ONE THING AND ANOTHER
Seldom have we longed for anything so much as for the pen of a Fielding
or a Thackeray to come to our aid at the present moment and, by means of
just such a delightful detached essay as occurs from time to time in
"Tom Jones" or "The Virginians," impart a feeling of the intermission
that at this point appears in our story. There is nothing like a
digression on human frailty or the condition of footmen in the reign of
King George the Second to lift the mind of a reader off any particular
moment of a story and, by throwing a few useful hints into the
discourse, prepare him ever so gently to be set down at last at the
exact point where he is to take it up again. That is making an art of
skipping, indeed. We admire it intensely, but realize how impossible it
is in this case. Not only is such a thing frankly outside our power, but
the prejudice of the times is set against it, so our only course is to
confess our weakness and plod along as best we may.
Why on earth every human being who ever knew him should not have known
of his engagement as soon as it occurred--or long before, for that
matter--Harry could never discover. That they did not, in most cases,
was due partly to reasons which could have been best explained by James
and partly to the fact that the person who is most careless of
concealment in such matters is very often the one who is least
suspected. And then so many men had been after Madge! So that when the
great news burst upon the world at the dinner that Mrs. Gilson could not
decently be prevented from giving, the surprise, in the words of
ninety-nine per cent. of their well-meaning friends, was as great as the
pleasure.
That occurred about a week after James' sudden departure from Bar
Harbor, a phenomenon amply accounted for by business. Trouble in the
Balkans--there always was trouble in the Balkans--had resulted, it
appeared, in Orders; and Orders demanded James' presence at his post.
This from Beatrice, with impregnable casualness. Beatrice was really
rather magnificent, these days. When she received her invitation to Mrs.
Gilson's dinner she vowed that nothing should take her there, but the
next moment she knew she would go; that nothing should keep her from
going. Obviously the first guiding principle of destiny-fighting was to
go on exactly as if nothing had happened.
About a week after the dinner Harry received a note from his brother in
New York saying that he was engaged to Beatrice; that the wedding was to
take place in London in October and that he hoped Harry would go over
with him and act as his best man. "I refrained from mentioning it
before," added James, "because I did not want to take the wind out of
your sails. We are also enabled by waiting to reap the benefit of your
experience; I refer to the Gilsons. We are taking no risks; it will
appear in the papers on Wednesday the sixteenth, with Beatrice in Bar
Harbor and me in New York. Beatrice sails the following Saturday."
That was all very well, if a little hard. James and Beatrice were both
undemonstrative, businesslike souls; the arrangement was quite
characteristic.
Beatrice in due time sailed for home, and James followed her some three
weeks afterward. Harry went with him, returning immediately after the
wedding by the fastest ship he could get; he was out of the country just
eighteen days, all told. The voyage over was an uneventful one; the ship
was nearly empty and Harry worked hard at his new play. He had rather
looked forward to enjoying this last week of unmarried companionship
with his brother, but somehow they did not seem to have more than usual
to say to each other when they were together. Rather less, in fact.
"You're looking low, seems to me," said Harry after they had paced the
wet deck in silence for nearly half of a certain evening.
"I've been rather low, lately."
"What--too much work?"
"Oh, I don't know. It's nothing."
"Not seasick, are you?"
"I hope not." Both gave a slight snort expressive of amusement. This was
occasioned by the fact that Aunt Cecilia had offered James the use of
her yacht--or rather the largest and most sumptuous of her yachts--for
his wedding trip, and he and Beatrice were going to cruise for two
months in the Mediterranean. As for the time--well, he was simply taking
it, defying McClellan's to fire him if they dared.
"It's funny, isn't it, our getting engaged at the same time," Harry went
on after a moment. It was the first reference he had made to the
coincidence.
"Oh, yes," said James, "it's one of the funniest things I can remember."
"And the funniest part of it is that neither of us seems to have
suspected about the other. At least I didn't."
"Oh, neither did I; not a thing."
"And practically nobody else did either, apparently."
"No. It might have been just the other way round, for all anybody
knew--you and Beatrice, and Madge and me."
Harry could not but take away from that conversation and from the whole
voyage a vague feeling of disappointment. Since he heard of James'
engagement he had entertained an elusive conviction that love coming
into their lives at so nearly the same time should somehow make a
difference for the better between them. When he tried to put this idea
into words, however, he found his mind mechanically running to such
phrases as "deeper sympathy" and "fuller understanding," all of which he
dismissed as sentimental cant. It was easy to reassure himself on all
grounds of reason and commonsense; James and he were in no need of
fuller understandings. And yet, especially after the above conversation,
he could not but be struck by a certain inapproachability in his
brother which for some reason he could not construe as natural
undemonstrativeness.
The wedding took place in an atmosphere of unconstrained formality.
Harry was not able to get a boat until two days after it, and he could
not resist the temptation of writing Madge all about it that very night,
though he knew the letter could hardly reach her before he did:--
"It was quite a small wedding, chiefly because, as far as I can make
out, there are only some thirty-odd dukes in the kingdom. It occurred at
the odd hour of 2:30, but that didn't seem to prevent any one from
enjoying the food, and more especially the drink, that was handed
around afterward at Lady Archie's. Lord Moville, Beatrice's uncle, was
there and seemed greatly taken with James. After he had got outside
about a quart of champagne he amused himself by feeling James' biceps
and thumping him on the chest and saying that with a fortnight's
training he'd back him for anything he wanted against the Somerset
Cockerel, or some one of the sort, most of which left James rather cold,
though he bore it smiling. His youngest daughter (Lord M.'s), a child of
about eighteen, apparently the only living person who has any control
over him, was quite frank about it. 'Fido's drunk again,' she announced
pleasantly to all who might hear. 'Oh, so's Ned,' said Jane Twombly,
Beatrice's sister; 'there's no use trying to help it at weddings, I
find!' Just then Lady Archie came running up in despair. 'Oh, Sibyl,'
she said, 'do try to do something with your father. He's been
threatening to take off his coat because he says the room's too hot, and
now he wants old Lady Mulford to kiss him!' And off darts Sibyl into the
dining-room where her father and Ned Twombly stand arm in arm waving
glasses of champagne and shouting 'John Peel' at the top of their lungs.
'Fido!' she shouted, running straight up to him, 'put down that glass
directly and come home! Instantly! Do you hear? You're disgracing us!
The next time I take you out to a wedding you'll know it!' 'Oh, Sib,'
pleaded the noble Marquis, 'don't be too hard on us! Only drinkin'
bride's health--must drink bride's health--not good manners not to. Sib
shall drink with us; here's a glass, Sib--for his view, view HALLO!
would awaken the dead--' 'Fido, do you know what you're doing? You're
ruining your season's hunting! Gout-stool and Seidlitz powders all the
winter for you, if you don't go easy!' But still Fido refused to obey
till at last the dauntless child went up and whispered something in his
ear, after which he calmed down and presently followed her out of the
house, gently as a lamb. 'She threatened to tell her mother about the
woman in Wimbledon,' explained Jane to me. 'Of course every one knows
all there is to know about her, including Aunt Susan, but he hasn't
found that out yet, and it gives Sib rather a strangle-hold on him. Good
idea, isn't it? Marjorie--Ned's sister, you know--has promised to work
the same trick for me with Ned, when the time comes.' I hope I am not
more straight-laced than my neighbors, but do you know, the whole
atmosphere struck me as just a teeny-weeny bit decadent...."
After he reached home Harry saw that it would be quite useless, what
with Madge and other diverting influences, to try to finish his play in
New Haven, so he repaired to the solitudes of the Berkshires for the
remainder of the autumn. He occupied two rooms in an almost empty inn in
Stockbridge, working and living for two months on a strict regime. It
was his habit to work from nine till half-past one. He spent most of the
afternoon in exercise and the evening in more writing; not the calm,
well-balanced writing of the morning, but in feverish and untrammeled
scribbling. Each morning he had to write over all that he had done the
night before, but he found it well worth while, discovering that reason
and inspiration kept separate office hours.
Meanwhile Madge, though freed from the trammels of Miss Snellgrove, was
very busy at home with her trousseau and other matters. She was
supremely happy these days; happy even in Harry's absence, because she
could feel that he was doing better work than he could with her near,
and that provided just the element of self-sacrifice that every
woman--every woman that is worth anything--yearns to infuse into her
love. She had ample opportunity of trying her hand at writing love
letters, but, to tell the truth, she was never very good at it. Neither
was Harry, for that matter; possibly because he was now putting every
ounce of creative power in him into something the result of which
justified the effort much better.... But suppose we allow some of the
letters to speak for themselves.
Dear Inamorato: (wrote Madge one day in November) "I'm not at
all sure that that word exists; it looks so odd in the
masculine and just shows how the male sex more or less spoils
everything it touches. However! I've been hemming towels all
day and am ready to drop, but after I finish with them there
will be only the pillow cases to attend to before I am done. By
the bye, what do you suppose arrived to-day? _Four_ (heavily
underscored) most _exquisite_ (same business) linen sheets,
beautifully hemstitched and marked and from who ("Good
Heavens, and the woman taught school!" exclaimed Harry) do you
think? Miss Snellgrove! Wasn't it sweet of her? That makes ten
in all. Everybody has been lovely and we shall do very well for
linen, but clothes are much more difficult. In them, you see, I
have to please not only myself but Mama and Aunt Tizzy as well.
I went shopping with both of them yesterday, and they were
possessed to make me order an evening gown of black satin with
yellow trimmings which was something like a gown Aunt Tizzy had
fascinated people in during the early eighties. It wasn't such
a bad idea, but unfortunately it would have made me resemble a
rather undersized wasp. We compromised at last on a blue silk
that's going to have a Watteau pleat and will fall in nice
little straight folds and make me look about seven feet high.
Aunt Tizzy is too perfectly dear and keeps telling me not to
scrimp, but her idea of not scrimping is to spend simply
_millions_ and always go ahead and get the very best in the
_extravagantest_ way, and my conscience rebels. I hope to pick
up some things at the January sales in New York; if you are
there seeing about your play at that time we can be together,
can't we? I still have to get a suit and an afternoon gown and
various other things the nature of which I do not care to
specify!
I run over and look in on Aunt Selina every time I get a
chance. She is _so_ dear and uncomplaining about being left
alone and keeps saying that having me in the house will be as
good as having Beatrice, which is absurd, though sweet.
Heavens, how I tremble when I think of trying to fill her
shoes!
I must stop now, dearest, so good-night. Ever your own,
MADGE.
O O O O O O
Those O's stand for osculations. Do you know how hard it is to
kiss in a small space? Like tying a bow-knot with too short a
piece of ribbon."
For Heaven's sake, my good woman (wrote Harry in reply),
don't write me another letter like that! How do you think I
feel when, fairly thirsting for fire and inspiration and that
sort of thing, I tear open an envelope from you and find it
contains an unusually chatty Woman's Column? How do you
suppose poor old D. Alghieri would have written his Paradiso if
Beatrice had held forth on the subject of linen sheets, and do
you or do you not suppose it would have improved Petrarch's
sonnets if Laura had treated him to a disquisition on the ins
and outs of the prices of evening gowns?
Remember your responsibility! If you continue to deny me
inspiration my play will fail and you will live in disgrace and
misery in the basement of a Harlem tenement in an eternal smell
of cabbages and a well-justified fear of cockroaches, with one
cracked looking-glass to see your face in and dinner served up
in a pudding basin!
The c. of my b. (that was his somewhat flippant abbreviation
of child of my brain) "is coming along well enough,
considering. The woman is shaping quite well. What was the name
you suggested for her the last time I saw you? If it was
Hermione, I'm afraid it won't do, because every one in the
theater, from Bachmann down to the call-boy, will call it
Hermy-one, and I shall have to correct them all, which will be
a bad start. I call her Mamie for the present, because I know I
can't keep it. What would be the worst possible name, do you
think? Hannah? Florrie? Mae? Keren-happuch and Glwadwys also
have their points.
Please forgive me for being (a) short-tempered; (b) tedious. I
was going to tear up what I have written, only I decided it
would not be quite fair, as you have a right to know just how
dreadful I can be, in case you want to change your mind about
February.--What a discreetly euphemistic phrase!--It has grown
fearfully cold here, and we had the first skating of the winter
to-day. I got hold of some skates and went out and, fired by
the example of two or three people here who skate rather well,
I swore I would do a 3-turn or die in the attempt. The latter
alternative occurred. I am writing this on the mantelpiece.
Farewell. Write early and write often, and write Altman
catalogues if you must, but not if you are interested in the
uplift of drahmah. Give my best to Grandmama, and consider
yourself embraced.
IO EL REY.
Madge's reply to this missive was telegraphic in form and brief in
substance. It read simply "Sorry. Laura." "I would have signed it
Beatrice," she explained in her next letter, "only I was afraid you
might think it was from your sister-in-law Beatrice, and there's nothing
for _her_ to be sorry about."
Another letter of Harry's, written a few weeks later, shows him in a
different mood:
Querida de mis ojos--You don't know Spanish but you ought to
gather what that means without great effort--I have weighty
news for you. I dashed down to New York on the spur of the
moment day before yesterday and showed the first draught of my
completed MS to Leo. My dear, he said IT WOULD DO! You don't
know what that means, of course; no one could. You all think I
have simply to write and say 'Here, play this,' and it is
played. You know nothing of how it hurts to put ideas on paper,
nothing of the dead weight of responsibility, the loneliness,
the self-distrust, the hate of one's own work that the creative
brain has to struggle against. Consequently, my dearest, you
will just have to take it on trust from me that an interview
such as I had yesterday with Bachmann is nothing less than a
rebirth. He even advised me not to try to change or improve it
much, saying that what changes were needed could best be put in
at rehearsals, and I think he's dead right. So I shall do no
more than put the third act in shape before I hand the thing
over to him and dash home for the holidays. Atmosphere of Yule
logs, holly berry and mistletoe!
I really am absurdly happy. You see, it isn't merely success,
or a premonition of success (for the first night is still to
come); it's in a way a justification of my whole life. If this
thing is as good as I think it is, it will amount to a sort of
written permit from headquarters to love you, to go on thinking
as I do think about certain things and to regard myself--well,
it's hard to put into words, but as a dynamic force, rather
than as a lucky fool that stumbled across one rather good
thing. Not that I shouldn't do all three anyway, to be
sure!--And every kind friend will say he knew I would 'make
good'; that there never was any doubt my 'coming into my own,'
and all the rest. Oh, Lord, if people only knew! But thank
Heaven they don't!
I am becoming obscure and rhapsodic. I seem to 'see' things
to-night, like Tilburina in the play. I see strange and
distorted conceptions of myself, for one thing; endless and
bewildering publicity. Oh, what a comfort it is to think that
no matter what I may be to other people, to you I shall always
be simply the same stupid, bungling, untidy
HARRY!
I love you with an intensity that beggars the power of human
expression.
I did a bracket this afternoon.
Madge never received a letter from him that pleased her more. She was
fully alive to its chaotic immaturity, and she smiled at the way he
unconsciously appeared to shove his love for her into second place. But
there was that about it that convinced her of his greatness as nothing
had yet done. It seemed to her that when he spoke of the loneliness of
genius and in his prophetic touch at the end about the different ways in
which people would regard him he spoke with the true voice of a seer. It
all made her feel very humble and solemn. To think that Harry, her
Harry, that tall thin thing with the pink cheeks and dark brown hair and
the restless black eyes, should be one of the great men of his day,
perhaps one of the great ones of all time! Keats--Harry was already
older than Keats when he died, but she thought he had much the same
temperament; Congreve--she knew how he loved Congreve; Marlowe--she had
often compared his golden idealism to that of Marlowe; Shakespeare...?
No, no--of course not! She knew perfectly well he was no Shakespeare....
Still, why not, in time?... And anyway, Marlowe, Congreve,
Keats--Wimbourne!
So she dreamed on, till the future, which hitherto she had seen as
merely smiling toward her, seemed to rise and with solemn face beckon
her to a new height, a place hard to reach and difficult to hold, but
one whose very base seemed more exalted than anything she had yet
known....
Now Madge was, on the whole, a very fairly modern type of young woman.
Her outlook on the world was based on Darwin, and she held firmly to
such eugenic principles as seemed to flow directly from the doctrine of
evolution. She had long since declared war to the death on disease,
filth and vice, to which she added a lesser foe generally known as
"suppression of facts," and she had done a certain amount of real work
in helping those less fortunate than herself to the acquisition of
health, cleanliness, virtue and "knowledge." She thought that women
would get the vote some day, though they weren't ready for it yet, and
hadn't joined the Antis because there was no use in being a drag on the
wheels of progress, even if you didn't feel like helping. She believed
in the "social regeneration" of woman. It was quite clear to her that in
the early years of the twentieth century women were beginning--and only
just beginning--to take their place beside men in the active work of
saving the race; "why, you had only to look at Jane Addams and Florence
Nightingale to see--" et cetera.
And yet, and yet....
It was at least as fine a thing to become Mrs. Harold Wimbourne and
devote a lifetime to ministering to one of the great creative geniuses
of the time as to be a heavy gun on her own account, was what she meant,
of course. But that wasn't quite enough. Suppose, for the sake of
argument, that Harry were not one of the great creative geniuses of the
age; suppose there were no question of Congreve, Keats, Wimbourne and so
forth; suppose being his wife meant being plain Mrs. Harold Wimbourne
and nothing more--what then?
"Well, I suppose I'd still rather be plain Mrs. H. W., if you will have
it!" she retorted petulantly to her relentless self. But she soon became
glad she had brought herself to the point of admitting it, for, the
issue definitely settled, her mind became unaccountably peaceful....
* * * * *
New Year's was scarcely over when rehearsals began, and Harry was in for
another period of lounging in shrouded orchestra chairs and watching
other people air their ideas, or lack of ideas, on the child of his
brain. His lounging was now, however, quite freely punctuated by
interruptions and not infrequently by scramblings over the footlights to
illustrate a fine point. This rather bored the actors; Harry had become
almost uncomfortably acute in matter of stage technique. But they had to
admit that his suggestions were never foolish or unnecessary.
In due time came the first night. It is no part of our purpose to
describe "Pastures New" or its success in this place. If--which is
improbable--you have to refresh your mind on it, you have only to ask
one of your journalistic friends--don't pretend that you haven't at
least one friend on a newspaper--to show you the files of his sheet.
There you will see it all, in what scholars call primary sources:--"New
Yorkers Roar With Delight at Feminist Satire," and all the rest of it,
like as not on the front page. Harry hated its being called a satire;
that was such a cheap and easy way of getting out of it. For when all
was over, when people had cried with laughing at its whimsical humor,
poked each other with delight at its satirical touches--oh yes, there
were plenty of them--quoted its really brilliant dialogue, sat
enthralled by its swift and compelling action--for Harry had made good
his promise that this play should have "punch"--when they had done all
these things to their heart's content, still not a person saw the play
who did not come away from it more fully convinced than ever he had been
of--well, of what you had only to look at Jane Addams and Florence
Nightingale to see. For there were really great moments in the play;
moments when no one even thought of laughing, though one was almost
always made to laugh the moment after. That was Harry's way, that was
his power, to "hit 'em hard and then make 'em laugh just as they begin
to feel smarty in the eyes," as Burchard the stage manager not unaptly
put it.
"Pastures New" ran for six months in New York alone, and no one laughed
harder or less rancorously at it than the "feminists" themselves--or all
of them that were worth anything.
Of course both Harry and Madge were tired to death by the time the
wedding became imminent, and the final preparations were made in what
might be called broad impressionistic strokes.
Madge had at first intended to have a small informal reception in her
own house, but Aunt Tizzy had been so disappointed that she had at last
consented to let it be at her aunt's and attain the dimensions of a
perfect tomasha--the phrase is her own--if it wanted to. Why not? Aunt
Tizzy's house could hold it.
"Besides, my dear," argued Harry, "it's only once in a lifetime, after
all. If you marry again as a widow you'll only have a silly little
wedding, without a veil and no bridesmaids, and if we're divorced you
won't have any wedding at all, worth mentioning. Much better do it up
brown when you have the chance."
"What about music?" asked Harry as the two stood in final consultation
with the organist on the night of the rehearsal. "I've always wondered
why people had such perfectly rotten music at weddings, but I begin to
see now. Still, if we _could_ have something other than Lohengrin and
Mendelssohn I think I could face marriage with a little better heart.
What about it, dear?"
Madge groaned. "Oh, anything! The Star-Spangled Banner, if you want!"
"I think I can arrange it," said the organist smiling, and he played the
march from "Tannhaeuser" and the march from "Athalie," which he always
played when people asked for something unusual, and the effect was
considered very pleasing and original. Altogether it was the prettiest
wedding any one had seen in years, according to the testimony of those
who attended the reception--which did become a perfect tomasha. But as
tomasha-goers are notoriously biased their testimony probably wasn't
legal and no respectable judge would have accepted it as evidence. The
only legal thing about the whole affair was the ceremony, which was
fully as much so as if it had been before a magistrate, which Madge
swore it should be if she ever had to go through it again and regretted
bitterly it hadn't been this time.... Well, perhaps, when she looked
about her and saw how unaffectedly happy her mother and Aunt Tizzy and
the bridesmaids and all the other good people were, she didn't regret it
quite so much.
"Though it is rather absurd, getting married to please other people,
isn't it?" she remarked as they drove off at last, leaving the
tomasha-goers to carouse as long as Aunt Tizzy could make them.
"I think I'd do almost anything to please Aunt Tizzy," said Harry. "Now
that it's all over, that is. Get married again, even.... After all," he
added suddenly, shamelessly going back on all his professions of the
last few days; "after all, you know, it _was_ rather a good wedding!"
Which shows that he was just as biased as any one, at bottom!