PAGE 3
Cinderella
by
“I am going to dance,” said Van Bibber, “if Mr. Pierrot will present me to one of the ladies.”
Paul introduced him to a lady in a white cheese-cloth dress and black walking-shoes, with whom no one else would dance, and the musicians struck up “The Band Played On,” and they launched out upon a slippery floor.
Van Bibber was conscious that his friends were applauding him in dumb show from the balcony, and when his partner asked who they were, he repudiated them altogether, and said he could not imagine, but that he guessed from their bad manners they were professional entertainers hired for the evening.
The music stopped abruptly, and as he saw Mrs. West leaving the balcony, he knew that his turn had come, and as she passed him he applauded her vociferously, and as no one else applauded even slightly, she grew very red.
Her friends knew that they formed the audience which she dreaded, and she knew that they were rejoicing in her embarrassment, which the head of the downstairs department, as Mr. Paul described him, increased to an hysterical point by introducing her as “Miss Ellen Terry, the great English actress, who would now oblige with a song.”
The man had seen the name of the wonderful English actress on the bill-boards in front of Abbey’s Theatre, and he had been told that Miss Terrell was English, and confused the two names. As he passed Van Bibber he drew his waistcoat into shape with a proud shrug of his shoulders, and said, anxiously, “I gave your friend a good introduction, anyway, didn’t I?”
“You did, indeed,” Van Bibber answered. “You couldn’t have surprised her more; and it made a great hit with me, too.”
No one in the room listened to the singing. The gentlemen had crossed their legs comfortably and were expressing their regret to their partners that so much time was wasted in sandwiching songs between the waltzes, and the ladies were engaged in criticizing Celestine’s hair, which she wore in a bun. They thought that it might be English, but it certainly was not their idea of good style.
Celestine was conscious of the fact that her husband and Lester were hanging far over the balcony, holding their hands to their eyes as though they were opera-glasses, and exclaiming with admiration and delight; and when she had finished the first verse, they pretended to think that the song was over, and shouted, “Bravo, encore,” and applauded frantically, and then apparently overcome with confusion at their mistake, sank back entirely from sight.
“I think Miss Terrell’s an elegant singer,” Van Bibber’s partner said to him. “I seen her at the hotel frequently. She has such a pleasant way with her, quite lady-like. She’s the only actress I ever saw that has retained her timidity. She acts as though she were shy, don’t she?”
Van Bibber, who had spent a month on the Thames the summer before, with the Grahame Wests, surveyed Celestine with sudden interest, as though he had never seen her before until that moment, and agreed that she did look shy, one might almost say frightened to death. Mrs. West rushed through the second verse of the song, bowed breathlessly, and ran down the steps of the stage and back to the refuge of the balcony, while the audience applauded with perfunctory politeness and called clamorously to the musicians to “Let her go!”
“And that is the song,” commented Van Bibber, “that gets six encores and three calls every night on Broadway!”
Grahame West affected to be greatly chagrined at his wife’s failure to charm the chambermaids and porters with her little love-song, and when his turn came, he left them with alacrity, assuring them that they would now see the difference, as he would sing a song better suited to their level.
But the song that had charmed London and captured the unprotected coast town of New York, fell on heedless ears; and except the evil ones in the gallery, no one laughed and no one listened, and Lester declared with tears in his eyes that he would not go through such an ordeal for the receipts of an Actors’ Fund Benefit.