THE PLAY.
I dreaded the embarrassment of meeting the Senator again; and it was
with a sense of nervousness that I looked from my office window, the
next morning, to see him getting out of his buggy. He came briskly up
the stairs, spoke heartily to someone whom he met on the landing, halted
at my open door, and, hat in hand, made me a sweeping bow.
"Ha, early to work is the thing," he said, stepping into the room and
glancing about. "More pictures of famous players, I see. Well, we'll
have them strutting about our stage the first thing they know. How do
you feel?" he asked, drawing up a chair and sitting down.
"First rate--too well, I might say. This air makes me content to sit and
dream."
"Good; it is better to find contentment even in a dream than to snap our
nerves in two with chasing what we might regard substantial happiness.
Why, confound it all, Belford, there is no such thing as substantial
happiness. Anything substantial is too material, too gross; and
happiness is a certain spiritual condition of the mind. Therefore, I
say, let the old South dream if she feels like it. There used to be an
old fellow that lived about here--Mose Parish. Well, the time came for
Mose to die; but he wasn't scared, not a bit of it. A preacher came to
talk to him, and old Mose listened for a while, and then he said: 'Oh,
no, I never did much of anything--never built a steamboat nor a house,
but I've had a good deal of fun, and I hold that when a man is having
fun he can't have it all alone; he's helping some other fellow.'"
We talked about hundreds of things, and touched occasionally upon our
business venture, but nothing led to a subject which I felt, and which
he seemed to feel, was too delicate to be mentioned. He gossiped of
young Elkin's affection for Miss Rodney; he said that Elkin's love put
him in mind of an ass with gilded ears. He spoke of the coming election
and the surety with which he and Tom Estell would win; but when he took
his leave he did not invite me to call at the house. I met him day after
day, in the office, in the street, in the rotunda of the hotel; and he
always greeted me with a warm and earnest cordiality, but at parting he
would say, "I'll see you again soon;" and never that I should come to
see him.
I walked a great deal, musing over my play, and more than once in
rebellion my feet wandered from their usual path to tread the sacred and
forbidden ground that lay in the neighborhood of the Senator's home.
Near the close of day, I sometimes saw him sitting on the portico, with
his chair tipped back, his feet against a classic pillar, smoking his
pipe--a vandalic American indulging a national posture to the shame of
a Grecian memory. Once I saw his daughter standing near him, where the
fading sunlight fell, gazing afar off, shading her eyes with her hand.
And she might have seen me had I not bent behind a bush; had I been less
a thief.
One hot afternoon the Senator came into the office, fanning himself with
his hat.
"No dreaming now, Belford," said he. "It's too hot even to doze. What's
all that you've got spread out there?"
"Our play," I answered.
"Oh, yes. And, by George, there seems to be enough of it. Let me hear a
chapter or two. Isn't in chapters, though, is it? Fire away and let me
hear what it sounds like. You look like a commissioner of deeds, with
all this stuff scattered about you. But go ahead."
"I'd rather wait, Senator, until it's completed. In fact, I'd rather
you'd wait and see it played," I replied, remembering what he had said
about elevating the stage and fearing that he might object to some of
my characters.
"All right. But just now you said _our_ play. What do you mean by that?"
"I mean that a half interest belongs to you."
"Why, Lord bless you, my boy, I don't want to rob you."
"And I don't intend that you shall rob yourself. You have given me the
opportunity to do the work, you have--"
"Hold on, Belford. We are partners in this house. You are doing your
share. Why, Sir, haven't you secured the Lamptons to play here a whole
week during our county fair? And doesn't that newspaper notice they sent
along say that they are the finest representation of dramatic talent now
on the road? Haven't you signed a contract with Sanderson Hicks to give
us the Lady of Lyons? And I want to tell you that a man who saw such
opportunities and seized them by the forelock is doing his duty all
right. Oh, it's no laughing matter, Sir."
"That's all very well, Senator, but you are to own half the play. I want
you to look after the business end of it."
"All right, Sir; all right. Yes, it would be better to have some man
take hold of that part of it--some man, you understand, who isn't afraid
to insist upon his rights. And Belford," he added, putting his hand on
my shoulder, "if I hadn't insisted on mine, they would have trampled me
under foot long ago. Yes, Sir (stepping back and shaking his hat), long
ago. Have you decided as to who shall have it?"
"Well, it's easy enough for me to decide. But the decision of the other
party might not be so easy to get."
"Oh, there won't be any trouble about that. No, Sir; that is, if they
want to put on a good play. We have something here, Sir (slapping his
hand upon the manuscript), that ought to stir the dramatic world from
center to circumference. Oh, you may smile, but it will, for I want to
tell you that I have never been associated with a failure. And there's
a good deal in that; as sure as you live there is. Luck begets luck, and
failure suckles a failure. Yes, Sir. Have you made any overtures?"
"Not exactly. I wrote to Copeland Maffet and sent him a scenario--"
"A what?"
"An outline of the piece. And he writes that he will be in Memphis on
the 17th of next month, and that he would like to hear the play."
"Of course he would. We knew that all the time. We'll hop on a boat and
go up there. Good man, is he?"
"One of the best; he doesn't do things by halves."
"All right, Sir, he's our man, that is, if he's willing to pay for a
good thing. Well, I believe I'll go on out home. It's cooler there. By
the way, come out with me. There's no one on the place except Sister
Patsey, and I'm lonesome. Come on, we'll ride out."
I was afraid to look at him; I was afraid to hesitate, to frame an
excuse, and without saying a word I went down stairs with him and got
into the buggy.
He did not drive directly to his home; he halted at several places--in
front of a lawyer's office, a butcher's shop, to ask advice concerning
his political contest, a shrewd way to flatter and stimulate a lax
supporter. We drove to a wagonmaker's shop, off in the edge of the town,
and when the workman had been fed with big words, we set out at a brisk
trot, with a gang of boys behind us, shouting in a cloud of dust. Ahead
I could see nothing but the sun-dazzled roadway, sloping down into the
open country, but we turned a corner thick with cherry trees and the
Senator's house leaped into view.
It seemed a long time since I had heard the click of the gate-latch;
since I had stood upon the stone steps to breathe the cool, sweet air of
the hall.
"I think the library is about the coolest place in the house," said the
Senator. "Step in, and I'll see if I can find some fans. There are some
on the table. Take that big palm leaf. Pardon me if I unbutton my
collar. I'm as hot as a dog in August with a tin pan tied to his tail.
But you appear to be cool enough."
"I didn't expect to hear you Southerners complain of the heat. I thought
you could stand it."
"We do stand it, but we complain. I doubt whether an Anglo-Saxon can
ever learn to like real hot weather. Oh, we prate about the sunny South
and we like sunshine, but, by George, Sir, we hug the shade. Have you
got a pretty good plot for your play?"
"Yes, I think so."
"We must have a good plot, you know; we must have everything turn out
all right. Any fighting in it?"
"Well, there are several spirited scenes."
"That's good. But it strikes me that there ought to be some sort of a
fight. One fellow ought to call another fellow a liar, or something of
the sort. It would be a good thing for a fellow to snatch out his
pistol and have it grabbed and turned against him, don't you see? That
sort of a thing always catches the people."
"But you advocated the elevation of the stage, don't you remember?"
He got out of his chair, and walked up and down the room, with his
collar unbuttoned, his broad, black cravat hanging loose.
"That's the point, Belford; that's the very point. To elevate the stage
is to make it natural. Why, last season an actor ruined a play for this
town by drawing a pistol with his left hand."
"But that was not so very unnatural," I replied. "He might have been
left-handed. Many a left-handed man has had a fight."
He paused in his walk, to stand before me, and thoughtfully to balance
himself alternately upon his heels and toes.
"But, Belford, that's not the point. Of course there may be a
left-handed man in a fight, but nine chances to one a man is
right-handed, and the stage must take the course that is the most
probable. No, Sir, you don't want to shock a critical sense of fitness
by having a man pull a pistol with his left hand. Such breaks always
tend to wound a sensitive nature. Any man in your drama pull a pistol
that way, Belford?"
"No, if a pistol is drawn at all it shall be in the accepted form."
"All right," he said, resuming his walk. "Any ragged girl talk like a
clodhopper until she is insulted and then talk like a princess? Anybody
say 'stronger?' No human being except a fool on the stage ever said
'stronger' for stranger. Any fat woman in short skirts trying to be a
girl? Any tramp with more ability than an ancient philosopher? Any
female detective that doesn't know she loves a suspected thief until she
has had him put in jail? Got any of those things?"
"I'll take an oath that I have none of those tantalizing features,
Senator."
"Then, Sir, it will be a go. Yes, Sir, the world can't stop it. Why,
come in, Patsey. Remember Mr. Belford, don't you?"
I shook hands with the old lady, placed a chair for her and gave her my
fan, and she rewarded me with an old-time courtesy.
"Gracious me," she said, "it's so hot down here that I wonder everybody
doesn't take to the hills. I wouldn't live in this flat country."
"Why, Sister Patsey," the Senator spoke up, "Bolanyo is on a hill."
"A hill? Giles, you don't know what a real hill looks like, it's been so
long since you saw one. Why, where I live you can sometimes look down on
a cloud."
"Yes, and it's a good deal better to live above a cloud than to be under
one, Sister Patsey."
"Now, what does he mean? One of his sly tricks, I'll be bound. I never
come down here that everybody ain't up to tricks or running for office,
but I do reckon they are one and the same thing. Sakes alive, and the
laziest folks that ever moped on the face of the earth. And that
good-for-nothing wretch that calls himself the Notorious Bugg,
a-talking about his sons-in-law a-shaking all the time. He came here
yesterday and wanted meat, the lazy whelp. Well, I would have given him
scalding water, and a heap of it."
"But you didn't, Sister Patsey," the Senator spoke up. "You called him
back and gave him a bag of sweet cakes."
"I did, eh? I sent them to the poor little children, and if he takes a
bite of one of them cakes I hope it will choke him to death. He says he
doesn't want to go to the hills and catch a new-fangled disease. Why,
plague take his picture, I've lived in the hills all my life. If he
comes again while I'm on the place I'll scald him. I'll do it, Giles, as
sure as he comes, and you'd better tell him to stay away."
"If he comes again, Sister Patsey, you'll give him hot cakes instead of
hot water."
"Did you hear that, Mr. Belford? _Did_ you hear that?" the old lady
snapped. "Ah, ah, I do think, Giles, you are the most aggravating man I
ever saw, except your brother, and he almost worried the life out of
me."
"But he is dead, Sister Patsey, and you are still enjoying pretty fair
health. Yes, he went first."
The Senator glanced at me with a wink; the old lady caught his twinkle
of mischief, and, throwing back her head, she laughed until the tears
ran out of her eyes.
"Belford," said the Senator, "the evening breeze has sprung up. Suppose
we sit out on the portico. And, by the way, I've got some tobacco raised
from Havana seed. I'll get it."
"Bring me a pipe, too, Giles," the old lady called after him. "I'm not
going to be left out, and you needn't think it, either."
When the Senator had strode off down the hall, she turned to me with a
quick eagerness and said: "He is almost dying to apologize to you for
Tom Estell's behavior, and he doesn't know how to get at it. I never saw
a man so cut up. And he thought he could get at it better out here, but
by the way he fidgets about I know he hasn't. Now, there, don't you say
a word, Sir, but let me talk. I don't know what's the matter with
Estell, I really don't. Now, what earthly harm could there have been in
her going fox-hunting, and her father along, too? No, I don't understand
him. Why, he must think that a woman is a fool to be willing to stay at
home all the time just because he's old."
"Why did she marry him?" I could not help but ask.
She snapped her eyes and cleared her throat. "Ah, Lord, it distressed me
nearly to death. Why did she, indeed? Giles was the cause of it. He
picked out a nice old gentleman for his daughter's husband--a man of
high family, a good politician. She cried over it, with her head in my
lap, but Giles didn't see a tear, and she wouldn't let me say a word to
him. And, to tell the truth, I didn't think it was so very bad; and it
_wasn't_ until he got to be so cranky. She always was a peculiar child;
and I reckon after all she made up her mind that she might as well
marry one man as another, so far as love was concerned. But just look at
me, a-sitting up here and telling of things that I oughtn't to say a
word about. Here he comes. Giles, did you bring my pipe? Well, it's a
good thing you did, Sir."
Out in the breeze that came stirring through the magnolia garden we sat
and smoked, the Senator with his chair tipped back and his feet high up
against a fluted column. We talked in pleasant and almost confidential
freedom, of many a home interest, both solemn and humorous, but the name
of the young woman lay under a silence that no one dared to disturb.
When I arose to take my leave they urged me to stay to supper, but my
heart had grown heavy with the approach of night, and, with a lie in
self-defense, I pleaded an engagement in the town.