As the days went by, writing became more and more impossible to Poppy.

It had begun to be a weary grinding out of words, common-place, and uninspired. She came to hate the sight of her writing-table, because of the torment of disgust that seized her as she sat at it and read over such things as she had been able to write. And her longing to be out in the air became almost intolerable. She felt like a starved woman--starved for want of the wind and trees and flowers, anything that smelt of open free s.p.a.ces such as she had known all her life until now.

And nothing happened to encourage her. She had no news of her _Book of Poems_, and when she called to see the publisher, he was never visible, and when she wrote she got no answer except that the reader for the firm had not been able to look through the book. Her story had not yet appeared in _The Cornfield_, and the one she had followed it up with came back, accompanied by a little printed paper, which read to the effect that the editor was at present "overstocked." Of course, this was a polite way of saying that the story wasn't up to the standard of the magazine. She burned with chagrin when she first read it. Afterwards, she became hardened to the daily sight of intimations of the kind, and to the sickening thud of returned ma.n.u.scripts in the letter-box.

The day when she had no money in the world but the thirty shillings realised by the sale of her piece of Spanish lace, she left the baby with Mrs. Print and walked all the way to Hunter Street, on the forlorn hope that some editor might have addressed a letter to her there, enclosing a cheque. Miss Drake, the good-natured landlady, was alarmed to see her looking so ill.

"You are sitting to your desk too much, dear, and losing your beauty--and you know no girl can afford to do _that_ until she has forty thousand in the bank," she said with a broad smile. "Why don't you chuck writing over and try the stage? A girl of your appearance could get into the Gaiety or Daly's any day, especially if you have any kind of a voice. The change of life and scene would do you a lot of good--and take it from _me_, dear, there's nothing so comforting in this world as a regular salary."

On top of the 'bus she was obliged from sheer weariness to take back to Westminster, Poppy turned the idea over in her mind. The stage had never had any attraction for her. Unlike most girls, she did not hold the belief that she had only to be seen and heard upon the boards to become famous. But she could not turn away from the thought of the change from sitting at her desk; and the regular salary had its potent charm, too--Miss Drake spoke like an oracle there!

However, she put the thought by for another day or two. She would give literature another chance, she said, with an ironical lip, and she essayed to finish her novel. For three days and the better part of three nights she hung over it in every moment she could spare from her child; at the end of that time she thrust the ma.n.u.script into the drawer of her table and locked it up.

"Lie there and wait for the inspired hour," she said. "I must look for other ways and means to boil the pot."

The wrench was to leave the "king's son" at home crooning in hired arms beneath the eye of Mrs. Print.

It did not take long to find out the whereabouts of theatrical agents and managers. She presented herself at the office of one of the best-known agents in London.

The staircase that led to his waiting-room was crowded with lounging, clean-shaven men, and the waiting-room hummed with the voices of girls and women and more men, all gabbling at once. Phrases made themselves heard above the din.

"No: I won't go into panto--not if Frankie goes down on his knees to me."

"Oh, he's sure to do _that_, dear!"

"She says that her figure is her stock-in-trade--musical comedy, of course."

"H'm! more stock than trade, I should say."

A score or so of made-up eyes raked Poppy from under heavy _complexion_-veiling; she became aware of such strong scents as _frangipani_ and _chypre_; many ropes of large pearls; heavy fur coats flung open to reveal sparkling _art_-chains slung round bare, well-powdered necks. A wry-lipped quotation of Abinger's flitted through her memory:

"Diamonds me.

Sealskins me, I'm going on the stage."

When, after weary waiting, her turn came to be admitted to the agent's inner sanctum, she found a clean-looking, brown young man, with grey hair and a shrewd eye. He shot an enveloping glance over her while she was closing the door.

"Well, dear, what do _you_ want?" he asked briskly, but pleasantly--all theatrical people "dear" each other automatically, but Poppy, not knowing this, flushed at the term. She explained that she was seeking work on the stage.

"Any experience?"

"No."

"Can you sing?"

"No."

"Dance?"

"Yes." (Abinger had allowed her to take lessons in Florence.)

"Good legs?"

He regarded her puzzled eyes with impatience.

"Any photographs in tights? I like to know what I'm engaging, you know.

A lot of you girls come here with your spindle-shanks hidden under flounced petticoats and flowing skirts; and your bones wrapped up in heavy coats and feather boas, and you cut a great dash, and when we get you on the stage in tights it's another story altogether--not that I'm saying it about _you_, dear, for I can see----"

"I don't think I am what you require in any case," she said as she reached the door. "Good-morning."

She fled through the waiting-room and down the stairs. Some of the loungers shared a smile.

"A greenhorn, evidently!" they said. "What has Frankie been saying?"

The next day she beat her way through wind and rain to another office.

And the next day to yet another. Within a week she did the whole dreary round. All the waiting-rooms were crowded, for the spring provincial tours were coming on, and engagements were being booked briskly; also, there were many vacancies occurring in the pantomimes.

Several managers, taken with Poppy's appearance, offered her small parts (with a good understudy) in touring companies. But she knew that it would be impossible to think of travelling with her baby, and she did not for a moment contemplate leaving him.

By talking to all the people who talked to her, and "theatricals,"

generally, are a kindly, sociable people, she learned that it was of no great use to try the agencies for London engagements.

"Go to the theatres themselves," they said; adding cheerfully: "not that _that's_ much good either. Every stage manager has a gang of pets waiting for an opening to occur, and they never let an outsider get in."

One agent, rather more kindly than the rest, suggested that she should try the Lyceum Theatre.

"Ravenhill is taking it for a Shakespearian season," he said. "And I should say that cla.s.s of work would just suit you."

Poppy thought so too, and wasted no time about finding the Lyceum.

"Yes, Mr. Ravenhill is seeing small-part ladies and walkers-on to-day,"

the door-keeper informed her confidentially, and after a long waiting she was eventually shown into the Green-room, where she found the well-known Shakespearian actor sitting on a trunk, reading his letters, in the midst of piles of scenery and robes.

He was a thin, Hamlet-faced man, with a skin of golden pallor and romance-lit eyes, and he looked at Poppy with kindness and comradeship.

"Have you had any experience?" he asked.

"None at all," said Poppy sadly. She was getting tired of the question, and felt inclined to vary the answer, but the truthful, kind eyes abashed the thought.

"Is there anything you could recite to me?"

Poppy thought swiftly. She knew volumes of prose and poetry, but at the word everything fled from her brain except two things--Raleigh's "O Eloquent, Just and Mighty Death!" which she in somewhat morbid mood had been reading the night before, and a poem of Henley's that had been dear to her since she had loved Carson. In desperation, at last she opened her lips and gave forth the sweet, tender words, brokenly, and with tears lying on her pale cheeks, but with the voice of a bird in the garden:

"When you are old and I am pa.s.sed away-- Pa.s.sed: and your face, your golden face is grey, I think--what e'er the end, this dream of mine Comforting you a friendly star shall shine Down the dim slope where still you stumble and stray.

"Dear Heart, it shall be so: under the sway Of death, the Past's enormous disarray Lies hushed and dark. Still tho' there come no sign, Live on well pleased; immortal and divine Love shall still tend you as G.o.d's angels may, When you are old."

When she had finished she stood, swaying and pale, tears falling down.

Ravenhill looked at her sadly. He thought: "This girl has more than her share of the world's hard luck."

"I will take you as a walker-on," he said, "with an understudy and with the chance of a small part. You have a fine voice, and a temperament--but I need not tell you that. Of course, if you want to get on, you need to study and work hard. I can't offer you more than thirty shillings a week--with a difference if you play."