“She should be. She has a press agent in New York. Lady Selene Tucker.
She’s going to marry that man who looks like a Lewis Baumer picture in
Punch as soon as every one’s in town again and she can get Westminster
Abbey and he can get his mother shipped to New Zealand, or somewhere.
His mother will drink too much and then tell lies about Queen Victoria.
She’s rather quaint. She sues for libel every time any one writes a
novel with a dissolute peeress in it. Frightfully self-conscious. Don’t
people who insist on telling you how depraved they are make you rather
ill? They always seem to think they’ve made such a good job of it. And
I could think of much worse things to do.--How nice your hair is! Like
Uncle Eddie’s.”
“Thanks. Who’s the skinny woman with the pearls?”
Margot put aside the palm branch that shadowed her chin and frowned.
“It looks like my namesake, Mrs. Asquith, from this angle.--No, it’s
Lady Flint. Oh, look at the big brute in mauve. Lovely, isn’t she?”
He looked at the shapely, fair woman without interest. The round of
Margot’s forearm took his eyes back.
“Lovely? Why?”
“So glad you don’t think so. One gets so sick of hearing women gurgled
about as wonders. I think it was Salisbury who said she was the most
beautiful woman alive. And she goes right on, you know? Once you get
fixed here as frightfully beautiful or witty you can die of old age
before they stop saying so. Such a fraud! It’s just what dad says about
all the managers and stars in New York being myths. All those legends
about his being a woman hater and--who’s the man who’s supposed to
never hire a chorus girl until he’s seen her au naturel? Such piffle!”
“But they like being myths,” Gurdy laughed.
“Oh, every one does, of course. Some one started a yarn about me--don’t
tell dad this--that I was the daughter of some frightfully rich
American banker and that my mother was a Spanish dancer. Olive was wild
with rage. But it was rather fun.--I say, I’m sick of this, Gurdy. Do
make dad order me home.” She lit a cigarette, let her lashes drop and
ignored a man who bowed, passing. Gurdy thought this was Cosmo Rand
and said so. Margot shrugged. “He rehearses us every day. Decent sort.
People like him.--But do make dad have me come home.”
Gurdy pondered. Mark now knew a few gentlewomen, the wives of authors
and critics. He had mannerly friends outside the theatre, had drilled
smart war theatricals. The girl could move beyond this wedge of
certainty wherever she chose. But Gurdy said, “You might not like New
York.”
“But I want to see it! It’s hardly pleasant seeing dad about once every
year for two weeks or so. I happen to love him. You mean I shan’t be
recognized as a human being by the fat ladies in the Social Register?
That’ll hardly break my heart, you know? The world is so full of a
number--Is that God save the--”
The supping people rose in a vast puff of smoke from abandoned
cigarettes. Officers stiffened. The outer orchestra jangled the old
tune badly. The sleek gowns showed a ripple of bending knees. The
prince went nodding down the room toward an inner door with a tiny
clink of bright spurs as his staff followed him.
“They say he’s going to the States. I should like to be there to see
the women make fools of themselves. And Grandfather’ll be so furious
because every one’ll talk about a damned Britisher.--Finish your
coffee. I want to dance again.”
She danced with a smooth, lazy rhythm and Gurdy felt a brusque jealousy
of all the men who danced with her, after him. He was angry because
he so soon liked her, against reason. It was folly to let himself
be netted by a girl who showed no signs of courting him. He watched
her spin, her black skirt spreading, with Cosmo Rand. The man danced
gracefully, without swagger. He might be amusing, like many actors.
Gurdy pulled his philosophy together and talked about Mark’s plan of
the Walling Theatre while they drove home.
“Dad’s wanted a shop of his own so long,” she sighed, “And it’ll be
quite charming. He does understand colours! Wish he wouldn’t wear black
all the time.... I always feel fearfully moral at two in the morning.
I’m going to lecture you.”
“What about?”
“You’re so damned chilly. You always were, of course. Don’t you like
anything?”
They came to the Ilden house before he could answer and Margot didn’t
repeat the question all the week he stayed in London. They were
seldom alone. Lady Ilden seemed to want the girl near her. There
were incessant callers. Men plainly flocked after the dark girl. Her
frankness added something to the wearisome chaff of teatime and theatre
parties, to the dazing slang of the young officers. Gurdy speculated
from corners, edged in at random dances. But his blood had caught a
fresh pulsation. He felt a trail of mockery in the artifice of Lady
Ilden’s talk as if the tired woman observed him falling into love and
found it humorous. She said once, “I was afraid you’d grown up too
fast. And you’ve not,” but he let the chance of an argument slide by
his preoccupation with the visible flutter of Margot’s hands pinning a
tear in her yellow frock. His resistance weakened although he hunted
repugnances, tried to shiver when the girl swore.
“Profanity’s a sign of poor imagination,” he told her.
“The hell you say,” said Margot. “Haven’t turned out on the heavy
side, have you, Gurdy? I bar serious souls. War shaken you to the
foundations? Cheeryo! You’ll get over it.” And she walked upstairs
singing,
“There ayn’t a goin’ to be no wa-ah,
Now we’ve got a king like good King Hedward,
There ayn’t a goin’ to be no wa-ah.
’E ’ates that sort of fing,
Muvvers, don’t worry,
Now we’ve got a king like Hedward,
Peace wiv ’onor is ’is motter,
So, God sive the king!”
VI
Gurdy
In mid March the lease of the ground in West 47th Street was brought to
Mark’s office. He signed it and gave the attorney his check. A wrecking
company was busy with the destruction of the cheap hotel that stood
where the Walling Theatre would stand complete in November. The notary
and witnesses withdrew. Mark sat drumming his fingers on his desk,
trying to rejoice. Irritations worked in him; Carlson would be the only
audience of his joy; the ground was bought with money made too largely
in moving pictures. He was so close upon the fact grown from his dream
that it frightened him. The Walling was real, at last. He should bubble
with pleasure and couldn’t. He sighed and strolled over to West 45th
Street where he watched the final act of “Redemption” for the sake of
the dive scene, got his usual happy shudder from this massed, intricate
shadow and the faces suddenly projected into the vicious light. He must
have such scenes at the Walling. He must find somewhere a play made of
scenes, many and diverse, changing from splendour to dark vaults. Why,
this was the secret of the abominable movies! They jerked an audience
out of one tedious place into a dozen. He walked toward Fifth Avenue,
thinking, roused because the streets seemed more speckled with olive
cloth. Some transport had disgorged soldiers freshly into the city
tired of gaping at them. Mark enjoyed their tan in the crowded pace of
Fifth Avenue where women showed powder as moist paste on their cheeks
in a warmth like that of May. A motion picture star detained him at
a crossing and haughtily leaned from her red, low car demanding the
rights of a play for her company. Mark couldn’t follow the permutations
of these women. She had been a chorus girl one met at suppers. Now she
was superb in her vulgar furs with a handsome young Jew beside her and
a wolfish dog chained on the flying seat. Mark got himself away and
came home to the panelled library where Carlson was stretched under
three quilts on his wheeled chair gossiping with an old comedian about
the merits of Ada Rehan. Soon the elderly caller left. Mark took his
chair by Carlson and wondered what he would do if his patron died
before Gurdy got back. Carlson couldn’t last much longer, the doctors
said, but his mind was active. He yapped, “I’ve got a hunch, sonny.”
“Go on.”
“You’re goin’ to see Gurdy pretty dam’ quick. I had a nap before
Ferguson came in. Dreamed about the kid.”
“He’d have cabled if he’d sailed,” Mark said, “No, he’s still stuck
in the mud at Saint Nazaire. By God, it’s enough to make a man vomit,
reading about those damned embarkation camps! And he ain’t an officer.
They say the enlisted men don’t even get enough to eat!” He suddenly
fumed.
“Well, don’t cry about it, you big calf,” said Carlson, “Honest to
God, I never saw a feller that can cry like you do! You cried like a
hose-pipe when the kid got shot--and from all I hear it wasn’t nothin’
but a scratch on his belly. And I used to spend hours trying to teach
you to shed one tear when you was actin’! You was the punkest matiny
idol ever drew breath of life!”
Mark chuckled, “I suppose I was,” then a hand slid down over his
shoulder and an olive cuff followed it. Mark’s heart jumped. He dropped
his head back against Gurdy’s side and began to weep idiotically as he
had sworn to himself that he wouldn’t. Old Carlson surveyed the end of
the trick delightedly. He privately cursed Gurdy for standing still and
pale when it was clearly the right thing to make a fuss. The cub was
too cool.
“Son, son,” said Mark.
Gurdy hoped that the man would not repeat that illogical word in his
husky, drumming voice. The repetition brought the illusion of joy too
close. He chewed his lip and wriggled, gave in and stooped over Mark.
He got out, “Here, I’ve not had any lunch, Mark,” and that turned Mark
into mad action, sent him racing downstairs to find the butler.
“Why the hell didn’t you kiss him?” Carlson snarled.
“I’m twenty--”
“You’re a hog,” the old man meditated. His eyes twinkled. He sneered,
“Well, wipe your eyes. Here’s a handkerchief if you ain’t got one.”
He relished the boy’s blush, watched him blink and went on, “Now,
don’t tell Mark about all the women you ruined, neither. He prob’ly
thinks you been a saint. And don’t go spillin’ any of this talk about
goin’ to work on your own like some of these whelps do. Mark’s got a
three thousand dollar car comin’ for you and he’s goin’ to pay you
a hundred a week to set in the office and look wise. And don’t tell
him you didn’t win the war, too. He knows you did. Christ, it was bad
enough when I’d got to listen to how Margot was runnin’ the Red Cross
in London! After you went off I come pretty near callin’ up the express
company and havin’ myself shipped to Stockholm! The big calf! Chewin’
the paint off the walls every time he heard there’d been fightin’!
Sentymental lunatic! Your papa and mamma’ve got three times more sense
about you. Get out of here. I got to make up sleep.” He shut his eyes.
Two tears ran and were lost in the sharp wrinkles of his face. Gurdy
gulped and walked downstairs, abashed by the sheer weight of idolatry.
Mark was twisting the cork out of a champagne bottle in the dining
room. At once he said, “They’ll have some eggs up right away, sonny.”
“My God but you’re thin, Mark!”
“No exercise. Haven’t had time to play golf. Now, we’d better get the
car and run down to Fayettes--”
“I talked to mother from Camp Merritt. Be in Camp Dix tomorrow. I’ll
see them there. They can motor over. Only twelve miles. Heard from
Margot lately?”
His uncle beamed saying, “Says she wants to come home, son. I’ve got to
talk to you about that. What d’you think?”
Gurdy said quickly, “Let her come, Mark. The fact is, I think she’s
bored. You haven’t seen her since last year? She’s got a gang of men
trailing after her and she isn’t a flirt. Chelsea’s full of bright
young painters and things. They all come and camp on the doormat.
Lady Ilden’s a sort of fairy godmother, of course.” He lapsed into a
sudden state of mind about Margot, fondling his glass of champagne.
Untrimmed discourse on women had amused his first days in the army.
But the week’s return in the jammed transport had sickened him with
the stuffy talk of prospective and retrospective desire. It had been
musky, stifling. He wondered how women, if they guessed, would value
that broad commentary. And how men lied about women! The precisian was
annoyed to a snort and Mark filled his glass again, smiling.
Of course, having seen her, the boy wanted Margot home. Mark said, “She
wrote me you’d turned out better looking than she thought. Knew she’d
think so. And Olive was pleased to death with you, of course. How’s
your side feel?--My God, what are those fools doing to the eggs!”
He rushed into the pantry. Rank pleasure swelled in Gurdy. There was no
use doing anything with the incurable, proud man who drove him back to
Camp Merritt at dusk with two bottles of champagne hidden in his motor
coat, invited confessions and beamed constantly.
“Only don’t act like you’d ever kissed a woman in front of your mother,
son. Country folks. Shock her to death. You any taller? I’ll call up
Sanford about some clothes for you. Good night, sonny. You go straight
to the farm when you’re discharged. I’ll be down Sunday.”
An illusion of happiness beset Gurdy. He stood in the green street of
the half empty camp staring after the motor, the wine bottles wrapped
in paper under his arm. It was astonishing how foolish Mark was, to
be sure. But wine or emotion warmed the chill air about Gurdy like
the pour of a hot shower. If Mark wanted to be an ass over him, it
couldn’t be helped. He kept thinking of his foolish worshipper in the
transfer to the sandy discomfort of Camp Dix. There the Bernamers
appeared in a large motor with grandfather Walling furred and mittened
in the back seat. The illusion of happiness deepened into a sensuous
bath, although his mother had contracted more fat and his sisters were
too brawny for real charm. Gurdy struggled for righteous detachment
while his brothers candidly goggled their admiration and his father
examined the purple scar that passed dramatically up Gurdy’s milky
skin. He found himself blinking and got drunk on the second bottle of
champagne when his family left. But it seemed wiser to surrender to the
flood of affectionate nonsense for a time. It was even convenient that
Mark should send a tailor down to Fayettesville with clothes rapidly
confected. On Sunday Mark arrived with a small car lettered G.B. in
blue on its panel.
“Just the blue Gurdy’s eyes are,” Mrs. Bernamer drawled.
Gurdy understood that maternal feeling was a rather shocking symbol
on the charts of analysts and that Mark probably doted on him for
some trivial resemblance unconsciously held and engrossed. But it was
pleasant, being a symbol. He drove Mark down into Trenton and talked of
Margot while they drank bad American Benedictine in a seedy hotel.
“I don’t know whether she’s very clever or simply sensible,” he said,
achieving detachment by way of Benedictine. “Anyhow, most cleverness
is just common sense--perception.” His eyes darkened. Mark thought in
lush comfort that Gurdy would marry the girl. Gurdy had friends among
the right sort of people. Poor Carlson would die pretty soon. Gurdy and
Margot would live at the house, which were best adorned freshly. The
Benedictine gave out. They drove into the twisted lanes behind Trenton
and Gurdy talked levelly of France. “Damned humiliating to get laid
out by a hunk of zinc off a bathtub. Margot joshed me about it....
Paris was perfectly astonishing! American privates giving parties for
British admirals and stealing their women.--I ran into a Y. M. C. A.
girl who wanted to have Fontainebleau made into a reform school. Margot
says she found one that wanted to have George turn Windsor Castle into
a hospital for the A. E. F.... You mustn’t mind Margot swearing. All
the flappers seem to.--Oh, I met Cora Boyle.”
“How’s she looking?”
“Handsome.” Gurdy thought for a second and then inquired. “What did
you--”
Mark comprehended the stop. He said, “She was the first woman ever took
any notice of me.--Why, I suppose she was a kind of ideal. I mean, I
liked that kind of looks. Lord knows what she married me for. Wonder,
is that Rand kid still married to her? Is? I guess she’s settled down
in London for keeps. Well, I want you to look at the plans of the
Walling, son. They’ve made me a model. Tell me if you see anything
wrong.”
He simmered with joy when Gurdy approved the whole plan except the
shape of the boxes. The boy ran back and forth between Fayettesville
and the city in his car, asked seemly young men to dine in Fifty Fifth
Street, read plays and wandered with Mark to costumers. People stared
at him in the restaurants where Mark took him to lunch. His tranquil
height and his ease drew glances. His intolerant comments on the motley
of opening nights made Mark choke. Sometimes, though, Mark found the
boy’s eyes turned on him with surprise.
“You seem to hang out in Greenwich village a lot, Mark.”
“I kind of like it. Don’t understand some of the talk. The show
business is changing, sonny. It’s changed a lot since nineteen
fourteen. If you’d told me five years back that a piece like Redemption
could have a run I’d have laughed my head off. Or that you could mount
a play like Jones has fixed up this thing at the Plymouth--all low
lights and--what d’you call it?--impressionist scenery.... The game’s
changed.--Oh, the big money makers’ll always be hogwash, Gurdy! Don’t
bet any other way. I ain’t such a fool as to think that Heaven’s opened
because you can put on a piece with a sad ending and some--well,
philosophy to it and have it make a little cash. No such luck. Only
it’s got so now that when some big, fat wench in a lot of duds starts
throwin’ his pearls back at the man that’s keepin’ her in the third
act--why, there’s a lot of folks out front that say, Oh, hell, and go
home. Of course, there’s a lot more that think it’s slick.--Lord, I’d
like to put on ‘Measure for Measure’ when we open the Walling!--You
could make that look like something.--I’ve got to find something _good_
to open with. This kid Steve O’Mara’s sending me up a play about a thug
that gets wrecked down in Cuba and steals a plantation. Ten scenes
to it, he says. One of ’em’s a lot of niggers havin’ a Voodoo party.
Sounds fine. I picked _him_ up down in Greenwich village.”
“I should think all those half married ladies and near anarchists would
shock you to death.”
“Bosh, brother. I don’t like ’em enough to get shocked at ’em. What’s
there to get shocked at? They think so and so and I think the other
way. If you took to preaching dynamite I’d be pretty worried--like I
would if your mamma bobbed her hair and ran off with a tenor. I’m not
an old maid just because I’m in the show business.” He lit a cigarette
and added. “Fifty per cent of theatrical managers are old maids.”
“Just what do you mean?”
“Why, they are. This way. They get used to a run of plots and they
can’t see outside that. For instance, here’s a dramatist--forgotten his
name--was trying to sell a piece last year. I couldn’t use it but I
thought it was pretty good so I sent him over to Loeffler with a note.
Next day, Loeffler called me up and said I ought to be hung for the
sake of public morals. This play knocked round the offices and every
one thought it was awful. Why? The hero’s a chauffeur that’s tired of
working, so he marries a rich old woman. It’s something that happens
every other day in the papers. There ain’t a week that some fifty year
old actress doesn’t marry a kid step dancer but they all carried on as
if this fellow’d written a play where every one came on the stage stark
naked and danced the hoochy coochee. It wasn’t a nice idea but where’s
it worse than nine tenths these bedroom things or as bad?”
“Why wouldn’t you use it, Mark?”
“Oh, hell, there wasn’t but one scene and that was an interior!”
Gurdy asked, “Mark, wouldn’t you like it if the playwrights would go
back to the Elizabethan idea--I mean thirty or forty scenes to a play?”
“Certainly,” said Mark, “and those bucks were right.” He sat for a
little silent, scrawling his desk blotter with a pencil, then shyly
laughed, “Supposing some one made a play out of my married life? What
you’d call the important episodes happened all over God’s earth. Cora
got me on a farm in Fayettesville, N. J., married in Hoboken. Started
quarreling in Martin’s café. Caught her kissing a fellow at Longbranch.
Never saw him before or since. Owned up she’d lived with three or four
men in our flat--twentieth Street, New York. Big scene. God, how sick
that made me! I was at tea at Mrs. LeMoyne’s when Frank Worthing got me
off in a corner and told me about her and Jarvis Hope. I was sittin’
in the bath tub when she chucked her curling irons at me and said she
was through. That’s the way things go. Shakespeare was right. Crazy?
No.--Come in.” His secretary brought Mark a thick manuscript lettered
“Captain Salvador: Stephen O’Mara.” and withdrew. Mark went on, “But my
married life wouldn’t make much of a show--green kid from the country
and a--a Cora Boyle. Pretty ordinary.” He reflected, “But I don’t
know. It’s always going to be pretty tragic for a kid to find out he’s
married a girl thinkin’ she was pure--as pure as folks are, anyhow--and
finds she hadn’t been. Wasn’t her fault, of course. Started acting when
she was fourteen. Awful jolt, though. She lied about it, too. She was
the damnedest liar! I hate liars. Well run along and play squash or
something, sonny. I want to see what O’Mara’s handed me.”
He bought the rights to “Captain Salvador” two hours later. Gurdy was
willing to rejoice with him after he read the Cuban tragedy. Carlson
yapped, “The women’ll hate it, Mark. Where’s your clothes?”
“Bosh,” said Mark, “there weren’t any women’s clothes in Ervine’s ‘John
Ferguson’ and the women ate it alive!”
“But that fellow Ervine’s an Englishman, you big calf! You ain’t going
to open the Walling with a sad piece by an American where there ain’t
any duds for the women to gawp at! You’re off your head. Ain’t I told
you a million times that the New York woman won’t swallow a home grown
show that’s tragic unless it’s all dressed up? Stop him, Gurdy!”
“It’s a damned good play, sir,” said Gurdy.
He thought it high fortune that Mark should find anything so adroit
and moving for the Walling’s first play. Some of the critics believed
in O’Mara’s talent. Several artists in scenery were asked to submit
designs. The pressmen began a scattering campaign of notes on O’Mara
and hints about the play. A procession of comely young women declined
the best female part as “unsympathetic.”
“That means no clothes to it,” Carlson sniffed.
“But they’re fools,” Gurdy insisted, “It’s a good acting part.”
“My God,” the old man screamed, “don’t you know that no woman wants
a part where she can’t show her shape off and wear pearls! And these
hens that got looks don’t have to act any more. They go to California
and get in the movies. You talk like actresses were human beings! Women
don’t act unless they ain’t good lookin’ or’ve got brains. You’ll have
to go a long ways if you want a good lookin’ wench for that part. God,
you keep talkin’ like actin’ was some kind of an art! It ain’t. It’s a
game for grown up kids that they get paid for. An actor that’s got any
brains never gets to be more’n some one smart in comedy. A tragedian’s
nothin’ but a hunk of mush inside his head. Catch a girl that’ll act
tragical when she can sit on a sofa in a Paris gown and have some
goop make eyes at her!--And Mark’ll have a fine time at rehearsals
makin’ any leadin’ man wear a stubble beard and eat with his knife,
like in this play. Art!” and the old man fell asleep snorting. Yet his
bedroom behind the panelled library was dotted with photographs of dead
actors and actresses. Sometimes his dry voice trailed into a sort of
tenderness when he spoke of James Lewis or Augustin Daly.
“Softhearted as an egg,” said Mark, hesitated and resumed, “He’s got
fifty thousand apiece for you and Margot in his will, sonny. Rest of it
goes to his sister’s children in Sweden.--What’s this you were saying
about running out to Chicago?”
“I’d rather like to. Lacy Martin--remember him? I roomed with him
freshman year at college--Lacy lost his leg in France. He’s rather
blue. His mother wrote me that she’d like me to come out. I thought I
would.”