If Miss Clergy and Thurley were mysteries to the hotel guests and
attendants, so were the guests and attendants mysteries untold to Thurley
and Miss Clergy. To be placed suddenly in New York with unlimited leeway
in opportunities and money, cut off from every simple, human tie which
heretofore had impressed itself on one’s emotional heart and be put to
work at such a multitude of things that one could hardly remember which
hour was designated for this and which for that—to say the very least, it
was “tizzy,” as Hobart obligingly expressed it for Thurley during one of
their lessons.
No less “tizzy” was it for Miss Clergy to waken from a selfish lethargy,
with revenge the stimulating impulse; to try, all in an instant, to
find her way back to the proper method of living combined with modern
requirements and readjustments; to become accustomed to strange noises,
vehicles, buildings, all manner of new and bewildering novelties which
every one else, save her wild-rose Thurley, accepted as commonplace; to
refrain from telling every one who talked with her the reason she had
taken this homeless country girl to New York and was prepared to spend a
fortune to make her a success.
The modistes and milliners used to gossip about it, after they had been
in Miss Clergy’s rooms to take measurements and orders. So did the
bootmaker Hobart had sent up, and the riding master and the language
teacher and the social secretary, who somehow slipped into her place
and became one of them. A veritable monument to fashion and smartness
she was, with the way of making one sit up straight when one was least
expecting the command, of smoothing out personal pronouns to the ease of
every one concerned, who found time every day to make Thurley practise
entering and leaving a room, bowing, shaking hands, smiling, laughing,
holding her head just so, who had stacks of hateful cards and sheets of
paper on which Thurley must write invitations to imaginary dinners and
affairs and then reply to the invitations, who told one that the easiest
way to carry on a conversation was to be an excellent listener, and yet,
all in the same breath, made one memorize certain smart phrases or witty
bon mots, historical dates of importance, soothing sentences which would
fit in for the weather, a clay pigeon match or the assassination of the
president—all these things and more did the social secretary achieve,
Thurley groaning inwardly as the hour approached for her arrival.
Yet she stumbled through her lessons without bringing down too many
frowns on her young shoulders, and when she sat at the improvised dinner
table with a startling array of crystal glasses, goblets and small
silver, and was requested to demonstrate the use of each, the social
secretary nodded approval in a short time and said one day in that
well-bred, monotonous voice,
“You’re so shockingly bright, Miss Precore, I’m sure there’s a scandal in
the family somewhere,” laughing outright at Thurley’s embarrassment.
“Have you really had people more stupid than I?” she demanded.
“Dear, yes! My last two pupils were twins, Golda and Silva Muggins from
New Mexico. It would take a regiment to count their fortunes—but their
manners!” She shrugged her trim shoulders. “And yet they both are
engaged and doing nicely—I’m to finish buying the trousseaux to-morrow.”
“What frightful work to teach—” Thurley began. At which the social
secretary fled lest Thurley entangle her in a really human vein of
conversation and endanger her poise.
Following these lessons Miss Clergy would have Thurley come into her room
and have her repeat all she had learned, after which Thurley would manage
to escape to her own bedroom to burst into rebellious, beautiful song.
For singing at the present time seemed to be of the least importance of
all the things she did!
A gymnast came each morning before breakfast and made her exercise and do
folk dances, all manner of antics strange and, to her mind, ludicrous.
There was a beauty doctor who did her nails and took charge of her hair
and skin, showing her which colors were becoming and which were not and
the test for any woman in doubt as to the proper shade to wear—to lay a
strip of the proposed goods across the hair, not the throat or cheek, as
women fondly delude themselves—and see if the light and effect are to be
desired.
“How many teachers does one great big girl need, Aunt Abby?” Thurley
said, six weeks after Hobart had told her the little story of the peanut
and the banana. “How do they think one brain can remember everything?
How do you know Mr. Hobart isn’t going to be disappointed after all? He
has never said a word about my voice since that first day, just scales
and horrid nasal exercises and that grimy little Bohemian man to take me
in tow half the time.... I’m dead tired, that’s the truth—” She flung
herself down in characteristic fashion beside Miss Clergy. She wanted
some one to ruffle up her hair affectionately or whisper there would be
a chestnut party that afternoon near Wood’s Hollow. And here the memory
of Dan Birge would steal in, an unwelcome yet paramount personage, so she
jumped up and ran over to the window.
“You can’t disappoint me,” Miss Clergy protested. “Mr. Hobart has said
you wouldn’t.”
“Really?” Her face flushed. “Why, he’s never mentioned it—”
“It’s a secret,” Miss Clergy added childishly. “Don’t give me away.
Most girls have to study for years and go abroad, but Mr. Hobart wants
to prove that an American trained girl can be as great a prima donna as
one who enters the stage by way of Vienna or Paris. Come back, Thurley,
I want to tell you something.” She held out her arms as stiltedly as a
marionette.
Thurley obeyed.
“I want you to be happy because you will be both rich and famous. Isn’t
that enough?” Her bright eyes peered into Thurley’s face.
“You mean because I’ll keep my vow to you about not marrying—and I ought
to be satisfied to have the other things?”
“Maybe so. I’m a queer old woman and I choose to live the rest of my
queer old life as I please. But I saved you from the terrible, but common
fate—marrying a small-town bully and being a faded drudge. We’ll leave
that for the minister’s daughter.”
“But Dan would never marry Lorraine—why—” Thurley paused. She was
remembering the day Lorraine had brought her the embroidered set. How
very sweet was Betsey Pilrig’s garden, far sweeter than the imported
scent they had her use! How lovely and peaceful were the green fields
which stretched as far as eye could see ... not tall, dirty buildings
with myriads of shaded windows, each concealing some human being with
woes and longings greater than her own! How lovely was the old box-car,
the first home the girl had known! She had worn pink linen that day
Lorraine came! She had paid for it by extra lessons given in South
Wales, and Dan had sent her the sash for a surprise. How simple but how
sane it all had been! She glanced at her blue velvet frock trimmed with
moleskin—“so ultra,” they murmured when they fitted it. Perhaps this was
the better way.
Miss Clergy caught the drift of her thoughts and the withered hand closed
firmly over Thurley’s. “If he did marry her, you’d be glad to dance at
the wedding, wouldn’t you?” she insisted.
The actress in Thurley rescued her so that she could say, “Of course,
that’s all left behind. No use being like a story-book girl unless you
have a s-story-book heart. Now it’s time for Mr. Hobart’s lesson, _mia_,
so I’m off. I wish you’d let me walk sometimes or take a subway! I’m
tired of being whirled away in taxis! Why, I haven’t even had a moment
alone at Grant’s Tomb,” laughing in spite of herself.
Miss Clergy smiled. “I’m so proud of you!” she declared. “If I had only
found you years ago—”
“I tried to find you,” Thurley reminded.
“Ah, but you didn’t sing that day! If you had, everything would have
changed for us both. When you sing, Thurley, the world is yours—”
Thurley was at the mirror fitting on a high black hat with a bunch of
old-blue plumes. “Do you think any one would love me, if I could not
sing?” she demanded impetuously.
Miss Clergy became confused. “Dear me, Thurley, I cannot think of you as
separate from your voice. There would be no Thurley if there were no
Thurley voice.”
Thurley trilled a scale or so. She was thinking of a black-haired lad who
had said many’s the time, “Hang your voice, Thurley! It’s you I love—just
you!” Pink linen and old-fashioned parlor organs did have compensations.
“When you come back, we’ll plan about our real home,” Miss Clergy added.
“My lawyers try to impress on me what a neglectful person I’ve been.
They want me to mend my ways and spend my money—not be a sort of Hetty
Green always travelling about with a little satchel of securities!” Miss
Clergy’s sense of humor was reviving with the rest.
“Our real home—besides the Fincherie? You’ll never give that up?”
Miss Clergy frowned. “Not the Fincherie! I mean here in New York. We
can’t go on living in a hotel. It is too common, too parvenu. I want the
right sort of home for you, the sort that your ability will deserve.”
Thurley was in the doorway. “I beg you will do nothing of the sort,” she
said. “You have loaded me now with the treasures of Arabia. I beg you
will not! I want to earn things myself—as I did at the Corners—you must
let me. Being supported takes something out of me, I don’t know what,”
she clasped her hands in her rapt fashion. “I’d rather live in a tiny
room, or a box-car, you know, and have very skimpy meals and old-style
clothes and study hard and forget the meals and clothes and then earn the
beautiful, lovely things. That would make me feel right, ’way inside.”
Miss Clergy’s withered face lost some of its haunted expression. “Well,
my dear, you shall wait then and earn your home, but I am afraid that, if
it is quite your own home, you will not want to share it with a funny
old per—”
At which Thurley flew across the room and put her fresh cheek against
the faded one to promise with the enthusiasm of untried youth that the
home she should earn would be but half her home, for the other half would
belong to a certain dear person.
Whirling towards the studio, Thurley drew Betsey Pilrig’s letter from her
bag. It was the second letter she had had from the Corners, for Betsey
Pilrig undertook writing a letter with the same solemn preparation that
most people give to making a will. It required several days of deciding
“what to say to her” and a battle against natural inertia before she
could sit at the red-covered dining-table and force her toil-worn fingers
to write in cramped characters unreal-sounding phrases. Besides, Betsey
Pilrig had always sealed letters with the firm conviction that maybe they
would never get there anyway, letters seemed such queer things to go
flying about the country.
Not that Betsey had not thought of Thurley every hour in the day,
standing in the doorway of her house and of the Fincherie to picture
again the blue-eyed young goddess dancing imperiously up the walk or
sitting under gnarled apple trees to shell peas or peel potatoes, singing
in glorious tones as she did so.
When Thurley’s letters had come to Betsey, she and Hopeful read them
aloud to Ali Baba and the trio sat discussing the fate of their songbird.
To their minds the “happening” was still something to be talked of with
suspicion. One does not fancy a “ghost” taking a beloved child to the
city, never to return, and being responsible, so it had become known, for
Dan Birge’s broken heart and his mad engagement to Lorraine.
“She’ll never come back the same,” Ali Baba would insist.
“Abby Clergy will leave her every nickel,” Hopeful would supplement.
“Then she’s bound to come back and lord it over Dan Birge.”
“She’ll be a great singer—God love and keep her,” was Betsey’s plea.
As Thurley broke the seal on the letter, she felt as if she wanted to
drive to the station willy-nilly to take the first train to the Corners,
to come into the emporium and, upon seeing Dan, say that she was “sorry”
and she still wanted him to plan for the new house ... but she was on
her way to Bliss Hobart’s studio, envied of the envied, dressed as a
“princess,” with strange wisdom concerning many things making inroads
into her simple heart.
She read the letter hastily:
Dear Thurley:
I don’t know how to tell you but you ought to know that Dan and
Lorraine are engaged and every one knows Dan don’t care two
straws for Lorraine, poor girl, but she is dead in love with
him. He done it for spite and I guess they will both be sorry.
Unless he leaves town he can’t get out of marrying her because
her father is the minister. He looks haunted like and my heart
aches for him and for her. Dear Thurley, you will not mind, you
are in such a big city with so many things to see and do and
all the lovely clothes you say you have and your teachers and
all the rest. Sometimes it seems a dream to me.
Will you ever come back to us, Thurley, tell me if you go to
church and have they asked you to sing in meeting? How is Miss
Clergy, does she ever talk about that Eyetalian fellow?
We are well and Hopeful and me get along so well in this house
except that it seems pretty big and that it ain’t right to take
charity. Ali Baba misses you, he says he will send a box of
apples when he gets the ones he wants for you. Thank you for
the dress and coat, they are too fine for my old self. God
bless Thurley Precore,
from,
yours respectfully,
B. Pilrig.
The driver was opening the door for Thurley to leave the cab. After a
moment she handed him a bill, threading her way through the crowd until
she reached the studio building. She wondered if Hobart would notice her
manner and comment on it; if she could manage to get through her lesson
without breaking down. Dan and Lorraine engaged—with her ring—and it
would be Lorraine’s house with the sun parlor that Thurley once planned
and the big living room (right across the front of the house, Danny boy,
and a fireplace big enough for two Santa Clauses); Lorraine would revel
in the garden pergola and plan the sun dial—oh, it hurt, _it hurt_—she
was a miserable, jealous coward!
How dared Lorraine take her Dan, pale-faced, scheming little creature
willing to be a doormat for some one who did not love her! As Thurley
entered the elevator, the thought stimulated her in dangerous fashion....
Even yet, if she were to return to Birge’s Corners and say to Dan, “I am
sorry—love me, darling,” he would fling discretion and Lorraine to the
winds and all would be as it once had been.... Well, she might do it ...
after she was famous ... it would have twice the sting and double the
triumph.... He would have had time to regret.... She did not love Dan as
dearly as she loved love itself, he being the ardent agent of the great
force. She wondered if she could love fame as much. She had a flash of
realization of what a broken heart such as Miss Clergy’s must have been.
Miss Clergy had no talent. Love had been her all.
Hobart was playing a new song as she came into the room. He did not pause
to greet her but said, after a moment, looking into a mirror over the
piano in which he could see her quite distinctly, “What is wrong? Only a
tight slipper? Take off that ridiculous bonnet and come here! I want you
to try this—” It was such a jarring contrast, with that wonderful element
of sustained and hidden force which such men as Hobart need in order to
conquer genius, that Thurley felt the past, of Birge’s Corners and its
petty woes and happenings, fade as if some one had painted it out with a
mighty brush.
She came to stand beside him, while he taught her the song, making no
comment when she finished but turning to a book of prosaic scales.
“Please answer some questions,” Thurley demanded, putting her hand on his
arm.
“This is lesson time!” He adjusted a pair of reading glasses critically.
“Let me miss a lesson. I never see you other times and I’ve the right to
ask questions.”
With an amused smile he flipped at the keys. “Shoot away,” he sighed.
“What do you think of me?” she began promptly.
“I never tell women what I think of them. Please let’s get to work.”
“Tell me this—am I a real genius?” unconscious of the implied egotism.
“Of course,” he answered simply. “Would I bother so much with you if
you were not? Would I send a regiment of teachers and coaches to get
you into proper form? But enough of that! Only don’t let it spoil you.
Still I don’t think it will, because you’ve the sort of talent that is
rock-bottom foundation. You’re going to be immeasurably silly and have
all kinds of notions and adventures. I’m not interested in that part
of your career. I want you to be clear on this point.” As he spoke, he
seemed aloof, absolutely impersonal and removed from workaday affairs,
and Thurley experienced the sensation of embarrassment at having asked
him any questions.
“Your voice is my hobby just now.” The enthusiasm of youth was in his
own. “It is God-given, art concealing art. You have that fire, dash,
_touch of strangeness_ that one sees very seldom. You really would have
hard work to spoil your voice, Thurley. Moreover, I would have hard work
to teach you how to sing. Are you surprised? Oh, you thought as do so
many that I would teach you to sing as one learns to dance or paint on
china, some systematic, mechanical accomplishment ... all wrong!” He
brushed the entire range of keys with his hands as if to express denial
of the fact. “God taught you to sing, Thurley. You sang as well in
your Birge’s Corners as you will sing in opera—and perhaps better. But
you need polish, general education along many lines, endless drill and
routine. As for singing, _per se_, there is nothing I can teach or tell
you. I can direct and restrain—that is my part. So it is with all great
artists, the gift is quite complete and quite their own; it is for them
to be willing to be directed and not to shirk drudgery.” He was about to
add something else, something which it seemed to Thurley was a secret of
his very heart, but he broke off abruptly with,
“Now, you young country scamp, sing hey and sing ho, for you’re wasting
time!” So taking her cue, Thurley fell to work with a zest.
The lesson ended with a surprise.
“Try this aria of Rosina’s in ‘Barber of Seville’—the ‘_Una voce poco
fa_.’ I’ve a notion you can make it celestial harmony if you like. If you
can’t do the Italian, take a syllable and stick to it. Now—” Handing her
the music he dashed into the aria in contagious spirit.
“Very bad,” he commented, making a wry face and taking the music from
her, “but that’s nothing against the voice. A year from now we shall have
the music critics sitting up and exclaiming. Run along, Thurley, and
don’t let the rustic swains make you lose time from your lessons.”
She was putting on her hat and fancied he could not see her expression.
But he surprised her with,
“You will have all the time in the world for nonsense after you’ve
mastered the things you need to know. What you want to do is to put your
heart in cold storage for a while, as you did your sense of humor. Just
be an amiable and obedient genius-flapper and everything else will true
up and appear in due season, just as the curtain speeches during the last
act reveal the missing will, the lost child and soften the irate parent’s
heart against the poor but proud hero.”
“But I don’t want always to have some part of me in cold storage,”
Thurley protested. “I’ve always been such—such a very real person that
it’s hard to—”
“Of course, that’s the best part of it. Easy things never get you
anywhere. Effective medicine is almost always bitter.” He came to put his
hands on her shoulders.
“Why, you’re not so old,” she said bluntly, “are you?”
“Not half so old as I’d like to be; age is so safe, Thurley, when you are
dealing in temperament! You can growl much more effectively.”
“You mean people fall in love with you?” she asked spiritedly. “Is that
what you shrink from?” Her naïve impertinence was unconscious.
“I cringe! Which is worse than mere shrinking.” He gave her a little
shake. “You funny, round-cheeked girl, run along. You’ll be in opera
before we realize it and adopting the airs and graces of an empress.
But I shall remember you as the direct, rosy-cheeked young person who
demanded if I feared having people love me.” His eyes closed briefly and
then he whirled her around as if she were a small boy. “Be off! Ah, yes,
here’s a note—I nearly did forget.” He reached in an inner pocket and
handed over a cream-colored envelope with a heavy lavender seal.
“From her who you fancied was my wife,” he explained, enjoying her
confusion. “Ernestine Christian, one of our ‘family.’ She does not start
her season until January, but then she’s going to tell you all that.
You’ll have to drive fast to be on time, for you’re to take tea with her
at half after four. And don’t forget two things: First, you sang the aria
in five-and-ten-cent style; and, secondly, you’re a nice apple-cheeked
kiddie and deserve splendid things!” He waved her out jocularly, and
she found herself going through the anterooms reading the note and not
speaking to the secretary.
All it said was:
Thurley Precore—
Come take tea with me at half-past four. Bliss says we are to
know each other.
Ernestine Christian.
Here at least was a breathing space from lessons. Some one had asked her
to tea who would, one would assume, be willing to answer questions. She
called a cab and drove to the address.