A DISAPPOINTING PERFORMANCE
Baron looked at his watch twice as he climbed the stairs. Yes, the
family had had time to return from church; but they had not done so.
Mrs. Shepard was busy in the dining-room, but otherwise the house was
unoccupied. Silence reigned in the upper regions.
Thomason, the houseman, was looking impatiently down from the upper
landing; but Thomason didn’t count. He was probably hungry. Baron
realized that he, too, was hungry.
He went into the cheerful sitting-room and looked down upon the street,
and instantly his attitude changed.
There they came! And something was wrong. Oh, plainly, something was
wrong.
Mrs. Baron’s head was held high; she was pale; her lips were
compressed. There was nothing gracious in her carriage. She was
marching.
By her side walked Flora, keeping step with difficulty. She appeared to
be fighting off all realization of her mother’s state.
Mrs. Shepard was no longer present to lend her support to Bonnie May.
The faithful servitor had come home immediately after Sunday-school to
look after the dinner, and the child walked alone, behind her silent
elders. Her whole being radiated defiance. She was apparently taking
in every aspect of the street, but her casual bearing was obviously
studied; the determined effort she was making was not to be concealed.
Baron hurried down-stairs so that he might meet them in the hall,
and engineer a temporary dispersement. He was affecting a calm and
leisurely demeanor when the door opened and Mrs. Baron, followed by the
others, entered.
There was an ominous silence. Bonnie May caught sight of Baron and
approached him with only a partial concealment of eagerness and hurry.
Mrs. Baron and Flora ascended the stairs: the former leading the way
sternly; the latter moving upward with wan cheeks and bowed head.
Baron led the way into the sitting-room, Bonnie May following. He
pretended not to see or to apprehend anything unusual. “Well, what do
you think of Sunday-school?” he began gayly.
“I think it’s fierce!” This took the form of an explosion. “It wouldn’t
do even for one-night stands!”
Baron felt the need of an admonitory attitude. “Bonnie May,” he said,
“you should have discovered that it wasn’t a play. It was something
real. It’s a place where people go to help each other.”
“They certainly need help all right enough.” This with a quite unlovely
jeering laugh.
“I wonder what you mean by that?”
“I suppose I meant the same thing you meant yourself.”
Baron paused, frowning. “I meant,” he explained patiently, “that they
are people who want to be as good as they can, and who want to give one
another encouragement.”
The child was conscious of his wish to be conciliatory. She tried to
restrain herself. “Well,” she asked, “if they want to be good, why
don’t they just _be_ good? What’s the use of worrying about it?”
“I’m afraid it isn’t quite so simple a matter as all that.”
Bonnie May’s wrath arose in spite of herself. She was recalling certain
indignities. “I don’t see anything in it but a bum performance. Do you
know what I think they go there for?”
“That’s what I’m trying to find out.”
“I think they go there to watch each other--to find out something bad
about each other.”
“Bonnie May!”
“I do! And I’ve had pretty near enough, too. You asked me and I told
you. You’re all asking me to do things, and asking me questions; and
then if I don’t agree with you in every way I’m wrong. That may look
all right to you, but it doesn’t to me. If I’ve got to take everything,
I mean to be on my way.”
Baron remained silent a full minute. When he spoke again his voice was
persuasive, gentle. “I’m anxious to understand your difficulties,” he
said. “I’m anxious to have you understand ours. I’m sorry I criticised
you. I’m sure you mean to be fair.”
She looked at him with a light of gratitude in her eyes, a quiver of
emotion passing over her face. She had an intense desire to justify
herself--at least to him.
“Do you know what was the first thing they asked me?”
“Your name, probably.”
“No, Mrs. Shepard told them that. _They asked me if I was a good little
girl!_”
“But I don’t see any harm in that. Why shouldn’t they have asked you?”
“You don’t! Do you suppose that I was going to tell them that I was--or
that I wasn’t? What nonsense! Are you ‘a good young man’? How does a
question like that sound?”
Baron pondered. “Well--” he suggested.
“Well, I wouldn’t stand it. I asked her if she was ‘a good old
woman’--and the frowzy old thing stared at me just as ugly! She walked
way down into the parquet without looking back. She’d been grinning
when she asked me. I’ll bet she won’t grin like that very soon again.”
Baron walked to the window and looked out dully, to gain time.
How extraordinary the child’s attitude was! And yet.... He could
understand that she might have been the only child in the troupe with
which she travelled, and that her older companions, weary of mimicry
and make-believe when their work was done, might have employed very
frank, mature speech toward each other and their young companion.
He turned away from the window with a sigh. “Won’t you take my word for
it, Bonnie May, that these people mean well, and that one should speak
of them with respect, even if one cannot speak of them with affection?”
“But they don’t mean well. What’s the good of stalling?” She turned
until her back was toward him, and sat so, her cheek in her hand, and
her whole body eloquent of discouragement.
An instant later she turned toward him with the first evidence of
surrender she had shown. Her chin quivered and her eyes were filled
with misery. “Did you tell the man where I was, so they can come for me
if they want me?” she asked.
Here spoke the child, Baron thought. His resentment fled instantly.
“Truly I did,” he assured her. “I have been doing everything I could
think of to help. I want you to believe that.”
“Oh, I do; but you all put too much on me. I want to go back to where
things are real----”
“Real, child? The theatre, and plays, and make-believe every day?”
“It’s the only thing that’s real. You’d know that if you were an
artist. It means what’s true--that’s what it means. Do you mean to tell
me there’s anything real in all the putting on here in this house--the
way you hide what you mean and what you believe and what you want?
Here’s where the make-believe is: just a mean make-believe that nothing
comes of. The theatre has a make-believe that everybody understands,
and so it really isn’t a make-believe, and something good and true
comes of it.”
Her eyes were flashing. Her hands had been clasped while she spoke
until she came to the final clause. Then she thrust her arms forward
as if she would grasp the good and true thing which came of the
make-believe she had defended.
When Baron spoke again his words came slowly. “Bonnie May,” he said, “I
wish that you and I might try, like good friends, to understand each
other, and not to say or think anything bitter or unkind. Maybe there
will be things I can teach you. I’m sure there are things you can teach
me! And the others ... I honestly believe that when we all get better
acquainted we’ll love one another truly.”
She hung her head pensively a moment, and then, suddenly, she laughed
heartily, ecstatically.
“What is it?” he asked, vaguely troubled.
“I’m thinking it’s certainly a pretty kettle of fish I’ve got into.
That’s all.”
“You know I don’t quite understand that.”
“The Sunday-school, I mean, and your mother, and everything. They put
me in with a lot of children”--this somewhat scornfully--“and a sort of
leading lady asked us riddles--is that what you call them? One of them
was: ‘How long did it take to make the world?’”
“But that wasn’t a riddle.”
“Well, whatever it was; and they caught one Smart Alec. She said,
‘Forty days and forty nights,’ and they all laughed--so you could see
it was just a catch. As if anybody knew! That was the only fun I could
see to the whole performance, and it sounded like Rube fun at that.
One odious little creature looked at my dress a long time. Then she
said: ‘I’ve got a _new_ dress.’ Another looked at me and sniffed, and
sniffed, and sniffed. She wrinkled her nose and lifted her lip every
time she sniffed. It was like a kind of signal. Then she said: ‘My papa
has got a big store, and we’ve got a horse and buggy.’ She sniffed
again and looked just as spiteful! I had to get back at that one.
‘Don’t cry, little one,’ I said. ‘Wait until it’s a pretty day and I’ll
come around and take you out in my automobile.’”
“But you haven’t any automobile!”
“That,” with great emphasis, “doesn’t make any difference. There’s no
harm in stringing people of a certain kind.”
“Oh, Bonnie May!” cried Baron reproachfully, and with quickly restored
calm he added: “Surely one should tell the truth!”
“Yes, one should, if two would. But you can’t afford to show your
hand to every Bedelia that gets into your troupe. No, you can’t,” she
repeated defiantly, reading the pained look in his eyes.
Baron knew that he should have expressed his disapproval of such a
vagrant philosophy as this; but before he had time to frame a tactful
response the child continued:
“Then the leading lady turned to me, thinking up another question. I
made up my mind to be on hand if I had to sleep in the wings. ‘Why were
Adam and Eve driven out of the garden?’ was mine. I said: ‘Because they
couldn’t make good!’ She looked puzzled, and I patted her on the knee.
‘You can’t put over anything on me,’ I said. I think I shouted it. That
stopped the whole show for a minute, and an old character man up near
the stage got up and said: ‘A little less noise, please.’ Then your
mother came back.” (Baron had anticipated this detail.) “She had been
taking the leading part in a little sketch up in front.” (Teaching her
class, Baron reflected, and smiled wryly in spite of himself.) “She
had got through with her musical turn, and--well, I don’t want to talk
about her. She told me I must sit still and listen to what the others
said. Why? I’d like to know. I couldn’t agree with her at all. I told
her I was a professional and didn’t expect to pick up anything from a
lot of amateurs. And then,” she added dejectedly, “the trouble began.”
Baron groaned. He had hoped the worst had been told. What in the world
was there to follow?
“Your mother,” resumed Bonnie May, “spoke to the woman who had been
asking questions. She said--so that the children could hear every
word--‘She’s a poor little thing who’s had no bringing up. She’ll have
to learn how to behave.’”
She hung her head in shame at the recollection of this. For the moment
she seemed unwilling to proceed.
“And what happened then?” Baron asked persuasively.
“Oh--I was getting--rattled! She had no right to work in a line like
that.”
“But what did you do?”
“I told her.... You know I _am_ sorry, don’t you?”
“Maybe you’d rather not tell me?”
“You’d better know. I told her that when it came to doing the nasty
stuff I had seen pupils from the dramatic schools that looked like
headliners compared with her.”
Baron stiffened. “Goodness! You couldn’t have said that!”
“Yes, I did. And I didn’t have to wait to hear from any prompter,
either. And she--you know she won’t take anything. The way she looked!
She said she was glad to say she didn’t have any idea what I was
talking about. Just a stall, you know. Oh, these good people! She
called Flora and said I was to be taken into a corner, and that I was
to sit there until we went home. And Flora led me into a corner and
the others looked back as if they were afraid of me. They all sang
after a while--a kind of ensemble affair. Flora held the music over
and invited me to sing. I told her musical turns were not in my line.
She just kept on holding the music for me--honestly, she’s the dearest
thing!--and singing herself. It was a crime, the noise she made. Isn’t
it awful when people try to sing and can’t? As if they had to. Why
do they do it? I felt like screaming to her to stop. But she looked
as if she might be dreaming, and I thought if anybody could dream in
that terrible place it would be a crime to wake them, even if they did
make a noise. They had an intermission, and then a man down in front
delivered a monologue.... Oh, me! Talk about the moving-picture shows!
Why, they’re _artistic_....”
What, Baron wondered, was one to say to a child who talked in such a
fashion?
Nothing--nothing at all. He groaned. Then, to his great relief, Flora
appeared.
“Dinner is ready,” she said, standing in the doorway. There was a flush
on her cheeks and an odd smile on her lips.
Baron took Bonnie May by the hand--he could not quite understand the
impulse which prompted him to do so--and led her into the dining-room.
He saw that she bore her face aloft, with a painful effort at
unconcern. He was glad that she was given a place next to him, with the
elder Baron on her right, and Flora across the table from her.
He was dismayed to note that his mother was quite beside herself. He
had expected a certain amount of irritation, of chagrin, but not this
ominous, pallid silence. She avoided her son’s eyes, and this meant, of
course, that her wrath would sooner or later be visited upon his head.
He sighed with discouragement. He realized sadly that his mother’s
heaviest crosses had always come to her from such trivial causes! She
was oddly childish--just as Bonnie May was strangely unchildlike.
Still, she had all the traditions of propriety, of a rule-made
demeanor, behind her. Strange that she could not have risen to
the difficulty that had confronted her, and emerged from a petty
predicament without so much of loss!
The meal progressed in a constrained silence. Bonnie May concerned
herself with her napkin; she admired the design on the china; she
appeared to appraise the dishes with the care of an epicure. And at
last, unfortunately, she spoke.
“Don’t you think, Mr. Baron”--to the master of the house--“that it is a
pretty custom to converse while at table?”
Mr. Baron coughed. He was keenly aware that something had gone wrong;
he was shrewd enough to surmise that Bonnie May had offended. But he
was in the position of the passenger below decks who senses an abnormal
atmosphere but who is unadvised as to the nature of the storm.
“I’m afraid I’m not a very reliable hand at small talk,” he said
guardedly. “I think my idea is that you ought to talk when you have
something to say.”
“Very good!” agreed Bonnie May, nodding brightly. She patted her lips
daintily with the corner of her napkin. “Only it seems like chickens
eating when you don’t talk. The noises make you nervous. I should think
anything would get by, even if you talked about the weather. Otherwise
it seems just like machinery at work. Rather messy machinery, too.”
Baron seized an oar. “Perhaps when people are thoughtful, or possibly
troubled, it is a mark of good taste not to try to draw them into a
conversation.” He said this airily, as if it could not possibly apply
to the present occasion.
“A very good idea!” admitted Bonnie May, quite obviously playing the
part of one who makes of conversation a fine art. “But isn’t it also
true that people who are troubled ought to hide it, for the sake of
others, and not be a sort of--oh, a wet blanket?”
The elder Baron’s eyes twinkled in a small, hidden way, and Flora tried
to smile. There was something quite hopefully audacious in the child’s
behavior.
But Mrs. Baron stiffened and stared. “Good gracious!” she exclaimed.
After which she stirred her coffee with so much vigor that a little
of it ran over into the saucer, and even the spotless table-cloth was
menaced.
Baron undertook a somewhat sterner strategy. He felt that he really
must not permit the guest to add to her offenses against his mother.
“It might be sensible not to talk too much until a closer acquaintance
is formed,” he suggested with something of finality in his tone.
But Bonnie May was not to be checked. “A very good thought, too,” she
admitted, “but you can’t get better acquainted without exchanging
ideas--and of course talking is the only way.”
Baron leaned back in his chair with a movement resembling a collapse.
Hadn’t Thornburg said something about a white elephant?
“Wouldn’t it be fine if everybody wore a badge, or something, so
that you would know just how they wanted to be taken?” A meticulous
enthusiasm was becoming apparent. Mrs. Baron was sitting very erect--a
sophisticated, scornful audience, as she seemed to Bonnie May.
“Absurd!” was Baron’s comment.
“Well, I don’t know. You pretty near know without any badges. You can
tell the--the mixers, and the highbrows. I mean when they are the real
thing--people worth while. I would know you for a mixer easy enough.
I don’t mean careless, you know; but willing to loosen up a little if
people went at you in the right way. And Flora would be a mixer, too--a
nice, friendly mixer, as long as people behaved.” Here she turned with
a heroic, friendly appeal to Mrs. Baron. “And Mrs. Baron would be one
of the fine, sure-enough highbrows.”
“I think,” began Mrs. Baron, suddenly possessed of an ominous calm; but
the guest made an earnest plea.
“Oh, please let me finish!” she begged.
“Very well,” said Mrs. Baron, “you may--finish.”
“You know I understand about your part in that entertainment this
morning. _You_ don’t belong in that crowd. It’s like the queen who
kissed the soldier. She was high enough up to do it and get away with
it.” She placed her elbows on the table and beamed upon Mrs. Baron with
a look so sweetly taunting, and so obviously conciliatory, that the
others dared to hope the very audacity of it would succeed. “Now don’t
deny,” she continued, shaking an accusing finger at Mrs. Baron and
smiling angelically, “that you’re just a nice, sure-enough, first-class
highbrow!”
It was done with such innocent intention, and with so much skill, that
all the members of Mrs. Baron’s family turned their faces toward her
smilingly, appealingly, inquiringly.
But alas! Mrs. Baron failed to rise to the occasion. She was being
ridiculed--by a child!--and her children and her husband were
countenancing the outrage. Her composure vanished again.
She pushed her chair back from the table angrily. Her napkin fell to
the floor; she grasped the edge of the table with both hands and stared
at Bonnie May in a towering rage.
“You little wretch!” she cried. “You impudent, ungrateful little
wretch! You--you brand from the burning!”
She hurried from the room. In her blind anger she bumped her shoulder
against the door as she went out, the little accident robbing her exit
of the last vestige of dignity.
Bonnie May was horrified, crushed. She sat, pale and appalled, her eyes
fixed on the doorway through which Mrs. Baron had vanished.
Then she brought her hands together sharply and uttered a single word:
“Hoo-ray!”
Every member of the family was electrified.
“Father!” expostulated Flora.
“Victor!” exclaimed the elder Baron.
And Baron, shaking his head sadly, murmured:
“Bonnie May! Bonnie May!”