Unfortunately, the afternoon rehearsal had not gone well, either; whether it was because Nellie was upset or simply inattentive, she had missed even more cues and bungled even more lines than she had during the matinee and evening performances on Sunday, and the director had taken her aside for a firm talk afterward. Nellie knew that the man had no animosity toward her; it was simply his job to remind her that there was a particularly promising understudy who would be delighted to take her place if she found she could no longer play the role she was being paid-and paid very handsomely-to perform. She could feel the ax hanging over her head by the slenderest of threads, and it frightened her more than she could say. Another missed cue, another bungled line, and she was out, as quick and easy as a snap of the fingers. One night, a successful musical comedy star; the next, an out-of-work actress.
With this ominous black cloud looming on her professional horizon, Nellie said little as she ate her supper-a very good mock turtle soup, curried lobster, roast lamb, and vegetables. She didn’t have to say much, for Kate had plenty to tell her about her visits to Mrs. Conway and to Helen Rossetti. Nellie wasn’t surprised that Kate was making such an effort to find Lottie, for she knew her to be sympathetic, especially when it came to women who were in some sort of difficulty. She was a little surprised, though, to hear that Lord Sheridan had also involved himself in the case, to the extent of obtaining a lawyer to represent Adam Gould and the two men arrested with him, and that he had reason to hope that they might be acquitted of the bomb-making charge.
“That would be wonderful!” Nellie exclaimed. “Now, if we could only find Lottie.” She fell silent. Her feelings about Lottie, now, were definitely mixed. On the one hand, they were still friends, and she wanted to help; on the other-
Across the table, Kate was looking at her with concern. “You don’t seem yourself tonight, Nellie,” she said quietly. “Is there something wrong? Apart from Lottie’s disappearance, I mean.”
“No, nothing,” Nellie said. She looked down at her plate, then up again, meeting Kate’s eyes. “Actually, there is,” she blurted out, and to her surprise, she found herself confessing the whole story. The Saturday night she and Jack London had spent together. The dinner at the Carleton and the excursion afterward to Earl’s Court. And then the brutal lovemaking and waking on Sunday morning to his terse note, which had made her feel used and tawdry.
Kate stared at her, eyes wide. “You don’t mean to say that the man forced you!” she exclaimed in horror.
“Yes,” Nellie said, in a low voice, “although it might be my fault.” She bit her lip. “That’s what makes me feel so awful, Kate! To think that I brought it on myself.”
“Brought it on yourself?” Kate asked, frowning.
“I drank too much champagne,” Nellie said guiltily, “and when we arrived at my house and he asked to come in, I let him. I did not intend-” She closed her eyes and swallowed painfully. “I didn’t mean for anything to happen, honestly, Kate. I thought perhaps we’d have a kiss or two and a romantic cuddle, and I confess I was looking forward to it. But then he-” She shook her head. “I tried to say no, but maybe… maybe I didn’t say it hard enough. Maybe I should have-”
“That’s nonsense,” Kate said decidedly. “A kiss is not meant to be an invitation to-” She broke off. “If you made it clear that you wanted nothing more than a kiss or two, Nellie, the man was honor-bound to respect your wishes, whatever his own might have been.”
“I wanted… I wanted… Oh, Kate, I can’t be sure what I wanted!” Nellie exclaimed. “But surely it wasn’t that. And then to wake up and find that note the next morning-” She bit her lip, the tears welling up in her eyes. Nellie had enough experience of the world to know that many women suffered far worse at the hands of men than the loss of their virtue. She had often slept in close quarters with adults and was not naive about what went on in a woman’s bed when a man got into it. But she had read too many romantic novels and cherished too many romantic dreams, and she felt humiliated at the recollection of the cruel reality. And complicating her feelings (although she didn’t want to share this with Kate) was the thought that Jack London was far more interested in Lottie than in her. Mate woman, he had called her, as if they shared some sort of mystical romantic connection, even though he’d no more than laid eyes on her when she came down that ladder.
“What a dreadful experience,” Kate said, reaching across the table and taking Nellie’s hand. “I am so sorry, so very sorry, that it happened. And that I did not warn you. Perhaps if you had known-”
“Known what?” Nellie asked, startled.
“That Jack London is married,” Kate said, her eyes full of compassion. “His wife Bess is in California, with their little girl. I learned this at the party his publisher gave for him when he arrived in London.”
For a long moment, Nellie stared at her, the words echoing over and over again in her mind. Married married married married. Then, in spite of the fact that they were seated in a public dining room, she burst into tears, hot and harsh with bitter self-recrimination.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
“When did you love me?” she whispered.
“From the first, the very first, the first moment I laid eyes on you. I was mad for love of you then, and in all the time that has passed since then I have only grown the madder. I am maddest, now, dear. I am almost a lunatic, my head is so turned with joy.”
Jack London,
Martin Edin
It was nearly eleven on Tuesday morning when Jack London donned his slum costume and locked the door of his room on his typewriter and pile of manuscript pages. His room might be small and lack important amenties, but he could lock the door and know it would not be disturbed. Putting the key in his pocket, he went down the private stair and into the alley at the back of the garden, his Brownie in a canvas bag slung over his shoulder. The camera had cost him all of two dollars in New York City, and the film was cheap enough, twenty cents for six exposures. He planned to take pictures for his book-a great many pictures, since he was an amateur and couldn’t know how the photographs would turn out until he had them developed back in America.
But it wasn’t a very nice day for taking photographs. The gray fog that drifted through the streets was streaked with yellow, and the air had a sharply sulphurous smell. The smell of the pit, London thought dourly, glancing with loathing at the grim, smoke-smudged brick buildings that rose on either side of the street. He had spent the morning reading about that poisonous smoke in a report he had obtained from the Socialists. The curator at Kew Gardens, a fellow named Sir William Thistelton-Dyer, had studied smoke deposits on vegetation, concluding that each week no fewer than six tons of soot and tarry hydrocarbons fell out of the sky onto every quarter of every square mile in and around the City.
Six tons! It was no wonder, London thought, trudging in the direction of the East India docks, that the children were growing up into rotten adults, without virility or stamina or any energy for work. The Abyss was a huge, smoldering, sulphurous fire that smoked the juices of joy and spirit out of everyone, as if they were sides of beef hung to cure in some country smokehouse. Why, not a soul had any look of pleasure or delight or spontaneity or-
His eye was caught by a slender figure sauntering up the street ahead of him, a young gypsy woman in a gay red shawl, with a red flounce on her ragged dress and a red bandana tied over the mop of thick dark hair that swung loosely around her shoulders. He could not see her face, but her hips had a provocative sway and she carried herself with a confident defiance that made her stand out like a Romany princess among the weary multitudes on the dirty, crowded street. Now, there was a woman whose vital juices had not yet been smoked out of her, London thought with a sense of surprised pleasure, and when she turned into an eating-house, he went in after her.