At first fame was good to have, there was no mistaking it. For Thurley
achieved delightful freedom by the magic of her success. She began to do
all she had planned during her novice period, to try this or that sort
of costume, to give “affairs,” if you please; she cultivated a hobby and
a “phobia” and acquired a smart wire-haired terrier called “Taffy” whose
picture was featured in all the leading newspapers and musical journals.
It did not take her long to readjust herself to this new life. Older,
tired persons who had played godmother and godfather to her during her
apprenticeship watched her in amusement. Not that Thurley ceased to apply
herself to work; she was untiring in her efforts, for she felt she would
never want to stop learning new and more difficult things. Nor did she
stop knowing any one save those who could be of use to her. Instead there
was exhibited a refreshing democracy of spirit which governed her likes
and dislikes.
Bliss told Caleb, “She’s a pleasant little Trojan and one can see at a
glance, save for amusing whims, she is as reliable as a grandfather’s
clock.” And he told Thurley, who hovered about hoping for some personal
understanding or praise,
“Just be sincere and everything else trues up—and don’t grow plump like
Lissa, because banting is an awful bugbear.”
At which Thurley tossed her newly laurel-crowned head and determined to
try artifice to make him pay her attention. After all, these fads and
fashions were merely antidotes to make her forget the thing she craved
foremost—Bliss Hobart’s real friendship. So she ordered lavishly of
whatsoever she chose, moving without delay into an apartment, with Miss
Clergy tottering contentedly after. It was a personal triumph for Miss
Clergy; with Thurley it was only the natural result of having been born a
singer.
“I have my own ideas for my apartment,” she told Ernestine with
patronage, even waving aside Lissa’s suggestions for a “love of a
boudoir—just the place for proposals” and returning Mark’s offering of a
gilt mirror because it did not harmonize with her color scheme!
“Let her play away, she’ll tire of it,” Sam Sparling said indulgently,
when Polly dropped in at the theater to recount Thurley’s latest exploit,
the purchase of antique Egyptian jewelry which she was to wear in “Aïda.”
“Have you seen her apartments?” asked Polly. “Not like Thurley at all. I
associate her with real mahogany and open fireplaces—rose-garden things.”
“I’ll blow up that way to-morrow afternoon,” Sam promised.
Which he did—only to be amazed himself at the effect Thurley had managed
to create. Her living room had a blue floor, a blue arch and lapis lazuli
colored pedestals. There was a turquoise satin fire screen, a globe
of blue Bristol glass and the walls and ceilings were done in rich,
silver leaf paper with impossible gilt furniture set at futurist angles
throughout the apartment. Apricot linen curtains threw a strange, mellow
glow on the black dining-room, the walls being brocaded black velvet with
red alabaster bowls on tripods and a riotous futurist frieze running
about the room. There were side tables of audacious rose-red marble and
the dining table and chairs were polished ebony while an onyx-like mantel
boasted of silver bowls heaped with glass colored fruits.
Sam, who knew no restraint, came rapping boldly at the door of Thurley’s
own room, after an astonished stroll through the apartment.
A _chic_ maid opened the door with the properly startled expression
always registered in Caleb’s novels.
“I say, Thurley, you’ve done yourself proud,” Sam lounged in the doorway
to view the white Empire furniture with elaborate gold scroll, the blue
velvet hangings, the cabinet of slippers and hair ornaments arranged, no
one knew why, not even Thurley herself, as if for display.
Thurley, who was preparing to take dinner at the Hotel Particular with
half a dozen new and decidedly unconventional creatures, tried to look
indignant.
“You’re a monster,” she said as she shook her finger at him in imitation
of Lissa. At which Sam burst out laughing and vowed he would have her for
his leading lady no matter if he had to send Bliss flying off yon cliff.
“You ridiculous child,” spoiling her dignity completely, “who in the
world started you to shake fingers in old beaux’ faces? And dressing like
the adventuress in ‘Lights o’ London’? Do put on your rumpled blue serge
and let’s go for a drive!”
Thurley swept by him in indignation, Sam following and side-stepping her
train. She wore a band of black jet in her carefully dressed hair and a
gown of black to match, over which was a long cape of unspotted ermine.
She stood beside the piano to draw on her gloves. “It isn’t fair to scold
in front of a new maid,” she said, “and contradict me or not, Sam, I am
grown up. I can’t go about like a flapper or keep on living in a hotel.”
“What does Miss Clergy say?” Sam balanced himself first on his toes and
then sank back on his heels.
“She smiles, nods, agrees and never wants me to repay her. But, joy of
joys, I can. For I’m going to be rich—really rich and I’m young; I have
years in which to dash about without a thought as to rest or digestion.
Don’t you approve?” She finished buttoning her gloves and proceeded to
open a florist’s box critically to take notice of a corsage of yellow tea
roses.
“Mark does send such ultra things,” she complained languidly. At which
Sam Sparling nearly upset himself by overbalancing and then came up
to take hold of her shoulders as if she were a small boy in need of a
trouncing.
“Young lady, let an old beau give a word of advice. They say a word to
the wise is sufficient and you were, formerly, wise and apple-cheeked
and delicious. We all adored you. To-day I feel I ought to call you Lady
Vere de Vere and tuck intriguing notes in that corsage, all that sort of
thing ... my dear, play away, for it’s not to be wondered at, but don’t,
oh, don’t, Thurley, let it supersede the real you. I remember Ernestine
Christian had a whirl at it when she first came into prominence.
Dear yes, jewels and furs that every woman envied—flirtations—a bit
psychological were her flirtations as I remember; she particularly went
in for Hindu poets and consuls. But flirtations, nevertheless! Then she
used to give all manner of absurd parties—there was one in London that
laid me up a fortnight. It began with ice cream and cordials and ended
with the Lord Mayor of London’s own turtle soup—had it sent over by gold
braided beadles and so on. You had to eat each course in a different
spot. You were kept on the move, so to speak. I remember munching my
alligator pear somewhere near the Tower of London, only to be whisked
off to Whitechapel to be set up directly with the neatest sort of a game
plate! Well, she tired of playing that way and one day she appeared at my
dressing room in a rough tweed suit and a felt hat saying,
“‘Sam, I’ve buttered buns in this hamper and pale, schoolboy sherry.
Let’s walk until we’re so hungry that we’ll sit down and eat like
beggars—and I can make a proper confession of what a fool I’ve been!’”
Thurley tried not to laugh and succeeded in commanding an unbecoming
frown. “Well, you didn’t try to restrain her,” she insisted.
“Ernestine is a different type. I’m afraid you wouldn’t look at mere
Hindu poets or consuls.”
“What of yourself?”
“Hands up, I confess. I had a passion for coaching tours and those
horrible alderman-like banquets. I seemed to be tremendously popular with
the buds—I was cad enough to keep all their letters for a long time. When
they began to have grandchildren send me notes saying, ‘Granny says to
ask if you remember the time you played _Romeo_ and so and so’—I stopped
being such a great house, ordered health-last shoes and got a line on
the really reliable sanitariums. But you, Thurley,”—The old-beau aspect
of himself seemed dimmed; he appeared a fatherly old gentleman rich in
experience and therefore wise in judgment. She felt like a naughty child
who has been discovered while parading in her mother’s finery. She could
not have told why, but she felt artificial, as if she should be on the
stage of the opera house singing her heart away in some lavish rôle—as
_Violetta_ in “Traviata” for instance—but not as Thurley Precore!
“You’d even make me believe there was no Santa Claus,” she protested, the
actress in her rallying to her support. “Don’t tell me to don a pinafore
and become interested in botany! It’s such fun to play—and so new; none
of you seem to realize that.” Here she trailed off into silence, busy
with her own thoughts, Mark’s corsage slipping from her fingers.
She was remembering Dan and Lorraine and the day the child Thurley and
Philena pledged to be missionaries, the advent into the Clergy mansion
as a madcap mischief, the singing in Betsey’s parlor that momentous June
day, the quarrel with Dan, the wonderful journey to the city with the
ghost-lady, then Bliss ... here the thoughts ended and she found herself
thanking Sam for returning her corsage.
“As for this sort of thing,” the old actor finished, pointing at the
corsage, “you’ll have many of them—but choose wisely and for all time.
Don’t waste time on worthless phantoms; remember ‘To-morrow feeds on
yesterday.’ Even if you fancy you are merely playing at being a ‘grand
lady,’ and that you yourself are unspoiled and truly great, think of the
bon mot: ‘Imitation is sincerest flattery,’ and do not ape Lissa any more
than you can help.”
“None of you understand,” she cried, rebelliously. “I shall do as I wish
and live as I choose—as you have all done.”
“Look at us and take warning,” ended Sam promptly. “Well, if you get
crowded to the wall, call on me. I’ll be about.” After this he went on
his way undecided whether or not merely to admire Thurley as another
dear charmer on whom his heart had undeniably been frittered away or
to take her seriously as if she were a hope-to-die ward given into his
guardianship.
Meanwhile, Thurley went on to the dinner party remembering Sam’s audacity
with annoyance intermingled with delight. There was and always will be to
every woman, if she is honest, a rare charm in being treated as a little
girl. White-haired matrons delight in being named “girl” and being told
by some one a trifle whiter of hair and more numerous of birthdays: “My
child, what in the world are you dreaming of?” It is a harmless notion
with which every woman is endowed.
Thurley was born more or less of a woman, so that Sam’s attitude appealed
to her. But the peacock which is also in all women and the love of
domination, remnant of glorious idol worship, made her reject his halfway
offered protectorship.
It was wonderful to dress in rich fashion, to have Mark take her to some
bohemian table d’hôte—like that of the Petispas Sisters—to know she
would be the handsomest and best-dressed person there and that Lissa
was helplessly furious at Mark’s new object of adoration, yet obliged
to smile instead of snarl in Thurley’s presence. It was fun to read
letters from unknown admirers, to have schoolgirls with vast ambitions
and opinions of their abilities appeal to her, as well as embryo tenors
from small towns who only needed a gracious, sisterly hand to guide
them, and press agents out of a job who were capable of the greatest
scheme for procuring public interest that ever alarm-clocked! Thurley
was just realizing the parasites, so-called artistic, who beg, steal or
demand their living from those who really work and earn one. She was
beginning to classify the large army of restless rebel women who really
delude themselves into believing they have a mission in life, badgering
all those who simply do the work they were intended for. These women
interested Thurley. She regarded them as one views a new member of the
zoo, poking sticks at them through the bars when the guard is not alert.
She had listened to these creatures tell their woes with childish
audacity; she liked their superlative mode of expression rendering their
case hopelessly weak and insincere, she was amused by the comic opera
fashion in which they dressed or the masculine over-emphasis in costume
details. There were women of the pale, willowy type—“misunderstood”
was their slogan. There were the bold, aggressive women who despised
sentiment and who longed to prove to men that they were truly a
non-essential race, who grew so enthusiastic over what they could do for
one Thurley Precore as her advance agent, companion, secretary and so
on that Thurley fully expected them to bark or walk up the wall, as she
told Ernestine. There were women of the dreamy, neurotic type who never
mentioned mother back in Oshkosh still cooking “three squares a day” for
her houseful of boarders in order that Myrtle or Poincianna might have a
winter in New York in which to study design! Design was right—but not as
mother fancied it was!
Oftentimes Thurley felt she must stop playing a part—mischievous young
person!—and say to these misguided rebel-dolls that they were fortunate
in having just plain folks, to have any one really belonging to them—a
vista of forbidden joys would open before her blue eyes as these
“hysterical hikers,” as Bliss Hobart had named them, told her of how they
had come away from the sordid, uninteresting atmosphere which strangled
their inner selves and they were willing to go hungry—all the great ones
had gone hungry—to deny the fleshpots if they might only achieve—might
win the laurel! After the large flow of language when called upon to
demonstrate their abilities, they would warble in a reedy soprano:
The vi-o-let loves the pans-y
FOR—the robin told me so-o-o—
Or else they would use a coal-bin contralto to inform Thurley all about
the Lost Chord and ask if they did not remind her of Clara Butts!
It was a merry life, because Thurley had not reached the stage of
acknowledging that she had nerves. She revelled in this court of appeals
from which the others fled.
Caleb had reached the neurasthenic stage where he wanted a periscope
attached to his porch so he could spot approaching authors laden with a
manuscript. Every time a young author did brave the portcullis and obtain
an audience, only to ask Caleb if there really was not everything in a
name—editors were so mean, anyhow, and every one said so, and if Caleb
would permit his novel, which every one said was _the_ American novel,
too, to be printed under Caleb’s name and thus play a roaring joke on
these haughty and unfair editors, why, he would go fifty-fifty on the
royalties—every time this happened to Caleb, he promptly disappeared
on a champagne debauch and refused to express any penitence whatsoever
concerning it!
Or if Collin was held up by a young woman with a badly powdered nose
and a thatch of flaxen hair hiding all her features save the nose and
was asked if she could not be his inspiration, Collin lost no time
in rewarding himself for the ordeal. His bags were packed, and his
motor was at the gate, even if the president of a steel trust was
due for a portrait sitting. Away he flew over hill and dale like a
startled rabbit, reaching some rural inn where art consisted of framed
lithographs, and here he lay in hiding until his disposition had
sufficiently recovered to allow his return as a smiling, bow-tie-waving
artist, brush poised for action!
Therefore the family regarded Thurley’s liking for the onslaught of
hysterical hikers as a sort of puppy soap-chewing-and-distemper stage.
“Let it run its course, they all do,” Hobart said when it was reported to
him. “She’ll grow weary of autographing photographs and of having every
would-be genius from the wilds of Oregon try to crowd into a basket and
land on her doorstep—a songbird foundling cuckooing its misunderstood
little life!”
There was something about these women which faintly roused the reformer
in Thurley. They were simply out of step, she insisted, her own little
feet always marching to the bandwagon without question. They needed to be
shown the inspiration which can be gained from mediocrity. Although they
were humorous and a trifle pathetic, they were dangerous, to Thurley’s
mind.
“What havoc they could raise!” she said to Hobart one afternoon.
“They would be capable of playing gnome at sane and settled doorways
and calling, ‘Leave your tasks—come out—come out,’ and a great many
would follow them. They are seething with discontent and they have the
determination which keeps them going, yet they do not tell themselves
the truth; they magnify home wrongs and future glories and their own
possibilities. And I think,” she added with a frank smile, “they have
either never been loved by any one or else loved some one who did not
love them. It’s a form of romantic insanity which causes them to denounce
love when all the while they crave it—insane persons always turn on the
ones who love them best. So these dear, queer girls and women, trying to
avoid routine work and home folks, just need to have Cupid take their
telephone number and he could accomplish the miracle of miracles.”
Chuckling, Hobart had taken his leave. The next afternoon he surprised
Thurley with a call, handing her a bouquet of charming wine-colored,
white-specked blossoms surrounded by cool fern.
She did not thank him; instead she flushed and the blue eyes grew two
shades deeper blue.
“I thought you’d be terribly set up over an old-fashioned ‘bow pot.’”
Hobart was rather mystified.
“I am; you chose cleverly.” Thurley hated herself for betraying
displeasure.
“Why don’t you like Early Morning Brides? They used to be my mother’s
favorite; she sent to America for seed and we had one walk lined with
them.” Hobart looked like the small boy who had blundered into delivering
the love note to the green grocer and the green grocer’s order to the
loved one!
Thurley’s face had cleared magically. “Oh, is that the name you know them
by?” dimples twinkling in her cheeks. “I—I thought it something else.”
“What?” determined to solve the mystery.
“A silly name, very likely I’m wrong—anyway, you’re a dear and here they
go into my best vase and on to my best table!”
Later in the day Hobart took time to retrace his steps to the old
florist. He asked if Early Morning Brides had ever been known by another
name.
“Well, some do call ’em Old Maids’ Pincushion,” the man told him, “but
I’m one as has no liking for the name!”