Elementary Jane

Front matter

= -

Ah

By RICHARD PRYCE_ a é Elementary Jane was born white-souled. She was born law-abiding, constant. Life did not always run smoothly for her; but as her circumstances changed her character did not alter — —it never occurred to her that it could. | _ At seventeen, Jane went to sing in London music halls. Into the . artificial atmosphere she took her principles, so much a part of her that she hardly realized she had them. She was too pretty and |. ‘too sympathetic not to make friends, and with some of those who sought her acquaintance her principles made a difference. Jane could not change, so those who became her friends loved her for just ae she was, and she had a curious little circle. The appeal of the story is the idyllic appeal of constancy. ‘Aciane bee kind-hearted, easy-going companions, the equally kind but more — habsadliset character of Jane shines like a flame, and her fashion of ‘meeting the hazards and temptations of stage life — out unique in its simplicity.

Chapter I

WHEN the silence had lasted for some moments the girl said again : —

“Jane Smith, sir.”

“T know,” said the agent; “I’m thinking.”

A few seconds more were ticked off by the dusty clock on the mantelpiece. Jane employed them in thought, too, but timidly as if she were not sure that she had a right to think at all. She looked at Mr. Paton nervously and fiddled with a button on one of her gloves.

“Him, that won’t do,” he said at length.

“No, sir.” |

yh 1!

‘TI said, ‘ No, sir.’”’

The agent smiled — to himself.

“What shall we call you?”

He was amused. She took him so seriously.

The girl grew red. She had not a quick imagination. The ordeal of the interview with the man who got people ‘salaried engagements” assumed, or threatened to assume, alarming proportions. A sudden sense of loneliness possessed her. She had never before had to think for herself. At a thought of this and of her mother whose death, not a month back, had left her alone in the world, she bit her lip, and the big blue eyes, the beauty of which had had their part in gaining for her the agent’s attention and his tentative promise to see what he could do for her, filled with tears.

“Bah, I’m only joking, dear, there’s no hurry about that,” he said. ‘‘You won’t want a name at first. I shall be seeing a gentleman to-night about a spectac’lar affair at the Old Kent. I’ve got to find thirty ladies for him and p’r’aps I might get you on in that lot. You ’ll have to work.”

‘‘T’m not afraid of that, sir.”

“Well, we’llsee. Look in on Monday at two-thirty.”

He pressed the knob of a hand-bell, and Jane as she left the dingy room heard him tell the boy who came in from the outer office where sat the half-dozen other clients, whose bold yellow hair had so much alarmed her as she timidly waited among them, to show in Miss Alfie Le Roy.

Jane groped her way confusedly down the dark staircase which she had ascended with such trepidation. The interview had been less terrible than she expected. Mr. Paton had spoken kindly to her. He had been altogether less formidable than she had anticipated. Still her brain was whirling. The playbill which had adorned one of the walls in the dingy room, the crowded writing-table, some faded photographs (Jane called them ‘‘ photos”) on the mantelpiece, near the dusty clock, the rug with a hole in it before the hearth, and the place that marked the loss of a button upon the agent’s coat, were dominant in the impressions left upon her. How her heart had beaten in the cheerless anteroom! The other girls had looked her up and down. She was a novice, but not such a novice as they thought, for had she not played a frog one year in the Bradford pantomime? That was when she was nine years old, and her father, who had taught her to dance and to sing, had been one of the stage carpenters at the house in question. After his death, her mother and she had drifted out of the theatrical atmosphere, and it was only on being left alone that Jane turned her thoughts to the stage. Mrs. Smith, a mantle-fitter before her marriage, had returned to her profession on becoming a widow, and by dint of much hard work and many self-denials she had contrived to leave Jane a few pounds. With the slender capital which these constituted, Jane timidly faced the world. In the old days, during the life of her restless father, there had been frequent talk of the “boards’”’ as her ultimate destiny, but with his death this ceased, and Mrs. Smith earned enough to allow the discussion of the girl’s future to be put off from day to day. Jane helped at this time with needlework and odd jobs of a light nature. These, however, did not afford a means of subsistence, and she saw and answered Mr. Paton’s advertisement. To her good fortune the agency chanced to be genuine, and she was spared the costly experience of falling into the clutches of a bogus firm.

The name Alfie Le Roy rang in her ears. ‘“ Miss Alfie Le Roy.” She said it to herself again and again, and wondered which of the young women had answered to a name so gorgeous. Was it the girl with the pink gloves, or the one with powder? Mr. Paton’s clients had presumably the artistic temperament and all used powder, but of those represented one stood out for Jane from the rest by reason of the prodigality of her facial decoration. Some of the girls knew each other. Scraps of their talk recurred to her: Bessy Pwang had been engaged for a second boy at the Hoxton. Her brother, the one with the sandy ’air, was n’t up to much. The way he’d served that girl was something crule. It was a wonder Bessy stood it, being only a half sister as you might say. Kitty Vince was doing a show at the Sultan’s with her feller. She had luck, that woman had! The sketch was written for her by F. Banton, Esquire. It was a big dror, and you couldn’t wonder with his name to it. There was a deal in a name.

This took Jane back to the subject of her own; Jane Smith. Mr. Paton had said (and she took him seriously) that she could not be known as Jane Smith. Well, something would come, you might depend! Jane’s spirits were rising wildly. Every yard that took her homewards increased her excitement. She had broken the ice. The worst was over. She must find a good name, of course. There was Brown and there was Jones (on the spur of the moment she could think of no names but such as designated her own humble acquaintance). There was Green. She knew a Miss Green at the post-office. There was Kerridge. Her landlady’s name was Kerridge. Jane was not sure what her Christian name was, for at the end of the letters Jane wrote for her sometimes to the daughter in service, she was ‘“ Your loving mother, Mrs. Kerridge.” Jane was inclined to think it was Phoebe. But she did not think Phcebe Kerridge would do— nor Lilly, nor Mabel, nor Maud. There was Binder, the grocer at the corner where her mother had dealt, saying that you could always trust Binderses butter : Phoebe Binder, Lilly, Mabel, or Maud Binder? None of these had theright ring. Alfie Le Roy had the requisite distinction. Bessy Pwang was vivacious, and even Kitty Vince was not without a sprightly charm.

Jane lodged in a dingy South London street. The house was one of a row of three-story buildings of smoky brick. A line of pots containing the withered remains of plants long dead stood in the window of the lower room. Behind them a woman was standing, looking, at the moment of Jane’s approach, up the street. She left the window hurriedly, and a heavy soft-shod footfall was to be heard in the passage before the door opened.

“ Did ye see ’im, child ?”’

Jane’s bright eyes and her flushed face answered her.

“Come in and tell me all about it. You’ve got back sooner than I expected. Come by tram, I s’pose? You ’ad to walk from the corner where I said, didn’t y’? Ah, I thought so. Well, it ain’t far, and you ’aven’t been gorne above hour an’ a ’alf, ’ave y’? What did ’e say to y’, dear?”

“ He said first of all that there wasn’t much to be done with novices, and he asked me if I could sing and dance.”

“Well, you can sing,’ said Mrs. Kerridge reflectively, ‘and yer father taught you to dance from a child, for that your dear mother’s told me times and times.”

“He told me to try over something I knew,” said Jane, ‘‘and would you believe, I could n’t think of anything. I did feel a silly. He said, ‘Come, you must know something if it’s only ‘“ Home, Sweet Home,’’’ so then I thought of ‘White Wings,’ and I sang the chorus part of that, and he said he believed I’d do, with a bit of teaching.”

Jane’s eyes sparkled, and she began to talk more rapidly. She told Mrs. Kerridge with enthusiasm of the thirty ladies that were to be found for the forthcoming production at the Old Kent, and of the possibility of her being chosen amongst them. The future looked rosy, and Jane built castles in the air. Why, some music-hall singers made twenty and thirty pounds a week.

“You shall have the nicest silk dress I can buy if ever I get a big sal’ry, Mrs. Kerridge, and a mantle the same as that one we saw that day in Oxford Street — you know, the one with the bronze beads.”

‘Bless yer little ’eart,”’ said Mrs. Kerridge. “P’r’aps I shall live to see you ride in your bro’ham yet. Well, it'll be a proud day.”

ed

She took the kettle off the fire as she spoke and proceeded to fill the earthenware teapot.

“You'll be glad of a drop of tea, I d’say.”

But Jane was too much taken up with her recent experiences and the vista that was opening out before her to pay much attention to physical needs, and she took the cup from her friend in abstraction.

“There was one thing. I’ve got to geta new name. He says Jane Smith would never do, and so I’ve got to find one. Jenny’d do. What’s your name, Mrs. Kerridge? Phcebe, isn’t it?”

“ That’s right.”

“Tt’s the Smith that won't do,” said Jane. ‘I shall have to think, shan’t I?”

But Jane had no imagination, and when she got the engagement at the Old Kent Theatre to walk on in a procession (at twelve shillings a week) she had not thought to any purpose, and she was known on the salary list amongst Ethel du Canes and Maudie St. Aubyns and Rose de Loraines as plain (albeit exceedingly pretty) Jane Smith.

The change therefrom to Jenny Tandem came on this wise. When the engagement came to an end Jane went once more to the autocrat of the dingy room. After some discussion and a small and not dishonest inroad upon her meagre capital, it was agreed that Jane should learn two songs and a dance, when she would be qualified for an early turn at any hall that might offer. The songs, the music and words of which with their exclusive rights were obtained from the author at the modest rate of ten and sixpence apiece, were duly instilled into the little singer. One was of the “ Serio” order and the refrain ran thus : —

“In the lane where the violets nestle, In the lane where the lilies grow, When Jack comes back from his vessel, He will meet me again, I know; Hand in hand we will wander together, For his heart beats true, it is plain, On the deep blue sea He is thinking of me, And the day when we’ll meet in the lane.”

Jane thought this very beautiful. Her big eyes always took a far-away expression when she hummed it over to herself. ‘ Nestle” and “vessel” did not bother her, nor even the banal “it is plain” vex her soul. The sentiment of the words struck a chord that was already vibrating in her elementary little heart. A short dance expressive of nothing in particular followed the last verse. Jane was to wear an “‘accordian” pinafore, symbolical of youth and innocence and the country, and adapted to a quick change to the boy’s dress which would be underneath it in readiness for her second song. In tights, and what Mr. Paton called a “ Newmarket,” Jane was far less at home. She did not feel a bit the “reckless Johnny” which she described herself. But she learnt the song in a certain parrot-like way. She was a guileless little thing, and she did not understand much that the nods and winks which she was taught to employ as she sang it were intended to suggest.

Mr. Paton told her of the tentative turn he had secured for her at a little music-hall in Camberwell.

“And zow this name of yours,” he said with a grave smile, for hitherto he had been joking, and, Jane always taking him seriously, the subject had afforded him considerable amusement.

“T can’t think of anything,” said Jane. “Won't you tell me one?”

Mr. Paton paced the dingy room. He went to the window. He had a vulgar habit of trite quotation, and he said :—

“¢ What’s in a name?’”

Jane said, ‘“ What, sir?” but she did not mean, ““What, indeed!” She had not caught his words, that was all.

“Jane would do,” he said presently, and ignoring her question, as so often he did, “because you can make it Jenny. There’s lots of Jennys” —he threw up the sash — ‘that’s a pretty turn-out, that. Quick, or you’ll miss it.”

Jane sped to the window and was in time to get a view of the high cart and sleek chestnuts.

“One in front of the other,” she said.

“Pretty thing a tandem,” said Mr. Paton.

“Tandem. Have n’t you heard of driving tandem !”’

“Tandem,” repeated Jane as if she liked the sound of the word. Then she began to make futile little observations. The red wheels looked nice, did n’t they?

and the gentleman’s coat was just like the one she was to wear in her Johnny song.

« Ah,” said Mr. Paton, “you must always be on the lookout for suggestions. That’s as good as a lesson, that is. That young feller that’s just drove by is what you’ve got to feel you’re representing when ~ you sing the song. I wish we could put just a spice of the devil into you for it. You want to be cheekier, you do. Think if you was one of these young swells with youth in your veins and money in your pockets, would you care a damn for anybody?—not you! That’s what you’ve got to feel. See him swing round that corner?”

Jane’s mind ran on the term she had just heard. She said tandem was a funny word.

“Tandem,” said the agent, “tandem. It’s a goodsounding word. Why, there’s a name for you at once. Jenny Tandem. What more could you want?”

Miss Jenny Tandem! It was better than Bessy Pwang; better than Kitty Vince. Jane was not sure that it was not even better than Alfie Le Roy.

Chapter II

IT was Jenny Tandem then and not Jane Smith who did a nervous turn near the very end of the programme at the Camberwell Palace of Varieties. She followed directly upon the famous Merino Family, and had been watching their last feats (they were acrobats) from the wings, with a thumping heart.

It nearly thumped its way into her mouth when she heard the chairman (the Camberwell Palace of Varieties clings to a chairman even now!) strike the marble of the table at which he sat, with his mallet, and say loudly :—

“Ladies and gentlemen, Miss Jenny Tandem will appear next.”

The announcement was not received with any rapturous applause. The rat-tat-tat-tat of the chairman’s mallet made a mechanical pretence of enthusiasm, intended, it would seem, to lead the audience into clapping, as a bird-organ is played to bullfinches to induce them to pipe. The hour was getting late. There were but two more items upon the programme. A few people here and there had begun to move, but for the most part the patrons of the Camberwell Palace of Varieties liked the full worth of their money, and the hall was not yet appreciably emptier. Jane of the thumping heart (Miss Tandem of the bills) found it in her to wish that her turn had come on at the other end of the evening and was safely over. The embryo artists played here as elsewhere to the possible disturbance of a filling or an emptying house. Of the two places on the programme, the latter and later had the advantage. Nevertheless, when Jane knew that her moment was come, she felt she would willingly relinquish the better position to know that her ordeal was behind her instead of ahead.

She trembled painfully fora moment. Mr. Paton was in one of the two dingy boxes hung with tawdry lace that flanked the stage. He had taken the trouble to come and see how she would acquit herself. It was very kind of him, but the knowledge that he was there increased tenfold her nervousness. The orchestra was playing the opening bars of her first song. The second time they were played she would have to runon. Would she have the courage? What if she broke down? The drum in the band made the tune sound nice, did n’t it? It would all be over soon, anyway, and she would go home with Mrs. Kerridge. When she got home she would have succeeded or failed. How strange it was! A flying thought of her mother came to her. She closed her eyes for a moment. It was now or never. It was now...

At the chairman’s announcement the occupants of a certain seat in the body of the hall exchanged rapid glances. The group consisted of an elderly woman with a very pink face and a rusty crépe bonnet; a young woman, a young man, and a little boy of six or seven who was called ’Arry, it would seem, and who wore a suit of crimson plush of the kind known as Little Lord Fauntleroy, and had a cap with a shining peak. These people had displayed a certain suppressed excitement all the evening.

Mrs. Kerridge with the pink face now whispered to her niece Mrs. Atwell that she was “ come over all of a heat.”

The young man, the niece’s husband, leant across his wife to deliver himself of ‘‘ What say?”

“Aunt’s nervous. I tell her it’ll be all right. Won't it, Joe?”

“I’m tremblin’ fit to make the bench shake,” Mrs. Kerridge whispered.

Joe said that Miss Smith sang “‘a treat,”’ he considered, and prophesied success. He called his wife’s attention to their little son, who was eating a biscuit desultorily and with much crumbling, and who showed a disposition now to wriggle from one lap to another.

“ Sit still, ’Arry, there’s a dear. You ’ll see better where you are. Look at ’ow you’re messin’ your kike all over auntie’s dress. Say, ‘I beg pardon, auntie.’ ”

“Tsh! There sheis!” said Mrs. Kerridge. “ Well! I would n’t ’a’ believed !”’

Jane had made her appearance.

She looked very fresh, and sweet, and childish. If her talent was open to question and she originated nothing, she did all that she had been taught very creditably. Fifty girls were singing the same sort of song, if not (as I think) in the same sort of way, about London ; but, as she swayed to the waltz-time of the refrain, the tune being reminiscent of a hundred and one others, the audience caught it up, and the last time they sang it for her: — “On the deep blue sea He is thinkin’ of me, An’ the d’y when we'll meet in the line.”

Her second song did not take quite so well. To make it go was wanted all that she lacked. But “The Lane where the Violets nestle’ had put the house in good temper, and so Jenny Tandem had her little success.

Mr. Paton met her at the wings as she came off.

‘“You’ll do,” he said.

SON OBIT, «

* You'll do.”

He button-holed the manager, with whom he seemed to be on friendly terms.

Jane slipped away and changed her dress. Her heart was still beating fast, but for very different reasons than those which had set it a-beating a few minutes since.

Mr. Paton and the manager were waiting for her when she emerged in mufti from the little dressing cubicle at the side of the stage.

“'We’ve something to say to you — me and Mr. Isaacs,” said the agent. “I’ve been able to do a stroke of business for you, Miss Tandem.”

Jane flushed.

Before she left the hall her engagement had been extended to five weeks. _

Mrs. Kerridge meanwhile, her anxiety over, had become expansive. It was not many moments before every one who sat near knew of her proud connection with the singer. For the benefit of all who cared to listen she became biographical. She addressed her conversation to her niece and looked round occasionally to observe the interest of outsiders. Her niece Mrs. Atwell supplied all the proper questions and said, “Just fancy!” or “Only to think!” at intervals.

“Ear that, ’Arry? She wasn’t much older than you when she played in the pantomime at Bradford. You ’ve seen a pantomime, ’ave n’t-cher? Why, of course you ’ave — and been to the theatre again and again. You’ve seen Miss Tandem act too.’’ She jogged his memory. “At the Old Kent, that piece was. You know — where all those young ladies come in with the pretty flowers. Kind auntie took you, did n’t she, like she ’as to-night? Say ‘Thank you, auntie.’ ”’

“’*Er po’r mother did n’t seem to fancy the stage,” proceeded Mrs. Kerridge. ‘Such a nice-spoken lady she was. She’d a goodish bit put by, y’ know. You could ’a’ seen that by ’er fewn’ral. Me an’ po’r Miss Tandem an’ her two cousins from ’Ighb’ry was in the first carriage. An’ you an’ Joe an’ little ’Arry here was in the second, wasn’t you?”

“Yes. You remember that, ’Arry, don’t you? It was a lovely ride, wasn’t it? Auntie gave you an ’an’kerchief with a black border, didn’t she? Want to go to ’is dadda? Little fidget! ’Ere, take ’im Jow. I never see such a child to worry.”

Mrs. Kerridge gave a supper-party in honour of Jane’s début. Thereat Jane, flushed and pale by turns, excited and pensive, made an interesting and, in her black dress (she was still in mourning), pathetic little heroine of the hour. The fare was humble. There were pork chops (’Arry was seriously indisposed in the morning), a cold apple tart, and a piece of American cheese (from “ Binderses’”’). There was stout to drink.

Mr. Atwell proposed Jane’s health. He said:—

“It gives me great pleasure, Miss Smith, — I should say Panta lege beyarf of the ladies and of myself —

His wife interrupted him.

“Don’t forget ’Arry, Jow. You ought to ’a’ said ‘and the gentlemen,’ did n’t’e? There’s’Arry. You’re one of the gentlemen, my precious, ain’t-cher, like y’r dadda? Want a bit more cheese? Wait till dadda’s finished, then.”

Mr. Atwell accepted the amendment.

“On beyarf of the ladies and the gentlemen —”’

“Say, ‘’Ear, ’ear,’ ’Arry!”’

A fork was thrust into ’Arry’s hand, and he was shown how to thump with the handle of it on the table— an accomplishment which he acquired with fearful alacrity.

“On beyarf I would say of the ladies” (Mr. Atwell bowed to Mrs. Kerridge and his wife) “and the gentlemen”’ (he bowed to’Arry who thumped again and said ‘’Ear, ’ear,’ shrilly) “‘to propose the ’ealth of one who is and ’as always been the pride of her friends, as I ’ope she will be of the profession in which she has this night made so fe-fe-fecilious —I should say felicious —’’

“No, felicitous,” said Mrs. Atwell, jogging his elbow.

“Eh?—so fe-fe-felicitous a beginning. May she go on from success to success, from triumph to triumph. Ladies and gentlemen, health and ’appiness to Miss Tandem.”

“Far, ’ear,” said Mrs. Kerridge and Mrs. Atwell. “Ear, ear,” cried ’Arry, and made the plates rattle. Glasses were raised.

“Miss Tandem !”’ said all together.

Jane’s heart was very full, and unexpectedly she burst into tears. She was so happy, she said. ’Arry was made to return thanks for her. Mrs. Atwell caught him on her knee. ’Arry wriggled to be free.

“Oh,” said Mrs. Atwell, “’Arry’ll never have it said as he would n’t oblige a lady. Come, come, you ain’t shy, you know. Auntie’s often ’eard you recite ‘The Fireman’s Child” She knows you ain’t shy. Ere, I’ll whisper to you what you’ve got to say, see? ‘Mr. Chairman,’ say, ‘and ladies,’ that’s right, now bow to aunt (you can’t bow to me, see, because you’re sittin’ on my lap). ‘Mr. Chairman and ladies,

I beg to return thanks in the name of Miss Tandem, coupled with another toast —’”’

“That’s not the way,” roared Mr. Atwell, whose laughter could be boisterous on occasion.

“Let us alone, Jow. You mind y’r own, see? ’Arry’s getting on very nice. ‘Coupled with another toast: Mrs. Kerridge and the ladies !’ ”

Jane laughed through her tears. Mrs. Kerridge’s laughter was pitched in a high key.

‘‘ Auntie for a speech,” cried Mrs. Atwell.

“‘ Auntie for a speech,” echoed ’Arry.

But Mrs. Kerridge only said, ‘Oh dear! oh dear!”’ and held her sides.

Long after the Atwells had gone home, and Mrs. Kerridge had unfolded the chair-bed in the room _ where hung still the fumes of the recent meal, Jane sat at her window at the top of the house, looking out at as much of London as she could see. This was not as inconsiderable a portion as might have been expected in a neighbourhood so thickly populated, for behind Little Petwell Street (Jane’s room was at the back of the house) lay a broad strip of untidy ground, the property, I believe, of a minor, and awaiting his majority to be turned to account. No building, then, nearer than the warehouses that flanked the waterside, interposed to obstruct her view, and through gaps Jane could see the river itself.

The night was clear and generously light. Shining surfaces, the water, a slated roof, the metal on the _ spire of a church, were touched with silver.

Jane thought of her mother and wondered where she was. Was Heaven in one of those stars that were twinkling up there over London? Did she know that Jenny Tandem, who had had a “success” to-night at the Camberwell Palace of Varieties, was her daughter — the Jane she had loved so well and for whom she had worked so hard? Instances of her mother’s self-denial recurred to her—the days when she had gone ailing to her work, many a long tramp to save an omnibus fare, many an hour taken out of the hours of rest to work at home with Jane... .

“Oh, mother,” Jane said under her breath, and looked up at one star of special brightness, “I don’t think I ever knew.”

The star glistened as if in response.

But it was a night for rejoicing. That was why Jane cried in the first instance. Since her mother was taken from her, she had not thought ever to be so happy. The future seemed assured. If only her mother could know, and share this happiness with her. If what had happened to-night (she built, you see, upon the slender foundations of such success as was represented by the applause of a little Surreyside house and a resultant five-weeks’ engagement at twenty-five shillings a week!) had happened sooner, how greatly she might have lessened her mother’s burden! When things were at their best she had never earned more than ten shillings in any single week by her needlework, and here were twenty-five for six days of twelve minutes or so apiece. To be ant ELEMENTARY JANE’

sure she would have to work. Mr. Paton said her dance wanted a great deal of time spent on it — even the one little dance she had “learnt.” Out of her salary she would have to pay for her lessons and always put by something for the purchase of new songs. That did not leave much upon which to keep and clothe herself. But she would “ manage,” and the great, great thing was that she had made a start.

Jane went to bed at length, but for nearly an hour her excitement kept sleep from her eyes. She saw continually the footlights and the faces beyond. She saw, too, the smoke of the many pipes and cheap cigars. The music of her own song rang in her ears. The “drum part” in the symphony (Jane did not call it symphony !) was very nice. It was the drum that somehow nerved her to run on after the chairman had made his announcement and the symphony had been played twice. Singing mentally (and, did she know it, giving God thanks in a manner) Jane fell asleep.