Her folks were circus people. I guess you couldn’t imagine how tough
the old style circus people were if you worked all night at it. This
Rand’s a nice fellow, is he?”
“Very pleasant. He rehearsed a lot of us in a show and we were all
rather rotten and he was very patient.--I do wish Gurdy had come
down!--We shan’t have four for bridge. Might have Olive’s maid play.
She’s dreadfully grand, you know? She’s the Presidentess of the Chelsea
Lady Helpers Association. Used to be in the scullery at Windsor and
Queen Alexandra spoke to her once. I’m rather afraid of her.”
“Is there any one you are afraid of, sister?”
She rose, the yellow and black gown moulding in, and gave her muffled,
slow chuckle, patting the step with a sole. “Don’t know. Gurdy, when
he’s grouchy. I must go dress.--Oh, I had whitewine cup made for
dinner. That’s what you like when it’s hot, isn’t it? Do put on a white
suit for dinner, dad. Makes your hair so red. God be with you till we
meet again.”
She wandered over the white and red tiles of the portico, leaving a
trail of damp, iridescent prints in the last glitter of the sun. She
hummed some air he did not know and this hung in his ear like the
pulse of a muted violin when she herself was gone. The man sat dreaming
until the night about him was dull blue and the wind died. He sat in
warm felicity, guarding the silent house until the rose spark of the
light across the bay began to turn and a silver, mighty star flared
high on the darker blue of heaven.
VIII
Cosmo Rand
On Saturday Gurdy brought down three young men who hadn’t met Margot.
He busily noted the chemistry of passion as two of his friends became
maniacal by Sunday morning. Against the worn composure of Lady Ilden,
the girl had the value of a gem on dim velvet. The third young man
wanted to talk Irish politics to the Englishwoman who evaded him and
retired to write a letter in her bedroom above the lawn.
She wrote to her husband at Malta: “I had always thought that Margot’s
success in London was due to her exotic quality. But she seems quite as
successful on her native heath. This leads me to the general platitude
that boys are the same the world over. I am a success here, too. Many
callers, mostly female, in huge motor cars. The American woman seems
to consider frocks a substitute for manners and conversation. Mark is
anxious that Margot should marry Gurdy Bernamer and Gurdy is plainly
willing. It would be suitable enough. The boy has smart friends and
will inherit £10,000 from old Mr. Carlson. Margot can float herself
in local society no doubt. She is now playing tennis with two young
brokers and a 22 year old journalist whose father owns half of some
State. I have mailed you a strange work, ‘Jurgen’ by some unheard of
person. Do not let any of the more moral midshipmen read it.” She
stopped, seeing Gurdy saunter across the lawn toward the beach and
pursued him to where he curled on the sand. “You frighten me,” she
said, taking her eyes from the scar that showed its upper reach above
his bathshirt, “you lie about two thirds naked in this sun and then
tell me it’s a cool day.--But I want to be documented in American
fiction. I’ve read five novels since Wednesday. It seems to be
established that all your millionaires are conscious villains and all
your poor are martyrs except a select group known as gangsters. That’s
thrilling when the reviewers so loudly insist that your authors flatter
the rich.”
“Some of them do,” Gurdy said, lifting his legs in the hot air.
In a bathsuit he lost his civilized seeming, was heroic, sprawled on
the sand. Olive told him: “You’re one of those victims of modernity,
old son. You belong to thirteen forty. Green tights and a dark tunic
trimmed with white fur. Legs are legs, aren’t they?”
“Heredity’s funny,” he said, “I look exactly like my father.”
“Margot’s Uncle Eddie? She talks of him a good deal and of your mother.
I was rather afraid her metropolitan airs and graces would shock your
people but she seems to have had a jolly time down there--New Jersey’s
down from here, isn’t it? She enjoyed herself.--Metropolitan airs and
graces!--That’s a quotation from something. Sounds like the _Manchester
Guardian_.--Should I like your people?”
“You might. Grandfather’s an atheist. Dad’s a good deal of a cynic.
They’re awfully nice small town people. My sisters all wish they were
movie stars and my kid brothers think that a fighting marine is the
greatest work of God.”
“And Margot says they all think you’re the last and best incarnation of
Siegfried. I should like to see them.”
Gurdy shuddered. Grandfather Walling and Mrs. Bernamer held Lady
Ilden responsible for the ruin of Margot as a relative. He imagined
her artifice and her ease faced by the horrified family--a group of
frightened colts stumbling off from a strange farmhand. He poured
sand over his arm and lied, “You’d scare them. Mark’s always talked
about you as though you were the Encyclopædia Brittanica on two legs.
You might be interested, though.--I say, Mark’s decided that he will
produce ‘Todgers Intrudes.’ Thinks he’ll have Cosmo Rand play the Earl.
Can Rand really act?”
“Oh,--well enough for that sort of tosh. He’s handsome and he has a
pleasant voice. But it’s rather silly of Mark to force such a poor play
on the public because Margot wants Ronny Dufford out of debt. But he’s
so intoxicated with Margot just now that he’d do murders for her. Why
didn’t he come down for the week-end?”
Gurdy got up and yawned, “Oh, his treasurer’s wife ran off with a
man last Wednesday--while he was down here. He’s trying to patch it
up.--You know, he isn’t at all cynical, Lady Ilden. He’s very easily
upset by things like that.”
“I suppose he likes his treasurer? Then why shouldn’t he be upset? The
treasurer can’t be enjoying the affair.--I wonder if you appreciate
Mark’s noble strain, Gurdy? I think I must send you a copy of the
letter he wrote me after he’d packed you off to school. I showed it
to my husband who has all the susceptibility of the Nelson monument
and he almost shed tears. It took something more than mere snobbery
or a desire for your future gratitude to make Mark send you away.
It horribly hurt him. If paternal affection’s a disease the man’s a
walking hospital!--There’s the luncheon bell.”
Gurdy ran into the water and furiously swam. Unless Lady Ilden was
making amiable phrases Margot had lied to her about the family at
Fayettesville. It was natural that she should tell Mark how she’d
enjoyed the farm. That was prudent kindness, no worse than his own
gratitudes when Mark gave him sapphire scarf-pins and fresh silver
cigarette cases that he didn’t need or want. But Margot shouldn’t
lie to Lady Ilden. Gurdy avoided the next week-end and went to
Fayettesville where his family worried because Mark was losing money
through the actors’ strike.
“And he’ll need all he can lay hands on with Margot to look after,”
said Mrs. Bernamer, rocking her weight in a chair on the veranda, “It
ain’t sensible for him to--to bow down and worship that child like he
does. Oh, she’s pretty enough!”
“Get out,” Bernamer commented, “He’d be foolish about her if she’d got
to wear spectacles and was bowlegged. Gimme a cigarette, Gurd. How
near’s the Walling finished?”
“Two thirds, Dad.--Grandfather, you’ll have to come up and sit in a box
the opening night.”
The beautiful old man blinked and drawled, “I wouldn’t go up to N’York
to see Daniel Bandmann play ‘Hamlet’--if he was alive. How’s old Mr.
Carlson get on?”
Gurdy often found the contrast between his grandfather and Carlson
diverting. The dying manager, a cynic, wanted Heaven in all the
decorations of the Apocalypse. The old peasant lazily insisted that
death would end him. He got some hidden pleasure from the thought of
utter passage. Gurdy found this content stupendous. The farmer had
never been two hundred miles from his dull acreage and yet was ready
to be done with his known universe while Carlson wanted eternity. He
cackled when the striking actors made peace and ordered wreaths sent to
the more stubborn managers. His bitter tongue rattled.
“Why don’t more writers write for the theatre, Gurdy? Ever been in
Billy Loeffler’s office? Five thousand bootlickers and hussies squatted
all over the place. I sent that fellow Moody that wrote the ‘Great
Divide’ to see Loeffler. Had to set in the office with a bunch of song
carpenters from tin pan alley and a couple of tarts while Loeffler was
prob’ly talkin’ to some old souse he’d knew in Salt Lake City. And then
Loeffler looks at the play and asks is there a soobrette part in it
for some tomtit his brother was keepin’! A writer’s got a thin skin,
ain’t he? Here Mark gets mad because this writer Mencken says managers
are a bunch of hogs. Well, ain’t they? Four or five ain’t. Sure,
they’re hogs. Human beings. Hogs. Same as the rest of mankind. Good
thing Christ died to save us.” He contemplated redemption through the
cigarette smoke. His Irish nurse crossed herself in a corner. Carlson
went on, “Say, that feller Russell Mark’s got drillin’ that English
comedy is all right. Was in to see me, yesterday. Good head. Knows his
job. Says this Rand pinhead is raisin’ Cain at rehearsals. Better drop
in there and see what goes on. Mark’s so busy with that Cuban play he
ain’t got time.”
Rehearsals of “Todgers Intrudes” went on at a small theatre below
Forty Second Street. Gurdy drifted into the warm place and watched the
director, Russell, working. On the bare stage five people progressed
from point to point of the tepid comedy. Russell, a stooped, bald man
of thirty-five, sat near the orchestra pit. Gurdy had watched the
rehearsal ten minutes before Russell spoke. “Don’t cross, there, Miss
Marryatt. Stand still.” Then, “still, please, Mr. Rand.” On the stage
Cosmo Rand gave the director a stare, shrugged and strolled toward
the cockney comedian, the intrusive Todgers of the plot. Russell said
nothing until a long speech finished, then, “You’re all rushing about
like cooties. Go back to Miss Marryatt’s entrance and take all your
lines just as you stand after she’s sat down. Dora isn’t pronounced
Durrer, Mr. Hughes.” Gurdy was thinking of the long patience needed in
this trade when Russell spoke sharply, “Mr. Rand, will you please stand
still!”
“My God,” said Rand, “must I keep telling you that I played this part
in--”
“Will you be so good as to stand still?”
Rand continued his lines. Gurdy walked down and slipped into a chair
beside the director, aware that the players stiffened as soon as they
saw Mark’s nephew. The handsome Miss Marryatt began to act. Cosmo Rand
sent out his speeches with a pleasant briskness. Russell murmured,
“Glad you happened in, Bernamer. This was getting beyond me. School
children,” and the act ended.
“Three o’clock, please,” said the director. The small company trickled
out of the theatre. Russell lit his pipe and stretched, grinning.
“Rand’s very capable and a nice fellow enough but he’s difficult. Fine
looking, isn’t he? Come to lunch with me.”
It was startling to be taken into an engineer’s club for the meal.
Russell explained, “I was an engineer. It’s not so different from
stage directing. You sometimes get very much the same material. I’ve
often wanted some dynamite or a pickax at rehearsals. Nice that you
floated in just now. I’ve a curiosity about this piece. Does Mr.
Walling see money in it? I don’t.”
“He thinks it may go,” said Gurdy.
“It won’t. It’s sewed up in a crape. If you had a young John Drew and a
couple of raving beauties playing it might run six weeks. And Dufford
hasn’t any standing among the cerebrals. We might try to brighten the
thing with some references to the Nourritures Terrestres or Freud. It’s
a moron. Prenatal influence. Mr. Walling tells me we’re to open in
Washington, too. My jinx! I went down there to offer up my life for the
country and got stuck in the Q.M.C. supervising crates of tomatoes. Did
you ever argue with a wholesale grocer about crates? It’s worse than
staging a revue.”
“That’s a dreadful thing to say!”
Russell broke a roll in his pointed fingers and shook his head. “No....
The revue’s a very high form of comedy when it’s handled right. It gets
clean away with common sense, for one thing. And it hasn’t a plot.
I hate plots unless they’re good plots. That’s why this miserable
‘Todgers’ thing affects me so badly. I hoped Mr. Walling would let me
help him with ‘Captain Salvador.’ But it’s his baby.”
“Is Rand giving you as much trouble as that every day?”
“Trouble? My dear man, you’ve never rehearsed a woman star who had
ideas about her art! Rand’s merely rather annoying, not troublesome.
He’s got no brains so his idea is to imitate the man who played the
part in London. And he’s never learned how to show all his looks,
either. But very few Americans know how.”
Gurdy liked the director and spent several afternoons at the
rehearsals. Cosmo Rand fretted him. The slight man was obdurate. He
raced about the stage until Russell checked him. His legs, sheathed
always in grey tweed, seemed fluid. The leading woman had an attack of
tonsilitis and halted proceedings. It was during this lapse that Gurdy
encountered Cosmo Rand in a hotel lounge and nodded. The actor stopped
him, deferentially, “I say, I’m afraid poor Russell’s sick to death of
me. I’m giving him a bit of trouble.” Gurdy found no answer. The actor
fooled with his grey hat, rubbed his vivid nails on a cuff, corrected
his moustache and said, “The fact is--I do most sincerely think that
Russell’s wrong to drop all the English stage directions. Couldn’t
you--suggest that Mr. Walling drop in to watch sometime when Miss
Marryatt’s better and we’re rehearsing again?”
His soft, round bronze eyes were anxious. He spoke timidly, the rosy
fingernails in a row on his lower lip. He was something frail and
graceful, a figure from a journal of fashions. Gurdy wondered whether
Cora Boyle ever assaulted her poor mate and smiled.
“Mr. Walling has a good deal of confidence in Russell’s judgment, Mr.
Rand. But I’ll speak to him if you like.”
“I’d be most awf’ly grateful if you would, Mr. Bernamer. The play’s
such a jolly thing and one would like to see it do well. Ronny
Dufford’s rather a dear friend and--so very broke, you know?”
The rosy, trim creature seemed truly worried. Meeting Russell at the
45th Street office the next day, Gurdy told him that Rand’s heart was
breaking. The director grimaced, patting his bald forehead.
“The little tyke’s worrying for fear he won’t get good notices. And if
this rubbish should fluke into a success he’ll be made into a star.
Have you ever observed the passion of the American public for second
rate acting? Especially if it happens to have a slight foreign accent?
Modjeska, Bandmann, Nazimova?--Well, Miss Marryatt’s all right again.
We’ll rehearse some more tomorrow. Come and look on.”
Mark had gone to Fayettesville for a few days. Gurdy attended the
morning rehearsal of “Todgers Intrudes.” Cosmo Rand trotted about the
stage determinedly and Russell turned on Gurdy with a groan of, “This
is beyond me. I’m getting ready to do murder. He’s throwing the whole
thing out of key. I shall have to get your uncle to squash him.”
“I’m beginning to see why Mr. Carlson loathes actors so,” Gurdy
whispered.
“Oh, Holy Moses,” the director mourned, “look at him!--Slower, please,
Mr. Rand!--It’ll be awkward if I get Mr. Walling to squash him,
Bernamer. You never can tell how these walking egoisms will break
out. He may run about town saying that Mr. Walling’s oppressing him
cruelly.--My God, he’ll be crawling up the scene in a minute!”
On the stage, Rand had excited himself to a circular movement about a
large divan in the centre. He had somehow the look of a single racer
coming home ahead of the other runners. The men and women standing
still suggested a sparse audience for this athletic feat. It was
ludicrous. Worse, Mark would never scold Cora Boyle’s husband. Gurdy
took a resolve. Margot had made Mark waste time with this silly play.
She had proposed Rand for the part. She should help. He hurried to the
station and reached the cottage in mid afternoon. A warm October wind
made the fir trees whistle. He found Margot in a silk sweater of dull
rose putting a tennis ball about the dry lawn. She smiled, tilting the
golfstick across a shoulder, and swayed her slim body back to look up
at Gurdy.
“Dad just telephoned from the farm, old son. Wanted to know if you were
here. It was something about ‘Captain Salvador’.”
“Oh, yes. I was hunting a tom tom for the Voodoo scene. He doesn’t like
the one they’re using. Doesn’t thud loudly enough.--Can I talk to you
about ‘Todgers Intrudes’ without having a fight?”
“Of course you can.”
“All right. It’s going very badly. Mr. Russell, the director, has a
free for all row with Mr. Rand every day. Rand acts like the last of a
ballet. He’s putting everything back. He’s out of the picture all the
time. Word of honour, Margot, the play hasn’t nine lives. It’s thin.
It’ll take a lot of work to make it go. Russell’s one of the best
directors going and he knows what he’s doing. Rand simply runs all over
the stage like that clown at the Hippodrome.”
“That’s rather the way it was played in London. Of course, that’s no
excuse. Have dad scold Rand.”
“Be pretty awkward for Mark--scolding Cora Boyle’s husband.”
Margot said, “What utter tosh!”
“No, it’s not. Mark’s old fashioned--sensitive about things like that.
And Rand might take it as spite. Cora Boyle’s back from California,
Russell tells me. She’s a fearful liar. If she hears that Mark jumped
on her husband she’ll tell all her friends that Mark’s simply a swine.
You don’t know how gossip travels and gets--distorted. Once last May
Mark said that he didn’t like a gown that some woman was wearing in
a play we’d been to the night before. He said that at lunch in the
Claridge. Next day the woman’s husband came into the office and wanted
to thrash Mark. By the time the story got to him it had swelled up like
a balloon. This fellow had got it that Mark said his wife looked like a
streetwalker and acted like one.--It’s all very awkward. Couldn’t you--”
“Oh, look here! Because I suggested Cossy Rand for the Earl I’m not
going to drynurse him!--I think you’re frightfully hypersensitive about
his being married to Cora Boyle. They’re hardly ever together. It’s
taking a theatrical menage as seriously as--”
“Oh, for heaven’s sake,” Gurdy broke in, watching the red streaks mount
her face, “I’m sorry! Let’s drop it. You know Rand. I thought you
might write him a line and tell him to calm down. That was all. Mark’s
working himself sick over ‘Captain Salvador’ and that’s an important
production. Every one’s interested in it. Some of the critics have
read it and think it’s the best American play in years. After all, you
got Mark into this ‘Todgers’ thing. He’s doing it to please you. He’ll
worry if he has to--”
Margot laughed, whipped the ball away neatly with one foot and tossed
her hair back. She said, “I’ll write Rand, of course. Of course I don’t
want ‘Todgers’ to get a black eye. I’ll send him a note and tell him to
carry on. Perhaps he’s rather opinionated. Where’s he stopping?”
“The Knickerbocker.”
She yawned, “I’ll write him, then. Staying for dinner?” She turned and
roamed off in her swaying fashion. Directly, a motor swung about the
house. One of the neighbours had come to take the girl driving. She
waved to Gurdy and disappeared. He resented the waving of the brown
hand. It was impossible not to resent her kind mentions of his mother
and sisters before Lady Ilden and Mark.
He resented, too, the airy changes from tart rage to suavity. Their
talks became a tedious, uncertain duet with one performer unwilling.
Gurdy strolled into the cottage and Olive Ilden looked up from a novel.
“What have you been quarrelling with Margot about?” she asked.
“Not quarrelling.”
“Nonsense. I could see you through the doors. You were quarrelling and
she began it. Tell me.”
She closed the book and regarded him, not smiling, from her wicker
chair. There was an odd alarm in her eyes under which hollows showed.
The negligent trail of her black gown was dusted with cigarette ash.
Gurdy stared, upset.
“We weren’t quarrelling. Cosmo Rand’s making an ass of himself at the
rehearsals. She rather planted him on Mark. Mark’s so sensitive about
Cora Boyle that Russell--the man who’s rehearsing ‘Todgers’--and I
don’t want to worry Mark with the mess. I wanted Margot to write Rand
a note and tell him to buck up. He’s holding the rehearsals back. Here
it’s almost the first of November. Mark’s got a theatre in Washington
for a couple of weeks from now and the play isn’t half ready.”
Olive tapped a cigarette holder on the walnut, Dutch table and looked
at the floor. Then she raised her eyes and smiled, spoke without
artifice.
“I shan’t let her write to Rand, Gurdy. She’s too much interested in
him. I don’t like it. She cabled him to come over here as soon as she’d
bullied Mark into buying the rights to ‘Todgers Intrudes.’ The little
idiot thinks him a great actor. I’m sure I don’t know why. I don’t at
all like this. I only found it out yesterday. Mark wouldn’t like it.
The man’s married and if he happens to tell people Margot sent for
him--I quite understand theatrical gossip, Gurdy. Mark’s a great person
and it would make quite a story. And of course there are rats who don’t
like Mark.”
“How did you find this out, Lady--”
“In the silliest way. I was talking about Ronny Dufford and Margot
began to argue that this wretched play is really good. She rather lost
her temper. She told me you’d tried to persuade Mark not to produce
the thing to spite her. I--” Olive laughed unhappily, “I hadn’t the
faintest idea that you’d quarrelled. You’re rather too cool, old man.
I’ve been teasing you all this time fancying that you were wildly in
love with the child and it seems that you’re at odds.--Oh, It’s all
utter nonsense, of course! But I don’t like it. It’s a pose. She rather
prides herself on being unconventional. And the silliest part of it is
that she feels she’s done Mark a favour.”
“She’s probably cost him about fifteen thousand dollars,” said Gurdy.
This was antique, this tale of a handsome, dapper actor and a girl gone
moonstruck over his pink face. Gurdy grunted, “We can’t tell Mark this.
He’d be upset. It’s idiotic.”
Olive laughed, “Oh, you mustn’t get excited over it, Gurdy. The play
will fail and she’ll drop Rand. It’s a gesture, you see? The clever
girl doing the unconventional thing.” She became comfortable, then
artificial. “You mustn’t take Margot at her own valuation, dear. She’s
the moment--the melodramatic moment. What’s that American slang? She’s
no--no ball of fire! She admires people easily and drops them easily.
She’s eighteen. She was quite lost in adoration of the Countess of
Flint two years ago and then the poor woman did something the child
didn’t like--wore the wrong frock, probably--and that was all over.
The poor lady died in Colorado yesterday.--That means consumption,
doesn’t it? I read the notice to Margot at breakfast and she said,
‘Really.’ Rand flattered her about her acting, I fancy, and she thinks
he’s remarkable in return for the compliment. Every normal female
gets mushy--I’m quite Americanized--over an actor at eighteen. When
I was eighteen I wrote a five act tragedy and sent it to--Merciful
Heaven--I’ve forgotten who he was! Beerbohm Tree, probably. But I
must congratulate you on your attitude. You had a frightful row at
Fayettesville. She said, herself, that she was to blame. She hurt you.
And you’ve not shown it in the least.”
“It didn’t amount to much.--But, Mark wouldn’t like this business. And
of course some people don’t like him. They’d be ready to talk if they
thought she was flirting with--”
“But she isn’t! If she was I’d drag her off to Japan with me. She’s
hardly spoken to the man except at those rehearsals last winter. It’ll
die a swift death when the play fails, old man. We’ve no use for
failures at eighteen.”