In a house that was a mass of Mid-Victorian odds and ends, retrospection
of the dizzy whirl of Prom was unsettling. Nailed-down carpets, red
velvet furniture with lace tidies, antimacassars and ponderous
what-nots, cast a veil over jazz, jazzy flirtation, and jazzy routine of
life—the sort of veil that enhances while deadening the sharpness of
what it is thrown over. Time seemed to have halted some sixteen years
ago in the Nelson household and rested with stationary breath among the
old family portraits, with the death of Joy’s mother—a lovely, radiant
mother, so everyone said, who would have been a sympathetic and
understanding companion to her daughter during her girlhood.
Outside his business, which was very successful, Mr. Nelson lived in the
gallant days of ’80’s and ’90’s, when the ordered world shone with smug
serenity. He sat in his study and read back into Victorian times every
evening. Joy had early learned to regard him as a figure remotely and
theoretically pleasant, like Oliver Wendell Holmes or William James—a
figure to be acknowledged and respected, but with whom she had little in
common.
The only really beautiful thing in the house that time could not turn
bizarre, was the grand piano that Joy’s mother had left behind. It stood
in one corner of the high-ceilinged, wax-floored parlour, and Joy had
played on it and sung with it ever since she had been so small that she
had to be lifted on to the stool and held there while her baby fingers
struck the loving keys and she crooned strange, tuneless accompaniments.
Her mother had been a singer who had forgotten her voice when she met
George Nelson . . . and Joy had been told that she was the latest of
generations of wonderful voices. They rang in her mind and soul at
times—hauntingly sweet, sweetly insistent. She was the heir of all the
ages! All the beauty of their dead song was merged into her—what was
she going to do with these riches? But when the voices became too
insistent, Joy had always drawn back. She was queerly ashamed of “having
a voice.” In Foxhollow Corners, people who did that sort of thing too
much “got boring.” She wanted to be a real girl, to do the things real
girls did, and to have a Prince Charming waiting at the end of the
golden trail of girlhood.
And now the Prince Charming was no more. He was struck from her vision
with rude completeness. There were moments when she mourned the loss of
her ideal as a maiden mourns the loss of her innocence; but for the most
part the vivid colouring of Prom shut out its dark hours. She had had a
wonderful time at breakfast. Tom had gone to bed, and the stags were
just starting on their second wind. They had piled into an automobile
and gone rattling about the country, loudly singing “snappy” bits of
ragtime in close harmony, waking everyone “in time for their morning’s
work.” If Prince Charmings had gone from the world, there still was left
the satisfactory substitute of high-hearted youth who would have a good
time even if romance had died.
To come back to Foxhollow Corners was razing the mountain of delight
that had been mounting higher and higher ever since she had left
Foxhollow Corners. The girls were all so uninteresting. After Jerry’s
plangency, they only contributed to the flatness of things. All they did
was to embroider or go to the movies, or walk down town to see what was
going on, under cover of a sundae. And those of the men who were not
away all the year at college, had been put in their place by Tom as “a
buncha fruits.”
And above all, there was nothing to do—absolutely nothing to do if you
didn’t do it with the other girls. Joy played ragtime on the scandalized
grand piano, and thought over Jerry’s words. . . . Life with Jerry, and
studying singing from a real teacher! It was a thought with which to
toy. Of course, when it came right down to it, she could not go. Jerry
and Sarah were too different—the New Englander in her cried out against
their careless ways, and shrank from the thought of being uprooted from
her native soil. And when the New Englander would give way to the French
strain that was her mother’s ancestors, and her blood danced in her
veins at the thought of liberation from Foxhollow Corners—there was
always the chilling consideration of what her father would have to say
on the subject. He regarded her as something that could be put away or
taken out at leisure—and for him to find that she was outside the
limits he had given her, might prove revolutionary.
And then one morning at breakfast while she was fidgeting over her
prunes, her father himself threw the bomb of revolution across the
table:
“Joy, my child, I have been made executor of a will.”
Joy looked up vaguely from her prunestones.
“An old friend who may, or may not, have known that it would be
inconvenient for me to go to California at this time. Yes, the estate is
in California—I shall have to leave the first of the month.”
“How long will you be gone?” Joy asked, and a little fever of excitement
began to burn within her.
“I’m sure I cannot prophesy—these affairs are sometimes indefinite in
the extreme.” He frowned over his soft-boiled egg, and the fever within
her quickened, as she began to vision the possibilities of this
departure.
“Were you—were you thinking of taking me with you?” she asked, with no
desire warming her voice.
“It would not be particularly desirable. I know that fathers do take
their daughters unchaperoned upon trips with them, but I should prefer
not to have you with me. I may have to be travelling constantly”—he
heaved a sigh—“and I would not know where or with whom to leave you.
Yet that question faces me here as well. I could not leave you alone in
this house. And there are no relations nearer than your New York
cousins.”
Joy’s blood was pounding. The New Englander in her rejoiced that she was
not to be torn from her own shores to Pacific sea lines; and the gay
little French strain sang that here was her chance that might never be
heaped so invitingly before her again! She opened her mouth to speak,
but the prunestones in front of her balked the phrase trembling upon her
lips. They looked so solid—so unchanging. How could she taste the
savour of opportunity, surrounded by prunestones?
And while she hesitated—a little whistle of ragtime in the street
outside caught her ear and tickled it. It was only a few bars of
syncopated lure—but it dislodged the speech trembling in her throat.
“Father—I don’t see why I—why I couldn’t go to Boston and study music
for a little while. You know I have had no one since Miss Bessie—and I
do think it would be nice to polish off my singing with some real Boston
teachers—don’t you? I could just go down when you went away—and then
decide what to do, when you came back.”
It was out; and now her fever was mingled with chills. Why had she even
proposed such a thing? Her father with bent brows was looking through
his egg—beyond.
“Your mother studied singing in Boston,” he said at last, in a voice so
calm that Joy’s mouth hung open, emotion suspended; “she lived at a
Students’ Club. I suppose that is what you would do.”
“I suppose—I suppose it is!” Joy echoed, while the New Englander within
her whispered: “Of course it is!” and the venturesome French blood sang:
“See how far you’ve come with him—go a little farther and tell him
about Jerry!”
But, lost in the marvel of his consideration of her project, she dared
not venture further.
As far as Mr. Nelson was concerned, the subject was settled. Joy was to
go down to Boston for a month or two, and he wrote to the Students’ Club
where her mother had stayed, for a room for her. Her mother’s old
teacher could not be located, and nothing daunted by this nor the fact
that it was late in the season to find any teacher, he procured a name
and address from “Miss Bessie,” Joy’s old teacher at the school.
And so suddenly, mechanically, things had been decided, from a fragment
of ragtime whistled on the street. Joy was to leave Foxhollow Corners,
New England—arrangements went forward without her aid or volition. Her
father received notice from the Students’ Club that it was crowded, but
that she would be well taken care of at one of their annexes. It was a
letter that left him calm in the assurance that Joy would be well
chaperoned; a letter that plunged Joy into gloom. The days leaped ahead
with preparation to the day of her scheduled departure. It was early in
June; she did not want to leave Foxhollow Corners, when she came right
down to it. A little while longer, and the boys would be home from
college, the gay season of Foxhollow Corners would be ushered in—but
her ticket had been bought, her father superintending every detail; and
he even rode with her as far as Boston.
She arrived at the Students’ Club Annex late in the afternoon. She
thought it was rather a dingy looking place, as she established her
things in the faded green room which the lady-who-ran-things informed
her she was very lucky to get—and the girls she passed in the
none-too-fragrant hallway, certainly lacked tang.
Then when she was left alone in the room, adventure suddenly pricked
her. At last she was in Boston—all by herself—responsible to no
one—well, practically to no one——. And she had Jerry’s address in her
bag.
She was tired after her journey—but the fever of enterprise was burning
high within her now. And while it burned—she’d better act!
She left the Students’ Club Annex with footsteps that repudiated the
ground in their swift urge. What she had been fitfully dreaming of for
so long, was now close at hand.
Jerry’s address was on the other side of the town. After a struggle with
the street-car system, she landed in front of a Beacon Street apartment
house near the city limits, and was informed by the elevator boy that
Jerry lived on the sixth floor. Details of a strange journey lower one
from fever pitch, and as Joy stood staring at the door of the apartment,
after she had pressed the bell, she was tempted to turn and run. She was
certainly a fool—yes, a fool, to come here. Why, Jerry would have
forgotten all about her by now. Why hadn’t she considered that before?
Just as she was turning to make a dash for the stairway, the door opened
a crack and a tossed head peered cautiously around it. “Who—Joy
Nelson!” The door swung open to reveal Jerry in purple satin kimono and
pink mules. “Joy Nelson! My God, I’m glad to see you! Come in here!” She
pulled her inside, and banged the door. “How long have you been in
Boston? You don’t know how I’ve kicked myself that I let you go off
without getting your address—just like me——” She was leading her
through the long, narrow hall, and they now came into a tiny little
reception room, daintily furnished in rose and gilt, but without the
fragile, uncomfortable chairs that usually go with such a setting. Jerry
installed Joy on the luxurious sofa, and then switched on the lights, as
rose silk curtains were lowered over all the windows.
“I’m glad you remembered me,” said Joy.
“Remember you? Didn’t I tell you you were the only girl I ever liked.
That’s quite a declaration of devotion, if you know me——But now tell
me everything. How long have you been down here, etc.?”
“I came to-day. Father had to go to California—and he let me come down
here to study singing. I felt lonely over at the Students’ Club place,
so I thought I’d come and see you.”
“Come and see me!” Jerry echoed. “I asked you to come and stay with us!
You mean to say you’ve eased yourself down as far as Boston and then are
planning to stay at some Students’ dive? What did I tell you to think
over?”
Adventure was knocking at Joy’s pulses. “Oh—why—I never thought you
were serious,” she faltered. “Because we don’t know each other very
well—and everything——”
“What’s and everything?” Jerry asked. “Why board at a bum place where
you can have only certain hours to practice and have to live by rules
with a lot of lame ducks—I know the kind of girls in those places,
their idea of jazz is Drink to Me Only With Thine Eyes—when you can
come here with us?”
There was a silence. Joy had not told her real reason. Of course, Jerry
had not said so, but Joy felt certain that there was no chaperone in
this apartment. And that was what would make it impossible for her
father ever to give his consent to her staying there. . . .
“Of course I’m selfish in this,” said Jerry, “even if it seems to sound
that I’m just looking at it from your side. But just Sal alone here with
me is getting on my nerves. Not to slam her unnecessarily, but—three is
a lot better than two.”
Joy thought: Father was en route to California. And suddenly she knew
she had been thinking about this, beneath everything else, all along.
Not that she meant to deceive father. But he was on his way to
California, and it would take about six days for a letter to reach him,
and how could he forbid at long distance, anyway—especially when things
might be represented quite nicely? The New Englander in her had left in
disgust. And the Southerner in her was laughing—_she_ had been thinking
this out all along!!!
“I—I’ll tell you what I’ll do, Jerry,” she said. “I’ll stay here with
you a little while—if you really want me—just a little while—and I’ll
pay you the money that father gives me for my board.”
“Sal and I get pretty rocky sometimes,” said Jerry reflectively; “a
regular income will fit in O. K. But a little while has got to stretch
out, Joy.”
Before she realized that things had been decided, she was being
transported down the hall, with Jerry telling her that she could send
for her luggage. “You don’t mind having the maid’s room, do you? It’s
just called the maid’s room—we never have been known to have a maid—we
chew on delicatessen delicacies when we don’t bum our meals.”
The maid’s room was striking to incoherency. It had started out with
some uncompromising black walnut furniture which had certainly been
compromised. The room had been recklessly done over in swift black and
white effects, behind which the solid furniture pieces lurked and
frowned. Just as Jerry dashed over to lift the black and white striped
shades, a bell rang loudly and she struck a despairing pose: “And me not
fully out of bed yet!” she wailed.
“Where’s Sarah?” Joy questioned.
“Sal? Asleep,—this is one of the days when we stoke up energy for the
times to come.” The bell rang again. “Oh, what periwinkle has the nerve
at this hour——”
“I’ll go,” and Joy started through the hall again. But Jerry pushed her
aside as they reached the reception room.
“I might as well slide it open first as last,” she said, and marched
down to the door, purple kimono flying in the breeze, pink mules
clicking on the hardwood floor. She jerked open the door, and two young
men almost fell in.
“Shiver your timbers, Jerry! If you aren’t always up to the meanest
tricks,” complained the first to recover, a pink-faced youth with an
expansive grin and inquisitive, cocky ears. “Here I lean up against your
door—only solid thing I’ve met to-day that would stand up against
me—and Packy leans on _me_,—and then you come and take it right
away—take away our only—only and sole means of support!”
Packy, a tall, gangly stripling with a roving eye, looked past Jerry to
where Joy was standing, while chanting solemnly: “How are we, Jerry? We
thought we’d drop by—drop in—for a few minutes’ bicker. Twinky has
been inhalin’ ’em down right an’ left, an’ things are gettin’ a bit
sticky over at the hall——Wait till I slip you the glad tale! Who’s the
houri?”
“Friend of mine, come to live here,” said Jerry shortly. “Joy, these are
two gay young college boys. You can tell that just to look at ’em.”
Packy and Twinky, by this time abreast of Joy, were looking at her in
about the most open admiration she had ever seen. “What’d you say her
name was? Joy?” questioned Packy. “One of the best I’ve heard in a long
time. Has she got any other good names?”
They breezed into the nearest room which opened from the hall—a room
which took Joy a matter of weeks before she had assimilated every last
luxurious and clever detail. In the first place, the room was so large
as to be startling in an apartment. The beautiful grand piano in the
corner gave her a quick start of pleasure. But despite the piano, the
room was distinctly not a music room. Remove the piano, Joy thought, and
it looked as if one had walked into a men’s club. The huge fireplace,
the capacious lounge in front of it, the comfortable chairs, the smoking
sets, the magazines on the table, the card tables pushed against the
wall—she found herself commenting inwardly that there was only lacking
a billiard table.
Twinky sat down on the lounge, while Packy helped himself to a
cigarette. “Doggone, Jerry, I wish you’d treat yourself to a new
thingumawhich,” he complained, “that purple jiggum is so old it’s
shiny.”
“Silk generally shines, young sweetheart,” retorted Jerry, also taking a
cigarette and inhaling thirstily as she sat down, giving the purple
jiggum a jerk.
“Well, I’m sick of it anyhow. I’d set you up to a new one if it wouldn’t
look so naughty.”
Jerry’s thin nostrils twitched sardonically. “When you drop in on me
like this, you can’t expect to find a Paris knock-out,” she observed. “I
never keep anyone waiting, anyhow. Well—why this little call?”
“It’s Twink, the drunken idiot. Twink, tell your tale.”
They looked over to the lounge. A gentle snore was their response.
“There, what did I tell you?” demanded Packy.
“You’ve told us nothing,” Jerry snapped, taking another cigarette,
having exhausted her first in a few long pulls. “It wouldn’t be a bad
idea to get to the story, while you were about it.”
“Well, you know it’s nighing unto Commencement over in Cambridge. You
know, Class Day and all that sort of thing. Of course I realise that our
Harvard parties are mere incidents in a crowded life to you, but you at
least know it’s existent—what?”
“Go on, Packy,” spat out Jerry, with some smoke; “quit trying to impress
Joy with your English. If I had that line, I’d bury it instead of airing
it.”
“Well,” pursued Packy, equably: “Twink’s family are all parked here for
the great event. And what does Twink do, but do what you see he has
done. Ergo, etcetera. I got him away from the enveloping wet, and
brought him over here to shake it. You can see ’twon’t take long. But
there is nowhere in all Cambridge he can hide from that family, and the
hotels in Boston are such darn public places. It isn’t as if Twink
wasn’t well known.”
“H’m,” said Jerry. “Of course if you think my friend and I enjoy having
one of those dissolute college boys parked on our lounge sleeping it
off——”
“Twink will make it all right with you,” he interposed; “and I’ll make
it righter yet. You wait and see!”
“Waiting’s the worst thing I do,” Jerry responded; “but I don’t
care—it’s a deal. You can sit here and watch by his bedside. Joy and I
have got to dress.”
“Joy doesn’t need to dress. She can sit here and hold my hand, can’t
you, Joy?”
Joy refused this entreaty, and she and Jerry left him among the
magazines. In the hallway Jerry shot her a swift glance.
“Nice start-off your visit’s getting,” she said. “But we take things as
they come; life’s too complicated any other way.”
Joy laughed. “There’s a lot in what you say. I never thought of it that
way before—but that’s a pretty good philosophy of life.”
She went to telephone the Students’ Club. She had taken the momentous
step; already things were beginning to whirl; and the guilty feeling in
her excitement was growing fainter. Jerry was like one of Barrie’s
characters—a law unto herself. A week of this—a week only—would be an
unforgettable experience!
Much later, she went back into the living-room to find Jerry in a vivid
green georgette, giving Packy a manicure across one of the little card
tables. Twinky was sitting up, looking a little the worse for wear,
throwing in a word of conversation now and then.
“Here comes the houri back again,” said Packy, waving one shining-nailed
hand at her. “I’ve fallen in love with you, Joy. You don’t mind, do
you?”
“He really has, you know,” said Twink. “He’s been handing Jerry a noise
about it ever since I can remember.”
“Is it a fact you’ve come to Boston to study singing?” Packy inquired.
“Sing us a song, will you?”
“Go ahead, Joy,” said Jerry, putting away the manicure tools. “It’ll
keep ’em quiet, anyway.”
Joy went over to the piano. “What kind of songs do you like?”
“Slushy ones,” said Twink promptly, to which Packy echoed: “Yes; the
kind you can sit back and dream about.”
Joy played a few chords. The piano responded to her touch almost like a
human being. Jerry evidently had kept it in tune, and the action suited
her. She noticed these details automatically, as her voice floated out
in an old college song. Her voice was rich with a promise that made one
yearn for its fulfillment; but Joy did not even know enough about
singing to know her faults, or to care. There were three verses, and
when she had ended, there was a little silence in the room. Twink was
the first to speak. “Some voice,” he said comfortably. “Got Melba and
all the rest of the what-do-you-call-’ems trilling for help ’sfar’s I’m
concerned.”
“You usually have to pay good money and sit in a stiff-backed chair to
hear anything like that,” Packy contributed.
Jerry jumped up, tossing back her hair, which had fallen around her
eyes. “You two have got to go now. I must talk to Joy—and Twink’s
family will be sending out a search-warrant. So long!”
“All right for you,” complained Packy, going over to the piano as Twink
obediently climbed forth from the recesses of the lounge. He stood
looking down at Joy’s lovely white face, his leisurely eyelids not quite
so far down over his eyes as was their habit. “I told you I’d fallen in
love with you,” he said swiftly, “and I thought I meant it then, but now
I realise I’ve never really meant anything before. I’ve fallen for you
so hard that it’s no idle jest. You did it, you know. You should never
sing like that to a fellow.”
Joy looked up at him with parted lips through which no words came. This
was what one called “slinging a line.” But didn’t he do it well!
“You’ve got to see me soon,” he said. “You’ve got to go to the
Harvard-Yale baseball game first. After that—there’ll be lots of other
things. I’ll call you up.”
They were gone, and she turned to Jerry with comment which crumbled as
she saw Jerry’s intent attitude. She was standing by the fireplace with
her foot on the fender, her freckles puckered into concentration.
“Of course you must realize the voice you have,” she said slowly. “It’s
gold—gold clear through. Raw gold, of course—but gold. It’s the kind
of voice which, if I had, I would go through hell’s seventy furies to
train and refine until I was at the pinnacle of my possibility—which
means the top of the world. You’ve got everything to put you there.” She
stopped with a sigh. “We’ll turn in now, and talk it over to-morrow.”
“Sarah?” Joy questioned as they went down the hall.
“Sal? She’ll sleep right through till to-morrow—she’s been run pretty
ragged lately.”
The morrow found Joy more at home in her new quarters, as her luggage
had come and she was refreshed by sleep that was not disturbed until
late in the morning. Sarah appeared in her kimono, her hair in a
dead-looking braid, while Jerry and Joy were picking up a sketchy
breakfast in the kitchenette. Jerry had explained the big club-room—the
partition between an already large living-room and the dining-room had
been removed. Hence there was no dining-room, and as Jerry said, they
didn’t really need one. When they were home, they ate in the kitchen,
and as for having guests: “most men hate to eat formally, anyway. They
like to come out in the kitchen, and then we have chafing-dish parties
or sent-up spreads in the living-room.”
Sarah expressed a moderate amount of pleasure at seeing Joy, permitting
a line or so to cross her brow at the same time. Her attention was
diverted as she seemed on the point of making additional remarks, by
Jerry’s information: “Packy was here last night, by the way.”
“Packy was here? Why didn’t you wake me?”
“Oh, I forgot to. He didn’t bring it back to my memory, either. He saw
Joy first.”
Sarah’s look was not amiable. She turned and left the kitchen, muttering
something about dressing.
“Oh, Jerry, what did you say that for?” Joy demanded. “Is she in love
with him?”
“In love with Packy?” Jerry laughed noisily. “Don’t strain yourself so,
Joy. That girl never was in love with anything. She’s somewhat dashed
about Packy because he’s the ideal playmate—lots of income and a
thoughtful disposition—the combination gets rarer all the time.”
The doorbell interrupted them. “I hope no more blades to sleep off a
jag,” said Jerry as they went down the hall. “This is no hotel.”
But it was a special messenger boy to whom they opened the door, who
extended two boxes to Joy and a receipt book to Jerry. Jerry signed in a
blurred scribble and the two darted to the living-room with the boxes,
one of which was addressed to Jerry, and one, to Joy’s surprise, marked
with her name. Jerry made short work of hers, tearing it open in one
swift motion. All Jerry’s motions were swift—whether she exhausted a
cigarette in less time than some people take in lighting, or leaped into
her clothes. She held up before her one of the most beautiful negligées
Joy had ever seen—a shimmering purple brocaded satin, with folds of
chiffon floating away from it.
“I knew Packy’d do that,” said Jerry; “but I must say it’s quick work.
What’s your little keepsake?”
“Joy’s little keepsake” was a huge mass of American Beauties, with a
note which read: “I suppose you’re used to this sort of thing, but I
feel gay just to add myself onto the crowd. From—the only man who ever
loved you the way I do.”
“Mine has Twink’s card, with ‘Part Payment for Hotel Bill’ written on
it,” said Jerry. “This is what I meant, Joy, when I said Packy was
thoughtful.”
Joy could not help being thrilled—despite the fact that she thought she
never could be thrilled again. It was the first time in her life she had
received American Beauties, and the accompanying note was in tune with
the roses.
“Sal will be fretful,” said Jerry; “we’d best get under way before she
comes out.”
“Why, where are we going?”
“To find you a singing teacher. Put on your hat and fade away quietly
with me.”
There was a pause while Joy put the roses in the umbrella stand, and
then the two stole out of the flat and down to the car line.
“Father has the address of a teacher I was to go to, you know,” said
Joy.
Jerry threw up her hands, whereat a car stopped and they got on before
she could speak. Then she exploded: “Getting the right kind of a singing
teacher is more important than a safe doctor! An address that you don’t
know anything about may be all right, but the chances are that the
person isn’t as good as the one I’ve got lined out for you.”
“You have one all picked out, then?”
“Well, you can try him. Pa Graham is considered pretty good, but you’ll
have to see for yourself. _Any_ teacher may be all right for a voice
that’s just a voice. But your voice isn’t going to be just a voice. It’s
going to be pearls and tears and bliss and agony and all that stuff—if
you start on the right road and no one hammers that quality out of you.”
Presently they descended from the car and walked through Beacon Street
past innumerable tall, narrowly-wedged-in brown stone houses to one near
Dartmouth Street. They were admitted to a tiny waiting room by a colored
man-servant, and waited fifteen minutes before a haughty young lady,
who, Jerry had whispered, was the occasional accompanist, informed them
that Mr. Graham could see them now.
A high, wide room, with busts and pictures and beautiful rugs; two
pianos; and Pa Graham standing at one end. The picture was one that Joy
was to see so often that it would become a part of her. Just now the
picture dissolved as Pa came forward with an old-fashioned bow. A little
man, with high forehead and silvery hair well kept on his still gallant
head; piercing light eyes which might once have been blue; a little old
man who smiled when he bowed. Joy could not respond to the smile; she
was going through her first attack of stage fright.
“So you have brought me someone, Jerry,” he was saying in a resonant
voice that sounded oddly younger than he. “She is young and beautiful;
that adds greatly; others may contradict me at leisure. But let us hear
what she can do; after all, one cannot sing with golden hair and azure
eyes, although sometimes it comes near to it.” He whirled upon her.
“What did you bring?”
Scarlet, she opened her music roll and brought forth the two arias that
she had attempted under Miss Bessie’s instruction: “Depuis le Jour,”
from Louise, and “Plus Grand Dans Son Obscurité,” from the Queen of
Sheba.
“Always they bring grand opera—no matter if they are sixteen or sixty.
H’m—one is for a lyric, one for dramatic. Well, I take it you are a
soprano, anyway; let us hope so, at least. Come and sing; best get it
over with. I am discouraged already. With that face, one cannot expect
much else.”
Joy felt what little spirit she had left oozing away. “How could anyone
learn anything from a man who said he was discouraged before she had set
free a single note?”
The accompanist, with a resigned look that spoke of the thousands of
beautiful airs she must have heard suffering, whipped the Louise air to
the rack of one of the pianos. This piano was on a raised platform, and
Pa Graham motioned to Joy to go and stand by it. As she stumbled up the
steps, he went off to the darkness of the other end of the room, and
Jerry sat down near by with a reassuring wink.
“Depuis le jour où je me suis donnée . . .
L’âme encore grisée
De ton premier—baiser!”
Poor Louise with her “soul yet drunk from thy first kiss.” A shiver ran
through the words that should have been ecstatic. Joy knew that Louise
didn’t know what she was talking about. Then she pulled herself
together, floating a long, soft high note that left the air palpitant
and hushed. She ought to try to be Louise—but somehow she couldn’t,
with that man off in the shadows, and Jerry sitting so near, and such a
cross accompanist, and such unpleasant memories disturbing the thought
of her song.
As far as interpretive value went, the song was a failure. But the
lovely floated high notes, and the golden middle register, led the song
through to its soaring climax. Then on the whispered repetition, “je
tremble délicieusement,” Joy broke down. She simply could not bring
forth another note. The accompanist put in a few chords and stopped: Pa
Graham came out of the shadows and walked up to Joy. He took her face in
his hands and turned it gently to the window.
“Life and work—those are all you need, my child,” he said. “You are
going to learn to sing so that the tears will flow or the smiles will
dance, at your will.”
“Then you’re no longer discouraged, Pa?” Jerry demanded triumphantly
from her seat.
“I do not know her well enough to say that. The greater a voice, the
more work there is to do, to reach the perfection that voice demands.
And there is one thing, Louise——Oh, yes, child, I’ll make you into a
Louise, and many other things—it is not from lack of voices that there
are so few great singers—it is because so few are willing to pay the
price—the heartbreak of the years of toil and self-denial.”
Jerry rose, pulling out a box of cigarettes. It had been a great
self-restraint on her part not to light up before. “Then you think it
would be worth it for her to try?”
“Worth it!” He turned almost fiercely to Joy. “It’s not worth it if the
years of labor will not seem pleasure—if you do not enjoy every step
along the way.”
Joy felt heady with excitement. Enjoy it? Well—she had never thought so
before; but with the wail of a wronged Louise air still in her ears, the
magical atmosphere of music, busts, pictures, and the eager faces around
her, the voices of her heritage tore her soul with their insistence.
Almost as if she were mesmerised, she heard the words leave her lips:
“I—would—enjoy—every step along the way.”
And then, with the familiar puffing of Jerry’s cigarette, things seemed
to quiet down. The accompanist, wearing a slightly altered demeanour,
left the room, and Joy and Pa came down from the platform.
“Your voice is young, of course,” said Pa, “and tender. But it will
grow. It is bigger to start with than most, but do not be deceived by
its volume and think you are a dramatic soprano. You are a lyric; and
you shall learn to sing colorature in golden, matched tones. Just now
you have no nasal resonance—and not much point. Don’t believe you can
run a scale. But your legato is not bad, your high notes are good. Come
to-morrow at this time for your first lesson.”
He bowed them out, and they stood in the little waiting room while Jerry
finished her cigarette and threw it away. They did not speak until they
were on a street car bound for home. Then Joy asked Jerry what a lyric
soprano was.
“Dunno’s I can explain,” said Jerry; “a lyric soprano sings most of the
snappy opera—I’ll say you’re in luck. Of course you can do Louise, as
he said, and Manon and all the Puccini stuff, and one of your type will
sing Rigoletto and Traviata thrown in. Never Aida—that’s for a dramatic
and would tear your lungs out. And colorature is super-runs and
super-trills—like Melba and Galli-Curci. Do you follow me? If not, I’ll
fill in the blanks.”
“Jerry,” she asked timidly, after some minutes had gone by; “how do you
know about him? I—I wish you’d tell me a little about yourself.”
Jerry’s red lips took a downward quirk. When she spoke, it was in a
queer voice that sagged and paused. “I will, Joy—sometime when I feel
like it. I—I really—am going to. I’ll tell you about Pa now, though.
He was a big teacher in New York a few years ago, and only came to
Boston to retire. He says coming to Boston in itself is retiring—but he
still takes a few pupils. He couldn’t live unless he did—it’s been his
life for so long, and he’s so bound up in music. I met him first in New
York through a friend of mine who was studying with him. I even studied
with him myself, until——Oh, yes, I used to do—a lot of singing.”
What had Jerry said at Prom that was faintly reminiscent of this last?
“I used to do—a lot of sewing.” And then again: “I used to do—a lot of
making-up.” Jerry was what one might call a girl of mystery. The thought
was pleasantly exciting. Joy speculated, and silence stayed between them
until they descended from the street car in front of the apartment
house. A dashing blue Marmon was poised in the road, with Sarah and a
youth in the front seat—Sarah now resplendent, cheeks flaring pink
under an alluring veil, and dressed in a way to make men look at her and
women look at her clothes. She shrieked to them:
“Wigs and Davy just went up to leave a note saying we’d come back—come
on—we’re going down the Cape somewhere for luncheon and somewhere else
for dinner and somewhere else to dance!”
Joy did not have time to write her father that day—and only barely time
the following noon. She found herself started on a round of gaiety which
she had never pictured in her most riotous moments, a routine such as
she had never dreamed existed outside of fiction—with Jerry and Sarah
it was just one youth after another, with an abundance over and to
spare, although this abundance was never spared. Continually they
streaked around, always making up new things to do, with an airy
disregard of selection of hours by day or night. The men who made all
this possible were nearly all college boys but not nearly all Harvard.
There were New Haven men who “ran up,” and Joy was constantly meeting
men from the smaller colleges who had met Jerry and Sarah at
house-parties and never failed to call them up when they were in town.
There was also another, smaller class, non-college men who seemed to be
“men about town.” Joy did not like them as well as the college youths.
They lacked the humour for the most part that the college boys possessed
to superfluity, and their idea of a good time travelled along fixed and
set lines.
Joy welcomed everything with an eager excitement that wore her out more
than the steep hours that were taken for granted by Jerry and Sarah. She
had been sleeping in Foxhollow Corners all her life—storing up her
energy for youth’s playtime; playtime which might never have come if her
father had not taken the initiative; playtime which might never have
come if somebody had not whistled ragtime on the street. If she was
white and tired, she applied Sarah’s rouge with a liberal hand and drank
a “prescription” of Sarah’s from the cellarette in the club-room. Jerry
objected to these “prescriptions,” but since she drank more than either
of them, her word did not carry much weight. Jerry drank as she smoked;
thirstily, and in long pulls, like a man who needed it, while Sarah
drank and smoked daintily, as a girl does to be devilish.
When finally the answer to her hurried morning’s scrawl came from
California, she was thrown into a guilty joy. Evidently her father had
not read her letter with care. She had scribbled somewhat incoherently,
it was true, of her change in address to the “rooms of two older girls”
whom she had met before—but she had honestly not intended that he
should misinterpret, or to scrawl so hastily that he would overlook the
salient points in the matter. But the fact remained that he had merely
made a note of her changed address, as if she had been placed in another
Students’ Annex, and then proceeded to the business of the letter, which
came to the information that complications would postpone his return for
possibly a month longer. Adjuring her to let him know constantly of her
health and progress, he was her affectionate father.
There was no seesawing of decisions, no teetering from one course to
another when she read that letter. Beneath her relief she might feel
guilty, but it was the triumphant guilt as of the stout lady who takes
chocolate while sighing “I ought not to take this!” She would stay—for
a month longer. And then—then she would see!
Strangely enough, Packy did not appear for a long time after that first
day. He called up promptly, and as Jerry had expressed it, “reneged” on
his invitation to the ball game. He had invited a girl, Class Day, and
it seems, he explained, that one had to take one’s Class Day girl to the
game. “Perhaps it’s just as well, though,” he said, “because when I see
you, I want to see you, and not necessarily in a howling mob where I
might forget and pound you in the frenzy of the moment. I’d much rather
pound my Class Day girl!”
When Joy told Jerry, she turned up her snub nose. “I thought he’d give
you a rain-check on that. It’s their Commencement game, you
see—families thick all round—maybe he got faint at the thought.”
“What do you mean?” Joy had demanded.
Jerry shrugged her shoulders and took another cigarette. “Merely that
never in all my intercollegiate activity, have I been asked to a
Commencement, or any affair where all the proud families have come to
gaze on their angel sons—and neither has Sal—and he probably thought
you followed suit!”
Nevertheless, in spite of Packy’s “rain-check,” hardly a day passed
without some reminder from him whether it was more flowers or tickets to
some show, with always a scrawly note enclosed. Sarah waxed acidulous at
these times, but Jerry remained amused.
Her lessons she attended regularly, and found herself an increasing
eagerness to do so. There was some sort of fascination in going to the
studio and having Pa do things to her voice. Before two weeks had passed
it was hard to believe that she had not always been interested in song.
Not that there was much song about it. The scales and exercises that Pa
made her go through were horrible to her, as they plainly showed the
imperfections in her voice. She pled for songs, and he gave her old
Italian airs which required even, smooth perfection of tone and
discouraged her deeply. And then it was impossible for her to run up and
down a scale with any degree of swiftness, and this inability made her
almost weep at times.
“Colorature!” she said bitterly to Jerry, one time when Jerry had come
in and found her sitting in despair at the piano, her head in her hands.
“When I can’t run up and down eight notes without sliding!”
“You’ve got to begin slowly,” said Jerry. “_Walk_ up and down the scale,
and when you’ve got it evenly matched and pointed, you’ll run like
everything! Good God, Joy, if you get so down-in-the-mouth over a little
scale work, what will you do when you get on a trill? I prophesy a
nervous decline!”
“But when I hear of Tetrazzini—studied seven months or so——”
“That’s a thing you don’t hear about very many. And anyway, Pa mentioned
colorature to you in an unguarded moment. With a lyric, it’s not born,
but acquired—these stories about voices that are discovered one day and
conquer the world the next, make me laugh.”
One day late in July, Packy finally called her up. He said he wanted to
see her at once—to take her to a dance that night, down on the
seashore. It happened that both Sarah and Jerry were going out and as
Joy for once had not arranged to accompany them, she gladly accepted.
Jerry put a few skilful touches to a deep midnight blue satin of Joy’s,
and when Joy had supplied her rouge—she had some of her own by this
time—the effect was entrancing. Sarah would not wait to greet Packy,
still cherishing resentment at his desertion, and so Joy was left alone
before he arrived.
He greeted her as if there had been no lapse of time in between, and
they went down in the elevator to a waiting closed car.
“Where are we going?” she asked him as he began to fuss with the
self-starter.
“Down to one of those summer-hotel dances, where I’m staying. It may be
pretty stiff and boring, after Jerry’s parties; but on the other hand
the novelty might appeal to you, and I’ve got rather an urge to see you
in that sort of a place.”
“It won’t bore me,” said Joy; “you’re not a boring type.”
He laughed. “It’s awful to be in love with you and not know a thing
about you. Of course I know you’re Jerry’s pal, and a singer—how did
you happen to connect up with Jerry, anyway? Of course, she’s an
international character, but——”
“But what?” Joy combatted. “I met her at a Prom. Then when I came to
Boston—I looked her up. Staying with her is lots more fun than a
boarding-house. Sarah and I don’t get on very well together—but I don’t
see her much.”
“H’m.” There was a pause. “H’m—I don’t know just how to take you now.
Maybe you like being an enigma. Do you?”
“I suppose every girl likes being _told_ she is an enigma.”
“Well, you are one. I never had any trouble sizing up a girl
before—maybe I can’t size you up because I’m in love with you.”
“I wish,” said Joy, irritated, “that you would stop talking about love
so—so fluently. I object to taking its name in vain just to make
conversation.”
He screeched the horn derisively. “What do you want to talk about?
Politics? What do other men talk to you about? The weather? Besides, I
really am in love with you. Lord knows I’ve said it enough—and written
it—and said it with flowers—I thought I’d paved the way quite neatly!”
“If you think you’re—in love with me—well, you just plain don’t know
what love is.”
“Well, do you?” She was silent. “I’ve got my own little working idea
that’s large enough for me. I’d show you some of it right now if I
didn’t have to drive this car.”
“That isn’t love!” she cried sharply.
“Maybe not the whole of it. I see your point. There are many girls that
could get me going without falling for ’em. Sal’s that kind. But there’s
something more with you—I’m really interested in you as a person,
besides wanting to kiss you and all that.”
“Well, I’m glad you’re interested in me as a person, because you’re not
going to kiss me and all that,” Joy retorted.
“Oh yes, I am. Don’t fool yourself.”
“Oh, no, you’re not. Don’t fool yourself.”
The conversation resolved itself into a spirited argument along this
theme with variations. An old theme, but one which never fails to keep
the debaters keyed to a white-hot pitch of concentration. In this case
Joy and Packy were so intent that they nearly passed the Ocean House,
the long line of automobiles parked on the shore-drive arresting their
attention just in time.
“Well, we can continue this in our next,” said Packy as they climbed
out.
Joy had never been in a summer hotel, a fact that she did not tell
Packy. There was an assortment of all ages in the ball room, with a
predominance of the “younger set.” Pretty girls with healthily-flushed
or tanned faces and sunburnt necks which ended before their evening
gowns began, spoke to Packy as they whirled by on the arms of equally
tanned youths, and looked wonderingly at Joy, whose white skin
proclaimed her no member of the summer band. She watched the dancers
over his shoulder. The young girls all seemed so wholesome—as innocent
and adorable as kittens——
“You’re not peeved, are you, Joy?” asked Packy. “You haven’t spoken a
word since we got on the floor.”
“I was thinking about something else,” she said—marking the close
scrutiny bent on her by an older woman sitting on the side lines. She
was rather an attractive woman—but her eyes were chill, and they rested
on Joy as if there was something wrong with her. It was the Boston
frigidity she had heard so much about, she supposed.
The music stopped, and he led her across the floor. “The girls are
losing an eye on you,” he said, “so I might as well satisfy them first
as last.” They went to a corner where two sunburned couples were seeing
which could hang out of the window the farthest, and he effected a
somewhat informal introduction.
“Come in out of the night, Betty Grey,” he added as one of the girls was
still hanging over the sill and shrieking back that she had won—“here’s
a singer—you’re always saying you never meet any interesting people.”
The waving feet righted themselves, and a brown, eager face turned to
Joy. “Oh, are you _really_ a singer?” Betty cried breathlessly. “That’s
what’s been the dream of my life—to be a singer—but I can’t even keep
on the key! What do you sing?”
“Nothing, yet,” said Joy; “I’m just studying.”
“You ought to hear her sing,” put in Packy. “She’s got everyone I ever
heard surrounded.”
Betty fairly wriggled with excitement. “I _must_ hear you! When will you
sing for me?”
Joy had no time to expostulate, as the music struck up again and Packy
whirled her off.
“Betty’s a crazy kid,” said Packy paternally. “Seems to me a girl
between sixteen and eighteen has got absolutely no sense at all. I like
’em when they’ve had enough experience to—well, to be interesting.”
“How much experience does it take to make a girl interesting?” Joy
asked.
“Well, it takes a large order, for me. You’ve interested me so far, but
the rest, like our little argument, remains to be proved!”
“I’ve noticed,” said Joy, “that nowadays it’s the girl who always has to
be interesting and ‘prove something’—the man’s duty seems mainly to sit
by and be amused. If she can amuse him, he sticks around; if not, he
drifts on to the next and resumes his attitude of expectant passivity.
Am I right?”
“I’ll hand it to you for the line of Noah Webster’s specials, anyway,”
he drawled. “Didn’t you know little girls shouldn’t use such long
words?”
“Well, I don’t care, it’s true! I’ve noticed it everywhere I’ve ever
been, except at Jerry’s. You—even you—have changed a little since we
got down here.”
The smile left his face. “That’s what I get for trying to treat you as
if you’d never seen Jerry’s.”
“Why—what on earth do you mean?”
Before her amazed directness he turned away his face. “I can’t
understand you at all,” he muttered.
At the end of that dance, Betty came running up to her, a different man
in tow. “You _must_ meet my brother Grant,” she panted; “and he wants to
meet you, too!”
Laughing, the two shook hands, and Joy found herself looking into eyes
of the richest blue she had ever seen. Betty’s brother was very tall,
very brown, and either very quiet or temporarily overcome. And at the
very first survey, Joy decided that he was by far the nicest looking man
she had met since she came to Boston.
“She sings, and everything,” chanted Betty, “and Packy brought her, and
he’s danced every dance with her so far, and it’s only fair he should
dance a little with some of the rest of us, don’t you think? Come on,
Packy!”
Packy, looking volumes, moved off with Betty. Left alone, the two looked
at each other and laughed. “That’s the way she always is,” explained
Grant. “Mind if we sit this out? I’ve been sailing all day, and was
dragged here under protest.”
They sat out on the porch, under the stars, and talked of various
indifferent things. He discovered that she had not been there before,
and insisted on taking her down the Promenade to the beach. There they
sat on the sand and talked again upon indifferent things. It was calm
and cool with the water sipping in front of them and the music from the
hotel faintly behind them. Joy found herself liking Grant Grey very much
indeed for so short an acquaintance. There was something so boyish and
straightforward about him, a something that was decidedly different from
the men she had been meeting at Jerry’s. Even if they were only college
boys, they had a great deal of slangy sophistication that “Grant” did
not possess. Then, too, the way he treated her was less—the only
fitting word she could think of was _hectic_—than the way she had been
treated lately. His grave respect and quiet talk of sailing, boats and
similar neutral subjects were especially welcome after the argument with
Packy on the way down in the car. And when he did abruptly shift the
conversation to personalities, it was done in such a way that she did
not mind.
“You know—I never thought before that I’d enjoy talking to a girl so
much.”
“I’ve enjoyed it, too,” she replied; and then they were both silent,
looking ahead of them at the indifferent waters. Neither knew exactly
what to make of the magnetic current that seemed to flow from one to the
other, even in the simplest sentences that they spoke.
“I know now when it was,” said Grant finally, after a little silence had
been growing.
“When what was?”
“When I felt the way I do, about you. When I first saw you come into the
room with Packy.”
Joy felt herself growing warm. How had things come as far as this—in
half an hour? She rose, and shook the sand from her skirts. “We must go
in. I don’t know how many dances we’ve missed. I never lost track of the
time so before.”
“Neither did I——” said the boy beside her as they faltered back over
the way they had come.
At the door they encountered Packy, who had hailed them with reserved
cordiality. “Where in blazes have you two been? The dance was over
fifteen minutes ago and I’ve been looking for you ever since.”
They had not even noticed that the music had stopped. “All my fault,
Packy,” said Grant. “I took her down to see the Promenade.”
And then the two stood looking at each other. “When may I see you
again?” he asked.
Joy had been hoping for those words, but now that they had come, she was
incoherent with relief. “I—why——” she stammered. Packy intervened
while she hesitated.
“You’ve got your nerve, Grant—I’ll hand it to you. But I brought Joy
down here—dost follow the trend of my remarks?”
Grant paid no attention to him. “So that’s your name—Joy? It—fits
you.”
“Let’s discuss names for awhile,” said Packy acidly. “We’ve nothing to
do but ease back to Boston, and it’s only one-fifteen.”
“You have to go back to Boston at this hour?” cried Grant, incredulous.
“Certainly. Why not?” Joy was a little amused, thinking of the hours
Jerry and Sarah accepted as a matter of course.
He towered over her, acute distress in every line of his face.
“Come on,” said Packy. “It’s only an hour’s run, Grant—less, at this
time of night.”
He followed them to the automobile, still objecting to their ride. Joy
got in the car and held out her hand. “Good-bye,” she said softly. He
took her hand, forgetting to release it as he whispered: “Tell me your
telephone number—quick!”
Packy was going around to get in at the other side, and in a heartbeat
she had whispered the number. When Packy was installed, they had every
appearance of finishing a casual leavetaking.
Once off, Packy refused to sulk unduly over the evening, instead taking
a jocose attitude which was much more trying. “Well, Joy, I might have
known you were like all the rest. Don’t you think, though, that you were
crowding things—to run off on a nice little party like that with
someone else, the first time I take you anywhere? And after all that
whiffle all the way down about how _I_ couldn’t get away with it——”
Joy was stunned. She paused and weighed her words, searching for
thoughts that would reach his point of view. “Coming down, you talked in
a way that made me doubt whether I would ever go out with you again.
Now, you are merely clinching my determination.”
To her stupefaction, he immediately grew humble. “Oh, Joy, I’ll swallow
everything I said. You—you can’t blame me, though. I—I know so little
about you—and I’m so crazy about you. Doesn’t that make absolutely no
impression?”
“Why should it?” she asked wearily.
“That fellow Grant Grey isn’t lingering in your mind, is he? He’s all
right, but O, so stiff, Joy. Typical Bostonese family—mother’s the
Gorgon of the beach. Now listen—Joy—I may be crazy about you, but I’m
willing to wait if there’s any danger about mixing the drinks. Yes, I’ll
wait. I won’t say any more to-night—you can sleep all the rest of the
way home, providing you don’t snore. A girl ought never to get so tired
as you and Jerry and Sal—bound to snore when you get that way—nothing
more unromantic.”
Joy counted every mile, she was so anxious to get back home and into her
black walnut bed. When they finally drew up in front of the apartment
house, she gave a sigh of relief. Packy laughed:
“I don’t blame you,” he said. “I’ve been rotten to-night, Joy—but next
time I’m absolutely the genuine blue-ribbon Pomeranian. I told you—I
can wait any reasonable length of time.”
He left her at the door of the apartment, and she flew in, eager to talk
the evening over with Jerry. But they also had evidently motored afar
for their party, and had not come in yet. She went to the cellarette and
poured herself out a small “prescription,” making a wry face as she did
so. Not long ago she would have recoiled at the idea of taking liquor.
Now, ever since Sarah had first shown her how some drinks would brace
her if she felt dead, and others would send her off to sleep if she had
time to sleep some unexpected hour and couldn’t, she had come to look
upon alcohol as a friend in need. Her father would think this horrible.
And what would the family portraits think?—The thought trickled away as
the liquor went down her throat, and she reviewed the events of the
evening. Packy had been a great disappointment, adding to her growing
cynicism about men. But were all men so—materialistic? She poured
herself another glass, reaching for a more suitable phrase. Not
materialistic, necessarily; rather, “of the earth, earthy.” Were
they—all? She thought of Grant Grey, seeing again the clear eyes that
seemed a reflection of his young boy’s soul. No, not all men were like
Packy. A wave of feeling swept over her, so strong that she was left
trembling. She must see Grant again—soon!
The wave passed, leaving her limp, a questioning almost of terror
knocking at her pulse. _How could she feel so, about a man she had just
met?_