Winding Paths | Page 8

long, wearisome drudgery, she will probably take it. Hal will score
off her own bat, or not at all. Lorraine will only care about gaining her
end."
Anyhow the cross-roads came, and Hal, the stronger, was not there. As
a matter of fact, for some little time the two had not seen much of each
other. Lorraine was touring in the provinces, and rarely had time to
come to London. Hal was tied by her work, and could not spare the
time to go to Lorraine.
There was for a little while a cessation of intercourse. Neither was the
least bit less fond, but circumstances kept them apart, and they could
only wait until opportunity brought them together again. Both were too
busy for lengthy correspondence, and only wrote short letters
occasionally, just to assure each other the friendship held firm, and
absence made no real difference.
Then Hal went off to America, and while she was away Lorraine came
to her cross-roads.
It is hardly necessary to review in detail what her life had been since

she joined the theatrical profession. It is mostly hard work and
disillusion and disappointment for all in the beginning, and only a very
small percentage ever win through to the forefront.
But for Lorraine, on the top of all the rest, was a mercenary,
unscrupulous, intriguing mother, who added tenfold to what must
inevitably have been a heavy burden and strain - a mother who taxed
her utmost powers of endurance, and brought her shame as well as
endless worry; and yet to whom, let it be noted down now, to her
everlasting credit, no matter in what other way she may have erred, she
never turned a deaf ear nor treated with the smallest unkindness.
It would be impossible to gauge just what Lorraine had to go through in
her first few years on the stage. She seemed to make no headway at all,
and at the end of the third year she felt herself as far as ever from
getting her chance.
That she was brilliantly clever and brilliantly attractive had not so far
weighed the balance to her side. There were many others also clever
and attractive. She felt she had practically everything except the one
thing needed - influence.
Thus her spirits were at a very low ebb. She was still touring the
provinces, and heartily sick of all the discomfort involved. Dingy
lodgings, hurried train journeys, much bickering and jealousy in the
company with which she was acting, and a great deal of domestic
worry over that handsome, extravagant mother, who had once taken her,
in company with the so-called uncle, to the select seminary of the
Misses Walton.
How her mother managed to live and dress as if she were rich had
puzzled Lorraine many times in those days; but when she left the
shelter of those narrow, restricting walls, where windows were
whitewashed so that even boys might not be seen passing by, she learnt
many things all too quickly.
She learnt something about the uncles too. One of them was at great
pains to try and teach her, but with hideous shapes and suggestions

trying to crowd her mind, the thought of Hal's freshness still acted as a
sort of protection and kept her untainted.
A little later, after she had commenced to earn a salary, she found that
directly the family purse was empty, and creditors objectionably
insistent, she herself had to come to the rescue.
There were some miserable days then. It was useless to upbraid her
mother. She always posed as the injured one, and could not see that in
robbing her child of a real home she was strewing her path with
dangers as well, by placing her in an ambiguous, comfortless position,
from which any relief seemed worth while.
Then at last came the welcome news that Mrs. Vivian had procured a
post as lady-housekeeper to a rich stockbroker in Kensington, who had
also a large interest in a West-end theatre.
Lorraine read the glowing terms in which her mother described her new
home and employer with a deep sense of relief, seeing in the new
venture a probable escape for herself from those relentless demands
upon her own scanty purse. A month later came the paragraph, in a
voluminous epistle:
"Mr. Raynor says you are to make his house your home whenever you
are free. He insists upon giving you a floor all to yourself, like a little
flat, where you can receive your friends undisturbed, and feel you have
a little home of your own. I am quite certain also that he will try to help
you in your career through his interest in the Greenway Theatre."
If Lorraine wondered at all concerning this unknown man's interest in
her welfare