The week that followed Adam Fletcher’s departure was the hardest of
all Joan’s hard-worked season. She had no time to miss her lover; she
hardly had time to remember his existence. There were six evening
performances and two matinées of Juliet, and at each of them points
occurred to her for subsequent work and improvement. There were
rehearsals every morning of ‘As You Like It,’ in which, next week, she
was playing Celia. And--in case Mrs. Vincent-Dawe might still be on
the sick list--there was a nightly study of Rosalind that carried her
far into the small hours. Sometimes the girl felt quite dazed with her
treble life of Shakespeare’s creating. She really could not manage in
addition a fourth rôle--herself.
On Thursday evening, after the performance, Mr. Dawe, the husband of
the absent star, came round to the back, with a young man in tow. Mr.
Dawe’s visits were fairly frequent; indeed, as he supplied the solid
foundation of the whole enterprise, there was every reason for his
interest. They had not seen him since his wife’s illness, and Joan
went up to him eagerly. Now, at last, she could get some definite
information as to Mrs. Vincent-Dawe’s appearance next week.
Yes, Mrs. Dawe was much better, he said; quite well, in fact; she was
coming to rehearsal to-morrow. Joan gave a sigh of relief. Although
she would simply adore playing Rosalind, she did not want to give
another hurried and underdone performance. Now she could concentrate
with a free mind on her Celia. Mr. Dawe was meanwhile making some
complimentary remarks about Juliet in which truthfulness and loyalty
to his wife were evidently at variance. “I am so sorry that I have
not been able to get down to the theatre to see it before,” he said,
“but Mr. Alden here has made up for me. I believe he has been to every
performance!” He indicated the fair, blushing youth, who had come in
with him, and who was still standing expectantly near. “May I present
Mr. Alden to you, Miss North?” Mr. Dawe smiled a little as he thought
of the persecution he had endured from the boy during the last week to
obtain the desired introduction.
Young Alden turned still pinker as he shook Miss North’s hand. He
was about twenty, Joan imagined--no doubt still at College. She felt
immeasurably his senior, although in point of years she was probably
the younger. The boy stammered something about the great honour and
then relapsed into an overwhelmed silence. After a little more chat
with Mr. Dawe, Joan ran off to change.
She thought no more about the incident, but the next evening Mr. Alden
came behind again--and the next and the next. Although diffident in
speech, he evidently had a certain assurance in action. The exclusion
of strangers was not as rigorous in this little theatre as on the
regular stage, and as young Alden seemed to think that Mr. Dawe’s
initial introduction had constituted him an honorary member of the
company, no one troubled to contradict him. Indeed, they all liked the
nice-looking, good-tempered young fellow, and with these understaffed
and short-lived productions, he did soon manage to make himself quite
useful. He shifted scenery, rolled ground sheets, and ran errands with
a humble alacrity that would have astonished his parents. For young
Alden belonged to one of the most exclusive families in Boston--a fact
that did not detract from his general acceptability! Once, through some
oversight, there was no one to ply the cocoanut shells as galloping
horses, and Mr. Alden, who was standing opportunely in the wings, saved
the situation. Joan nicknamed him ‘the call boy’s understudy,’ and the
infatuated young man glowed with pride at the title.
For the object of Mr. Alden’s presence was patent to everyone. There
was hardly a night when he was not standing at the stage door after the
performance patiently waiting to accompany Miss North and Mr. and Mrs.
Mallock home. Although Joan had some misgivings, she could not help
being rather glad of the addition to the party. She had reluctantly
promised Granny not to come home late from the theatre alone if it
could possibly be avoided, but the Mallocks, although kind, were
intellectually limited, and their undiluted society night after night
was beginning to pall. Besides a newly married couple probably found
her presence a nuisance, she often reflected, and the thought hurt
her pride. At least she knew that Mr. Alden did not view her as an
inconvenient imposition, while, after the Mallocks, the young fellow’s
callow talk struck her as agreeably interesting and cultured.
Only after ‘As You Like It’ had opened, did it suddenly occur to Joan
that, of course, Mr. Alden must be responsible for the nightly flowers.
She smiled as she remembered Adam’s prophecy that the donor would not
long remain anonymous. Enquiries proved her right, and her devotee’s
offering was peremptorily stopped. In any case it was a relief not
to get these bouquets; during that last week of ‘Juliet’ they had
been almost the last straw. For Joan could not bear leaving the poor
constricted blossoms to wither all night, and so had spent cold, very
early morning hours untwisting miles of fine wire and drawing out damp,
supporting spikes as she murmured her Rosalind lines. Henceforward
a smell of rust was indelibly associated in the girl’s mind with a
sense of overpowering weariness. She began to realize why a maid was
necessary for a star.
Naturally poor Mr. Alden was spared these ungrateful particulars.
Indeed, he was so cast down by the refusal of further floral tribute
that Joan was quite sorry for him. She really liked the boy, and,
in addition, had discovered an amusing link, of which he himself
was supremely unconscious. One of her schoolfellows had had an aunt
at Boston, a certain Mrs. Alden, with whom she frequently spent her
vacation. On one occasion there had been an idea of Joan accompanying
her, and although the project had afterwards fallen through, Joan
still remembered the aunt’s extremely gushing letter of invitation to
‘dearest Miss Vandeleur.’ Careful questioning now elicited the fact,
that, as Joan expected, this aunt and Mr. Alden’s mother were the same,
but Mrs. Alden’s receptivity towards a millionaire’s daughter evidently
did not extend to an unknown strolling player. Her son’s constraint
once or twice when her name came up made this evident. One day Joan was
mischievously inspired. “I believe your mother thinks I am a harpy,”
she laughed. “She considers me a designing creature, an adventuress,
now doesn’t she?”
Poor Alden turned scarlet and looked as though he were going to cry.
“No,” he stammered confusedly. “At least, it is only that she doesn’t
know you.” Joan did, indeed, look as little like an adventuress as it
was possible to imagine, as she stood there in her neat blue serge
costume with her strong, young face and candid eyes. “Mother doesn’t
know how wonderful you are.” His voice broke.
“Oh, of course, I am a compendium of all the talents and virtues.” Joan
laughed again, but not unkindly. “But really I agree with your mother
that you are wasting a great deal of time down here. I don’t wonder she
is cross!”
Naturally in the end the inevitable happened. The last spark to kindle
the young man’s ardour was, paradoxically enough, the property man’s
taking a drop too much. After the first performance of ‘Twelfth Night,’
Mrs. Vincent-Dawe had called Joan on to the stage to discuss some
point, and they stayed there for a considerable time. The property
man, an ill-conditioned fellow, not liking to disturb the leading lady,
who was also his employer, stood sulkily at the wings, waiting to
collect his ‘props.’ At last Mrs. Vincent-Dawe went off on the other
side, while Joan had to pass out near where the man was standing. He
did not move, and in the harrow passage way the end of the lute she
carried brushed against his face. “Aw, to hell, you!” he shouted with
sudden bibulous rage.
“Apologize to Miss North or I’ll knock you down.” It was, of course,
young Alden who also had been hovering impatiently.
The property man hesitated. He was still sober enough to recognize that
this was ‘the stage door dude’ who had been hanging about so much of
late. The chap was a big bug, some one had told him. If there was any
row, it was a poor working man like himself who’d get into trouble.
Mrs. Vincent-Dawe would clean him out sure. Her show was run more like
a blamed mission meeting than a theatre. He muttered an apology and
stumbled off.
When Joan came down from her dressing-room, Mr. Alden was standing
there as usual, but the Mallocks had gone. They could not wait any
longer, the young fellow said. Joan felt vexed that just to-night
she and Mr. Alden would be alone. As she feared, the incident had
unloosened his tongue. Directly they got into the street the young
fellow started off. “You ought not to be exposed to that sort of
thing, Miss North,” he said passionately. “It is desecration.” He was
trembling as he spoke.
“Oh, the man must have been drunk. Such a thing has never happened to
me before, and I don’t suppose it will ever happen again.” Joan tried
to speak lightly.
“It ought never to have happened at all.” Suddenly the poor boy began
to pour out his devotion, his desire to shelter and protect her. “You
know I have got piles of money,” he naïvely urged. “Let me take you
out of all this--give you the position you ought to have. We needn’t
live in Boston; we could go to New York if you would rather. We might
have a house on Fifth Avenue.”
Joan was struggling between laughter and anger. “Oh, I shouldn’t know
how to behave on Fifth Avenue among all your aristocratic set,” she
said demurely.
“Yes, you would. You would shine anywhere.” Young Alden was really a
nice boy, but the constant reiteration by his mother of his being such
a good match had not left him entirely unscathed. “No one need know
anything about all this. You would take your position as my wife.”
Joan’s anger suddenly got the upper hand. “You do not seem to know
it, but you are insulting me. Do you think I would exchange my Art
for anything you could offer? Why, I wouldn’t give it up for--all the
Vandeleur millions,” she concluded audaciously.
“I--I--I am sorry,” the unfortunate suitor stammered. “I didn’t mean to
offend you. It isn’t that I mind your acting--but--but my people.--Oh,
Miss North,” he burst out with a boyish simplicity that was rather
appealing, “I can’t say it, but it is just that I care for you so
awfully. Won’t you care for me?”
For the first time Joan felt compassionate. The boy had forgotten his
miserable money and position. He was just asking her to marry him for
himself. She saw with relief that they had reached the door of her
boarding house. “I can’t care for you,” she said softly, “because--oh,
well, that part is already cast.”
It was April when Joan again joined her grandmother at Wood Haven. They
were both overjoyed to see each other, and yet, after the first day,
Mrs. Lennox did not feel satisfied. Her granddaughter did not seem
herself; she was listless, almost depressed--a most unusual condition
for Joan. The grandmother led the conversation round to Mr. Fletcher,
in a way that she fondly considered a miracle of tact. Joan replied
without hesitation that she had only seen him once--that time before
Christmas. He had been out West; she believed he was now at Pittsburg,
where there was a big engineering strike. Mrs. Lennox’s old habit of
late rising kept her from realizing that a letter came for Joan every
morning in Mr. Fletcher’s handwriting, and the girl’s careless tone
deceived her. Nor did there seem to be any other aspirant. No, it must
just be that Joan was worn out after the hard season, Mrs. Lennox told
herself. Indeed, the girl herself confessed to being very tired.
One morning, after they had been at Wood Haven about three weeks, Mrs.
Lennox was just finishing her leisurely breakfast in bed, when Joan
came into her room. The girl’s face was aglow with a sort of suppressed
radiance; her whole walk had changed. “Mr. Fletcher will be here this
morning. The strike is over and we have won. I am going to meet him.”
Before her grandmother could collect her startled senses, Joan had gone.
She was the first person whom Adam Fletcher saw as he got out of the
train. This was more than he had dared to hope. They walked sedately
through the little town and across the meadow to the short cut through
the woods. Then the sedateness vanished. “It has been perfectly
wretched here,” Joan murmured presently, “with no work and missing you
every minute.” She clung to him quite passionately.
It was a considerable while before they started walking again, and even
then Adam Fletcher’s arm was round her. At first they went along in
silence; then they began to talk. The man was too full of his recent
triumph to keep from it long. “Wasn’t it bully our pulling off the
strike, darling?” he said boyishly. “It was about this time yesterday
that it was fixed up. Three of us and three of the principal owners had
met to discuss. Suddenly they told us they’d give in. We could hardly
believe it. A big crowd was outside--hungry women and children--they’re
what tie one’s hands. You should have seen the scene when we announced
the news. Talk of drama! I do wish you could have been there.”
“Oh, why didn’t you send for me?” Joan cried.
“As if your grandmother would have allowed it!” Adam hesitated. Then
he resolved to risk it. She had been so sweet, so demonstrative. “You
know, Joan, that it would be a heap more convenient if you did make up
your mind to get it over and marry me.”
But Joan’s face had clouded. “No, you are not to. I told you that you
weren’t to speak about marrying at all. It will spoil everything. And
it wouldn’t make much difference,” she went on more relentingly. “We
shall be here together all the summer, and in the winter you couldn’t
tour round the country with me, in any case. Promise you won’t speak
about getting married--anyway until I am a star. Promise!”
“Well--I promise.” Adam Fletcher’s voice had a fleeting tinge of
coldness. Amid all his devotion he could not help wondering sometimes
whether it ever occurred to Joan to think of this matter from his point
of view. It was pretty difficult to go on like this indefinitely.
However, if you fell in love with a star, he reminded himself, or even
with a prospective one, you couldn’t expect to hang it up to light your
parlour. “I’ve thought of a fine idea for a play out of the strike,” he
told her, deliberately turning the subject.
He could not now complain of lack of sympathy. Joan listened with
rapt attention. It was the Romeo and Juliet theme in modern terms, he
said--the strike leader and the boss’s daughter falling in love with
each other.
“Why, that is something like us,” Joan exclaimed in amused surprise.
“No, it isn’t a bit, really. I hadn’t even thought of us. Because
in my play the chief difficulty is that the man has only got his
pay--fifteen or twenty dollars a week--and the girl has no profession
or money of her own. He does not like to take her out of the luxury
to which she has been accustomed. And then the girl is so fond of her
father--the president of the Company. She can’t bear to leave him; she
thinks it would break him all up.”
“I wonder what would have happened if Father and I had cared for each
other like that,” Joan meditated. “How queer it would have been.”
“But when you were a little girl, didn’t your father ever make a fuss
over you?” Adam asked incredulously.
“I hardly ever saw him, and when I did, affection didn’t seem to come
into it. I would as soon have thought of being fond of--of Niagara. It
was only after I had left home and came across a snapshot of Father in
a paper once, that it ever occurred to me anyone might be fond of him.
He looked unhappy and quite human. That was the time I have told you
about, that I wrote to him and offered to live with him when I wasn’t
touring. I am thankful now he wouldn’t have me. But tell me more about
your play.”
“Well, my man and girl care for each other, and, of course, they want
to get married frightfully.” Adam again stopped. Whatever he said
seemed to stumble on the personal; or rather the embarrassment of his
last remark lay in its being so impersonal. No one could accuse Joan
of ‘wanting to get married frightfully,’ he felt with a renewed but
transient asperity. “But I haven’t thought out my play properly yet,”
he concluded rather lamely.
“Well, think it out and write it; write it soon. It will be fine!”
Joan assured him. “Of course, I am to play the girl?” They were still
discussing the great work when they arrived home very late for lunch.
It was not until the evening that Mrs. Lennox got a chance for any
private conversation with her granddaughter. Mr. Fletcher had just
left, Joan waving good-night to him through the open window. “My dear,”
Mrs. Lennox said, as the girl turned. “Are you, or are you not, engaged
to that young man?”
“Let me think.” Joan sat down, and putting her hand to her brow,
assumed an attitude of profound meditation. “No, I don’t think I am
engaged to him, Granny. I really don’t see how I can be, for he has
never asked me to be engaged.”
Mrs. Lennox gave a half-vexed laugh. “Well, that can only be because
you haven’t let him. I am certain that poor Mr. Fletcher wants nothing
better than to be engaged.”--“I guess he does,” Joan murmured, but
her grandmother did not hear her.--“Really, Joan, I don’t think you
are behaving well to Mr. Fletcher. It isn’t fair on him to keep him
dangling on year after year if you don’t mean to marry him.”
Joan laughed. “What a terrible picture, Granny! It sounds as if you
ought to write to some Prevention of Cruelty Society. But why isn’t it
fair to go on being friends? I make a very nice friend.”
“Don’t be absurd.” Mrs. Lennox spoke quite sharply. “You know perfectly
well that you can’t go on like this for ever. Suppose after a few years
one of you wants to marry some one else, the other would be stranded.
It is an impossible position.”
“But Granny, of course when Adam and I do want to get married, we shall
marry each other. _Ca va sans dire._ Why, he was saying only this
morning that being married would be more convenient.”
“Convenient!” The phraseology of the young man’s lovemaking left Mrs.
Lennox dazed. And he an author! “Well, if you have got to the point of
discussing the convenience of marriage,” she suggested with a smile, “I
suppose most people would consider you engaged.”
“Well, I don’t. You see, Granny,” Joan’s voice grew softer, “you see,
I feel that Adam and I belong to each other, and that makes all this
talk of engagements and proposals and things like that seem simply
ridiculous.”
“If you feel that way, I should think you would want to get married,”
Mrs. Lennox said feebly. Really Joan was rather bewildering.
“But I don’t want it! I have got my work. How can I do everything at
once? I just want to stop as we are. It is extraordinary that no one
can understand that.”
“Well, it is very unsatisfactory,” Mrs. Lennox opined with a wise shake
of her head.
In spite of Adam Fletcher’s enthusiasm over his idea for the new
play, and in spite of Joan’s eager sympathy, the work did not make
much progress. The fact was he felt too unsettled for writing, too
distracted, perhaps too much in love. However, by an immense effort,
he got a rough draft finished and took it to show Mr. Hobson when the
great man came back from Europe early in July.
The manager, in stage parlance, ‘grabbed for it.’ “That’s the stuff,
my boy,” he exclaimed at the end of the reading. “Beautiful! There’s a
big sentimental punch to it.” He patted Fletcher on the shoulder. “I’ll
send the contract right along. How soon can you get it done?”
“I don’t know.” Adam Fletcher was usually a very quick worker, but with
a recollection of his difficulties during the last two months, he felt
he could not bind himself. “Not for an autumn opening any way.”
“Well, you just get busy on it, and let me have it as quick as ever. We
might open in it for the New Year. This is going to fetch ’em--heart
interest, good and strong. You ain’t no pink tea author, not you.” The
little man chuckled with appreciation. He was enormously bitten. “Now
for the cast.”
“I must have Miss North for my girl,” Adam Fletcher said quickly.
“I’m sorry, Miss North ain’t under my management any more.” Mr. Hobson
cooled perceptibly.
“Oh, she will want to play this.” As the great manager showed no sign
of agreeing, Fletcher broke out, “Why, if I don’t mind Miss North
having chucked ‘The Combine,’ you needn’t! After all, my profit was
certain, but you very likely stood in to lose heavily. I consider you
ought to be very grateful to Miss North!”
Mr. Hobson laughed. He would not have stood such ‘back talk’ from any
of his other ‘young men,’ but Adam Fletcher was a privileged person.
Apart from the marvellous success of ‘The Under Dog,’ which he felt
this new play might repeat, he had always had a genuine liking for him.
“Well, as to gratitood there may be two opinions, but Miss North’s got
the real stuff in her--I’ll allow that,” he conceded grudgingly.
Fletcher followed up the advantage. “Yes, she did some fine work up at
Boston last winter--her Juliet made quite a sensation.”
“Oh, I know all about that; saw her in it myself.” Noticing Fletcher’s
surprise, the manager elucidated that a certain ‘young feller,’ Cyril
Mallock, had been pestering for years to come under his management, and
so being up at Boston, he had gone in one evening to see him play. “He
ain’t a bad actor either, but Miss North knocks spots out of him.”
“Why not give them both a New York appearance in ‘Romeo and Juliet’
till my play’s ready?” Fletcher suggested with a sudden inspiration.
“Well, that’s an idea! First the old ‘Romeo and Juliet,’ then the noo.
We’ll show ’em there’s as good pebbles on the shore as ever came off
it.” Fletcher hadn’t meant to invite quite such a trying comparison,
still he thought it wiser not to protest. “And Miss West for Juliet’s
nurse; she’ll do it fine.” The great manager was always childishly
eager when a scheme appealed to him.--“I suppose the critics wouldn’t
let us give the piece a happy ending?” he added wistfully. “Romeo
wakes up in the nick of time. Snatches away Juliet’s dagger. Kiss.
Curtain--Eh?”
“I am afraid it would hardly do, Mr. Hobson.” Adam Fletcher smiled.
“You will have to content yourself with _my_ play ending well.”
“I guessed you’d say so. Anyway, it will make them like your play all
the better--be more of a contrast.”
“It will be a contrast all right!” This time Fletcher laughed out loud.
“Then that is settled?”
“Yes, but you’ve got to answer for Miss North; I ain’t going to be
turned down a second time. I suppose if we write her at Miss West’s,
that will find? By the way, where’s your contract to be mailed?”
“To Wood Haven, Maine.”
“Why, ain’t that where Miss West----?” A smile broke over Mr. Hobson’s
face. He felt that he had put two and two together, or rather one and
one. “Well, you let me have that play real soon. I tell you there’s
rich human blood in it. That’s what the public wants, my boy--blood.
They’re sick to death of the Ibsen-Shaw-Maeterlinck gang.”