CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Still under the sweet influence of the church and the ceremony she got into her carriage.  But the mystery engendered in her soul seemed to fade and die in the sunshine; she could almost perceive it going out like a gentle, evanescent mist on the surface of a pool; she remembered that she would very likely meet Ulick at rehearsal, and could find out from him how her father would be likely to receive her visit.  Ulick seemed the solution of the difficulty—­only he might tell her that her father did not wish to see her.  She did not think he would say that, and the swing of her carriage and her thoughts went to the same rhythm until the carriage stopped before the stage door of Covent Garden Theatre.

As she ascended the stairs the swing door was pushed open.  The pilgrims’ song drifted through it, and she knew that they had begun the overture.  She crossed a stage in indescribable disorder.  Scene-shifters were calling to each other, and there was an incessant hammering in the flies.  “We might as well rehearse in a barn with the threshing-machine going all the while,” Evelyn thought.  She had to pass down a long passage to get to the stalls, and, finding herself in inky darkness, she grew nervous, though she knew well enough whither it led.  At last she perceived a little light, and, following it for a while, she happened to stumble into one of the boxes, and there she sat and indulged in angry comments on the negligence of English operatic management.

Through the grey twilight of the auditorium she could see heads and hands, and shapes of musical instruments.  The conductor’s grey hair was combed back over his high forehead.  He swung a lean body to the right and left.  Suddenly he sprang up in his seat, and, looking in the direction of certain instruments, he brought down his stick determinedly, and, having obtained the effect he desired, his beat swung leisurely for a while.... “’Cellos, crescendo,” he cried.  “Ah, mon Dieu! Ta-ra-la-la-la!  Now, gentlemen, number twenty-five, please.”

For a few bars the stick swung automatically, striking the harmonium as it descended. “’Cellos, a sudden piano on the accent, and then no accent whatever.  Ta-ra-ta-ta-ta!”

At the back of the stalls the poor Italian chorus had gathered like a herd, not daring to sit in seats, the hire of which for a few hours equalled their weekly wages.  But the English girls, whose musical tastes had compelled them from their suburban homes, had no such scruples.  Confident of the cleanliness of their skirts and hats, they sat in the best stalls, their scores on their knees.  One happened to look up as Evelyn entered.  She whispered to her neighbours, and immediately after the row was discussing Bayreuth and Evelyn Innes.