Delphi Complete Works of Booth Tarkington (Illustrated), page 565
Owen Gilbert, a lover of peace, knew by experience that the manager’s exasperation would increase before it subsided, and that at any moment it might irresponsibly include whoever remained within range. Already Miss Lebrun’s chair in the wings was vacant, left so by her thoughtfully imperceptible withdrawal from sight; the leading man was no longer visible in the box where he had lounged, and the playwright, without making a sound, rose from his chair and stole up the aisle to the concealing thicker darkness at the back of the auditorium. Here, in the semicircular vague avenue behind the seats, a big form loomed dimly, a large old hand took lodgment upon his shoulder amiably, a faintly alcoholic aroma found his nose, an unctuous chuckle sounded in his ear, and a husky voice whispered, “Got a new Patsy!”
“Who, Joe?”
“Hoyt; can’t you see?” old Joe Ord whispered. “He went for her four times before you got here; now he’s started it, he’ll be after her all day. She doesn’t know what to make of it; she’s Adler’s pet. Listen to George going for her again! I don’t mind his changing off from me; I’ve been his Patsy ever since we started on your play — rehearsals and everywhere else. You heard him going for me every chance he got at your house last evening. Beautiful woman, your mother, beautiful! George always has to have a Patsy. Most of ’em do; it relaxes their nerves. Monday morning rehearsals are always the devil anyhow. Lord! Listen to him!”
Hurley had scrambled up into a proscenium box and stepped from one of its chairs to the stage. He snatched up the manuscript of the play from the table, shook it violently, slapped it with his hand and implored Miss Hoyt to abide by its directions. Stung by a response of hers inaudible to the observers in the rear aisle, he compared the manuscript with her “sides”, the blue-covered pamphlet containing “Myra’s” speeches and cues, became infuriated by an error therein discovered — one that seemed to substantiate her defense — and shouted loudly for the playwright.
“Don’t say a word,” Ord whispered. “He can’t see you from there. Don’t give him any encouragement to change the Patsy to you. If you keep quiet, he’ll go on going for her.”
The prophecy was correct. Hurley swept the vacant seats with an indignant eye. “Not there!” he wailed. “When you don’t want an author you can’t step for tripping on ’em, and when you do want one he’s out buying a new cane. That’s where he’s gone, I’ll bet a hundred thousand dollars; gone to buy a cane!” He turned again to the three people with him on the stage. “Begin over. Go back to your entrance. Back to your entrance!” Then, as Miss Hoyt turned away from him, “No!” he stormed. “Not yours, Harry’s! You’re on. If we had to go back to your entrance I’d die right where I’m standing. I would! What’s more, I’d rather!”
For some ten minutes more, he continued to be irked by everything Miss Hoyt did; then, at the top of his irritation, turned upon the young comedian who played the scene with her, scathed him with sarcasm for a misplaced emphasis, and suddenly and astonishingly spoke in a quiet, mild voice. “Let it go till to-morrow. Take up the next scene, Pink.”
Thereupon he stepped back into the box, dropped to the floor, and, with a cigar in his mouth, walked up the aisle. Old Ord vanished knowingly; but Owen waited, and Hurley, peering through the dimness, saw him, came to him and took him by the arm. “Let’s get out a while. That girl! Drive a man crazy if he hoped for anything like what that ‘Myra’ part ought to have. It’s a beautiful little part, got all sorts of little subtleties and undercurrents. Butchery! Well, well — got a match?”
They went into the lobby, Hurley leaned against the wall and smoked in silence for a time; then he laughed gruntingly, as if stimulated by a thought that made him scornful. “Adler! Begged me to give her this part and now for the last two days been telegraphing me he wants her for a musical piece he’s putting on. Trying to get her away from me when he knows I haven’t got anybody else! Like him. Wants to send me Mabel Meadows instead. Not me!”
“You’ll keep Miss Hoyt of course?”
“If it’s a choice between her and that Meadows girl I certainly will; this one’s wood but the other’s tin.” He sighed, then went on despondently, “This Hoyt girl belongs in a musical piece; she certainly doesn’t know what to do with a part like ‘Myra’. Thinks archness and cuteness and jumping around and old trick side-glances to show she doesn’t mean what she’s saying — thinks all that old stock stuff from the shelf is the way to play such a part. Of course she hasn’t got anything else — so, my Lord! what else could you expect.”
“But I don’t think she’s so bad; in fact, I thought she was rather — —”
“Don’t talk flooey!” Hurley put his hand under his soft hat and rubbed his head, uptilted his cigar and stared meditatively at its ash. “I was thinking. You know that little girl what’s-her-name at your house last night, she wasn’t half bad. Really not half bad. Something about her a person’d remember. Got to thinking about her after I came back to the hotel; got something about her. If she only had a little training — —”
Owen stood open-mouthed. “You don’t mean you’d — —”
“Listen,” Hurley said. “Adler’ll never quit pestering me till he gets this Hoyt girl for his musical piece. He wants her right away and, for that matter, I’ve decided this morning I don’t want her at all. Got no charm and never will have. If we had somebody else we could try out in the part Pink could run over it with her this evening and we could let her read it for us to-morrow at the regular rehearsal. Now this little girl last night — how long would it take you to get hold of her?”
CHAPTER NINE
IN THE AUTUMNAL thick dusk of that week’s Friday evening, Owen drove to the shabby double house, twisted the handle of the instantly clanging doorbell, was bidden to enter and found Mrs. Mars alone and smiling in the gas-lighted room. She moved a frail hand toward him and he took it for a moment as he sat down beside her sofa. “Angel!” she said happily.
“Oh, dear me, no!”
She gave an upward glance at the thin ceiling, which sounded lightly with an irregular but quick movement of footsteps. “She’ll be down in a minute; you can be sure you’ll not be late. Clara’s helping her into that black velvet dress your darling mother had made over for her so wonderfully. The child thought she couldn’t wear less for such an immense occasion. Don’t mind my calling you an angel. What a week!”
“Yes,” he agreed, and seemed to include experiences of his own in the rueful thought. “A pretty fairly trying one.”
“That terrible man!” Mrs. Mars said. “When he told Lily she wouldn’t do and sent her home on Wednesday morning — after letting her think all day Tuesday that everything was settled! — I never heard such tragic sobbing — I thought the child would die. Oh, it was a black, black hour! If you hadn’t come after her and taken her back, that afternoon — —”
“Of course you know I couldn’t have done it,” the playwright reminded her, “unless he’d agreed to it. If he hadn’t finally consented — —”
“Oh, no,” Mrs. Mars interrupted, persisting in her illusion. “I kept telling Lily all the time I knew you’d overrule him. Of course I understood there’d be argument — —”
“If it could be called that!” Owen said, with a slight shiver of reminiscence. “He did more than dismiss Lily, you know; a little while after he sent her home, he dismissed the whole rehearsal, dismissed the company and dismissed my play, too!” He laughed. “Three hours later, after he’d had his lunch and worn all the rest of us out and had us in utter despair, he was just as enthusiastic as ever, only he didn’t want to show it and had to pretend to be talked into going on with the play and with Lily, too.”
“Angel!” she said again. “No, you can’t stop me! Do you know what we’ve dared to do at last? I’m actually a borrower from a bank — Dr. Gordon kindly arranged it for me — and I’m afraid poor Lily won’t be able to spend much out of her salary when it commences! Clara’s out of Vance’s for good, thank heaven, and she’s going to get a rest even from me, because a trained nurse’ll be here.” From overhead there came the sound of a sharp fit of coughing, and Mrs. Mars winced but looked all the more gratefully at the young man by her side. “She’ll get over that, with rest, and that’s one more thing we owe to your giving Lily her start.”
“But I didn’t,” he said feebly, knowing the uselessness of his protest. To no effect he had already insistently disclaimed her praise of him, and what his conscience urged him to add now was a warning. Undeniably Lily had become an actress, an actress in rehearsal and with an engagement; but she certainly hadn’t either been given or achieved a “start” that warranted this burning of ships behind her. Clara’s recovery, a nurse’s pay and a note in the bank oughtn’t to depend upon such precariously uncertain quantities as George Hurley, Lily herself and the success of a play. As for this one item of peril alone, the chances against any play’s success were two or three to one, never to be counted upon, and people oughtn’t to be allowed to stake their lives on such hazards. He wanted to say this to the stricken lady upon the sofa; but with the permanent motionlessness of her long figure before him he was unable, and held his peace.
“I’ll try not to make my gratitude a burden to you,” she said;— “especially as I’ve got to increase it. You’re going to leave with the rest of them to-morrow night, aren’t you, and stay with the company all the time from now on?”
“Yes, until after ‘Catalpa House’ opens in New York. I’m going back there with them now for the last week of rehearsal; then we have a terrible little period of half-week engagements and ‘one-night-stands’ to test the play upon audiences and make alterations before the New York opening. At least that’s the program so far as I know it; with Mr. Hurley anything’s subject to change.”
She was thoughtful. “It’s everything to me that you’re going to be with them — near her. She’ll need guidance, and I know you’ll give it. She’s so young, and she’s subject to change, too, Owen. Something different was born in her; it isn’t just because I was her mother that I saw she wasn’t like other people, even in her childhood. The more you know her, the more perplexing you’ll think her, I foresee, and there’ll be times when she’ll seem to you hopelessly inexplicable. Sometimes she’ll appear to be an experienced, mature woman of penetrating intelligence, and within half an hour you might think her somewhere between nine and thirteen; she’s not to be counted upon in mind or mood. But always there’s a precious essence — it may need protection — —”
Rapid feet were heard upon the stairway; Mrs. Mars gave Owen a gentle glance that appealed to him to understand everything, and Lily came into the room. She was so vivid — so almost glitteringly alive, as the playwright thought — that she seemed to freshen the place and its occupants and to brighten the gas-light. “Only to think!” she said softly. “Already I’ve begun to keep great men waiting!”
She came to her mother; but Mrs. Mars continued to look at Owen. “I may not see you again,” she said. “I know you aren’t afraid to write sentimentally sometimes; but of course I understand you’re going to hate taking part in a sentimental scene yourself.” He stood close beside her; she took his hand and placed it upon Lily’s. “I trust her to you. You’ll be an older brother to her, won’t you?” She laughed faintly, to minimize the size of her request and to mitigate the romanticism of her gesture. “Or at least a young uncle,” she added, but capped this with an almost ceremonial whisper, “I place her in your hands.”
The young man’s inner objection to feeling and making an appropriately emotional response, though he did both feel and make it, was less disturbing to him than the repetition of a thought sharpened in portent since his interview with the agitated schoolteacher, Reller: a guardianship of Lily Mars promised the guardian somewhat intricate responsibilities. Driving away from the double house with her, in the dim enclosure of Mrs. Gilbert’s brougham, he referred dryly to a matter pertinent in this connection.
“When I got home from rehearsal this evening I found that a letter had been left at the door for me by the writer of it, in person. From its tone I think I’m to be congratulated for not being there to receive it, myself. He finds me guilty of your going on the stage and intends to make my character known to my fellow-citizens.”
“That idiot!” she said petulantly. “I thought I was through with him and his crazy nonsense! I told him weeks ago that if he didn’t stop bothering me I’d absolutely have to appeal to his family. I never did anything to get him into such a horrible state; I didn’t even start him.”
“No?” Owen said with some grimness. “You didn’t even start him?”
“Not in the slightest!” She spoke in a grieved tone. “I just happened to go in there, a year ago, because the shoes in the window were marked lower prices than they were at other shops. I tried on a high pair for winter that I needed, and he waited on me. I didn’t even know he was the proprietor. Of course I wanted him to like me, because I thought maybe he’d give me a better pair for the same money than he would if he didn’t; but that was absolutely all I did. He kept trying on more and more pairs till there weren’t any left in the place, and he acted so queerly I was almost frightened. A few days afterwards he sent me three pairs of party slippers, two with rhinestone buckles, as a present, and kept sending more and more shoes and slippers, and even silk stockings, that all had to be returned of course, and he made his family change to our church and would insist on walking home with me, after, and got his poor wife so upset it got to be horribly embarrassing, and I simply didn’t have any way to stop it until I thought of telling him if he didn’t I’d appeal to her. To think of his having the impertinence to write you a — —”
“No,” Owen said. “The letter wasn’t from Mr. Lang.”
“No?” She caught her breath audibly. “If it was from that Wilfred Thomas — —”
“No; it was from a Mr. Reller.”
“Oh, that old goose,” Lily said, and laughed nervously. “He’s been making himself as annoying as he could — coming to the house and fussing and lurking outside — he’s been worse than that silly child, Charlie Bright — all just to keep me from going away! Thank heaven, they won’t be able to bother me any more after to-morrow night, none of ’em! Only to-morrow night!” Abruptly she struck his shoulder an ecstatic smart blow with a small, strong fist. “Oh! Oh! Oh! I’ll be on the way to rehearse in New York! And you’ll be there — and everybody! Oh, at last, at last! Oh, how I love this world, this divine world! Don’t you see what a heavenly romance I’m living in?”
“Because to-morrow midnight we pile into a smoky, jolty train — —”
“Because of every minute!” she cried. “Because of now! Because I’m driving with you in this shiny, private coupé to the theatre, to sit in a box — good heavens! just to think of sitting in a box, and all of it for the two of us because we’re stage people! I never sat in a box before in my life, and mostly in the balcony except when your mother’s taken me to matinées sometimes. Here I am, with you; I’m an actress and you’re a playwright. I am! I’m a professional actress, as I always knew I would be; but I seemed to be waiting forever and ever. The only time I ever doubted it was Wednesday when he got furious because of those gestures and did that awful thing to me; but I knew the instant you came in the house that it had been just a bad dream. Before you said a word I knew you’d come to take me back.” She seized his hand, pressed it rapturously to her cheek and released it as if she playfully flung it back to him. “There! How bold I am to be so familiar with a playwright, a great man who lives apart with managers and directors, high above us poor actors and actresses!”
She chattered on, childlike in the joy she found in calling herself an actress, and so liberal in giving herself this pleasure that he marvelled she had not already worn it out. In their box next to the curtained stage, he perceived that she played a variation upon the theme. She stood for a moment close to the red velvet rail, looking about familiarly; then with slow grace took her seat and said, loudly enough to be heard by people in the chairs just below, “I’m afraid all the poor dears must be no end tired after our long rehearsal to-day.”
Owen recognized “no end” as a frequent part of the vocabulary of Eugene Allan, and “poor dears” as a similar unconscious borrowing from Miss Hedrington, and at the same time observed that a great part of the rather sparse audience looked at Lily. This was natural, with the opposite box vacant and the romantic Venetians in high color upon the curtain no strangers, these dozen years, to the theatre-goers; but Lily continued to hold the general attention, which as a rule would have distributed itself variously after a first glance or two. She did nothing to encourage such a dispersal; on the contrary, with an appearance of aristocratic unconsciousness and not for an instant seeming to pose, she let her light wrap slide away from a pretty shoulder, looked slowly and estimatingly over the house and leaned as conspicuously as confidentially toward Owen to whisper behind her hand, “Less than a thousand dollars, I’ll bet; Mr. Hurley’ll be furious!” Then, turning again to the house and seeing someone she knew, she played a little scene of recognition, appearing incredulous at first, then doubtful, with eyebrows raised and lips parted, and finally, becoming certain, nodding delightedly as a climax. She did more for this friend; she made a gesture of her pretty head toward the curtain, then nodded to him again quickly and reassuringly, making the message clear: “Don’t be impatient; they’re going to begin soon. I know, you see!”
Owen watched her and marvelled. He comprehended that she was playing at being an actress; that in fact she was acting the part of an actress — she was acting an actress sitting in a box. But that was what she actually was! She was an actress, and she was an actress sitting in a box; then what in the world made her want to act an actress sitting in a box? Why should she play she was what she was? Moreover, old Ord, always the actor, would have done the same thing in his own way, and, for that matter, so would Eugene Allan, though with a much less obviously picturesque technique. “These people!” the playwright said to himself, in despair of ever understanding them completely. Then he laughed at himself for not remembering that all the world’s a stage. Had he never seen artists not of the theatre who wore their calling in their hair as well as in their manners? Had he never seen senators being senatorial out of Washington? Had he never met a clergyman somewhat emphatically gracious in display of the cloth on weekdays?
