RELATES TO THE PLAYING OF PARTS
Much light is thrown upon the character of Victor Baron when it is said
that he was the kind of young man who likes to sit in an attic when the
rain is falling.
Such a young man may possess many high virtues, certainly; but he
can scarcely hope to escape occasional contact with what is called
the world’s cold shoulder. He is clearly not the sort of person who
knows what magic there is in the matter of percentages and other such
progressive and acquisitive sciences.
We now encounter this peculiar young man in his attic room, on an
afternoon when the rain was falling steadily.
Days had passed since Mrs. Baron had driven the manager, Thornburg,
from her front door. Something like a fixed status in the case of
Bonnie May had been brought about. Seemingly, she had become a
permanent member of the Baron household.
Yet Baron was not happy. Having performed his duty in solving one
problem, he had now passed on to another, an older problem.
There was the fact of his aimless existence staring him in the face;
the fact that he had been home from the university over a year now, and
that as yet he had chosen no plough to the handles of which he meant to
set his hands.
He did a little newspaper writing when the spirit moved him: articles
and reviews which were often quite cordially accepted--and sometimes
even urgently solicited--but which were still subjected to a measuring
process in the accounting room of the newspaper offices, and which were
only meagrely profitable.
To be sure, his needs were quite simple. He made no contributions to
the up-keep of the household. He kept his tailor’s bills paid with a
reasonable degree of promptitude. Usually, too, he had funds enough for
books and other means of recreation. Still, there were occasions when
he had to go to his mother for assistance, and this practise he was
compelled to contemplate with utter disfavor.
It is true that he never asked his mother for Money. The Barons
pronounced the word money as if it were spelled with a capital letter,
like certain other more or less unsavory names--Lucretia Borgia, New
Caledonia, Christian Science, Prussianism, or Twilight Sleep. He used
to ask her, when need arose, if she had any street-car-fare lying
about. And she would put her index-finger to her forehead and meditate,
and then remember suddenly that there was some in her work-basket
on the centre-table, or under something or other on the sideboard. A
burglar would have had a discouraging experience in the mansion; not
because there was never anything to steal, but because what money there
was was always placed lightly in such unpromising places.
“I really ought to get down to business,” concluded Baron, sitting in
his attic--though the phrase was inept, since business was another word
which the Barons pronounced as if it were spelled with a capital letter.
The place was depressingly quiet. The houseman, Thomason, might be in
his room, which adjoined Baron’s; but Thomason never made any noise. He
was almost uncannily quiet at all times. The door between the two rooms
was never opened. Both opened upon the hall, and when Thomason wished
to attend to his duties he descended to the floor below, where a back
stairway afforded egress to the lower regions where his more active
interests lay.
Yes, the quietude was just now quite depressing. Sitting by an open
window, Baron looked out upon the sombre vista of back street, which
was uninviting at best, but which now presented a doubly depressing
aspect in the monotonously falling rain.
An intercepted picture of a small park was visible several blocks
away. The Lutheran church, whose bell was forever tinkling a message
of another time and place, was in sight, and so was the shoulder of a
brewery.
Closer at hand men and women were hurrying in various directions,
seeking escape from the rain. They had finished their day’s work and
were now going home to enjoy their well-earned bread and meat and
rest. Over there where the wind currents of two streets met two small
boys stood beneath a dilapidated umbrella and permitted a torrent of
muddy water in the gutter to run over their bare feet. A beer-driver,
partly sheltered under the hood of his dray, drove rumblingly over
the cobblestones toward the near-by brewery. On the ends of passing
street-cars home-going crowds were trying to escape the falling rain.
All this constituted a back-street picture which none of the Barons
observed as a rule. It was the habit of the family to confine their
outlook to the front view. But just now Baron was experiencing a
frame of mind which made the humble side of life significant and even
fascinating.
Still, he was glad to have his solitude invaded when, some time later,
he felt a light touch on his shoulder. Unheard and unobserved, Bonnie
May had stolen into the room. She had “caught” him in a brown study.
“Don’t you think you’ve been studying your part long enough?” she
asked. She was looking at him with cheerful comprehension.
“What part?” he asked.
“Well, of course I don’t know exactly, except that it would be _your_
part--whatever that is. That’s what people always do when they’re
alone, isn’t it? They think how certain words will sound, or how they
will do this or that. That’s studying a part, isn’t it?”
“Oh, yes--in a way.”
She pulled a chair to the window, close to him, and climbed into it.
“There’s really something funny about it,” she added with a reminiscent
manner.
“Funny?”
“I mean about people and their parts. You know, mostly people aren’t
thinking at all about how to do their own parts better. They’re
imagining themselves in some rôle way beyond them. When they think they
are ambitious they’re mostly just sore because somebody is doing better
than they are. It’s jealousy--not ambition. My goodness, the little
parts are important enough!”
Baron regarded her in silence. Then--“but don’t you think everybody
ought to want to advance?” he asked.
“Oh, well--yes; but think how a production would be if the little
parts--even the populace--were done wrong! If I had only one line, I’d
want to believe it was as important as anything in the play.”
Baron tried to apply that philosophy to his own “part,” but he had to
admit that the result was not at all satisfactory.
“Anyway,” she added, “if you do things the way your audience wants you
to do them, I’ll bet the big parts will come fast enough.”
“The audience!” echoed Baron. “I’d want a higher standard than that.
I’d want to--to play my part the way I thought it should be done. I
wouldn’t be satisfied just with pleasing the audience.”
“Oh, but that’s the wrong idea. I’ve seen people like that. They never
were what you’d call artists. Believe me, the audience is the best
judge.”
Baron, seeking for a symbol, believed there was no hope of finding it
in this. His mind wandered, and when he brought it back to the child
who sat before him she was talking of her own problem in a way which
did not touch his at all.
“I think it’s the chance of my life,” she was saying, “my being here
with you all.”
“A chance--for what?” he asked.
“Oh, to pick things up. You know I can’t always be a Little Eva. I’ll
be too old for that after a while. And then it will be handy for me to
have a little--a little class.”
“Class!” exclaimed Baron. “Class?”
He had been arguing that the one thing wrong with his way of thinking
and living was that he and his family had attached a silly importance
to the class idea, and that it had prevented him from learning to be
active and useful in ways that counted in the world in which he had to
live.
“It’s a good thing,” defended Bonnie May. “It’s needed in all the best
plays. And you can’t get it just by going to the wardrobe mistress,
either. It’s something that’s got to be _in_ you. In order to do it
right, you’ve pretty near got to have the goods.”
She couldn’t understand why Baron had spoken with such emphasis--with
such resentment.
“Class,” mused Baron to himself. He looked intently at this child who
did not know where she had been born--who knew nothing even about her
parentage.
But she had turned to a happier memory. “You know you can’t play the
part of Little Eva very long, even when you begin quite early. And I
was just a little bit of a thing when I played it first.” She laughed
heartily. “I couldn’t even speak plain. I used to say ‘U’kle Tom’! How
they laughed at me! ‘U’kle Tom!’ It’s really a hideous word, isn’t
it? ‘Uncle,’ and ‘aunt,’ too. You can see that the man who framed up
those words never thought very highly of uncles and aunts. Just compare
those words with ‘father’ and ‘mother’! Aren’t they lovely? Father!”
she spoke the word musingly. “Father!” Her body drooped forward
slightly, and her face was pitched up so that she was gazing into
space. “Beautiful words, and mother! ... mother!” Her voice had become
a yearning whisper.
Baron touched her shoulders with gentle hands. “Don’t, child!” he
implored her.
She aroused herself as from a dream. Her eyes brightened. She looked at
him searchingly. “You thought ... I believe I was, too!”
She sprang to her feet. “I really do intend to pick up a lot of things
while I am here,” she added briskly. She walked across the floor. “An
imitation of a person of class,” she said. She moved with studied
elegance. “You see,” she exclaimed, turning to him, “I can’t do it at
all right! I ought to beat that.” She returned to her starting-point.
“See if I do it any better,” she said.
Mrs. Baron appeared in the doorway, but neither Baron nor the child
saw her. Again Bonnie May crossed the room. This time she assumed a
slightly careless air, and looked airily at imaginary objects to right
and left. Her movement was slightly undulating. She turned to Baron
suddenly: “What you have to do is to be really proud, without thinking
about it. I know how it ought to be done, but it’s hard to get the hang
of it. If you don’t get it just right you’re likely to look like a
saleslady.” She discovered Mrs. Baron, who stood rather scornfully in
the doorway.
“Oh, Mrs. Baron!” she exclaimed. She was somewhat dismayed. She thought
of adopting a conciliatory course. “You could show us just what I mean,
if you would,” she said.
“I came to say that dinner is ready,” said Mrs. Baron. “Could show you
what?”
“Won’t you please come here--quite over to this end of the room? Now
please go out. We’ll come right away.”
Mrs. Baron regarded her sternly. Bonnie May flushed and her glance
became softly appealing. She took Mrs. Baron’s hand and patted it. “I’m
not being rude, really,” she declared. “It’s as if we were asking you
to settle a bet, you know.”
“I don’t understand at all.”
“Well, please don’t be angry. If you are, it will spoil everything.”
Mrs. Baron turned to her son. He was telegraphing to her an earnest
appeal, in which she read an assurance that she was not to be made
ridiculous, even from the extraordinary view-point of Bonnie May.
“Did you understand that dinner is ready?” she asked.
“Yes, mother. We’ll be right down.”
Mrs. Baron left the room.
“Look at it! Look at it!” whispered Bonnie May. Her hands were clasped
in a worshipful ecstasy. Her eyes seemed to retain the picture after
Mrs. Baron had disappeared. Then she turned with swift intensity to
Baron.
“Oh, I do hope she’ll care for me a little!” she exclaimed. “She’s
so--so legitimate!”