on saturday gurdy brought down three young men who hadn’t met margot. he busily noted the chemistry of passion as two of his friends became maniacal by sunday morning. against the worn composure of lady ilden, the girl had the value of a gem on dim velvet. the third young man wanted to talk irish politics to the englishwoman who evaded him and retired to write a letter in her bedroom above the lawn.
she wrote to her husband at malta: “i had always thought that margot’s success in london was due to her exotic quality. but she seems quite as successful on her native heath. this leads me to the general platitude that boys are the same the world over. i am a success here, too. many callers, mostly female, in huge motor cars. the american woman seems to consider frocks a substitute for manners and conversation. mark is anxious that margot should marry gurdy bernamer and gurdy is plainly willing. it would be suitable enough. the boy has smart friends[193] and will inherit ￡10,000 from old mr. carlson. margot can float herself in local society no doubt. she is now playing tennis with two young brokers and a 22 year old journalist whose father owns half of some state. i have mailed you a strange work, ‘jurgen’ by some unheard of person. do not let any of the more moral midshipmen read it.” she stopped, seeing gurdy saunter across the lawn toward the beach and pursued him to where he curled on the sand. “you frighten me,” she said, taking her eyes from the scar that showed its upper reach above his bathshirt, “you lie about two thirds naked in this sun and then tell me it’s a cool day.—but i want to be documented in american fiction. i’ve read five novels since wednesday. it seems to be established that all your millionaires are conscious villains and all your poor are martyrs except a select group known as gangsters. that’s thrilling when the reviewers so loudly insist that your authors flatter the rich.”
“some of them do,” gurdy said, lifting his legs in the hot air.
in a bathsuit he lost his civilized seeming, was heroic, sprawled on the sand. olive told him: “you’re one of those victims of modernity, old son. you belong to thirteen forty. green tights and a dark tunic trimmed with white fur. legs are legs, aren’t they?”
[194]“heredity’s funny,” he said, “i look exactly like my father.”
“margot’s uncle eddie? she talks of him a good deal and of your mother. i was rather afraid her metropolitan airs and graces would shock your people but she seems to have had a jolly time down there—new jersey’s down from here, isn’t it? she enjoyed herself.—metropolitan airs and graces!—that’s a quotation from something. sounds like the manchester guardian.—should i like your people?”
“you might. grandfather’s an atheist. dad’s a good deal of a cynic. they’re awfully nice small town people. my sisters all wish they were movie stars and my kid brothers think that a fighting marine is the greatest work of god.”
“and margot says they all think you’re the last and best incarnation of siegfried. i should like to see them.”
gurdy shuddered. grandfather walling and mrs. bernamer held lady ilden responsible for the ruin of margot as a relative. he imagined her artifice and her ease faced by the horrified family—a group of frightened colts stumbling off from a strange farmhand. he poured sand over his arm and lied, “you’d scare them. mark’s always talked about you as though you were the encyclop?dia brittanica on two legs. you might be interested, though.—i say, mark’s[195] decided that he will produce ‘todgers intrudes.’ thinks he’ll have cosmo rand play the earl. can rand really act?”
“oh,—well enough for that sort of tosh. he’s handsome and he has a pleasant voice. but it’s rather silly of mark to force such a poor play on the public because margot wants ronny dufford out of debt. but he’s so intoxicated with margot just now that he’d do murders for her. why didn’t he come down for the week-end?”
gurdy got up and yawned, “oh, his treasurer’s wife ran off with a man last wednesday—while he was down here. he’s trying to patch it up.—you know, he isn’t at all cynical, lady ilden. he’s very easily upset by things like that.”
“i suppose he likes his treasurer? then why shouldn’t he be upset? the treasurer can’t be enjoying the affair.—i wonder if you appreciate mark’s noble strain, gurdy? i think i must send you a copy of the letter he wrote me after he’d packed you off to school. i showed it to my husband who has all the susceptibility of the nelson monument and he almost shed tears. it took something more than mere snobbery or a desire for your future gratitude to make mark send you away. it horribly hurt him. if paternal affection’s a disease the man’s a walking hospital!—there’s the luncheon bell.”
[196]gurdy ran into the water and furiously swam. unless lady ilden was making amiable phrases margot had lied to her about the family at fayettesville. it was natural that she should tell mark how she’d enjoyed the farm. that was prudent kindness, no worse than his own gratitudes when mark gave him sapphire scarf-pins and fresh silver cigarette cases that he didn’t need or want. but margot shouldn’t lie to lady ilden. gurdy avoided the next week-end and went to fayettesville where his family worried because mark was losing money through the actors’ strike.
“and he’ll need all he can lay hands on with margot to look after,” said mrs. bernamer, rocking her weight in a chair on the veranda, “it ain’t sensible for him to—to bow down and worship that child like he does. oh, she’s pretty enough!”
“get out,” bernamer commented, “he’d be foolish about her if she’d got to wear spectacles and was bowlegged. gimme a cigarette, gurd. how near’s the walling finished?”
“two thirds, dad.—grandfather, you’ll have to come up and sit in a box the opening night.”
the beautiful old man blinked and drawled, “i wouldn’t go up to n’york to see daniel bandmann play ‘hamlet’—if he was alive. how’s old mr. carlson get on?”
[197]gurdy often found the contrast between his grandfather and carlson diverting. the dying manager, a cynic, wanted heaven in all the decorations of the apocalypse. the old peasant lazily insisted that death would end him. he got some hidden pleasure from the thought of utter passage. gurdy found this content stupendous. the farmer had never been two hundred miles from his dull acreage and yet was ready to be done with his known universe while carlson wanted eternity. he cackled when the striking actors made peace and ordered wreaths sent to the more stubborn managers. his bitter tongue rattled.
“why don’t more writers write for the theatre, gurdy? ever been in billy loeffler’s office? five thousand bootlickers and hussies squatted all over the place. i sent that fellow moody that wrote the ‘great divide’ to see loeffler. had to set in the office with a bunch of song carpenters from tin pan alley and a couple of tarts while loeffler was prob’ly talkin’ to some old souse he’d knew in salt lake city. and then loeffler looks at the play and asks is there a soobrette part in it for some tomtit his brother was keepin’! a writer’s got a thin skin, ain’t he? here mark gets mad because this writer mencken says managers are a bunch of hogs. well, ain’t they? four or five ain’t. sure, they’re hogs. human[198] beings. hogs. same as the rest of mankind. good thing christ died to save us.” he contemplated redemption through the cigarette smoke. his irish nurse crossed herself in a corner. carlson went on, “say, that feller russell mark’s got drillin’ that english comedy is all right. was in to see me, yesterday. good head. knows his job. says this rand pinhead is raisin’ cain at rehearsals. better drop in there and see what goes on. mark’s so busy with that cuban play he ain’t got time.”
rehearsals of “todgers intrudes” went on at a small theatre below forty second street. gurdy drifted into the warm place and watched the director, russell, working. on the bare stage five people progressed from point to point of the tepid comedy. russell, a stooped, bald man of thirty-five, sat near the orchestra pit. gurdy had watched the rehearsal ten minutes before russell spoke. “don’t cross, there, miss marryatt. stand still.” then, “still, please, mr. rand.” on the stage cosmo rand gave the director a stare, shrugged and strolled toward the cockney comedian, the intrusive todgers of the plot. russell said nothing until a long speech finished, then, “you’re all rushing about like cooties. go back to miss marryatt’s entrance and take all your lines just as you stand after she’s sat down. dora isn’t pronounced durrer, mr. hughes.”[199] gurdy was thinking of the long patience needed in this trade when russell spoke sharply, “mr. rand, will you please stand still!”
“my god,” said rand, “must i keep telling you that i played this part in—”
“will you be so good as to stand still?”
rand continued his lines. gurdy walked down and slipped into a chair beside the director, aware that the players stiffened as soon as they saw mark’s nephew. the handsome miss marryatt began to act. cosmo rand sent out his speeches with a pleasant briskness. russell murmured, “glad you happened in, bernamer. this was getting beyond me. school children,” and the act ended.
“three o’clock, please,” said the director. the small company trickled out of the theatre. russell lit his pipe and stretched, grinning. “rand’s very capable and a nice fellow enough but he’s difficult. fine looking, isn’t he? come to lunch with me.”
it was startling to be taken into an engineer’s club for the meal. russell explained, “i was an engineer. it’s not so different from stage directing. you sometimes get very much the same material. i’ve often wanted some dynamite or a pickax at rehearsals. nice that you floated in just now. i’ve a curiosity about this piece. does mr. walling see money in it? i don’t.”
[200]“he thinks it may go,” said gurdy.
“it won’t. it’s sewed up in a crape. if you had a young john drew and a couple of raving beauties playing it might run six weeks. and dufford hasn’t any standing among the cerebrals. we might try to brighten the thing with some references to the nourritures terrestres or freud. it’s a moron. prenatal influence. mr. walling tells me we’re to open in washington, too. my jinx! i went down there to offer up my life for the country and got stuck in the q.m.c. supervising crates of tomatoes. did you ever argue with a wholesale grocer about crates? it’s worse than staging a revue.”
“that’s a dreadful thing to say!”
russell broke a roll in his pointed fingers and shook his head. “no.... the revue’s a very high form of comedy when it’s handled right. it gets clean away with common sense, for one thing. and it hasn’t a plot. i hate plots unless they’re good plots. that’s why this miserable ‘todgers’ thing affects me so badly. i hoped mr. walling would let me help him with ‘captain salvador.’ but it’s his baby.”
“is rand giving you as much trouble as that every day?”
“trouble? my dear man, you’ve never rehearsed a woman star who had ideas about her art! rand’s merely rather annoying, not troublesome.[201] he’s got no brains so his idea is to imitate the man who played the part in london. and he’s never learned how to show all his looks, either. but very few americans know how.”
gurdy liked the director and spent several afternoons at the rehearsals. cosmo rand fretted him. the slight man was obdurate. he raced about the stage until russell checked him. his legs, sheathed always in grey tweed, seemed fluid. the leading woman had an attack of tonsilitis and halted proceedings. it was during this lapse that gurdy encountered cosmo rand in a hotel lounge and nodded. the actor stopped him, deferentially, “i say, i’m afraid poor russell’s sick to death of me. i’m giving him a bit of trouble.” gurdy found no answer. the actor fooled with his grey hat, rubbed his vivid nails on a cuff, corrected his moustache and said, “the fact is—i do most sincerely think that russell’s wrong to drop all the english stage directions. couldn’t you—suggest that mr. walling drop in to watch sometime when miss marryatt’s better and we’re rehearsing again?”
his soft, round bronze eyes were anxious. he spoke timidly, the rosy fingernails in a row on his lower lip. he was something frail and graceful, a figure from a journal of fashions. gurdy wondered whether cora boyle ever assaulted her poor mate and smiled.
[202]“mr. walling has a good deal of confidence in russell’s judgment, mr. rand. but i’ll speak to him if you like.”
“i’d be most awf’ly grateful if you would, mr. bernamer. the play’s such a jolly thing and one would like to see it do well. ronny dufford’s rather a dear friend and—so very broke, you know?”
the rosy, trim creature seemed truly worried. meeting russell at the 45th street office the next day, gurdy told him that rand’s heart was breaking. the director grimaced, patting his bald forehead.
“the little tyke’s worrying for fear he won’t get good notices. and if this rubbish should fluke into a success he’ll be made into a star. have you ever observed the passion of the american public for second rate acting? especially if it happens to have a slight foreign accent? modjeska, bandmann, nazimova?—well, miss marryatt’s all right again. we’ll rehearse some more tomorrow. come and look on.”
mark had gone to fayettesville for a few days. gurdy attended the morning rehearsal of “todgers intrudes.” cosmo rand trotted about the stage determinedly and russell turned on gurdy with a groan of, “this is beyond me. i’m getting ready to do murder. he’s throwing the[203] whole thing out of key. i shall have to get your uncle to squash him.”
“i’m beginning to see why mr. carlson loathes actors so,” gurdy whispered.
“oh, holy moses,” the director mourned, “look at him!—slower, please, mr. rand!—it’ll be awkward if i get mr. walling to squash him, bernamer. you never can tell how these walking egoisms will break out. he may run about town saying that mr. walling’s oppressing him cruelly.—my god, he’ll be crawling up the scene in a minute!”
on the stage, rand had excited himself to a circular movement about a large divan in the centre. he had somehow the look of a single racer coming home ahead of the other runners. the men and women standing still suggested a sparse audience for this athletic feat. it was ludicrous. worse, mark would never scold cora boyle’s husband. gurdy took a resolve. margot had made mark waste time with this silly play. she had proposed rand for the part. she should help. he hurried to the station and reached the cottage in mid afternoon. a warm october wind made the fir trees whistle. he found margot in a silk sweater of dull rose putting a tennis ball about the dry lawn. she smiled, tilting the golfstick across a shoulder,[204] and swayed her slim body back to look up at gurdy.
“dad just telephoned from the farm, old son. wanted to know if you were here. it was something about ‘captain salvador’.”
“oh, yes. i was hunting a tom tom for the voodoo scene. he doesn’t like the one they’re using. doesn’t thud loudly enough.—can i talk to you about ‘todgers intrudes’ without having a fight?”
“of course you can.”
“all right. it’s going very badly. mr. russell, the director, has a free for all row with mr. rand every day. rand acts like the last of a ballet. he’s putting everything back. he’s out of the picture all the time. word of honour, margot, the play hasn’t nine lives. it’s thin. it’ll take a lot of work to make it go. russell’s one of the best directors going and he knows what he’s doing. rand simply runs all over the stage like that clown at the hippodrome.”
“that’s rather the way it was played in london. of course, that’s no excuse. have dad scold rand.”
“be pretty awkward for mark—scolding cora boyle’s husband.”
margot said, “what utter tosh!”
“no, it’s not. mark’s old fashioned—sensitive about things like that. and rand might[205] take it as spite. cora boyle’s back from california, russell tells me. she’s a fearful liar. if she hears that mark jumped on her husband she’ll tell all her friends that mark’s simply a swine. you don’t know how gossip travels and gets—distorted. once last may mark said that he didn’t like a gown that some woman was wearing in a play we’d been to the night before. he said that at lunch in the claridge. next day the woman’s husband came into the office and wanted to thrash mark. by the time the story got to him it had swelled up like a balloon. this fellow had got it that mark said his wife looked like a streetwalker and acted like one.—it’s all very awkward. couldn’t you—”
“oh, look here! because i suggested cossy rand for the earl i’m not going to drynurse him!—i think you’re frightfully hypersensitive about his being married to cora boyle. they’re hardly ever together. it’s taking a theatrical menage as seriously as—”
“oh, for heaven’s sake,” gurdy broke in, watching the red streaks mount her face, “i’m sorry! let’s drop it. you know rand. i thought you might write him a line and tell him to calm down. that was all. mark’s working himself sick over ‘captain salvador’ and that’s an important production. every one’s interested in it. some of the critics have read it and think[206] it’s the best american play in years. after all, you got mark into this ‘todgers’ thing. he’s doing it to please you. he’ll worry if he has to—”
margot laughed, whipped the ball away neatly with one foot and tossed her hair back. she said, “i’ll write rand, of course. of course i don’t want ‘todgers’ to get a black eye. i’ll send him a note and tell him to carry on. perhaps he’s rather opinionated. where’s he stopping?”
“the knickerbocker.”
she yawned, “i’ll write him, then. staying for dinner?” she turned and roamed off in her swaying fashion. directly, a motor swung about the house. one of the neighbours had come to take the girl driving. she waved to gurdy and disappeared. he resented the waving of the brown hand. it was impossible not to resent her kind mentions of his mother and sisters before lady ilden and mark.
he resented, too, the airy changes from tart rage to suavity. their talks became a tedious, uncertain duet with one performer unwilling. gurdy strolled into the cottage and olive ilden looked up from a novel.
“what have you been quarrelling with margot about?” she asked.
“not quarrelling.”
“nonsense. i could see you through the[207] doors. you were quarrelling and she began it. tell me.”
she closed the book and regarded him, not smiling, from her wicker chair. there was an odd alarm in her eyes under which hollows showed. the negligent trail of her black gown was dusted with cigarette ash. gurdy stared, upset.
“we weren’t quarrelling. cosmo rand’s making an ass of himself at the rehearsals. she rather planted him on mark. mark’s so sensitive about cora boyle that russell—the man who’s rehearsing ‘todgers’—and i don’t want to worry mark with the mess. i wanted margot to write rand a note and tell him to buck up. he’s holding the rehearsals back. here it’s almost the first of november. mark’s got a theatre in washington for a couple of weeks from now and the play isn’t half ready.”
olive tapped a cigarette holder on the walnut, dutch table and looked at the floor. then she raised her eyes and smiled, spoke without artifice.
“i shan’t let her write to rand, gurdy. she’s too much interested in him. i don’t like it. she cabled him to come over here as soon as she’d bullied mark into buying the rights to ‘todgers intrudes.’ the little idiot thinks him a great actor. i’m sure i don’t know why. i don’t at all like this. i only found it out yesterday.[208] mark wouldn’t like it. the man’s married and if he happens to tell people margot sent for him—i quite understand theatrical gossip, gurdy. mark’s a great person and it would make quite a story. and of course there are rats who don’t like mark.”
“how did you find this out, lady—”
“in the silliest way. i was talking about ronny dufford and margot began to argue that this wretched play is really good. she rather lost her temper. she told me you’d tried to persuade mark not to produce the thing to spite her. i—” olive laughed unhappily, “i hadn’t the faintest idea that you’d quarrelled. you’re rather too cool, old man. i’ve been teasing you all this time fancying that you were wildly in love with the child and it seems that you’re at odds.—oh, it’s all utter nonsense, of course! but i don’t like it. it’s a pose. she rather prides herself on being unconventional. and the silliest part of it is that she feels she’s done mark a favour.”
“she’s probably cost him about fifteen thousand dollars,” said gurdy.
this was antique, this tale of a handsome, dapper actor and a girl gone moonstruck over his pink face. gurdy grunted, “we can’t tell mark this. he’d be upset. it’s idiotic.”
olive laughed, “oh, you mustn’t get excited[209] over it, gurdy. the play will fail and she’ll drop rand. it’s a gesture, you see? the clever girl doing the unconventional thing.” she became comfortable, then artificial. “you mustn’t take margot at her own valuation, dear. she’s the moment—the melodramatic moment. what’s that american slang? she’s no—no ball of fire! she admires people easily and drops them easily. she’s eighteen. she was quite lost in adoration of the countess of flint two years ago and then the poor woman did something the child didn’t like—wore the wrong frock, probably—and that was all over. the poor lady died in colorado yesterday.—that means consumption, doesn’t it? i read the notice to margot at breakfast and she said, ‘really.’ rand flattered her about her acting, i fancy, and she thinks he’s remarkable in return for the compliment. every normal female gets mushy—i’m quite americanized—over an actor at eighteen. when i was eighteen i wrote a five act tragedy and sent it to—merciful heaven—i’ve forgotten who he was! beerbohm tree, probably. but i must congratulate you on your attitude. you had a frightful row at fayettesville. she said, herself, that she was to blame. she hurt you. and you’ve not shown it in the least.”
“it didn’t amount to much.—but, mark wouldn’t like this business. and of course some[210] people don’t like him. they’d be ready to talk if they thought she was flirting with—”
“but she isn’t! if she was i’d drag her off to japan with me. she’s hardly spoken to the man except at those rehearsals last winter. it’ll die a swift death when the play fails, old man. we’ve no use for failures at eighteen.”
olive laughed, repeated the prophecy in a dozen turning phrases and drove with gurdy to the station after dinner. but she was oppressed. she could imagine mark’s bewilderment clearly. he found rand a somewhat comic person, a frail young poser towed after the robust beauty of his wife, perhaps bullied. the car brought olive back to the white portico of the cottage and she found margot distracting a middle aged sugar broker. it was time for bed when the addled man’s car puffed away. margot yawned and mounted the brown stairs in a flutter of marigold skirts. the living-room fell still. olive settled at a table and commenced a letter to ilden. “i shall not start for japan for some time. margot is behaving rather queerly. having fancied that i could follow the eccentric curves of her mind i am much annoyed to find that i can not. this cottage will be closed next week. heaven knows what will become of the furniture unless mark should use it in a play. i have a curiosity[211] to see the opening of his new theatre. he is working frantically over the play for its opening. gurdy bernamer tells me that a new york first night is like nothing else on earth for bounderishness. he says that awful and obscene creatures come creeping from nowhere and flap about in free seats and that all the cinema queens appear covered with rubies. it—”
the telephone on the table clicked but did not ring. olive glared at the instrument. she abominated the telephone since it had brought her news of her son’s death. she finished her letter and climbed the stairs, aching for bed after a nervous day. then she heard margot talking behind the closed door of her room. the girl hadn’t a maid. olive’s own maid was visible in her chamber at the end of the corridor. olive passed on. she came back on impulse and heard “all right, cossy. carry on. ’by—ee.” then the small clatter of margot’s bedside telephone set on the glass of a table. olive opened the door and saw the girl subsiding into the mass of her pillows.
“i’ve just blown cosmo rand up properly, olive.”
“i wondered why you were talking.”
margot yawned, “gurdy asked me to write him. i’d rather talk. his dear wife’s back[212] from california and his voice sounded as though they’d been throwing supper dishes at each other. he didn’t seem pleased.”
“my dear, i don’t see why mr. rand should be pleased to be lectured on his art over the telephone at midnight!”
“it’s rather cheeky, isn’t it? but gurdy made such a point of it. and all i could say was that he mustn’t be too difficult at rehearsals. but that’s all i could have said in a note. it seems to me that it’s distinctly dad’s business. but gurdy’s such an everlasting old woman about dad! and i am rather responsible for bringing ‘todgers’ over. dare say i ought to help out, if i can.”
olive slung a dart carelessly, asking, “what’s rand’s real name, dear?”
“rand.”
“i meant the cosmo. that’s not an american name at all.”
“don’t know, i’m sure. i don’t like it, anyhow. but it might be his own. he’s from some town in iowa and they name children fearful things like eliander and jerusha, out there.” she chuckled, slipping a tawny shoulder in and out of her robe. her face rippled, “i really think cosmo’s a rather ghastly name. sounds like a patent soup. wonder why they named dad mark? gurdy’s real name’s george.” she[213] yawned, “i suppose all actors get rather opinionated.”
“as they’re mostly rank egotists,” said olive and closed the door.
perplexity remained in her strongly wrestling with the desire for sleep. she lay composing a letter to cosmo rand—“as your position toward mr. walling is delicate and you are under obligations to miss walling may i suggest that you maintain a purely formal relation toward—” it wouldn’t do. words to a shadow. she knew nothing of the man. he was a graceful figure at parties in london, considerably hunted by smart women for sunday night dinners before the war. if the comedy failed and mark dismissed him rand might make an ill-tempered use of such a letter. olive shrugged off the idea lay wondering why a pleasant voice and a head of curly hair seen across footlights should convince margot that here was a great actor. it was disappointing. olive had thought margot steeled against crazes. the girl had a general appreciation of the arts as seen about london. olive faintly sighed. but the pleasing man might embody some fancy or other, fulfil some buried wish. we go groping and stumbling among fancies, the woman thought, and see nothing very clearly. she consoled herself with the platitude and went to sleep.
