a honeymoon is like a blue lagoon divinely beautiful, with a mimicry of all heaven in its deeps; blinding sweet in the sun, and almost intolerably comfortable in the
moon.
but by and by the atoll that circles it like a wedding-ring proves to be a bit narrow and interferes with the view of the big sea pounding at its outer edges. the calm
becomes monotonous, and at the least puff of wind the boat is on the reefs. they are coral reefs, but they cut like knives and hurt the worse for being jewelry.
to bret and sheila the newspaper storm over her departure from the theater, her elopement from success, was like the surf on the shut-out sea.
the winfield influence had suppressed most of the newspaper comment in the home papers, but the people of blithevale read the metropolitan journals, and sheila’s name
flared through those for many days.
when the news element had been exhausted there were crumbs enough left for several symposiums on the subject of “stage marriages,” “actresses as wives,”
“actresses as mothers,” “the home vs. the theater,” and all the twists an ingenious press can give to a whimsy of public interest.
bret and sheila suffered woefully from the appalling pandemonium their secret wedding had raised, and winfield began to be convinced that the policy of the mailed
fist, the blow and the word, had not brought him dignity. but it had brought him his wife, and she was at home; and when they could not escape the articles on “why
actresses go back to the stage,” she laughed at the prophecies that she would return, as so many others had done.
“they haven’t all gone back,” she smiled. “and i am one of those who never will, for i’ve found peace and bliss and contentment. i’ve found my home.”
they were relieved of all that had been unusual in their marriage, and they shared and inspired the usual raptures, which were no less poignant for being immemorially
usual. this year’s june was the most beautiful june that ever was, while it was the newest june.
their honeymoon was usual in being sublime. it was also usual in running into frequent shoals and reefs.
the first reef was bret’s mother. bret had always been amazed at the professional jealousy of actors and their contests for the largest type and the center of the
stage. suddenly he was himself the center of the stage and his attention was the large type. he was dismayed to behold with what immediate instinct his mother and his
wife proceeded to take mutual umbrage at each other’s interest in him, and to take astonishing pain from his efforts to divide his heart into equal portions.
sheila recognized that poor mrs. winfield had a right to her son’s support in a time of such grief, but she felt that she herself had a right to some sort of
honeymoon. and being a stranger in the town and all, she had especial claim to consideration.
sheila told bret one day: “of course, honey, your mother is a perfect dear and i don’t wonder you love her, but she’d like to poison me— now wait, dearie. of
course i don’t mean just that, but—well, she’s like an understudy. an understudy doesn’t exactly want the star to break her neck or anything, but if a train ran
over her she’d bear up bravely.”
another reef was the factory. of course sheila expected her husband to pay the proper attention to his business and she wanted him to be ambitious, but she had not
anticipated how little time was left in a day after the necessary office hours, meal hours, and sleep hours were deducted.
she wrote her mother:
bret is an ideal husband and i’m ideally happy, of course, but women off the stage are terrible loafers. they just sit in the window and watch the procession go by.
when i chucked reben i said, “thank heaven, i don’t have to go on playing that same old part for two or three years night after night, matinée after matinée.” but
that’s nothing to the record of the household drama. this is the scene plot of my daily performance:
scene: home of the winfields. time: yesterday, to-day, and forever.
act i. scene: dining-room. time: 8 a.m. husband and wife at breakfast. soliloquy by wife while hubby reads paper and eats eggs and says, “yes, honey,” at intervals.
exit husband. curtain.
five hours elapse.
act ii. scene: same as act i. luncheon on table. husband enters hurriedly, apologizes for coming home late and dashing away early. tells of trouble at factory.
exit hastily. curtain.
five hours elapse.
act iii. scene: same as act ii. dinner on table. husband discusses trouble at factory. wife tells of troubles with servants. neither understands the other. curtain.
two hours elapse.
act iv. scene: living-room. husband reads evening papers; wife reads stupid magazines. business of making love. return to reading-matter. husband falls asleep in
chair. curtain.
that’s the scenario, and the play has settled down for an indefinite run at this house.
roger and polly read the letter and shook their heads over it. roger sighed.
“how long do you think it’s really booked for, polly?”
“knowing sheila—” polly began, then shook her head. “well, really i don’t know. there are so many sheilas, and i haven’t met the last three or four of them.”
for many months sheila was royally entertained by what she called “the merry villagers.” she was the audience and they the spectacle. she took a childish delight in
mimicking odd types, to bret’s amusement and his mother’s distress. she took a daughter-in-law’s delight in shocking her mother-in-law by pretending to be shocked
at the blithevale vices.
hitherto sheila had gone to church regularly next sunday, but seldom this. in blithevale mrs. winfield compelled her to attend constantly. sheila took revenge by
quoting all the preacher said about the wickedness of his parishioners.
when she heard of a divorce or a family wreck she would exclaim, “why, i thought that only actors and actresses were tied loose!”
when she heard of one of those hideous scandals that all communities endure now and then as a sort of measles she would make a face of horror: “why, i’ve always read
that village life was ninety-nine and forty-four one-hundredths pure.”
when bret would fume at the petty practices of business rivals, the necessity for crushing down competition and infringement, the importance of keeping the name at the
top of the list, sheila would smile, “and do manufacturers have professional jealousy, too?”
she soon realized, however, that her comedy was not getting across the footlights as she meant it.
seen through the eyes of one who had been used to hard work, far travel, and high salary, the business of being a wife as the average woman conducted it was a farce to
sheila.
that the average wife was truly a helpmeet appeared to her merely a graceful gallantry of the husbands. as a matter of fact, as far as she could see, the only help
most of the men got from their wives was the help of the spur and the lash. the women’s extravagances and discontent compelled the husbands to double energy and
increased achievement.
thus, while the village was watching with impatient suspicion the behavior of this curious actress-creature who had settled there, the actress-creature was learning
the uglier truths about that most persistently flattered of institutions, the american village.
but after the failure of her first satires sheila resolved to stop being “catty,” and to dwell upon the sweeter and more wholesome elements of life in blithevale.
she ceased to defend the theater by aspersing the town.
she said never a word, however, of any longing for a return to the stage. now and then an exclamation of interest over a bit of theatrical news escaped her when she
read the new york paper that had been coming to the winfield home for years. it arrived after bret left for the office, and he usually glanced at it during his
luncheon. one noon bret’s eye was caught by head-lines on an inner page devoted largely to dramatic news. the “triumph” of “the woman pays” was announced; it had
been produced in new york the night before. in spite of the handicap of its chicago success it had conquered broadway. as sometimes happens, it found the manhattanites
even more enthusiastic than the westerners.
bret noted with a kind of resentment that sheila was not mentioned as the creator of the leading r?le. he hated to see that dulcie ormerod was taken seriously by the
big critics. he winced to read that floyd eldon was a great find, a future star of the first magnitude.
winfield had once been wretched for fear that his kidnapping of sheila had ruined the chances of the play. yet it was not entirely comfortable to see that the play
prospered so hugely without her. he had not been entirely glad that reben had returned his “i o u”; and he was not entirely glad that reben stood to make a greater
profit than he had estimated at first in spite of sheila. it was a peculiarly galling humiliation.
bret would have concealed the paper from sheila, but he knew that she had read it before he came home to luncheon. he had wondered what made her so distraught. now
that he knew, he said nothing, but he could see the torment in the back of her smiling eyes, the labored effort to be casual and inconsequential. that mona lisa enigma
haunted him at his office, and he resolved to take her for a spin in the car. she would be having a hard day, for ambitious fevers have their crises and relapses, too.
bret wanted to help his wife over this bitter hour.
when he came in unexpectedly he found her lying asleep on the big divan in the living-room. the crumpled newspaper lay on the floor at her side. she had been reading
it again. her lashes were wet with recent tears, yet she was smiling in her sleep. as he bent to her lips moved. he paused, an eavesdropper on her very dreams. and he
made out the muffled, disjointed words:
“what can i say but, thank you—on behalf of the company—your applause—i thank you.”
she was taking a curtain call!
bret tiptoed away, wounded by her and for her. he struggled for self-control a moment, telling himself that he was a fool to blame her for her dreams. he knocked
loudly on the door and called to her. she woke with a start, stared, realized where she was and who he was, and smiled upon him lovingly. she explained that she had
been asleep and “dreaming foolish dreams.”
but when he asked what they were she shrugged her shoulders and laughed, “i forget.”
afterward bret read that “the woman pays” had settled down for a long run on broadway. sheila settled down also and attended to her knitting. and knitting became a
more and more important office. she was more and more content to sit in an easy-chair and wait.
bret paused one day to pick up some of the curious doll-clothes.
“i knat ’em myself,” said sheila, with boundless pride.
bret, the business man, pondered the manufacturing cost.
“you could buy the whole lot for ten dollars,” he said. “and they’ve taken you a month to finish them. you’re not charging as much for your time as you did.”
“no,” she said, “i could buy ’em for less, and it would be still less trouble to adopt a child to wear ’em; but it wouldn’t be quite the same, would it?”
he agreed that it would not.
