Bliss Hobart was impossible to describe, Thurley concluded. As she first
spied him behind his carved teakwood desk, one of a hundred luxuries in
his elaborate studio, he appeared a small, insignificant person with an
overlarge head betraying the aristocracy of an old race and piercing
gray eyes. His hair, a salt and pepper affair with a wild front-lock
waving as signal for a controversy, showed the result of a fever, not
age, she afterwards learned, and his long, almost grotesque nose and
flexible mouth with its deeply-dimpled chin inspired her with a desire
to laugh. But as he came across the room to greet Miss Clergy and give
Thurley a cheerful nod, she saw that he was as tall as her own self and
his shoulders were broad and powerful, while his wonderfully shaped hands
championed his abilities. He was dressed more foppishly than she had ever
seen a man dress—a blue serge with a corded white waistcoat, an exquisite
sapphire pin in the cream satin scarf and a watch chain as slender as
a woman’s. As he whisked out his handkerchief characteristically, she
discovered it to be of more cobwebby texture than her own.
Facing him, her blue eyes staring in naïve wonderment, Thurley asked
herself why she had experienced the illusion of this man’s being a clever
dwarf with cruel, calculating eyes! Whatever Bliss Hobart thought of
Thurley would have been impossible to state. He seemed more interested in
Miss Clergy whose thin face was flushed with excitement and whose small
self wore a sheathlike dress of black silk, which suited her well.
For the moment Bliss Hobart seemed a respectful footman solicitous about
his mistress’ comfort, as he “fussed” over selecting a chair for Miss
Clergy and asked as to draughts. Thurley was left in confusion in the
middle of the great room, looking out at Central Park.
She tried to steady her thoughts by taking inventory of the room’s
contents, but it added to her bewilderment. There was something of every
period in furnishings—shrug-shouldered French, the burly Jacobean, the
Victorian redolent of posies, curls and lace mitts, subtle Oriental and
convenient Mission—there was rare glass which had successfully imprisoned
Italian sunshine, Holland delft-ware, cloisonne, snowy linen panels
from China encrusted with gold dragons, lamps with the magic of India
and great jars of Navajo pottery. Behind the desk was a door halfway
ajar—Thurley caught her breath as she looked at it. This must be the
sacred spot where one was “tried out.” The agent finally arranging the
interview had told them that when Bliss Hobart was convinced he had a
find, he went into the little anteroom and played accompaniments or
scales or whatever he wished, while he tested voices. But before he heard
one sing, he had a way of deciding whether or not it was worth while to
pass through the anteroom door.
Thurley wondered if she could make any sound at all—her voice seemed
frozen. Supposing she did not meet Miss Clergy’s expectations? Supposing
she were forced to return to Birge’s Corners or to stay in New York
as a ribbon clerk, sharing another ribbon clerk’s hall bedroom? She
began looking at the collection of autographed photographs which lined
the walls, the marble statues, the bas reliefs, some paintings of an
interesting, delicate sort in pastels and shadowy outlines which hung
close beside the teakwood desk. Then the portrait of a striking, but not
beautiful, woman claimed Thurley’s attention. The woman had a clever,
quick face with flashing black eyes, almost as black as Dan’s, and
blue-black hair, quite like Dan’s, combed into a huge knot at the nape
of her thin, yet attractive, neck. She were a Grecian frock—two layers
of white voile and a layer of black with a jet cord for a girdle. It
was a merciless frock, Thurley decided, for it showed the woman’s bony,
frail figure and unlovely, long arms with wonderfully _live_ hands and
surprisingly stubby fingers. On the third finger of each hand was an
antique ring, the glow of the jewels shining on the white lap of her
frock. Something about the picture fascinated Thurley. She was wondering
if this woman were not Bliss Hobart’s wife; if she did not find it a
stupendous task to be as clever and as keen as her husband. Yet those
well-modeled scarlet lips and the rather masculine chin told Thurley that
the woman was equal to almost any task. By contrast, glancing in a side
mirror, Thurley felt herself overdone and impossible. She longed to exit
silently and drop down the nearest elevator shaft in peaceful oblivion.
Before she had reached the studio she had felt sure of herself, scornful
of criticism. Miss Clergy told her she looked a picture in her frock of
white crêpe, embroidered with dull red, and a smart crimson sailor to
match. But as she pulled off her gloves in nervousness she felt unfit,
impossible, one mammoth gaucherie—her wilful brown hair would creep out
in untidy strands and her face grow flushed in spite of the conventional
coating of powder. She wondered what Dan Birge would say if he came into
the studio of the “wisest and most cynical man in New York’s art world”
and saw her!
“Ah,” Hobart was saying, “we can go inside now—”
Thurley started. Miss Clergy was sitting in blissful rapture in an easy
chair by the window, her gray head nodding at Thurley in delight.
Thurley wondered how long she had been standing spellbound. She had
thought and felt so many strange things and emotions that the time she
was sure must be great.
“I won’t keep you out here,” Hobart was saying, just the suggestion of
a blur in his pleasant voice. “Some one might stray in, and I’ve an
appointment for lunch. Miss Clergy, please help yourself to something to
read.”
“I sha’n’t be lonesome,” Miss Clergy answered. They were a strange pair,
this wild-rose girl and the little ghost-lady who had quickened just in
time to make the wild rose become hothouse variety.
“What were you looking at so intently?” Hobart paused before they went
ahead.
“That picture of your wife,” Thurley answered without delay.
He laughed. “Dear me, that is a very famous person who is an intimate
friend of mine and a friend of my other intimate friends. Her name is
Ernestine Christian and she is a pianist. Paderewski thinks no one plays
Beethoven as well as Ernestine—you may meet her some day. But remember
that in New York the portraits of ladies hanging nearest gentlemen’s
desks are never likely to be their wives. Tell me, what do you think of
the painting?”
“That it was by the same artist who did those.” Thurley pointed
childishly.
“Right—Collin Hedley—you’ve heard of him?”
She shook her head. “We live at Birge’s Corners,” she said demurely.
“Then you will hear of him, particularly if you meet Miss Christian.
Collin painted her portrait as a revenge, because she insisted that men
with Van Dyke beards always have a queer sense of humor. I take it you
understand who boasts of a Van Dyke beard. Then they gave me the picture
because I am so fond of them both.” He was leading the way across the
room.
As she stepped inside the anteroom, Hobart closed the door. Looking about
she saw tawny, rough plaster walls, highly polished floors, a white
marble mantel seemingly unconscious of the fire of birch logs ready to
be kindled. Gold-colored curtains shut out daylight; peasant chairs with
rush seats and a great, dark-wooded settle piled with cushions gave the
proper background for the piano which stood in the center of the room.
“Sit down,” Hobart said pleasantly. “I was so interested in your fairy
godmother that I have not had a good look at you. There—so—I can see your
eyes. How old are you?” His voice changed to that of an impersonal and
rather impatient stranger’s.
“A little past twenty. Does it matter how old a person is?”
“Find that out for yourself! Sometimes—sometimes not. Now tell me, where
were you born and educated and are you engaged to half a dozen lads in
Birge’s Backyard or wherever it is? And why do you want to be an opera
singer, and what has led you to fancy you could be? Is it because Miss
Clergy has advanced you money? Before you answer, let me add that money
does not keep you in grand opera or any other art work. I’m not saying
that occasionally it does not get you in, although not as often as
envious laymen like to imagine. But it cannot keep you on the stage or
in the hearts of the people unless you merit the so doing. You must use
your brain, as well as sing. You may have the voice of angels and yet
fail on the operatic or dramatic stage. You may have the angelic voice
and heavenly beauty and celestial gowns—and still be registered as zero,
unless you use your brain. You must employ intellect, wit, sincerity,
industry, the same as if you were building a house or cooking a meal
or raising a family. A mediocre singer with brains can always surpass
naturally endowed, but mentally sluggish, singers. Remember that!” He
leaned back in his chair and his gray eyes narrowed somewhat; the dimples
in his chin vanished and with them the good-natured, kindly expression.
As if she were pleading with a judge, Thurley, who all in an instant
swept from her savage little self everything she had fancied she
believed, found herself beginning with admirable logic,
“I was born in Thurley, Idaho, so they named me Thurley. Just think—if I
hadn’t been born until the next day, it would have been Hoskins, Idaho!
So far luck was with me!”
Half an hour later she ended with, “I shall never go back to the Corners,
and I shall pay Miss Clergy for all she is doing, no matter if she has
no need of the money. And I shall never marry any one! You see that was
my one promise to Miss Clergy. At least not for twenty years, she said,
because by that time she would be dead and could haunt me if I went to
behaving foolishly.”
Hobart smiled at her as genially as he had smiled at Miss Clergy,
remarking, “Ah, the _de luxe_ Topsy, I take it! I much prefer a Topsy
prospect to a Little Eva prospect with a myriad of interested relations
who feel certain I cannot comprehend the wonderful way their Little Eva
sings ‘Madame Butterfly,’ proving it with clippings from the music column
of the Standing Stone _Gazette_! After all, no one is really interested
in _you_. I take it Miss Clergy is keen on seeing you cheat a man of
love; isn’t that it?”
“Yes,” loneliness swept over Thurley for the instant, “I don’t suppose
any one really cares about me, because the people who did care I ran away
and left.” She caught her underlip quickly.
“Then the decks are cleared for action,” Hobart said with relief. “Before
you sing to-day, let me add that the greatest lesson to learn in order to
be a genius, no matter in what capacity, is to be impersonal. Talent is
_personal_. That is why you have so excellent a foundation.”
“Always impersonal?”
He shrugged his shoulders, impatient of the interruption. “We can’t tell
when I haven’t even heard you sing. My dear child, were I to map out
destinies for every one who comes to me, I should be quite mad. As it
is, to be the ‘final judgment’ takes the disposition of a dove and the
constitution of a lion. You’ll see what I mean later on. You have had so
little education in one way that it will be hard for you to catch up.
You’ll have to work without ceasing. But you don’t look like a shirker.”
“I’m not,” she said, hating herself for the flat remark.
“There are two kinds of persons in this world,” he mused, rising and
going over to the piano, “those who wait for a dead man’s shoes and those
keen enough to employ their own bootmaker. I never hear any one sing
unless I judge them to be of the last class and so,” sitting down and
magically running his fingers over the keys, “tell me—what can you sing?”
“I love the rôle of _Marguerite_,” she began innocently.
He paused to chuckle. “Bravo! There never was a really normal soprano who
did not aspire to _Marguerite_ for her début. It is as much a soprano
symptom, as it is a tenor symptom to yearn to do sacred arias on Easter
Sunday and a basso to growl to be heard at open air music festivals.
The only rhythmic thing about contraltos is their delight in having
cigars named after them.” He looked up to see if she was laughing at his
nonsense.
“But why?” she demanded seriously.
“Well, why are brides fond of trying scalloped potatoes in new silver
pudding dishes? Why do young widows join bridge clubs or why does a boy
cherish his first teeth to trade in at school for king-chestnuts?” He
picked out a flippant little chord as punctuation.
“You must not call me too stupid,” Thurley said unexpectedly, leaning her
arms on the piano, “but my original sense of humor—the one I was born
with—had to be put in cold storage when I settled down at Birge’s Corners
and began to borrow the minister’s library in sections. They just could
not have understood it. But I do believe it is reviving.”
“A sense of humor is the most precious thing in the world,” Hobart told
her. “It ranks with a sense of honor. And if you had to repress it, I
am glad you merely put it in cold storage. Sing this scale, please,” he
added, rapidly striking the notes.
Thurley sang it; then another and some exercises which she thought
difficult and felt proud of having done so easily. They were exercises
the city organist had halfway taught her and which she had practised
diligently by means of Betsey Pilrig’s parlor organ.
“Some more—lightly, quickly—no, no, you’re hissing—try mi—mi-mi—so.”
Again she followed the notes cleverly—so she thought.
Hobart interrupted with a discord. “You naturally breathe well, but you
are frightened. You are not singing but faking, and trying to make me
think you are not. My dear young person, if I were not able to tell in
half a second who is really singing and who is not, I would be forced
to abdicate instanter. Now either go home and rest up and take off that
company manner and then come back here and sing or admit you cannot sing
or else—sing!” He rested his hands on the keys again.
“I can sing,” Thurley said almost sullenly. “I gave up marrying the man I
love in order to sing.”
“Good plot! I’ll tell it to Caleb Patmore, the novelist, but my line is
not writing. Because you have done this so-called heroic feat, do not
fancy you can become a grand opera singer as a reward, any more than
the schoolgirl’s fancy is true that nuns are broken-hearted young women
taking poetic refuge in the veil. You are so young and fearless that you
remind me of a nice, willing but as yet impossible puppy dog who needs
to be shown his place in life. You do not understand that if you have
been given a voice and the will and brains to train it and the soul of a
true artist to preside over all,” his voice was earnest, “what a gigantic
task you are taking upon yourself. No one has said it better than Tolstoy
and Aylmer Maude. The former tells us, ‘The task of art is enormous, art
should cause violence to be set aside ... art is not a pleasure, a solace
nor an amusement, it is a great matter, art is an organ of human life
transmitting man’s reasonable perceptions into feeling.’ And Maude has,
to my mind, finished the situation by saying that ‘the one great quality
which makes a work of art truly contagious is its sincerity.’ _Voila!_”
he began strumming bass notes.
“I must write those things down,” Thurley whispered. “I must learn them—”
“Why?”
“They’re so—so—what is it? Help me out! Remember I’m from Birge’s
Corners, I’ve such lots of things to learn and I’m really quite afraid of
you!” She leaned nearer him. “I’ll have to study languages and history
and no end of stuff and have hours a day of music and love no one and
be impersonal, until I am able to have the same _look_ that Ernestine
Christian has—she has learned to be impersonal! I want to cease to be a
country girl with a good voice and be an individual. Please, Mr. Hobart,
let me sing _Marguerite_ for you! I’m not half so afraid of that as I am
of scales—”
He began the music, and, looking away from him at the rough, plaster
walls, Thurley peopled them with a sea of faces, as she had done hundreds
of times in Betsey Pilrig’s parlor or at the little cemetery while she
was waiting for Dan. She wondered if Miss Clergy heard her sing and if
there would come a chilling burst of criticism from this man. She felt
that, if this were so, she would turn on him in unexplainable defense of
her voice, ignorant as she was of the things still to be achieved.
Hobart rose from the piano and came to put his firm hands on her
shoulders. “Genius has as many symptoms as measles,” he said abruptly.
“I’m afraid you’ve every last one of them!”
“You mean,” she said, tense as an unsprung trap, “that it is going to be
worth while?” Things were black and queerly shaped to her eyes, due to
annoying tears. She thought Hobart’s face a dozen cynical, smiling faces
peeping at her from all sides. “Is it worth while, if I work very, very
hard?”
“Thurley (almost Hoskins) Precore,” it was as if he pronounced a
decree, “for us to stand here and exchange the compliments and promises
and superlative statements we are both thinking would be as annoying
as women haggling over which shall pay the cabfare! We could drag all
manner of red herring over the course and merely waste smart sentences
which are in demand for after-dinner speeches. But if you work as I tell
you and do not become personal either in your relationship with me or
your other musical associates—it isn’t as hard-hearted as it sounds—and
if this presuming young rustic from Birge’s Backyard stays in the
offing—well—you’ll make your début in about a year!”
Thurley did not answer.
“If you are going to faint,” he continued nonchalantly, “the settle
is well-cushioned and handy. I had to have one put in here, for they
would go down in absurd little lumps all about the room—sometimes with
joy, more often rage! I see you are not going to faint, so please sing
something else—something to show up the bad spots. _Marguerite_ is rather
full of deceptive curlycues—ah, I know—hymns—yes, real old-time gospel
hymns! Then we’ll do more exercises, because fright has taken wings.”
He played half a dozen hymns, all of which she sang without hesitation,
laughing down at him between stanzas. She could not understand her
attitude towards this baffling, fearsome person, young-old or old-young
whichever he might prove to be. She found herself wondering if she would
ever meet Ernestine Christian and Collin Hedley and Caleb Patmore, or if
being impersonal was to exclude them as well as Hobart....
“Good, good,” he said, turning from the piano and hugging up his knees.
“Well, we’ll have to get to work as fast as ever we can. I believe
in ‘muscular art,’ the same as some one else has said of ‘muscular
Christianity’—a sound mind in a sound body is the best foundation for
lasting success. Success is the sincerity with which you do your work and
the good your work does some one else—remember that when ennui bursts
in an unwelcomed guest and you begin to ape some of the near-great who
hover about. Art is the expression of a man’s joy in his work and you’ve
everything about and in you, as well as before you, to prove to the world
the truth of that saying. Many new and confusing things will happen
shortly. All sorts and conditions of people, attentions, praise, blame,
drudgery, ease, dissipations, monotonous routine—heavens, child, it makes
my head ache to think of an absolutely _de luxe_ Topsy from Birge’s
Backyard with the voice of an announcing angel set down in New York and
told to prepare herself for grand opera!”
He patted her on the shoulder. “Don’t look startled, Thurley—I’ll have
to call you Thurley because Precore sticks in my throat—you’ll weather
through and some time—I’ll tell you a pet scheme of mine that perhaps—”
He actually was confused as if he regretted the remark. “But for now,
I’ll start you off with having you report here every day at eleven and
again at three—and you’re to do all the other things I tell you. Well,
did you think I would order you to Italy first to get mellow, fall in
love with one of those damned Italian officers with a heliotrope-lined
coat and then come back and let me teach you to sing? God taught you to
sing before you came to earth, and you’ve remembered His teaching....
Just learn the things we men are fools enough to think we must know and
you have won!”
He closed the pianoforte and opened the door.
“No more exercises?” Thurley was tingling with excitement.
“You’re all nerves! Do you think I need more exercises to make me quite
sure about you—the same as an apron never fails to convince a man of the
wearer’s domesticity? To-morrow we begin to polish and prune. Go home and
lie down and think about the frivolous things in the world. You’ll be set
to work fast enough ... ah, Miss Clergy, and did you hear us?”
“I heard Thurley sing,” Miss Clergy said abruptly. “Well—well?”
Thurley answered by stooping down and clasping the ghost lady in her
arms. “He says it is worth your while,” she whispered.
“Then it has been worth everything,” Miss Clergy answered, more to
herself than to Thurley.
Hobart’s secretary came in with some announcement cards and Hobart paused
before he read them to say good-by.
“To-morrow at eleven, and Baxter will see you this afternoon about other
teachers. Good-by, Miss Clergy, and, Thurley, happy days!”
He was so kindly again and with the suggestion of a schoolboy pal that
Thurley could not resist the asking, “Oh, do you find many people worth
all your trouble?”
Hobart’s eyes crinkled with amusement. “To quote a most reliable
authority, the pushcart man, ‘What I maka on the peanut, I losa on the
banan!’”
As they passed out the door, Thurley heard a woman’s voice saying, “Tell
him Lissa Dagmar has come to say good-by. He won’t keep me waiting. I’m
sailing this afternoon.” There was both a snarl and a purr in the voice,
and Thurley wondered if Lissa Dagmar had proved “peanut or banan.”