A RISING STAR.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXXII, Issue 9720, 16 January 1895, Page 3

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 cf

the World," etc.

CHAPTER XV.

With Miss Methven's tears of rage and mortification this narrative has nothing to do. The poor lady had been engaged for the run of the piece, and threatened a lawsuit for the recovery of her salary.

"If it runs five thousand nights," she declared, weeping, in Glynne's office, " I'll bo paid for every night." "All right, my dear," the badgered comedian responded, with his look of dead weary calm. "It's not my doing. I've arranged with the gentleman who is behind the scenes, and your claim will be satisfied to the last penny. You'll come to, treasury every week just as if you were ab work, and you're welcome to take an engagement anywhere else ab the same time. You'll see in an hour or two thab ib isn't a bad thing for you." "I don't care about) the money! cried the lady. "But to think of being thrown out by a chit like that ! I've been on the boards for fivo-»nd-thirty years." " Yes, my dear," said Glynne, " that's the worst of it." She cast on him one glance of unutterable scorn, and left the house. She resented nothing like an allusion to her years, and in this case she had no right to complain of ib, for she herself had made it. None the less she hated Glynne with a momentary, intensity which did something to solace her wounded pride. Ono nail drives out another, and for an hour or two she was too angry to be sore. " That old darling is going to give us a bib of trouble, Glyono," said the watchful Francis, who, during the whole stormy interview, had nibbled at the tip of his pen, with an air of placid boredom. "If there's any chance of getting the bird into the house on the firsb nighb she'll find a feather or two." " That's likely enough," Glynne assented. "We must keep an eyo on her. She's a bib jmssde, bub she's gob plenty of partisans, even now." *' And,"' Francis added, " she's as spiteful as a sack of ferrets." "My dear boy," Glynne answered, drearily, " nothing matters very much, and you can't eat your cake and have ib. I was dead certain old Belisle would want something for his money. I didn't think it would be anything so rotten stupid as this— bub it doesn't matter."

Francis ab rehearsal was a spectacle. Miss Delacour made hor renlde in triumph, with her bench woman behind her. She was clad in a splendid sealskin from throat to feet. She was exquisitely gloved and booted, and the dainty little hat she woro was a marvel of Parisian workmanship. " All right," the stage-manager murmured in Glynne's hearing. "Climb the greasypole, my dear, and break your back ab bhe bottom."

The Methven partisans had their own opinion, bub they kept ib to themselves. They were worthy people, bub nob too courageous. The rays of the rising star might be baleful or beneficent, pretty much in accordance with their own will, mid they did homage to the now planet, with a more than Oriental subserviency. The business of the stage began, and Francis lay in ambush until the first entrance of the Little Widow.

The rehearsal wenb with amazing smoothness, and until that point was reached the stage-manager, who usually wanted everything done a dozen times over, made not a single comment. When Miss Delacour appeared he gave a feeble, hollow groan, expressive of despair resigned from the beginning. "Try ib again," he murmured, manfully. "Go back to 'Go where glory waits you.' Miss Carlton, come back. Take it up at Go where glory waits you.' Try and remember. Mies Delacour, you're not promenading down Bold-street, You're breaking in on a conversation that interests you. You hear your own name mentioned. Try and look as if you suspected that, will you : " It's the first time," said Esther, curtly, " that I ever knew that people were expected to act at firsb rehearsal." " You'll learn a lot of things for the firsb time before you're through with this business," said Francis, wibli a despondent moan.

The Little Widow's entrance came again, and this time Mies Delacour came on eager and attentive enough. Francis groaned softly, and suffered the scene to proceed for a minute or two. Then he laid down his shining silk hat on the table before him and clutched his hair with both hands. In that attitude he listened for perhaps a minute, expressing a piquant disquietude by occasional twitchings of tho legs. " Upon my word," ho said at last, " you mieht try to make ib something like !" Esther had reached tho theatre inspired by a complete sense of victory, and this reception of her maiden effort was, to say the least of it, disconcerting. She struggled on, however, feeling herself moro artificial every second. " Let me explain, ray dear," said Francis, interrupting her in the middle of a brilliant little speech, which Miss Delacour was declaiming in a fashion which she herself knew to be oddly unlifolike. " You haven't come to bury Cassar this time. I don't know that the author's opinion counts for much, but ho calls it a comedy. I merely mention it," ho added, "because I think he'd like it playod his own way." " I know what tho author wants, Mr.

Francis," said Miss Delacour, with dignity. "I've rehearsed the part with him a hundred times, and I know his business a jolly lot better than you do." " I'm glad of that," said Francis, " bub I'm trying to teach you yours." Glynne drew him aside and whispered to him, "Give it a rest, old man. She's bound to be bad enough, but the best actress in tho world couldn't lire through that. She may be middling decent if you'll help her, but the Lord only knows what she'll be like if you spoil her nerve from tho jump."

Francis went back to his table without verbal response, and watched the rest of the scene with the expression of one accepting irremediable disaster. He said nothing, and offered no gesture of disapproval, but he looked as if the end of the world were coming, and he alono of nil men saw it. When the Little Widow's business was over he brightened visibly, as who should say, " Hope still remain," and when she appeared again he walked dejectedly from the stage, resigning everything. Esther began to think it might have been wiser on the whole not to have insulted the stagoraanager, who certainly had remarkable powers of annoyance if he chose to use them. She had succeeded in getting her own way, and was already half disposed to regret it. Before the day's work was over her disposition was entirely thab way. The lasb scene of the first act was reached, and with ib came the firsb touch of real feeling the Little Widow had to show. In her own heart and mind Esther knew as well as anybody that the expression of thab sorb of emotion was nob in her lino. She had always thought the words and sentiment of tho speech vapid and silly, though when J ing or Mark himself had spoken it they had always seemed to find it affecting. She ! ran the words through anyhow, and Francis cut her short with a crescendo of despair.

" ISO ! no! no !" „ "I know very well what ib out to be, said Esther, choking between anger and the shame of being thus exposed in the first hour of triumph, "bub how do you think anybody's going to act while you are grinning and groaning there ?" "Go on," said Francis, from the depths of a profound dejection. Do it how you like. It doesn't matter." A newcomer, obviously unused to the house, had groped his way down the stone steps which' led to the stage, and stood blinking for a minute in the half lignt, uncertain of his whereabouts after the bright sunshine of oub of doors. Francis was the firsb to catch sight of him, ana, walking over to him, shook hands. n " We're all ab sixes . and sevens yet, he said, "bub we shall begin to shape into something in a day or two. Wo 11 Uket he first acb again, ladies and gentlemen, he added, turning round and addressing the C °Thenewcomer grew accustomed to the changed light, and recognised Esther. "Oh, that you, Mark?" she answered curtly to his y salutation. Thing;. aw going anyhow this morning. Everybody s in a bad tamper." «j'uThe young dramatic author scanned his late charge in some amazement. mere

were few people more ignorant than himself with respect to the attire of women and its cost, and he would not have undertaken on oath to decide between sealskin and its plush imitation. Bub Esther's dress looked expensive even to his uninstructed fancy, and he wondered a little how she came by it. His first thought was that she looked a little pale, and thab she might be denying herself necessaries to buy finery. That would be rather like the child, he thoughb. There are' liquids, holding chemical combinations in solution, which will remain clear for ages until the mixture is agitated, when ib crystallises instantly. The same thing is true of the human emotions, and if Esther had not run away, Mark mighb have gone on for another year or two without discovering that ho was in love with her. The fact was clear enough to him now ; and yet he had a fair understanding of the girl, and knew her better than ninety-nine men in a hundred ever get to know anybody. He saw her faults clearly, but, to his mind, they were all the mere little trivial follies of youth, easily to be chased away by years and experience. To have been told the plain truth about her, to have heard that she was a peripatetic Want, without affection, or sympathy, or loyalty, would simply have enraged him. And yeb all his observation and knowledge of her pointed to that conclusion. /

"You're in the piece?" he asked, too occupied with his own reflections to heed her manner for the moment. She nodded with weary eyebrows and lowered lids. " That's right," he added, heartily. " What are you doing ?" "I'm rehearsing the title part," said Esther, with outward coolness and inward trepidation. "By Jove !" he answered, " that's a chance for you ! Are they allowing you to understudy Miss Methven already 2 That's capital !" Hither postponed the evil hour, and said nothing. Mark took a seab ab Francis' side, and for the second time the firsb act began once more to unroll itself. Mark was a little excited, for this was the firsb occasion on which he had ever sat on the board of a London theatre, and his own work was actually being prepared before him, by actors and actresses with whose reputation he had, for the most parb, been long familiar, His own knowledge of his excitement kept him quiet for a time, bub, by and by, when he could command an air of commonplace, he spoke to Francis. "I hope there's nothing wrong with Miss Methven. How is ib she's nob able to be here bo-day ?" . "Glynne hasn'b told you?" Francis asked, with his quaint sideway look. " Mebhven's out of it ?"

"Out of it!" Mark repeated. "Nob playing? What's the matter ? Doesn't she like the part?" "Liked the parb very well," Francis responded. " Savage as a tiger at nob being allowed to play it." "But who can you get in her place?" Marked asked.

" That's the little party," said Francis, nodding towards Esther. Marked looked vaguely and without comprehension in the direction indicated. " Between ourselves, Mr. Stanley," pursued the stage-manager. "I think your play ought to have a better chance. If my opinion's worth anything, ib ought to be a go. As ib is, I wouldn't give a row of pins for it."

"But what's the matter?" cried Mark. "Mr. Glynne guaranteed a first-class cast and a first-class production." Francis merely shrugged his shoulders, and flirted the leaves of the MS, book on tho table before him. "What's the matter?" Mark insisted. " Who plays the widow?" "Miss Delacour," said Francis. "Impossible!" Mark shouted, springing to his feet.

" Impossible or nob, it's so," Francis responded. " I hope you'll make a row about it. I should, in your place. There's Glynne in the cover there talking to Howard. You'd better go and see him." Mark walked swiftly over to the lessee, and shook hands with him cordially enough. " What's this about the title role?" he asked at once.

" My dear boy, it's the most fantastical piece of nonsense in the world," said Glynne. " I'm sorry for you, and I'm sorry for myself., and I'm sorry for the piece, but I can't help it." But" it's impossible said Mark, repeating himself. "We can't talk it oub here," Glynne responded, noting that one or two of the bystanders had turned at the sound of Mark's excited voice. "Come into my oilice. They've been good enough to place a room at my disposal here whilst my own place is repairing." Mark followed, scarcely believing himself awake.

" Tho child has no experience," he began, before .he room was reached. " She'll make an actress one of these days, and unless I'm much mistaken, a very tine one, but she could no more play that part ab presenb than I could play it myself." "Quite right, dear boy," said Glynne, holding tho door open for him to paßs. " It's as silly a thing as ever was done in a theatre, and that's saying something." 1 [To be continued on Saturday next.]