Mrs. Lennox stood dully at her parlour window in the Dorset, a set
of residential apartments situated in the Fifth Avenue. This was
her birthday. She had almost forgotten the fact, but when she came
downstairs a few minutes ago, she had found the parlour adorned with
great stands of long-stalked roses and bowls of camellias. One of
Imogen’s visiting cards with the words ‘Birthday Greetings to Mother,’
was tied with gold cord to the largest bouquet. Somehow the expensive
flowers succeeded only in making the apartment look more like an
hotel’s best suite than before. Mrs. Lennox had neither the experience
nor the aptitude necessary to make a home. Buying the furniture--that
had been easy enough. She had rather enjoyed driving with Imogen to the
great stores and selecting objects without even asking their prices. It
had filled quite pleasantly the first few weeks after her daughter’s
return from the protracted European honeymoon--the only real holiday
Mr. Vandeleur had ever allowed himself. She had not even minded the
period of Imogen’s absence. The quarter of a century of theatrical
touring had left Mrs. Lennox more tired than she had realised, and she
had been quite glad to sink for six months into one of the Vandeleur
country houses--an electric-lighted, water-supplied ‘log-cabin’ in
the Adirondacks. Besides the arrangement had been merely temporary--a
protracted stand--and that made everything bearable. But this was
the permanent life. And now, now that she was rested, now that the
apartment was furnished, what in the world was she to do with herself?
For the last month the question had been forcing itself upon her more
and more insistently. She moved over to a great plated casket, which
Palmer, the maid, had just brought in, and began to eat the candy
it contained. Oh, how tired she was of candies! She returned to her
outlook at the window.
Yes, it was her birthday; she was forty years old. It sounded dreary,
not because forty was old, but because it was young. Time never used
to go so slowly. These nine months of leisured calm had been longer
than the previous quarter of a century of stage life. In retrospect,
at any rate, the cheap hotels, the midnight suppers, the warm fleeting
friendships, sparkled as gay and delightful. She was tired of always
being herself, or rather of never being herself, for Mrs. Lennox,
the rich, society woman was a mere part, the make-up for which could
never be put off. It was rather paradoxical, she reflected, that this
translation into a staid and dowered matronhood had been brought about,
not by her own marriage, but by her daughter’s. Her own marriage--she
smiled as she recollected John Vandeleur’s agitation at finding that
Imogen was a posthumous child only in the sense of being born after her
father’s divorce and not after his decease. Of course Mr. Vandeleur
realized at once that his fiancée had innocently misinformed him;
the girl’s having been kept in ignorance of the true facts was the
one point of which he approved. In vain Mrs. Lennox explained that
her marriage had been so early and so brief that she would not now
recognize her ex-husband in the street. The idea of a vague, unknown
father-in-law floating at large filled Mr. Vandeleur with unconcealed
alarm. The best detective in New York was put on the service, who,
after tracking Mr. Lennox through a series of undesirable episodes, at
last happily located him in an unhonoured grave. Then, and not till
then, was the great Mr. Vandeleur’s engagement publicly announced.
And now Imogen had been married nearly a year, and was to all
appearance perfectly happy. Her daughter never found it dull to be
dull, Mrs. Lennox told herself pettishly, as she gazed out at the wide,
wet street. How could she ever have wanted to live in this miserable
city? But the New York of her dreams, she reminded herself, was another
New York; it was Broadway, The Rialto, the Great White Way--not Fifth
Avenue. Down town, even externally, it was different; there was light,
and noise, and colour; not this dreary, deadly respectability hanging
over everything like a pall. Here there wasn’t even a street car to
liven up the prospect, only secluded private carriages. One now stopped
at the door, and her son-in-law got out. His neat, dark clothes of the
best quality, his silk hat, his quiet, dignified walk seemed in keeping
with the street. Then Mrs. Lennox saw that Imogen was also in the
carriage, waiting evidently to see if her mother was at home before she
got out. Mrs. Lennox tapped delightedly on the window-pane. Her raps
were so vigorous that the one or two passers-by looked up in surprise.
Imogen also heard. She stepped out of the carriage rather slowly; there
was a cloud on her fair face. “Mother is so impulsive,” she always
said with regret. However, when she and her husband came in a moment
later, she kissed her mother affectionately, and uttered all the proper
birthday wishes, looking particularly lovely as she did so. Imogen was
one of the fortunate people who can combine respect for the dead with
gratification of the living. She was in mourning for her husband’s
sister, Mrs. Sharman, who had died almost immediately after the
Vandeleurs’ return from their honeymoon, but the black only enhanced
the golden hair and rose leaf complexion. As for the costume itself, it
did not attract any special remark; like all Imogen’s clothes, it gave
one a restful sense of absolute perfection.
Meanwhile, Mrs. Lennox had been returning her daughter’s salutation
with an almost hungry warmth; at the same time she extended her left
hand to Mr. Vandeleur, an unconventionality he much disliked. “It’s
just sweet of you to come so early,” she exclaimed, “and to have sent
all those lovely flowers and candy.” She turned towards her son-in-law.
“I declare I’m quite overwhelmed at your wasting time over me on a
week-day morning.”
“Not at all.” In spite of his denial, Mr. Vandeleur thought his
mother-in-law had phrased it correctly. However, Imogen had wished him
to come. “I only regret that I shall not be able to stay very long.”
“John wanted to get here an hour since, but I told him there
wouldn’t be the smallest chance of finding you up,” Imogen laughed.
John Vandeleur had never got over his incredulous amazement at his
mother-in-law’s hours of rising.
“Well, if you’d ’phoned me you were coming, I’d have made an effort,”
Mrs. Lennox protested. “But _you_ will stop on a little while, won’t
you, darling, even if--John cannot?” Mrs. Lennox still hesitated over
her son-in-law’s Christian name, and would have been happier had her
daughter not insisted on her using it.
But Imogen could not stay. She always drove down town with her husband.
“John might get lost on the way to Wall Street if I were not there to
look after him,” she said, with a charming smile. Also she added that
she must be home in good time to see after the preparations for the
ladies’ lunch party. Her tone was a little worried; indeed, she seemed
pre-occupied altogether this morning, as was only natural in view of
her approaching début in entertaining. Mrs. Sharman’s death had, of
course, prevented any earlier festivities, for Imogen was the last
person to fail in observing the decorous quiet demanded by this sad
event. Even now, she had some doubt about the ladies’ lunch, but after
all her husband would not be present, and Mrs. Sharman had been his
sister, not hers. “And I do want to introduce Mother to really nice
people,” she had said. For though Imogen had been to no parties, most
of the ladies in her husband’s circle had already called upon her.
It was a pity that Mrs. Lennox was not more appreciative of her
daughter’s efforts. Personally, she thought a ladies’ lunch sounded a
dreary sort of function, and the idea of meeting any of the Vandeleur
set gave her a tremor of apprehension. Perhaps Imogen noticed the lack
of warmth, for she went on cheerfully, “Next year, when we are not in
mourning, we will have a big dinner-party in honour of your birthday.”
It could not be said that either of her companions took up the idea
with enthusiasm, although Mr. Vandeleur’s acquiescence came with
sufficient promptitude. Poor Mrs. Lennox felt that if the prospect of a
mild ladies’ lunch made her nervous, how would she ever be able to face
a grand dinner-party under the severe eye of her son-in-law? He might
even take her in! She trembled at the thought. However, birthdays come
but once a year, she reassured herself. Perhaps some more Vandeleur
relatives would obligingly die in the interval.
“But here we are quite forgetting your birthday present,” Imogen broke
in upon her mother’s thoughts. “It is rather of an unusual kind, but
I think you will like it.” She held out a small, familiar-looking
envelope with printing at the top.
Could it--yes, it must be theatre tickets. Mrs. Lennox nearly snatched
at her present. The dear, dear child; this would be a real birthday
treat. One of the stipulations that John Vandeleur had made on his
marriage was that Mrs. Lennox should become dramatically a total
abstainer. He had feared that in the conspicuous seats befitting his
wife’s mother, some of her former theatrical friends might see and
recognize her. Also, although he did not mention it, he had thought of
the tiger tasting blood! Mrs. Lennox had meanwhile drawn the little
printed slip out of its envelope. It took a form unfamiliar to her.
Then she saw the word “opera.” Her heart sank. “Is it for to-night?”
she asked.
“Oh no, Mother, it is a box for the season--every Monday. The seats
were all taken for to-night.”
“A box for the season at the opera!” Mrs. Lennox’s surprise might
fortunately pass for gratification. “That is sweet of you,” she said
slowly. How could Imogen have forgotten that she had absolutely no ear
for music? “I shall enjoy being with you one evening every week for
certain.”
“You are forgetting that we are in mourning, Mother. John and I cannot
go to the opera this season. But I felt that our being cut off from
things is no reason why you should not enjoy them. Now, I know John
is thinking that his beloved Wall Street cannot get on without him a
moment longer! Good-bye for the present, Mother, dear. I want to have
a talk with you after my visitors go this afternoon.” Imogen’s tone
gave the words a slight emphasis. “And you will remember that lunch is
at two o’clock. I made it later on purpose to suit you, so you will be
punctual, won’t you? And you do like the opera?”
“Yes, darling.” Mrs. Lennox did not specify to which question this was
the answer.
After the Vandeleurs had gone, Mrs. Lennox put the opera ticket on the
mantelpiece and stood gazing at it balefully. If only she could tear
it into very small pieces! Of course going to a play might have been
painful, with its keen reminder of the past. She would have wanted to
have been _of_ the performance and not merely _at_ it. Still, it would
have interested her, taken her out of herself. But this miserable
mockery of an opera! What little story an opera ever possessed was
obscured by the wretched music while the acting was entirely spoilt.
She knew, for when Imogen returned from Europe, just before Mrs.
Sharman’s sudden death, they had gone to “Götterdämmerung” together.
How she had ached with boredom by the end of the evening. “Cut the
cackle and come to the ’osses”--never had the theatrical tag seemed so
applicable. Imogen’s loveliness and placid enjoyment had been some
compensation, but now she was expected to go through the ordeal without
the alleviation of her daughter’s society. She was to sit there one
whole evening every week; and on Wagner nights the evening started at
four o’clock in the afternoon! If only she could take a nap like some
people she would not mind so much, but with her, the duller she felt
the more wakeful she grew. It was really too much. She could not stand
it. But then Imogen’s feelings would be hurt. With a sigh Mrs. Lennox
offered herself up on the altar of parental piety.
By a great effort Mrs. Lennox reached the Vandeleur’s house by the
specified time. Perhaps it is the reaction from professional exactitude
that makes punctuality in everyday life such a rare quality among
actors. The sound of a clock striking two as she pressed the door
bell, gave Mrs. Lennox a glow of unaccustomed virtue. The house
itself, as Mr. Hobson had said, was small and unassuming for that part
of Fifth Avenue. Only the expert would have guessed its cost. The
highest wealth, Mr. Vandeleur felt, was to conceal wealth, and Imogen
instinctively acquiesced in her husband’s sentiment. Even the liveries
of the two men who answered the door were richly inconspicuous. As they
took Mrs. Lennox’s wraps, she was conscious of the embarrassment with
which they always filled her. Not that she had been unaccustomed to men
servants in her life as Frances West. Are they not the prop of every
society play? But the stage flunkeys had been her friends and equals.
The hotel waiters had been her enemies and superiors. She had never
before encountered this deferential, automatic type of ministering
male. A deprecating note was in her voice as she murmured something
about keeping her scarf. She felt these awful beings had guessed the
hidden reason, an uncertainty as to whether she had finished fastening
the back of her gown.
In the reception room Imogen was holding quite a little court. The
girl’s youth and beauty, her delicate refinement had evidently won
over this select essence of New York society. She came forward as Mrs.
Lennox was announced. “My mother,” she said, introducing her in turn to
each of the ladies present. “This is really Mother’s party; it is her
birthday to-day.”
Mrs. Lennox shook hands, feeling impossibly awkward. It seemed
ridiculous in a woman of her age to be shy, but how could she help it?
She was given a part to play without any rehearsals, and was expected
to make up her own words as she went along. No wonder she had stage
fright! If only she had possessed Imogen’s apparently instinctive
sense of the correct thing to do and to say ... “never guess they
were mother and daughter ... how sweet dear Imogen is to her....” The
overheard, whispered comments only increased Mrs. Lennox’s embarrassed
self-consciousness, although she warmly agreed with them. Through
training and through temperament she was sensitive to the “feeling
of the house,” and it was dead against her. To her relief lunch was
announced.
She found herself seated next to Mrs. Vansittart, an elderly lady with
white hair dressed in the pompadour style, and an aristocratic face.
Mrs. Vansittart was evidently waiting for her neighbour to open the
conversation. What should she talk about, Mrs. Lennox asked herself
desperately? Dramatic topics were the only ones that came to her
mind, and they were taboo. When John Vandeleur had stipulated that no
reference should ever be made to his mother-in-law’s stage life, he
perhaps hardly realized that from the age of fourteen she had had no
other. Cutting off this existence had left her floating in space, a
disconnected, but unhappily a visible spirit.
“It is not often that we mothers are fortunate enough to have daughters
who will give parties in honour of _our_ birthdays.” Mrs. Vansittart’s
clear, delicate intonation at last broke the silence.
“No, it was real lovely of my girl, wasn’t it?” A happy thought struck
Mrs. Lennox. The birthday gift would at least serve as a conversational
asset. “Imogen has given me a box at the opera for the whole season.
Isn’t it a cute present?”
“A very charming one. Which is your night, Mrs. Lennox?”
“I have forgotten; oh yes, Mondays.” “Black Monday” she remembered she
had told herself when Imogen had mentioned the day.
“Monday, how curious. My box is for Monday, too, so we shall meet. I
am in the upper tier on the left. I understand that we are to have the
whole ‘Ring’ this season. It is a great treat, is it not?”
“Yes,” Mrs. Lennox replied drearily, her worst fears realized. Mrs.
Vansittart was already launched on a Wagner rhapsody, which came to
a gradual close, probably for lack of antistrophe. Poor Mrs. Lennox,
feeling as though she had missed her cue, was vainly cudgelling her
brains for a suitable response. “Yes, Wagner’s real bright, isn’t he?”
she ventured, but the “line” evidently did not “catch on.” A fresh
plate with some unknown viand was now put before her. Almost without
thinking, she took up a silver sugar-sifter and liberally sprinkled it.
A slight gasp from her neighbour arrested her hand.
“I beg your pardon.” Mrs. Vansittart smiled; “Only I have never seen
terrapin eaten with sugar before, and I wondered if it were nice.”
“Very nice. I always have it served in this way.” Mrs Lennox ate on
brazenly. What a nauseous mess! Could terrapin, even without sugar,
possibly be palatable? And to think of what it cost! Five dollars a
plate, she had heard somewhere. A memory came to her of the time when
that sum had had to provide a week’s board and lodging.
The conversation now became more general. The ladies were talking
of a new house a few blocks further up that was being built by an
ex-pork-packer from Denver. “He thinks the more styles he can crowd
in, the more value he is getting for his money,” one of the ladies
observed. “At least that is my explanation of the Gothic front and the
Renaissance porch and the Queen Anne wing and the baroque chimneys.”
“Don’t forget the Italian Court and the Byzantine ball room,” laughed
another.
“Oh I believe the inside is too terrible for words. He has got over two
real Adam mantelpieces and chopped them up to make them fit round an
open fireplace with chimney corners. It is just desecration.”
“What can you expect?” Mrs. Vansittart’s clear voice interposed, “All
those people in the Middle-West are absolute Goths--mere unlettered
savages in relation to Art.”
“Indeed, they are not.” Mrs. Lennox’s indignation carried her over
both her shyness and discretion. “They appreciate art just as much,
and more, than you do. Why, we never had such lovely houses as in the
Middle-West.”
There was a surprised pause. “I was not aware that the Middle-West
possessed any particular school of domestic architecture,” Mrs.
Vansittart began, “although now you mention it, I remember hearing of
an artistic colony near Chicago; I suppose they have been carrying
their lamp into the wilderness. It shows that one should not speak on
mere hearsay, for I must admit I have never been West myself. The lure
of Europe is too great.”
“Mother has lived for years in the Middle West,” Imogen’s sweet voice
interposed, a shade anxiously, “so you see we cannot have it slighted.
I believe Mother thinks that Chicago has all the perfections of
Florence and Athens and Paris rolled into one.”
In the laugh that followed, the underlying jar was forgotten. “In which
city did you live?” Mrs. Vansittart enquired.
Mrs. Lennox was now only too anxious to escape from the topic. She
had broken her promise to her son-in-law, she was thinking in dismay.
Fortunately, her slip had not been noticed. “Oh, I was in quite a
number of cities,” she answered enigmatically.
Imogen again came to the rescue; perhaps she noticed the shade of
puzzled speculation that had crossed Mrs. Vansittart’s face. “Mother is
a terrible rolling stone,” she laughed. “She just adores travelling.
When I was at Central Park School, she took advantage of having no ties
to wander around California and all sorts of places. But now I say she
has got to stay at home right close to me.” She smiled at her mother
affectionately, and then gave the signal to rise.
As soon as the first guest took her leave, Mrs. Lennox seized the
opportunity to do the same. She had quite forgotten that her daughter
wished to have a talk. As she went up to say good-bye, Imogen showed a
displeased surprise. But poor Mrs. Lennox felt desperate. She had been
an absolute failure, she was telling herself. She must “close down,”
“cut her loss,” do anything rather than go on like this. “I have to get
home at once,” she murmured, and fled.
When she did get home, she reproached herself for not having stayed.
She might just as well have given Imogen pleasure. What was there for
her to do at home? What was there for her to do anywhere? She flung
herself into one of the ultra downy armchairs, and stared into the fire
despondently. Of course she had books, but in all her busy life she had
never had time for serious reading, and had not acquired the habit. At
first she had celebrated her holiday by an orgy of novels, but she soon
wearied of them. Needle-work she hated; cards bored her; no one came to
see her. What was she to do?
With one of the unreal coincidences of real life, there was a ring at
the front door bell. She supposed it was one of her daughter’s new
acquaintances, who was thus politely stretching her social circle to
include Mr. Vandeleur’s mother-in-law. She wished that she had told
Palmer that she was not receiving. It was too late now, for she heard
the maid opening the door. “Does Miss Frances West live here?” The tone
was familiar.
Mrs. Lennox rushed into the vestibule. Suppose Palmer should send him
away. Her usual awe of the stiff English parlourmaid was forgotten.
“Miss West doesn’t live here, but I do,” she exclaimed incoherently,
seizing both Mr. Hobson’s hands and working them up and down. “My, it’s
good to see you again. It’s real good.”
The maid discreetly withdrew, an image of disapproving astonishment.
Mr. Hobson, however, took the outburst as a matter of course. He
thought at one moment his hostess was going to kiss him, but he had
long ceased being surprised by his leading women. “Well, I guess, it’s
good to see you too,” he answered genially. “I’d have butted in long
since but I thought you were too grand in these days for your old
friends.”
“Grand! I’m bored stiff. I’m turning to stone. I sit here morning,
noon, and night, like a mummy in a mausoleum. If something don’t happen
pretty soon, I shall explode. If I could be Biddy just for one half
hour! But it’s no good talking. You know how Mr. Vandeleur feels. And
don’t ask for Miss West again, else there’ll be trouble. I’m Mrs.
Lennox now, don’t you know?” She had led him into the drawing room as
she spoke, and now almost pushed him into the vacated armchair. “My,
it’s good to see a live, flesh and blood human being again!”
“What’s your Four Hundred made of, sawdust and starch?” Mr. Hobson
laughed, and then looked about the room admiringly. “They seem to have
fixed you up here all right anyway.”
“That’s what’s the matter. It’s too right. Everything is
everlastingly, unchangingly right. We dress right and talk right, and
go to the opera and eat terrapin because it’s right, however much we
hate it. It’s wearing me into my grave, this always being right. I feel
about a century older than this time last year. We were rehearsing
‘Biddy’ then, don’t you know, mostly on the cars, and everything was
going wrong. And we were playing eight times a week, and there was a
strike on the line, and we’d got two all night journeys. That’s what I
call living.”
“Some folks would call it more like dying! But if you’re on the look
out for work and worry, Miss West, perhaps you won’t shut down the
little proposition I’ve come to make. I tell you I was half scared to
suggest it.”
“Yes, yes, go on,” his companion urged breathlessly.
“Well, I guess you’ve seen in the press that I’ve got a new piece
coming on at the Delphic--‘The Haunted Homestead.’ I tell you it’s
going to be a sensation--strong you know, a regular spine stirrer, but
a lot of laughs in it too. It’s about an old Carolina woman living way
up in the mountains; the piece just hangs on her. Well, I got Clare
Brown to read over the part this morning. My, she was a terror! She’s
done some pretty good work in her time, but she’s no more idea of
playing this than the cat. The thing’s killed, sure, if she’s in the
bill. It’s got to grip the people, don’t you know--not to be played as
a farce. When they laugh, it must be because they want to cry. Well,
that’s why I’ve come to you, Miss West; I believe you’re the one woman
in America for the part. We’ll just have the biggest kind of success.
You’ll make the piece, and the piece will make you.”
Frances West’s eyes were shining. “But how can I play? Mr. Vandeleur--”
she demurred.
“Shucks, he needn’t know. It’s a character part; nobody will recognize
you. You can change your name again. It ain’t as though you were a
star already. There’s no money in ‘Frances West,’ not a cent.”
Mrs. Lennox was only too anxious to be persuaded, still she retained
some common sense. “As if Mr. Vandeleur wouldn’t guess that I was
playing again, if I were out every evening,” she retorted.
“Well, let him guess. What does it signify? Your daughter’s safely
married to him--and you ain’t. I never heard of any text, ‘Obey thy
son-in-law!’”
His companion laughed. Then she put aside the big stumbling block for
the moment, and turned to the little one. “Anyway, I couldn’t take the
part from Clare Brown; it wouldn’t be fair on her.”
“Oh, that’s all right.” Miss West was coming round, Mr. Hobson felt
delightedly. “Clare’s was only a trial trip. The woman I had before is
took sick--not that she could touch it either. And here I am billed to
open in less than three weeks. I tell you I’m desperate. Now look here,
you just put on your wraps, Miss West, and come down with me to the
theatre right now. I left them all there rehearsing. Mr. Leigh’s along
with them; he’s the young man that’s written it, and not so much of a
noosance as authors go. Of course, he thinks every word is pearls and
diamonds, and if you get him to cut a line he puts in six pages later.
But Clare pretty well broke his spirit this morning. He’ll be that glad
to have you instead, you’ll find he’ll do any mortal thing you want. So
just come right along.”
The blood had rushed to Miss West’s face. Why shouldn’t she go with
Mr. Hobson, she was thinking tumultuously. Whatever happened in the
future--and she didn’t suppose it would be feasible for her to take
the part--still, she wanted to go now. She wanted to be in a theatre,
to hear a play again, to see all the dear, warm-hearted, uncritical
people. That was her home, not this. Besides, it was her birthday. And
they celebrated it with their glacial lunch parties and miserable
opera boxes! If they wouldn’t give her any pleasure, she must take
it for herself. Surely on her birthday she might be allowed a little
treat. “If I come now, Mr. Hobson,” she stipulated, “that doesn’t mean
I take the part.” She almost collided with Palmer in her rush upstairs
to get her hat and furs.
As the stage door opened, the stuffy, chilly atmosphere of the theatre
greeted Frances West like the perfume of Araby; she drew a deep breath
of rapture. And how good it was to be treading the bare, dusty boards
again after a year of carpeted footfalls. Some dozen people were
sitting or standing about the stage, all with rather a depressed mien.
A young man, who was sitting apart on a “practical” tree stump, had
buried his face in his hands in an access of despair. Miss West guessed
that this was the broken-spirited author. Mr. Hobson had paused to give
some instruction to the back door keeper, but now he and Miss West
came forward together. All the company looked up. There was a cry of
“Fanny,” for two or three of them had played with Miss West before,
and they thronged around, welcoming her enthusiastically. A pretty,
young girl rushed on from the wings. “You dear, dear thing,” she almost
sobbed, flinging herself into Miss West’s arms. This was the little
girl of whose broken engagement Miss West had spoken to Mr. Vandeleur.
“Are you going to play it? Oh, do make her, Mr. Hobson, she must. Oh,
you must make her do it, Mr. Hobson.”
“I guess she’ll do it, though she’s keeping it on a string. Anyway,
you’ll read the part now, won’t you, Miss West?”
“Oh, but how can I?” Frances demurred, genuinely taken aback. “I’ve
never set eyes on the script.”
“Well here’s Mr. Leigh, only too anxious to tell you all about it.
Just sketch out the piece to Miss West, Mr. Leigh, and then we’ll run
through it. You’ll see it will be an entirely different proposition
with Miss West in it. Why, it’s just written for her!”
Four hours later Frances West, tired, dusty, hungry, and supremely
happy, was sitting down to a badly cooked dinner in a little restaurant
near the theatre. Mr. Hobson and Mr. Leigh were with her, and they were
all talking excitedly. Imogen’s guests would not have recognized the
constrained, awkward Mrs. Lennox in this animated, voluble woman. “It’s
just great, great,” she was exclaiming; “that scene where she finds her
daughter’s run away: ‘Well, I must do my washing; guess the tears will
keep,’ and breaks down when she finds it’s her daughter’s Sunday waist
that’s in the suds--it’s great.”
“If it is great, it is you who make it so,” young Leigh told her. When
Miss West read the part, his work was again as good as he had thought
it. She seemed to have given him back his own play, the play of his
dreams that he had never quite been able to write.
“There won’t be a dry eye in the house,” Mr. Hobson observed with
conviction. “All the same, that soliloquy about the daughter’s
childhood drags just a bit. Three or four lines out about the little
golden head and so forth, would pull the whole scene together, don’t
you know?”
“I won’t have a line touched. It is perfect.” Miss West was genuinely
indignant. Mr. Leigh gazed at her with an ever increasing admiration.
What an intelligent woman!
Mr. Hobson chuckled. “Well, I won’t quarrel over that cut.” He pulled
a typewritten document out of his pocket. “Will you sign the contract
now, Miss West?”
The words jerked her back into realities. She stared at him in dismay.
“I can’t, I can’t,” she stammered. “I must think it over.” What was
she doing? she asked herself; she ought not to be here at all. She
was not Miss West, she was Mrs. Lennox, Imogen’s mother. And she had
promised her son-in-law to give up the stage, unless she severed all
connection with her daughter. He would keep her to her word, of that
she felt sure. How could she bear to give up Imogen? But how could she
bear to give up this chance of work? The miserable oppression of the
last month came over her. Oh, she couldn’t go on with it, day after
day, year after year, for all her life. She would go mad! And this part
appealed to her so; it dragged her. She felt the character; she would
make the audience feel it. The revolt of this Carolina woman at the
dreary loneliness of her mountain homestead was, paradoxically enough,
her own revolt at the dreary loneliness of Fifth Avenue. But Imogen? In
the play the Carolina woman’s daughter ran away from her, but here she
would be running away from her daughter. Only, after all, did Imogen
need her? Did she even want her? Were not Imogen’s visits prompted more
by convention than affection? Her daughter had love, wealth, hosts of
friends, everything the heart could desire. If Imogen had needed her,
it would be different; then she would never have dreamt of leaving her.
“I’ll think it over,” she repeated to Mr. Hobson more confidently, “and
’phone you my decision the first thing in the morning.” Neither had any
doubt as to what that decision would be, and they parted like pals.
She got home at nine o’clock, and was abashed before Palmer’s cold
disapproval. “Oh, I have dined,” she told the maid, trying to conceal
her consciousness of guilt under a jaunty air; “I hope you didn’t keep
the things hot.”
“Of course the dinner was kept hot, Madam. I will inform them that you
do not require it.” Palmer was departing icily when she paused. “Mrs.
Vandeleur has telephoned twice, Madam. She instructed me to ring her up
when you returned. She said she wished to call if it were not too late.”
“Oh, please say I shall be delighted if she will come round now.” Mrs.
Lennox went slowly upstairs. At any rate it was a relief to shake
off her domestic martinet. But she wished Imogen was not coming that
evening. She would have liked to be alone. What could it be that Imogen
wanted to talk to her about? Or did she merely feel a chat was part of
the correct birthday procedure? Mrs. Lennox’s lips tightened. Well,
anyway, she must hurry and change her gown. Imogen would certainly be
shocked at finding her still in her street suit. Besides, she was no
doubt exceedingly grubby and untidy.
She was hardly settled in the drawing-room before Imogen came in.
Something had upset her daughter; Mrs. Lennox saw that at once. Could
Imogen have possibly heard of her afternoon’s programme, she wondered
guiltily. The girl’s first pettish words dispelled such an idea.
“Whatever were you doing, Mother, all the afternoon? Palmer did not
seem to have any idea what had become of you.”
“I went to see some friends, dear.” For an instant Mrs. Lennox thought
of telling her daughter everything. But no, Imogen could never
understand. “They persuaded me to stay and have dinner with them.”
“How odd and informal!” The subject clearly did not interest Imogen.
“Well, I thought you were never coming back.” There was a pause. “There
is something I want to say to you.”
Imogen was certainly unlike herself this evening. She seemed
embarrassed, even distressed. Mrs. Lennox began to stroke her
daughter’s hand, a little diffidently, for Imogen did not care for
demonstration; she was apt to consider it vulgar. To her surprise Mrs.
Lennox felt her own fingers clutched. “What is it, darling?” she asked.
“I thought directly you came in that something must be troubling you.”
Suddenly, to her mother’s dismay, Imogen burst into tears--Imogen who
never cried. “It is horrible,” she gasped. “And I was so happy.”
“What is horrible, dearest?” She put her arm around her daughter.
“Tell Momma,” she said, as though Imogen was again a little girl.
Indeed she felt closer to her than she had done since Imogen had first
gone to school. She began to stroke her daughter’s hair, and thought of
the time that the baby head used to rest just there on her breast--the
little golden head that Mr. Hobson wanted to “cut.” “Tell Momma,” she
urged again.
But Imogen only sobbed. “I can’t tell you--I didn’t want it,” she cried
at last incoherently.
There was another long pause. “Have you and John quarrelled?” Mrs.
Lennox suggested.
It was clearly a wrong explanation. She could not see Imogen’s face,
but the violence of her head-shake was conclusive. “Does John know
about your trouble, dear?”
Imogen began to cry more vehemently than before. “No, he doesn’t know.
That is part of its being so horrible. I believe he will be pleased.”
Mrs. Lennox thought she must have misunderstood the sobbing words.
How could her son-in-law be pleased? Whatever were his failings, or
his irritating lack of them, there was no doubt of his devotion to
Imogen. Suddenly the girl flung her arms round her mother’s neck. She
was clinging to her like a drowning person. “Oh, Mother, help me,” she
cried. “No one else can help me, not even John. I know some women are
pleased, but I hate it. I hate the thought of the pain and looking
hideous. I am so frightened. I don’t want it. I don’t want to be ill; I
daresay I shall die. Mother, it frightens me--Mother.” She was shaking
all over, and sobbing wildly in Mrs. Lennox’s arms.
At last Mrs. Lennox understood. And as she understood, she realized
sub-consciously that this was the answer to Mr. Hobson’s offer. Her
daughter had always been timid and ultra-sensitive. An unattractive
woman facing life in this way might have been condemned as a selfish
coward, but no one had ever reproached Imogen. And so Mrs. Lennox
kissed the frightened girl and fondled her until she had soothed
her into something of her usual tranquillity; then she spoke to her
reassuringly of the transience of the pain and the joy of the new
little life that was to come. But through all Mrs. Lennox’s cheering
words, there was a dull ache--the loss of her own renewed life, which
was now denied her. Frances West was finally killed--that was the price
of Imogen’s baby. The rôle of the Carolina woman would struggle in her
for expression and in vain. Henceforward she would only be Mrs. Lennox,
an imperfect, half-alive creature. To her daughter had come a living
child, but she was tethered for ever to the corpse of her other self.
That ascent among the stars of which she had dreamed had become for
ever impossible.