In
the quiet of her bedroom, working tensely at her
drawing board ; some restlessness impelling her
to utilisation of what Mrs. Bounce described as
"quite one of her talents." That particular
manifestation had not broken out in her family,
or, if it had, would have appeared decorously ;
another parlour-trick, not the primitive neces-
sity ; flame burning its fiercest under the influ-
ence of a spirit's unease.

Leah's room, fought for and won, was with- |
out character ; she had accepted the hopelessness
of it from the first. It bore the stamp of ' spare '
upon it still, although the austere, resigned ex-
pectancy of its former aspect was now obliterated
under Leah's belongings. There were few pho-
tographs upon the mantelpiece ; the whole dis-
play only dating from a couple of years back.
The chest-of-drawers held the most, stacked
under blouses ; old loves, dead-as-mutton epi-
sodes. . . Ella had the brilliant show, overlap-
ping with celebrities, whom she would never
know. Leah's sparse company were at least
familiars — and clean ! Of the taint of the inci-
pient artist there was no trace, only the cupboard

i88 ^

INTERVAL

held a small heap of what Leah regarded as her
failures ; the good sketches had been recklessly
bestowed upon their originals, purchase-money
for the moment's emotional gratification. She
would have liked to ' call them in ' ! She
seemed to herself destined to work like a beaver
— for others.

This study was a caricature of Odara ; away
from the singer, the creative spirit, and herself,
co-operated to perceive the humour of life.
Cramped, hypnotised with achievement, she
bent over it ; she wondered how Odara would
* take ' it ? Even a row would be better than
the treadmill of the past few weeks. ' The
others ' had never been angry, but had surfeited
with compliments, of which she was not avid
when in the thick of the chase. But in the dog
days, she would chew upon their tributes. She
minimised them. This irrelevant gift of por-
traiture was clearly only another of nature's
pointless tricks to complicate life. Anne admired
her work, she would show it first to Anne.

The gong, cachinnating for tea, cut upon her

nerves. It seemed only half-an-hour since

lunch. She ate nothing ; her hands and feet

.were already icy. The spirit was departing

from her. . . .

She remembered what had caused this after-
noon of devil-driven toil ; Odara had asked her
to lunch at her club and go on to her dress-
maker's in Hanover Square next week, a blood-
less outing. She wondered what to wear ; the

189

FALSE GODDESSES

singer's eyes were merciless, her taste sharply
infallible. Leah, in her presence, felt as though
the other, compressing all senses into one, be-
came a critical and slightly malicious eye ; and
yet Odara was perfectly civil. But it was the
same, as far as Leah was concerned, when she
had to pass the flat. It was agony to come
within range of the box-like balconies. She
would slink by, stiff with self-consciousness, like
a thief, while the effort to propel herself to
Odara's front-door exhausted her, though over-
long neglect made her miserable. And now she
was insolvent. Nearly everything saleable had
been disposed of at loss — books, jewellery, a
birthday bangle from the Bounces, a ring given
by Margaret Clifton ; odds and ends ; she was
stripped of all but the most fashionable necessi-
ties. She amazed Bessie, confronted by alien
apparitions on the stairs ; Leah, she thought,
had ' come on ' incredibly. Her straining ex-
citement, in Bessie's eyes, lent an interesting
touch of brilliance. Mrs. Bounce was not so
complaisant ; she thought Leah had ' ' gone thin-
ner," and her temper seemed to be more chancy
than ever ! She also thought that Leah must
have saved a lot to account for that frock and hat.
How pleased her mother would be ! Mrs.
Bounce generously allowed that many would
consider Leah the pick of the bunch, and yet
Leah and her own daughters had lined up on
life's racecourse in the same uniforms, an incre-
dibly short time ago ! Mrs. Bounce keenly de-

190

INTERVAL

sired that Leah should be photographed while
this hectic, ephemeral charm was upon her, that
her mother might be gladdened. Leah did not
even appear to weigh the question ; she said she
could not afford it.

Over Leah's sketch Anne Sleath swept an
impartial but appreciative eye. The insolent
colour touches gave an effect of art-concealing-
art. Anne noted it chuckling. " My child, it's
really devilishly good. It oughtn't to be. I
don't know the woman, but I can see it's exactly
her. She looks a thundering bad lot."

" I love her," said Leah. No one finessed
with Anne. " You weird child, you do pick on
such cautions ! " "I know," said Leah help-
lessly. "You've got something — God knows
what — . Why don't you go to an art
school ? ' '

The suggestion struck the soft fatalist in Leah
a blow.

No money in it. " She sheltered behind the
first catchword that occurred to her. A term at
an art school would open up a new era of com-
plications. No. She wouldn't submit to be-
coming a ticketed unit in that smeary army of
mediocrities. Anne didn't understand, she was
a jovial taster of life's humours, asked nothing
beyond the means to live and the popularity she
always enjoyed, but she would never make her
mark. Yet Leah was proud of her talent in a
bewildered way, as might a man on being left
a castle in the will of a distant relation. Odara

191

FALSE GODDESSES

shouldn't have the sketch anyway ! This some-
how salved Leah's conscience. For the future
she would hoard her best, and perhaps, one
day. . . . But she might beg for it? Leah
steeled herself in advance.

Madame Tyndal's club was in Curzon Street.
Half- Bohemian, half-smart, it harboured few
dead-level types, those who sit stiff with unease,
acidly glaring at an open door, or dunched over
knitting, and whispering. The food — rock on
which so many women's clubs split — was equal
to average restaurant form. The hahituees,
sunk in divans, smoked and read. Leah step-
ping deliberately over the thick carpet, her eyes
seeking Odara Tyndal, observed that the
women, drifting in, were mostly young. The
singer, by the window, was drinking a cocktail.
She raised her eyebrows in recognition, and
called for another.

"You're pretty comfortable here," Leah
sank by her side.

" Get up ! get up ! " shouted Odara, " you
are on my muff." She did not listen to crushed
apologies as she smoothed and caressed the mass
of ruched chiffon with its spray of natural lilies-
of-the-valley. Leah cursed them all impartially.

" Well, how are you? I am one nerve — I
caw-not sleep in London. Waitress tell the
page to call a taxi at half-past two — wait my
dear, I must go to the telephone." She rose,
and Leah replaced a cigarette case, lighter,
chain purse, a parcel, and a bottle of aspirin.

192

INTERVAL

She laid them on the table, which held gloves,
veil, umbrella, fur-and-chiffon wrap, and more
parcels. Leah scanned her as she returned.
Odara wore a tightly-fitting hat of blood-coloured
wings ; arrow-shaped wings on either side hid
her ears. Her lips matched — perfectly. "A
thundering bad lot; you weird child!" But
Anne's tongue spared no one.

" Tell me who's everyone, they all look inter-
esting— except the one by the fire-rail," Leah
indicated the room's anomaly.

" There's no one here to-day. This is quite
a good club, as clubs go ; women have yet to
learn to make them habitable. Your amusing
atmosphere of pugnacious emancipation pre-
vents that at present. We have barely got be-
yond the stage when to possess a second home
where one might forget one's own, stamped one
as faintly undesirable. I tried several before I
chose this. I was — what you call } — blackballed,
at one. Imagine it ! I suffer among frumps,
they affect me as a bad smell. We have none
here, thank God, except Madame there, and she
is feministe, so what will you ? " She tilted the
wings in the direction of the fire-rail and blew a
fan of smoke at the unconscious back. "And
now darling, we will have lunch." . . .

Waiting for the fish course, Leah ventured
that Madame Tyndal was not well perhaps ? She
meant ' ' are you happy ? ' ' but the question
seemed sentimental and impertinent.

' ' I am not very happy just now. ' ' The singer,

193 N

FALSE GODDESSES

for some reason, was answering her real anxie-
ties, her foreign accent and phrasing lent a charm
to confidence, while mitigating the unreserved
manner in which it was made. " I'll tell you,
I know you will care." Leah smiled cynically.
How exactly like Odara to reveal in this revolt-
ingly unsuitable atmosphere, after endless op-
portunities in the past ! And careful listening
was the quality needed to keep this sprung leak
trickling ; any trifle would stop it. Neglecting
course after course she devoted herself to the
other who was talking with unleashed freedom.
"And my dear child I am so dreadfully hard
up ! My flat costs," — she named the sum — ,
* ' and I have to have dozens of evening
dresses. . . ." Her private income, and what
she made, she tossed to Leah as a make-weight.
" And I owe my tailor a hundred. He is sueing
me, that will be a tiresome business. I shall
have to work harder, and I hate work. In my
life, one is never free to be oneself. How I am
sick of it all ! and darling, I am a naturally
domestic woman. Hah ! you don't believe me !
I have had no home life. My childhood was
really Hell ; my mother was Spanish. Her tem-
per was of the devil ; my father is dead ; killed
in a duel with my mother's lover. She's still
alive. She's a beast of a woman. I never go
near her — I don't know why I'm telling you
all this. . . ."

Inevitably men drifted in with the stream.
Leah listened, flattered, worried, but pas-

194

INTERVAL

sionately attentive. " He is really quite a
darling and you must meet him. A man I met
in Nice shot himself when I told him I was
fiancee. There was a great to-do ; I could not
sing for weeks afterwards, and after all I broke
off my engagement — more wine ? — . Sometimes
I think a home of my own and a husband is all
I want."

Leah did not believe her ; this was the type
of emotional rounding-off to be expected from a
certain kind of woman after a certain kind of con-
fidence.

In the lounge over coffee, she showed Odara
Tyndal the sketch. She looked at it dispassion-
ately. " I have no dress of that colour," she
said, " I did not know you were an artist. You
have much observation. Very amusing." She
had no sense of humour. Leah laid down the
drawing, beaten. You could never get upsides
with Odara.

' Seeing the singer frequently it was forced

upon Leah that the social ice was barely chipped.

It wasn't a question of time or faithful service,

apparently, but something temperamental, that

.she saw at last as the barrier.

Odara was preoccupied now, paying Leah
less attention than ever. She began to go less
often to the flat. She would go home depressed
and miserable ; would sit at Odara' s table wait-
ing, like a paid companion, for her cue.

" Miss Bounce tells me that you are great —
but great — friends with Mrs. Clifton. I too

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FALSE GODDESSES

have met her." Leah deprecated this. Madame
Tyndal frowned ; Alice had told her far more
than that. Leah shifted uneasily, she was
enraged. How could she have foreseen
this?

" You are fickle, yes? " the singer comfort-
ably analysed, " then I too shall know what to

expect ! " She laughed. " ' Ow revient

jamais a ses premiers amours,' hei^i? "

Leah, at bay, muttered something about
" going on to better ones."

" I should say you wasted much time over
people who gave you nothing but emotional
returns? "

Leah was arrested by this hazard ; the damped
fires struggled up eagerly, she enjoyed being
warned against others by the right person.
Had Odara cared to, she could have clinched
allegiance there and then, but she was too much
for Leah, She decided to mark off the episode
as a bad debt.

And now she had voluntarily lost Mrs. Clifton.

It was from Alice that Leah learnt that
Madame Tyndal was to start for Paris within the
week.

The Literary Circle gave a party ; one of the
number had had a story accepted, and sunk the
proceeds on a claret-and-sandwiches supper.
Anne's drawing-room was commandeer 'd by

196

INTERVAL

the dashing host, and Leah thankfully repaired
to it ; Bessie was still occupied with her muddled
love affair.

Anne Sleath was there, a guest, circumstance
that appealed to the Circle, and Mrs. Cedric
Vernon, whose only claim to be present lay in
her popularity. The host, the lion of the party,
Pansy Conran, and several old friends whose
tentative contributions to the press thumped
back regularly through the letter-box, com-
pleted the company and filled the confined space,
when the door opened and a girl entered, un-
announced and smoking.

She paused and nodded with mock con-
descension.

"Good evening children, all good?" she
asked, and smiling sat down uninvited and rested
her feet in her host's lap. She seemed to be
about twenty-six ; Leah's roving eye was
instantly ri vetted.

It transpired that she was Deirdre Pope ;
her curious poetry was beginning to have
a restricted vogue that extended beyond
the confines of Monk's Green. Anne had
imported her from the All- Arts club in town.

Miss Pope had all and more of the manner-
isms of the predestined celebrity ; Anne had
warned her that she would find the Circle
amusing, had also asked her not to laugh when
anyone tried to be raffish.

Miss Pope was slim and small, and gowned in
a peacock-coloured seamless djibbeh with a

197

FALSE GODDESSES

medallion of orange silk upon the breast. She
had chopped her black hair short, and it stood
out thickly round her head. Her face was pale,
with narrow slanting eyes.

Leah judged her ultimate chances by the
manner in which her first advances were re-
ceived ; up to a point she was always singularly
successful ; the unconscious possessor of her
heart appeared to fall in with her most exacting
requirements in the early stages, but she was
bitter when they ignored the ideals she had pre-
sented them with. They must conform, or they
must go ! She mistook this injustice for a com-
pliment.

Miss Pope seemed half asleep, but her eyes
were gleaming with sarcasm ; she spoke to no
one but Anne. Cynthia whispered to Leah :
"I should think her motto was 'Death or
Liberty ' ! "

As the party broke up, Leah lingered about
Miss Pope, now talking to friends ; she took no
notice of Leah, and the other accepted neglect,
thought in a flash of her school days. . . . She
moved to the door ; Miss Pope talked on. Leah
flung her pride away and frankly waited in the
hall. At length Miss Pope emerged and throw-
ing an ecclesiastical biretta of black velvet
on to her mop of hair, and enwrapping her-
self in a species of gabardine prepared to
leave.

" Shall we go home together ? " asked Leah,
smiling very brightly.

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INTERVAL

" M-m? " said Miss Pope trying to unfasten
the front door.

' ' I mean are you going my way ? ' *

floundered Leah.

'Depends which way that is." Then : " I
remember you, you're the funny little girl in the
green frock." In the street, Deirdre Pope was
moved to behave as though she and her com-
panion had known each other from infancy ; and
Leah lost her head.

"I'm taking a flat," she announced, and
astonished herself far more than the other.
Then plunging : ' ' What larks if we could live
there together ! ' *

But Miss Pope was inured to the unconven-
tional.

" Well, why not? Let's. 'Think we should
get on, eh?" And at Leah's own turning:
" Let me know what you decide to do about it.
'Bye-bye."

She fled without leaving her address.

VI

The idea of the flat, to which she felt in a sense
committed, supported Leah over the next few
days. There was now no difficulty about money ;
her mother appeared to be prospering. Leah
would exercise economy and deprive the Bounces
of the sum she was obliged to hand them for her
board. She told them all while the intention was

199

FALSE GODDESSES

upon her. Of Deirdre's compliance she enter-
tained no doubts, for she generally managed to
get what she wanted if it depended solely upon
personal exertions.

Mrs. Bounce, harassed with ' the servant
problem,' and worried about the moody Bessie,
asked no questions, but raised plenty of diffi-
culties, extremely practical. She insisted on flat-
hunting with Leah, and prosed of rents, stairs,
chars, and catering ; reft herself from the house-
duties that so urgently demanded her presence,
with a plodding desire to do her best for Leah.

She tried to be grateful to Mrs. Bounce, but
it was an effort. " She makes herself such a
determined, unnecessary martyr." Leah at last
resigned herself to being overruled and left the
whole business to her.

Her line of passive resistance enabled Leah
to devote herself to finding Deirdre, which she
did through the agency of Anne Sleath. Deirdre
had billeted herself upon some literary friends
and seemed to have no home ; when her visiting-
list was exhausted she lived at her club. Of her
parents, if any, she never spoke.

Anne brought them together once more at her
house, and went out for the afternoon leaving
tea at hand.

" I say Miss Lawrence, what fun ! " began
Deirdre, "it'll just suit me. I never thought
you meant it."

"Neither did I" shrieked Leah, "and for
heaven's sake don't call me Miss Lawrence ! "

200

INTERVAL

At last the flat was ready, and Leah's deter-
mination was shaken.

She had been out all day on Hampstead
Heath with Deirdre, who had been difficult and
elusive. She had taken a volume of poetry with
her and had read it aloud, explaining passages
to Leah, as they lingered on the breezy heights.
Later, Leah would enjoy her poses, but, in
matters of the affections, her sense of humour
was always in abeyance. She listened slavishly,
took her cue of admiration or condemnation.

Leah found the parting from the Bounces
very trying. She felt alternately, and be-
wilderingly, pathetic and injured. But the
details of getting out of the house clubbed sen-
timent on the head, and damaged pleasure
considerably. When the key refused to turn
owing to the helpful attentions of Bessie ; when
the trunk bumped down the stairs, and Mrs.
Bounce gave loud warning not to scratch the
wall-paper or knock the pictures crooked, Leah,
in a riot of irritability, would have given up the
whole thing thankfully ; she could have screamed
at the fuss. But there she was ; booked for an
emancipated ' ' act ' ' of which she was already
doubting the issue. One fact stood out of
chaos. The flat must be occupied, and at once.
With an unwilling spirit, and mind struggling to
readjust itself, she taxi'd away from the
Bounces. She was even robbed of a good exit,
a drive-like-hell door-slamming departure, for
Mrs. Bounce was kindly and optimistic. She

20I

FALSE GODDESSES

had learnt in her training as mother not to betray
surprise and alarm at any vagaries on the part of
her own daughters. But Leah Lawrence was a
different proposition. There was an alien
quality about her moods.

Thoughts crowded upon Leah as she leant
back in the taxi.

After all, everyone in that house was seek-
ing happiness in her own fashion, and the one
undramatic figure — faithful Mrs. Bounce —
patiently, sanely, kept it going with regular
meals and general accommodating efficiency ;
suppressing any fledgling desires she herself
might have had, that the "young things"
might have their lives to squander unhampered.
Wet or fine, she fought in crowded shops
for food, unthanked, and alone ; rewarded
if, through some unforeseen hitch and con-
sequent afternoon of leisure, one of her girls
took her out on local " jaunts."

Leah struggled with rising tears.

She let herself into the flat. Her trunk had
been left downstairs in everyone's way ; Leah
did not mean her first moments with Deirdre to
be mixed in hideous details of tipping and
settling ; she had been in at too many deaths of
joy before ! She was free ; Deirdre was waiting
for her. As she stood in the narrow hall she
heard voices. The hall itself was not as Mrs.
Bounce had left it, the pictures were now at the
further end ; " Hope" leant against the wall,
and "Re-union" near the door, the glass

202

INTERVAL

cracked. A line of Brangwyn etchings took
their place. But Leah pushed forward.

She found Deirdre with friends in the partly-
furnished drawing-room. They were sitting in
a rough circle on the floor ; parts of an unclassi-
fied meal were spread on a red-checked table-
cloth.

" Come on Fabian, pass the cup from hand
to hand. It's our turn round this way and I've
a thirst on me I wouldn't part with."

Deirdre wore a long overall of sultry orange
linen, her hair was bound in a patterned con-
tadina handkerchief.

They seemed to consider Leah as she came in.

" Hullo Leah! so you've turned up — don't
jiggle me Agra ! — have some food. We've been
working like navvies havn't we, animals ? Give
her the cup. Fay. It's all right, we haven't
licked it."

"Fabian" politely advanced upon Leah.
" I think I will rinse it at the sink if you don't
mind waiting a minute." They clapped him as
he went out. He turned, thanked in mime, and
staggered out poisoned.

More voices in the hall, and a girl and a boy
came in, dusty and arguing. She was in a
student's smock and trousers, her hair was
coming down ; her companion's velvet jacket
was smeared with pink paste.

" We've done the brasses," she put a bowl of
brightness upon the floor and subsided. "Hullo !
garlic ! ! where did you raise it Pope ? ' '

203

FALSE GODDESSES

" Fay found it in some weary little joint in
Frith Street," said "Agra."

" Good egg ! but we shnll be a pestilence for
days now. I must put all thoughts of love from
me — however, it's worth it."

The boy called Fabian came in and handed
the cup to Leah.

" Someone wake Raymond up," said Agra
to the boy who had brought in the brasses,

Raymond ! what a name ! it sounds like an
outline drawing of some forsaken pianist that
they stick up in the Tube." Raymond grunted,
" Well I am one, so that's all right."

' ' Not you ! I give the City a year to swallow
you !

Leah sat stiffly in her chair, soon she would
rise and shake hands with her hostess, and thank
her

" Kind of Mrs. Bounce to help us," said
Deirdre, " I suppose all this won't offend her ? "

" Mrs. Bounce — whoever she may be — ought
to be jolly glad if she knew," said the girl in
trousers, "it's the first bit of real work you've
ever done — altering everything . ' '

"Sh-hy

" Oh I'd love to get my teeth into these wall-
papers ! " Fabian nodded resigned ; " Aren't
they the naughtiest things you ever struck ? ' '

" But I suppose they're the landlord's choice,
and I don't want to get quodded for damaging
property. What's the law about wall-papers —
if any ? ' '

204

INTERVAL

" Gawd knows,"
The trousered girl rose, and surveyed the room.

" What did it say in the lease, Deir' ? "

" My dear child I never read it. It isn't done.
I signed, and Leah signed, and we all kissed in
the vestry. Ahhhh ! " she yawned, " the thing
is — who clears up .'* "

" Look here. These wall-papers. I want
brown paper, then when anyone amusing comes
they can do sketches on it and sign them."

" 'Been done, ' Je prong' — and all that."

" Well, but could you live with pineapples

in a thunderstorm ? ' '

"We'll take the rest of the carpets up to-
morrow," announced a girl who had sat silent
and cross-legged the whole time. "I won't
stand for the ones you've got. Pope. Their
vibrations are low. On Monday we can start
varnishing the boards, or we might leave them
austere, that looks more studied. Fraternity's
got some set-out they call ' Monkish ' or
' Saxon ' — I forget which — and the answer is
some schoolfeast benches and trestle tables with
hearts punched in them, and some pewter littered
about. They're charging enormous prices for
them. I shall start a shop — Oh but exclusive!
— in the scrag-end of Bond Street, and put one
kitchen chair in the window. We'll ticket it
' Domestic. Mary-Anne period.' It'll fetch
'em in crowds."

"I'm too dead to do another thing," com-
plained Fabian, adding, "let's dance."

205

FALSE GODDESSES

Kick the food out of the window, someone. ' '
What furniture there was they bunched in
corners. Raymond played beautifully. " Jar dins
sous la pluie " dripped and glinted ; the marble
temple gleamed, embowered in glooming foli-
age ; the bronze Pan poised, sardonic, in his
beech-grove. Almost the player drew the scent
of lilac from the keys. . . . They howled him
down ; they swayed with hypnotic languor to the
yearning cadences of " Some of these Days" ;
they walked only on the edge of the rhythm,
broke it with capricious rushes and swoops.
Agra and the silent girl moved palm to palm, as
one. They danced like professionals. Fabian,
on whom the mantle of convention seemed to
have fallen, approached Leah. His dancing
was quite as bad as that of the youths of her
world ; his hand splayed over her shoulder-
blades. They disengaged with mutual relief.
Raymond attempted to leave the piano,
but was pushed back. Deirdre, by com-
parison, was not a good dancer, Leah ob-
served, her rhythms were less harmonious
than her verse.

The dusk fell in swathes, almost visibly, layer
upon layer. The girl in trousers spoke of
supper. " Can't be done. Sorry," said Deirdre.
Leah waited, at strain. Deirdre added : "I'm
due at the Latimers, he's just taken a new
studio in Glebe Place. Thank God I can go as
I am. Well a demain then." They dis-
persed, Deirdre in their wake. At the door she

206

INTERVAL

paused and held Leah's arm retentively while
she sought for what she intended to say. " Oh,
I shan't be very late Leah dear, 'bout one, or a
little after. I expect you'll have gone to bye-
bye or — are you booked too ? No ? I don't
want to go a bit to-night, its a terrible

bore, but one must ," she raised her

well-marked eyebrows, " I really must be

off. Oh good-night darling ." She

kissed Leah, shook her arm smilingly and
released it.

The front door slammed. . . .

VII

Leah's propinquity with literary life as repre-
sented by the dissective poetry in which Deirdre
steeped herself, revived old ambitions. She saw
herself the successful novelist, discreetly pointed
out at gatherings of the Elect to adoring girls
whom she would befriend, and talk to with sweet
sad mystery and the cynical smile of one-whom-
the - world - has - battered - but - who - has - won-
through. " I don't know why I am telling you
•all this, but I think you will understand." . . .
She saw descriptions of herself in the picture
papers ; cautious banter on her appearance, that
would but thinly cloak the very real respect of
the organ for her genius. Mr. Rattler, lightly
touching upon Parliament and the latest musical-
comedy, would add :

207

FALSE GODDESSES

" Among the audience I noticed Leah Lawrence
who appeared to he clothed in snake-skins. Is she
perhaps seeking the wisdom of the serpent for her
next novel? Arresting, but, — somewhat grue-
some."

and so on.

Drugged by the atmosphere which Deirdre
imported to their joint establishment, and by the
lonr discussions of her writer friends, Leah
actually achieved a complete novel. She sat and
contemplated it with a deep satisfaction. It was
her Life Work. But when she had become
accustomed to the idea that she could and would
write, she found that her spleen was exhausted.
It was not the first of a brilliant series, as she
yearned that it might be, it was sheer Leah, up
to date. Cankered accounts of the Bounces,
easily recognizable. . . She had spared neither
her friends nor herself.

Anti-climax confronted her on the completion
of the book. She knew no publishers or literary
people save those friends who plucked the fringe
of journalism. Of the necessary procedure she
knew nothing ; it had not even occurred to her
that the surprisingly small bundle of manuscript
must be type-written.

Leah one Saturday evening carried it to a
meeting of the Literary Circle which, in spite of
time and waning enthusiasm, as one after another
was swept into the business of life, still straggled
on. To the residue, Leah, dry of mouth and
shaky of hand, read her manuscript ; it took little
over an hour. At the finish Anne, voicing

208

INTERVAL

general opinion said : "Well Leah my child,
you've got it off your chest at last!" Then
everyone edged in shop gossip, and Leah
remained to the end.

She was afraid they would discuss her, and of
what they might say.

Life with Deirdre was an enslaving, sadden-
ing affair. Leah often wondered on what rock
they would finally split. Little rocks offered
themselves in plenty all the time, but she held
on, hoping for better things, totally unable to
break the spell.

" Une qui haise, et tme qui tend lajoue." . . .

Leah took Deirdre to the theatre ; she would
secure her for at least three hours that would not
be subject to any possibility of disappointment or
interruption, or to those flighty departures which
made life at the flat so impossible.

Warmed with hope, she ran up the staircase
with the tickets ; and then a hideous possibility
overwhelmed her. Deirdre would have an en-
gagement for one of her endless studios, and
would decline to shelve it ; she had a talent for
disappointing and putting you in the wrong at
the same time. But for once no light excuse
was made. Deirdre listened and said : " I was
going somewhere to-morrow — can't remember
where 'n anyhow it doesn't matter. I've always
wanted to see that show, 'clever of you to think
of getting seats. Stalls too, you bad child ! "

She sent Leah running to telephone the givers

209 0

FALSE GODDESSES

of the party. They drove to the theatre. Leah
was of those who believe all sentimental diffi-
culties can be solved in taxis.

As they sped down Kensington Gore, she felt
poignantly forlorn, she even longed for her
mother. It often surprised Leah how barren
was her knowledge of her mother, but this ignor-
ance could be twisted to suit her moods. All the
dramas had a " mother " motif, and to get her
way Leah used it intelligendy. This was about
the only manner in which her mother was an
asset. But Leah had moments of genuine dis-
pleasure. It was outrageous to reflect that she
did not know a single circumstance connected
with her mother's people, of even her maiden
name she was in ignorance. She pretended to
remember her father ; she only knew that he was
dead — which was quite a respectable thing to be.
On the whole, she was too indifferent to be
curious, she only feared that in some way this
lack of data might injure her socially, but shrank
from confiding this to Mrs. Bounce ; she would
feel humiliated. And anyway, the whole affair
was ancient history, a condition in which Leah
had moved since she could remember anything.
It seemed hardly decent to resurrect the very
scheme of things.

Leah's interest in the performance was inter-
mittent and subject to her companion's every
movement. Suddenly a futile rage swept
over her. Damn it 1 How kind she could
be in Deirdre's place ! She didn't ask much !

2IO

INTERVAL

When the lights went up, Deirdre gave a little
laugh, patted Leah's fingers, and huddled her
cloak about her.

The evening was over. It was hardly worth
a guinea. . . .

VIII

From Deirdre Leah acquired a taste for spine-
less yet assertively artistic garments in curious
colours, and would have succumbed, had not her
pride and sense of humour witheld her. To see
Deirdre's slow, sinister smile of comprehension
was unthinkable. Leah was increasingly un-
willing to yield up her entire personality on the
altar of friendship, and she filed the question of
barbaric wear for future reference.

There came to the fiat at all times a man in
the early thirties whose peculiar name, Wreke
Munday, was in harmony with his appearance,
manners, and pictures. He was a Cubist. It
was impossible for the conventional eye to per-
ceive what he and Miss Pope felt for each other.

He called once when she was out, and Leah,
struggling to find a joint in his armour, gave up
the attempt at last, and showed him her novel —
to make him talk of some other subject. She
thought it was morbid enough even for him !

" Have you shown it to Deirdre .^ " he asked,
rejecting the manuscript.

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FALSE GODDESSES

Leah had not. Deirdre took all the en-
thusiasm out of her. Leah hoped she was not
doing her friend an injustice, but she vividly
pictured the latter 's attitude as that of The
Indulgent Smile. In the matter of her book,
Leah had been driven to subterfuges. She was
flippant, assuming as a shield the attitude
towards herself she thought Deirdre was takinor.
Surprised at work, Leah had been as ashamed
as one caught stealing. It was a form of self-
revelation which she was unwilling to make.
But her vanity prevented her from confiding this
to Munday. She exonerated Deirdre from any
suggestion of indifference with all the odd,
passionate pride that moves the slum woman to
conceal a bad choice by defending the husband
who has just knocked her down from the protests
of a third party.

And then one day, Deirdre left, without
warning, and went to live with the artist, and
Leah bitterly hoped that Munday's child would
indeed be fair of face. . . .

Left alone, Leah turned to Bobby Dainton,
who was touring the suburbs prior to departing
to the provinces. He would be solid comfort.

He came, and was all that could have been
desired ; the affair appeared to be knitting itself
up again quite satisfactorily.

" I think I must marry Bobby." But Leah
knew she had no intention of doing so. She
gave herself to excursions into those emotions
which she guessed, as an average girl, she ought

212

INTERVAL

to be feeling. This allowed of quarrels, recon-
ciliations, despair (Bobby contributed this) and
the usual hackneyed paraphernalia.

Soon she found that the expenses of the flat
could not be borne alone. A litde over a third
of her income had gone to the rent ; the house-
keeping had been undertaken by herself. They
neither of them minded what they ate ; all Leah
knew of the food question was a horror, incul-
cated by Mrs. Bounce, of ' things in tins.' They
had no meat except when they took meals in
restaurants ; Leah had no idea of how long joints
should last, and she could not cook them even
had she known. Eggs and bacon was their
staple diet, and raw fruit. After the first week,
Leah gave up trying to calculate the cost of
living. They ran no bills, if one was short of
money for some impending meal, it was care-
lessly handed over by the other.

When Leah was left to wind up affairs, fears
and worries without end filled her mind. In the
end she sent for Mrs. Bounce, who packed and
sorted furniture, linen, pictures, and the greasy
kitchen utensils. Mr. Bounce undertook the
landlord. Leah was now given the option of
•remaining in possession for the rest of her
lease — a month — but instandy declined. To go
back to chaff was bad enough, to remain a
thousand times worse. But an agreeable sur-
prise awaited her. The Bounces, to a man,
stood by her. Ella even made Leah laugh with
her vitriolic condemnation of Deirdre Pope ;

213

FALSE GODDESSES

Bessie hung about, brow furrowed, anxious to
console. Mrs. Bounce came out of it best. She
never mentioned the matter. . . . The dears !
They were all dears !

So Leah returned for the second time to the
Bounce's roof.

IX

The happenings, the scraps of news that, after
a prolonged period of dreary brooding, Leah
emerged to assimilate, resolved themselves into
the facts that Jimmy Bounce was shortly to be
married to a City typist, a ' good safe girl,' and
that Wee Di had been forbidden to join the
"Lights Up" tour, and had returned to her
home next door. Mrs. Bounce had a new
char, and Bessie a new interest.

Ella circulated it about that her sister had
" got religion." She was attached to a chapel
organization in the Northbourne Park region ;
it provided ' hearty ' games twice a week for the
offspring of the more notorious among the local
drunkards, chapel teas, district visitors. Mis-
sions to Young Men, and Talks to Mothers.
Bessie, unable to put her own house in order,
had flung herself with uncouth zeal into perform-
ing that office for other people, whose worldly
means rendered them accessible for experiment.
It was a species of emergency throw-back to her

214

INTERVAL

father's innate religious convictions. The leit-
motif of Bessie's speech was "the minister"
and " Helpful Talks."

This was Ella's priceless opportunity. Bessie,
she said, was as easy to roast as a chestnut.
Her sister, unreadier of retort than ever before
colloquial chaff, would generally retire to howl
in her bed-room ; at her most amiable, Ella only
ridiculed, but if Bessie went grizzling to Mrs.
Bounce and Ella came in for reproof, she would
become merciless. ' ' If she was married and had
a thumping great baby we shouldn't hear any
more pi-jaw," Ella would contemptuously tell
Alice. She repeated the remark to Leah, who
perceived that there was something in it ; but
she snubbed Ella mechanically. Ella would be
very amusing at tea-parties ; clever enough to
grade and select her jokes ; if she went too far
she might get disliked, and it wasn't worth that
just for Bessie. It sometimes occurred that
people whom Ella met were inclined to be in-
terested in Bessie's " mission work," and brush-
ing aside the young girl's racy flippancies, would
ask earnest questions. This was annoying, but
Ella learnt to take her cue, and composing her
face was gravely kind ; she knew almost nothing
about the chapel work, she had only built her
jibes upon Bessie's early unguarded enthusiasm.
But she herself had stopped that source of
amusement. Bessie, overhandled from the first,
now obstinately refused to speak. She and Ella
had no confidence. They avoided each other as

215

FALSE GODDESSES

much as possible when Ella was finally warned
off by her mother, wearied of the undignified
outcries of her elder daughter.

Ella had for Bessie an effervescent contempt ;
Bessie spent her time in futile envy of Ella's
talent for getting her own way. Alice, for them,
did not seem to enter the arena at all, she was
just easy to get on with, a useful listener-to-
complaints. She was the only truly domestic of
the three, but she had no time. With Bessie, it
was natural inaction, and total inability to get
what she wanted from life, that had earmarked
her from her school days ' the stay-at-home one.'

Ella was now in the enjoyment of her own
allowance ; she had hauled down the flag of
independence very soon after she came home
from the tour. When the last penny of her
salary was gone, she soon began to clamour.
Mrs. Bounce was in a quandary, she dared not
give her even what Bessie drew, and the child
would be a good investment. Mrs. Bounce
regarded the sum allowed Bessie as money
thrown away, even with care she would never
" repay " dressing. She gave Ella £25 a year,
so that Bessie still led by a fiver, Ella calculated.
Bessie made a scene, and her father intervened
for the first time and told her she ought to be
ashamed of herself. " We do our best for you,
and it's nothing but worry, worry, worry.
What is it you want ? ' ' and his thumb and
index finger hovered suggestively at his waist-
coat pocket, and Bessie was astonished and

216

INTERVAL

cowed. But the experiment was not a success.
Ella had none of Alice's steadiness, or Bessie's
bad taste in dress, neither was she the manager
Leah might have been had not so many en-
tanglements stood in the way of ordered expen-
diture. Ella brought all her childishness to the
management of her money ; most of it appeared
to "go into her stomach," her father said. She
became dyspeptic and subject to heartburn, she
kept big boxes of chocolates in her handkerchief
drawer. She had a passion for being photo-
graphed, and red envelopes of brown proofs
were a feature of her place at the breakfast table.
She never seemed to have anything to wear ;
assets in hand soon showed the strain.

Ella now had her hair up. That milestone of
life alone had been passed by the Bounces with-
out fuss. At the time of the innovation it had
been Leah's boast that she fixed her hair with
two pins, like Sarah Bernhardt. But she was in
the thick of an artistic spell at the moment ; later
she was sorry that she had taken that line. Alice
had passed unnoticed ; her hair always looked
neat and mature, from the ' doorknocker ' of the
High School days. Bessie's head rather sug-
•gested the contents of a baker's shop, a roll in
front, a bag behind slipping away from a bun on
the top, and the coiffure endured for months after
the others had, what Mrs. Bounce described as
"found their heads." Leah and Ella, ex-
perimenting continually, were generally pleasing
to the eye.

217

FALSE GODDESSES

When Ella overdid her applications to her
mother, Mrs. Bounce admitted defeat, and re-
luctantly discontinued the allowance. It was
easier to get the child clothes ' ' as she needed
them."

Upon the illness of a valued helper, Leah
offered to accompany Bessie to Northbourne
Park, hoping the experience might prove an
anodyne to thought.

The slum district in which the chapel was
situate opened up for Leah new types of
emotions. Hollow-eyed houses (with the sign
"good beds") approached by steep peeling
steps, thronged with women dressed with a
brazen unconcern for public opinion. Rows of
these houses, and filthy brats tumbling and yell-
ing in the road ; a pub at the corner through
whose brilliant windows at night could be seen
the bar-maid polishing glasses. Shops heaped
with cheap sweets, " jelly babies," "liquorice
boot-laces," and to almost every street its
picture-palace, with dim gilt lettering, flaring,
badly-drawn posters, and cream plaster blistered
or stained according to the time of year.

Leah hoped that the minister would call her

our dear sister Lawrence ' ' ; anything might
happen here, if all Ella said was true ! But she
was disappointed. The Rev. Hiram Bodgers
conformed to type only in possessing a long
upper-lip and a droning voice ; he did not appear
again after the awkward, grateful handshake all
round in the chapel recreation-room.

218

INTERVAL

Leah believed the children would love her,
but when they entered the gas-jetted room and
saw the close-smelling youngsters, a wave of
disgust broke over her. The children did not

cling to her skirts, ' ' ' ' clamour for a story, ' ' or

set up a shout of feeble joy ' ' as she appeared ;
they shouted, certainly, but always noisily, and
seemed disconcertingly, almost impertinently,
able to amuse themselves. Of course as time
went on stray personalities extracted themselves
from the rag-heap, and with some of these Leah,
trying to feel of use, and sometimes really
interested as well, initiated advances, but they
sensed her shyness, and would edge away. The
regular helpers, professionally efficient, were
more successful, with their absence of any desire
to attract love, and the children responded to
their marshalling of the play where Leah with
her timid coaxings failed. Endeavouring to
imitate these standard methods, Leah would
spasmodically assume airs of authority ; but her
efforts were unconvincing, and upon the return
of the now convalescent helper, she gave up
accompanying Bessie on her rounds.

Life for Leah dragged on its way with nothing
to show to the world without for all the mental
activity within. Her mind covered inconceiv-
ably vast tracts of ground that the weary body
could not keep pace with. Being asked " what
she was doing now " stifled her. It wasn't fair.
She wondered if she even had a right to life ?
The world would probably say yes, but she

219

FALSE GODDESSES

would have remorselessly ordered her own exter-
mination, together with any others of her kidney.
The world must not be cumbered ! The survival
of the fittest was not a question of mere brawn.
Those who failed to make good must go ; exten-
uating circumstances were beside the point.

The least of her woes was a good honest
boredom, and she thought a flirtation might be
what she was looking for.

But after all, what was love to her ? She had
not got beyond the idea of kisses, knew herself
incapable of that selfless devotion which it
appeared was the ' ' only wear ' ' for the noblest
women .

One year, on the annual trek to Shanklyn,
she had pushed herself into love with a middle-
aged friend of Mr. Bounce — Leah affected
age — and for a time matters were nebulous and
pleasant, until the morning when the family and
The Affair toiled, grilling, over the sands beyond
the pierrots to a shady place where a picnic
lunch, garnished with sandhoppers, was served.
When they had buried the paper bags, Mr. Ellis
announced that he was going to paddle — that
alone would have damned him — but under Miss
Lawrence's loathing gaze he removed shoes and
socks, and rolling up his trousers, lurched
mincing down the shingles, revealing hairy
shanks and yellow heels. Some women might
have survived the spectacle. Leah didn't.

And now, the winter was almost upon them
all, a time dreaded increasingly by Leah. She

220

INTERVAL

had weighed up the year and found the winter
the worst. It brought the family closely
together — physically. There was, inevitably,
a herding in the drawing-room, stifling contacts
round the fire, your arms pinned to your sides
to avoid knocking someone. A gap in the
massed semi-circle only meant annoyance going
on elsewhere, for, even now, Alice kept herself
efficient as a soloist at the piano. Leah never
suspected — they none of them did — that the
critical publicity, so much more personal than a
real audience, was as trying to the performer.
But it was then or never. Sunday was almost
impossible ; if Alice rose early the fire was unlit,
there was church eating the best part of the time
before lunch, and the family, and callers, in
possession until supper. And Mr. Bounce, with
his crackling newspaper that kept up a per-
petual roaring of fidgeted sheets. Otherwise
he was inoffensive ; he preferred his study, in
the long run, a pipe was forbidden in the draw-
ing-room. Cigarettes had been reproached with
elaborate openings of the door, and " standings
ajar" of the French window, until Leah had
turned smoker, and Ella in her wake. Her own
sex against her, Mrs. Bounce had been obliged
to capitulate.

One night, unable to bear the house, Leah
leapt on to a bus and went to town, to the
Corinth.

She saw Jay Lewes for the first time..

221

FALSE GODDESSES

X

From Manchester came a paean from Bobby
Dainton. His father had " promised him a
swingeing allowance, if he, on his side, would
cut out the stage business. And might he come
and see Leah on a very urgent matter?"

Leah supposed that the episodes at the flat
had encouraged him ; his hopes, she thought,
possessed the mechanical vitality of the earth-
worm, even when severed by the unheeding
spade. She owed him a lot — more than he
realised. He had saved her face for her inter-
mittently ever since the Varsity days. Collapse
at Deirdre's beastliness had been the means of
bringing Bobby to her feet ! She wondered if
he had suspected this at the time ; but men were
very dense, thank goodness. And Leah valued
Bobby ; he was beyond price, and of course he
w^ould get over his unreasoning infatuation in
time. Leah ran over her list of acquaintances ;
she would like to see Bobby happy and settled
with some good sort who would adore him. He
wouldprobably like her if Leah said she did. . . .

When casually informed of the prospective
visit, Mrs. Bounce became tryingly playful,
bringing what Ella called her ' ' marble-arch
manner to bear on a situation she imagined she
understood. This put Leah more against the
business than she was before. She pictured the
ponderous privacy that would be accorded as a

222

INTERVAL

right, and Bobby's feelings when confronted
with the drawing-room and its upright piano
heaped with comic songs printed on woolly
paper, and bearing blottesque distortions of
bouncing comedien7ies upon their covers. So
far she had concealed the family from him.
When he called — always by pre-arrangement —
to take her out, she had contrived to be ready in
the hall. You could never reckon on that
family ; it would be a clever man who could
propose, so to speak, en parenthese, in that
house! She wondered if "the poor child"
knew what he was up against ?
Put him off ?

Mrs. Bounce, after sundry teasings of the
cloth, 'received,' and retired after the meal.
She showed firmness in the matter of drawing
Ella with her. Ella had been her most ingenue
at tea, she confidently expected to cut out Leah.
Dainton barely glanced at her, and Ella began
to "rally" the couple. At a loss, she became
impertinent, under cover of giggles. Leah
looked at her unmistakably several times ; Ella
returned the looks blandly, Leah could do little
"to her now after the bed-room debacle. The
shepherding action of her mother came as a
genuine surprise to Ella, accustomed to being
the indulged centre of attraction. She left
laughingly, but there was a great deal of whisper-
ing in the hall, ending in the noisy slamming of
a door. Leah grinned to herself. Bessie had

223

FALSE GODDESSES

been out for tea, but she presently tentatively
entered the drawing-room. She displayed
haste ; asked Leah if she had seen ' ' a book , ' '
and went out. Bobby and Leah smiled at each
other, Dainton horribly afraid that he had been
a cad. But it was an unrestful tete-a-tete,
making Leah long for the silence-ban of a
rehearsal to set gossip flowing. Bobby, so
delightful to discover among the unfamiliar sur-
roundings of revue, became, when viewed in a
matrimonial light, no better than any other nice
boy.

At last he clattered down his cup upon a
carved stool.

" Of course you know what I've come about
Leah?" he said quietly.

"Oh yes," answered Leah, crudely honest.

" Then I needn't beat about the bush." He
was relieved. " Oh my Leah girl ! my dad's
paved the way at last for me! I'll chuck the
rotten profession at once — I found I hated it
after all when you left the company. You don't
know what I went through on tour ! And he's
put me in the way of a permanent job too —
nothing wildly exciting of course, but you'll be
my excitement, and at least I shall be able to
keep us both."

" My mother only sends me a small allow-
ance. She might stop it if I married."

"What's that matter? You don't have to
think of money, bless your heart ! I don't have
to have a wife with an income — now.

224

> >

INTERVAL

An obvious colloquialism occurred to
her.

"You'd insure me against fire, or burglars,
wouldn't you ? But in wishing to hold the
money-bags you are refusing me a loop-hole of
escape in the event of your of our fail-
ing to hit it off. Oh dear ! now you're cross with
me for being right."

Oh Leah , you say all that now — God knows
I'd give you everything, I suppose it's selfish-
ness, but I don't believe that girls think of these
things if they really care for the man. You're
trying to tell me you don't want me."

" Oh my dear ! you're hopeless. I do want
you, but I don't honestly think I'm the marrying
sort."

"If that's all ! every girl says that."

" But I mean it." Leah was annoyed.
"There's too much overtime in mar-
riage, and remember, I know myself as you
could never hope to ! I'm not ready for it, not
in any way. If I could have the" life I want — my
fill of it — and if at the end I found it wasn't
worth while after all, I'd say yes, gladly. But
I must have my opportunity first ; besides, I'm
not easy to live with — ask the Bounces ! I don't
know even why I'm wasting your time discussing
it, my mind was made up years before I met
you.

He came to her chair and kissed her. " Yes,
that was very nice Bobby, but it's a side issue."

" Very well dear, I believe you honestly

225 p

FALSE GODDESSES

think all this now, but I shall hang on, all my
life."

" That's splendid Bob ! " She put her arm
round his shoulders and kissed him. She was
relieved. She was very fond of Bobby.

Quietly he left the house.

" And that's that? " speculated Leah.

XI

A VAGUE desire for the Social Service ideal which
had been aroused by the chapel activities, still
held its own within Leah. There was surely
something behind it ? Something waiting to be
better done, differently done at any rate?

Passing the Town Hall in the High Street
one afternoon, Leah's attention happened to be
caught by a notice in a wire frame. A lecture
that evening. " You are Power." She decided
to go. Bessie and Alice inexplicably offered to
come too, and the three, strangely awkward in
each other's company, reached the hall . When
they were in their seats Leah regretted that she
had come ; she mistrusted the manner and
appearance of those "with a mission," and was
passively antagonistic to all such lectures, after
the somewhat unpractical and uninteresting
idealism of the Highest Thought School. Be-
cause of this a curious satisfaction filled her when
the speaker, mounting the platform, proved to |
be normal looking.

226

INTERVAL

He began, without rant, tiresome elaborate
gestures, or pauses to drink from the tumbler by
the carafe. He spoke of achievement as a
' duty,' of " doing what you wanted to," having
what seemed to you best, and "seeing that
you got it." The peculiar line rivetted Leah's
attention from then on. He was sincere, in a
cultured way ; made no attempts at vulgar per-
suasion. He was human in a large manner ;
made quiet, colossal statements.

" You are Christ on earth."

That was his message.

" Now you'll think this is a pretty big pro-
position. It is. We can all win out, in that
sense we're all equal, but we're all enwrapped
in lesser or greater degrees of misapprehension
of our rights ... of course I don't mean to
suggest that you should go right out of this hall
to-night and perform what we call miracles.
That isn't reasonable . . . you couldn't do it
even in your working affairs. But I say this.
You've to realise that we were meant to perform
them. . . ."

He helped them with personal proofs, told
them of years of death-in-life with a twisted
spine. And of the day he rose, and entered the
Vv^orld again. It was the most commonplace
portion of his address, but he sympathised with
the mass whose endless cry is ' ' show me ' ' ;
knew that the majority would carry away this
point alone.

The Christian Scientists say ' there is no

227

FALSE GODDESSES

pain.' That's wrong. There's plenty of pain
and misery around, but it's what we've made
possible ; so next time you fall ill, don't load it
on to the Almighty. He can't help you more
than you let him ; but if you pull your share,
there'll come a time when you'll know beyond
a possibility of doubt that these things that I
have barely touched upon are at hand — at last."

Bessie, Alice and Leah left the hall in a
silence that was not of mutual unease. . . .
nothing would ever be quite the same again . . .
they looked furtively at each other with a vast,
vague understanding, an obliteration of old
points of view. . . . Life resolved itself into a
huge, a tremendous simplicity.

From that night, each in her own degree, the
girls lived in a state of optimistic expectation.
The possibilities seemed endless.

Salvation might come at any moment. . . .

XII

Very shortly after the New Year the Cedric
Vernons gave one of their parties, and Leah
happily made ready to go to it. She meant to
enjoy herself, simply, humanly. Alice was ful-
filling an engagement at Mrs. Craven's, to play
the dance music, but the other two were dis-
engaged. Leah was wearing a frock of petunia
chiffon, with a high-waisted band of delft blue,

228

INTERVAL

and a blue ribbon bound round her pale hair ;
about the combined effect Mrs. Bounce re-
frained from criticism and turned to contempla-
tion of Ella's eau-de-nil, and green sequin
butterfly alighting on her curls.

The room was crammed. The Vernons were
always enterprising ; seating capacity was never
allowed to be an obstacle. Mrs. Vernon was in
plum-coloured satin with an over-tunic of imper-
fecdy agreeing amethyst velvet. Leah was
especially charming to her ; she even managed to
congratulate Diana upon her imitation of Harry
Lauder. She was living in the moment, and it
was all inexplicable fun. A middle-aged man
was introduced to her ; Leah had noticed him in
a temporary lull of amenities. She set herself to
amusing him. He refused to be reft from her
side by watchful Mrs. Vernon, whose method
of entertaining consisted of a periodic outbreak
of general post. If guests did not disintegrate at
once, she would stand by them and make shoo-
ing movements with her forearms.

"That litde person tells me she has been at
the Varsity," he indicated Diana who, clad in a
kilt, loud and clanless, w^as accepdng hock-cup
and compliments.

"Oh yes, we were there together. It was
smashing fun ! "

Vyvyan West leant forward, interested.

"Were you indeed.^ I thought when you
came in that perhaps you had some connection
with the theatre, if I may say so ; besides, our

229

FALSE GODDESSES

host and hostess generally manage to get a lot of
professionals to their parties. And what are you
doing now ? ' '

Leah answered " nothing," with serenity.

"Is that so.'*" He seemed to hesitate.

"Well 1 if you'd care for a job, I'm

doing the additional lyrics for the show at the
Parthenon and I'll ask them to find room for
you — if you'd like it? Only chorus I'm 'fraid,
but it's town. The parts are all filled. I hope
you don't mind? "

Leah looked at him a little bewildered. It
was almost as if she was being offered a slice of
her youth to live again ; and this had come with
almost crushing spontaneity by a few witty
remarks. She neither hoped nor expected to
shine upon the stage, but surely he must be
the chosen agent that should set for her the
machinery of Life in motion? It could not con-
ceivably be coincidence. . . .

She smiled gratefully. " I should love it, and
it's sweet of you."

"That's right" encouraged Vyvyan West
beaming, " be at the theatre at eleven on Friday
and I'll be there and introduce you to Edgar
Barrett."

Who are the principals ? ' ' Leah had out-
lived the habit of reading theatrical news.

" George Dimsdale's the comedian "

" And the leading lady ? "

" Jay Lewes."

Leah was at the theatre punctually, found

230

INTERVAL

West in the foyer, and with him was elevated in
an upholstered lift to the offices of the syndicate
and managers.

It was odd to be taken care of, to have a place
secured for you in this authoritative, cushioned
manner. She had fended for herself overlong ;
any suspicion of being armed through situations
afflicted her with a tendency to fall over her own
feet. She reflected that even a job in the chorus
had to be procured you by a man !

She was introduced about ; treated rather as
an only daughter back from school, and handed
a contract en passant ; (" p' raps you'd like to
glance through it ? Let me have it back in the
next few days and I'll mail you the confirmation.

Well so long old boy by the bye, 'seen

Eva lately .f* 'Saw her at the Monico the other

night. Well so long ! Good-bye Miss

er, so glad to have met you ").

Leah returned to Mimosa Road for lunch.
This over (no more polka-mazurkas !) she and
Ella strolled into the garden, now flooded with
hard, premature spring sunlight, when Ella,
falling back, gave a smothered sound of
amazement, and snatched up the sheet of
stiff paper headed ' Parthenon Theatre ' from
the piano. Rapidly she scanned it until the
words ' Leah Lawrence ' written in ink ar-
rested her.

" What's this ? " she cried in a metallic voice.
Leah turned and assimilated the situation. She
had not told Ella about Vyvyan West as they

231

FALSE GODDESSES

walked home from the Vernons. It might have
ended in nothing.

"That?" It was no use fencing. "Oh,
that's my contract for the new show." Her
heart was stirred with pity. Ella stared, tried to
speak, wavered, and then went out of the room
to cry her heart out upstairs.

What a shame it was ! Should she give up
her place to Ella, and would they accept the
exchange if she did .'* One chorus girl was as
good as another, and it was influence, not looks,
that had got it for her. Ella was such a kid . . .
how rawly she took disappointment I with what
unstudied abandon and absence of pride. . . .
And Leah didn't care much one way or the
other.

Eventually she decided that she herself could
do nothing in the matter.

Mrs. Bounce, her heart wrung, took to bring-
ing back little presents for Ella. She constantly
booked seats at theatres to ' take the child's mind
off.' And Bessie had to be taken as well, or
there would have been trouble.

XIII

Leah was idly curious at the first rehearsal to
see the great Jay Lewes at close quarters ; she
remembered the impression she had created in
Leah's mind that night when she had gone to
the Corinth and seen her for the first time.

232

INTERVAL

And now she might come in any minute !
Meanwhile, the moments were packed with work
and observation. The social side promised to be
more confusing than it had been at the Varsity.
There was only a family resemblance between
the two theatres and their method, the Varsity
being the poor-relation. The work itself was
more evenly dispersed. It was a position to be a
Parthenon show-girl. The dancers worked the
hardest, and the mattre de ballet would scoop
them all off to the practice room at the top of
the building on every possible occasion. He
had drawn the majority of them from his school
of dance in Conduit Street ; in his own province,
Maurice Falutino managed the management.
His method with the chorus was a little chast-
ened. For them, he prepared only the simplest
steps. He had arranged the ensembles of many
former productions.

Purses, parcels, and Miss Dillon's Pekinese
would be laid aside, and the girls prepared un-
willingly to learn the dances.

" Oh Maurice, what a rotten step ! "
" We did it in ' Here We Are ' ! "
" Miss Dillon. Come on my girl. Look.
Coupe, coupe, assemble, jete. Jump it.
Hup!"

Miss Dillon and her friends were in the front
row . They had been there for two years during
the run of a former record-breaker, and one of
them for a year before that. They drew nearly
double the salary of the dancers.

oil

FALSE GODDESSES

The principals rehearsed apart. Leah came
out of the green-room one afternoon and saw
that Miss Lewes had arrived. The composer
and her partner vied to bring her down to the
matter in hand by loudly playing her numbers in
her ear as she sat by one of the producers. He
drew her attention to the duettists. She looked
at them in a preoccupied manner and then held
up a bunch of patterns to him. " I can't match
it up," she said, " it's such a comic arunge."
Then she suddenly rose, laughed, and advanced

to the footlights. "Turn tiddle om pom,

pom pom," said Miss Lewes, adding, "come
on for the land's sake ! "

She was a tall woman of the height du Maurier
would have loved and drawn, and the wide,
happy smile of Trilby. Her voice, husky and
tuneful, with a strong American accent, rose a
plaintive semitone at the end of every sentence,
and carried to her hearers a very breath of the
Southern fields of cotton of which she sang, and
of the thrumming of banjos in the starry dusk.
Music hall artists — those whose line was '* slight
impressions ' ' of celebrities — found to their cost
that cameos of Jay Lewes were not a matter of
a ' good Yankee twang.'

Leah, observing her at all times, listened, and
speculated and laughed. " Right foot. Miss
Lawrence. La la la la, follow Miss Mon-
tagu." ....

She noticed that Miss Lewes, racy and domi-
neering, never lost her temper. Disagreements,

234

INTERVAL

if any, were presumably heard in camera. When
anything was not to her liking, Jay Lewes would
' backchat ' about it, generally concluding the
matter in a ragging match, until even the wor-
ried musical director bent and giggled obscurely
over his score. Otherwise, she was immeasur-
ably above cheap assertions of her position. She
was often late for rehearsal, and would be as full
of comic excuses as a chorus girl, and this, and
the fact that she sometimes arrived in her car,
was about the only perquisite she reserved for
herself. When brought into immediate contact
with the chorus she seldom spoke ; her jokes she
dispersed among them impersonally.

And one morning, when the chorus kept their
positions while the phrasing of " Tickets please
for Dixie " was discussed by the composer and
the conductor. Miss Lewes turned to Leah and
spoke, Leah could never remember after what
it was she had said, realised that the remark
applied to whoever stood nearest ; but ' ' Tickets
please " was suddenly a better tune than she had
thought, and Miss Dillon and Miss Montagu not
quite so impossible to work with. And as she
went out with the others, she saw Jay
Lewes look at her again until her attention was
claimed.

235

FALSE GODDESST.S

XIV

One evening when the show had been running
a month, the Sergeant leant out of his pen as
Leah flew past.

"Miss!" Leah turned.

"Hul-lo!"

"Will you take this note to Miss Lewes,
number two on the first floor ? "

" Right you are." Sudden excitement in-
vaded Leah. At number two she achieved a
thump.

" Who's thayur ? " A dresser hastily blocked
the entrance. " One of the chorus ladies, Miss
Lewes," she said over her shoulder. "Come
on in," sang out the latter, and the dresser, ap-
peased, trundled down the passage.

Miss Lewes was reading in a kimono by her
fire, and only her face, lighdy made up, seemed
ready for the imminent performance.

" Ves deeur, what is it? " she turned a page
and not her head.

" I — they asked me to bring you up this
note," faltered Leah.

Miss Lewes turned in her chair, extending her
hand, looked full at her visitor for a long second.
Then quietly: "Sit right down, Lll see if
thayur's an answer. . . no, it's only — " the
note was tossed aside. "An' what's your name
anyhow deeur ? "

" I — I'm Leah Lawrence."

236

INTERVAL

"O Leahur Lawrence, eh? well Leahur,

you remind me of someone I used t'know

a real beautiful woman, an' my greatust pal on
earth." She appraised Leah, then, "an' look
at hur cunning litde hat ! ' ' Tweaking it off, she
tried it on before the mirror.

" Funny little thing ! say, whayur did you get
it .'* "

" I made it." Alice had helped her. Leah
was amused.

"Make me one too," Miss Lewes relin-
quished it.

" Ld love to." Leah wondered if she meant
it.

" No ! will you really though .^^ D'ye mean

Seriously she gave her instructions. "An*
mind an' make it big enough, I've got a real
large head, an' don't " her dresser en-
tered, and into her hands Miss Lewes, docile,
consigned herself. " Come in an' see me again
Leahur," she cried, her voice half smothered
with the swathes of her costume.

Oh well, of course she didn't mean it !

Leah combated hero-w^orship , pushed, fought
sensation from her. She turned to dressing-
room life, but its unresponsiveness drove her in
upon herself again. She began to take an inter-
est in home affairs ; there was always the position
of oil-pourer open to her who cared to accept it.
Ella, of course, was difficult to play Samaritan
to, and then she had not yet recovered from the

237

FALSE GODDESSES

Parthenon business, although the social baro-
meter suffered rapid changes, as her agent held
out hopes. Friendliness from Leah she would
construe as ' side.' Alice was out until the time
for Leah to leave for the theatre ; they only met
at breakfast, these days.

It was with Bessie, always available,
that Leah made the most headway ; she
was glad, too, to believe that she was
making life a litde brighter for her. She dis-
covered with real surprise that Bessie had qua-
lities, and it was pleasant to be clung to and con-
fided in, and to have your advice asked at every
hand's turn ! Suspicion once removed, it
threatened to become embarrassing. Leah won-
dered how they were ever going to " unhitch."
With Mrs. Bounce it was quite easy to be nice.
She only wanted you to help her with the shop-
ping.

Between them, Leah and Bessie threshed
out the subject of Eustace Burrowes. Bessie,
dammed for weeks, exhibited now a primitive
unreticence. Patiently Leah extracted the
facts from the muck-heap of rancour and
sentiment.

Eustace had called as usual after ' ' that
Sunday. Leah had missed this ; she had been
to tea and supper with Anne. Here Bessie be-
gan to ramble. Much hesitation and pressing.
It seemed that Bessie had been so " stiff " with
him that her parents had ' ' spoken ' ' to her when
he had gone. Ella had been out too ; Mrs.

238

INTERVAL

Bounce told Bessie afterwards that she had
bought her a ticket for a Sunday League concert
at the Palladium to get her out of the way, had
also given her the money for her tea. " But if
they think he'll only be nice to me because Ella
isn't there, "

Leah stopped all that, although she saw the
girl's point.

" Then what happened? " It took all night
to get the kernel out of Bessie in spite of the
amount she talked.

Then he wrote

"What?"

"Oh 1 don't know?"

Got the letter ? ' '

"No!" Bessie was indignant, "as if I
should keep his letters 1 ' '

" But you must remember what line he
took 1 ' '

Leah began to be impatient ; Bessie in the
role of not remembering a letter from a man was
a bit thick ! and if she had really forgotten, it was
only another instance of the fool-muddle she had
made of the whole affair.

Well, Eustace had 'offered' to break it
off. . . .

" And what did you answer ? "

Leah pounced it at her.

" I didn't answer, if he feels like that about

It-

Pi ow long since he wrote ? "

Oh — some time, I don't know exactly.

239

FALSE GODDESSES

Leah thought rapidly. She was calculating
whether the offer still remained open to Bessie,
and it was maddening to have no data. In any
case, she thought, Bessie should seize him while
the seizing was even nominally "good" ; but
she couldn't tell her that, and Bessie was looking
conscious, and gloomily important. But she re-
lied upon Leah's pronouncement ; it was obvious
that the match was in her hands. Leah meant
to be scrupulous in her treatment of the plotless
episode.

" You'd better write to him — now."

• ' What shall I say ? "

"M'm. Say that you didn't answer until
now because his letter was such a surprise and
shock — and all that — that you didn't know what
to say, but expected to see him and wondered
why he had given up coming. Err-er, but that
there has evidently been a mutual misunder-
standing, and that you expect him as usual on
Sundav. And for God's sake Bessie don't men-
tion Ella!"

Bessie hurpled downstairs in search of sta-
tionery.

But a few eveninofs later Miss Lewes,
dropping the arm she had been waving at

the audience as the curtain fell on the

interval, turned, saw Leah, and said: "Well,

when you comin' along t'see me? Come

an' have a smoke now — or aftur you're
changed."

240

INTERVAL

" That's It, sit in the arm-chayur," said Jay
Lewes, catching sight of Leah Lawrence at the
door in her glass. She was pressing her hair
with her finger tips as she spoke. She put down
an orange-sticl^:.

" Now, come right in whenever you feel like
it, I sh'll always be pleased to see you d'ry."
The dresser was already hovering ; the fifteen
minutes might have been five. " Now listen,
girl," Jay Lewes put an arm round Leah's
shoulders and cuddled her up, " take the advice
of one who knows an' don't let on I've asked
you in, we don't want t' make trouble with the
girls. Come along every little while, like I say,
an' if I can't see you, I c'n just say so an' we

shall both understand, hey? oh Alus, about

that payur of shoes .'*

Tell the messenger "

Leah was dismissed.

A time began for Leah of the first undiluted
happiness she had ever known ; she lived the
minute she entered the theatre.

The dressing-room overlooked her friend-
ship with the leading-lady. It would not

have believed it. Miss Lawrence she

had won no abbreviation ^was not even

a show-girl although she was in the front
row. Damn sauce. But they tolerated
her in deference to the influence that must have
been at work on her behalf.

The company gave a supper on the stage to
celebrate the looth performance. Leah, when

241 Q

FALSE GODDESSES

first she heard of it — it was not definitely an-
nounced, it somehow permeated each room —
anxiously reviewed her evening gowns. She
only desisted when it occurred to her that it was
more than likely she would not be invited. How-
ever, everyone was asked, or rather, it perco-
lated through the chorus that no one would be
actually refused admission. The management

often took the line of " all-a-happy-family"

especially in the press. On the night, the girls
dispersed to change without the usual rush for
last trains.

Footlights and battens were full on, the last
scene had been struck, but black curtains had
been lowered to conceal the brick walls with their
" No Smokmg " and " Exit " cards.

In the tiresome matter of her frock Leah,
raging at the necessity, had gone to Mrs.
Bounce. It was not her way to ask for help,
and she hated the appearance of dependence.
She mentioned the matter, and waited for the
help she knew would be offered as a matter of
course, before adding awkwardly : " Of course
I'll pay you back for it, only I've spent so much
this week." " Oh we'll see about that," an-
swered Mrs. Bounce easily. She was accus-
tomed to coaxings, to pledges of payment that
were comfortably forgotten. Leah always paid
to the day — but then she hardly ever borrowed.
They went to a " tame ' ' dressmaker who could
generally suit "Miss Lawrence's peculiar
style." Mrs. Bounce still forgot at times that

242

INTERVAL

the girls were now adolescent, and went with
Leah to the first fittinof. Leah suffered her as
she was advancing the money. Leah was mana-
ging her allowance better now ; this time, it had
not been her fault, the draft had arrived late, and
there were many little expenses in connection
with the Parthenon.

Ella, a willing parasite on parental bounty,
was always a little brutal to her mother over the
dressmaker's head. She had no originality.
Leah seethed with ideas and now tactfully over-
ruled Mrs. Bounce, who clung to the idea of
"white." Leah would be overcome with im-
patience at the cloying ideals of Mrs. Bounce's
youth. But now Mrs. Bounce acquiesced ;
after all, Leah was not her own daughter, she
had to remind herself of this. She had accepted
one more girl in the family for so many
years. Baulked of her management of Leah's
dress, she still ventured to give it her super-
fluous tweaks while Leah "stood off."
Leah became as her own tables, meet for last
touches.

The orchestra consented to play during
supper, the table stretched almost to either wing,
and, respectable chairs having run out, the over-
flow was accommodated on benches and thrones
of every style and period from the property-
room. Jay Lewes, in her gown of clinging chif-
fon velvet, the hue of mellow ivory, sat at the
head of the table. She sat slackly in repose, her
fingers enlaced on her knee. The dignified

243

FALSE GODDESSES

carven throne with its narrow back surmounted
with a crown, threw into relief the gleaming
folds, the dark of her eyes and hair. The gene-
rous mouth drooped, the eyes held reserved
pathos. Leah thought, "she has the saddest
face I've ever seen." It gave her an incredu-
lous shock. But she knew Jay would tune up,
punctual to the minute.

As the places near her rapidly filled. Miss
Lewes led the fooling with relish. If anyone
amused her, she contributed her husky " hah ! "
to the general hilarity. She took no notice of
Leah. Leah could laugh, now. Jay had come
to mean peace.

It was the dawn of the spirit.

Wedged between the principal comedian and
one of the most unapproachable of the show
girls — who ran a small car on a salary of three
pounds a week — but whom the sweet cham-
pagne had slightly thawed, Leah joined in local
japes. She flirted with Mr. Dimsdale who,
having worked off his duty-jokes, soon became
quite funny.

" My God Dimmy, why can't you do it in the
show ? " plaintively enquired the stage-manager.

" Shut up Harry. I'm going to have some
fun with Birdie here," he indicated one of Mau-
rice Falutino's indefatigables. After an early
call for rehearsal of a new number, a matinee,
evening performance, and glass of wine, she was
half asleep. " Oh it's a shame, she's all in ! "
Jay Lewes called out, " don't Dimmy, the poor

244

INTERVAL

kiddy!" "You watch," replied that gende-
man, and disentangling himself gingerly from his
bench to avoid waking Miss Merrick, asleep at
last, he whispered to the conductor who raised
his baton. To the offended ear of the company
sounded their opening chorus, loist perform-
ance. ' Birdie ' sprang dazedly up and went
through the movements, chirping the challeng-
ing words forlornly. It brought her to her fud-
dled senses to find the audience in the wrong
place. " Very nice Birdie," said Dimsdale ap-
provingly, " 'let you know in a few days. Have
we your address ? ' '

Am I really blind ? ' ' she asked good-
naturedly, and fell heavily asleep on his shoulder.

XV.

Leah had now been at the Parthenon several
months. One Saturday she hurried upstairs
late, and glimpsed Jay in the passage. She was
with friends ; they seemed to be chaffing her
about her hat. It was a species of small French
Revolution chapeati-bras which an artist had
designed for her, and which she had garnished
with a tricolor rosette, to his shrugging disap-
proval. " It's a purfectly good hat," Miss
Lewes defended, " Go on ! go on ! say it's the
face underneath it ! "

" It's a perfecdy good face "

" Hah ! now really I "

245

FALSE GODDESSES

Miss Lewes had been at a lunch-party at the
Ritz ; Leah was vanishing round the corner,
when she interrupted farewells in her tunesome
shout ;

" Say Leahur ! " Leah turned ; Jay lowered
her voice. * ' Want t'see you to-night, slip down
aftur the fishing numbur : you won't find me, but
wait, I'll tell Alus t'let you in. That's all dear."
She turned rapidly; "Good-bye. Saturday

next? No, I can't manage Sunday, what?

Come around to the flat Sunday week, I'm

having a crowd. 'Must go " She went

into her dressing-room.

In the oasis of rest for the chorus soon after
the start of Act 2, Leah knocked at Miss Lewes'
door ; she was instantly admitted by Alice and
invited to " take a seat and have a cigarette ;
Miss Lewes left the box there for you."

Leah, smoking feverishly, watched her as she
tidied the dressing-table and replaced stage hats
in their boxes.

The runs at the Parthenon were always long,
and when Miss Lewes took possession of num-
ber 2, she settled in, as she knew, for many
months, and dealt in her own way with the room.
The walls were papered a pale, restful buff, and
the window, that overlooked the court where the
pit and gallery crowds gathered, was hung with
curtains of golden damask of a deeper shade.
Her own electric lights had been installed ; one,
sole representative of the original scheme, which
hung, inconveniently, from the centre of the

246

INTERVAL

ceiling, had been softened with an alabaster bowl
suspended by slender gold chains. A shaded
light over the full-length mirror opposite the fire-
place, a headlight above the French inlaid dress-
ing-table, and two on movable stands on either
side, a thick pile carpet of the prevailing sunny
tone, several comfortable chairs and a sofa
heaped with black cushions completed the decor.
The stage frocks were immured in a large oak
cupboard, the odds-and-ends in a valuable tall-
boys " picked up " at a sale.

There were a few good portraits, unsigned, a
water-colour of Miss Lewes' American home,
and, alone on the wall facing the door, a little
pastel of a child's head, smiling, dark-hairqd.
Leah noticed it in detail for the first time. ^Ic^
was hung where Jay could catch sight of it when-
ever she entered. . . .

When Miss Lewes came in, Leah sensitively
tore her eyes from it. Jay was humming ; the
number had gone well. The song proper was
given by her partner, the asides alone were her
contribution. The somewhat peculiar result was
a " Jay Lewes " speciality. English audiences
took to it at once.

" Say could you ever look fondly on me?

(How's your mothur?)
" Where do you come from, who can you he?

(Get out ! wh'd'you mean?)
"Say could you sometimes give me a smile?

(Not in a suit like that !)
" How my heart heats when your face I see.

(His heart beats ! Ha, Hah !)

247

FALSE GODDESSES

" Winter an' summer

(Why not summur an' wintur?)

" I'm longing for you,

(Now I thought I'd seen you somewhere !
I did miss sixpence out of the dressing-
room las' Wednesday )

" Summer and winter

(Look here, I suggested that a moment
ago an' you turned me down !)

" I'm feeling so blue,

" All day I'm moaning, 'groaning and 'phoning

"Say, could you ever like me?

{No !)

"All right Alus, I c'n manage. Leave your
Jay fur ten minutes."

Miss Lewes walked about adding powder and
polishing her nails, then she pulled aside the
curtains and leant out into the warm stillness of
the June afternoon. A small crowd began to col-
lect, attracted by her glittering litde hat. vShe
drew in abruptly. "Hah!" she shouted
amusedly, " Oh London, you're a comic city.
Can't you let old Jay get a breath o' fresh air
without rubberin' around?"

Leah looked furtively at the little pastel.

If Jay could have been her own mother, in
place of this erratic stranger singing her way
about Australia ! And it would have been pos-
sible too, that was the worst. Leah was not yet
twenty.

"My deeur, your Missus what's-hur-

name— Bounce," began Jay Lewes; "God
what a name 1 did someone wish it on hur or
is it natural? D'you think she'd let you come

248

INTERVAL

an' stay a few days ? I'm rather off things

I'm feel'n lonely, like the song." She pulled
Leah down beside her in the biggest armchair,
irremediably creasing their dresses. Jammed
together, she rested her head on Jay's shoulder,
and leisurely sniffed scent. Jay refused even
Leah the name of her favourite ; Leah would
dog her in the wings trying to locate the blend.
Miss Lewes, conscious of the pursuit, once said
" All right my girl ! you'll never get it, take it
from me." She had flapped her handkerchief
in Leah's face while she stood waiting for her

cue. " Take a bath in it honey ! oh Mike ,"

and pushed her aside while her partner gagged
the hiatus.

Jay's eyes, seen so close, looked para-
doxically small and brilliant, with their separate
lashes beaded with water-black. Leah memor-
ized every detail ; the unnoticed irregularity of
two teeth, the pin-points of shadow in the ears
which had been pierced years before for the rings
she never wore .

" And the conclusion ? " said Jay quietly.

" I want to tell you something don't

laugh. When I was a flapper "

" When she was a flappur ! get out, wh'd'you

mean :

Am I being a bore? "
" Go right on deeur."

"I'd left school and there was an awful hiatus,
and I ended by taking a flat and the girl I lived

with left me in the lurch and it was all hor-

249

FALSE GODDESSES

rible. Well 1 went back to the Bounces.

•Then I came to town one night and saw you
for the first time in " Grin and Bear It" . . . .
Jay, you don't know what it was to go home
in the rain in a crowded train back to the
Bounces. You seemed to me to be exactly what
I had always been looking for even then, but I
knew what it meant to cry for the moon. I've

always just missed everything. I snatch

at things, but I'm "in it but not of it " ; I'm not
always even * in ' it ! And then after all this
time I met Vyvyan West and he got me on here,
and I remembered, and thought how exactly
" me " it was to get what I wanted when I'd left
off wanting it. And then, old Anderson sent me
up here with a note . . . and you spoke to me

in your most Jay-ish way, and I went

upstairs and hugged a girl I simply loathe. She
thought I was mad ! Now do you begin to see
the sort of fool I am ? ' '

"My deeur, you're every sort of a fool there
is, an' I like it. Any woman would."

" Even now I can't believe I'm here. I'm
waiting for you to say something cutting and
turn me out "

" We don't all come up to expectations," said
Jay, "an' it's a v'ry big thing to live up to a
child's ideal." She turned her face away for a
moment, " I wish enough I'd known you were
in front, I'd've sent fur you t'come around an'
see me."

' ' You lovely dear ! with all your friends-

250

INTERVAL

"Oh well, I don't want 'em all the time.
Times I just sit about twiddlin my thumbs an'
thinkin of the old folks at home." Jay Lewes
raised her head and kissed Leah. Then she
'rose saying, "an' now I must paint an ex-
pression on me against the next spasm down-
stairs." She seated herself at the dressing
table, catching Leah's eye in the glass.

" Oh Jay ! if you smile any wider your mouth
will tie in a neat bow behind, like the dragon in
the story."

"Dragon?" chanted Miss Lewes interroga-
tively, " wh'd^you mean?" She picked up a
stick of carmine and suddenly laughed.

" Hah ! " she shouted, and fell to pencilling
her mouth. Presently :

" Say d'ry you'd better beat it or one of us'U
get into trouble. Come back Leahur " she
called the moment the door was shut.

Leah waited beside her ; then she swerved,
took Leah's hands. " How are you gettin' on
upstairs, eh ? "

Leah shrugged.

" They've got wind of the fact that I come
down to see you between whiles. You can
Imagine it all. One girl asked me yesterday in
a perfectly friendly way ' if I was hanging
round you for a part in the next show ' ? She
would have thought a lot more of me if I'd said
yes."

"Oh darn 'em! Look here, honey-
lamb, when you're dressed to-night just skip

251

FALSE GODDESSES

down an' climb into the car an' wait f'r me.
Have a little grip with what you'll need for a
few days an' "

A youthful voice intoned down the passage.
The call-boy appeared.

" Land's name, an' what's the matter with
you?" demanded Miss Lewes, rumpling his
hair. He grinned. " Miss Lewes" he re-
peated mechanically.

" Tommy wants me if the audience don't,"
remarked Miss Lewes. Taking Master Sim-
mons* hand in hers, she scuttered down the pas-
sage.

XVI

Leah almost ran up Mimosa Road. The
house was cool and still ; the noise of grinding
came from the kitchen. She entered in the
usual vacuum between tea and supper. Her
own meal was a heavy problem to Mrs. Bounce ;
Leah, she recognized, could not be expected to
conform to the 7.30 regime, and after much wor-
ried thought, she compromised on a tray in the
dining-room. Under protest the servant agreed
to heat soup, but for the rest, it was understood
that Leah's supper must be strictly 'cold.'
Even then there was perpetual friction.

The family was panting on assorted chairs in
the garden. Mr. Bounce had returned earlier

252

rmrERVAL

than usual and had brought in a bag of straw-
berries. Bessie had managed to mess her dress
with her helping, and was sulky. She looked
like a melting dummy ; her neck was suggestive
of pink sago. Ella looked frustrated as Leah
appeared at the window ; it meant one more hand
in the bag, and Leah had her salary now as well
as an allowance ! It had been going so well too,
only Alice, in her tiresome conscientiousness,
reminded father that Leah would be in any
minute. And now here she was posing at the
window with that silly unearthly look on her
face !

Come along missy and have some straw-
berries." Automatically Leah stepped out ; the
fruit was as sawdust in her mouth. Time was
short, she must get out of this.

" Mrs. Bounce dear, don't expect me back
to-night. I — I've been — Jay Lewes has asked
me to stay the week-end with her. It won't put
you out any, will it ? " She even enlarged upon
details of clothes and hand-bags ; she would have
humoured anyone. . . .

Ella ceased her excursions into the bag ; she
too experienced the effects of emotion upon
appetite, it was in its way a triumph of mind over
matter. Her face seemed to peak before Leah's
eyes, her mouth was fretful, her eyes calculating.
Wasn't it enough that Leah had got the Parthe-
non over her head? and now, through some
incredible management, she had caught the eye
of Jay Lewes, of all people in this world ; why,

253

FALSE GODDESSES

heaven alone knew what it might lead to ! Leah
might get parts. . . . Curiosity tore her, pri-
marily.

" How did you get to know her? " she said I
brusquely.

" Oh — I don't know."

" But you must know. It seems rather
funny ! " Ella's tone was sour ; "do the other
girls get asked too ? "

Not that I know of." Leah held all the
cards, but she would not be embroiled. It was,
too, impossible to suggest that she herself was
not quite as the others, and Ella saw that. Her
very unease and irascibility showed it.

Mrs. Bounce went in to wash her hands before
supper and track Leah with suggestions of what
to pack. Leah had settled the question in the
Underground on the way home ; but she was
very Sfentle with Mrs. Bounce.

In his study Mr. Bounce read the late extra.

In the little garden the girls sat alone. A swel-
tering stillness hung menacing ; it would be light
until past nine. The smallest sound was audible,
the voice of the servant, raised in song, cut
rawly.

" Well , this is the latest ! " Ella's voice

was dry ; " Leah's always running after some-
one." Bessie shifted in her deck-chair, com-
plaining of the heat.

" I expect she'll have a wonderful time."
Alice sighed sofdy. A little breeze cooled them i

254

INTERVAL

for a second, and the leaves clapped gendy to-
gether, scenting a shower, and applauding the
idea. " I shouldn't wonder if we had a storm
to-night," Alice added.

Ella said nothingr,

Leah hurried to the station ; almost would she
have paused to let the joys of departure pene-
trate more fully. The by-roads were quiet in
evening peace, the day was warmly dying. It
all stifled her. Over the way, white figures still
darted in the tennis-courts. Leah heard Dicky
Thurloe's voice. Soon the night would come,
translucent, blue. Soon she would be in an-
other world, of strolling crowds, arc lights with
their white effulgence, the tireless magic of Pic-
cadilly in summer . . . the Moorish Alhambra,
bright-lit below, capped with domes and slender
aspiring crescent in silhouette ; the Empire fes-
tooned with globes of light ; the Parthenon. . .

XVII

In her flat. Jay Lewes sat on the bath medita-
tively scooping pink crystals in a glass spoon
from a bowl, and letting them plop, plop, into
the water and dissolve in soapy clouds of steam.
Leah Lawrence, trailing by in her dressing-
gown, said she was going to bed.

" M'nah ! " responded Miss Lewes absently.

Five minutes later, " Leahur ! t'Iphone 1"

255

FALSE GODDESSES

Leah darted to answer the belated call. " What
is't? " sang out Miss Lewes. Leah ran to the
bath-room door and shouted, " Mr. Dimsdale.
Picnic on the river to-morrow. Can you go?

He says he forgot to tell you this evening "

"Oh Dimmy, what? Tell him 1

d'no. Tell him I'm wrapped in thought an'll let
him know latur."

Dimmy" disposed of, she began to sing in
her bath in her ruminative Southern voice.
Leah, from the first, came and listened outside.
Jay didn't mind who heard, and she sang with
all the Lewes mannerisms because she was the
same personality, on the stage or off it. She
interpolated the band ' bits ' quite seriously ;
Leah shook with strangled laughter.

" Ur — ur ! ta da da da da, till ready," mur-
mured Miss Lewes in a business-like voice ; the
" ur — ur ! " was the trombone, Leah recog-
nized.

" Oh honey come to those fields of cotton

" No moerr night-cluhs f'r me (pom ! pom ! pom !)

" Don't stop to ask y'r dad

" TeU'm you'll be good an glad

" When-your-home-y oil-see (ta da da),

" The big ship's sail'n f'r that (pom !) Southern

shore
" / guess you won't see your baby's face anee more
" So come on honey V those (umph !) fields of

cotton
" Down in deeur old Tahnissee. (Tiddle-iddle-

iddle-om-pom ! !).

She put Leah in a small room next her own.
Her guest, having listened and laughed her fill,

256

INTERVAL

was sitting on the bed thinking. It was ob-
viously impossible this should have happened.
She was probably still in the dressing-room, had
dozed off in the heat and chatter ; or perhaps she
had fainted in the Mimosa Road house, would
struggle back to find Mrs. Bounce being efficient
with cold water. Momentarily she uneasily ex-
pected the return of the spirit to her body, sitting
propped in its chair in the Vernon's drawing-
room. She hoped her shell was making ade-
quate responses to everyone . . . was being
passably witty to Vyvyan West. . . .

A syncopated tattoo was performed on the
door, which half opened to admit a breath of
scent, a delicate puff of tobacco, and an arm
which dropped a silken heap at her feet.

" O Jay ! you smell just like a music-hall ! "

"Hah!" from without, "only needs the
arunge-peel, what?"

" What's the meaning of this attention? "
You put 'em on, it's just a nightie an' wrap-
pur ; got 'em at Marcelle's but I looked like the
scrub-lady in 'em, kind've tired. Hurry up an*

come along in next door an' we'll talk we

shan't get much chances next few days.
Hurry ! " The door closed.

With careless haste Leah put on the nile-
green crepe-de-chine and satin wrapper of the
same shade sprayed with a flight of black velvet
swallows. Everything was a good six inches
too long, she only reached a little above Jay
Lewes' shoulder, and the draperies swirled

257 R

FALSE GODDESSES

loosely on her slighter figure. Stumbling, she
knocked and was answered by a " Ha'hm " of
permission from Miss Lewes, whose mouth was
full of toffee. Her practised eye raked Leah as
she swallowed the sweet.

" I knoo you'd look sweet in it with your
funny hayur. I'll get Alus to alter it f'r you,
we'll take it along on Monday, ' ' She lay on her
bed propped with cushions, Leah, in an arm-
chair, her feet upon another.

" Where y'r slippurs, in the name of the last
turn on the bill ? "

"Oh 1 forgot them," Leah was happily

indifferent, "everything was so thrilling," she
added.

"Thrill'n? Wh'd'you mean? Put on a
pair've mine. Caperin* around an' catching your
death . . . remember the woman I told you
you were like .'* "

Leah nodded, her dark eyes suddenly resent-
ful.^

" She was always gett'n worked up into spells
too. . . ." There was a long pause. Abruptly
Jay Lewes said :

" You saw that little picture in my dress'n-
room ? " Leah assented, faintly.

" My little girl. She died. Only five years
old. It's a gay gaudy old life, ain't it .>* "

Leah waited, stricken, rejecting the banality

of sympathy. And would it have rung true ?

For a moment she saw herself unfit. . . . But
the sick second passed.

258

INTERVAL

In the street far below a taxi passed. Leah
followed the sound until it seemed the very con-
centration of thought must place her inside it,
driving- away from dream-life . . . how fatally
easy to leave . . . how strange to pass out into
the night, to cut herself voluntarily off

What was Jay saying?

"I'd like you should know about her. She

was a real old handful, just like her mother !

. . . land ! how that kid could imitate ! You
sh'd've heard her taking off the way I worked
my numburs, I could see it was me, right
enough. I was in a v'ry small way then . . .
rotten theatres, one song an' a spit kind o' thing,
an' parts in road companies in the States when
I c'd get 'm. This pal've mine . . . she was
a dear ! We caught on to each other at once.
You'd 've just loved her as I did . . . she was
with me night my Babs died. She cut the show
t' be with me. Of course she got the sack an*

I wasn't any too well off myself we always

used t'be borrowing fr'm each other those days
. . . she was a year or so older than me. Her
name was Mary Conder."

Dinkie Conder ... it was long before your
time, Leahur, about — what? ... I married at
nineteen. Gosh ! it's like goin' back to Noah.
But we did that sort 've thing in those days. It

mus' be 1 d'no ! Can't do the sum. Dear

only knows what happened to her ... it was
a great grief t' me. I got about fed up with

259

FALSE GODDESSES

America after that little snack an' came ovur

here an', well, I managed t' come just at a

time when folk in my line o' business fr'm ovur
there were becoming the thing in London. I had
a few letters of introduction, too ... I called
myself Lewes, thouj^h heaven knows my real
name's Shelley, an' my married one van Osten.
Say, you didn't know I was married ? Aha !
an' the maiden looked modesdy down 1 So it's
quite a homely little barg'n basement t' choose
from, eh ? . . . I meant t' make good here, an*
I love my work an' my friends, an' I never mean

t'let the past spoil the present or the future.

I'm not out f'r sob-stunts. . . .

I never saw Dinkie again, but I left f'r Eng-
land myself four months later ... I wonder
good an' often if she ever thinks *ve poor old
Jasmine "

"Who's that?" Leah asked sharply, her
brain at strained attention.

"You may well ask! Why me of course.
That, if you please, was the low-comedy name
my mothur had t'pick on of all the others in the
'phone-book ! It was good enough for the kipd
o' songs I used t'sing, but I quit the blue-sash
business soon after I landed. Jasmine ! an*
look at me. Now do I look like a Jas-
mine, anyhow.'* Any more questions? "

" And your husband, is he dead ? "

" Wh'd'you mean! is he dead? Not this
time ! He's one of the biggest managers ov'r
the othur side, bless his old heart, an' when I

260

INTERVAL

met him he was comicking in the chorus. He's

a real nice man 1 like him v'ry much, an'

when I get a chance I'm goin' to go back to
renew old acquaintance an' shake him by the
hand. I havn't seen him f'r more than a few
days at a time f'r more than nineteen years . . .
it's a lifetime !

An' now my dear one you got to go right

t'bed ." Leah rose wearily. Jay Lewes

hugged her close.

" H'm. I remember you first morning I came
to rehearsal. 'Funny how things turn out. . ."

XVIII

Waking early, Leah let realisation crash upon
her consciousness. " Miss Lewes is on the bal-
cony," said the maid, putting down the brass
can.

Entrenched in foodights of pink geranium, and
sheltered by an awning of green linen, Jay
Lewes poured coffee. Letters and newspapers
were stacked on the matting which mitigated the
chill of the zinc floor. The balcony was small,
and Leah sat on a cushion and leant against a
drain-pipe. Below, the traffic of Knightsbridge
was yet a trickle ; the cool air was golden ; it
would be a day of scorching heat.

Miss Lewes leant over and waved ; her friend
had been for an early ride. She threw him a roll

261

FALSE GODDESSES

which he missed. It bounded in at the door of
the tlorist opposite. . . .

In Mimosa Road the family would already be
dispersed after a heating meal of bacon or sau-
sages absorbed within four walls ; by the time
they went out the day would already be staling.
Mr. Bounce and Alice would gulp a litde of the
splendour, but it would avail them nothing, more
walls were waiting for them to which they must
hurry.

The original week-end suggested by Miss
Lewes had been prolonged from day to day.

Jay Lewes had more engagements than she
could fulfil ; she did her unsystematic utmost to
dovetail them, requests for her presence at
fetes, songs at expensive side-shows at charity
bazaars, turns at special matinees. To several
of the former types of entertainment she begged
Leah to accompany her, mendaciously asserting
that she " didn't know a single soul, h'ny." At
these crowded funcUons, Leah found that her
own part consisted of taking care of Jay's bag
hastily flung, of suddenly dumped boxes of cho-
colate, the flowers that she was given, and her
occasional purchases at society's stalls. Leah
generally contrived to lose her a few minutes
after entering the rooms, and had more than
once been forced to go home alone, after
searches in which she was elbowed by the titled
and theatrical, bent on pushing their wares.
Back in the flat, sitting on the divan by the win-
dow, the old trouble would surge up, and she

262

INTERVAL

would feel unspeakably alien. And then the key
would click in the lock. . . .

This aspect was brought home with force at
a garden fete at which Jay Lewes had a stall,
staffed with underlings composed of quite res-
pectably large names in the vaudeville world.
Leah, diffident protests overborne, stood behind
it handing up goods which Miss Lewes rapidly
palmed off. " Some swindle," she reassured
the M.P., taking gold for the cushion-cover she
had wrapped round his shoulders.

A little schoolgirl had evaded authority and
insinuated herself to the forefront, too shy to
purchase, and Leah, picturing the child's return
to some home of realities, saw the much-kissed
twopenny post-card that probably lay at night
under her pillow.

Leah thought, "There, but for the grace
of God. ..." Stooping, she whispered,

would you like her autograph ? ' ' and the
child's lips parted in speechless assent. Leah
contrived to catch Jay's attention, and when she
had assimilated the request, the latter, calling for
pencil and paper, bent down, scribbled her
name, and made herself delightful to the bewil-
dered child. Leah, watching, knevv^ that she was
being kind only to be cruel, for it would hurt
more afterwards. . . .

When no Parthenon matinee or social obliga-
tion was toward, they would lunch at home and
then drive West-ward to see the show at some

263

FALSE GODDESSES

other theatre or hall, where a box or stalls was
always forthcoming. At one theatre, where,
rejoicing for a change in a popular run and a box-
office distracted by the purring of the telephone,
even Miss Lewes' name could do nothing for
her. They pushed their way into the long-full
pit, and, "this brings me back m'youth " said
Jay " but I'd rathur stand than be done."

It was a never-staling amusement to w^atch for
the stare-and-second-look in the street when she
went out with Jay, and for the more frequent
discreet indication in restaurants. It was not
Jay Lewes in mufti that was remarkable, it was
her voice, above all, her laugh, that betrayed
her.

On Sundays, if the weather displayed indeci-
sion, a number of friends came to the flat, and
she would sit looking, Leah thought, oddly like
any " ordinary " hostess, dispensing Russian tea
and black coffee, being sweepingly forgetful of
idiosyncracies in the matter of sugar, Leah
sometimes overcome by a throw-back to High
School shyness, ' did ' the daughter of the house.
There were times, if guests were few and inti-
mate, when she did not know where to put her-
self " for the best," as Bessie would say. Once
she had mumbled a fatuous excuse and made a
bolt, tripping over the tiger-skin as she went.
Jay asked her " if they were borin' hur, an' what
was the matter, anyway? " After that she re-
mained, whoever might be present.

Inevitably Leah came to know many theatri-

264

INTERVAL

cal magnates by sight, and some to speak to.
Potential power was within her grasp, but it
hardly occurred to her to utilize it. James Can-
trail, pilot of revue, even offered her a small part,
and for a moment she wavered ; but when she
learnt that rehearsals were to start immediately,
she refused. Later on, perhaps. . .

One Sunday Jay Lewes arranged to go with
a party to Maidenhead for lunch and tennis, tea
at the Vyvyan West's, and supper and dancing
at Murray's.

They assembled in the drawing-room ;
Cantrall, Gladys Friar, the dancer under
his management at the Corinth, Hood the artist,
Dimsdale, Allen, Jay Lewes' partner, and sun-
dry of the rest of the Parthenon crowd. Wrench,
controller of three of the largest halls in London,
came in late. They lingered over a brew of
coffee, and a shower suddenly began, followed
by thunder. "We can't go now ; it'll do this
funny business on and off all day," said Dims-
dale. "Well, you can't stay here," answered
his hostess ; " there's no food."

" Let's ring up people in the phone-book,"
suggested the dancer ; * ' we can shut our eyes
and pick, and we have to speak to whoever it
happens to be."

What about my good tuppences ? ' ' objected
the owner.

Should think you might stand it on your
salary," said Dimsdale, "come on Miss Law-
rence." They left, and various calls were con-

265

FALSE GODDESSES

ducted in grunts and shrieks of laughter.

Here 1 can't stand this ; I'm not goin'

t'let it be said that any guest o'mine enjoyed him-
self ! " Jay Lewes swept them from the tele-
phone.

"Go away Jay Lewes," said Dimsdale ;
" you're spoiling my day."

"Hold y'r tongue, old funny man, you're
speak'n with it, an' I've had my day spoilt by
experts ."

Later she was heard in conversation with a
nursing home, and the watchman at Waring and
Gillow. Returning to the drawing-room,
"I'm afraid there may be a nurse comin'," she
said resignedly, and smoked, subdued. " We'll
take her out to lunch, ' ' consoled Hood. Roused,
they packed into the cars waiting outside and
skimmed to the Berkeley. Afterwards, they
went back to the flat and did a melodrama. It
was Jay Lewes 's idea ; " I've always wanted my
chance," she complained.

Hood ran up some of his atmospheric posters
and affixed them in every room. He put a
' House Full ' notice outside the front-door.
"Don't put any notices over the wash-basin,
you want them to be seen ! ", said Allen.

Jay Lewes annexed the role of villain, Gladys
Friar was given a walk-on and not allowed to
dance (" we want this to be good") ; there were
no claimants for the persecuted heroine who died
in the snow. Allen played it in a tailor-made of
Miss Lewes 's ; Leah was the unwanted child

266 !

INTERVAL

who died with him. Wrench was set to cutting
out snow ; Cantrall, placing years of hard-bitten
experience at their disposal, offered to write the
book. They let him work the snowstorm with
Hood and the waves with Dimsdale,

" Damned unconvincing" he said peevishly.

Not at all , " Wrench was in arms for his handi-
work ; " it's a good effect — but local, local," he
added disappointed, as the snowstorm fell with
a flop from the petticoat in which it had been
heaped, on to the head of the villain. They
evolved the plot as they went, and the result was
pleasingly free from the conventions of more
pondered productions. No one "dried";
when the action seemed in danger of lapsing,
Jay Lewes ran on in hats. She wore a mous-
tache of smilax. Wrench was rather keen on
the show, and made pencil notes. Months after-
wards, a less amusing version had a highly suc-
cessful run at the Diplomatic. He retained its
original title, and " Blasted Lives" toured for
a year after the town run.

When conviction that the show was over pos-
sessed the majority, they danced, raw with gig-
gles, to the gramophone.

Jay Lewes was singularly free from moods,
vividly human as she was. Leah found that she
could be very silent, preferred it when she flew
into comic rages ; humour always lurked in
ambush.

On a certain mellow evening when they had

267

FALSE GODDESSES

finished their early supper and were trying not
to suggest to each other that it was time to be
making a move to the theatre, the electric bell
purred, and Jay went out to answer it. On the
mat stood a page ; his natty little hat bore the
name of Maison Cachet.

"Well.'*" chanted Miss Lewes, and her
penetrating voice rang down to the first floor
three flights below.

"Oh Cachay, what? Wait a minute."'

She swept into the dining-room and with ex-
treme deliberation disinterred the hat, whistling
through her teeth ; then, lifting out the model,,
she raised it to the lights. '

" My God," she said. Leah waited, smiling
to herself. Jay obliged at once. I

Had she dealt with Cachay for ten years or [
had she not? Did they think they c'd work off
their stickers on her just because she couldn't
spare the time to go rubberin' around the shop
all day ? Perhaps they'd like her t'live there for
keeps, what?, make up a bed on the floor,
huh!

Was it the page's opinion that this comic-
buncho'dump - heapremnantslookedlikeahattthat
JayLewescouldwalkrightonthestageinwithoutget
tinthe cross-eye ?

And what did they mean t'do about it in the
name o' caperin' Mike?"

An' the cherub page, undismayed, staggered
down the stairs, submerged beneath the box on
which the headdress balanced. Miss Lewes

268

INTERVAL

flung herself into a chair and relapsed into
thought.

" Have you really dealt at Cachet's for ten
years?" It was Leah's way of reminding of
the flight of time. The car had been waiting
twenty minutes already. Jay, without turning
round from her attitude of dejection, mewed up
in her head like a kitten.

" Meh," assented Jay sadly.

On hot Sundays they went up the river, and
would remain to supper at the West's bungalow,
or house-boats owned by the inmates of other
theatres round about the Parthenon ; but they
were often alone, and the passing theatrical craft
recognized Jay Lewes and bandied backchat,
while Leah lay idle in the stern.

XX.

I When it became apparent to Leah that she was
to stay with Jay Lewes for an indefinite period,
she wrote in haste to Mrs. Bounce for more
clothes ; there never seemed to be time to go in
person. She grudged every moment spent
apart from Jay, although she would sometimes
deliberately do penance by absenting herself for
jlonely walks in Kensington Gardens for the
iabsolution of coming home, and wondering how
she would find the other, what she would be

269

FALSE GODDESSES

doing, what she would say as Leah came in ? It
was such enormous fun to arrange by the waters
of the Serpentine that, on her entrance, Jay
should be practising a song, and then to find her
at her desk writing letters. Leah would come
in very quietly, postponing the moment when
Jay should look round, and would fall into an
orgy of happiness in which the faint, poisonous
vapours of her days with Deirdre swirled
round her, powerless to harm. There was
no dearth with Jay — no pettish, moody jib-
bing.

" Do you love me. Jay? " She would ask it
fearlessly, and, " why ask ? " from the latter, as
she dropped a powder-puff the size of a pedigree
cauliflower, before raising her face to be
kissed.

It was on one of these absences that Leah met'
Deirdre Pope one morning, wandering in a
remote corner of the Gardens.

She was full of the facile you-must-come-and-
see-me-sometime pleasure at encountering Leah,
and the latter stood, passively allowing her
hands to be clasped. Deirdre, her volatile
attention anchored for the moment on the snag
of this chance meeting, was expansive, fulsome.'
And Leah, walled safely round, as it were, leant
her elbows upon the ramparts, and, from a great
height and security, conversed. She had no|
vindictiveness left in her. Of Munday she was
too indifferent and too proud to speak, but
Deirdre let fall the fact that they had left each

270

INTERVAL

other ; Munday for another woman, she herself
in a temperamental brainstorm. She did not put
it like that, but Leah knew enough of her osten-
tatious abandonments, attitudes on sofas, and
alleged neuralgia to guess what had driven the
never-too-balanced Munday away ; nor did she
feel it encumbent upon herself to display sym-
pathy. In Deirdre's world embarrassments
played no part.

Then the careless, uninterested question at
last.

" And are you back at Turnham Green ? Oh,

by the way, I meant to ask you "

"I'm staying with Jay Lewes," said Leah
, with measured deliberation. This sinking in,
Miss Pope abandoned her previous remarks,
and made a fresh start.

, "Jay Lewes. Do I know her? Friend of
I the Bounces ? My new poems are coming out
i this autumn. Leaf — the Poet's Bookshelf man,

is taking them on. Rethinks "

A hot fury filled Leah. She had kept remote
until this moment.

" Miss Lewes is principal at the Parthenon,"
she said icily. But Miss Pope was impervious
to chills.

Oh is that the woman ? She dances

doesn't she.'* I saw her in "

Leah looked at her helplessly ; dissolved
rancour in laughter. The idea was a happy one ;
she must tell Jay later.

" Leah darling, we must meet often. I'm

271

FALSE GODDESSES

at the Beauregards. They're wonderful. He
has a beautiful mind. Now dear don't let us lose
each other. You know, friendship is such a
beautiful thing ! " (with a hand clasping Leah's
arm.)

Leah shifted. She hated unseasonable "set
pieces." Deirdre wasn't a fool, must know she
was too late with her blandishments. Leah
hoped she would not try to kiss her as they
parted, she herself was too courteous to refuse.
She contrived to be as evasive as Deirdre in the
matter of refusing invitations, and managed to
ebb away with a bright, hard smile. Miss Pope
was unruffled.

That ghost was laid.

XXI

The request for Leah's trunk brought a batch of
news in its wake, and Leah, reading, thought it
only needed the stimulus of her own absence for
things to ' get a move on ' in Monk's Green.
"If I'd been at home, they'd have spread all
this over years. . . ."

Jimmy Bounce was actually married, and*!
more, was taking the flat formerly occupied by
Deirdre and herself.

Part of Bessie's letter ran :

" Now I've made it up with Eustace I'm so
happy, I'm sure it must he for the best. It was
upsetting me very much. We're to be married

272

i

INTERVAL

quite soon and you must come back for it.
How exciting my dear to be with Miss Jay Lewes !
Eustace came in one evening too late for me to
ask you for seats and we got in the last row of
the pit and saw beautifully and I thought she was
sweet. Eustace admired the girl who sang
' Beautiful Baby Ways ' more. The dresses are
awfully pretty aren't they and you looked awfully
nice. We're looking about for rooms as we shall
start in a small way and I'd like to be near home."

Ella wrote on half a sheet of blue paper
enclosed in a cream-coloured envelope :

" Oh Leah Do be an Angle and ask Miss
Lewes if I may come round and see her after the
show one night and you too of course. She has
been so kind to you ■"

Leah put the letter down. How precisely
these people contrived to flick you on the raw !
And it was all so harmlessly meant. . . .

" .... 50 kind to you that perhaps she would
help me? / can't get anything to do and the
house is so dreadfully dull and Bessie's going
away and Alice's out all day."

Poor little wretch ! How squarely she hit the
nail on the head. Leah admired the directness
of the statement of woe. Ella's grievances were
art least communicable ; she was no soulful
vapourer. Leah tried not to notice the extent
to which Ella had 'climbed down.' She was
evidently ' going through it ' at last as the others
had done, in their ways ; but she might yet
short-circuit their experiences by this unscientific
hitting. Leah felt a very grandmother to Ella ;
even to Alice she had always felt as a step-

273 3

FALSE GODDESSES

mother (' mother ' implied too indulgent an
attitude).

Her thoughts were broken off by the entrance
of Jay, and she nerved herself for a new
generosity. Ella trusted her blindly ; Leah
was at the fount by night and by day I
Show the letter itself she would not ; the
"kind to you" stuck too tightly in her
throat.

" Hallo darl'n! Lettr's?"

" Yes. I've just had a regular — look here
Jay, you've probably heard me speak of the
youngest, Ella."

"Aha," assented Miss Lewes, arranging
flowers.

" Well — look here, she wants to come around
and see you after the show."

"Well, let h'r," answered the other reck-
lessly, " darn these thorns ! She must've got it
badly

" She's not alone, as you'd say, you Jay-
thing ! "

" if the spectacle of a woman makin*

up hur face with hur hair screwed up like the
cook excites h'r."

" I suppose it does seem like that to you.

But listen. The worst is yet to come. She's on

the stage or rather off it at the moment "

" Oh-h ! " Jay Lewes spoke in tones of
enlightenment, ' ' 'begin t'see light at the end 've
the tunnel, as our Mr. Dimsdale says. An'
what she think I c'n do for h'r, hey ? "

274

INTERVAL

"Oh, everything, I suppose; they always
do." Leah until that minute had thought the
same herself.

Dear heart ! I'm not an agent ! I know
lots 've useful folk, naturally, but even the
best've us havn't much real influence that way.
I'm only a salaried artist like the rest — but I may
be able to do something for h'r."

You might — get her on at the Par-
thenon

" No," said Jay quietly, "but I'll try an' fix
h'r, if only t'please you sweetheart."

After a smiling, gushing, perky little Ella had
giggled her way out of Miss Lewes 's dressing-
room, a place was found for her in the new revue
at the Diplomatic across the road.

The long, incredible summer was passing, and
Leah, whenever she thought of her old home,
which was not often, had a presentiment that it
was an impossibility that Mimosa Road could be
any longer in existence. It was inconceivable
that while she w^aited in the hall for Jay to
emerge for a morning with dressmakers, shoe-
makers, " Cachay," etc., her own old bed-room
should be actually there, biding its time, dingily,
grimly waiting to reclaim her.

It seemed as if, in common decency, it should
have vanished into space now that it had served
its turn. . . .

275

FALSE GODDESSES

XXII

The autumn drew mistily on, and Leah, as she
sat by the fire, put down the book to wonder
afresh. She appreciated anew her own ease —
here, but to-day she realised her nerves were on
edge for Jay's return. Why? Everything was
all right . . . she looked at the clock and cal-
culated ; only a few minutes now. She put the
hands on five minutes, and laughed happily,
absurdly. The passion for action moved her to
prowl the room. By the window she paused
without knowledge. " I shall get broken to it,
some day." . . . She moved on. "All this

clock business . . . and I've been

here all the summer. . . . Garth van Osten, if
she doesn't come in soon, I shall go and look
over the banisters." She put down the photo-
graph ; knelt at the fire. " It's autumn already ;
she'll wear the furs we bought at Josky's. The
streets '11 be lit when we go to the Parthenon . . .
we'll turn on the light in the car . . . and then,
Christmas. Do I go back to the Bounces or not ?
Not if I know it ! I may have to go over for the
day. Back on Boxing day . . . nineteen — and
every sort of a fool there is ! "

Over what waste lands she had toiled to Jay !
She could wonder now in what way fate was
moving those pieces against w^hich she had
jostled on the journey. The High School

276

INTERVAL

girls . . . Leah could not remember a third of
the names, that awful litde violinist — somebody-
Turner. She would fiddle her anaemic way into
matrimony with some self-improver who read
Ruskin and took soda-mints at meals. Rebecca
Kingsly, committed to the artistic round,
scrapped and replaced . . . what a thousand
pities that had been, now she came to think of it !
How fond Leah could have been of her, and
what would have been the upshot if Rebecca
had been amenable.'* Mrs. Clifton. A nice
little thing — hopelessly suburban, of course, no
strength of character. Leah was sure that at
forty-five she would not allow a girl of barely
eighteen to boss her affairs ! But then it was
more than probable nobody would want to. She
hadn't seen Margaret Clifton alone since the tea
that had concluded the episode of the bath-room.
Mrs. Clifton had dropped calling on her old
friend Mrs. Bounce. F^or the first time Leah
felt guilty. Poor Mrs. Bounce had loved her
friend with unromantic sincerity. How Leah
spoilt things for everybody ! and how she suf-
fered for it. She had scarcely a friend in the
world ; Anne Sleath, perhaps, who was pub-
lic property. And Odara Tyndal, Deirdre

Pope ! they at least had not conformed, but

she had lost them before they were won ; and
these were only the outstanding names, but one
and all she had put them through the mill, her
demands upon them increasing with her growth.
Waste, waste ! . . .

277

FALSE GODDESSES

The front-door slammed, and Leah flashed to
her feet. Jay did not come into the room, she
let off a hailin^T " Oy ! " from the passage.
" Hul-lo ! " Leah answered her.

"Oh girl, I've had the hell 've a morn-
ing— sorry — hollerin' That Lovin' Rag into a
gramophone. Wait while I take m 'things
off."

The maid came in and gave Miss Lawrence
an envelope. It looked out of the ordinary ;
Leah had not heard a ring or knock. Excited,
she tore it open :

arriving enghnd tuesday tenth with you
Wednesday mother

First it meant nothing, just a dim, barren
place in which she stood alone. It was much
later that something seemed to click inside her
head. Waves of nervous, almost electric,
shocks drowned her, then she grew cold, a damp
cold that spread clammily. She sat taut, in-
credulous, fearful. She hoped she wasn't going
to be sick. Her brain, lulled for weeks, re-
sponded instantly to the sudden rude demand
upon it, fought her for its right to work at the
dreary high pressure of the past. It wrenched
to begin

She noticed that the cable, or whatever it was,
had been forwarded from Mimosa Road ; no
time had been lost. Mrs. Bounce had reverence
for, and mistrust of, expressed communication.
A telegram roused the whole house. ... So

278

INTERVAL

this was the meaning of her unease for Jay to
return ! It was the bond between them, tugging
them together. . . . To-day was Tuesday.
Six clear days left — she must be home a day
before. Why, they gave the condemned longer
notice of death, surely? Or didn't they?
Perhaps the suspense was worse ? At least this
had fallen swiftly. But you can suffer an
eternity — in six days.

Of course something had to happen, happi-
ness such as this — had been — was probably
unworkable. The devils had been unable to
reach her since she found Jay to chase them
away, and had fled, shrieking, across the seas to
whisper in this intimate-stranger's ear. . . .

Then Jay's voice :

Leahur ! darn it all where are you ? ' ' She
got no answer.

Leah had tried. . . .

But some instinct drew Jay Lewes unerringly
to her. She saw the paper at Leah's feet, saw
Leah

" What's that? " she said, sharply. Picking
it from the fioor with a ' ' may I read it ? " she
did so, many times, and laid it aside. Abruptly
she sat down upon the sofa, and put her arms
round Leah.

" Now Leahur, take your time," she said
quietly, and whistled meditatively through her
teeth.

But tears were mile away, biding their time,
yielding place to preliminary of flat, small voice.

279

FALSE GODDESSES

" Well, my mother's coming home at last,"
she managed bitterly.

For once Jay Lewes misunderstood.

"Well, better late than nev'r h'ny, though
it beats me what she was doin' t' leave you out
've h'r life all these years. If Babs had lived, I
mightn't've been able to watch out f'r h'r all the
time myself, but I'd've put h'r where I c'd
fetch h'r any moment.

My ! I wish my deeur old mother was right
here this minute t'give me a hug. She was dead
against my comin' over to England an' wanted
me t'go back to h'r in V'rginia for a spell, but
I had too much on my mind then t'care to walk
around fancyin' myself among the t'rnips, an'
when I'd been with h'r a bit she saw it was the
best thing. She sent me a photo a year ago.
She's got the most beautiful white hair ever you
saw in your life. She used t'make coffee like a
dream o* Paradise. I've never beaten it in any
restaurant this side."

Leah, her head on Jay's shoulder, sat up with
a jerk.

"It isn't that — but how dare she . come
back — just now ? There was many a time with
the Bounces . . . even though I shouldn't
recognize her if I met her . . . but 7iow . . .
it had to be now ! And she can claim me like
a parcel, I suppose ; I'm under age, and depend-
ent. As far as I can make out Dad didn't leave
much . . . why she ne\'er even thought of

280

INTERVAL

sending a photo — oh I don't mean she's heart-
less, she may be for all I care ! I've got all that to
find out . . . she's just casual. I only wrote
her when the cheques came . . . polite stuff
. . . what was there to say ? I don't know any
of her interests. She might have asked me to
join her in Australia, but I think she's had rather
a struggle, and anyhow it would have meant
trailing about after her from place to place . . .
and I hate long journeys, and there was the fare.
And I wouldn't have gone — since I met
you. ..."

" My dearie, if you find that things are too
difficult — later — you come right back t'me an'
live. I've got a pretty decent salary an' plenty

laid by against the day someone else wipes my

f» > >

r me.

" I almost wish you hadn't said that, Jay. I
shan't give my mother a fair trial — now. I shall
come back. There'll be no getting quit of
me."

" Well, I shan't cry my eyes out. We'll stay
on here, an' when I've worked through my con-
tracts, which '11 take me about another three
years, we'll go on the razzle to New York an'
ask Garth van f'r a place in the chorus."

For the following days Jay Lewes cut out her
engagements, astonishing sundry organizers.
Leah at first begged her not to, desiring that in
the usual rush things might seem to be as in the
past. Sweet though the leisure with her was,
it underlined the coming break.

281

FALSE GODDESSES

Leah had no intention of giving up her place
at the Parthenon, that at least she would cling
to, but she pictured the new conditions that
would close in upon her at the conclusion of the
night's work, and the return to a strange house
which in future she must learn, must remember,
to call home. She contrasted it with the
moments when she and Jay had climbed into the
car silent, tired, but on the whole responsive to
the mood of the other. But it was more than
probable Leah would get her notice at the end of
the present run. The management had many,
irons in the fire and might transfer Miss Lewes
to another theatre where she, Leah, could not
follow, and Vyvyan West's influence might not
extend to new surroundinofs. She would see
Jay often, of course, but she would have no more
standing at these visits than any other intimate ;;
caller. And — the suburban home with her 'I'
mother, where, in the long evenings she would
be isolated with memories . . -Jay perhaps
with new friends ? She tortured herself in ad-
vance. Perhaps some other girl ... it had
happened once ! But Jay wasn't like that . . .
but wasn't she? Her kindliness could be very
perilous, and the love she was bound to attract
she would be very tender with. Leah planned
surprise visits to her dressing-room at some
other theatre. But these visits would be dis-
jointed affairs at best . . . she would not know
exactly what Jay had been doing before Leah
entered the room, nor what she would do when

282

INTERVAL

Leah left it . . . and the agony of seeing the
show from the front . . . and another supper
on the stage, perhaps ; Jay in another gown
of — what ? Leah would live on speculation for
the future.

And so the last days traitorously dwindled and
vanished.

As Leah entered the drawing-room on
the Monday morning, dressed for departure
and holding her hand-bag. Jay was staring out
of the window. She turned at the step.

" I sh'll see you to-night deeur one — an' f'r a
great many ' to-nights ' too I hope. I sh'll
expect you at the usual time in number 2. Now,
deeur, we're not goin' t'fret, are we, h'ny? I
sh'll miss you more'n I can say. It's been v'ry
sweet to me to have you t'look after an' boss
around." She took Leah's face in her hands.

"I'm goin' t'start right in at once at some
new numburs this noon. There's nothing like
work deeur, I've found that out in my time. If
ever you get the black dog — an' God knows we
all do, times — you take my tip an' put your back
into something, don't matter what 'tis."

Leah nodded silently ; she herself had known
it ever since her schooldays ; only life had not
dealt with her so bravely as it had withl

Jay.

Jay had been married at Leah's age, and six
years later had lost her little girl, taken a
hazardous step without hesitation, made her own
successful life, created her own circumstances all

283

FALSE GODDESSES

the time. She had had experiences any one of
which most women would have spread over a
lifetime. And taken them all in her stride.
Any mistakes she might have made had been
admitted, dismissed, and •

But Jay was kissing her — many times — and
imaginings were put to flight.

So Leah returned for the third time to the
house in Mimosa Road.

XXIII

The Bounces were full of eager questions and
speculations. Ella rhapsodizing over her work
and "that peach of a Jay Lewes," Bessie
sparing spasmodic intervals from wedding pre-
parations to wonder about Leah's mother, Mrs.
Bounce and Alice rather overwhelmed. Poor
Mrs. Bounce was really sorry to lose Leah,
would miss her and Bessie and Jimmy when she
could snatch a second for sentiment. But the
spare-room must be got ready for Leah's
mother, who was expected to stay a few days
while she arranged a home. Leah camped in
Jimmy's attic. Bessie's trousseau must be
finished, Eustace still catered for, Mr. Bounce
bundled out of the way, the rest of the invita-
tions dispatched, the " fork " breakfast ordered,
to say nothing of clearing up and the carrying of
paper, strawy and packing-cases to the shed in

284

INTERVAL

the garden in the pauses between more pressing
duties.

Supper had been laid an hour later against the
possible arrival of Mrs. Lawrence; but time
passed and she did not drive up to the door until
ten o'clock. Leah, at the theatre, spent the
night under the same roof with her mother, who
had retired early, without seeing her.

The following morning Leah put on the nile-
green wrapper. After all, Jay had worn it once,
or she couldn't have discovered "she looked
like the scrub-lady in it, kind o' tired." Leah
gathered it close.

Dazed, she reached the spare-room, knocked,
entered and hesitated.

Mrs. Lawrence — Stella Lawrence on the
concert platform — was in bed reading The
Stage and smoking. Her hair, like Leah's
but darker, new copper with the sun on it,
delicately brightened with bronze powder, was
fashionably done. She was somewhat over
middle-age and in youth must have been
beautiful, but time and struggle had etched tired
lines upon the face which certainly resembled
Leah's. She had the same square, petulant
mouth, but her eyes were grey. She was con-
siderably taller and of more massive build.
Leah thought what a fine show-girl she might
have made. . . .

Her mother looked up brightly, flung down
her cigarette, hurled the paper to the foot of
the bed, and holding out her arms cried :

285

FALSE GODDESSES

" Why ! it's my little kiddy ! " and kissed her
warmly.

"So you've turned professional?" smiled
Stella Lawrence later. Her trained voice was
tones deeper than Leah's own. " Well, if you
loved the business like I did I don't wonder.
Parthenon, eh? That's a musical show house,
isn't it? I feel a regular backwoodsman and
things seem to have changed in London all these
years. When I left England the Parthenon
was polite comedy, rehearse-a-month-and-run-
a-week kind of thing. ' ' She grinned in a friendly
way.

The shop gossip was to her daughter a
help ; nevertheless she wondered how long her
mother would allow herself before assuming the
parental manner.

" Oh well, it all goes in cycles. You must
show me round, darling, and help me get my
new theatrical bearings."

Mrs. Lawrence was prevailed upon to
stay for Bessie's wedding by the excited
Bounces, and, as it was within the next
few days, she consented, reserving the
humorous, bored shrug for the closing, of the
door.

And the day of Bessie's wedding. . . .

St. Cuthbert's w^as too expensive, the decora-
tions would be ' swallowed up,' the friends of the
bride and groom rattle like castanets amidst that
vastness ; so the ceremony took place at Eus-
tace's own church, St. Lawrence-at-Grid, where

286

INTERVAL

the flowers and relations made a better show.
Leah hated the whole business for which she felt
virtually responsible, but attendance was impera-
tive.

Led by a pattering sidesman, whose boots
creaked with cheerful irreverence upon the flag-
stones, she and her mother were conducted past
much-to-be-desired back rows, until it seemed
they would end in being offered a seat upon the
altar itself ; but with a final ushering squeak of
indication, the boots stood aside and allowed
them to enter a pew third from the choir. This
also meant that a sickeningly stiff neck was in-
curred by the constant necessity to scrutinize the
assemblage emerging in twos and threes from
the red baize hangings patterned with fat black
fleurs de lys at the entrance. People Leah did
not remember had an unnerving habit of gently
leaning over her pew and prodding her in the
back, smiling and talking subdued, but far too
loud for all that, in a place where tradition has
decreed that to be natural is to be disrespectful.
Friends and relations of the Bounces, these,
dutifully claiming recognition, seeing in a wed-
ding the only means of bridging the silence of
■years, and from it dispersing — who knows
where ? Leah did not attempt to sort them out.

And then Mrs. Bounce, conventionally tearful
in grey, Ella obstreperous in a ruched chiffon
hat through which gleamed her golden hair, and
Alice in a hideous duck's-egg serge, filed into
their places, followed a little later by Jimmy's

287

FALSE GODDESSES

wife, neat and quiet in a dark suit, while Jimmy
himself teeter 'd unhappily near the vestry door.
He was trying to recollect the "business."
Then came the first embellishment of the
pageant of indecent suggestiveness that would
presently unfold, in the form of a clack from the
organ-loft, and the mosquito-like chord of the
voluntary, so thin, so clarified, it seemed a sing-
ing in the listener's own ears. Pianissimo, it
gave the performer plenty of scope for a stop
he particularly favoured, which produced an
effect of a shimmer of heat on an unbearable
August afternoon ; a stuffy vibrato which seemed
to obscure the altar in a throbbing mist. When
he had decided the church was now warmed
through, he loosed a rakish little tune, strangely
mundane. " I believe it's Our Miss Gibbs,"
muttered Stella Lawrence in her daughter's ear.
But with adroitness it saved its reputation by a
ramble into something still gay, but unmistake-
ably ' classical,' before returning to the musical-
comedy motif which closed the performance.

In the whispering interval, Leah leaned back
and thought out the situation.

Strange, oh strange, that Bessie would
in a few minutes emerge to take a leading part,
to witness which an audience had assembled
from their unguessed homes and interests. This,
Leah supposed, was her Day Of Triumph, but
it also seemed to her that Bessie wasn't getting
a run for her money. One day on show, queen
of the ceremonies, and all the rest of her life at

288

INTERVAL

the gas-stove, cooking . . . and she couldn't
cook either ; she was neither useful nor orna-
mental ! How did this sort of girl manage ?
Bessie, until the proposal, had muddled along
trying to have a good time, as understood by the
Monk's Green girls. She had no system of life,
was laying up nothing for the lean years. It was
the reckless policy of a former generation that
banked on marriage. But, unlike the figures of
that deliberately picturesque epoch, she had
never dreamed of "making herself useful in the
house," of learning the housewife's craft. Nor
did Mrs. Bounce seem to expect it. Why, she
couldn't even be trusted to boil an egg without
forgetting it and leaving it to be spooned out by
one of the others. It always ended in Bessie
placidly waiting for her food to be given her.
What a house run by her alone would be like was
beyond imagination. She would, Leah sup-
posed, have a 'morning woman,' who would
take their groceries home, and want food at
intervals of half-an-hour or so ; but she would
go at lunch time and what was to happen then ?
When Bessie had babies, Leah guessed that
their care would inevitably devolve upon Mrs.
'Bounce, while Bessie hung about in the back-
ground looking vacant. It was a good thing
there was only one way of producing babies ;
otherwise she would have muddled that, or that
more than one a year — if you discounted twins —
was impossible ; if not, she would have gone the
limit in a lethargy of helplessness.

289 T

FALSE GODDESSES

Leah and Ella, the latter because she thought
Eustace a fool, the former because it was prin-
ciple, had pounced on Bessie weeks ago urging
her to omit certain portions of the service, and
of course Bessie had caved in when it came to
the point. It was surely impossible that she
should not have considered these matters for her-
self, for in spite of her law-abiding front, the
more obvious war-cries of the Suffrage days
must have, by their constant repetition, found
some lodgment in her unretentive brain ; but
familiarity had apparently bred contempt ; they
had degenerated into mere political mottoes. Be-
sides . . . principle was all very well, but

your own wedding was a different matter. That
was reality, let idealism fit in afterwards where it
could. Bessie could not be expected to realise
that her views had led to the very suffrage move-
ment itself

Then a hymn, and the choir followed by
Bessie, stubby in the white which had never
suited her, but in which Leah supposed she
desired to advertise to the world that she was

in an undamaged condition a tit-bit, unshop-

soiled, for Eustace to munch at his leisure.

O Perfect Love !

Well ! if a man could find Bessie desir-
able then anything might happen ! That any
man could wish to make her the mother of his

children was inconceivable worse ridicu-

290

INTERVAL

lous. Would Bessie really rear children who
would smack their lips at meals ; daughters with
thick ankles who would snuffle savagely when
their love-affairs went wrong? But perhaps —
like couples in novels — they "had not thought
of children" ? In which case, what about the
marriage service which, besides relegating the
woman to the position of a prostitute, insisted

on very little else ? You were according to

the book of the words either a ' ' remedy

against sin," or a mere breeding machine.

Eustace didn't know what his bride-to-be
looked like in the early morning. . . Leah felt
someone should have shouted a warning there
and then before it was too late. Some remedy
against frowsiness for instance . . . but on the
other hand, was Eustace any more desirable ?
It was fairer to be a dowd than a menace ; were
there not, of a surety, episodes in his past which
made his proximity and union to the figure in

white and all it stood for a profanation ?

Leah wondered, even as the service began,
exactly where and when these affairs had taken
place . . . and what the night-bird accomplice
was doing at the precise moment the couple were
kneeling at the altar. . . Some combined room
off the Tottenham Court Road . . . scent . . .
' 'leave the money on the mantelpiece' ' . . . Poor
soul ! To be forced to take Eustace, even for an
hour, for the few shillings he represented . . .
but even now Bessie had pledged herself in an
unpleasantly similar capacity ... for her whole

291

FALSE GODDESSES

life, and in a voice so low it seemed to render
the vow Illegal. Leah Vv'ished, with professional
impatience, that brides would speak their ' lines '
better ; if you had made up your mind to take
the part then for God's sake let the audience
hear you ! But perhaps all the brides who had
ever modestly mumbled since the world began,
had confused glimpses of the unreticent broad-
ness of their role. The service, like some of the
lesser-known of Shakespeare's plays — Titus and
Pericles for example — needed drastic cuts.

Then there was a pause during which, the
principals being in the vestry, no one made
idiotic and unpractical vows. After which, the
last straw, the wedding march, as they emerged.
Bessie with veil thrown back. Respectable at
last !

Leah liked the march, looking upon it as
comic-relief, especially the yapping prelude
which led to the tow-row theme, and that pecu-
liarly harsh but effective chord that is the first in
the actual melody. Thus :

Ta-ta-ta-ta-ta-ta-ta-tar
{with menace) Ta-ta-ta-Tar-ta-ta-ta- /ar
(with growing malignance )

Ta-ta-ta- /ar-ta-ta-ta
Or — rrr wank !

Wah ! te turn turn turn turn
Twiddle {ad lib.) um turn te turn

tiddle Iddle Iddle

Or — rrr wank !

and so on, before relapsing sulkily into the less
flamboyant "padding."

292

INTERVAL

The vicar's little extempore address con-
tained, with other gems, the statement that the
couple had ' ' preferred each other out of the
whole world." But these matters must be
glossed over, as is announced the indisposition
of the leading-lady, when she has had a smash-
ing set-to with the management and has threat-
ened to throw up her part for keeps.

And so Bessie was made Mrs. Burrowes, and
went for a week to Bognor.

Then Leah's mother, jibbing openly, trans-
ferred herself and daughter to a London hotel.
The caravanserai atmosphere was the one In
which she felt most at home. She secured a
tiny suite ; two bedrooms, to Leah's unbounded
thankfulness, a bath-room and courtesy drawing-
room. Meals were taken In the restaurant
below .

Mrs. Lawrence had a piano Installed, a con-
cert grand which ate space to such a degree that
they, as it were, lived "round" it, and seated
at the gleaming mammoth, she would practice
with all the professional's thoroughness and de-
tail. She spent the whole of one morning over
a shake In the Jewel Song, and Leah, listening
with genuine pleasure and increasing respect,
remembered her own performance in the Town
Hall, an eternity ago, and let her sense of
humour gain the upper hand.

While Leah was at her matinee Mrs. Law-
rence, amusedly recognizing the necessity, paid
a call upon Mrs. Bounce. When she realised

293

FALSE GODDESSES

how little they had in common, how conversation
came either uneasy, or in a steady flow of banali-
ties, her heart melted with pitying horror for her
daughter. Leah had lived with this for years,
her mother was chafing at one tea-party ! She
would have to discover, in the months to come,
to what extent her daughter had survived her
environment. From what she had seen of Leah
it had seemed to be " all right," but subtle affi-
liations might have percolated through the ine-
vitable outward signs of breeding ? Being a
Bohemian, this possibility only troubled Stella
Lawrence intermittently.

What a muddle she had created for the
poor child ! She had been the means of
placing her beyond every pale. She swore
to herself that she would make it up to
Leah later, and wondered how it was to
be done ; she herself had her own circle to create
in London which would take precious time.
Of course Leah was still ' quite young ' ;
possibly she had struck out a line for herself?
She dragged her mind back to the disposal of
her hostess.

Mrs. Bounce clung to the one straw in sight
after they had variously disposed of Leah and
gratitude as topics. She spoke of her sister-in-
law, Ethel Brail "that was." Ethel had per-
mitted America to absorb her ; one flying visit
to England years ago, and then back to wed a
prosperous rancher who took her to Canada.

294

INTERVAL

Doing the work of a man — and a woman — she
seldom wrote home.
Mrs. Lawrence was unaccountably relieved. . .
And then one evening as Leah hurriedly pre-
pared for the theatre, Stella Lawrence, at a
loose-end, suggested coming too. " Lll drop in
and see the show and come round and fetch you
afterwards."

XXIV

With breathless impatience Leah had fled to the
Parthenon on the evening of the day she first
saw her mother. Once there, the routine caught
her up, and it seemed as if this new disturbance
had never happened. And Jay, knowing some
type of storm was in store for her, firmly shoo'd
even Alice out of the room.

" Well pet, an' what's the worst with you? "
she had whispered, her arms about Leah.

" It mayn't be so bad. She seems quite jolly
and talks shop with the best, and oh my Lewes
woman ! to see us together ! It's like an orange
and a lemon ! ' ' Then the call-boy came bother-
ing, and Miss Lewes, intensely relieved on
Leah's account, began to wail for the dresser.

" Oh Alus, Alus, Alus, whayur art thou ! "

Leah, bewildered with the effort to splice the
new life to the old, took her mother to the

295

FALSE GODDESSES

theatre. They passed the front of the house
dado'd with photographs, and Stella Lawrence,
curious as a schoolgirl, paused.

" Who's that? " she asked quickly, pointing
to studio studies of Jay Lewes, in the French
Revolution chapeau-hras, getting out of the car,
arm-in-arm with Dimsdale and Allan, and, best
of all, Jay asleep in a crinkled gown of flowered
pattern, with cigarette hanging from drooping
fingers to the tiger-skin rug.

" That's Jay Lewes," Leah quietly added,
" she's one of the principals."

"Oh yes?" indifferently, "of course I've
heard of her."

At the conclusion of the show Stella Lawrence
lost herself among the passages, having impe-
tuously come in to investigate. Anderson, that
conscientious, authoritative, and sometimes rude,
old man, was absent on some errand.

Leah, turning from dreams to reality as she
closed the door of number 2 , was confronted with
her mother, looking very handsome in powder
blue, black fox, and a black velvet tam o' shan-
ter under which her tinted coppery hair gleamed
in the light from the electric under its cone of

wire. Then

"Oh, Leahur, have you gone? Just a

moment " from behind the closed door.

Leah was in a quandary. She had not thought
it necessary to speak of Jay, but she guessed
that an introduction must some time be mad^.
Jay would want to meet her and form her own

296

INTERVAL

opinions. She opened the door at once. Jay
wanted her !

" Yes dear, I'm still here, and, oh Jay, er —
mother has come for me and I'm sure she'd love
to meet you. May she come in ? "

"Why sure thing." Jay Lewes rose.
" How do you do, Mrs. Lawrence ; come right
in "

" Jasmine ! ! "
Dinkie II"

Leah saw her mother's arms round Jay's
neck. . . . Averting her eyes, she closed the
door very quietly and went down the passage.

And in number 2, two women were seeking
reasons in words that refused to come quick
enough, scanning each other for landmarks and
unfamiliarities, beginning scraps of news that
escaped and were merged in exclamations of
astonishment and joy, and stopping to hug each
other when they abandoned the attempt to ex-
change the experiences of over twenty years.

Well Dinkie-duck I guess you worked a
surprise on me. What decided you t'come back
aft V all this .? "

" Homesickness, my agent, and provi-
dence, Jas-mine."

" An' now try an' tell me what happened

after Babs died. I felt it terribly, the way we
lost each other, Dinkie." Mrs. Lawrence threw
off her fur, her face troubled.

After I left you I was about at the end of

297

FALSE GODDESSES

my tether. I'd hardly a penny saved — by the
way I still owe you ten dollars ! — and then I met
Austen Lawrence, and we were awfully in love,
and I was so thankful ... it would have been
too awful to have — y'know — married for a home.
He hadn't much, but we got married as soon as
ever we could, and when I felt safe, I moved
heaven and earth to find you. Never dreamed
I shouldn't . . . tried to remember your
mother's address and couldn't, and . . . well
it w^as rather like trying to find a needle in a
haystack, and you were a very small needle in
those days . . . we both were, God knows 1
And all the time you were skirmishing around in
England under another name — two other names.
You did the thing thoroughly, dearest."

" But you might've gone to Oylurrm'n, not
that he knew my address in Europe — I didn't
myself, but he might've put you on my track.
I had letters of "

"But my darling" — with a hint of impa-
tience " how could I have known you'd go

back to him and fix up about coming over here ?
I naturally thought you'd cut loose from him for
good when — you had to leave. Besides, there
was a bit of a frost on between us after I chucked
the show like that. I should' ve been scared of
my life to go near the place again ! You see, I
was absolutely floored about everything — myself
particularly — and when Garth — bless him and
the management that released him ! — came back
from tour to be with you, I went back to my old

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INTERVAL

room with the Brail girl. Oh my dear ! there
was no place for me in the world ! . . . I knew
he had the first claim, and I was truly happy for
your sake, but — oh well, it was the last straw
somehow. I can't expect you to understand. ."

" But I do dearie, I do. You always thought
a sight too much've me."

" I stuck to the boarding-house a few weeks,
and then I couldn't keep away any more ; I
guessed Garth would have gone again. And oh
Jas ! to find the flat empty ! "

"I'd gone to my mother's."

" I was just stunned. I leant against the
door . . . then I went to the house ag-ent. He
said you were still there. I said you'd gone
away, everything was shut up. He wasn't in-
terested. Just said you were still a tenant, and
he didn't know where you'd gone "

" I was, only I hadn't made my plans then ;
didn't know I was goin' to Europe."

" I asked for Garth's address. No result.

Then I went back somehow to that dog-

gasted boarding-house and cried. That girl
played up like a trump, and I'd been so beastly

to her sometimes "

" "An' then?"

** I wrote to Garth "

" That's right h'ny ! always get the wife out
o' the way first ! "

" I also asked him for Mrs. Shelley's address,
but he can't have got the letter ; they must have
altered one of the tour dates. Well anyway,

299

FALSE" GODDESSES

that just about finished me. And it was all I
could do to bring myself to write him at all.
The outsider I felt ! . . . then Austen heard
me sing one night at a cafe — oh I had to do
something, I was nearly on the rocks — and
apparently that did the trick ! It seemed he'd
once done business with my father in Eng-
land " T ay Lewes laucrhed.

" How's your father, what ! "

" I know ! but he really had, and he " took
care ' ' of me like an old dragon wherever I was
dated to sing. Took care ! Poor innocent ! "
But go on, go on."

"We got married, and when the kid was I
three, he died . . . got inflammation of the
lungs, and I was pretty busy looking after him
and keeping an eye on the child. I was always
frightfully ambitious ... we both were, you
and I J as, only I used to talk about it and you
didn't, and I made up my mind that cross my
heart I'd get there as a singer. ... I think
I'd've done the same anyhow even if I hadn't
been left so badly off. Stinny was an architect,
y'know, but there didn't seem to be much money
in his work. He was rather unpractical — too
high -brow, wouldn't take pot-boilers. I'd rather
lost touch with the relations in England, never
knew any of 'em, and left for America under a
cloud of frumpish displeasure because of the
stage business. Even when I was hardest up I
wasn't sorry I'd cut 'em out. Because of them
I told Ethel not to let on to the Bounces what

300

INTERVAL

my maiden name was ; I didn't want it to get
round ; I don't see quite how it could have, but
you never know with relations. They always
nose you out to gossip over, and they wouldn't
have been any help. Ethel just fobbed me off
as Mrs. Lawrence. So I did pretty much what
you did, I got a friend to loan me our fares and
we went second class to Australia and lived just
anyhow for the first months, and I took any old
job that came along ; that meant vamoosing
about all over the shop of course, and after six
months of lugging the kid about, I found I simply
couldn't do it. If I was ever to do anything, I
just had to be free. ... I worked under my
married name because if I'd stuck to the Miss
Mary Conder business (d'you remember the girls
used to call me Anna Conder ?) everyone would
have thought I'd had a — misunderstanding ! ! So
when she was four, I packed off the poor little
brute "

"To England."

" Well, I was half dead with worry wondering
who on earth to send her to and then — you re-
member the Bounce girl in the Beauty Parlour
crowd in New York ."^ "
■ "No."

" Woman ! ! she is the girl I lived with ; I've
been telling you about her. Oh my good story ! "

But Bounce is the folk "

"Yes I know, wait, wait! I will get
mine in first ! Well, d'you remember a girl
called Brail then?"

301

FALSE GODDESSES

No, I'm darned 'f I do."

" Well, her real name was Bounce. Now
d'you see ? "

Oh dear heart ! what is all this about?"

" Listen, listen! To cut a dull story-
short, I palled up with the poor kid. She
thought she was a woman of the world, but she
was as green as an apple really, and we pigged
it together — oh you do remember Jas ! "

" M'na. I begin to arrive. Little yellow-
haired thing rather like our Mrs. Oylurrm'n ? "

" That's better ! vShe told me one day that
her brother in England was married and had a
nice wife and two children — and I suppose it was
a crazy thing to do and an awful risk to take, but
I was all in with nerves and worry, and I wrote
to Ethel — she gave me her p. a. in England, by
a blessed fluke — and asked her bang out if she
thought her brother's wife would take Leah to
live as a " family-boarder." Weeks of delay ;
the little fiend was in America still, and the
relations had to forward the letter. Y'know I
was just on the rack she might 've forgotten me,
but for God's own wonder she hadn't, and wrote
a really decent letter (spelt all anyhow) saying
how grateful she would always be to me for all
I'd done for her in New York, and enclosing a
note from her sister-in-law which clinched the
matter. She seemed a kind old thing . . . you
could just see her from the things she didn't
say — I mean f'r instance, she didn't breathe the
word money in that first letter, and only very

302

INTERVAL

reluctantly later . , . that class always thinks
money matters low. It was all I could do to
bring her back to the point. Luckily I had a
pal on board going over in some crowd who'd
have seen the kid through if there 'd been any
hitch. So now here I am ! and here you are !
The former slightly battered and dressed far too
young and very annoyed at possessing a grown-
up daughter, and the latter, the nicest woman in
the wide, looking just a great kid, with no en-
cumbrances except a husband — by the way,
where is he ? "

" Same old city. He's the big noise over
there."

Steel ? Copper ? They all leave the stage
when they come to ! "

" Garth didn't. It bit him good an' hard."

" I know he was beginning to do good
work when "

"Yes, he's a pushin' young particle. Y'know,
I can't keep up with all the things you don't
seem to know ! I suppose we shall get sorted in
time. He's van Osten an' Kellinger."

"Wha-a-a-t ! ! The van Osten and Kellin-
iger?"

" Aha. He always had his eye on manage-
ment, but it hasn't turned his head one bit. I
saw to that ! ' '

"My God. If I'd known I'd've been

on to him like a knife

" 'Shame ; he could've placed you. There's
plenty of time f'r that, he's always on at me t'go

3^3

FALSE GODDESSES

ov'r, but I've got good an' tangled up In con-
tracts here. I love England. I've got my flat
as I like it, an' I like push'n the furniture around
an mess'n about . . . well, love, you've had a
big lot t'be thankful for. An' what did you
think 've the Bounce lot."^"

" Oh my dear ! My heart failed me when I
saw them first ! Dears, but common, common.
Mother almost drops her aitches when excited,
and father quite does. The girls have come out
of it wonderfully — considering. I havn't seen
the boy yet — he's married if you please, Alice is
a good ham — slaves for a pittance — Bessie's a
nonentity, and the youngest has sold herself into
slavery."

" Wh'd'you mean 1 Married.'* "

"Oh no my dear, the stage. A far more
insidious bondage. It holds the affections
longer ; she's playing over the road."

" M'yeh. I got her on there."

" My God, what a vicious circle ! " Then
suddenly, " but why Jay Lewes in the name of
commonsense ? "

" Darlin' fool, once my name was Jasmine.
Get that ? "

"Oh-h. But Lewes?"

" My mother's name before she married."

" Lud ! what a shuffle."

" An' what you doin' now, voice I mean ? "

" Oh, I've got a few odd dates at receptions,
but I mean to give a series of recitals at the
Vocalion Hall later ; thank goodness I can afford

304

INTERVAL

these little money-dropping amusements now.
And later on I may set up a studio and teach.
I'm pretty good, y'know."

" You always were."

" By the way Jay, I was in front to-
night."

"An' you didn't recognize me go on say
so ! "

"Well, that's rather a poser to answer off-
hand. I my mind wasn't prepared for the

possibility, and then the name helped to throw
me off the scent. You see Jas, you've changed
your line so — by the way it suits you exactly.
You see you never had a real chance up to when
we lost sight of each other, but even in those
days I saw glimpses that night you guy'd your
own number — bless you ! — and the other time
you guy'd Aubrey Provost. But your old man-
nerisms have matured, and you're broader than
you were "

" Jokes or person ! "

" Donkey 1 person of course ; over nineteen
years you know ! And you do your hair dif-
ferently. I like those flat pieces over the ears."
, " Spirit- gum an' prayer "

' ' Of course when you sang — well I just
clutched the stall and glared . . . but I
thought it was too good to be true . . . and
then, when I saw you close to here without the
make-up, I knew at once . . . one doesn't get
many moments like that in one's life ! "
Abruptly she broke the silence that had fallen.

305 U

FALSE GODDESSES

while she sat, Jay's hand in hers. "And do
you think me changed ? " . . ,

" More'n I have," answered Jay Lewes,
honestly ; "you're the type that shows wear'n
tear, you pretty ones."

Too true ! You were always more — what ?
— balanced, assured ; but then, private affairs
apart, you havn't had the struggle I have. I
had to think for two, you see, and I'm not the
domesticated sort as you know. I had to barter
ambition for a livelihood for years, while you
forged over to Europe and made good in — how
long did it take you, by the way ? "

" A few years to practice my line an' a few
more t'get the English broken to it, an' after
that say two years t' climb t'my present position.
There's one thing, once I'd got there I knew I
c'd hold on . . . but I couldn't do it again !
There's too many from the other side at my
job now."

" Yes, but there's only one Jay Lewes, I
should imagine. The audience really loves you,
it's not a figure of speech ; it's not schoolgirls
either, or even men, it's — everybody. I heard a
woman of about a hundred say she hated * ' these
kind of shows " usually, but she'd seen this one
nine times, and meant to see it nine time more !
And the old gaffer she was with said that if ever
you were off, he'd rather lose the money than
go in. One of them was really upset because
she couldn't catch a * Tinkle Peter ' doll when
you threw them. And there were three girls and

306

INTERVAL

a nice boy in the front row of the stalls, and when
you came on, they all solemnly clutched each
other ! ' '

"Oh Mike!"

"It's the genuineness of you ; you can't de-
ceive an audience that's worth its salt. Genius
'doesn't get there in the way you do, and I sup-
pose you're hardly that. . . . You have come
along since the old days ! I s'pose you're making
a pretty good thing out of it ? "

" Hah ! Well, I c'n pay m'rent — which re-
minds me ; what price a little holiday somewhere
to celebrate, huh? This show's runnin' a bit
thin in spite o' people clutchin' each oth'r in the
stalls. It'll only have t'be a week or ten days
though, they won't spare me f'r longer or the
box offus'll go down with a run, said she know-
ing her own value."

" South of France? "

" That's me."

" I'll get the Bounces to take Leah until I
get back," said Stella Lawrence happily.

Jay Lewes started up, her face shadowed.

" Leahur, where's Le ," she went

swiftly to the door but the passage was empty,
and she returned to her chair. "God! how

could I how hateful one c'n be . . . an' it

was all seein' you Dink'."

They smiled. Stella said :

" By the way, I meant to ask you ; you two
seem to be on terms. Made a hit in that quarter,
eh? " She lit a cigarette from the box on the

307

FALSE GODDESSES

dressing-table. Jay Lewes removed it, and
taking the other's hands she said bkintly :
" Dinkie, I love that Leahur o' yours' an' she
loves me too. I noticed her first thing at re-
hearsal one morning, she reminded me a mite of
you. Then she happened along with a note here

one night, an', oh well 1 d'no. I had her

with me right throught the summur an' would 've
kept her longer, only you butted in." She
pulled a strand of coppery hair. " Faked ! an'
it used t'be so pretty. Lighter too." She
glanced at the clock, "my God! nearly mid-
night, we'll be locked in f'r keeps 'f I don't get
a move on me."

"I'm coming home with you to-night of
course ; you'll have to doll me up in some
things."

Miss Lewes, hatted and furred, turned.

" My dearest, you're goin' back home to
Leahur," she said with decision.

XXV

When Leah shut herself out she went mechanic-
ally down the stairs without an idea in her brain ;
only force of habit guided her to the stage door.
Was the show over or had she just come in ?
She wished she could meet someone to ask . . .

308

INTERVAL

was that Fairy Dillon calling out good-night ?
. . . what a nuisance Monk's Green was so far
off . . . but there was some hotel ? . . . and
would Jay be long to-night ? How cosy it
would be in the car . . . then why hadn't
she gone home in it last night ? She remembered
walking . . .no, she couldn't have walked
. . . Monk's Green was by Underground . . .
how funny the stairs smelt ! sort of cold pipe-

clay-ey. " Give me a kiss, little girl " no,

that was the other show . Of course they

couldn't stay quiet with people hurrying up and
down them all night, that was why they went up
and down like sponges when you walked on
them . . . they bounced . . . Mrs. Bounce
. . . Ella Bounce. . . .

She must hurry, or they'd be getting anxious.

And so back to Monk's Green for the last
time. . . .

Leah Lawrence dressed for breakfast ; she felt
collected, cold, and curious. In one evening she
had recoiled to the old outlooks, temperament-
ally she was where she started. In one evening !
•'Rather in the seconds between the entrance of

her mother and Jay's exclamation . But

mingled with these sensations was another of
apology to Mrs. Lawrence for the anxious
night she supposed she must have given
her

Mrs. Bounce had admitted her last night,
summoned from sleep by the intermittent ham-

309

FALSE GODDESSES

mering at the front-door. Leah's latchkey had
been given back on her departure from Mimosa
Road. She received a severe shock on seeing
Leah, coupled with her curious vague manner.
But Mrs. Bounce, accepting the duty of crisis-
coping, had, sensing something wrong, asked no
questions. It was too late by that time to set
any enquiries on foot ; she was only thankful
that she, of the now depleted family, had heard
the knocking.

Curious to be at breakfast with them again ;
more curious ever to have been away ! Mrs.
Bounce had hurried about to various bedroom
doors telling the family not to ask questions, and
that Leah was back asfain.

When the meal was over, Leah rushed off to
town to the hotel, there to present her duty and
make what excuses she could. Would her
mother hysterically embrace her, scolding and
crying in the same breath, or would she unmask
her batteries in a good rousing tirade ? Of the
two alternatives the latter was almost to be pre-
ferred.

She knocked at the door.

" Come in," sang out Stella Lawrence, who
was reading in bed. " Hullo child! Break-
fast's coming up in a minute. I was so dog-
tired this morning I overslept. 'Hope I didn't
disturb you coming in last night." Then seeing
Leah's coat and hat : "why you are an early
riser ! where you going at this unearthly hour ? "

Well, any answer would do for that. The

310

INTERVAL

chief thing was that the explanation — ho\ve\^er
she would have contrived to word it — now need
not be made.

Leah chipped an egg ; she must eat or the
whole business would be to do again ; but even
this realisation drew down her mother's cheerful
comments. Still you may be off your food with-
out necessarily implying the suppression of any
awkward truth.

So Stella Lawrence ate with hearty young
zest, unusually pretty for sheer happiness,
while her daughter played wearily with
her food, looking white and worn, almost
ugly, her eyes like black pits, her lustreless hair
harsh and staring.

" I don't believe you know about my great
pal, dear," her mother began, when she had had
her fill and was embarked on a cigarette. " Isn't
it strange it should have been Jay Lewes all the
time and me not knowing it ! We were in the
same show in New York years ago, before I
married. She's not altered much ; she was
always the tall bossy kind, bless her, and she's
turned from a jolly girl into a beautiful jolly
woman. Well, perhaps not beautiful, but "

[" But," quite so.]

" By the way, kiddy dear, I hope you won't
feel bored all on your lonesome, but she and I
are going away for a little holiday to Monte.
You'll have your work at night, and matinees,
and I'm sure Mrs. Bounce'll be delighted to
.have you for the ten days we'll be gone. Nasty

311

FALSE GODDESSES

girl! You havn't kissed me once yet!"
And when Leah had gone :

" Home again, nice daughter, good dates
and shall get better, and J as and Monte
together!! Oh! I'm so happy I could
scream," said Stella Lawrence.

Leah remained with the Bounces from that
morning on ; she would do fate out of the
pleasure of reserving for her any more in-
vertebrate returns to Mimosa Road. She had
had enough of anti-climax ; these perpetual
farewells and returns were beginning to become
ridiculous. . .

She was wrapped in a web of misery ; un-
ceasing she asked herself why she shouldn't
have guessed that her resemblance to that joy-
dispeller, of whom Jay Lewes so often spoke,
should not have warned her that — being Leah
Lawrence — it had to be her own mother ? She
had been extraordinarily obtuse. This was the
natural denouement she would have foreseen in
the case of another ; this denseness was interest-
ing ; it was alien to her nature. Whoever
arranges these things has a pretty humour.

She was driven in upon herself again. That
man in the Town Hall ... he had opened up
a new heaven and a new earth — which was more
to the point — for the Bounce girls and herself.
She repeated, as she might a charm, some of his
amazing statements. They didn't seem to apply
to this situation. Religion, call it by any label
you choose to affix to it, is all very well when

312

INTERVAL

your affairs are prospering, but in time of
trouble it must give place. That was it. And
in any case, recent events gave it the lie.

Then she grew really frightened. If this failed
you, then would any other philosophy of life, and,
if the ultimate hope was withdrawn, what then?
" Fmd out where your short-circuit lies." Her
fault then, oh anything ! But that admitted, it
didn't seem to melt the heart of whatever power
directed the machinery of spiritual help. She
felt like an animal punished for an unconscious
offence . . . perhaps the key to the situation
lay in self-abasement ? A list of your sins ?
Leah " knew all hers," but willingly proceeded
to take stock of them anew.

Oh to plunge into some fire from which you
might emerge renewed, and renewed, moreover,
in the eyes of your friends who never forget ; a
blank surface upon which to inscribe desires — a
kind of spiritual shopping-list. . . .

The tearless phase of indifference came. She
prayed she might not be taken off her guard ;
that no softness or sudden word might melt her.

"It doesn't matter."

She was almost jocular, " tut tut ! what have
We here ? A schoolgirl with the blues ! ' '

In a little while she believed that she had
climbed to these heights where human affec-
tions can no longer vex.

She had no chance, thrown into such close
proximity with the core of the trouble — her
mother. The long absence of Stella Lawrence

3^3

FALSE GODDESSES

had created a giilf between them that would take
years of mutual tolerance to bridge, apart from
the Jay Lewes affair. Her mother couldn't
have it all her own way ; her beloved friend and
her daughter's spineless acceptance and dutiful
affection ! Something had to go to the wall.
Then there was the question of Jay Lewes' own
feelings. What she felt about it Leah did not
attempt or desire to know.

They were to start for France on Saturday
afternoon. The management had been amenable
in permitting its leading-lady thus jaggedly to
conclude the week.

Leah found, as she expected, that her attitude |
at the theatre required elaborate thought.
Suffering must wait ; meanwhile there was the
matter of immediate social tactics. She had
imagined it would not be difficult ; a campaign
that should strike a medium between pettish
avoidance, and the — she saw it like that — for-
ever departed intimacies. She pictured herself
the inharmonious, but always polite, third in the
dressing-room, tactfully effacing herself when
her mother's grey eye turned in appeal.

But the suffering would not be postponed, and
descended in its primeval fashion the moment
she entered the theatre for the first time under
the new conditions. Her plan of action fell
definitely. Torn this way and that, Leah
succumbed to instinct, the passionate desire to
hit back — vindictively. . . .

At the time that she usually crouched in Jay's

314

INTERVAL

arm-chair she stayed upstairs, parrying inevit-
able questions.

" Hul-Io Lawrence ! Had a row with J.L. at
last?"

And Jay Lewes, after waiting and wondering,
in between the endless trifles wanting immediate
attention, told off Alice to go up to number 12,
ask for Miss Lawrence and tell her she was
wanted downstairs.

" Don't bring me into it ; give h'r the mes-
sage on the quiet, y ' understand ? or — wait.
Just say somebody's downstairs "

Alice, dimly affronted, obediently lumbered
off, knowing herself to be beyond diplomacy.

But Leah was on the watch. Panting, Alice
ascended the last flight as she slipped into an
angle of the passage, shivering in her brief
costume and crepe kimono. After a sufficiently
judged interval Leah went back to number 12.

" Someone wants you downstairs. Lewes's
dresser came up a minute ago "

So it was that. Her mother was in Jay's
room and, conscience faintly aroused, had done
the Kind Thing by Leah. Perhaps Jay too was
determined to be kind. . . .

Downstairs Alice was informing Miss Lewes
that Miss Lawrence wasn't in the dressing-room
and she couldn't think where she could ha' gone,
and should she wait a few minutes and go up
again? And chance it? Miss Lewes requested
her t'go out an' lose herself, and then, being
tired, understanding, and having that morning

315

FALSE GODDESSES

received a letter tellinsf her that Garth van
Osten's new production was a frost, and he him-
self vegetating by doctor's orders, she laid her
head down anywhere among the make-up, and
burst out crying.

But she soon left off and wailed feebly for
Alice, as she carefully made good the messy
consequences of grief. Alice, very fond of her,
knew something of the whimsies of the cele-
brated, and came at once.

"Alus," said Miss Lewes faintly, " I bin
cryin'. I sat down right there with m'face in the
powder an' bust out just — where in Mike's my
hat? — like a baby. Oh well ! Jay b' name an'
Jay b' nature I suppose. Yes my boy, I'm
comin'."

Of course stray encounters had been inevit-
able during the few days which elapsed between
the management's permission and Miss Lewes*
departure. But Leah was prepared for any
ordinary contingency, and against the unfore-
seen she must just use her wits. Only three
days more, thank God.

She must manage to get off last in all the en-
sembles, that the door of number 2 would have
had time to shut. She must be in the theatre a
little earlier, and lag behind a little later — that
was all . Careful ! was that all ? There was a
probable running against Alice to be circum-
vented, and — oh, damn ! — that number that con-
cluded the first half when Miss Lewes at the end
of her song stood with the whole company.

316

I

INTERVAL

That meant they all got off the stage together,
and there would be the moment when Jay turned
to speak to her, as she had over a hundred times
in the past when the curtain fell. To get her
place changed would be impossible now, the
grouping had been arranged from the earliest
rehearsals; the girls were "matched up."
Besides, she would have to ask leave, and to
have a chorus girl come begging for the back
row 1

Well, she needn't say much. . . .

Jay Lewes, hurt, too large-hearted for a
leading-lady mien, did her utmost to catch
Leah's eye — even between verses, and turned
at the iiiterval to bear her off for a smoke ; but
almost before the curtain was down Leah had
fled upstairs.

The principal could not follow. . . .

XXVI

The problem of how to live through the Satur-
day that her mother and Jay Lewes would leave
the country, was solved from without in the
form of a last understudy rehearsal scratched
together for the girl — late of the small-parts —
who was to take Jay Lewes' place at the
matinee, and for the whole of the latter 's
absence.

Miss Patty Connaught, in her confident efforts
to make good, assumed what she conceived to be

317

FALSE GODDESSES

an American accent, the conventional twang of
which was as opposed to Miss Lewes' tones as
flint to cream. Also, Miss Connaught, catching
the idea, smiled with perseverance. Untrained
in resource, she essayed to copy her model's
very inflections — and the wheels creaked all the
time. You did not sense humour behind, missed
the little interlarded asides, and the sometimes
over-unconsciousness of an audience that Jay
Lewes brought to the matter ; did not feel that
she awaited with difficulty the fall of the curtain
that would allow her to rush away to have her
laugh out. Had Miss Connaught dared, she
would have put out her tongue at the audience
did they fail to applaud her sufficiently.

And Leah watched it all. In the greenroom,
at the end, she laughed with the tears raining
down her face, and her whole being wrung with
sobs.

" Lawrence's gone off her nut. 'Expect she's
had a row with her boy," said Fairy Dillon.

XXVII

By the last post that night came to Leah, lying
on her bed in the dark, a stiff envelope which was
pushed under the door by Mrs. Bounce. Long
after, she rose, turned on the light, and tore it
open. The smiling head of Jay — a beautiful
portrait study — laughed into her eyes. In the

318

INTERVAL

corner : " to my little Leah from her old Jay (the
Lewes woman!)," and Leah, overcharged,
exhausted, saw in it her dismissal.

So she was to take her place among the auto-
graph-hunters ! She had kept the stranger's
place warm in Jay's heart for close on a year,
and now she had come back to claim it.

What next ?

This affair must be the last disillu-
sion . . . nothing could touch her once she
was through this. Should she marry Bobby
Dainton? There was fat Bessie safely settled,
after a reasonable amount of manoeuvring,
who would achieve, after a discreet interval,
an unappetising baby. Poor devil ! Wise
devil .-*

' ' What next ? . . .

Star and Gaaette Co., Ltd., Guernsey .

A List

of New Books

Published by

Leonard Parsons, Ltc

Autumn

1922

0 a

DEVONSHIRE STREET, LONDON, W.C.

'*'<hone No.
kttum 964

Telegraphtc2Addreti :
"Erudite, Weitcent, Londo

2 NEW & FORTHCOMING BOOKS

FICTION

AND HAVE NOT LOVE, by Hamt'/ton
Fyfe (author of "The Widow's Cruse").
7/6 net.

The six weeks Mill Rayne spends in prison divide sharply her
dull office life from her life in Henry Bell's House of Duty.
How she fares in that queer house and how Henry "breaks out"
make up a story that is half sheer entertainment and half a witty
parable. Mr. Fyfe is a man of the modern world, but he is alsc
a detached and smiling observer — with a clear eye for our folliei
and a kindly eye for our sins. To miss reading him is to miss an
uncommon and stimulating experience.

THE LAND OF MOONSHINE, by Mary
L. Pendered. 7/6 net.

Valentine Prescott lives in an old house, cultivating a garden
of delight, until the realities of life begin to press about her and
undermine her fastidious egoism. The romantic lover of hei
dreams vanishes into the moonshine whence he came and she
prepares to face the sorrow and suffering of the world withoui
flinching. This brief record is set in an English village, whose
people are amusingly sketched by one who knows country life well.

EVE OF SABA, by Lester Ralph (author of
" Geoghan's Kid"). ' 7/6 net.

Impelled by temperament and the force of circumstances, th«
hero of Lester Ralph's new novel drifts from the Bohemia o;
London to that of Montreal, via the author's beloved Wes'
Indies, unwinding the skein of his strangely complicated destiny
but it is with Saba — that anomalous and little-known Dutc}
West Indian dependency — that the action of this novel is chiefij
concerned.

LEONARD PARSONS LIMITED

I

NEW & FORTHCOMING BOOKS 3

CONSTANCY, by Nora Kent (author of
"The Greater Dawn"). 7/6 net.

The story of a woman who is desired by two men. The book
is based on the eternal struggle between the two world-forces —
the Nature of the Beast and the spark of the Divine in Mankind.
How Ruth eventually wins through to freedom and happiness,
despite the evil influences against her is told in a succession of
picturesque and arresting incidents culminating in the final
triumph of Good.

THE LAND OF THE LIVING, by Calcott
Reading. 7/6 net.

"The Land of the Living " describes the life of a family, who
through the iron will of a dour Calvinistic mother, stung to fury
by the disgrace of one of her daughters, is banished to a grim
farm-house in the wilds of Cumberland. Into this prison, a
veritable sepulchre, creeps life again in the person of the man,
who, all unwittingly, takes up his abode in the house of the girl
he has betrayed. The description of the latter's remorse upon
finding the girl and her child treated as outcasts and pariahs in
a respectable home makes tragic and powerful reading.

[THE SELLER OF PERFUMES, by Thora
\StoweiL 7/6 net.

For all her youth and success, Sally Mayhew has been starved

»f life, until, in Egypt, she finds both life and love. The mystery

»nd glamour of Egypt are well described in this powerful story ot

|Anglo-Egyptian life. Love is hot and reckless, and life runs

swiftly under its strange skies. Sally herself is a strange creature —

la dreamer with an eager heart— to whom things were bound to

'happen, as happen they do, in a breathless, vivid fashion, that

makes this a novel of high romance.

LEONARD PARSONS LIMITED

4 NEW & FORTHCOMING BOOKS

VERONICA : The War Widow, by Baroness
d' Anethan (author of "Two Women"). 7/6 net,

How long can a young and beautiful woman mourn even ;
beloved husband ? Veronica has mourned her husband for sij
years and the thought of re-marriage is distasteful to her. Wher
she finds herself in love with an attach^ at Tokyo she runs away
in horror of herself. But passion is too strong and she surrenders

In the rest of the novel the reader will find many unusua
incidents giving vivid glimpses of the life of aristocratic Japan
which add to the charm of this uncommon love story.

OUT OF THE AIR, by Inex Haynes Irwin.
7/6 net.

David Lindsay, a young aviator, recently returned from France
retires to a house in the country to write. He discovers graduallj
that the place is haunted. He finds that his mysterious visitor
are trying to give him a message which he cannot understand, bu
which he realises is becoming a matter of life and death. Out o
this extraordinary situation emerges a charming romance, in whicl
mystery and realism are combined to an unusual degree.

THE HOUSE OF THE FIGHTING
COCKS, by Henry Baerlein. 7/6 net.

Observer : " It is full of almost comically discursive, amaxingl
many and varied bits of erudition . . . its roguish humanity ma;
draw a wide public."

THE WOMAN IN BLUE, by Mrs. J. 0
Arnold (author of "Garth"). 7/6 net.

Evening f^euis: "A very good story, which the author handW
with considerable skill."

LEONARD PARSONS LIMITED

NEW & FORTHCOMING BOOKS 5

ESCAPE, by Jejery E. Jeffery. 7/6 net.

Third Impression

Daily Telegraph : " This powerful story deserves the consider-
ation of every thinking man and woman. . . . Mr. JefFery is to
be congratulated upon a very strong and moving story."

THEODORE SAVAGE, by Cice/y Hamilton.
7/6 net. Second Impression

Evening Standard : " A book of much cleverness and insight . . .
it deserves to be widely read."

GENERAL LITERATURE

THE BIRTH OF YUGOSLAVIA, by Henry
j Baerlein. Two Volumes. 42/- net.

A considerable part of post-war Europe is occupied by the
country called Yugoslavia, the land of the Southern Slavs. Our
knowledge concerning it is perhaps a little vague ; and if we try,
by reading this the only history of all the Yugo-slavs, to get
some idea of the people we shall find that they have a story which
is far from being dull.

GLIMPSES OF SOUTH AMERICA, by

jl F. A. Sherwood. Illustrated. 18/- net.

^ - This is not a book by a hurried traveller. Mr. Sherwood is a
business man who lives in South America. He has studied the
people and the country, and has travelled over many sections of
it. He has collected numerous photographs, and his book is
exceptionally strong in pictorial material.

Mr. Sherwood's style is unusual for a travel book. There are
no long chapters, no exhaustive descriptions. People and places
are presented to the reader in brief, brilliant characterisations.

LEONARD PARSONS LIMITED

11

6 NEW & FORTHCOMING BOOKS

THE ISLE OF VANISHING MEN, bv

W. F. Alder. Illustrated. 8/6 net.

A very unusual travel book of a little-known portion of the
earth. It is about that out-of-the-way island, New Guinea, in-
habited by cannibals whose practices furnish the reason for the
title of this book.

Mr. Alder saw most unusual, curious, interesting and fascinating
things, and secured some very remarkable photographs which
illustrate this book.

THE BOYS' BOOK OF MODEL AERO-
PLANES, by Francis A. Collins. Illustrated.
8/6 net.

This makes an excellent gift-book for boys.

It covers all of the phases of young people's interest in the art
and science of the aeroplane, including clubs, tournaments, prizes,
etc., giving models, discussion of principles, building and
flying instructions, and photographs of actual planes of all typei,
often with their young builders and flyers. It supersedes two
earlier boys' books on model aeroplanes by Mr. Collins,

SOME CONTEMPORARY ARTISTS, by

Frank Rutter. Illustrated. 7/6 net.

In this book Mr. Rutter surveys the actual state of contem-
porary British painting, and treats in detail of the work of
representative artists of the day. Appreciations are given, among
others, of Augustus John, Sir William Orpen, William Rothenstein
and Walter Sickert, while particular attention is given to some
of our younger artists such as Wyndham Lewis, Nevinson and
the brothers John and Paul Nash.

LEONARD PARSONS LIMITED

NEW & FORTHCOMING BOOKS y

SAMUEL PEPYS : Administrator, Observer,
Gossip, by E. Hallam Moorhouse. 6j- net.

Strange as it may seem, this is the only full-length biography
of that most fascinating person, Samuel Pepys. He was a great
lover of life, and whether he writes of his own clothes or the
King's navy, he has an ardour and enjoyment in it that carries
him straight to the heart of the reader. We may laugh at him,
we may even be a little shocked at him, but we cannot read
the full story of his life without realising that he was a great
Englishman, and, unlike many distinguished Englishmen, he was
never dull.

AUTHORSHIP: A Guide to Literary Tech-
nique, by "^ Well'\nown Author.'' 5/- net.

This is a small volume intended for those who aspire to the
literary art. The subject is treated in such an interesting
manner that it will be found not merely instructive to those who
are seeking practical knowledge in the hope of becoming ^
short-story writer, novelist, playwright, or cinema scenarist ; but
extremely entertaining to all fiction-readers and playgoers. It is
written by the author of many successful books, v/ho knows the
art of authorship and how to impart this knowledge.

UNDER THE ACROCERAUNIAN
MOUNTAINS, by Henry Baerkin. 6/- net.

There is an interesting region in the Balkans — some call it
Southern Albania, others call it Northern Epirus — the fate of
which is hanging in the balance. Shall it belong to Albania or to
Greece? The question has been debated with something less than
calmness by the supporters of each party. The writer of this
book has lately travelled there and now sets before us the views
of the long-suffering population.

LEONARD PARSONS LIMITED

8 NEW & FORTHCOMING BOOJ^S

THE OUTLINE OF H. G. WELLS, by
Sidney Dark. 5/- net.

A popular critical study of the writer who has been justly
described as the greatest intellectual force in the English speaking
world.

T>aily Telegraph: "A decidedly interesting and profitable
study."

The Times: "Shrewd and enlightening."

Sunday Ttmes: "Interesting and stimulating."

SOCIAL STRUGGLES IN ANTIQUITY,
by M. Beer. 6/- net.

This new book by M. Beer, author of " A History of British i
Socialism," is the firit volume of " A General History of Socitll
Struggles." This work, which is translated by H. J. Stenning,
contains a lucid and deeply interesting study of the developmentj
of the ancient world,

SOME CONTEMPORARY NOVELISTS

(Men), by R. Brimley Johnson. 6/- net.

This book is concerned with Youth : it deals not with thcj
"big guns" booming, but with a few free spirits, alert and ritil,!
quick to see and to speak, fearless and independent.

Among the novelists discussed are: — J. D. Beresford, Gilbcrtij|
Cannan, W. L. George, D. H. Lawrence, Compton Mackenzie, "
Frank Swinnerton and Hugh Walpole.

Mr. Brimley Johnson reveals the fine art of their craftsmanihip
and the bright glow of their message in a volume the aim of
which is to indicate the tendencies of modern fiction.

LEONARD PARSONS LIMITED

1

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