now that the cat was out of the bag, and the husband out of the closet, sheila decided to produce bret at the train the next morning. he was about to get a taste of
the gipsying life known as “trouping” and he was to learn the significance of the one-night stand.
he had felt so shamefaced for his part in the deception of reben that when he visited the play during the evening performance, and saw the much-discussed embrace
restored, he had no heart to make a vigorous protest. and sheila was too weary after the two performances to be hectored. it was heartbreaking to him to see her so
exhausted.
“where do we go from here?” he asked, helplessly.
“petoskey,” she yawned.
“petoskey!” he gasped. “that’s in russia. in heaven’s name, do we—”
he was ready to believe in almost anything imbecile. but she explained that their petoskey was in michigan. he did not approve of michigan.
his hatred of his wife’s profession began to take deeper root. it flourished exceedingly when they had to get up for the train the next morning at six. it was hard
enough for him to begin the new day. sheila’s struggles to fight off sleep were desperate. sleep was like an octopus whose many arms took new hold as fast as they
were torn loose. bret was so sorry for her that he begged her to let the company go without her. she could take a later train. but even her sad face was crinkled with
a smile at the impossibility of this suggestion.
breakfast was the sort of meal usually flung together by servants alarm-clocked earlier than their wont. for all their gulping and hurry, bret and sheila nearly missed
the train. it was moving as they clambered aboard.
“which is the parlor-car?” bret asked the brakeman.
“ain’t none.”
“do you mean to say that we’ve got to ride all day in a day coach?”
“that’s about it, cap.”
bret was furious. worse yet, the train was so crowded that it was impossible for them even to have a double space. their suit-cases had to be distributed at odd points
in racks, under seats, and at the end of the car.
bret remembered that he had forgotten to get his ticket, but the business-manager, mr. mcnish, passed by and offered his congratulations and a free transportation,
with mr. reben’s compliments. bret did not want to be beholden to mr. reben, but sheila prevailed on him not to be ungracious.
when the conductor came along the aisle she said, “company.”
“both?” said the conductor, and she smiled, “yes,” and giggled, adding to bret, “you’re one of the troupe now.”
bret did not seem to be flattered.
reben came down the aisle to meet the bridegroom. he was doing his best to take his defeat gracefully. bret could not even take his triumph so.
other members of the company drifted forward and offered their felicitations. they made themselves at home in the coach, sitting about on the arms of seats and
exchanging family jokes.
the rest of the passengers craned their necks to stare at the bridegroom, crimson with shame and anger. bret loathed being stared at. sheila did not like it, but she
was used to it. both writhed at the well-meant humor and the good wishes of the actors and actresses. their effusiveness offended bret mortally. he could have
proclaimed himself the luckiest man on earth, but he objected to being called so by these actors. if he had been similarly heckled by people of any sort—college
friends, club friends, doctors, lawyers, merchants—he would have resented their manner, for everybody hazes bridal couples. but since he had fallen among actors, he
blamed actors for his distress.
eldon alone failed to come forward with good wishes, and bret was unreasonable enough to take umbrage at that. why did eldon remain aloof? was he jealous? what right
had he to be jealous?
altogether, the bridegroom was doing his best to make rough weather of his halcyon sea. sheila was at her wits’ end to cheer him who should have been cheering her.
at noon a few sandwiches of the railroad sort were obtained by a dash to a station lunch-counter. bret apologized to sheila, but she assured him that he was not to
blame and was not to mind such little troubles; they were part of the business. he minded them none the less and he hated the business.
the town of petoskey, when they reached it, did not please him in any respect. the hotel pleased him less. when he asked for two rooms with bath the clerk snickered
and gave him one without. he explained with contempt, “they’s a bath-room right handy down the hall and baths are a quarter extry.”
it was a riddle whether it were cleanlier to keep the grime one had or fly to a bath-room one knew not of. when bret and sheila appeared at the screen door which kept
the flies in the dining-room they were beckoned down the line by an amazonian head waitress. she planted them among a group of grangers who stared at sheila and picked
their teeth snappily.
the dinner was a small-hotel dinner—a little bit of a lot of things in a flotilla of small dishes.
the audience at the theater was sparse and indifferent. the play had begun to bore winfield. it irritated him to see sheila repeating the same love-scenes night after
night—especially with that man eldon.
after the play supper was to be had nowhere except at a cheap and ill-conditioned little all-night restaurant where there was nothing to eat but egg sandwiches and
pie, the pastry thicker and hardly more digestible than the resounding stone china it was served on.
the bedroom at the hotel was ill ventilated, the plush furniture greasy, the linen coarse, and the towels few and new. bret declared it outrageous that his beautiful,
his exquisite bride should be so shabbily housed, fed like a beggar, and bedded like a poor relation. almost all of his ill temper was on her account, and she could
not but love him for it.
after a dolefully realistic night came again the poignant tragedy of early rising, another gulped breakfast, another dash for the train. the driver of the hack never
came. bret and sheila waited for him till it was necessary to run all the way to the station. the station was handier to the railroad than to the hotel. since red-caps
were an institution unknown to petoskey, they carried their own baggage.
the itinerary of the day included a change of trains and an eventual arrival at no less—and no more—a place than sheboygan.
there they found a county fair in progress and the hotels packed. decent rooms were not to be had at any price. it took much beseeching even to secure a shelter in a
sample-room filled with long tables for drummers to display their wares on. they waited like mendicants for luncheon in an overcrowded dining-room where over-driven
waitresses cowed the timorous guests. sheila had not time to finish her luncheon before she must hurry away to a rehearsal. bret left his and went with her, racing
along the streets and growling:
“why is reben such a fool as to play in towns like this?”
“he has to play somewhere, honey, to whip the play into shape,” sheila panted.
“well, he’s whipping you out of shape.”
“i don’t mind, dearest. it’s fun to me. it’s all part of the business.”
“well, i want you to get out of the business. it’s unfit for a decent woman.”
“oh—honey!”
it was a feeble little wail from a great hurt. plainly bret would never comprehend the majestic qualities of her art, or realize that its inconveniences were no more
than the minor hardships of an army on a great campaign.
at the rehearsal the first of prior’s new scenes was gone over. it emphasized the “heart-interest” with a vengeance. sheila trembled to think what her husband would
do when he saw it played. she was glad that it was not to be tried until the following week. every moment of postponement for the inevitable storm was so much respite.
they rehearsed all afternoon. the struggle for dinner was more trying than for the luncheon. the performance was early and hasty, as it was necessary to catch a train
immediately after the last curtain, in order to reach bay city for the saturday matinée. worse yet, they had to leave the car at four o’clock in the morning.
this time it was bret who was hard to waken. his big body was so famished for sleep that sheila was afraid she would have to leave him on the train. she was wiry, and
her enthusiasm for the battle gave her a courage that her disgusted husband lacked. there was no carriage at the station and bret stumbled and swore drowsily at the
dark streets and the intolerable conditions.
he had nothing to interest him except the infinite annoyances and exactions of his wife’s career. there was nothing to reward him for his privations except to lumber
along in her wake like a coal-barge hauled by a tug.
his pride was mutinous, and it seemed a degradation to permit his bride to run from place to place as if she were a fugitive from justice. he had wealth and the habit
of luxury, and his idea of a honeymoon was the ultimate opposite of this frenzied gipsying.
he had always understood that actors were a lazy folk whose life was one of easy vagabondage, with all the vices that indolence fosters. three days of trouping had
wrecked his strength; yet he had done none of the work but the travel.
when he protested the next morning at early breakfast that the tour would be the death of them both sheila looked up from the part she was studying and laughed:
“cheer up! the worst is yet to come. we haven’t made any long jumps yet. the route-sheet says we leave bay city at one o’clock to-night and get to ishpeming at half
past four to-morrow afternoon. we rehearse sunday night and all day monday, play that night, and take a train at midnight back to menominee. from there we rush back to
calumet, and then on to duluth.”
bret set his coffee-cup down hard and growled, “well, this is where i leave you.”
he spoke truer than he knew. he had kept his family informed of his whereabouts by night-letters, in which he alluded to the blissful time he ought to have been
having. when he took sheila to the theater for the matinée he found a telegram for him.
he winced at the address: “bret winfield, esq., care of miss sheila kemble, opera house, bay city.” he forgot the pinch of pride when he read the message:
please come home at once your father dangerously ill and asking for you.
mother.
