“todgers intrudes” now went smoothly. mark came to one of the last rehearsals, approved russell’s method but, as they walked up broadway, told gurdy that this was a “lousy” play. all plays were just then nonsense beside “captain salvador.” mark’s absorption seemed to exclude even margot of whom the idolator once gently complained. the dark goddess had returned to town, been a week at the fifty fifth street house and was sitting with olive at the rear of the 45th street theatre. her voice reached mark clearly where he stood assembling the picture for a scene, a leg swung over the rail of the orchestra pit.
“she don’t seem so much interested in ‘salvador,’ gurd. why’s that?”
“rather heavy for her, perhaps.”
mark rubbed his nose and accepted wisdom. a girl of eighteen mightn’t care for this tale of shipwrecked ruffians, frantic negroes, moonlit death. and what innocent girl of eighteen could know or believe that men got tired of women? gurdy understood and was helpful, had found a[215] wailing negro song for the shipboard scene of the first act. mark beamed at gurdy, then turned to the stage and patiently corrected the six negro actors timid among the white folk of the big company, pathetic in sapphire and sage green suits.
“you boys in a circle ’round the table, left. keep looking at mr. leslie.”
he picked spots for the grouping. his brown fingers pointed. he named attitudes, dropping his lids as he built the picture with glances at the water colour sketch in his hand. an intricate chatter began on the stage. gurdy slipped up the aisle and joined olive under the balcony.
“how careful he is,” she whispered, “like a ballet master.”
gurdy nodded, “no one’ll move without being told to. the whole thing’s planned. he’s going to run the lights himself in boston, next monday.”
“you’ll go up there with him? he looks dreadfully thin.” his black height made a centre against the footlights. his mastery of this human paint was impressive, admirable. he visibly laboured, silent, listening. she asked, “would he work as hard over an ordinary, commercial play?”
“no. oh, he’d work hard but not as hard as this.”
margot glanced across olive, then at her watch.[216] she said, “let’s clear out, olive. teatime.”
“i’d much rather stay here. fascinating.”
“but you told mrs. marlett smith you’d come.”
olive sighed and gathered her furs. it was important that margot should go to this tea at the marlett smith house. mrs. marlett smith was a liberal, amusing woman who had met mark by way of some playwright and had called on olive at the seaside cottage. they left the theatre and gurdy came to open the door of the blue car. to him margot suddenly spoke, “how will dad open this silly thing in boston, monday night and get to washington by tuesday night to open ‘todgers’?”
“we’ll be there,” he said and closed the door.
olive looked back at his colourless dress, his shapely head and vanishing grave face with a frank wistfulness. “i don’t see why you should make such a point of annoying gurdy. and why call this play silly when it’s so plainly good?... i’ve carefully refrained from asking you why you quarrelled with gurdy. he behaves charmingly to you and keeps the peace.”
“paying him back for being nasty about ‘todgers intrudes.’”
“but he’s not been nasty. he’s very sensibly given his opinion that it’s feeble. as it is.—the[217] man’s taking us down broadway. loathsome sewer!”
the motor slowly passed toward forty second street and across that jam. olive saw lean and stolid englishmen stalking in the harsh, dusty november wind that blew women along in the whirling similitude of rotted flowers. margot got notice, here. there was a jerk of male heads from the curb. empty faces turned to the girl’s brilliance in rose cloth. a tanned sailor flapped his white cap. yet in the marlett smith library on park avenue margot was prettily discreet for half an hour below chinese panels, among gayer frocks where she lost colour, merged in a fluctuation of dress. on the way home her restraint snapped into a “damn!”
“very stiff,” said olive, “one reads about the american informality. tea at sandringham is giddy beside this. but mrs. marlett smith’s clever. who were those twins in black velvet who so violently kissed you?”
“the vaneens. ambrosine and gretchen. knew them at school. they come out in december.—but what maddens me is this everlasting jabber about france! some of those girls know gurdy. their brothers were at saint andrew’s with him. he seems to have made himself frightfully conspicuous about paris.—no,[218] i’m bored with gurdy. if dad tries to make me marry him i’ll take poison and die to slow music. such tosh! he made a gesture of enlisting—”
“you’re being silly,” olive said, coldly hurt, “and i’m sick of the word, gesture. pray, was the gesture of third rate artists and actors who wouldn’t leave their work anything madly glorious? i can understand a man conscious of great talent preferring to stick to his last. and i can understand a complete refusal to mix in the—abominable business. but i’ve no patience with dreary little wasters who shouted for blood and then took acetanilid to cheat the doctors. as for gurdy’s military career he’s very quiet about it. i dislike this venom against gurdy.”
margot chuckled, “perhaps i’m jealous,” and got down before the house. she opened the door with her latchkey and they entered a flow of minor music from the drawing room. gurdy was playing. mark leaned on the curve of the piano and his brown hands were deeply reflected in the black pool of its top.
“listen to this, olive. nigger song gurdy raked up for ‘captain salvador.’ sing it, sonny. don’t run off, margot. listen.” he caught the girl to him, held her cheek against his chin. a scent of mild sandal and cigarettes ebbed from the black hair into his nostrils. he was tired[219] after the tense rehearsal and chilled from half an hour in the cold of the walling. this moving warmth and scent was luxury. mark shut his eyes. gurdy chanted in plausible barytone.
“life is like a mountain railway,
from the cradle to the grave.
keep yoh hand upon the throttle
an’ yoh eyes—upon—the—rail....”
it would sound splendidly in the dim forecastle of the first scene. it would float and die under the blue vault of the walling. he had just seen the lights turned on a recession of faint silver rims in the dull cloud of that ceiling. he was still drugged by the sight. his theatre was like a desirable body promised to his arms. gurdy played again the slow air in curious variations, flutters of notes. mark opened his eyes to watch the slide of the long fingers on the keys. olive was smiling.
“delightful. very moral, too. sound advice. how well you play, gurdy!”
“always did,” said mark, “he could play like a streak when he was ten. come along up and have a fight with mr. carlson, daughter.”
olive let margot’s voice melt into the old man’s cackle above. gurdy said, “we went to the walling after rehearsal, lady ilden. honestly, it’s a corker. the ceiling’s nearly finished. theatres don’t last, worse luck. but there’s[220] nothing like it in the city. mark’s worked like a pup over it.—how was your tea?”
“very decent. varieties of women, there. almost no men. a débutante told me she admired walt whitman more than most english poets and was rather positive that he was english. i can’t understand the american tabu on whitman.”
“immoral.”
“but—good heavens!—i fascinated two elderly girls by telling them i knew swinburne. swinburne was lewd. poor whitman was merely rather frank.”
“but algie was a foreigner,” gurdy laughed, “so it was all right. margot have a good time?”
olive asked, “what were you and margot rowing about in the library last night? i could hear her voice getting acid.”
gurdy commenced a waltz and said, “we weren’t rowing. mark asked me whether cosmo rand was in the british army. he wasn’t and i said so. she seemed to think i was sniffing at rand and blew me up a little. that was all. we made peace. i rather like rand, you know, now that he’s stopped making an ass of himself at rehearsals. russell and i had lunch with him today. he talks well. he knows a lot about painting, for instance. these actors who’ve been all over the landscape and don’t think they’re[221] better than richard mansfield—pretty interesting. there’s not much to rand but he isn’t a—a walking egotism.”
olive laughed, “come back to margot. she’s pointedly offensive to you and rather assertive about it. i hope you’ll go on being patient and try to remember how young she is. you’re very mature for twenty-one. you never bray. i brayed very wildly at margot’s age. i horribly recall telling henry arthur jones how to improve his plays and one of my saddest memories is of telling a nice monsieur thibault what a poor novel tha?s was. he quite agreed with me. i didn’t know he was anatole france until he left the room. i’ve all the patience going with youth. you’re almost too mature.”
“don’t know about being mature,” said gurdy, “i’m not, probably. but every other book you read is all about youth—golden youth—youth always finds a way—ferment. get pretty tired of it. makes me want to be forty-nine. and some of the poets make me sick. hammering their chests and saying, yow! i’m young!... not their fault. i’m not proud of being six foot one. runs in the family.”
“that’s a very cool bit of conversation, old man. you’ve taken me away from margot twice, very tactfully, so i’ll drop it. play some debussy. his music reminds me of a very handsome[222] man with too much scent on his coat. can’t approve of it. rather like it.”
he evaded discussions of margot until sunday night when he went with mark to boston for the opening of “captain salvador” there. on monday night he sat, a spy, in the middle of the large audience. a critic had come from new york to see this play before it should reach the metropolitan shoals. gurdy saw the slender, sharp face intent. the ten scenes of the cuban romance passed without a hitch before the placid bostonians. mark was directing the lights that raised peaks of gloom on the walls, sent shimmerings along the moonlit beach where the hero squatted in a purple shadow. about him gurdy heard appropriate murmurs. a fat woman whimpered her objection to the half naked celebrants of the voodoo scene. an old man complained that this was unlike life. two smart matrons chatted happily about a harvard cabal against some friend while “captain salvador” effected his wooing. a thin boy in spectacles wailed an argument that true art wasn’t possible in a capitalistic nation. a girl giggled every time the sailors of the story swore and almost whinnied when the word, “strumpet” rattled over the lights. but this herd redeemed itself in heavy applause. the thin boy wailed a blanket assent to the merits[223] of the plot and the setting, “after all, walling’s irish and he studied under reinhardt in berlin. the kelts have some feeling for values.” still the fat woman thought, loudly, that the play didn’t prove anything and gurdy decided that one of his future satires must be named, the kingdom of swine. he found mark in high delight behind the scenes, snapping directions to his manager, his leading man and the electrician in the new jersey singsong. “have the tomtom some louder for the voodoo, ike. bill, you send all the notices special delivery to the willard in washington. mr. o’mara’s in hayti if the transcript wants an interview. beach scene blue enough, gurdy? all right, ed, i told you it was. now, leslie, take your fall at the end quieter, a little. you’re all right, the rest of it. come along, gurdy. taxi’s waiting.” in the taxi, he cried, “damn this lousy ‘todgers’ thing, son! i want to stay here. people liked it, huh?”
“they did.—oh, you’re irish and you learned all your business from reinhardt.”
“sure! blame, it on europe!—my god, didn’t the tomtom business go like a breeze?—oh, this ‘todgers’ thing’ll be too bad. tell you, i’ll play it in washington and philadelphia. baltimore, if it don’t just roll on its belly and die.[224] sorry if margot gets sore.—she and olive went to washington s’afternoon, didn’t they, huh?—was the ship scene light enough, sonny?”
he sat in their stateroom on the train, his eyes still black with excitement and drank watered brandy. he dreamed of “captain salvador’s” first night at the walling and tremors of applause mounting to the blue vault of that perfected ceiling. he was so tired that he struggled, undressing.
“mark, you’re thin as a bean! nothing but some muscles and skin.”
mark flexed his arms, beamed up at the tall boy’s anxiety and rolled into his berth. the mussed red hair disappeared under a pillow. gurdy smoked and stared humbly.... this was surely half of an artist, laborious, patient, contriving beauty. the man had this strange perception of the lovely thing. he should do better and better. if his trade was that of the booth, the sale of charming sensualities, he raised it by his passion. he begot fondness. he created. gurdy tucked the blankets over the blue silk pyjamas and planned a long talk on the purpose of the theatre for the morning, then wondered what that purpose was and put the lecture off. they fled all morning down the land and came to washington in time for late lunch with russell at the shoreham where mark halted to[225] look at a pretty, dark woman in the suave, grey lounge smelling of flowers, fell behind gurdy and russell, found himself suddenly lifting his hat to cora boyle. she wore a cloak banded with black fur and a gold hat too young for her paint. mark smiled, rather sorry for the blown coarseness of her chin, asked how she liked california and heard her flat voice crackle.
“a nightmare! all these girls who were absolutely no one last week in ten thousand dollar cars! no, i’m glad they brought me east. i’m taking three days off to see cosmo start this. tells me it plays here the rest of the week, then philadelphia.—when are you bringing it into new york?”
he shifted a little and said, “can’t say, cora. hard to get a house in new york, right now. this thing i’ve got at the forty fifth street is doin’ big business. todgers’ll be on the road two weeks, anyhow, before i decide what’ll become of it—”
“what are you opening the walling with?”
“‘captain salvador.’ opened in boston last night. best play i’ve ever touched! say, remind me to send you seats when it opens the walling.”
“that’s dear of you.—but couldn’t you get one of the small houses for cosmo? the princess or the punch and judy? intimate comedy. cosmo[226] really does better in a small house. and—” she smiled—“you could take a bigger one after a month or so.”
he had an awed second of wonder. she’d been almost thirty years on the stage and she thought “todgers intrudes” a good play! he began to say, “but, do you think this will—” then two men charged up to shake hands with the actress. mark scuttled down the stairs toward the grill. if she was quarrelling with rand her manner didn’t show it. “cosmo really does better in a small house.” he joined russell and gurdy at their table, puzzled and said, “say, if she’s fighting with rand it’s funny she’d come down to see him open this flapdoodle.”
“habit,” russell shrugged, “they’ve been married twelve years. but are they fighting? i had breakfast with them this morning and she almost crucified herself because his tea wasn’t right.”
mark wondered why margot thought that rand and the woman quarrelled. but he shed the wonder. he liked washington especially as the pale city showed itself now in a vapour where the abiding leaves seemed glazed in their red and yellow along the streets. olive knew people here. there was a tea with a british attaché. margot’s rose cloth suit gleamed about[227] the dancing floor of the restaurant. gurdy had friends who were produced, fell subject to margot and came between the acts that night to lean over the girl’s chair in the box of the big theatre. “todgers intrudes” went its placid course. rand gave, mark fancied, an excellent imitation of an english conservative. the packed house laughed at the right points. margot’s face rippled so eagerly that mark wanted to kiss it and covertly held her hand below the rail. why, this was the pretty, gentle sort of nonsense eighteen years would relish! a pity it had no staying wit. a pity this fragile, polished man she so admired wasn’t a real comedian. mark looked at gurdy’s stolid boredom and the fine chest hidden by the dinner jacket beyond olive’s bare shoulders. it might be as well to let gurdy tell margot the play wouldn’t do for new york. mark shrank from that. gurdy could put the thing much better in his cool, bred fashion.—here and there men were leaving the theatre with an air of final retirement. in the opposite box there was a waving of feathers. how well cora boyle could use a fan!—a youngster with curly orange hair slipped into his box as the second curtain fell. gurdy introduced young theodore jannan to olive and margot, then to mark. mr. jannan had come over from philadelphia to do something[228] in washington. this play—the jannan heir bit off a “rotten”—was advertised as coming to philadelphia next week.
“opens there monday,” said mark.
“my mother’s giving a baby dance for my sister. couldn’t you bring miss walling, gurdy? monday night.”
how smoothly margot said she’d like to come to a dance at mrs. apsley jannan’s house in philadelphia! the nonsense of social position! an illusion. a little training, a little charm, good clothes.—a healy, one of margot’s cousins, had risen to be a foreman in one of the jannan steel mills.—gurdy had played football with this pleasant lad at saint andrew’s school. who on earth would ever know or care that margot and gurdy were born on a farm? the last curtain fell. margot wanted to dance. russell came to join the party. they went to a restaurant and found a table at the edge of the oval floor. margot’s yellow frock was swept off into the florid seething on gurdy’s arm. russell poured brandy neatly into the coffee pot and shrugged to mark.
“bad sign. fifteen or twenty men left in the second act. we’ll have a vile time in philadelphia, lady ilden. it’s a queer town on plays.—there come the rands.”
a headwaiter lifted a “reserved” sign from a table across the floor. cora boyle and her husband[229] appeared in the light threaded by cigarette smoke. the actress draped a green and black skirt carelessly, refused to dance with a british officer in a trim pantomime, bowed slowly to mark who was taken with fright. she’d want to talk about this drivelling play and before her slight, quiet husband. he slipped a bill under the edge of russell’s plate.
“bring olive back to the hotel will you russell? i’m all in. ’night, olive.”
his retreat through the smoky tables was comic. russell fingered his chin. olive ended by laughing, “he’s ridiculously timid about her.”
the director patted his bald forehead and drank some coffee. he said, “it happens that he’s got some reason. miss boyle’s bad tempered and an inveterate liar. she’s fond of her husband and she seems to think this comedy will have a new york run. mr. walling means to let it die on the road, naturally. she won’t like that. she’ll talk. her voice will be loud all up and down broadway.”
“but—surely he’s callous to that sort of thing?”
“do you see anything callous about him? i don’t.” the director nodded to the floating of margot’s skirt. “this is the first time i’ve ever directed a play put on to please a débutante, lady ilden.—no, mr. walling seems mighty sensitive[230] to gossip.—and cora boyle’s in a strong position. she’s a woman—obviously—and she can make a good yarn. spite, and so on. she’s quite capable of giving out interviews on the subject. she can’t hurt mr. walling but she might cause any quantity of gossip,—which he couldn’t very well answer. she can play the woman wronged, you see?”
“what a nation of woman worshippers you are!”
“were,” said russell, “we’re getting over it.”
“i don’t see any signs of it.”
russell said, “you can’t send two million men into countries where women—well, admit that they’re human, not goddesses, anyhow, without getting a reaction. my wife’s a lawyer. she helped a young fellow—an ex-soldier—out of some trouble the other day and he told her she was almost as nice as a foreigner—ten years ago if cora boyle had wanted to have a fight with mr. walling she could have taken the line that he was jealous of rand and she’d have found newspapers that would print front page columns about it. she’d get about two paragraphs now.—but she probably has better sense. beastly handsome, isn’t she?”
“very—brutta bestia bella. gurdy tells me she’s paid a thousand dollars a day to play camille for the cinema. why?”
[231]“oh ... she’s the kind of thing a lot of respectable middle aged women adore, i think.—look at them.”
there were many women in the rim of tables. they stared at the flaring green and black gown, at the exhibited bawdry of gold wrought calves, at the feathers of the waving, profuse fan. there was an attitude of furtive adventure in the turn of heads. they stared, disapproved, perhaps envied.
“‘some men in this, some that, their pleasure take, but every woman is at heart a rake,’” olive quoted.
the director laughed, “you’re right.—and i often think that the movie queens take the place of an aristocracy in this country. something very fast and bold for the women to stare at. now rand, there, is the ideal aristocrat—in appearance, anyhow, don’t you think? and nobody’s looking at him. i wonder if miss walling would dance with me?”
he relieved gurdy close to the rand table. when the boy joined olive she asked, “mr. russell isn’t a typical stage director, is he?... i thought not. one of the new school in your theatre? a well educated man?... rather entertaining.”
“he writes a little. been an engineer. stage directors are weird. one of them used to be an[232] egyptologist.—i say, help me keep mark here the rest of the week, will you? he’s dead tired. did he run when he saw cora boyle coming?”
“yes. he seems positively afraid of her!”
gurdy said, “he is afraid of her. great scott, he was only sixteen when he married her and dad says he was—pretty blooming innocent. mark’s all full of moral conventions, lady ilden. ever noticed that?”
“when you were in pinafores, my child! i always thought he’d shed some of his puritan fancies. he doesn’t.”
“grandfather’s awfully strict, even if he is an atheist. and mother ... isn’t what you’d call reckless. they brought him up. and he still thinks their ... well, moral standards are just about right.—i’m the same way. got it pounded into me at school that bad grammar and loud clothes were immoral. don’t suppose i’ll get over that.—mark says he’s never flirted with a married woman in his life.”
olive yawned, “i don’t suppose that he has, consciously. oh, to be sure, i can understand why mark would think of miss boyle as the scarlet woman. the puritan upbringing.—we never quite get over early influences, gurdy. i always find myself bristling a bit over dropped h’s even when a famous novelist does the dropping.—mark prophesies bad reviews for the play,[233] in the morning. do leave word to have the papers sent up to me. i’m so sleepy i shall forget about it.—thank heaven, margot’s stopped dancing.”
in their double bedroom at the new willard margot talked jauntily of “todgers intrudes,” until olive fell asleep wondering why the girl should interpret amiable laughter as the shout of success. in the morning two newspapers arrived with breakfast. the critics praised the acting and both sniffed at the play. olive read the columns over her tea. both critics dealt kindly with rand. one thought his manner resembled that of cyril maude, the other said that he imitated george arliss. margot came trailing a green robe from the bathtub and stood pressed against the brass bedfoot reading the comments. the sun redoubled on her silver girdle and the numerous polychrome tassels of the foolish, charming drapery inside which her body stirred before she cried, “how american! thin! it’s no thinner than that rot dad has running at the forty fifth street!”
“my darling margot, that’s thin american comedy. it’s something national, comprehensible. as for ‘todgers,’ why—why should you expect a pack of american war office clerks and provincials to care whether a baron precedes an earl or no? i can’t help being surprised that so[234] many of them seemed to know what it was all about! the play is thin—horribly thin. i’m sure it did well at home on account of maurice ealy’s following. the critics say rather nice things about rand, all things considered.... well, were you impressed with him last night? do you still think he’s a fine actor?”
margot tilted her face toward the ceiling and the sun made a visard across her narrowed eyes. she twisted the silver girdle between her hands and stood silent. olive felt the final barrier between creatures, suddenly and keenly. she had lived in intimacy with the girl for five years. here was a strange mind revolving under the black, carven hair and the mask of sun.
“no, i didn’t think him very good, last night. nervous.—and perhaps the play did seem rather thin.... but it’ll do better in new york. more civilized people, there.”
olive lifted her breakfast tray to the bedside table and thought. then her patience snapped, before the girl’s sunny and motionless certitude. she said, “new york! do you think mark will risk bringing this poor ghost of a thing to new york? hardly! he told me last night it will be played in philadelphia and baltimore, then he’ll discard it.—you’re silly, dearest! the play’s wretched and rand’s no better than a hundred other young leading men i’ve seen.[235] he appeals to you for some reason or other. he seems very, very feeble to me. he has no virility, no—”
the silver girdle broke between the tawny hands. margot’s face rippled. she said loudly, “this is all gurdy! he doesn’t like the play! he’s made dad dislike it. he—”
olive cut in, “i shan’t listen to that! that’s mere ill temper and untrue. the play is a waste of mark’s time and of his money.—between your very exaggerated loyalty to ronny dufford and your liking for this doll of an actor you’ve probably cost mark three or four thousand pounds. he produced this play entirely to please you. don’t tease him any farther. don’t try to make him bring this nonsense to new york. you’ve a dreadful power over mark. don’t trade on it! you’re behaving like a spoiled child. you disappoint me!”
the black eyes widened. margot pushed herself back from the bed with both hands, staring. she said, “i—i dare say.... sorry.”
“you should be!... he’s done everything he can to keep you amused. he isn’t a millionaire. you’ve been treated like a mistress of extravagant tastes, not like a daughter! there is such a thing as gratitude. he’s humoured you in regard to this silly play and in regard to rand. gurdy and mr. russell tell me that cora boyle[236] can make herself a disgusting nuisance now that the play’s a failure. you’ve pushed mark into this very bad bargain. don’t make it worse by whimpering, now, and don’t—”
“oh, please!”
“then please bite on the bullet and let’s hear no more of this. when mark tells you he’ll drop the play, don’t tease him.”
margot said, “poor ronny dufford! i thought—”
“i’m sorry ronny’s broke. it’s the destiny of younger sons whose fathers had a taste for baccarat. i shall start for japan as soon as i’ve seen the walling opened. i shan’t go in a very easy frame of mind if i feel that you’ve constituted yourself a charitable committee of one with mark as treasurer.”
olive laughed. margot said, “yes, m’lady,” and made a curtsey, then fluttered off to telephone for breakfast, began to chuckle and the delicate chime of that mirth was soothing, after the rasp of olive’s tirade. the girl seemed unresentful. olive had never so seriously scolded her. now she thought that she should talk to mark about his folly. this idolatry was delightful to watch but unhealthy, a temptation to margot. the girl had other pets in london. there was an amateur actress constantly wobbling on the edge of professional engagements. two[237] or three of the young painters experimented in stage setting. she deliberated and listed these artists to mark while they were driving about the broad city in a hired victoria.
“all nice children and hopeless dabblers, old man. beware of them or you’ll have the house filled with immigrants. rand’s a giant beside any of them.”
“the little man ain’t so bad. guess i’ll put him in as leading man for a woman in a scotch play i’m going to work on after christmas. that’ll shut cora boyle up. he’ll do, all right. i’ll offer him the part when i tell him ‘todgers’ goes to cain’s.”
“to—where?”
“it’s a warehouse in new york where dead plays go—the scenery, i mean.” mark pointed to a full wreath of steam floating above the pan american building, “watch it go. no wind. ought to last a minute.—busted,” he sighed, as the lovely cream melted. “but i ain’t sorry this happened, olive. teach her she don’t know so much about the show business. ‘todgers’ll’ make a little money here because the town’s packed full. but i’m afraid philadelphia’ll be its waterloo. well, the boston transcript had three columns on ‘captain salvador.’ it’s in the biggest theatre in boston and they had standing room only last night. gurdy got a wire from a[238] kid he knows in harvard that a couple of professors came out of the woods and told their classes to go see the thing.”
his talk came turning back to “captain salvador” for the rest of the week. he was bodily listless after the strain of the boston production. gurdy forced him to play golf and tramp the spread city when olive and margot were at teas in the british colony. russell often walked and every night dined with them, examining margot with his sharp hazel eyes so that gurdy fancied the man exhaling her essence with his cigarette smoke. he sat with gurdy on monday afternoon in the smoking car on the road to philadelphia and observed, “miss walling’s very much interested in ‘todgers.’ how will she take the blow when it fails, here? it’ll be a flat failure, tonight, gurdy. see if it isn’t.”
“margot and i are going to a dance. we shan’t see it flop.”
“it’ll flop very flat and hard. i’m a philadelphian. you should warn miss walling.”
mark startled gurdy by warning margot during tea in the small suite of the philadelphia hotel while she stood at the tin voiced piano rattling tunes with one hand. mark said nervously, “now, sister, if ‘todgers’ is a fluke here—why, i can’t waste time and cash fooling with it any[239] longer.” he coughed and finished, “i’ll send your friend dufford a check and—amen.”
“you’re an old duck,” said margot, “and i’ll be good. shan’t ever try to choose another play for you—never, never, never.” she tinkled the negro song from “captain salvador” tapping one foot so that the silver buckle sparkled. “wish i could sing.... life is like a—what’s good old life like, gurdy?”
“like a mountain railway.”
“that a simile or a metaphor?—i say, i must get scrubbed. six o’clock.”
she passed gurdy, leaving the room. he saw her teeth white against the red translucency of her lower lip and carmine streaks rising in her face, but her door shut slowly.
“took it like a trojan,” mark proudly said, “guess the washington papers opened her eyes some. well, let’s go see if russell’s downstairs, gurd. he’s got a room on this floor. gad, olive, i wish we were goin’ to a dance tonight instead of this—junk.”
“margot should wear something very smart for this dance, shouldn’t she?” olive asked. “the jannans are the mighty of earth, aren’t they?”
“old family. steel mills,” gurdy explained.
“i’ve met some of them in scotland. wasn’t there a miss jannan who did something extraordinary?[240] i remember a row in the new york papers. didn’t she—”
mark laughed, “ran off with a married man. they’ve got a couple of kids, too.”
“doesn’t that domestic touch redeem the performance, mark?”
mark chuckled and drawled, “now, here! you make out you’re a wild eyed radical and so on. suppose some girl that ought to know better came and lived next you in chelsea with a married man. ask her to dinner?”
“i cheerfully would if i thought her worth knowing, gentle puritan! if i thought she was simply a sloppy, uncontrolled sentimentalist i should no more bother myself than i would to meet a society preacher or some hero of the russian ballet who’s paid a hundred guineas a night to exhibit his abdominal surface in the name of art.... six o’clock. i should tub, myself. i’ve several cinders on my spine. run along, both of you.”
mark said on the way to the elevators, “olive’s a wonder, ain’t she, bud? don’t know why but she always puts me in mind of your dad. calm and cool.—oh, say, tomorrow’s your mamma’s birthday!”
“it is. and i’m going up to the farm, after lunch. ‘todgers intrudes’ has got me—”
“shut up,” said mark, seeing cosmo rand[241] ringing the button for the elevator. he beamed at the actor and asked in the car, “mrs. rand went back to new york?”
“yes. just been talking to her by ’phone. they started the film of ‘camille’ today. very trying, she said. they’ve some promoted cowboy playing armand.—i say, i’ve some quite decent gin in my flask. we might have a cocktail.”
gurdy thought how clever the man was to wear grey, increasing his height and embellishing his rosy skin. he understood dress expertly. at the jannan dance, toward midnight, a girl told him that she’d just come from a “simply idiotic play” but praised rand’s appearance. “englishmen do turn themselves out so well.”
the dance was supported by sparkling moselle and gurdy didn’t have to perform with margot. she found friends. he was summoned to be introduced to a young mrs. calder who at once invited him to dine the next evening. gurdy excused himself on the score of his mother’s birthday. as they drove away from the emptying house margot explained, “peggy calder’s nice. she was in the red cross in london. you’re really going up to the farm?”
“certainly.”
she said nothing, restless in her dark cloak for a time then chattered about the jannan grandeur. she enjoyed spectacles. the great suburban[242] house and the green ballroom pleased her. “but you people drink too much, you know? mrs. jannan’s a second wife, isn’t she? rather pretty. heavens, what a long way back to the hotel!”
“you’re tired.”
“frightfully. and blue.... can’t you make dad try ‘todgers’ in new york, gurdy?” directly and with a sharp motion she added, “no. that’s utterly silly. i’ve no business asking it.... but i do feel—and yet i don’t know the new york taste—you really think it wouldn’t do?”
“i really don’t, margot. and you can’t get a theatre for love, blood or money. they’re even trying to buy theatres to bring plays into. mark would have to run the play on the road for weeks—months, perhaps, before he could get a theatre.”
she dropped the matter, spoke of the dance again and at the hotel hurried up the corridor to her rooms. mark sat up as gurdy slid into the other bed of his chamber and passed a hand across his throat, “oh, son, what an evening! ‘todgers’ to the boneyard! crape on the door!”
“fizzled? people were knocking it at the jannan’s.”
“awful! every one coughed. i will say rand worked hard. no, it’s dead. i’ll let it run tomorrow night and then close it.—stick with me[243] tomorrow. i’ll have to break the bad news to rand.”
he broke the news to rand just as gurdy was leaving to take the train for trenton, after lunch. the actor strolled up to them beside the door, a grey furred coat over his arm and his bronze eyes patently anxious.
“going away, bernamer?”
“the country.”
“decent day for it.... i say, walling, they weren’t nice to us in the papers.”
gurdy saw mark begin to act. the voice deepened to its kindest drawl. mark said, “just called up the theatre. only sold two hundred seats for tonight and its almost three, now. that’s too bad.”
rand passed the polished nails along the soft moustache. the sun of the door sent true gold into his hair. he murmured, “shocking bad, eh? we play baltimore, next week, don’t we?”
“no,” said mark, easily, “it’s too thin. i’ll close it tonight.—now, i’m putting on a piece called the ‘last warrior.’ english. start rehearsals after christmas. good part for you in that. marion hart’s the lead. know her? nice to play with and a damned good play.”
“oh—thanks awfully.—yes, i know miss hart.—thanks very much, sir.... you shan’t risk bringing ‘todgers’ to new york?”
[244]“no. i’m sorry. you’ve worked mighty hard and i like your work. you’ll be a lot better off in this other play.... ‘todgers’ is too thin, rand. might have done five or six years back.”
the actor nodded. “dare say you’re right, sir. bit of a bubble, really. and awfully good of you to want me for this other thing. be delighted to try.... yes, this was rather bubblish:—anyhow, this lets me out of baltimore. i do hate that town. well, thanks ever so. better luck next time, let’s hope.”
he walked off, grey into the duller grey of the columned lounge. mark nodded after him. “took it damned well, gurdy. he’ll be all right in this other show and cora can’t say i haven’t been decent to him. well, hustle along. got that whiskey for your dad? give ’em my love.—look at that pink car, for lordsake! vulgarity on four wheels, huh?—so long, sonny.”
gurdy was glad that rand hadn’t whined. this was a feeble, tame fellow without much attraction beyond his handsome face. perhaps it was for this mannerly tameness that margot liked him. perhaps that fable of women liking the masterly male was faulty. margot liked to domineer. she had bullied rand a trifle at the rehearsal in london. perhaps cora boyle liked the tame little creature for some such reason. gurdy dismissed him and the theatre. there was vexing[245] sadness in the collapse of even so poor a play. russell and the actors had worked. it came to nothing. bubble! expensive, futile, unheroic evanescence. margot’s fault. he mustn’t let mark do such a thing again. the girl must confine her restless self to dances and clothes. she had looked very well at the jannan party. she had smartness, instant magnetism. she was still asleep and would dine with her acquaintance, mrs. calder, tonight. gurdy yawned as trenton foully spouted its industry toward the sky. bernamer was waiting with the car at the station, gave him a crushing hug and told him that he looked like hell.
“danced all night.”
“i see you did in the ledger. among those present at the apsley jannan’s party. your mamma’s all upset about it. saw a movie of a millionaire party with naked hussies ridin’ ostriches in the conserv’tory. she thinks margot’s led you astray. how’s this ‘tod’ play done?”
“it’s all done, dad. closes tonight.”
bernamer sent the car through trenton and cursed margot astoundingly. “ten or twelve thousand dollars! the little skunk! cure mark of listening to her. say, he still wanting you to marry her, bud?”
“afraid he is, dad.”
[246]“sure. next best he could do to marryin’ her himself. funny boy. likes her ’cause she’s pretty. black hair.—this english woman’s blackheaded, ain’t she?... well, you sic’ some feller onto margot and get her off mark’s hands. if you fell in love with her again, your mamma’d puff up and bust.”
“again?”
bernamer gave him a blue stare and winked, wrinkling his nose. his weathered face creased into a snort. “sure, you were losin’ sleep over her ’fore she got back from england.”
“not now, daddy.” gurdy wondered about the absolute death of his passion. his father, who so seldom saw him, knew it was done. mark saw him daily, talked to him of margot urgently and saw nothing.
“well,” said bernamer, “mark’s awful fond of you. and you ain’t bad, reelly. don’t you get married until you catch one you can stand for steady diet. oh, your mamma’s gone on a vegetable diet and lost four pounds in two weeks. ed’s got a boil on his neck—bad, too, poor pup. jim done an algebra problem right yesterday and made a touchdown saturday. he’s got his head swelled a mile.”
the man’s tolerant dealing with his family impressed gurdy. here was a controlled and level affection, not mark’s worship. it was a healthier[247] thing. he watched his father’s amiable scorn while mrs. bernamer and the whole household fussed variously over young edward’s inflamed neck after supper. the boil was central in the talk of the red living room. grandfather walling tried to think of some ancient remedy and fell asleep pondering. the two bigger lads hovered and chuckled over the eruption. the sisters neglected some swains who came calling. mrs. bernamer sat mending the grey breeches of the military uniform edward wasn’t wearing. the boil maintained itself over gossip of the village, the military academy and female questions about the jannan dance. at ten bernamer said, “go to bed, all of you. got to talk business to gurdy.” the family kissed gurdy and departed. grandfather walling’s snore roamed tenderly down into the stillness. bernamer got out the chessboard and uncorked a bottle of vicious pear cider. they smoked and played the endless game. at twelve the telephone bell shore off his father’s sentences. gurdy clapped a palm on the jangling at his elbow and picked up the instrument. olive ilden spoke in her most artificial, clearest voice.
“we’re in new york, dear. the doctor telephoned about eight and we came up directly. i think you’d best come, gurdy.”
“mr. carlson?”
[248]“yes. he’ll be gone in a few hours. mark’s so distressed and—the old man asked for you.”
bernamer said, “no train until three thirty, son.”
“i’ll get there as fast, as i can,” gurdy told her, “margot there?”
“no. she’d gone to dine with her friend—mrs. calder—and mark didn’t want her here. i’ll tell mark you’re coming, then. good-bye.”
gurdy rang off. his father nodded, “mark’ll miss the old feller. been mighty good to him. funny old man. always liked him. poor mark! well, you say this englishwoman’s sensible. that’s some help.”
gurdy was glad of olive’s sanity, wished that the thought of this death didn’t make his heart thump for a little. his father would drive him into trenton at two. they played chess again. bernamer made sandwiches of beef and thick bread. the red walls clouded with cigarette smoke. it was two when the bell again rang.
“dead, prob’ly,” said bernamer.
the operator asked for gurdy. there was a shrill wrangling of women behind which a man spoke loudly and savagely. his impatience cracked through the buzzing. it wasn’t mark when the man spoke clearly at last.
“this is russell, gurdy. can you hear? you must come here at once.”
[249]“to philadelphia? what’s happened? mr. carlson’s dying and—”
“i know. and i can’t bother walling. you must come here as fast as you can. can you speak german?... i’ll try to talk french; then.”
after a moment gurdy said, “all right. i’ll come as fast as i can. get hold of the hotel manager. money—”
“the detective’s got a check. that’s all right. hurry up, though.”
gurdy found himself standing and dropped the telephone. it brushed the chessmen in a clattering volley to the floor. his father’s blue eyes bit through the smoke.
“when’s a train to philadelphia, dad?”
“that damn fool girl gone and got herself into—”
“this actor!... of course she has! of course! oh, hell! in her room! when’s there a train to philadelphia?”
