The next morning Miss West was distinctly better. Dr. Strachey’s
gratification, both professional and human, was evident. It was
not unmixed with surprise. “Your mother must have a wonderful
constitution,” he told Joan. “We’re not out of the wood yet, but if
she goes on like this, we can soon feel pretty safe.” Joan’s career
also seemed assured. The ‘Virginian-Pilot and Landmark’ came out with
inch-high headlines, “America’s Great New Actress,” while the ‘Press,’
another morning paper, was equally laudatory. Joan learnt with amused
bewilderment from their turgid columns, that she was the daughter of
Frances West, the well-known comédienne, who had retired from the
stage on her marriage, and had since lived in Paris. The illustrations
were equally fallacious, for although scenes from the play were given,
the inextinguishable Miss Bransom still figured as ‘Vivi.’ Joan now
understood the advance agent’s agitation the night before when he had
demanded her photographs. “You should never move without one,” he had
told her in excited reproach when she said that she did not possess any.
It remained a mystery what desperate remedies Miss Bransom undertook in
order to recover her errant voice, but certainly they were successful.
A message reached Mr. Clark, as he was having his breakfast, that the
star would appear that night. When the evening came, Miss Bransom not
only played, she played exceedingly well. Obviously she was in the
vilest of tempers, and this may have supplied the touch of passion that
her performance usually lacked. After the great scene, she received
‘an ovation’ only second to the one Joan had had the night before. A
certain rivalry in front may have contributed to this result. The
audience on this evening and on each of the following evenings did not
wish to admit that the first-night’s house had enjoyed any superior
advantage, nor that they were now being put off with a star of lesser
magnitude. Moreover, Miss Bransom was an old favourite; her following
here in the South was considerable. It was also possible that the star
was not unversed at the manipulation of journalistic strings. Certainly
the ‘Times Herald’ that evening gave a curiously subdued praise to
Joan’s performance, while the whole show was entirely ignored in the
‘Ledger Dispatch.’ The latter omission could not, however, be ascribed
to Miss Bransom’s machinations, but merely to her good fortune. As the
advance agent had already learnt to his horror, the ‘Ledger Dispatch’
editor had a long-standing feud with the proprietor of the theatre at
which they were playing, and never mentioned his productions. “If the
President himself came to that house to give a show,” the editor had
observed genially, “he’d have to do it without our support. Next week,
when you’re playing Portsmouth, my boy, you shall have all the space
you want.”
But Miss Bransom’s journalistic influence was positive as well as
negative. Wednesday’s papers were again filled with a wild panegyric on
‘Vivi,’ but this time they hymned the praises of the authentic leading
woman. The unabashed ‘Virginian-Pilot’ gave a whole page of photographs
showing Miss Bransom’s beautiful profile from every conceivable point.
America suddenly found itself provided with two great actresses!
After this the whole matter dropped. Norfolk found a new excitement.
But the final advantage remained with Miss Bransom, for she held the
stage. Joan realized to her dismay the strength of possession, and also
that one sensation does not make a success.
Possibly had the girl been able to accept some of the invitations
that rained upon her after her wonderful début, things might have
been different. There was a local ladies’ club that wanted to give a
reception in her honour, a dramatic society that asked her to open a
debate, one or two private hostesses who pressed her to dine. All this
would have kept her in the spot-light, at least metaphorically. But
her grandmother’s illness prevented any such arrangements. Although
Mrs. Lennox continued to make an excellent recovery, it was some days
before the doctor would pronounce her entirely out of danger. In any
case, Joan could hardly bear to be out of the sick room. She clung to
the dear, feeble presence with a new intensity, feeling that she had
so nearly lost it, while the fact of the girl being near seemed to
bring Mrs. Lennox distinct comfort and relief. Economy had made Joan
move to a cheap hotel, instead of staying on at the nursing home with
its nominal five dollars charge, but this merely tied her the more.
Her time was not only taken up in seeing her grandmother, but in the
constant journeying to and fro.
In addition to this, the daily expedition to the theatre at six o’clock
had naturally to be resumed with its old discouraging negative result.
Only on one occasion did Joan draw anything but a complete blank, and
that was on the very evening after her solitary triumph. She had just
heard from Mr. Clark that Miss Bransom would definitely appear, when
she almost ran into the long, lean man whose face stood out among the
misty, congratulatory throng the evening before. He evidently did not
recognize her, but her involuntary exclamation attracted his attention
and he looked again. “Why, it’s never Miss North?” he said as he held
out his hand. “Well, I guess this is luck!” He gave a pleasant, rather
boyish laugh. “I didn’t think ‘Vivi’ was so young.”
It had also struck Joan that her new acquaintance was younger than
she had imagined--not that she had given conscious consideration to
his age. He had that bony type of face that shows little change with
years, but there was an unmistakable look of youth about his clear,
grey eyes and sinewy form. He could not be more than twenty-seven or
eight, Joan imagined. “But I am not ‘Vivi’ any longer,” she said aloud
with doleful inflection. “Miss Bransom is playing again.”
“Is that so? I was just going to get a seat for to-night, but if Miss
Bransom is playing I don’t think I’ll trouble them--I hope you are less
anxious to-day about your mother?”
“Oh, she is really better.” Joan smiled.
“That’s good news.” The man’s voice was pleasant and sympathetic,
despite its rather toneless quality. “When I heard about it all last
night, I thought it must be terribly hard for you to have to come down
and play--not that your performance showed it after the first act. I
partly came round this morning to ask after her.”
Joan was quite touched by this stranger’s solicitude; neither had his
attitude about Miss Bransom displeased her! Apparently their ways
lay in the same direction, for, as she now started home, she found
him walking beside her. She began to tell him about the disastrous
journey from Huntingdon and the vain quest for an hotel. “It was like
a nightmare,” she said with a shudder. She was vaguely surprised
at herself for talking so freely to a stranger, but the man rather
attracted her. No one could have called him handsome, but he looked
interesting and ‘straight’--a little bit like the pictures of Abraham
Lincoln, Joan thought.
Presently she came to the end of her narrative. “Why don’t we know you,
Miss North?” her new acquaintance asked suddenly, putting the same
question as Eustace Chalfont, but in less flowery language. “I mean,
where have you been playing?”
He was obviously astounded to hear that she had not been playing.
“You’ve never acted before but once, and that in school dramatics?”
he repeated incredulously. “Never at all? My, I can hardly believe
it.--Where have you got it all from then?” After a pause he began
to question her about her future plans, but in such a simple and
impersonal way that it did not occur to Joan to resent his curiosity.
Indeed, it all seemed surprisingly natural. She told him that she had
no future plans. “Last night is likely to be my first appearance and
my last,” she said dismally. “After Portsmouth there’s only three more
weeks of the ‘Vivi’ tour, and Miss Bransom is sure not to give me
another chance.”
“I suppose true chivalry would make me offer to abduct Miss Bransom,”
her companion suggested with a laugh. “But I guess she’d be something
of a handful! Besides, I wouldn’t have time to put the little job
through. I’m leaving Norfolk early in the morning.”
“Oh, you don’t live here then?” Joan felt vaguely disappointed. But
it was absurd, she felt. What did it matter if she never saw this man
again? He was nothing to her. Indeed, she did not even know his name,
although the fact did not occur to her until afterwards.
“Live in Norfolk? I shouldn’t live long! No, little old New York for
mine! But I take this trip quite often for my mother has come back to
her old home here. She is pretty much of an invalid or I would suggest
your meeting.”
Joan expressed sympathy. “Are you a Southerner then?” she asked.
“My mother is. My father came from way up in Maine. I can’t remember
him though. Naturally my friends tell me that I’ve got all the faults
both of the North and the South!” The talk turned to less personal
topics, chiefly plays, of which the man seemed to have considerable
knowledge.
Joan had meant to take the car up to the nursing home, but now she
walked instead. The evening was pleasant, and she was interested in
her companion’s conversation. Usually the girl was rather tongue-tied,
except with her grandmother, but presently she found herself talking
quite well. Indeed, her new acquaintance evidently considered one or
two of her remarks were clever, and this in itself was inspiring. She
was sorry when she found they had reached the nursing home. “Good-bye,”
she said, holding out her hand.
“Good-bye.” There was something more than the conventional interest in
the stranger’s tone. “Maybe we’ll meet again some day.”
Although Joan was too engrossed by her grandmother to think of much
else, she was rather surprised as the time passed, that Mr. Clark
did not once refer to her triumph, nor tell her that he had written
about it to Mr. Hobson. Some curious change seemed to have come over
the stage-manager. He seemed almost afraid to speak to her. The girl
was too innocent to suspect that the true cause of the sudden shyness
lay with Miss Bransom. The star’s rage at her temporary eclipse had
driven her to take every possible method of effacing its effect. One of
these was the captivation of the fickle Clark, whose injudicious words
after her rival’s success had been repeated to her. Within two days,
by a judicious blending of sweetness and temper, she had reduced the
susceptible stage-manager to the necessary state of cowed and obedient
adoration.
As no suggestion came from Mr. Clark, Joan decided to take the matter
into her own hands. She cut out the ‘Virginian-Pilot’ critique and
enclosed it in a letter to Mr. Hobson, asking him to give her a part at
the end of April, when the ‘Vivi’ tour came to an end. A couple of days
later, there arrived a letter from Mr. Walker, the agreeable secretary.
Mr. Hobson had just sailed for Europe, he said, and he contemplated a
considerable automobile tour in Algeria, and his letters were not being
forwarded. In any case no companies would be going out until the fall.
Mr. Hobson would himself be back in the beginning of July. He would
then doubtless give Miss North a part in one of the autumn productions.
The letter concluded with Mr. Walker’s cordial congratulations,
although privately the young fellow thought Miss North must have turned
the head of some susceptible Norfolk journalist, and he resolved to
await Clark’s more unbiassed report before forming any opinion.
It was staggering! All Joan’s thoughts and hopes had been pinned on
the one appearance, her great ‘chance.’ After that she had firmly
believed everything would be easy. Now her chance had come and gone
and everything seemed exactly the same as it was before. Indeed it
was all far worse. Dr. Strachey said that her grandmother would be a
semi-invalid for months, needing every care and luxury. Mr. Walker
spoke of an engagement in the autumn, but here they were still in
March! In a very short time even her miserable twelve dollars a week
would stop. How were they going to live?
Thus the money problem that had weighed on the grandmother for so
long, now transferred itself to Joan. For, curiously enough, Mrs.
Lennox seemed to have forgotten it. Perhaps she was too weak to look
either forwards or backwards, and so was content to live in the very
comfortable present. Also on the strength of the fur coat, Joan told
her grandmother that everything was all right. All Granny had to do
was to get well. A vague realization of the girl’s recent triumph
and the sense of a hovering millionaire son-in-law made the invalid
accept the assurance unquestioningly. She obediently smiled and went
to sleep. But, as the days passed, a little upright line began to show
itself between Joan’s straight, black eyebrows. For the first time
in her life, her thoughts became largely material. “I see the chief
thing money can buy is the possibility of forgetting it,” she told Mr.
Montgomery.
The first step, she felt, was to arrange somehow that her grandmother
should stay at the nursing home until the end of the ‘Vivi’ tour. For
it was certain that Mrs. Lennox would not be able to travel by the end
of the following week, and how could she bear to leave Granny alone in
Norfolk, Joan asked herself, unless she was certain that every care
were being taken of her. With this end in view the girl got out her
grandmother’s cheque book, and with great difficulty reckoned up that
there was still a hundred and twenty dollars to her credit. Mrs. Lennox
was then asked to sign a blank cheque, which she dutifully did. “We
aren’t wanting the money now, Granny,” Joan told her with fictitious
gaiety. “It is just as a safeguard.”
The next proceeding was again to interview Miss Bland. This lady was
still gracious, although considerably less so, when she heard that a
cheaper room was wanted. Finally it was arranged that Miss West should
have one on the second floor for the next four weeks at fifty dollars
a week. The cost would be more than covered, Joan reckoned, by the
balance in hand from the fur coat and by her grandmother’s cheque. As
for herself, she meant to live on her salary.
Thus the next month was secure--but afterwards? Well, she would get a
summer engagement, Joan decided. If she couldn’t get theatrical work,
she would go as a housemaid--anything rather than give in. But at the
best, she foresaw that her salary would be small. How was she to pay
Dr. Strachey out of it? How was she to support Granny during that long,
hungry interval that divided them from the fall?
Joan’s love for her grandmother drove her to take a step that she would
never have dreamt of on her own account. She wrote to her father.
“Granny has had pneumonia,” the letter began abruptly. “The doctor
thought she would die. She is now out of danger, but she will need
great care for a long time. She certainly won’t be able to act for
six months, and perhaps not then. So I think you ought to recommence
her allowance. I think it would be only fair. Of course I shall not
use any of your money. If I stay with Granny or have any meal with her
I will pay for it as though I were at an hotel.” In a postscript was
added: “I mean I will pay as though I were at one of the hotels that
_I_ stay at, not one that you would stay at. The rates are different.”
The qualification was prompted by a recollection of a lunch at Sherry’s
to which her father had taken her and Maude Dupuy soon after Christmas.
Why, she had seen him set aside two or three dollar bills as a mere tip
to the waiter. The whole thing had certainly cost more than her entire
week’s salary.
Mr. Vandeleur discovered this letter among his morning’s mail as he sat
down to his solitary breakfast in the great Fifth Avenue dining-room.
His daughter’s large, black writing with its strong lines and its hint
of immaturity was easily recognizable. A sudden excitement came over
him, which showed itself in his quickened breath. Why should he be thus
moved, he felt, with annoyance? Perhaps it was to punish himself that
he put aside the offending envelope to be dealt with last. He had cast
off both his daughter and his mother-in-law, once for all, when he had
received that letter nearly two months ago telling him of the proposed
theatrical adventure. How angry it had made him, angrier than he had
ever been in his life before--and that was saying a good deal. For days
he would hardly speak to his wife; not that he disbelieved Imogen when
she protested that she had been entirely ignorant of the project, but
rather because he felt she ought not to have been ignorant. If Imogen
had cared for her daughter, as other mothers cared for their children,
the girl would never have taken this disgraceful step unknown to her.
But, somehow, the ‘casting off’ had not been as easy as John Vandeleur
had imagined. He had never found his mother-in-law congenial and it
was, perhaps, a relief not to see her, but he missed his daughter
surprisingly. Joan had a way of coming into his thoughts at unexpected
moments that was exceedingly disconcerting. The fact was, that, to his
own astonishment, he had enjoyed the new atmosphere of girlish gaiety
that Joan and her friend had brought to his house. His old-fashioned
heart had quite succumbed to little Miss Dupuy’s pretty gentleness,
and, although his own daughter had not thawed him to the same extent,
yet he had found himself viewing her with a certain irritated respect.
What a son she would have made, he had told himself more than once,
with a return of the old pain, as he realized her straightness, her
grit, her frank independence. It was a refreshing contrast with her
mother’s languors and equivocations!
Indeed, it was the growingly unsatisfactory nature of his relations
with his wife that increased Mr. Vandeleur’s unadmitted longing for
his daughter. Although he himself had cast off the culprits and had
forbidden the mention of their names, he resented the ease with which
Imogen complied with his command. After all they were her own mother
and child. It was another proof of his wife’s unfeminine hardness of
heart that she was thus cheerfully able to shed them. Still more did
he resent the reason that he shrewdly ascribed for her indifference.
Imogen had acquired a new admirer, this time of a very different type
from the young artists with whom she had hitherto dallied. Indeed, John
Vandeleur himself was responsible for this introduction. Mr. Lee-Baxter
was a business acquaintance of his own, of forty or perhaps forty-five,
a Senator from Kentucky, and travelling on a rapid ascent of wealth
and success. John Vandeleur had never liked the man, with his loud
voice and domineering manner, but a chance encounter, on one of the
rare occasions when he and Imogen were out together, had almost forced
a presentation. The previous distaste felt by Mr. Vandeleur was soon
intensified. He had not seen the Senator before in a lady’s society,
and he disliked what he saw. How could Imogen tolerate the man’s
fulsome compliments and half-concealed sensuous stares? Bah! they gave
him a feeling of nausea! But Imogen chatted to the newly-made senator
with sweet languor, and finally, to her husband’s angry surprise, asked
him to call. That was the beginning of it. Now, as Mr. Vandeleur took
up his daughter’s letter, a sudden thought came to him that Joan would
never have taken up with a man of this type. He had once overheard a
jesting, level-headed comment of hers on the subject of the ‘attachés.’
And it was not that Joan was more sensible because of being plain,
her father now reflected. Certainly, as a child, she had been very
ugly, but lately there had been a surprising change. The girl’s
sudden, amazing beauty on the night of her dance had deeply impressed
him, although at the time he had felt less pleased than perturbed.
Sometimes, he thought he must have imagined it, but then he reminded
himself of the utter subjugation of Grierson--and Grierson was no
longer a callow boy--and the almost awed admiration of the devoted
Maude. No, taken altogether, Joan was not an easy person to cast off.
And now, after all these weeks of silence, at last, she had written.
He was fingering the letter nervously, but he still had not opened it.
Perhaps he was afraid to do so. But it could only be to say that she
had repented of her mad adventure and wished to come home. No doubt the
silly grandmother had by now begun to realize on which side her bread
was buttered. Joan must have failed to make the wonderful success, she
had expected, and their last dollar had been reached. Otherwise she
would not have written, he told himself grimly. He tore the envelope
open.
As he read, his forehead flushed. Still he was not quite as angry as
he had been at his daughter’s previous communication. For one thing
his irritation was tempered with pity on account of Mrs. Lennox’s
illness. What an awful experience for a girl not eighteen to have her
grandmother dying on her hands! He wondered how Joan had met it. It
was like her not to say a word of herself, nor of what she was doing.
Norfolk, Virginia, the letter came from. Presumably she was acting a
minor part in some fifth rate company there. How could she be such a
fool? Not one word about coming home! John Vandeleur was more acutely
disappointed than he had ever been in his life, although he would have
died sooner than admit it. All the same his mouth twitched as he came
to the end of the letter. He could just imagine the sort of restaurants
she patronized. Once by chance, not very long ago, he had penetrated
into a Childs’. The clatter, the smell, the commonness of it, still
gave him a sensation of disgust. And did his daughter propose sending
her little payments to him or giving them to her grandmother? The dimes
and quarters would no doubt mount up into quite an income! What should
he spend it on, he reflected with an unusual touch of humour. The whole
suggestion reminded him of the funny little square-faced girl, who had
so unexpectedly accosted him on those two or three occasions long ago.
He waited until the evening to answer, and then wrote with great care.
After all, though he had resolved never to see Joan again, he was very
lonely. Yes, he was getting an old man, he realized suddenly. Why, he
would be seventy on his next birthday! It was no good denying it, he
wanted his daughter. With a sudden dismay he felt that he wanted her
more than she wanted him. Well, he would make her an offer that would
be easy for her to accept. If Joan and her grandmother, he wrote, would
bind themselves to have nothing more to do with the stage, the cheque
for Mrs. Lennox’s quarterly allowance would be sent by return, and Joan
would receive two thousand dollars a year dress money, besides being
provided for in every respect as befitted his daughter. Further, and
Mr. Vandeleur not unnaturally regarded this as the greatest concession,
Joan should continue to live with her grandmother if she preferred
it--possibly a trip to Europe later on might re-establish the invalid’s
health. Even if she decided not to reside at home, he hoped that they
would often see her, the father rather pathetically concluded.
The letter finished, John Vandeleur sat with an unusually softened
expression on his cold face. He unlocked a little drawer and took out a
photograph of Joan that had been done the previous winter. It was like
her, and, as he looked at it, his face changed still further. Well, he
would soon see her again, for surely she could not stand out in the
face of such a proposal. Could anyone ask for more? Not one word of
blame, or even of criticism; indeed, he had especially stipulated that
bygones should be bygones. He was glad that he had never corrected the
press announcements of Miss Vandeleur’s departure for Europe. No one
now need ever know of the mad escapade.
Mr. Vandeleur would have been very surprised had he seen the reception
of his generous offer. Its very liberality seemed to outrage Joan
almost beyond endurance. “Trying to bribe me,” she cried with tears
of anger starling to her eyes. “Yes, trying to bribe me through my
love for Granny. It isn’t fair! It’s base! It’s contemptible!” The
underlying affection was lost on her; she only thought that her father
was using a mean pecuniary advantage to try and bend her to his will.
She tore up the letter furiously and sent off a curt refusal.
The money problem was the more trying because Joan had so much time in
which to think of it. After the first critical days of the illness,
there seemed literally nothing for her to do, and nowhere for her to
do it. As soon as her grandmother was pronounced definitely out of
danger, she found that the nurses resented her constant presence in the
sick room. This would have had little weight with her, but she herself
felt that a point had been reached, when her grandmother was really
better alone. When she was there, Granny would try and talk, instead of
lying in the comatose state, which Dr. Strachey recommended. “Absolute
rest--that’s the best medicine in the pharmacopœia,” he had observed.
With the nursing home thus debarred to her, there was little else
left. A spell of rainy weather had set in, turning the streets
into a positive morass and making walks a penance, if only for the
skirt-brushing labours they afterwards entailed. Her tiny bedroom at
the third-rate hotel was unheated, and its one chair a triumph of
discomfort; still it was preferable to the public lounge filled of an
evening with expectorating male humanity. It was, indeed, the evenings
that Joan found most trying, for her grandmother was definitely
secluded for the night at eight o’clock, while Mr. Montgomery and all
the other members of the company were, of course, at the theatre. Some
of them, who were staying at the same hotel, used to urge her to come
down too, but this Joan refused. She would not go back as a ragged
Cinderella to the ball where she had dazzled as the Princess.
The second week was even more depressing, for the company migrated
to Portsmouth, depriving Joan of the meagre society she had up till
then enjoyed. The girl remained where she was, so as to be near her
grandmother. A few miles added to her daily six o’clock expedition of
enquiry made little difference, except in cost. In a burst of good
resolution she had set herself to live on a dollar a day, so the car
fares meant docking her scanty meals still further. Her healthy young
appetite resented the treatment. And the solitary evening hours seemed
particularly long when she was hungry.
Consequently when, one day, she received a note from Eustace Chalfont,
forwarded from the theatre, inviting her to a concert the following
evening, she was inclined to view it favourably. “Dear and wonderful
lady,” the letter characteristically began. “You would have heard from
me long before, but the day after your triumphant ‘Vivi,’ I fell a
victim to that modern scourge of the furies--_la grippe_.” He asked
further whether before the concert a humble bard might be honoured by
her presence at dinner.
Joan certainly hesitated. She had never liked the man, and she thought
the wording of his letter silly. Moreover she had a shrewd idea that
her grandmother would disapprove of such an unchaperoned expedition.
But, of course, she could not worry Granny by discussing it with her
in her present condition. And, after all, it was not as though Mr.
Chalfont were just anyone. He was a distinguished poet, from whom an
invitation was a certain honour. It showed that he regarded her as an
equal, a fellow artist. Yes, she now belonged to the glamorous country
of Bohemia, where ordinary Philistine conventionalities did not apply.
Besides, so Joan’s self-justifying thoughts ran on, even from the
ordinary standpoint, where was the harm? Mr. Chalfont was quite old,
and an intimate friend of her mother’s. It was true that during the
last two or three years she had not seen him at home, but that was
probably because she had been there so little herself. Anyway, she
knew him quite well. This fact made her forget that the poet, on his
side, was proposing a tête-à-tête dinner after what he imagined to be
a three minutes’ acquaintance. Such a proceeding was, to say the least
of it, precipitate. But Joan, unless consciously studying a part, was
not given to considering other people’s points of view. Instead, the
dramatic piquancy of a situation, in which she knew the man while he
did not know her, finally decided her to accept.
All the same, she told herself, she had better word her answer
discreetly, and thus set the right tone from the beginning. She even
contemplated the third person, but decided that it would become
troublesomely involved. “Dear Mr. Chalfont,” she finally wrote, “I
have much pleasure in accepting your invitation for the concert, but I
regret that I cannot dine with you first. I am engaged every evening at
that time. Yours faithfully, Joan North.”
After she had finished the brief communication, she sat looking at it
wistfully. A yearning came over her for a well-cooked, nicely-served
dinner--or, indeed, for any dinner. Besides, a man like Eustace
Chalfont must have an interesting side. She would have enjoyed talking
with him, and there would be little opportunity at a concert. Still
it could not be helped. Although she always got back from Portsmouth
before dinner, the hour from seven to eight was consecrated to
Granny; even the disagreeable nurses had come to look upon it as an
institution. Indeed, apart from this time, it was difficult for her
and Granny to see each other. The various invalid rites and rests and
her own expedition to the theatre seemed to take up all the day. If
only things could have been arranged differently. Joan added a sudden
postscript. “Would it be too late _after_ the concert to have dinner?”
Had she seen Mr. Chalfont’s face as he read the letter, she would
certainly have withdrawn her acceptance. At first he was puzzled. He
could not remember any ‘dear lady’ signing herself ‘yours faithfully’
before--indeed faith was not a quality that entered much into
Chalfont’s relations with women. But at the postscript he smiled with a
shade of contempt. “Oh that type--_réculer pour mieux sauter_.” Indeed,
had he not imagined Miss North to be more or less of ‘that type,’ he
would probably not have asked her. Certainly it never crossed his mind
that a woman who played Vivi, and played her so amazingly well, could
be very innocent. His opinion in this respect had been strengthened
by Joan’s unchaperoned departure with Mr. Montgomery at the end of the
performance. In Chalfont’s eyes the blameless little man still figured
as Vivi’s decadent lover, and so his obvious care for the star seemed
to admit but of one explanation. A desire to cut him out had been the
final spark to fire Chalfont’s easy amorousness.
According to arrangement, Miss North was to meet him in the lobby of
the Concert Hall. She was wearing rather a beautiful evening cloak of
a kind of golden brocade, for, owing to the retirement of the fur coat
from active service, she literally had nothing else. It was somewhat
grand for the occasion, but it suited her, giving her straight young
figure a regal air. She looked a good deal more than her age as she
stood there under the bright light, but Chalfont, as he came in, was
startled by her youth, as well as by her beauty. He had imagined on
the ‘Vivi’ night that Miss North was a woman of thirty-five or forty,
whose looks were chiefly the result of a judicious make up--which was,
indeed, the effect that Joan had always aimed at producing. But this
girl must be years younger, he now realized, and if she were made up,
it was extraordinarily well done. Perhaps the life he had led for so
long had dulled Eustace Chalfont’s susceptibilities; otherwise he
surely would have realized that his mistake went deeper. As it was the
discovery of Joan’s youth, instead of suggesting her innocence, only
suggested her desirability.
The music was good, exceptionally good for so small a town, and Joan
joined heartily in the enthusiastic applause, resulting in frequent
encores. Only one thing detracted from her pleasure, and that was the
way in which, every now and then, her companion pressed his arm against
her own. She shifted uneasily, but the seats were narrow, and if she
moved any further, she, in her turn, would be leaning indecorously
against an old gentleman on the other side. However, she supposed
it was inadvertence on Mr. Chalfont’s part, especially as, when it
occurred during an interval, his flow of talk went on undisturbed. What
a lot he knew about music, Joan felt admiringly. And she, although so
fond of it, was very ignorant. Her final thanks were quite genuine. “I
have loved it,” she said gratefully. Her eye happened to catch sight
of the clock at the end of the hall. It was pointing to twenty minutes
to eleven. Of course, it was far too late for dinner, she realized.
Underneath the grand cloak, there was a sensation of uncomfortable
emptiness, which her interest in the music had hitherto kept away. Even
if she allowed herself the extravagance, it would be impossible to
get anything to eat at the hotel at this hour. “You must have thought
it silly of me to suggest dining after the concert,” she said to her
companion with rather a faint laugh, “but I had no idea the programme
would be so beautifully long.”
Eustace Chalfont was looking at her curiously. “It is too late for
dinner, but just the right time for supper,” he said. “I have ordered
it at a little place quite close; they do you very decently. So you
must come now.”
Joan still hesitated. A nice supper was very tempting. “Would you have
to pay if we didn’t go?” she asked, prompted by her new instinct for
economy.
“I certainly should.” Chalfont was again puzzled. He had never met
an artiste with this solicitude about money--especially someone
else’s money! Besides she couldn’t really want not to come. No, the
‘_réculer_’ theory still seemed to meet the case. And, by Jove, it did
make her more interesting than if she had dropped into his arms. How
magnificently that gold cloak suited her. He was conscious of quite an
unusual and spontaneous excitement.
There was no doubt that the supper had been ordered, as Mr. Chalfont
had said. The bowing proprietor received them at the door. “This way,
Madame,” he said as he ushered them through the restaurant and up some
stairs. To Joan’s dismay she found herself in a private sitting room.
A dainty little supper was laid for two. The crisp rolls and the hors
d’œuvres made her feel suddenly ravenous. “Oh, but it isn’t necessary
to have a private room,” she said. “I would sooner be downstairs.”
“Madame will find this much quieter and more pleasant,” the proprietor
assured her.
Well, it was silly to make a fuss. There was nothing to be afraid of.
They weren’t in a savage country, the girl told herself. She let the
waiter hang up her cloak.
Sheer hunger carried her happily through two courses. Besides, she was
interested in what Mr. Chalfont was telling her. He was working at a
long poem on Andromache, he said, and he even recited a verse or two
that he had composed that morning. They struck Joan as rather fine.
A renewed feeling came over her of the privilege she was enjoying.
Wouldn’t the girls at school have envied her? To think of all the
thousands and thousands of tables on which lay the slender mauve volume
of Eustace Chalfont’s selected poems--but at her table she had the poet
himself. If only he would not stare at her in that unpleasant way!
Well, after all, she need not look at him; indeed, at any time she
preferred not to do so. Although the girl had modified her childish
comparison of Chalfont to a blackbeetle, and had even realized that his
features were almost faultlessly classical, she still did not like his
face with its eruptive tendency.
It was when Mr. Chalfont was discussing the possibility of a
music-poetry made up of sounds without sense, that Joan suddenly
felt his foot press hers. But, of course, this too was an accident,
she reassured herself, as she moved hastily. For the moment it had
given her a shock; indeed, she still felt a little breathless. The
waiter had come in and was serving the fish. How good _sole au gratin_
was! Why had she never appreciated these nice things, when she could
always have them? Mr. Chalfont’s talk now veered to the English men
of letters. He seemed to know them all intimately, the familiar names
that Joan had looked up to from childhood. Now they suddenly became
embodied. She was, indeed, keeping interesting company to-night, she
felt! The dignity of Mr. Chalfont’s confrères was hardly enhanced
by the anecdotes he told of them, but the lively talk, if a trifle
malicious, was most amusing. Several times Joan laughed aloud. She had
laid her hand carelessly on the table, when suddenly, in the middle of
a sentence, Mr. Chalfont’s fingers closed over it. Flushing furiously,
the girl jerked it back. The waiter again opportunely appeared.
A sick dismay had come over Joan, almost paralysing her thoughts. There
could be no doubt about this being intentional. The fact that on the
stage men held her hand, and even embraced her, made no difference.
Then she was someone else; this was she, herself. All the time that
the waiter was carving and serving the chicken, she was wondering
numbly what she should do. Never, never would she put herself in such
a horrible situation again! She did not want to make a scene, but if
Mr. Chalfont touched her again, she would simply walk out. Anyway
he couldn’t keep her by force. She tried to eat the chicken but her
appetite had gone.
The waiter once more left them alone. As Joan had dreaded, Mr. Chalfont
again tried to take her hand. She rose to her feet; he rose too. The
man still genuinely believed that his companion was far from adverse to
his advances; even Eustace Chalfont had not sunk so low as to thrust
himself forcibly on an unwilling girl. His pulses were beating fast;
he had not imagined that nowadays he could ever feel so stirred. “You
wonderful creature,” he murmured, “Why do you put me from you when
destiny has linked us?” He leant forward. Joan felt his breath on her
cheek.
She had been standing almost frozen with disgust and fear. Now,
suddenly, she struck out. It was no ladylike box on the ears, but
a blow from the shoulder with her clenched fist. Eustace Chalfont
went over backwards as though he had been shot. There was a terrific
crash--a whole series of crashes. It sounded to Joan as though the
universe was clattering about her ears. She would not have thought so
much noise possible.
Her blow had taken Chalfont utterly unawares. In any case his elderly
frame, weakened and rotten with ill use, was no match physically for
the girl’s fresh young strength. It was not for nothing that Joan had
learnt gymnastics all her life, and had been the best tennis player
at school. In falling, Chalfont had knocked against the supper table,
which also went over; then in a last futile attempt to save himself,
he had clutched at the cloth. Thus, all the paraphernalia of the meal
were shot into the air as from a catapult, knives, forks and glasses
rebounding madly from the walls. The appalling uproar penetrated even
to the restaurant below. There were questions, exclamations. The waiter
rushed into the room, his eyes almost starting from their sockets; he
was closely followed by the pale and panting proprietor.
Joan was standing in the middle of the room. Her breath was coming a
little fast, but otherwise she seemed undisturbed. Mr. Chalfont lay
groaning in a corner draped in the tablecloth, amid a débris of broken
plates, wine bottles, roast chicken and fruit. “The gentleman slipped,”
Joan observed quietly, “and in falling he unfortunately knocked over
the table.”
Not only was she calm superficially; she was almost enjoying the
position. The nervous shrinking she had felt all through supper had
given place to a sense of competent performance. Indeed, for the
first time, she felt the security of the unreal. This amazing episode
was surely not part of her everyday life. “I hope you have not hurt
yourself, Mr. Chalfont?” she enquired in coldly sweet tones.
The waiter and the proprietor had meanwhile gone over to the prostrate
figure. One of the flying dishes had cut his eyebrow, but otherwise he
did not seem to be injured. Indeed, Chalfont himself was beginning to
realise that although he was bruised and shaken from head to foot, he
was still alive. Also it occurred to him that although Bacchus might be
vine-crowned, to lie with your head in a mess of squashed grapes, while
iced champagne trickled down your sleeve, was neither comfortable nor
dignified. It did not seem worthy of the poet of those delicate volumes
in their dainty boudoir bindings. Previous episodes with his dear
ladies had brought him inspiration, but who, he reflected wrathfully,
could base a lyric on this?
The realization of the indignity of his position, together with the
feeling that he could not lie groaning there for ever, now prompted
Chalfont to move. Aided by the waiter, he staggered to his feet.
But the tablecloth, which with the spite of inanimate objects, had
wound itself tightly around him, clogged his effort, and brought him
stumbling down again on to his knees. “The penitent’s sheet,” Joan
murmured meditatively.
“Damn this cloth. Damn, damn, damn,” Chalfont muttered under his breath.
“Oh, please don’t apologise.” Joan’s misunderstanding was purposeful
and malicious. “I am sure you could not help falling--such an
unfortunate slip!” She turned to the proprietor, “My cloak, please.”
Her tone was so dramatically commanding that the man took down the
beautiful wrap and held it for her automatically. “Well, good-bye, Mr.
Chalfont. I hardly think we shall meet again, as we leave on Sunday.
Thank you so much for your hospitality.” With a stately bow, she sailed
out.
The exhilaration of her theatrical exit survived the car ride home
and the undressing in the cold little hotel bedroom. All the same she
was a good deal perturbed. Life was a more complicated business than
she had imagined. If only Mr. Chalfont had been entirely base, the
problem would have been easier. Then one would have just wished that he
had been anæsthetized at birth. But what about “A Little Lily on the
Madonna’s Shrine?” She couldn’t wish that anæsthetized too. However,
she refused to be worried. The experience might be useful in her work.
With this comforting reflection, she fell asleep.
Meanwhile Eustace Chalfont at the restaurant was discussing the price
of crockery, a subject which had never before even entered the purlieus
of his mind. The proprietor, judging rightly that the gentleman would
not bring the matter into court, had presented an appalling bill
for breakages. After an exhausting quarter of an hour of wrangle,
Chalfont had given way. Even his gold watch went to make up the total.
Certainly he found this ‘dear lady’ dearer than he had anticipated. The
proprietor’s pretence at generosity as he refunded his customer’s cab
fare was even more galling than his extortion.
A cab was certainly indispensable to shelter the deplorable looking
object that presently emerged. Despite much mopping, the poet’s shirt
and collar were limp with wine and gravy, while a torn coat and a
bunged-up eye, already beginning to discolour, completed the wreck.
Even the waiter could hardly conceal his grin as he helped him into the
taxi; indeed, he made no effort to do so, knowing the impossibility of
any further tip.
Nor was Chalfont’s mental condition more serene than his outward
appearance. What on earth was he going to do? he was wondering. It
would be two months before the next cheque was due from his publisher.
Already he had been hard up. This, indeed, was the reason of his
protracted stay in Norfolk. The manager of the hotel had a pretty and
extremely foolish little wife with artistic aspirations, and, under
such circumstances, Chalfont had already discovered that his bill was
apt to be postponed or even ignored. But perhaps this silly little fool
too would turn on him, he now gloomily reflected. Indeed, the poet
never quite recovered his trusting faith in the frailty of woman.