"Yes."
"Come on."
Terry went around to the other side of the counter, took off her hat
and coat, rubbed her hands together briskly, sat down, and began to
play. The crowd edged closer.
It is a curious study, this noonday crowd that gathers to sate its
music hunger on the scraps vouchsafed it by Bernie Gottschalk's Music
House. Loose-lipped, slope-shouldered young men with bad complexions
and slender hands. Girls whose clothes are an unconscious satire on
present-day fashions. On their faces, as they listen to the music, is
a look of peace and dreaming. They stand about, smiling a wistful half
smile. The music seems to satisfy a something within them. Faces
dull, eyes lusterless, they listen in a sort of trance.
Terry played on. She played as Terry Sheehan used to play. She played
as no music hack at Bernie Gottschalk's had ever played before. The
crowd swayed a little to the sound of it. Some kept time with little
jerks of the shoulder--the little hitching movement of the dancer whose
blood is filled with the fever of syncopation. Even the crowd flowing
down State Street must have caught the rhythm of it, for the room soon
filled.
At two o'clock the crowd began to thin. Business would be slack, now,
until five, when it would again pick up until closing time at six. The
fat vocalist put down his megaphone, wiped his forehead, and regarded
Terry with a warm blue eye. He had just finished singing "I've
Wandered Far from Dear Old Mother's Knee." (Bernie Gottschalk Inc.
Chicago. New York. You can't get bit with a Gottschalk hit. 15 cents
each.)
"Girlie," he said, emphatically, "you sure--can--play!" He came over
to her at the piano and put a stubby hand on her shoulder. "Yessir!
Those little fingers----"
Terry just turned her head to look down her nose at the moist hand
resting on her shoulder. "Those little fingers are going to meet your
face if you don't move on."
"Who gave you your job?" demanded the fat man.
"Nobody. I picked it myself. You can have it if you want it."
"Can't you take a joke?"
"Label yours."
As the crowd dwindled she played less feverishly, but there was nothing
slipshod about her performance. The chubby songster found time to
proffer brief explanations in asides. "They want the patriotic stuff.
It used to be all that Hawaiian dope, and Wild Irish Rose stuff, and
songs about wanting to go back to every place from Dixie to Duluth.
But now seems it's all these here flag wavers. Honestly, I'm so sick
of 'em I got a notion to enlist to get away from it."
Terry eyed him with withering briefness. "A little training wouldn't
ruin your figure."
She had never objected to Orville's embonpoint. But then, Orville was
a different sort of fat man; pink-cheeked, springy, immaculate.
At four o'clock, as she was in the chorus of "Isn't There Another Joan
of Arc?" a melting masculine voice from the other side of the counter
said "Pardon me. What's that you're playing?"
Terry told him. She did not look up. "I wouldn't have known it.
Played like that--a second 'Marseillaise.' If the words----What are
the words? Let me see a----"
"Show the gentleman a 'Joan,'" Terry commanded briefly, over her
shoulder. The fat man laughed a wheezy laugh. Terry glanced around,
still playing, and encountered the gaze of two melting masculine eyes
that matched the melting masculine voice. The songster waved a hand
uniting Terry and the eyes in informal introduction.
"Mr. Leon Sammett, the gentleman who sings the Gottschalk songs
wherever songs are heard. And Mrs.--that is--and Mrs. Sammett----"
Terry turned. A sleek, swarthy world-old young man with the
fashionable concave torso, and alarmingly convex bone-rimmed glasses.
Through them his darkly luminous gaze glowed upon Terry. To escape
their warmth she sent her own gaze past him to encounter the arctic
stare of the large blonde who had been included so lamely in the
introduction. And at that the frigidity of that stare softened,
melted, dissolved.
"Why, Terry Sheehan! What in the world!"
Terry's eyes bored beneath the layers of flabby fat. "It's--why, it's
Ruby Watson, isn't it? Eccentric Song and Dance----"
She glanced at the concave young man and faltered. He was not Jim, of
the Bijou days. From him her eyes leaped back to the fur-bedecked
splendor of the woman. The plump face went so painfully red that the
make-up stood out on it, a distinct layer, like thin ice covering
flowing water. As she surveyed that bulk Terry realized that while
Ruby might still claim eccentricity, her song-and-dance days were over.
"That's ancient history, m' dear. I haven't been working for three
years. What're you doing in this joint? I'd heard you'd done well for
yourself. That you were married."
"I am. That is I--well, I am. I----"
At that the dark young man leaned over and patted Terry's hand that lay
on the counter. He smiled. His own hand was incredibly slender, long,
and tapering.
"That's all right," he assured her, and smiled. "You two girls can
have a reunion later. What I want to know is can you play by ear?"
"Yes, but----"
He leaned far over the counter. "I knew it the minute I heard you
play. You've got the touch. Now listen. See if you can get this, and
fake the bass."
He fixed his somber and hypnotic eyes on Terry. His mouth screwed up
into a whistle. The tune--a tawdry but haunting little melody--came
through his lips. Terry turned back to the piano. "Of course you know
you flatted every note," she said.
This time it was the blonde who laughed, and the man who
flushed. Terry cocked her head just a little to one side, like a
knowing bird, looked up into space beyond the piano top, and played the
lilting little melody with charm and fidelity. The dark young man
followed her with a wagging of the head and little jerks of both
outspread hands. His expression was beatific, enraptured. He hummed a
little under his breath and anyone who was music-wise would have known
that he was just a half beat behind her all the way.
When she had finished he sighed deeply, ecstatically. He bent his lean
frame over the counter and, despite his swart coloring, seemed to
glitter upon her--his eyes, his teeth, his very fingernails.
"Something led me here. I never come up on Tuesdays. But
something----"
"You was going to complain," put in his lady, heavily, "about that
Teddy Sykes at the Palace Gardens singing the same songs this week that
you been boosting at the Inn."
He put up a vibrant, peremptory hand. "Bah! What does that matter
now! What does anything matter now! Listen Miss--ah--Miss----?"
"Pl--Sheehan. Terry Sheehan."
He gazed off a moment into space. "Hm. 'Leon Sammett in Songs. Miss
Terry Sheehan at the Piano.' That doesn't sound bad. Now listen, Miss
Sheehan. I'm singing down at the University Inn. The Gottschalk song
hits. I guess you know my work. But I want to talk to you, private.
It's something to your interest. I go on down at the Inn at six. Will
you come and have a little something with Ruby and me? Now?"
"Now?" faltered Terry, somewhat helplessly. Things seemed to be moving
rather swiftly for her, accustomed as she was to the peaceful routine
of the past four years.
"Get your hat. It's your life chance. Wait till you see your name in
two-foot electrics over the front of every big-time house in the
country. You've got music in you. Tie to me and you're made." He
turned to the woman beside him. "Isn't that so, Rube?"
"Sure. Look at ME!" One would not have thought there could be so much
subtle vindictiveness in a fat blonde.
Sammett whipped out a watch. "Just three quarters of an hour. Come on,
girlie."
His conversation had been conducted in an urgent undertone, with side
glances at the fat man with the megaphone. Terry approached him now.
"I'm leaving now," she said.
"Oh, no, you're not. Six o'clock is your quitting time."
In which he touched the Irish in Terry. "Any time I quit is my
quitting time. She went in quest of hat and coat much as the girl had
done whose place she had taken early in the day. The fat man followed
her, protesting. Terry, putting on her hat, tried to ignore him. But
he laid one plump hand on her arm and kept it there, though she tried
to shake him off.
"Now, listen to me. That boy wouldn't mind grinding his heel on your
face if he thought it would bring him up a step. I know'm. See that
walking stick he's carrying? Well, compared to the yellow stripe
that's in him, that cane is a Lead pencil. He's a song tout, that's
all he is." Then, more feverishly, as Terry tried to pull away: "Wait
a minute. You're a decent girl. I want to--Why, he can't even sing a
note without you give it to him first. He can put a song over, yes.
But how? By flashing that toothy grin of his and talking every word of
it. Don't you----"
But Terry freed herself with a final jerk and whipped around the
counter. The two, who had been talking together in an undertone,
turned to welcome her. "We've got a half-hour. Come on. It's just
over to Clark and up a block or so."
The University Inn, that gloriously intercollegiate institution which
welcomes any graduate of any school of experience, was situated in the
basement, down a flight of stairs. Into the unwonted quiet that reigns
during the hour of low potentiality, between five and six, the three
went, and seated themselves at a table in an obscure corner. A waiter
brought them things in little glasses, though no order had been given.
The woman who had been Ruby Watson was so silent as to be almost
wordless. But the man talked rapidly. He talked well, too. The same
quality that enabled him, voiceless though he was, to boost a song to
success was making his plea sound plausible in Terry's ears now.
"I've got to go and make up in a few minutes. So get this. I'm not
going to stick down in this basement eating house forever. I've got too
much talent. If I only had a voice--I mean a singing voice. But I
haven't. But then, neither had Georgie Cohan, and I can't see that it
wrecked his life any. Now listen. I've got a song. It's my own. That
bit you played for me up at Gottschalk's is part of the chorus. But
it's the words that'll go big. They're great. It's an aviation song,
see? Airplane stuff. They're yelling that it's the airyoplanes
that're going to win this war. Well, I'll help 'em. This song is
going to put the aviator where he belongs. It's going to be the big
song of the war. It's going to make 'Tipperary' sound like a Moody and
Sankey hymn. It's the----"
Ruby lifted her heavy-lidded eyes and sent him a meaning look. "Get
down to business, Leon. I'll tell her how good you are while you're
making up."
He shot her a malignant glance, but took her advice. "Now what I've
been looking for for years is somebody who has got the music knack to
give me the accompaniment just a quarter of a jump ahead of my voice,
see? I can follow like a lamb, but I've got to have that feeler first.
It's more than a knack. It's a gift. And you've got it. I know it
when I see it. I want to get away from this night-club thing. There's
nothing in it for a man of my talent. I'm gunning for bigger game.
But they won't sign me without a tryout. And when they hear my voice
they---- Well, if me and you work together we can fool 'em. The song's
great. And my make-up's one of these aviation costumes to go with the
song, see? Pants tight in the knee and baggy on the hips. And a coat
with one of those full-skirt whaddyoucall-'ems----"
"Peplums," put in Ruby, placidly.
"Sure. And the girls'll be wild about it. And the words!" He began
to sing, gratingly off key:
Put on your sky clothes,
Put on your fly clothes,
And take a trip with me.
We'll sail so high
Up in the sky
We'll drop a bomb from Mercury.
"Why, that's awfully cute!" exclaimed Terry. Until now her opinion of
Mr. Sammett's talents had not been on a level with his.
"Yeah, but wait till you hear the second verse. That's only part of
the chorus. You see, he's supposed to be talking to a French girl. He
says:
'I'll parlez-vous in Francais plain
You'll answer, "Cher Americain,"
We'll both ...'"
The six-o'clock lights blazed up suddenly. A sad-looking group of men
trailed in and made for a corner where certain bulky, shapeless bundles
were soon revealed as those glittering and tortuous instruments which
go to make a jazz band.
"You better go, Lee. The crowd comes in awful early now, with all
these buyers in town."
Both hands on the table, he half rose, reluctantly, still talking.
"I've got three other songs. They make Gottschalk's stuff look sick.
All I want's a chance. What I want you to do is accompaniment. On the
stage, see? Grand piano. And a swell set. I haven't quite made up my
mind to it. But a kind of an army camp room, see? And maybe you
dressed as Liberty. Anyway, it'll be new, and a knockout. If only we
can get away with the voice thing. Say, if Eddie Foy, all those years
never had a----"
The band opened with a terrifying clash of cymbal and thump of drum.
"Back at the end of my first turn," he said as he Red. Terry followed
his lithe, electric figure. She turned to meet the heavy-lidded gaze
of the woman seated opposite. She relaxed, then, and sat back with a
little sigh. "Well! If he talks that way to the managers I don't
see----"
Ruby laughed a mirthless little laugh. "Talk doesn't get it over with
the managers, honey. You've got to deliver."
"Well, but he's--that song is a good one. I don't say it's as good as
he thinks it is, but it's good."
"Yes," admitted the woman, grudgingly, "it's good."
"Well, then?"
The woman beckoned a waiter; he nodded and vanished, and reappeared
with a glass that was twin to the one she had just emptied. "Does he
look like he knew French? Or could make a rhyme?"
"But didn't he? Doesn't he?"
"The words were written by a little French girl who used to skate down
here last winter, when the craze was on. She was stuck on a Chicago
kid who went over to fly for the French."
"But the music?"
"There was a Russian girl who used to dance in the cabaret and she----"
Terry's head came up with a characteristic little jerk. "I don't
believe it!"
"Better." She gazed at Terry with the drowsy look that was so
different from the quick, clear glance of the Ruby Watson who used to
dance so nimbly in the old Bijou days. "What'd you and your husband
quarrel about, Terry?"
Terry was furious to feel herself flushing. "Oh, nothing. He
just--I--it was---- Say, how did you know we'd quarreled?"
And suddenly all the fat woman's apathy dropped from her like a garment
and some of the old sparkle and animation illumined her heavy face.
She pushed her glass aside and leaned forward on her folded arms, so
that her face was close to Terry's.
"Terry Sheehan, I know you've quarreled, and I know just what it was
about. Oh, I don't mean the very thing it was about; but the kind of
thing. I'm going to do something for you, Terry, that I wouldn't take
the trouble to do for most women. But I guess I ain't had all the
softness knocked out of me yet, though it's a wonder. And I guess I
remember too plain the decent kid you was in the old days. What was
the name of that little small-time house me and Jim used to play?
Bijou, that's it; Bijou."
The band struck up a new tune. Leon Sammett--slim, sleek, lithe in his
evening clothes--appeared with a little fair girl in pink chiffon. The
woman reached across the table and put one pudgy, jeweled hand on
Terry's arm. "He'll be through in ten minutes. Now listen to me. I
left Jim four years ago, and there hasn't been a minute since then, day
or night, when I wouldn't have crawled back to him on my hands and
knees if I could. But I couldn't. He wouldn't have me now. How could
he? How do I know you've quarreled? I can see it in your eyes. They
look just the way mine have felt for four years, that's how. I met up
with this boy, and there wasn't anybody to do the turn for me that I'm
trying to do for you. Now get this. I left Jim because when he ate
corn on the cob he always closed his eyes and it drove me wild. Don't
laugh."
"I'm not laughing," said Terry.
"Women are like that. One night--we was playing Fond du Lac; I
remember just as plain--we was eating supper before the show and Jim
reached for one of those big yellow ears, and buttered and salted it,
and me kind of hanging on to the edge of the table with my nails.
Seemed to me if he shut his eyes when he put his teeth into that ear of
corn I'd scream. And he did. And I screamed. And that's all."
Terry sat staring at her with a wide-eyed stare, like a sleepwalker.
Then she wet her lips slowly. "But that's almost the very----"
"Kid, go on back home. I don't know whether it's too late or not, but
go anyway. If you've lost him I suppose it ain't any more than you
deserve; but I hope to God you don't get your deserts this time. He's
almost through. If he sees you going he can't quit in the middle of
his song to stop you. He'll know I put you wise, and he'll prob'ly
half kill me for it. But it's worth it. You get."
And Terry--dazed, shaking, but grateful--fled. Down the noisy aisle,
up the stairs, to the street. Back to her rooming house. Out again,
with her suitcase, and into the right railroad station somehow, at
last. Not another Wetona train until midnight. She shrank into a
remote corner of the waiting room and there she huddled until midnight,
watching the entrances like a child who is fearful of ghosts in the
night.
The hands of the station clock seemed fixed and immovable. The hour
between eleven and twelve was endless. She was on the train. It was
almost morning. It was morning. Dawn was breaking. She was home!
She had the house key clutched tightly in her hand long before she
turned Schroeder's corner. Suppose he had come home! Suppose he had
jumped a town and come home ahead of his schedule. They had quarreled
once before, and he had done that.
Up the front steps. Into the house. Not a sound. She stood there a
moment in the early-morning half-light. She peered into the dining
room. The table, with its breakfast debris, was as she had left it.
In the kitchen the coffeepot stood on the gas stove. She was home.
She was safe. She ran up the stairs, got out of her clothes and into
gingham morning things. She flung open windows everywhere. Downstairs
once more she plunged into an orgy of cleaning. Dishes, table, stove,
floor, rugs. She washed, scoured, swabbed, polished. By eight o'clock
she had done the work that would ordinarily have taken until noon. The
house was shining, orderly, and redolent of soapsuds.
During all this time she had been listening, listening, with her
subconscious ear. Listening for something she had refused to name
definitely in her mind, but listening, just the same; waiting.
And then, at eight o'clock, it came. The rattle of a key in the lock.
The boom of the front door. Firm footsteps.
He did not go to meet her, and she did not go to meet him. They came
together and were in each other's arms. She was weeping.
"Now, now, old girl. What's there to cry about? Don't, honey; don't.
It's all right." She raised her head then, to look at him. How fresh
and rosy and big he seemed, after that little sallow restaurant rat.
"How did you get here? How did you happen----?"
"Jumped all the way from Ashland. Couldn't get a sleeper, so I sat up
all night. I had to come back and square things with you, Terry. My
mind just wasn't on my work. I kept thinking how I'd talked--how I'd
talked----"
"Oh, Orville, don't! I can't bear---- Have you had your breakfast?"
"Why, no. The train was an hour late. You know that Ashland train."
But she was out of his arms and making for the kitchen. "You go and
clean up. I'll have hot biscuits and everything in no time. You poor
boy. No breakfast!"
She made good her promise. It could not have been more than half an
hour later when he was buttering his third feathery, golden-brown
biscuit. But she had eaten nothing. She watched him, and listened,
and again her eyes were somber, but for a different reason. He broke
open his egg. His elbow came up just a fraction of an inch. Then he
remembered, and flushed like a schoolboy, and brought it down again,
carefully. And at that she gave a tremulous cry, and rushed around the
table to him.
"Oh, Orville!" She took the offending elbow in her two arms, and bent
and kissed the rough coat sleeve.
"Why, Terry! Don't, honey. Don't!"
"Oh, Orville, listen----"
"Yes."
"Listen, Orville----"
"I'm listening, Terry."
"I've got something to tell you. There's something you've got to know."
"Yes, I know it, Terry. I knew you'd out with it, pretty soon, if I
just waited."
She lifted an amazed face from his shoulder then, and stared at him.
"But how could you know? You couldn't! How could you?"
He patted her shoulder then, gently. "I can always tell. When you
have something on your mind you always take up a spoon of coffee, and
look at it, and kind of joggle it back and forth in the spoon, and then
dribble it back into the cup again, without once tasting it. It used
to get me nervous, when we were first married, watching you. But now I
know it just means you're worried about something, and I wait, and
pretty soon----"
"Oh, Orville!" she cried then. "Oh, Orville!"
"Now, Terry. Just spill it, hon. Just spill it to Daddy. And you'll
feel better."