When she came into the apartment sitting-room, she found Polly Harris in
her shabby brown trappings and another member of the family whom Polly
had dutifully brought to call.
“It’s Sam Sparling,” Polly announced in boyish fashion. “Have you seen by
the papers he’s to open here Christmas afternoon? This is Bliss Hobart’s
prize,” waving her hand in Thurley’s direction. “Now beware of Sam
because even duchesses fall in love with him and he has trunks full of
yellowed mash notes—”
Sam interrupted by frowning at Polly and saying, “Come over here, my
dear, don’t be afraid. I’m too busy to get up a new affair before New
Year’s.”
He had the cultured, pleasant voice of a well-bred Englishman and Thurley
could picture his irresistible methods of love-making, although he was
far older than she fancied and his mouth framed by ironical furrows. He
had really white hair combed into a brisk pompadour, bright eyes like a
young pointer’s and he dressed in noticeable fashion, with a fine black
and white check suit with exaggerated flares, patent leather boots and
silk shirt and tie matching the suit in pattern. Still, it was no wonder
Sam Sparling could “get across” with _Romeo_ one day and the next week
be giving out an interview in which he was quoted as remembering the day
Disraeli said to him—!
“What a dear she is!” he remarked to Polly. He had the habit of talking
about a person in front of that person when he wished to be complimentary
or to find fault. “A flapper in a thousand,” putting on gold _pince-nez_
with the foreign straight-across nose-piece which Thurley had never seen.
“By Jove, is Bliss sure she’s a singer? I could make an actress out of
that girl.”
“You’ve not heard her sing,” Polly capered about. “When she sings, I am
inspired to tear up all the opera scores I’ve fancied were any good and
begin again. Because Thurley has promised me to sing the title rôle in my
opera—now haven’t you?” Polly’s little face was distressingly in earnest.
Sam shook his head and began talking to Thurley about Polly. “She is
irrepressible, isn’t she? Fancies she can out-Wagner Wagner—when she is
just bound to end up by writing songs for a ballad singer—one dressed in
sheer muslin with velvet wrist bows—possessing a thin, carefully tutored
soprano that will always trill certain words.”
Polly picked up a cushion and unceremoniously pitched it towards him. It
fell between Thurley and Sam and Sam knelt gracefully upon it, adding,
“Would that I could have one of these when I’m trying to look romantic
in this position before a matinée of school girls—ugh, the old bones do
make a howl if I use them carelessly! Thurley, don’t mind us! You see I’m
one of those old-young boys that just stay old-young to the finish—always
wearing a gardenia in their buttonhole and their hat tilted rakishly over
the left eye. Some day I’ll just go to sleep and I’ll be toted to the
Little Church Around the Corner with a last gardenia in my buttonhole
and I hope some friend of mine will protest against that awful firebell
embellished funeral march. At least I’m entitled to have the Faust waltz
played—I always have my greatest luck with stage proposals when that is
softly heard as coming from the supposed supper room of a hunt ball—and
a bill poster without saying, ‘The End of an Old Beau!’ After it is all
over, I hope they’ll say, ‘Well, Sam never grew old while he was among
us—let’s hope he won’t start the habit now wherever he’s blown off to!’”
He jumped up as he finished, holding out his hand, and Thurley took it
shyly.
“Don’t mind our nonsense—she’s quite timid, isn’t she? Reminds me of the
way my leading ladies act when on the stage and when off they rage like a
stable boy if some one happens to cross their notions.” He studied her a
moment longer and remarked, “She is pretty—I can’t find a single flaw.”
Thurley was pretty that afternoon; perhaps the ooze had lent her the
vivid coloring or it was her bright red coat with the great silver
buttons and the ermine tam slanting down and showing her dark hair.
“I’m stupid,” she began, “because I’ve been working so hard.”
Sam settled himself on a sofa to take in the surroundings. Polly was
watching something out of the window so Thurley took opportunity to
remove her wraps and come to sit sedately beside the famous old man.
“But I’m not really timid,” she supplemented naïvely, at which he turned
about crying bravo, and threatening Hobart with losing his prima donna in
order that she become Sam Sparling’s leading lady.
“She’s taking inventory of my wrinkles, Polly,” he complained, “and my
white hair and the wretched old hump o’ years that has fastened itself
on my back. Bring her to the Christmas matinée and let her see me in
lavender-striped trousers and cutaway coat, the misunderstood young man
turned from his father’s mansion, returning in the last act to his
steam yacht and his second best Rolls Royce—let her have a go at me and
come behind to have tea afterwards,” he put his hand down and covered
Thurley’s—a thin, tired hand with prominent, blue veins and a handsome
ring of sapphires on the little finger.
“Haven’t you a good sort of leading woman?” asked Polly.
“No, the only real bond between us is a mutual love of Roquefort salad
dressing,” he sighed. “Her idea of art is to be undressed quite halfway
down her back and to fall on my neck in limp giggles.”
“Why do you have her then?” Thurley asked seriously.
“Youth, my child—she is a lovely, young thing, pink and white, straight,
slim, very good to gaze upon—and she knows it. She can wear a wrap
consisting of four flounces of purple chiffon and a strip of rose satin
and make the audience stare at her impudent, untalented little self while
they _listen_ to my lines! The combination lets my wrinkles, humped
back and cantankerous joints slip by unheeded. That is a penalty we pay
for growing old. Never mind, Thurley, you’ve years in which to revel in
having both talent and youth—divine combination!” Sam’s bright eyes grew
moody, he was remembering, as Thurley rightly guessed, the wonderful,
golden years in London when he was Romeo in appearance as in voice and
passion, when he was dark eyed, melancholy young Hamlet and the critics
gently insinuated that as King Lear he was a trifle youngish although his
makeup was superb! Those were the years when people loved his Shakespeare
because his youth illumined it and he passed by with proper scorn the
smart comedies requiring a morning garden backdrop, a duel in the library
and leading ladies who were possessed of more dimples than brains.
“Why don’t you play old rôles?” Thurley demanded innocently, Polly
smothering a giggle.
“She doesn’t appreciate my romantic little heart and notions, does she?
Let her see me a swashbuckling hero in hip boots and a green plumed
bonnet while my black charger is led across the stage by bribes of
sugar—then she’ll understand.”
“No, she can’t understand, Sam dear, until she has reached the matronly
age and still wants to do Juliet and Senta and managers try to show her
the error of her ways—and figure!”
Thurley looked up at her new friend to wonder what form the ooze took
with him. But he good-naturedly patted her cheek, saying much to her
relief:
“I see you are human and not going to ask me to recite ‘Gunga Din.’
I return the compliment by not demanding that you tear off Tosti’s
‘Good-by.’ I only ran in to welcome you to our circle and to tell you, as
senior member, a few facts about the others. They will tell you about me
fast enough—”
“Never happy unless he has a breach of promise suit waiting for him in
the morning’s mail,” promptly supplemented Polly. “Always has it rumored
he is to marry a prominent whiskey dealer’s widow—sells his mash notes
per pound to Caleb, owns a hothouse of gardenias and has them shipped all
over the map—at heart a flinty old bachelor warrior—a splendid, precious,
cross pal—a jewel of an actor who makes you laugh and cry as easily as
you breathe.”
“There is a young woman,” said Sam calmly, pointing an accusing finger,
“who will never write grand opera—never! Watch how pale she grows. But
she will do something heroic, has all the salamander qualities with none
of their viciousness. Would snatch a funeral wreath right off a door to
make a present to some one she loved, very whippy temperament, believes
that bothering over one’s soul is an emotional luxury, must have had an
antique little romance back somewhere. Where did you come from, Polly,
anyhow? Sort of neighborhood, I fancy, where the prevailing fashion was
to have your great-aunt’s deceased poodles stuffed and mounted to preside
over dark, chilly parlors.... Of course, Polly jumped the stockade and
landed among us—a forlorn child with squeaky shoes, as I remember her.
She’s as proud as Punch and stubborn as a bull terrier, so we let her
starve knowing that sometime or other she is going to bump smack into
Fame and he’ll never let go of her. But not grand opera, Polly girl.”
“I shall stay in New York,” Polly announced, fastening her coat, “and
I shall write a grand opera in which Thurley shall sing. You will all
have to beg my pardon.” Her brown eyes showed the hurt in them and Sam
Sparling began helping her with refractory buttons of her wrap.
“I’ll have my apology engraved on a gold scroll and you can use it for a
dinner gong—on the gong handle will be a bas relief of myself—gardenia
and all. So you can beat me up thrice a day.”
Thurley was laughing; she wondered if Miss Clergy had napped during the
turmoil. “Don’t go,” she begged. “Please stay a long time.”
“We can’t, we’ve a raft of calls. I always take Polly because she can
break away so neatly. I’m the sort that sits and sits, ending by halfway
swallowing my cane handle and getting nowhere in particular.”
“Will we really go to the matinée?” she asked Polly.
“Of course. I’ll call for you—and tea in Sam’s dressing room. Oh,
Thurley, you haven’t begun to realize New York as yet—not Bliss’s New
York, but your New York and mine and Sam’s, too.”
“Why do you love it so?” asked Thurley.
Polly leaned her two by four self against a chair as she answered, “Oh,
because—when I walk down the Avenue sunny mornings and see ragamuffins
sharing an ice cream cone and visiting British peeresses with their
fresh faces and dowdy clothes vying with our American heiresses with
their smart creations and hunks of black pearls, when I come upon nice,
happy boys and girls from up state or clever Middle West men here on
important commissions and bronzed cowpunchers and trim naval officers,
to say nothing of portly men of finance bowling along—I’m New York mad.
Besides, when I have to watch the traffic cops and white baby prams
becoming friendly, to gaze at a window of caramels, mountains of them,
and right next to it to gaze at a window of paintings on silk guarded
by the Pinkertons, when I have to stop to watch the man in Childs’ turn
flapjacks and know that inside Sherry’s sit the prettiest, best dressed,
quite the most decent men and women in the world nibbling at tomato
surprise and whispering as to how many apartment houses the waiters
own, when I see Pekinese spaniels airing their new jewelry and mongrels
scrapping over a bone, when I can go to a ten-cent movie or sit in a box
at the opera and wear Ernestine Christian’s adorable brown velvet dress,
when I happen upon dainty brides buying chintz remnants at Wanamaker’s,
spotting burglars chatting over their prospects at the Five Points a
few moments later—and when I can ride home sardine fashion in a subway
express or take a battered hansom what ’as seen better days, pin a bunch
of florist’s seconds to my chest and drift down towards Washington
Square or, once in a while, be picked up by Caleb or Collin or Ernestine
and be glided home in a motor—well—I love New York,” she paused out of
breath.
Sam bent and kissed her. “Marry me,” he demanded.
Thurley was noticeably embarrassed.
Polly burst out laughing. “That’s Sam’s remedy for all ills, Thurley.
When Ernestine had to move out of her old apartment, Sam was engaged to
her until she was satisfactorily settled in her new one. It bucked her up
no end.”
Thurley shook her head. “I’m afraid I’ve not come on enough really to
entertain you—do call a year from now.”
Sam laid his tired hand on her head in mock solemnity. “Don’t let Hobart
cheat you of what you deserve—remember, every woman has the right to at
least one trousseau!” After which they left, Polly calling back something
as to the time of their meeting on Christmas afternoon.
Thurley stole to Miss Clergy’s door but the little ghost lady was fast
asleep.
“Every woman has the right to at least one trousseau,”—she wished he
had not said it. She did not want even deep-down, hidden regrets....
French exercises, Italian opera scores, singing lessons, English reading
selections, dancing, fencing, horseback, social etiquette, makeup,
costuming, stage directions—pretend, pretend, _pretend_ things ... and
they were trimming the church at the Corners—Dan and Lorraine this year,
Lorraine with her ring.... What strange people, at odds with each other
and their own selves—what queer, detached lives—what remarkable theories,
fantastically expressed! where was the saneness of it, the rhythm—that
was it—the rhythm? Would she experience it and be satisfied after she had
made her bow to the public? Could the ooze always answer the requirements
of her savage young heart?
* * * * *
After the Christmas matinée, when Thurley with eyes as large as saucers,
so Polly reported, had watched Sam play a difficult rôle in superb
fashion and had taken tea with him in his dressing room, she returned
alone to the hotel.
Polly was due at a Greenwich Village affair, Caleb was with Collin in
the country, Ernestine in Chicago practising scales, as her letter to
Thurley would intimate, and at Birge’s Corners ... ah, that was the
ooze, it was no longer real! So Thurley came into the dingy sitting
room—at least it now seemed dingy—to find that Miss Clergy had suffered
an attack of neuralgia and had been ordered off to bed. The high tea in
Sam’s dressing-room had robbed her of her appetite, so she did not go
downstairs for dinner but changed her party frock for a schoolgirl blue
serge and stoically settled herself at her books. She promised herself
that after she had diligently studied she would go into the ooze and
celebrate her real Christmas!
As she put her hand on the table the new bracelet Miss Clergy had given
her that morning struck the wood with a metallic clink. It was a handsome
thing set with diamonds, handsomer than anything Dan had afforded. But
it had been given her with the generosity of a jailor in lieu of any one
else’s daring to give her such an article!
Thurley began an irregular verb conjugation in sing-song fashion,
fighting off a savage mood. The telephone interrupted her and half a
second later she was saying in the gladdest voice she possessed:
“Tell Mr. Hobart to come right up,” hanging up the receiver and running
to the mirror to see just how much of a fright she looked.
She had no time to think of a change of costume for in he came, a
veritable domestic gentleman muffled in an ulster, holly in his
buttonhole _and_ something in white tissue paper and tied with red ribbon.
“Merry Christmas! I had five minutes’ extra time and I thought I’d
drop in to take the chance of finding you. Had an idea you’d be in the
doldrums, first Christmas out of the backyard, y’know.” Unasked, he
slipped off the ulster and Thurley saw he was in evening dress. “Thing
at the club,” he explained, noticing her expression. “Well, what have we
been doing? Don’t tell me that rascal of a Sam had you behind for tea.”
“He did.” Thurley suddenly found her old wild-rose self as she told him
of the matinée.
When she finished he said, those curious gray eyes of his narrowing,
“A good singer should have a good—” holding out the white tissue paper
parcel.
“Oh, what?” she demanded. “It’s the only present I’ve had that was done
in white tissue paper. Nothing came from home and the others laugh at
Christmas. Miss Clergy gave me this bracelet—but the bill was in the
box,” she added resentfully. “But this—this is direct from Santa Claus.”
“It’s a good mascot,” he informed her gravely. “Always keep it to say
little heathen prayers or curses to and tell it your troubles and your
joys. In short, treat it like a regular fellow.”
Thurley scrambled the paper and ribbon away. “Why—I bought you almost
the same,” she said unconsciously.
Hobart laughed. “You actually bought your stern _maestro_ a present?”
Thurley was absorbed in looking at the little Buddha carved from lapis
lazuli with gold for the features and diamonds for eyes. “This one is
much lovelier,” she said.
“Tell me—did you really buy me a present?” he demanded.
She nodded.
“Why haven’t you handed it over?”
“Because—I bought presents for every one—the sort of things you people
laugh at—but you seemed different from the others so I bought you a
Buddha because I thought you needed some one to tell your real secrets
to—and then, after I wrapped it up, I began to think you would not like
it—”
“Will you get it or shall I send a court order for my property?”
Thurley vanished, reappearing with the teakwood case. “Isn’t it odd that
we both bought the same thing?”
Hobart’s face was boyish as he took the gift. “Why, Thurley,” he told
her, “I believe I’m training an angel unawares.”
“You mean me?” she asked humbly.
“What made you speak of telling real secrets?” he stroked the little idol
as he spoke.
“I don’t know—only where do the real things go to when the unreal have to
come first and take up all one’s time?”
Hobart started towards her; he seemed about to say something very secret.
Thurley looked at him wistfully, every memory concerning the Corners, her
dissatisfactions and rebellions vanished. She assumed a gay, star-like
mood.
But he thought better of it and became the polite and baffling Bliss
Hobart with whom no one took liberties, least of all a girl protégée. It
would be wiser to tell the secrets to the little Buddha whose silence was
of golden quality. Perhaps, if years ago, more years ago than Thurley
knew, one’s secret things had not been used as public jokes....
“I’m afraid I cannot answer,” he said brusquely. “Leave my greetings for
Miss Clergy and don’t try to wear your mascot as a watchguard—happy days,
to-morrow as usual.” Patting her on the shoulder, he dismissed himself.
Thurley set the mascot before her books and returned to grubbing. Two
hours later she glanced up and the diamond eyes gave her a jolly twinkle.
“I say,” she remarked out loud, “you are first aid to the agitated! Now
tell me—didn’t he for just a moment treat me as if I were a real _woman_?”
So passed the first New York Christmas!
The next day, when Thurley went for her lesson, she had the pleasure of
being snubbed and scolded. But passing out of the studio, she saw the
little Buddha sitting on his desk very close to where his hand must reach
each time he took up his pen or blotted a letter!