A RISING STAR.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXXII, Issue 9711, 5 January 1895, Page 3 (Supplement)

A RISING STAR.

BY DAVID CHRISTIE MURRAY, Author of "Bob Martin's Little Girl," "By the Gates of the Sea," "Coals of Fire " ' Cynic Fortune," " The Way of , the World," etc.

CHAPTER XIII.— (Continued.)

" Now I like this," said Mr. Mayhill. " I like it because it's businesslike and above board. There is a quid pro quo, my darling fellow, but the quid is the tiniest little thing in the world, and the quo is the biggest thing going. You're gob a very pretty, dear little woman here: a Miss—Miss—Delacour." He searched for the name, and found , t ib with an excellent pretence of sudden memory. "Yes," said Glynne. "Whab aboub her "A distinguished friend of mine," said Mr. Mayhill, "a very wealthy friend of mine, is anxious thab that young lady should have a career." " Look here, Mayhill," id Glynne, "I want you to understand definitely thab I've never had anything to do with that sorb of thing, and thab at my time of life I'm nob going to begin. There are people enough in the profession who'll help you, if you want to be helped, but I'm nob one of them.' "My darling fellow!" cried Mr.' Maybill, bis light tenor voice soaring suddenly into soprano, "you are'utterly and absolutely mistaken. You are on the wrong track altogether. My distinguished friend has reached a time of life when his character in thab respecb stands beyond suaaicioQ. His interest in the young lady

is purely paternalgrandpabernal, if you like." "Is ib old Belisle?" asked Francis, brusquely, . , "My dear fellow," said Mr. Mayhiu, raising a deprecating hand, " my darling fellow, now really ! Now, should we, in a matter of this kind, mention names ? Now do you really think we ought?'' "Belisle," said Glynne, reflectively. "He's had a box here three nights a week for a fortnight past). I wondered what he was after." )( "Can't he be a little more discreet?" suggested Mr. Mayhill. " I beg you both to observe that I'm in such a position that I can neither contradict nor affirm any guess you may offer. I can only tell you that an elderly, a very elderlya distinguished, a very distinguished— wealthy, an extremely wealthy, personage, has been kind enough to take a friendly interest in the affairs of Miss Delacour. I can assure you that the lady's character and reputation will take no stain from his association with her. If there had been the slightest danger of anything of that sort, I hope you don't think so poorly of me as to suppose that I should have brought you the proposition." Glynne consulted the eye of his henchman, and Francis, sitting with his face shrouded in both hands, lapsed into a delighted grin. His face returned to an expression of gravity with the celerity of an indiarubber mask, and he winked with a laboured slowness. Glynne's tired comedian's visage showed no spark of change. He looked wearily round on Mayhill, as if inviting him to continue.

" My distinguished friend," pursued Mr. Mayhill, " asks for nothing unreasonable. What ho desires is simply this, that tho little woman shall have whab is in your view a fair and legitimate chance of improving herself, and of showing what she can do. You won't be asked to pub her into ft parb where your own judgment tells you that she would be an arrant failure. My distinguished friend is too experienced and too much a man of the world to attempt to thrust a raw amateur on the British public as a finished actress." "Well," said Francis, "I don't see any harm in that. That's sensible enough and reasonable enough. What else does the old buffer want? Of course he'll be asking for a voice in the selection of pieces, and all that sort of thing." "Quite mistaken, dear boy," Mr. Mayhill answered. "He doesn'b wanb bo interfere in your affairs at all." "If we've got hold of a good thing," said Glynne, "in Miss Delacour, I think I shall have the brains to see it. If I'm going to carry on the theatre, and she's any good ab all, she'll go up the ladder just as fast as she's able to climb it. I don b want any man to pay me money for whab I should do in my own interest." " Bertie, my boy," said Francis, interrupting his chief, "you'd better go outside. Mayhill and I can sottle this little business between us. You can send up a bottle of Pommery, and come back in half-an-hour. You're not fib for this world, dear boy, and that's a fact." % "I don't like the business," Glynne answered. "I've done without this kind of thing—" "And been oub of pocket by it," said Francis. " Now gob out, that's a good chap. I don't ask you to do anything to bo ashamed of, but I sha'n't let you miss a chance like this if I can help it. Then get along and leave us bo it, and don't forget the Pommery." He shouldered Glynne oub of the room with a boisterous pretence of roughness. " Isn't all that a littlo—a little—eh ?" said Mr. Mayhill, waving his small, gloved hand towards the closed door.

"No," said Francis, bluntly, "ib isn't. There is no straighter man than Glynne alive. He's got fanciful notions, and he's a rare bad man of business. Mow, you and I are not Quixotes, May hill, and we can talk like men of the world. That isn't the firsb time old Helisle has taken a fancy to a pretty face, and it won't be the first time he's paid for it." "My dear boy," cried Mr. Mayhill, " with what a pertinacity you cling to that fortuitous guess of yours." " There's nothing hero to humbug bub the furniture," said Francis, "and we sha'n't have much of an effect on that. Miss Delacour's address is 73, Limesborough Gardens. Old Belisle owns the house, and spends half bis time there. If you'd come to me a dozen years ago with any proposal that the dramatic lamb phould be served up for that old wolf, I should have said No' to it. I'm not as thin-skinned as Glynne is, but I'm a decent sort of chap when you come to know me, and that sorb of thing isn't- in my line. Belisle has outlived his vices, and if be likes to play grandfather to a pretty girl and to pay me for helping him, I'm willing to take my share of the bargain. Mow, in plain English, what is he prepared to do ?" " I take ib," said Mr. Mayhill, " that my distinguished friendwhose name, mind you, I have not divulged and never shall divulge— take it that my distinguished friend is prepared to keep a dramatic home over the head of Miss Delacour. If you want a little money, you can have ib. If you want a good deal of money, you can have it." " Well," said Francis, "Glynne's dropped fifteen hundred here. A minute before you came in I was advising him to cut the whole business. I shouldn't counsel him to carry it on with a pound less than biß original capital." " Exactly," said Mr. Mayhill, " exactly. Bat the house is dowdy, dear boy, and if you wanb to make a splash, you must bring the place up to West End level. Ib wants redecorating, wants to be newly upholstered. We must instal the electric light. Don't be afraid to open your mouth. _ Take my distinguished friend while he's in the mood."

The man who had ushered Mr. Walker Mayhilil into the manager's room came in with a bottle of champagne and glasses. Francis poured out the wine and clinked his gliifis with Mayhill's. "Take it all as settled," he said. "The little woman shall have a fair show,' and a bit more than she could reasonably look for. There's a part here," he continued, setting his hand on a pile of manuscript which lay upon the desk, " which would fib her like a glovo if she'd only had another year's experience. 1 daresay I can coach her up to it. She's smart and quick enough and I shall make her work. You may jusb tell your distinguised friend at once, Mayhill, to give her the straight tip about one thing. If she's going to do any good, it won't be by being dragged head and shoulders into parts that are too big for her. If she's going to get on, she's got to work, and to work deuced bard, into the bargain."

As he spoke the last words, Glynne came wearily back again, chewing the end of his cigar and twitching his eyebrows as he had a habit of doing when disturbed. " And what have you conspirators boon up to ?" he asked. " It's all settled, old man," Francis responded. " We'll pub up a notice to the company to-night terminating the run on Saturday, and we'll have tha decorators in as soon as the curtain's down. We're going to have the place refitted from top to bottom, and instal the electric light. We can get the whole thing dono in a fortnight, and I can borrow the stage of the Friv. for rehearsal to-morrow. We'll utarb with ' The Little Widow,' and Miss Delacour can have—"

" The title rSle," suggested Maybill, with a touch of humorous malice. " No, thank you," said Francis. " She'll play Clare, a jolly, brighb little goubrokte part. I shall make it my special business to coach her up in it." < " But I say," broke in Glynne, " ain b you going a bib too fasb, Francis? I'm sorry to spoil your castle-building, bub—" I " Bertie," said Francis, turning on him with portentous solemnity, "if you're such a fool as bo chuck a chance like this, I" never speak to you again. So help me God, I won't. What's it matter to you if old Belisle wants to make a fool of himself about the girl ? He'll keep her oub of mischief. If his fancy should last a couple of years, she'll have bad as much experience by that time that she'll. probably be as safe as any old stager of 'era all. In the meantime, she finds a. watchdog, and you find a banker. If you say * No' to such a chance as this you'll"be the biggest ass that ever trod on shoelpather." Ho waxed warmer and warmer as he spoke, and Glynne attempted in vain to quiet him. . " All right 1" be said, at last, *' have your own way." Bub even then Francis pursued his theme. "How could a man," he demanded, be such an all fired idiot as to throw away any such a windfall !". *, . ~ Confound it!" roared Glynne, in sudden i wrath, " Can'b you hear what I Bay I Take

your own way, and be hanged to you! Take-your-own-way. D'ye bear that, you chattering idiot "Right, • dear boy J" responded Mr.' Francis, with instant calm. " Have a glass of Pommery, and drink to the founder ot our fortunes. Here's to your distinguished friend, Mayhill. Let's nope his fancy for this little baggage may last his time, and that he may live to be a hundred." The conference splitupshortlyafterwards, and that evening Glynne received a message from his bankers, stating that the sum of five thousand pounds had been placed to his credit. An hour later, Miss Delacour was summoned to the manager's room, and there interviewed by Francis. " You've done very well with the parb you're playing," ho began, "and we're going to trust you with something better." "Oh, thank you, Mr. Francis," said Esther, beaming. " You'll have pretty nearly three weeks for study and rehearsal," he continued. " And I wanb to impress upon you this one fact—you've got to work—like blazes !" "Oh!" she cried, " I'm nob afraid of work, Mr. Francis."

"It isn't a park," said Francis, "thab you'd find difficult if you'd had more experience. At present I don't think you're quite up to it, and I'm acting rather against my own judgment in trusting you with it. You'll have to come to me and be coached up in the business. I'm going to take a lob of trouble with you, and if you don't come up to my expectations 1 shall have to take the part away from you. You understand?" " Oh quite J" she said, flushed and sparkling. "There is the scrip." He handed a bundle of oblong type-written sheets, bound in a brown paper cover, to Miss Delacour, who accepted ib with flushed face and eager eyes, and ab once began to turn its pages over. At the first touch of it, and the first glance ab the closely-typed pages,' her heart beat with a triumph so vivid as to be almost painful. She was going to play a real character ab last, and in London ! She stood under the gaslighb turning the pages over, looking, as Francis thought, astonishingly pretty in the excitement of the moment, when suddenly her whole expression chilled. She dropped the part in both hands before her, and looked at the acting manager with a face of panting dismay, as if she were actually about to cry. " Hallo !" cried Francis. " What's the matter with you, miss?" " Oh," she said, despairingly. " I know this ; this isn't anything." " I don't think you do know ib," Francis answerod. " Don't I?" said Esther, sullenly. , " I beb you whab you like I do. You hear me now. You give mo a cue anywhere." She thrust the part into his hands and stood defiantly waiting. Francis, with a surprised and uncertain look, read at haphazard, "' Take care of the crockery ware.'" " ' That's your business, Mr. Jamieson,'" returned Esther. "' I'm not the butler here."' "Oh?" she cried, "I know the whole thing backwards. It's Mark Stanley's 'The Little Widow.'" " That's odd," said Francis, half to himself. "He said ib had never been produced anywhere." " It hasn't been produced," said Esther. " Then how do you come to know about it?" "Mr. Stanley brought me up," she answered. "Ho used to talk about' The Little Widow' all day long. He read every line of it to me and Jing. We used to rehearse it for him at home to see what it would look like, but Jing always played this part, and I played the little widow." "Oh!" said Francis, with a comic sidelong look at her, " you played the little widow, did you? I suppose you'd like to play the littlo widow here ?" Esther, sensitive to the tone of banter, returned no verbal answer. The expression of her face and the pettish movement of her little figure were eloquent enough. The pig was killed," said Francis, "because he had too much cheek. Wow, you run away, Miss What's-your-name, and be jolly glad that you've got a part that's far above your merits, and somebody who knows the business to coach you in ib." (To be continued on Wednesday next).