Mrs. Emsworth had a rehearsal early next morning at New York, and in
consequence she had to leave by the Stock Exchange train at nine,
while most of the inhabitants of Mon Repos were still reposing. She
herself was down and out before anyone had appeared, for she had slept
but badly, and had awoke, definitely and irrevocably, soon after six.
Sleeping, as her custom was, with blinds up and curtains undrawn, the
glory of the morning quickly weaned her from her bed, and by soon after
seven she was strolling about outside in the perfection of an early
September hour. There had been a little thunder during the night, and
betwixt waking and sleeping she had heard somewhat heavy rain sluicing
on to the shrubberies and thirsty grass, and now, when she went out,
the moisture was lying like unthreaded diamonds in the sun, and like
a carpet of pearls in the shade. Many gardeners were already at work,
some on the grass and flower-beds, others bringing up fruit from the
greenhouses, and all looked with wide-eyed yokel amazement at the
famous actress as she walked up and down. One of them had brought his
small child, a boy of about six years old, with him, and the little
lad, with a bunch of Michaelmas daisies in his cap, very gravely pushed
at one handle of his father's wheelbarrow.
Now, children and Mrs. Emsworth were mutually irresistible, and the
barrow was stopped, and the father stood by in a sort of proud,
admiring sheepishness, while Mrs. Emsworth made herself fascinating.
She had a story to tell about those particular flowers the child
had in his hat. The fairies had made them during the night. One had
brought the white silk out of which they were cut, another had brought
oil-paints to colour them, a third had brought a watering-pot with a
rose to sprinkle them. But the bad fairy had seen them, and had come on
her broomstick, surrounded by an army of flying toads and spiders and
slugs, to destroy the flowers. And a toad had just begun to eat the top
of one of the flowers when the sun said, 'Pop, I'm coming,' and before
the bad fairy could get under shelter it had shone on her, so that she
instantly curled up like a burnt feather, and died with a pain so awful
that stomach-ache was nothing to it.
This was so absorbing both to the narrator and the audience that
neither had observed that someone else was listening, and as the boy
broke out into childish laughter, crying, 'That was nice!' at the awful
fate of the wicked fairy, Mrs. Emsworth looked behind her, half hearing
a sudden rustle, and saw Amelie standing there, also absorbed.
She instantly sat down on the other handle of the barrow.
'Yes, Tommy, that was nice,' she echoed. 'And do you think the lady
will tell us another story? Ask her.'
The lady was so kind as to oblige them again. This time it was about a
real live person, who was always very good in the morning, and sat down
and did her work as she should, with the good fairy sitting beside her.
But later on the good fairy would sometimes go to sleep, and as soon
as she was asleep all the bad fairies who had not curled up like burnt
feathers came in. And one of them made her eat peas with her knife,
and another made her spill her bread-and-milk down her new dress, and
another made her lose her temper, and another made her make mud pies in
the middle of her nice room, so that it had to be swept again. And she
was very unhappy about this, and used to put pins in the good fairy's
seat to prevent her going to sleep, and give her strong coffee to drink
for the same purpose. But it was all no good, until one day she noticed
that as long as a child was with her the good fairy kept awake. So
the poor lady set to work again, and tried to see a child every day,
because even if she talked to a child for a little in the morning, and
especially if it gave her a kiss, the good fairy was much less sleepy.
Tommy's eyes grew wide.
'Oh, I do love you!' he said, and hoisted himself with his dirty boots
into her lap. Then, smitten with a child's sudden shyness, he clambered
down again, and the wheelbarrow went on its way.
The two others strolled on in silence for a moment over the grass,
Amelie with a strange lump in her throat. Then she put her arm round
Mrs. Emsworth's waist.
'Good-morning,' she said quietly, and they kissed.
'I think I love you too,' she said. 'I came out to tell you that.'
Mrs. Emsworth kissed her again.
'That is nice too,' she said. 'But what makes you?'
'I don't know. I think it was seeing you in that horrid play last
night. You were like a sunbeam in--in a cesspool. But why do that sort
of thing?'
Mrs. Emsworth shrugged her shoulders.
'Because people are beasts, my dear,' she said--'because they like that
sort of thing. And one has to live.'
Amelie thought a moment, with her face growing grave.
'Oh, I am sorry, I am sorry,' she said.
A sudden impatience and ungovernable irritation filled Dorothy. She
felt as if she was being hauled back to her ordinary life, when she
was so happy in the sweetness of the early morning hour. Why did this
stupid, gawky girl come and speak to her like this? But with an effort
at self-control stronger than she usually bothered herself to make, she
mastered it.
'Oh, never mind, never mind,' she said. 'Walk with me a little further,
and let me look at you because you are beautiful, and the trees because
they are beautiful, and the grass and the sky. What a heavenly moment!
Do not let us waste it. Look, the lawns are empty, where yesterday they
were full with all sorts of silly and wicked people. Is that an insult
to your mother's guests? I think it is. Anyhow, I was one of the silly,
wicked people. But now I am not silly or wicked; I am very good, and
very innocent, and I want to take everything into my arms and stroke
it. My God! what a beautiful world! I am so glad I did not die in the
night.'
Amelie laughed. This mood found in her a ready response.
'Yes, yes,' she cried; 'go on. I know what you mean. You want to be rid
of all else, to be just a consciousness in the world. I have felt that.
What does it say?'
Dorothy shook her head.
'It never says the same thing for five minutes,' she said. 'Just now
you and I feel that. If we sat here for a quarter of an hour we should
begin to talk _chiffon._ If we sat here longer we might talk scandal.
Only I think these moments are given us as a sort of refreshment.
God washes our faces every now and then, and we proceed to soil them
instantly.'
She turned to her companion eagerly.
'Don't soil yours,' she said. 'Don't let others soil it. It grows on
you; it is like using rouge,' and she broke off suddenly.
There was silence a moment, then Amelie said:
'Look, here is Tommy coming back from the house.'
Mrs. Emsworth rose.
'Let us go in,' she said. 'It is time for me to have breakfast, as
I am going by the early train. But remember that I was good for ten
minutes--if '--and her voice quavered--' if people, as they are sure to
do, tell you things.'
They passed Tommy, who paused as they got near. Mrs. Emsworth seemed
not to notice him. Then she looked back.
'Dear little chap,' she said, and, retracing her steps, kissed him
again.
It must be allowed that by the time they got to the station there was
nothing of the early-morning Mrs. Emsworth left about her. On the
platform Bilton approached her with rather an anxious face.
'I particularly want to speak to you, Dorothy,' he said in a low voice.
'You can help me.'
She looked at him with extremely vivid virulence.
'Oh, go away, you beast!' she said. 'I can help you, you say. No doubt
I can. But I won't. Go away!'
Bilton had the sense to see that he needed help, for there had been a
very awkward moment when he went into Mrs. Emsworth's room the night
before. He himself was very good at acting quickly in any emergency he
had foreseen, but this one was utterly unforeseen, and had found him
helplessly unprepared. Had he had even a moment's preparation, he felt
sure that he could have said something which would anyhow have been
palliative; but since the thing was done, he did not trouble his head
about what the palliative would have been. For he had come in--his
knock unheard--and found the two ladies together. Upon which Dorothy
laughed, Mrs. Massington turned pink, and he retreated. There was the
situation. And the most unpromising feature of it was that Dorothy had
laughed. With all his quickness he could see no way out. It was clearly
impossible for him to open the subject again to Mrs. Massington; it was
equally obvious that she would put a construction on his presence. The
only person who could conceivably help him was Dorothy, and now she had
called him a beast.
But, apparently, during the journey to New York she relented, for as
they boarded the mangy-looking ferry-boat that conveyed them across the
river, she threw a word to him over her shoulder.
'I shall be in at lunch,' she said. 'You can come if you like.'
He did not like that either, though it was better than nothing, for he
felt that she had in a sense the whip-hand of him, and knew it. And
Bilton was not accustomed to let anybody have the whip-hand of him.
Mrs. Emsworth always took her rehearsals herself; she had a
stage-manager, it is true, who sat meekly in the wings, and whom she
contradicted from time to time, his office being to be contradicted,
and to write down stage directions which she gave him. Occasionally
Bilton looked in for an hour or two; him she contradicted also at the
time, but usually incorporated his suggestions afterwards. Her author,
if it was a new play, was also in attendance in the stalls; his office
was to cut lines out or put lines in. Though, perhaps, she could not
act, she certainly had a strong sense of drama; that was why she had
laughed at Bilton's entrance the night before, for the situation struck
her as admirably constructed. She had seen, with a woman's sixth sense,
as correctly and minutely as in a photograph on what footing he and
Mrs. Massington were, and though she was not in the slightest degree
in love with the man--or, indeed, ever had been--yet she looked on him
as her possession, and while she did not want him, she distinctly did
not wish him to change hands. Jealousy of the ordinary green variety
had something to do with it. A shrewd eye to business, the knowledge of
how much better her career went if the great impresario was her devoted
admirer, had about as much. Only, if her devoted admirer was to become
the confirmed, settled, and sealed-up admirer of someone else, she
did not propose to be the candle at which the sealing was done. To be
cat's-paw to an act of treason against herself was a feat of altruism
of which she was hopelessly incapable. Then, finally, in this jumble
of feelings which had resulted in her calling Bilton a beast, there
was something neither sordid nor selfish--namely, the determination,
distinct and honest, that Mrs. Massington, a woman whom she both liked
and respected, should not, at any rate by any auxiliary help of hers,
be deceived as to what Bilton really was. She herself, no doubt, with
the aid of liquid eyes and a mouth so beautiful that it looked as if it
must be made for the utterance of perfect verity, could persuade Mrs.
Massington that she and Bilton had never been in intimate relations,
and assure her, even to conviction, that his slightly informal visit
last night was only--as was indeed true--a visit for the utterance
of a few words of congratulation on her success. But she did not
intend--from motives good, bad, and indifferent, all mixed--to do this
for him. Only, into the composition of this intention the good and
honest and fine motive entered.
It was not wonderful that this _pot-au-feu_ of feeling, amounting to
positive agitation, did not tend towards the comfort of her company
at the rehearsal, nor indeed, on the part of the manageress, toward
the calm attitude of the thoughtful critic. In consequence, before the
rehearsal was an hour old--it was the first 'without books' rehearsal
--the second leading lady was next door to tears, the leading gentleman
in sulks, the author in despair, and Mrs. Emsworth in a mood of
dangerous suavity that made the aspiring actors heart-sick.
'Miss Dayrell,' she was saying, 'would you mind not turning your back
completely on the audience when you speak those lines. Mr. Yates'--this
was the leading gentleman--' I am _so_ sorry to interrupt your
conversation, but my throat is rather sore this morning, and I cannot
hear myself speak if you talk so loud to your friends. Yes; I think,
as you are not on the stage just now, it would be better if you left
it. Yes, Miss Dayrell, you see these are perhaps the most important
lines in the play which you have to speak, and the audience will have a
better chance of understanding it if you let them hear what Mr. Farquar
has given you to say. Mr. Farquar, I am afraid the second act is about
twice as long as it ought to be. I have cut some of it--at least, with
your approval, I propose to cut some of it.'
Mr. Farquar sighed heavily in the stalls. He had spent the greater part
of the last three nights in writing more of the second act, because it
was not long enough.
'Thank you,' continued Mrs. Emsworth, interpreting the sigh as silence.
'You will see my alterations when we get to them. Would you kindly
begin, Miss Dayrell, at "If I had a pitch-fork."'
Suddenly her voice changed to a wheedling tenderness.
'And if my own Teddy Roosevelt hasn't come down of his own delicious
accord to see his aunt in her pretty theatre! Teddy, the world is very
evil, and my mother bids me bind my hair. I beg your pardon, ladies and
gentlemen, but I had to say a word to Popsie Tootsicums. Now, dear Miss
Dayrell, let's begin again. You enter. Excellent. You turn. Yes, that's
exactly what I want. Now.'
A murmur of relief went round, and the faded actors and actresses
raised their drooped heads as when a shower has passed over a
drought-dried garden. And Teddy R., the angel in disguise, sat sparsely
down in the middle of the stage, and smiled on the spectacle of his
beneficent work.
But because the happy appearance of Teddy Roosevelt had made _le beau
temps_ for the members of Mrs. Emsworth's company, it did not at all
follow that Bilton, when he came to lunch, would find the same sunshine
awaiting him, even as there is no guarantee that, because at twelve
o'clock on an April day pellucid tranquillity flooded the earth, there
will not be a smart hail-storm an hour afterwards. On the contrary, it
was safe to bet that, whatever mood Mrs. Emsworth was in, she would be
in a different one before long. The spring-day temperament of hers was,
in fact, the only thing to be reckoned on. Consequently, since Bilton
had not witnessed the varied phases exhibited at the theatre, he hoped,
somehow sanguinely, that she would not be in a temper that so roundly
labelled him 'beast' at Port Washington Station.
She seemed to have forgotten he was coming to lunch--as a matter of
fact, she had, and welcomed him charmingly.
'Dear man,' she said, 'how nice of you to look in. I'm nearly dead with
fatigue; let's have lunch at once. Harold, I've acted every part in
'Telegrams' through from beginning to end this morning. Those people
are so hard-working, but they are so stupid. In fact, I know every part
but my own. That I have promised them to be word perfect in by five
o'clock this afternoon.'
'You don't rehearse again this afternoon?' asked he.
'Oh yes, I do. Three hours more this afternoon, then just time for
dinner, then theatre again till half-past eleven, then supper at
the Waldorf. To-morrow, rehearsal all morning, matinee, evening
performance, every interval filled up with reporters and milliners and
lime-light people. Oh, well, thank God, we shall all soon be dead. Time
to rest then, and time to lunch now.'
'Don't overdo it, Dolly,' said he, as they sat down.
'Overdo it?' My dear boy, it is rather late in the day to recommend
me not to overdo it. Besides, we women, and in special this woman,
are so much stronger than men. My company follow me through hours of
rehearsal, faint yet pursuing. They drop asleep, and I wake them with
a gentle touch on their shoulders, and they say, "Is it morning yet?"
And I say, "Kindly wake up for ten minutes, and go through this scene,
dear, and then you shall go to sleep again." Then, at the end, when
I say, "That is all for to-night, ladies and gentlemen," they all
hurry away in desperate fear lest I should ask them to supper. "_Il
faut lutter pour l'art_," as Daudet says. I'm so glad I'm not a prig,
Harold, who thinks about the exigencies of the artistic temperament.
I'm not an artist at all. People come to see me act because I'm (_a_)
rather good-looking, (_b_) in rollicking good spirits. What delicious
cantaloupe! I like my food.'
'All the same, I wish you would take more care of yourself,' said he,
fostering her present temper with a light and, he hoped, skilful hand.
'I'm sure you do too much, and some day you will break down. You are
spending more than your income of nervous energy, you are living on the
capital.'
'Just what I mean to do. Like Mr. Carnegie, I think it would be a
disgrace to die with an ounce of nervous force left in one. What use
is it when one is dead? I am living on the capital; I intend to spend
it all. I shall die sooner, no doubt--but, oh, Harold, what an awful
old person I should be at sixty if I proposed, which I do not, to live
as long. Look at the old women who have spent their youth as I have
done. Rouge on their raddled cheeks, clinging to life, mortally afraid
of dying, trying to get a few more successes, with one bleary eye
anxiously fixed on some back door into heaven, the other roaming round
to see if they can't have another little flirtation before they die.
No; let me die at the height of my success. I don't want to stumble
down-hill into my grave. I want to find it on the mountain-top. And I
shall lie down in it quite content, for I have had a good time, and ask
no further questions. And, Harold, plant a great crimson rambler, and
a vine like Omar, and a few daffodils, and some Michaelmas daisies,
on my grave, so that I shall flower all the year round. And come,
if you like, once a year to it, and think over any occasion when I
have pleased or amused you, and say to yourself if you can, "She was
rather a good sort." Then go away to the woman who happens at the time
to--oh, I forgot. We've got to have a talk. And I've been doing all the
talking. Have you finished lunch? Come into the next room.'
The April day was behaving quite characteristically. It had got cold
and cloudy, and a bitter wind blew suddenly. Mentally he shivered, and
followed her.
She had thrown herself down on the big Louis XV. couch. Teddy Roosevelt
was having his dinner. There was no mitigation within the horizon.
'About Sybil Massington,' she said, and shut her mouth again as if it
worked on a steel spring.
Bilton lit his cigar, and took his time, wishing to appear not nervous.
'Ah, yes,' he said. 'I remember.'
'That line is no good,' remarked Dorothy critically. 'You must get more
sincerity into it, or drop it.'
He dropped it, and sat down.
'I've been wanting to tell you for some time, Dorothy,' he said, 'that
I hope to marry Mrs. Massington. I should have done so before, only
it's an awkward thing to say.'
'There is always a slight crudeness in that situation,' said she. 'Men
always try to explain away what can't be explained at all. So cut it
short. I know you must say a few words, but let them be few.'
'Well, it's just this,', said he: 'we've been great friends, we've got
along excellently; you have always been charming to me, and I hope I
haven't treated you badly.'
'Oh no, first-class time,' said she, the _gamin_ coming to the surface.
'Well, now I want to marry,' he said, 'and I come to you for your help.
If you had been in my position, I would have helped you.'
'Thanks. Well?'
'You know it was a devilish awkward moment last night. And you made it
worse. You laughed. You shouldn't have done that.'
Dorothy's face relaxed.
'I couldn't help it,' she said. 'Dramatically, it was perfect, and so
funny. Harold, if you could have seen your own face of blank amazement,
I really believe you would have laughed too.'
He frowned.
'A pal ought to help a man out,' he said.
'I'm sure you went out pretty quick,' she interpolated. 'Oh, don't
peashoot me,' he said. 'Now, a word from you will help me. I can't
offer any explanation to Mrs. Massington, simply because, if I tried,
she would be convinced there is something to explain. You can. A half
word from you will do it. Represent me as your business manager--very
business--with an urgent question to ask, and in my stupid,
unconventional American way, it not occurring to me that there was any
impropriety----'
'And my laugh? How shall I explain that?'
'Because it did occur to you what construction Mrs. Massington would
put on it. Because my face of horror when I saw what I had done was so
funny. You said so yourself.'
Dorothy paused.
'In other words,' said she slowly, 'I am to tell Mrs. Massington,
either directly or by implication, that you and I are you and I, not
we--that--just that.'
'Quite so,' he said, 'and very neatly put.'
She sat up.
'I refuse,' she said.
'Why? For what possible reason?'
'For a reason you couldn't appreciate.'
'Let me try.'
'I can't explain it even. But the outline is this: I respect and
like Sybil Massington, therefore I will not assist you to marry her.
It is not my business to open her eyes--you may marry her if you
can--but neither is it my business to close them. Even if you wished
it, I would not marry you myself, because I don't think you would be
a--well, a satisfactory husband. So I will not help you.' 'Bilton's
face was clearly given him to conceal his thoughts. On this occasion it
expressed nothing whatever, though he thought a good deal.
'You want to stand in my light, then,' he said.
'Not at all, only I won't hold the candle for you.'
'You refuse to tell the truth to Mrs. Massington; you refuse to tell
her what you know--namely, that I came to your room last night merely
to congratulate you on your success?'
'I refuse to tell her a fag-end of the truth like that--a truth that is
designed to deceive.'
His eye wandered round the room before he replied, and in its course
fell on the grate. To-day also there was a torn letter lying in it. A
slight tinge of colour came into his face.
'I can't understand you,' he said. 'As far as I know, you on the whole
wish me well; you have assured me that you would not marry me yourself.
What do you want, then? Do you want to be paid for doing it? If you are
not unreasonable in your demands, I will meet them.' She got up, her
eyes blazing.
'That is enough,' she said. 'Not another word, Harold, or I assure you
I will throw the heaviest and hardest thing I can lift at you. I mean
it.'
A rather ugly light came into his eyes--a stale, unwholesome sort of
glow.
'Pray don't,' he said; 'we will leave the subject. I think you are
behaving most ungenerously--that is all. I should like a few words with
you about your dresses in "Telegrams." I will wait till you are ready
to discuss them with me. Take a cigarette.'
She looked at him a moment in silence. In spite of herself, she could
not help feeling the infernal mastery he had over her. As always, the
more violent she became the more he seemed steeped in a calm compound
of indifference and almost boredom. And since it is obviously more
exhausting to continue violent than to continue calm, it followed
that she had to compose herself, thus changing first, while he merely
remained unmoved. It had happened often before, and it happened now.
'What is it you want me to say to Mrs. Massington?' she asked at length.
'Pray do not let us discuss it. You might throw something at me,' said
he, smiling inwardly.
'Don't you see my point?' she asked. 'Besides, a word from me would do
no good. She saw the terms we were on. It was obvious, blatant.'
'Then no harm would be done by your saying a word. She would not be
deceived.'
'No; but she would think I tried to deceive her.'
'Would you mind that?' he asked.
'Very much. I like her.'
Bilton knew well the value of the waiting game in an argument, the
futility of trying to persuade a woman to do something, especially if
she shows the least sign of persuading herself. So he said nothing
whatever, since her re-opening the subject pointed to an already
existing indecision. But her final answer, when it came, was not in the
least what he expected.
'And I refuse finally to help you,' she said. 'If you wish, I will
discuss the dresses.'
Bilton would never have made himself so successful a career as
he had had he not possessed to a very high degree the power of
concentrating his mind on one thing, to the complete exclusion of
other preoccupations, and for the next half-hour no cloud of what had
happened crossed in his mind the very clear sky of the new play's
prospects. He was able to give his whole and complete attention to it,
until between them they had settled what he desired to settle. Then,
since, like all other days, it was a busy day with him, he rose.
'Good-bye, Dorothy,' he said, 'and don't overdo it.'
Once again she wavered.
'And do you forgive me?' she asked.
'Not in the least. But I don't imagine you care.'
'But I do care.'
He drew on his gloves with great precision.
'I beg your pardon; if you really cared you would do as I ask,' he
said. 'Good-bye. I shall be at the theatre this evening.'
She let him go without further words, and, in spite of the heat, he
walked briskly down Fifth Avenue. He was not a forgiving man, and
though he would not put himself out to revenge himself on anyone, since
he had more lucrative ways of employing his time and energies, he was
perfectly ready, even anxious, to do her an ill-turn if he had the
opportunity. And certainly it seemed to him that there was a handle
ready to his grasping when he remembered the torn note from Bertie
Keynes which he had picked up in the grate. How exactly to use it he
did not at present see, but it seemed to him an asset.