Ernestine returned in June nervously overwrought and almost petulant at
having to wait for her sailing reservations. Thurley saw a new sort of
Ernestine Christian, prophetic hint as to her own future if she continued
with her work.
“Don’t speak to me until we’ve been out at sea for a day,” Ernestine
commanded, “then I’ll be a lovely, rosy _thing_, the jolliest big sister
ever, and I’ll play the rest of the summer. Ask Collin—he knows. Collin,
Bliss and I have often crossed together, and when we went aboard the
boys seriously considered asking the steward not to place us at the same
table. By the time we reached Havre they were making violent love to me,
wondering if their own eyes had played them false in the beginning of
the trip,” after which she unceremoniously bundled Thurley out of her
apartment.
Thurley accepted the hint, as she had plenty to do in getting Miss
Clergy’s summer wardrobe completed and accompanying her to a rustic lodge
in the Adirondacks where she would drone away the golden summer as she
wished. Thurley had assumed, perforce, a maternal attitude towards Miss
Clergy; she was even dictatorial and bullied her a trifle about being
nice to other elderly persons who invited Miss Clergy for tea—Thurley had
found this demeanor to have excellent results.
Although it was with relief that she left the ghost-lady at her summer’s
boarding-place, it was with regret as well. Thurley had begun to feel
that Miss Clergy “belonged” to her as she had always tried to fancy some
one somewhere must belong to her if she would only be patient long enough.
“I sha’n’t worry about you,” Miss Clergy had told her. “You’re the most
satisfactory thing I ever owned.” Unconsciously she had spoken the truth.
She did regard Thurley as a beautiful, talented sort of unsexed person
dependent upon her for existence. Unselfish affection never entered the
partnership. She wondered why Thurley had turned away so abruptly as she
spoke and pretended she had an errand outside the room.
“‘The most satisfactory thing,’” Thurley kept repeating as the car
wheels turned her nearer New York and the coveted trip abroad. “‘The
most satisfactory thing’—and I’m an ‘amusing thing’ to Ernestine, almost
as amusing as Silverheels, only she loves Silverheels. And I’m an
‘interesting young thing’ to Bliss Hobart, some one who came to earth
knowing how to sing and so he is spared the trouble of teaching me. And
I’m a ‘lucky young thing,’ as Polly says, because I’ve the chance she
has not, and I’m a ‘dangerous young thing’ to Lissa because Mark Wirth
likes me—oh, if she knew how often he sends flowers—and I suppose Caleb
thinks me a ‘worth while young thing’ because he gains hints for a new
heroine.... I want just to be some one’s Thurley!” She looked at the
hills without but she could not see them distinctly for tear-blurred eyes.
When she reached New York she telephoned Ernestine, only to be told she
could not sail for at least another week, nor did Ernestine wish to be
disturbed,—Silverheels had been accidentally killed and Ernestine had
suffered a nervous collapse.
Thurley heard the news rather carelessly. “Too bad,” she had said, “I
would rather he went out quickly than to be one of those blind little
creatures that are a burden to themselves.”
“You don’t understand,” Ernestine answered sharply. “You don’t know
anything about it. I am taking him west to an animal cemetery and I shall
pick out a handsome headstone.”
Thurley wondered if this was a strained sort of joke. “Really?” she asked.
At which came a volley of reproaches over the wire to the effect that
most assuredly would there be a memorial for Silverheels as well as a
headstone; no other animal could ever take his place nor would she ever
allow any other animal to make inroads into her heart. She wished his
name never to be mentioned; perhaps Thurley would develop sufficiently
within the next few years to comprehend that animal tragedies were the
hardest to bear!
Which left Thurley feeling like a smacked infant not at all knowing the
reason for the smacking.
The hotel suite seemed musty and in bad taste as she wandered about
restlessly. She must wait now until Ernestine chose to sail; she must
keep away from her and amuse herself. She did not want to worry Miss
Clergy with writing of the delay and she had closed her lesson books
with an eager hand. Polly was busy doing some sort of hack work, and she
supposed Collin would go off to Europe on the steamer they had planned to
take. Anyway, she felt a shy reserve in calling him up to find out.
She was halfway angered at being forced into this submissive attitude.
When she was a prima donna earning her own money she resolved that she
would lead her own life in no half tones. It was all very well to know
interesting, famous persons but to be at the mercy of their thousand
and one peculiar notions and erratic actions was another matter. She
noticed that Collin respected Ernestine’s wishes and Ernestine also
respected Collin’s. Save for Caleb’s being in love with Ernestine and
thus being rendered somewhat helpless, he followed his own inclinations
and permitted Ernestine to do likewise. No one dreamed of telling Bliss
Hobart what to do and what not to do and never did any one, although
disapproving of Lissa, contemplate trying to reform her. Mark danced as
he would and lived as he wished and there was an end of it. And who in
the wide world had more latitude than Sam Sparling, who flirted with
a duchess one day and had a shop girl driving in his car the next,
giving midnight orgies for “the boys” and sending them packing when his
nerves gave warning—Sam who flew off to Lake Louise one day, recklessly
cancelling engagements, and returning very keen for the green room and
the footlights to play for weeks at a time and then “hop across,” as he
said, to Paris to rent some crumbling château and have it put in the
pink of condition while he was engrossed in reading and rehearsing a new
repertoire like a veritable savant. Lucky Sam, Lissa, Mark, Ernestine,
Collin, Caleb—all of them for that matter! Thurley’s lips were rebellious
of expression as she sat that warm June morning before the window,
looking at the Avenue which throbbed with personalities each bent on its
own way.
She registered a vow that she, too, would acquire a personality, a
hobby, a “phobia,” an intricate set of nerves and a color scheme—dear,
yes, there should be no end to her “dew-dabs,” as Hobart named them. She
would even have her own perfume, she would “recommend” a certain fabric
and have her picture taken in a gown of it and printed in a leading
fashion journal. She would rule over her apartment as rigorously as
these others ruled over theirs; she would evolve a distinctive form of
entertainment—to say nothing of openly indulging in moods and sulks and
wild bursts of joy—and cigarettes and liquors if they did not harm her
voice. This should be the reward for these snubbed months of being the
spectator, dependent on some one else’s bounty.
There likewise came an impulse not worthy of the real
Thurley—nevertheless it came as strongly and with as much temptation as
all the rest of her tempestuous plans. When she was rich and famous and
still beautiful, she would return to the Corners to haunt Dan Birge as he
had never dreamed a woman could haunt him. She would have some sort of
romantic interest in her life even if she had given her pledge to Miss
Clergy never to make the hideous mistake of marriage.
As she sat there, some one tapped at the door and, running to open it,
she found Caleb Patmore dressed in motor togs, his goggles pushed up on
his forehead and a linen duster buttoned to his chin.
“I suppose you’re in mourning,” he said whimsically, “or have you
insulted Ernestine by suggesting it is madness to swelter in town another
week while she interviews all the monument makers as to the most fetching
feline memorial?”
Thurley gave him a grateful expression. “It does seem foolish.”
“I’ve been banished forever from her presence—because I sent no flowers,”
he laughed. “However, she told me to get you and take you out for the
day—she can’t keep her June day custom of visiting me at the lodge and
you are appointed proxy. Come along, you look ready for a frolic.”
Thurley raced into her bedroom and tilted her hat over one eye. “My word,
it will be good to go somewhere. Imagine coming back from the mountains
bubbling with excitement and finding the trip delayed for days. If it had
been hours I would not have minded—but days—”
“And you’ve never been across, have you?” he asked sympathetically.
“Oh, never,” she answered in despair. “You don’t think Ernestine will
give up the trip, do you?”
“Not as bad as that, because she has persuaded Collin to wait the week as
well. It might be worse. All set, are you? First, I’ve some errands and
then we’ll shoot out to the lodge and I’ll feed you the best strawberries
floating in the richest cream you ever tasted.”
Thurley found bromidic enjoyment in Caleb’s country place. It was
refreshing in its air of order. She felt that to be a commercialized
artist had compensations, at least it enabled one to acquire what one
wished of true art and appreciate it all the more by contrast with one’s
own attempts!
Returning to the hotel, she found a note from Ernestine saying she had
“come out of it” sufficiently to engage passage for the following Tuesday
and she hoped Thurley would never mention Silverheels to her nor invite
tragedy herself by acquiring a pet.
Thurley lay awake that hot summer’s night—the nearness of the vacation
did not delight her over-much. Instead, she was thinking of herself as
contrasted with Bliss, Collin, Ernestine, Caleb—even Polly. For there
was a difference of birthright between these persons and herself. With a
burning sense of discontent yet enforced honesty, Thurley realized that
she had in herself a strain of sturdy peasantry; these others were more
gently born—there was a difference in the way they spoke, dressed—she
felt too superlative and over-insisting in comparison. She wondered
whether in time she would acquire the atmosphere of gentle breeding
which these persons possessed. Lissa had somewhat the same strain as
herself—and she prayed she would not become like Lissa.
The difference between the peasant and the patrician, Thurley concluded,
after restless reflection, was that the peasant cannot endure pain,
physical or mental, as well as he can stand hardships, lack of the
niceties of existence, whereas the patrician can endure anguish but he
cannot tolerate discomfort. A poorly fitting or coarse gown would prevent
Ernestine from playing her best, whereas Thurley could sing in calico,
standing on the steps of her old box-car wagon. Ernestine could “rescue”
herself from suffering, a sort of diking away of any too engulfing
emotion, whereas, if Thurley’s heart was aching or her mental state
disturbed, she would not sing—she was like a wood beastie wanting to dart
into deep forests and hide indefinitely.
Thurley had begun to long for ancestors, she admitted with a sigh; to
possess portraits of spinsters with crumbling lace fichus and slim, white
hands—Aunt so-and-so or Grandmother and Grandfather Precore! She wanted
heirlooms, some tangible evidence of a family. Winter circus quarters
with the pretended family recalled themselves to her with scant comfort.
She was so young and promising and she was to spend her life singing
for the world and not for any one loved person! There had been Dan who
wanted her to sing for just himself. Had she loved Dan as Lorraine did,
she would have been content to have it so. She would have married Dan by
now, the new house would be glowing with rosy shaded lamps, passers-by
would halt their teams to listen to Thurley singing to her husband ...
but that was not the way it was to be. If only some kind spirit with
the power to release vows and wave a wand to change things about could
do so and create such a house as Dan planned for her and yet have Bliss
Hobart be its master and Thurley its mistress—how very silly and stupid
would New York and opera seem, all these over-smart and cynical persons
with self-consciousness their dominating note and selfish egotism their
guardian angel! She would sing for her husband and work to please him.
And how simple was the big rule of life, Thurley thought, as she sat
up among the pillows, sleep the furthest from her thoughts: Love some
one and have some one love you and make everything else resultant and
interdependent! She sank back slowly—for she had promised never to marry
and in so doing it had come about that she should meet the person whom
she would have married had he been a steam-riveter! Ernestine and Europe
seemed phantoms—she was not interested. Nor was she interested in Dan and
Lorraine and their future. She was unconscious of everything except that
Bliss Hobart treated her for the most part impersonally, disappearing
without explanation although the Buddha still stayed on his desk.
Mark, Lissa, Polly, Sam and Caleb saw the trio set sail—as gay a farewell
as one could imagine, with Lissa in a costume indicating that she had
achieved social distinction and Polly with her funny epigrams and
humorous antics, clever mask for her aching heart. Mark had sent Thurley
a basket of roses which were to be delivered that evening, but which the
steward stupidly hauled to light before Lissa’s eyes.
“You better play safe,” Caleb murmured to Mark who was hanging over
Thurley’s chair and refusing to notice Lissa’s efforts to get him away.
“One doesn’t see a girl like Thurley off for her first trip across every
day,” Mark answered. “Anyway, she’ll not be bothering with any of us in a
year’s time; she’s destined to have a coronet on her handkerchief.”
Sam Sparling had made Thurley count inkstains on his fingers, which he
had obtained by writing letters of introduction to his friends scattered
in France and England. Collin, who was in a fearful stew about having
left behind his pet kit of brushes, fumed up and down the deck with Caleb
reminding him that there were shops in Paris.
Polly stood towards the rear of the group as they were given their shore
warning.
“Good-by, Polly—a world of luck!” Collin said easily.
“Good-by, Collin—the same to you!”
“Good-by,” Ernestine called out. “When you see me next, I’ll be known as
Thurley’s chaperone—I’m submerging my personality!”
“Good-by—America,” a sudden childish fear took possession of Thurley.
A chorus of jeers answered her. “Really? Well, nothing like being
impersonal first to last.... I say, Thurley, if you’re not more polite,
we’ll go buy a locket and each chop off a lock of hair and stick inside.
How would you like that for an albatross?”
“Good-by, Americans,” she corrected, “it’s just—just—”
“Sing it,” suggested Polly.
Without ado, Thurley began “Auld Lang Syne,” causing waving handkerchiefs
to be pressed to eyes and every one aboard to ask who the tall girl was
with the glorious voice and if she was to sing at ship’s concert?
Ernestine shrugged her shoulders as the song ended and Thurley, abashed
at the furore, sank down in her steamer chair. Harsh tug whistles took up
the burden of noise.
“You’ll learn not to waste your songs,” was all Ernestine said.