The next morning, as Eldon was leaving his boarding-house to call on
Tuell at the hospital, he was astounded to see Batterson at the foot of
the steps.
“I’m looking for you,” said the stage-manager.
Batterson’s eyes were so bloodshot and so wet that Eldon stared his
surprise. Batterson grumbled:
“No, I’m not drunk. Tried to get drunk, but couldn’t.”
Eldon was at a loss for what to say to this. Suddenly Batterson was
clinging to his arm, and sobbing with head bent down to hide his
weakness from the passers-by.
“Why, Mr. Batterson,” Eldon stammered, “what’s wrong?”
“Tuell’s dead.”
“No! My God!”
“He never came out of the ether. They were too late to save him. The
appendix had burst while he was working last night.”
Eldon, remembering that uncanny battle, felt the gush of brine to his
eyes. He hung his head for concealment, too.
Batterson raged on: “Remember what Hamlet said: ‘They say he made a good
end.’ Tuell was only a mummer, but he died on the firing-line, makin’
’em laugh. If he’d been a soldier trying to save somebody from paying
taxes without representation or trying to protect some millionaire’s
oil-wells, or a fireman trying to rescue somebody’s furniture—they’d
have called him a damned hero. But he was only an actor—he only tried
to make people happy. He was a comedian, and not a good comedian—just a
hard worker; one of these stage soldiers trying to keep the theater
open.
“He did the best he knew how. The critics ripped him open and made him
funnier than he could make himself. But he kept right on. I used to
roast him worse than they did, God help me! But he never laid down on
us. He died in his make-up. They didn’t take his grease-paint off till
afterward. They didn’t know how. I had to do it for him when I got
there. Poor old painted face, with the comedian’s smile branded on it!
That was his trade-mark. He was only an actor.”
Eldon noted that Batterson had led him, not to the hospital, but to the
theater, with its electric signs, its circus lithographs, its gaudy
ballyhoo of advertisement.
Batterson groaned: “Well, here’s the shop. We’ve got to do what Tuell
did. The theater’s got to keep open. It’s another sell-out to-night.
Somebody has to play Tuell’s part to-night. I want you to.”
In spite of the horror that filled his heart Eldon felt a shaft of hope
like a thrust of lightning in the night. Then the dark closed in again,
for Batterson went on:
“It’s only for to-night, old boy. I’ve wired to New York and a good
man’ll be here to-morrow. But there’s to-night. You’ve got to go on. You
fell down the other time, and I guess I told you so, but you didn’t have
a rehearsal. I can coach you up to-day. I’ve called the other people.
They ought to be here now.”
And so they were.
On the gloomy stage before the empty house the company stood about in
somber garb, under the oppression of Tuell’s death. Batterson walked
down to the footlights, clapped his hands, and said:
“Places, please, ladies and gentlemen, for poor old Tuell’s first scene.
Mr. Eldon will play the part to-night.”
Those who were not on at the entrance drew to the sides. The others
moved here and there and stood at their posts. Batterson directed with
an unwonted calm, with a dismal patience.
The part Eldon held in his hand had been taken from Tuell’s trunk. The
dead hands seemed to cling to it with grisly jealousy. The laughter of
Tuell seemed to haunt the place like the echo of a maniac’s voice. Eldon
could not give any color to the lines. He could barely utter them. The
company gave him his cues with equal lifelessness.
Sheila was present and read her flippancies in a voice of terror—the
terror of youth before the swoop of death. Mrs. Vining muttered her
cynicisms with the drear bitterness of one to whom this familiar sort of
thing had happened once more.
When the detached scenes had been run over several times Batterson
dismissed Eldon first that he might go and study. As he went he heard
Batterson saying:
“Help him out to-night, ladies and gentlemen. Do the best you can.
To-morrow we’ll have a regular man here. And now about poor Tuell. Some
of the comic-opera people in town will sing at his funeral. His wife is
coming out to get him. Mr. Reben telegraphed to pay the expenses of
taking him back. I guess he didn’t leave the wife anything much—except
some children. We’d better get up a little benefit, I guess—a matinée,
probably. The other troupes in town will help, of course. If any of you
know any good little one-act plays, let’s have ’em. I’ve got a screaming
little farce we might throw on. I think I can get some of the vaudeville
people to do a few comic turns.”
* * * * *
That night Eldon slipped into the dead man’s shoes—at least he wore the
riding-boots and the hunting-coat and carried the crop that Tuell had
worn. Tuell had had them made too large—for the comic effect that did
not come. They fitted Eldon fairly well. But it was like acting in
another man’s shroud.
He was without ambition, without hope of personal profit. He was merely
a stop-gap. He was too completely gloomy even to feel afraid of the
audience. He was only a journeyman finishing another man’s job.
His memory worked like a machine, so independently of his mind that he
seemed to have a phonograph in his throat. He kept wondering at the
little explosions of laughter at his words.
He saw the surprise in Sheila’s eyes as he brought down the house—with
so different a laughter now. He murmured to her in sudden dread, “Are
they guying me again?”
“No, no,” she answered. “Go on; you’re splendid!”
The news of Tuell’s death had taken little space in the evening papers.
The audience, as a whole, was oblivious of it, or of what he had played.
There was none of the regret on the other side of the footlights that
solemnized the stage. The play had been established as a successful
comedy. People came to laugh, and laughed with confidence.
But the pity of Tuell’s fate ruined any joy Eldon might have taken in
the success he was winning. He played the part through in the same dull,
indifferent tone. When he made his final exit he laughed as he had heard
Tuell laugh, with uncanny mimicry as if a ghost inhabited him. He was
hardly conscious of the salvo of applause that followed him. He supposed
that some one still on the stage had earned it. He sighed with relief as
he reached the shelter of the dark wings. Batterson, who had hovered
near him, ready with the unnecessary prompt-book, glared at him in
amazement and growled:
“Good Lord! Eldon, who’d have ever picked you for a comedian?”
Eldon smiled at what he imagined to be sarcasm, and took from his pocket
the little pamphlet he had carried with him for quick reference. He
offered it to Batterson. Batterson waved it back.
“Keep it, my boy. When the other fellow gets here from New York he can
play your old part.”