“You make yourself easy, deah,” she said to Magdalen. “Awe-y-’ll take kee-yerr of you. Lor’ bless you, awe-y know wot you are. You’re a law’ydy. But you’ll get used to them. They don’t mean no ‘arm.
Magdalen, wondering what Jack would have said to Miss Lafitte’s vowels, disclaimed all pretension to be more of a lady than those with whom she worked; but Miss Lafitte, though, she patted the young novice on the back, and soothingly assented, nevertheless continued to make a difference between her own behavior in Magdalen’s presence, and the coarse chaff and reckless flirtation in which she indulged freely elsewhere. On Boxing night, when Madge was nerving herself to face the riotous audience, Miss Lafittc told her that she looked beautiful; exhorted her cheerfully to keep up her pecker and never say die; and, ridiculing her fear of putting too much paint on her face, plastered her cheeks and blackened the margins of her eyes until she blushed though the mask of pigment. When the call came, she went with her to the wing; pushed her on to the stage at the right instant; and praised her enthusiastically when she returned. Madge, who hardly knew what had passed on the stage, was grateful for these compliments, and tried to return them when Miss Lafitte came to the dressing, flushed with the exertion of singing a topical song with seven encore verses and dancing a breakdown between each.
“I’m used to it,” said Miss Lafitte. “It’s my knowledge of music-hall business that makes me what I am. You wouldn’t catch me on the stage at all, only that my husband’s a bit a swe11 in his own way — he’ll like you for that — and he thinks the theatre more respectable. It dont pay as well, I can tell you; but of course it’s surer and lasts longer.
“Were you nervous at your first appearance?” said Madge.
“Oh, wawn’t I though! Just a little few. I cried at havin’ to go on. I wasn’t cold and plucky like you; but I got over it sooner. I know your sort: you will be nervous all your life. I don’t care twopence for any audience now, nor ever did after my second night.”
“I may have looked cold and plucky,” said Madge, surprised. “but I never felt more miserable in my life before.”
“Yes. Ain’t it awful? Did you hear Lefanu? — stuck up little minx! Her song will be cut out tomorrow. She’s a reg’lar duffer, she is. She gives herself plenty of airs, and tells the people that she was never used to associate with us. I know who she is well enough: her father was an apothecary in Bayswater. She’s only fit to be a governess. You’re worth fifty of her, either on the boards or off.”
Madge did not reply. She was conscious of having contemplated escape from Miss Lafitte by attaching herself to Miss Lefanu, who was a ladylike young woman.
“She looks like a print gown after five washings,” continued Miss Lafitte; “and she don’t know how to speak. Now you speak lovely — almost as well as me, if you’d spit it out a bit more. Who taught you?”
When the pantomime had been played for a fortnight, Madge found herself contemptuously indifferent to Miss Lefanu, and fond of Miss Lafitte. When the latter invited her to a supper at her house, she could not refuse, though she accepted with misgiving. It proved a jovial entertainment — almost an orgie. Some of the women drank much champagne; spoke at the top of their voices; and screamed when they laughed. The men paid court to them with facetious compliments, and retorted their raillery with broad sarcasms. Madge got on best with the younger and less competent actors, who were mostly unpropertied gentlemen, with a feeble amateur bent for singing and acting, who had contrived to get on the stage, not because they were fit for it, but because society had not fitted them for anything else. They talked theatrical shop and green room scandal in addition to the usual topics of young gentlemen at dances; and they shielded Magdalen efficiently from the freer spirits. Sometimes an unusually coarse sally would reach her ears, and bring upon her a sense of disgust and humiliation; but, though she resolved to attend no more suppers, she was able next day to assure her hostess with perfect sincerity that she was none the worse for her evening’s experience and that she had never enjoyed herself as much at any Kensington supper party. Miss Lafitte thereupon embraced her, and told her that she had been the belle of the ball, and that Laddie (a Gentile abbreviation of Lazarus, her husband’s, name) had recognized her as a real lady, and was greatly pleased with her. Then she asked her whether she did not think Laddie a handsome man. Madge replied that she had been struck by his dark hair and eyes that his manners were elegant. “There is one thing” she added, “that puzzles me a little. I always call you Miss Lafitte here, but should I not call you by your real name at your house? I don’t know the etiquette, you see.”
“Call me Sal,” said Mrs Cohen, kissing her.
When the pantomime was over, and the company dispersed, the only member of whose departure she felt a loss was Miss Lafitte; and she never afterwards fell into the mistake of confounding incorrigible rowdyism and a Whitechapel accent with true unfitness for society. By her advice, Madge accepted an engagement as one of the stock company of the Nottingham theater at the salary — liberal for a novice — of two pounds per week. For this she did some hard work. Every night she had to act in a farce, and in a comedy which had become famous in London. In it, as in the pantomime, she had to play the same part nightly for two weeks. Then came three weeks of Shakespeare and the legitimate drama, in which she and the rest of the company had to support an eminent tragedian, a violent and exacting man, who expected them to be perfect in long parts at a day’s notice. When they disappointed him, as was usually the case, he kept them rehearsing from the forenoon to the hour of performance with hardly sufficient interval to allow of their dining. The stage manager, the musicians, the scenepainters and carpenters even, muttered sulkily that it was impossible to please him. He did not require the actors to enter into the spirit of their lines — it was supposed that he was jealous of their attempts at acting, which were certainly not always helpful — but he was inflexible in his determination to have them letter-perfect and punctual in the movements and positions he dictated to them. His displeasure was vented either in sarcasms or oaths; and often Madge, though nerved by intense indignation, could hardly refrain from weeping like many other members of the company, both male and female, from fatigue and mortification. She worked hard at her parts, which were fortunately not long ones, in order to escape the humiliation