There are many ways of saying 'Ah!' You can put joy, amazement, rapture
into it; you can also make it sound as if it were a reply to a remark
on the weather. James Boyd made it sound just like that. His hair was
rumpled, his brow contracted, and his manner absent. The impression he
gave Elizabeth was that he had barely heard her. The next moment he was
deep in a recital of the misdemeanours of the actors now rehearsing for
his four-act comedy. The star had done this, the leading woman that,
the juvenile something else. For the first time Elizabeth listened
unsympathetically.
The time came when speech failed James Boyd, and he sat back in his
chair, brooding. Elizabeth, cross and wounded, sat in hers, nursing
Joseph. And so, in a dim light, time flowed by.
Just how it happened she never knew. One moment, peace; the next chaos.
One moment stillness; the next, Joseph hurtling through the air, all
claws and expletives, and herself caught in a clasp which shook the
breath from her.
One can dimly reconstruct James's train of thought. He is in despair;
things are going badly at the theatre, and life has lost its savour.
His eye, as he sits, is caught by Elizabeth's profile. It is a
pretty--above all, a soothing--profile. An almost painful
sentimentality sweeps over James Boyd. There she sits, his only friend
in this cruel city. If you argue that there is no necessity to spring
at your only friend and nearly choke her, you argue soundly; the point
is well taken. But James Boyd was beyond the reach of sound argument.
Much rehearsing had frayed his nerves to ribbons. One may say that he
was not responsible for his actions.
That is the case for James. Elizabeth, naturally, was not in a position
to take a wide and understanding view of it. All she knew was that James
had played her false, abused her trust in him. For a moment, such was
the shock of the surprise, she was not conscious of indignation--or,
indeed, of any sensation except the purely physical one of
semi-strangulation. Then, flushed, and more bitterly angry than she
could ever have imagined herself capable of being, she began to
struggle. She tore herself away from him. Coming on top of her
grievance, this thing filled her with a sudden, very vivid hatred of
James. At the back of her anger, feeding it, was the humiliating
thought that it was all her own fault, that by her presence there she
had invited this.
She groped her way to the door. Something was writhing and struggling
inside her, blinding her eyes, and robbing her of speech. She was only
conscious of a desire to be alone, to be back and safe in her own home.
She was aware that he was speaking, but the words did not reach her.
She found the door, and pulled it open. She felt a hand on her arm, but
she shook it off. And then she was back behind her own door, alone and
at liberty to contemplate at leisure the ruins of that little temple of
friendship which she had built up so carefully and in which she had
been so happy.
The broad fact that she would never forgive him was for a while her
only coherent thought. To this succeeded the determination that she
would never forgive herself. And having thus placed beyond the pale the
only two friends she had in New York, she was free to devote herself
without hindrance to the task of feeling thoroughly lonely and
wretched.
The shadows deepened. Across the street a sort of bubbling explosion,
followed by a jerky glare that shot athwart the room, announced the
lighting of the big arc-lamp on the opposite side-walk. She resented
it, being in the mood for undiluted gloom; but she had not the energy
to pull down the shade and shut it out. She sat where she was, thinking
thoughts that hurt.
The door of the apartment opposite opened. There was a single ring at
her bell. She did not answer it. There came another. She sat where she
was, motionless. The door closed again.
* * * * *
The days dragged by. Elizabeth lost count of time. Each day had its
duties, which ended when you went to bed; that was all she knew--except
that life had become very grey and very lonely, far lonelier even than
in the time when James Boyd was nothing to her but an occasional sound
of footsteps.
Of James she saw nothing. It is not difficult to avoid anyone in New
York, even when you live just across the way.
* * * * *
It was Elizabeth's first act each morning, immediately on awaking, to
open her front door and gather in whatever lay outside it. Sometimes
there would be mail; and always, unless Francis, as he sometimes did,
got mixed and absent-minded, the morning milk and the morning paper.
One morning, some two weeks after that evening of which she tried not
to think, Elizabeth, opening the door, found immediately outside it a
folded scrap of paper. She unfolded it.
_I am just off to the theatre. Won't you wish me luck? I feel sure
it is going to be a hit. Joseph is purring like a dynamo._--J.R.B.
In the early morning the brain works sluggishly. For an instant
Elizabeth stood looking at the words uncomprehendingly; then, with a
leaping of the heart, their meaning came home to her. He must have left
this at her door on the previous night. The play had been produced! And
somewhere in the folded interior of the morning paper at her feet must
be the opinion of 'One in Authority' concerning it!
Dramatic criticisms have this peculiarity, that if you are looking for
them, they burrow and hide like rabbits. They dodge behind murders;
they duck behind baseball scores; they lie up snugly behind the Wall
Street news. It was a full minute before Elizabeth found what she
sought, and the first words she read smote her like a blow.
In that vein of delightful facetiousness which so endears him to all
followers and perpetrators of the drama, the 'One in Authority' rent
and tore James Boyd's play. He knocked James Boyd's play down, and
kicked it; he jumped on it with large feet; he poured cold water on it,
and chopped it into little bits. He merrily disembowelled James Boyd's
play.
Elizabeth quivered from head to foot. She caught at the door-post to
steady herself. In a flash all her resentment had gone, wiped away and
annihilated like a mist before the sun. She loved him, and she knew now
that she had always loved him.
It took her two seconds to realize that the 'One in Authority' was a
miserable incompetent, incapable of recognizing merit when it was
displayed before him. It took her five minutes to dress. It took her a
minute to run downstairs and out to the news-stand on the corner of the
street. Here, with a lavishness which charmed and exhilarated the
proprietor, she bought all the other papers which he could supply.
Moments of tragedy are best described briefly. Each of the papers
noticed the play, and each of them damned it with uncompromising
heartiness. The criticisms varied only in tone. One cursed with relish
and gusto; another with a certain pity; a third with a kind of wounded
superiority, as of one compelled against his will to speak of something
unspeakable; but the meaning of all was the same. James Boyd's play was
a hideous failure.
Back to the house sped Elizabeth, leaving the organs of a free people
to be gathered up, smoothed, and replaced on the stand by the now more
than ever charmed proprietor. Up the stairs she sped, and arriving
breathlessly at James's door rang the bell.
Heavy footsteps came down the passage; crushed, disheartened footsteps;
footsteps that sent a chill to Elizabeth's heart. The door opened.
James Boyd stood before her, heavy-eyed and haggard. In his eyes was
despair, and on his chin the blue growth of beard of the man from whom
the mailed fist of Fate has smitten the energy to perform his morning
shave.
Behind him, littering the floor, were the morning papers; and at the
sight of them Elizabeth broke down.
'Oh, Jimmy, darling!' she cried; and the next moment she was in his
arms, and for a space time stood still.
How long afterwards it was she never knew; but eventually James Boyd
spoke.
'If you'll marry me,' he said hoarsely, 'I don't care a hang.'
'Jimmy, darling!' said Elizabeth, 'of course I will.'
Past them, as they stood there, a black streak shot silently, and
disappeared out of the door. Joseph was leaving the sinking ship.
'Let him go, the fraud,' said Elizabeth bitterly. 'I shall never
believe in black cats again.'
But James was not of this opinion.
'Joseph has brought me all the luck I need.'
'But the play meant everything to you.'
'It did then.'
Elizabeth hesitated.
'Jimmy, dear, it's all right, you know. I know you will make a fortune
out of your next play, and I've heaps for us both to live on till you
make good. We can manage splendidly on my salary from the _Evening
Chronicle_.'
'What! Have you got a job on a New York paper?'
'Yes, I told you about it. I am doing Heloise Milton. Why, what's the
matter?'
He groaned hollowly.
'And I was thinking that you would come back to Chicago with me!'
'But I will. Of course I will. What did you think I meant to do?'
'What! Give up a real job in New York!' He blinked. 'This isn't really
happening. I'm dreaming.'
'But, Jimmy, are you sure you can get work in Chicago? Wouldn't it be
better to stay on here, where all the managers are, and--'
He shook his head.
'I think it's time I told you about myself,' he said. 'Am I sure I can
get work in Chicago? I am, worse luck. Darling, have you in your more
material moments ever toyed with a Boyd's Premier Breakfast-Sausage or
kept body and soul together with a slice off a Boyd's Excelsior
Home-Cured Ham? My father makes them, and the tragedy of my life is
that he wants me to help him at it. This was my position. I loathed the
family business as much as dad loved it. I had a notion--a fool notion,
as it has turned out--that I could make good in the literary line. I've
scribbled in a sort of way ever since I was in college. When the time
came for me to join the firm, I put it to dad straight. I said, "Give
me a chance, one good, square chance, to see if the divine fire is
really there, or if somebody has just turned on the alarm as a
practical joke." And we made a bargain. I had written this play, and we
made it a test-case. We fixed it up that dad should put up the money to
give it a Broadway production. If it succeeded, all right; I'm the
young Gus Thomas, and may go ahead in the literary game. If it's a
fizzle, off goes my coat, and I abandon pipe-dreams of literary
triumphs and start in as the guy who put the Co. in Boyd & Co. Well,
events have proved that I _am_ the guy, and now I'm going to keep
my part of the bargain just as squarely as dad kept his. I know quite
well that if I refused to play fair and chose to stick on here in New
York and try again, dad would go on staking me. That's the sort of man
he is. But I wouldn't do it for a million Broadway successes. I've had
my chance, and I've foozled; and now I'm going back to make him happy
by being a real live member of the firm. And the queer thing about it
is that last night I hated the idea, and this morning, now that I've
got you, I almost look forward to it.'
He gave a little shiver.
'And yet--I don't know. There's something rather gruesome still to my
near-artist soul in living in luxury on murdered piggies. Have you ever
seen them persuading a pig to play the stellar role in a Boyd Premier
Breakfast-Sausage? It's pretty ghastly. They string them up by their
hind legs, and--b-r-r-r-r!'
'Never mind,' said Elizabeth soothingly. 'Perhaps they don't mind it
really.'
'Well, I don't know,' said James Boyd, doubtfully. 'I've watched them
at it, and I'm bound to say they didn't seem any too well pleased.'
'Try not to think of it.'
'Very well,' said James dutifully.
There came a sudden shout from the floor above, and on the heels of it
a shock-haired youth in pyjamas burst into the apartment.
'Now what?' said James. 'By the way, Miss Herrold, my fiancee; Mr
Briggs--Paul Axworthy Briggs, sometimes known as the Boy Novelist.
What's troubling you, Paul?'
Mr Briggs was stammering with excitement.
'Jimmy,' cried the Boy Novelist, 'what do you think has happened! A
black cat has just come into my apartment. I heard him mewing outside
the door, and opened it, and he streaked in. And I started my new novel
last night! Say, you _do_ believe this thing of black cats
bringing luck, don't you?'
'Luck! My lad, grapple that cat to your soul with hoops of steel. He's
the greatest little luck-bringer in New York. He was boarding with me
till this morning.'
'Then--by Jove! I nearly forgot to ask--your play was a hit? I haven't
seen the papers yet'
'Well, when you see them, don't read the notices. It was the worst
frost Broadway has seen since Columbus's time.'
'But--I don't understand.'
'Don't worry. You don't have to. Go back and fill that cat with fish,
or she'll be leaving you. I suppose you left the door open?'
'My God!' said the Boy Novelist, paling, and dashed for the door.
'Do you think Joseph _will_ bring him luck?' said Elizabeth,
thoughtfully.
'It depends what sort of luck you mean. Joseph seems to work in devious
ways. If I know Joseph's methods, Briggs's new novel will be rejected
by every publisher in the city; and then, when he is sitting in his
apartment, wondering which of his razors to end himself with, there
will be a ring at the bell, and in will come the most beautiful girl in
the world, and then--well, then, take it from me, he will be all
right.'
'He won't mind about the novel?'
'Not in the least.'
'Not even if it means that he will have to go away and kill pigs and
things.'
'About the pig business, dear. I've noticed a slight tendency in you to
let yourself get rather morbid about it. I know they string them up by
the hind-legs, and all that sort of thing; but you must remember that a
pig looks at these things from a different standpoint. My belief is
that the pigs like it. Try not to think of it.'
'Very well,' said Elizabeth, dutifully.