“That would be ideal!” Fanny said, brightening. “Now I will not be so troubled.”
The gaunt-faced man closed his thin hand over hers. “You are a dear girl,” he told her.
Fanny had only visited a railway station once before, when she and Moll had been making their tours of the city together. Now Silas Hodder guided her into the busy, noisy place. Travellers were moving about in every direction, asking for information, clutching their pieces of baggage and generally looking confused.
Solemn, whiskered officials in uniform called out loud (and generally incoherent) instructions. Silas guided her along the tile floor of the gas-lit, high-ceilinged main station to the gates. The open iron gates gave access to a number of wooden platforms and trains were coming and going on the rails between the platforms.
The belching, puffing engines squealed along the tracks and came to a halt with a screeching of brakes. Fanny and Silas Hodder proceeded to Platform Four where the attendant had directed them. And there, along with a number of other waiting travellers, she saw the actor-manager, Barnaby Samuels. He was wearing a gray suit with a gray cape and a matching top hat. He motioned for Fanny and Silas to come down the platform to him.
They started down just as they heard the sound of a train approaching behind them. Fanny glanced around to see an engine with a long row of carriages after it coming along that very track. She decided it must be the train they were waiting for. Before she could mention this to Silas walking beside her, she was horrified to see the ugly face and figure of the killer, Martin, loom up ready to shove her in the path of the oncoming train!
Fanny cried out in terror as Martin bore down on her. She stumbled back as he seized her and prepared to hurl her on the tracks before the oncoming train. Then from out of nowhere someone came bursting between them. Fanny was thrown in the other direction by him and then the newcomer grappled wildly with Martin.
Silas placed an arm about her as the two men struggled on the edge of the platform. There were wild shouts from the onlookers as Martin lost his footing and with the scream of one doomed toppled back and fell under the wheels of the engine. The warning bell on the engine sounded loudly, there was a great puffing of steam and a screeching of brakes as the engineer battled to halt the train.
The young man who had rescued Fanny turned towards her with a face pale from this shattering experience. He was hatless, with brown curly hair, and like Barnaby Samuels wore a cape of some black material.
The young man came over to her anxiously and asked, “Are you all right, miss?”
She nodded and in a faint voice said, “My thanks to you!”
“You saved her life, young man,” Silas Hodder told the sturdy youth. “That man was a murderer who intended to kill this girl.”
Barnaby Samuels came up looking shaken, as he said, “It appears we are to know drama even before we reach a theatre. I thought for a minute I was going to lose you, Miss Hastings.”
Silas Hodder said, “This young man saved the day!”
“He is also a member of my company,” Barnaby Samuels said. “This is David Cornish, our leading man. David, Miss Fanny Hastings and Mister Silas Hodder.”
This exchange of introductions was interrupted by the arrival of the railway guards, the police and a physician. The railway men busied themselves with directing the removal of the mangled body from the tracks. Fanny and the others turned their backs on the fearful scene.
The departure of the train was held up as a result of accident. The police talked with Fanny and David Cornish, and also questioned Silas Hodder. It was established in a short time that Martin had attacked Fanny and brought his fate on himself. When the guard signalled that the train was ready to leave, there were a flurry of goodbyes, and Fanny crowded on the train with the others as Silas Hodder, top hat in hand, waved farewell from the platform.
Fanny found herself sitting in a compartment with Barnaby Samuels, Miss Hilda Asquith, the character woman, and David Cornish. She still felt weak and ill from the dreadful experience she’d undergone.
A little while after the train was under way she glanced at the handsome young man at her side and told him, “I can’t really begin to thank you.”
His smile was radiant. “I’m glad I was there and saw what was happening.”
“It was sheer Providence that sent you along,” she said.
“I’d say it was my need to catch this train and join the company,” he said.
She gave him an awed look. “Are you truly the leading man?”
“That’s what I was hired for,” David Cornish said. “I have been playing repertory leads for several years now.”
“You must have started early?”
“My parents were both in the theatre. I have been on the stage since my parents first carried me on as a baby.”
“So the theatre has been your life!”
“It has,” David agreed. “I know no other. I lost my parents when I was fairly young. I’ve been on my own ever since.”
“I’m also an orphan,” she told him. “My father was an actor but my mother wasn’t in the theatre.”
“If you resemble her, she should have been,” he said. “You are a lovely young woman.”
“You flatter me,” she said.
“I’m not the flattering type,” he assured her. “I mean it.”
“This is my first true acting work.”
He nodded. “You’re in good hands. Barnaby is a fine actor and director even if he has been sorely pressed for funds these last few years.”
“Oh?” she said. “I didn’t know.”
David said in a low voice, “He stranded his last two companies but I took a chance on him because there was no other job to be had and because I believe if his luck turns we might have a long season.”
The news that Barnaby Samuels was not financially sound worried her. But it was encouraging to know that he was competent as far as his theatrical ability went. She would also have to hope, like David Cornish, that this time the old man’s luck would change.
She said, “This is going to be an adventure for me. My first time with a professional company!”
“What were you doing before this?” the young man asked.
She decided to ignore her period at Brenmoor and tell him only about her apprenticeship at the Emporium of Wonders. He listened to her account of being a mermaid with delighted interest as the train noisily made its way through the darkness. Opposite them both Barnaby Samuels and Hilda Asquith had drowsed off.
• • •
Rigby turned out to be a small town in an industrial area, an ugly, gray, soot-ridden maze of narrow, mean streets with the tall smokestacks of factories rising above the roofs on every side. The company arrived there in darkness and were transported to the local theatrical lodging house by a wagon with seating provided on plank benches installed on each side. They sat facing each other, most of them befuddled with sleep and a few with drink, as a light shower played on the canvas covering over their heads. Another wagon was bringing their luggage.
Fanny found herself sharing a room with the elderly character woman, Hilda Asquith, each having a cot in an attic room more sparsely furnished than any of the servants’ rooms at Brenmoor. That night she learned that the character woman snored loudly until she was in a deep sleep. It was something she managed to endure.
However unprepossessing Rigby might seem at first glance, it did have a lot of factory people starved for entertainment. This time Barnaby Samuels had chosen well in a place to begin his tour. The Opera House was shabby and ratridden, and in the wintery weather backstage was cold beyond enduring. But huge stoves in the rear of the auditorium managed to keep it fairly comfortable and so the place was filled for almost every performance.
The aged impresario of the small company knew the sort of fare the factory people liked and so he put on a series of blood-curdling melodramas in quick succession. They opened with “The Forged Will” in which Fanny enacted the small part of the hero’s sister, with the hero played by David Cornish. Barnaby Samuels himself played the wicked lawyer and Hilda Asquith was the befuddled rich woman being tricked into making the wrong will.
This play was followed by “Lady Dudley’s Secret,” “The Squire of Fynwood,” “Done to Death” and “In the Nick of Time.” Fanny proved herself an apt student and under the coaching of the director, along with help from Hilda Asquith and David Cornish, she was soon promoted from small roles to more important ones.
Business continued so good at Rigby it was decided the company would remain there over the Christmas and New Year period, and perhaps throughout the winter. Each member of the company, including Fanny, was receiving a pound or more each week, and it seemed that the luck of Barnaby Samuels had finally turned for the better.
Then the leading woman left without notice to join her husband who was in another touring company. There was general dismay until Barnaby Samuels announced that Fanny would be the new leading lady. In “A Bitter Secret” she starred as the widow with an illegitimate child who hesitates to marry the wealthy man she loves for fear of disgracing him. It was a tear-producing drama in which all turned out well and Fanny for the first time felt at ease in a leading role.
After the first performance David Cornish, who had made love to her in his role of the wealthy man on the stage, embraced her in private and said, “You are truly an actress! Tonight you have proven it!”
She smiled up at him. “I have much to learn yet.”
“The technique will come easily,” he promised. “You have mastered the basics in a surprisingly short while.”
And it was true. She was no longer an amateur. When she moved on to other companies, and eventually, as she hoped, to London, she would be an actress with some experience. She found memorizing long new parts and making them come to life on the stage an arduous task which kept her busy all her waking hours. The company had to change bills quickly to keep the interest of their patrons.
The bad food and cold rooms of the theatrical lodging house were accepted philosophically by the members of the company. Most of them had lived under similar conditions all their lives. Even David Cornish did not seem aware how inadequate their living standards were. The important thing was that the season had turned out successfully and in this period of many touring theatre companies there were a disastrously high rate of failures.
Because of the demands of her roles Fanny had small chance to worry about such things. Nor did she ever more than briefly think back to her days at Brenmoor and her romance with Viscount George. Memory of the handsome man always brought some pain but the pain became dulled as time went on.
There was also another factor in the fading of her memories of George. A romance of a different sort had developed between herself and her handsome leading man. It was more a staunch friendship than a passionate affair, since she and David were in the same line of work and had identical ambitions.
Yet, they were male and female, and since they made love every night on the stage it was not surprising that they should sooner or later find themselves in each other’s arms in private. David Cornish, like herself, spoke and behaved like a member of the upper classes because of his stage training. His formal education had been limited but he was self-educated. In many ways he was as much a gentleman as Viscount George had been, and even more considerate and tender in his treatment of women.
Fanny found herself thinking of David more and more. And she noticed that he was paying extra attention to her. She was aware of the looks exchanged by other members of the company when they saw them together in their offstage time. Gossip among the players no doubt had them dubbed lovers, but this was not true … as yet.
Fanny had a burning desire to become a star. This desire had been only whetted by her minor success in Samuels’ company. Her career on the stage was more important to her than anything else. David Cornish had the same ambition to progress in their profession. She had seen the forlorn state of two of the supporting players in the troupe who had five children living with grandparents.
They sent almost every penny of their meagre earnings home for their children’s support. She saw clearly that she was not ready to be a wife or mother. Perhaps she would never marry.
When Christmas came they gave a special performance of Charles Dickens’ fine Christmas play, “The Cricket On The Hearth.” There were rumors among those in the know that Charles Dickens did not like the dramatization of his story but it made a good vehicle and the simple folk of Rigby were just as pleased with it as the audiences in London had been.
For the New Year, Barnaby Samuels devised a special musical entertainment with Charlie Fitzroy, the comedian of the company, doing comic songs and monologues. One of the other members owned a magic lantern and showed scenes of Europe while the soubrette played accompaniment on the pianforte. David Cornish and Fanny performed a series of skits, both comic and dramatic. The elderly Hilda Asquith sang in a high voice which cracked frequently, but the good-natured crowd applauded as if she’d been a prima donna at Covent Garden. Fanny ended the show by doing her song and dance routine. It was a side of her the audience hadn’t seen before and she was the favorite of the evening.
The company had a feast of goose, pork, pudding and port on the stage following the show. Though they had to wear their overcoats and cloaks against the cold, it was a festive occasion.
Barnaby Samuels, with a smile on his classic, emaciated face, offered a toast: “To the New Year and a new season of success!” They all drank to this most happily and then trudged back through a light snowfall to their lodgings.
As they walked slowly along in the falling snow, their arms linked and their bodies close together, she and David talked about their good fortune and the prospects of the new year ahead. So young and happy were they that the dreary aspects of their lives did not bother them at all. The small salary, the poor lodgings, the inadequate theatre, and their provincial audience seemed to them merely steps on a ladder which would ultimately lead them to fine theatres in the West End and distinguished patrons!