TRIAL FLIGHTS
“The music of the moon
Sleeps in the plain eggs of the nightingale.”
--TENNYSON.
A week had not passed since the night at the opera when Mariposa
received a hasty letter from Mrs. Willers. It was only a few lines
scrawled on a piece of the yellow paper affected by the staff of _The
Trumpet_, and advising the recipient of the fact that Mr. Shackleton
requested her presence at his office at three the following afternoon,
yet a suggestion of triumph breathed from its every word. Mrs. Willers
was clearly elated at the moment of its production. She hinted, in
a closing sentence, that Mariposa’s star was rising rapidly. She,
herself, would conduct the girl to the presence of the great man, and
suggested that Mariposa meet her in her rooms a half-hour before the
time set for the interview.
Mariposa was glad to do this, and in the few moments’ walk across town
toward Third Street, to hear what Mrs. Willers thought was the object
of the interview. The girl’s cheeks were dyed with excited color as
they drew near _The Trumpet_ office. Mrs. Willers was certain it was
to do with her singing. Shackleton had almost told her as much. He had
been immensely impressed by her voice, and now, with the Lepine Opera
Company in the city, Mrs. Willers fancied he was going to have Lepine,
who was a well-known impresario in a small but respectable way, pass
judgment on it. Mariposa’s foot lagged when she heard this. It was such
a portentous step from the seclusion of a rose-draped cottage in Santa
Barbara, even to this talk of singing before a real impresario. She
looked down the vista of Third Street where the façade of _The Trumpet_
office loomed large from humbler neighbors, and Mrs. Willers saw
hesitation and fright in her eyes. Like a sensible guardian she slipped
her hand through the young girl’s arm and walked her briskly forward,
talking of the rare chances life offers to a handicapped humanity.
_The Trumpet_ office, as all old San Franciscans know, stood on
Third Street, and was, in its day, considered a fine building. Jake
Shackleton had not been its owner six months yet, and all his reforms
were not inaugurated. From the yawning arch of its doorway flights of
stairs led up and upward, from stories where the presses rattled all
night, to the editorial story where the sentiments of _The Trumpet_
staff were confided to paper. This latter and most important department
was four flights up the dark stairway, which was lit at its turnings
with large kerosene lamps, backed by tin reflectors. There was little
of the luxury of the modern newspaper office about the barren,
business-like building, echoing like an empty shell to the shouts of
men and the pounding of machinery.
At the top of the fourth flight the ladies paused. The landing
broadened out into a sort of anteroom, bare and windowless, two
dejected-looking gas-jets dispensing a tarnished yellow light into the
surrounding gloom. A boy, with a sleek, oiled head, sat at a table
reading that morning’s issue of _The Trumpet_. He put it down as Mrs.
Willers rose before his vision and nodded familiarly to her. She gave
him a quick word of greeting and swept Mariposa forward through a
doorway, down a long passage, from which doors opened into tiny rooms
with desks and droplights. The girl now and then had glimpses of men
seated at the desks, the radiance of the droplights hard on their faces
that had been lifted expectantly as their ears caught the interesting
rustle of skirts in the corridor.
Suddenly, at the end of the passage, Mrs. Willers struck with her
knuckles on a closed portal. The next moment Mariposa, with the light
of a large window shining full on her face, was shaking hands with
Shackleton. Then, in response to his motioning hand, she took the chair
beside the desk, where she sat, facing the white glare of the window,
conscious of his keen eyes critically regarding her. Mrs. Willers
took a chair in the background. For a moment she had fears that the
nervousness she had noticed in her protégée’s countenance on the way
down would make her commit some _bêtise_ that would antagonize the
interest Shackleton so evidently took in her. Mrs. Willers had seen
her chief’s brusk impatience roused by follies more excusable than
those that rise from a young girl’s nervous shyness and that would be
incomprehensible to his hardy, self-confident nature.
But Mariposa seemed encouragingly composed. She again felt the
curious sense of ease, of being at home with him, that this unknown
man had given her before. She had that inspiring sensation that
she was approved; that this old-time friend of her father’s had a
singular unspoken sympathy with her. “As if he might have been an old
friend,” she told her mother after the first meeting, “or some kind of
relation--one of those uncles that come back from India in the English
novels.”
Now only her fluctuating color told of the inward tumult that possessed
her as he told her concisely, but kindly, that he had arranged for her
to sing before Lepine, the manager of the opera, at two o’clock on the
following day. Several people of experience had told him Lepine was an
excellent judge. They would then hear an expert’s opinion on her voice.
“I think it’s the finest kind of voice,” he said, smiling, “but you
know my opinion’s worth more on ores than on voices. So we won’t soar
too high till we hear what the fellow whose business it is, has to say.
Then, if he’s satisfied”--he gave a little shrug--“we’ll see.”
The interview was brought to an end in a few moments. It seemed to
Mariposa that the scenes which Mrs. Willers assured her were so big
with promise were incredibly short for moments so fraught with destiny.
She seemed hardly to have caught her breath yet from the ascent of the
four flights of stairs, when they were once again walking down the
corridor, with the writing men looking up with pricked ears at the
returning rustle of skirts. It was Mrs. Willers who had wafted her away
so quickly.
“Never beat about the bush where you deal with Jake Shackleton,” she
said, slipping her hand in Mariposa’s arm as they passed down the
corridor. “He’s got no use for people who gambol round the subject. Say
your say and then go. That’s the way to get on with him.”
In the anteroom the boy was still sitting, his chair tilted back on
its hind legs, _The Trumpet_ in his hands. Nevertheless, he had made
an incursion into the inner regions to find out whom Mrs. Willers was
piloting into the sanctum, for he had the curiosity of those who hang
on the fringes of the newspaper world.
As the ladies passed him, going toward the stair-head, a young man
rose above it, almost colliding with them. Then in the gloom of the
dejected gas-jets he stood aside, against the wall, letting them pass
out. He wore a long ulster with a turned-up collar. Between the edge
of this and the brim of his derby hat, there was the gleam of a pair
of eye-glasses and a suggestion of a fair mustache. He raised his
hat, holding it above his head during the interval of their transit,
disclosing a small pate clothed with smooth blond hair.
“Who was that lady with Mrs. Willers?” he said to the boy, as he walked
toward the door into the corridor.
“She’s some singing lady,” answered that youth drawlingly, tilting his
chair still farther back, “what’s come to see Mr. Shackleton about
singing at the opera-house. Her name’s Moreau.”
The young man, without further comment, passed into the inner hall,
leaving the boy smiling with pride that his carelessly-acquired
information should have been so soon of use. For the questioner was
Winslow Shackleton, the millionaire’s only son.
The next morning was one of feverish excitement in the cottage on Pine
Street. Mariposa could not settle herself to anything, at one moment
trying her voice at the piano, at the next standing in front of her
glass and putting on all her own and her mother’s hats in an effort to
see in which she presented the most attractive appearance. She thrilled
with hope for a space, then sank into a dead apathy of dejection.
Lucy was quietly encouraging, but the day was one of hidden anguish
to her. The daughter, ignorant of the knowledge and the memories that
were wringing the mother’s heart, wondered why Lucy was so confident
of her winning Shackleton’s approval. As the hour came for her to go
she wondered, too, at the marble pallor of her mother’s face, at the
coldness of the hand that clung to hers in a lingering farewell. Lucy
was giving back her child to the father who had deserted it and her.
The excitement of the morning reached its climax when a carriage
appeared at the curb with Mrs. Willers’ face at the window. The hour of
fate had struck, and Mariposa, with a last kiss to her mother, ran down
the steps feeling like one about to embark on a journey upon perilous
seas in which lie enchanted islands.
During the drive Mrs. Willers talked on outside matters. She was
business-like and quiet to-day. Even her clothes seemed to partake of
her practical mood and were inconspicuous and subdued. As the carriage
turned down Mission Street she herself began to experience qualms.
What if they had all been mistaken and the girl’s voice was nothing
out of the ordinary? What a cruel disappointment, and with that sick,
helpless mother! What she said was:
“Now, here we are! Remember that you’ve got the finest voice Lepine’s
ever likely to hear, and you’re going to sing your best.”
They alighted, and as they turned into the flagged entrance that led
to the foyer, Shackleton came forward to meet them. He looked older
in the crude afternoon light, his face showing the lines that his
fiercely-lived life had plowed in it. But he smiled reassuringly at
Mariposa and pressed her hand.
“Everything’s all ready,” he said; “Lepine’s put back a rehearsal for
us, so we mustn’t keep him waiting. And are you all ready to surprise
us?” he asked, as they walked together toward where the three steps led
to the foyer.
“I’m ready to do my best,” she answered; “a person can’t do more than
that.”
The answer pleased him, as everything she said did. He saw she was
nervous, but that she was going to conquer herself.
“Lots of grit,” he said to himself as he gave ear to a remark of Mrs.
Willers’. “She won’t quit at the first obstacle.”
They passed through the opening in the brass rail that led to the
foyer. This space, the gathering place of the radiant beings of
Mariposa’s first night at the opera, was now a dimly-lit and deserted
hall, its flagged flooring looking dirty in the raw light. From
somewhere, in what seemed a far, dreamy distance, the sound of a piano
came, as if muffled by numerous doors. As they crossed the foyer toward
the entrance into the auditorium, the door swung open and two men
appeared.
One was a short and stout Frenchman, with a turned-over collar, upon
which a double chin rested. He had a bald forehead and eyes that
gleamed sharply from behind a _pince-nez_. At sight of the trio, he
gave an exclamation and came forward.
“Our young lady?” he said to Mariposa, giving her a quick look of
scrutiny that seemed to take her in from foot to forehead. Then he
greeted Shackleton with slightly exaggerated foreign effusion. He spoke
English perfectly, but with the inevitable accent. This was Lepine, the
impresario, and the other man, an Italian who spoke little English, was
presented as Signor Tojetti, the conductor.
They moved forward talking, and then, pushing the door open, Lepine
motioned Mariposa to enter. She did so and for a moment stood amazed,
staring into a vast, shadowy space, where, in what seemed a vague,
undefined distance, a tiny spot or two of light cut into the darkness.
The air was chill and smelt of a stable. From somewhere she heard
the sound of voices rising and falling, and then again the notes of
a piano, now near and unobscured, carelessly touched and resembling,
in the echoing hollow spaciousness of the great building, the thin,
tinkling sounds emitted by smitten glass.
Lepine brushed past her and led the way down the aisle. As she followed
him her eyes became accustomed to the dimness, and she began to make
out the arch of the stage with blackness beyond, into which cut the
circles of light of a few gas-jets. The lines of seats stretched
before her spectral in linen covers. Now and then a figure crossed
the stage, and as they drew nearer, she saw on one side of it a man
sitting on a high stool reading a paper book by the light of a shaded
lamp. The notes of the piano sounded sharper and closer, and by their
proximity more than by her sight, she located it in a dark corner of the
orchestra. As they approached, the sound of two voices came from this
corner, then suddenly a man’s smothered laugh.
“Mr. Martinez,” said Lepine, directing his voice toward the darkness
whence the laugh had risen, “the lady is here to sing, if you are
ready.”
Instantly a faintly luminous spark, Mariposa had noticed, bloomed
into the full-blown radiance of a gas-jet turned full cock under a
sheltering shade. It projected, what seemed in the dimness, a torrent
of light on the keyboard of the piano, illuminating a pair of long
masculine hands that had been moving over the keys in the darkness.
Behind them the girl saw a shadowy shape, and then a spectacled face
under a mane of drooping black hair was advanced into the light.
“Has the lady her music?” said the face, in English, but with another
variety of accent.
She handed him the two songs she had brought, “Knowest thou the
Land,” from Mignon, and “Farewell, Lochaber.” In the short period of
her tuition her teacher had told her that she had sung “Lochaber”
admirably. The man opened them, glanced at the names, and placing the
“Mignon” aria on the rack, ran his hands lightly and carelessly over
the keys in the opening bars of the accompaniment.
“Whenever the lady is ready,” he said, with an air of patience, as
though he had endured this form of persecution until all spirit of
revolt was crushed.
Mariposa drew back from him, wondering if she were to sing there and
then. Lepine was behind her, and behind him she saw, with a sense of
nostalgic loneliness, that the Italian conductor was shepherding Mrs.
Willers and Shackleton into two seats on the aisle. They looked small
and far away.
“We will mount to the stage this way, Mademoiselle,” said Lepine, and
he indicated a small flight of steps that rose from the corner of the
orchestra to the lip of the stage above.
He ascended first, she close at his heels, and in a moment found
herself on the dark, deserted stage. It seemed enormous to her,
stretching back into unseen regions where the half-defined shapes of
trees and castles, walls and benches were huddled in dim confusion.
Down the aisles between side-scenes she caught glimpses of vistas lit
by wavering gleams of light. People moved here and there, across these
vistas, their footsteps sounding singularly distinct. As she stood
uneasily, looking to the right and left, a sudden sound of hammering
arose from somewhere behind, loud and vibrant. Lepine, who was about to
descend the stairs, turned and shouted a furious sentence in Italian
down the opening. The hammering instantly ceased, and a man in white
overalls came and stared at the stage. The impresario, charily--being
short and fat--descended the stairs.
“Now, Mademoiselle,” he said, speaking from the orchestra, “if you are
ready, come forward a little, nearer the footlights there.”
Mariposa moved forward. Her heart was beating in her throat, and she
felt a sick terror at the thought of what her voice would be like
in that huge void space. She was aware that the man who had been
reading the paper book had closed it and was leaning his elbow on the
lamp-stand, watching her. She was also aware that a woman and a man had
suddenly appeared in the lower proscenium box close beside her. She
saw the woman dimly, a fat, short figure in a light-colored ulster.
Whispering to the man, she drew one of the linen-covered chairs close
to the railing and seated herself.
“Is the lady ready?” said the pianist, from his dark corner.
“Quite ready,” replied Mariposa, hearing her voice like a tremulous
thread of sound in the stillness.
The first bars of the accompaniment sounded thinly. Mariposa stepped
forward. She could see in the shadowy emptiness of the auditorium
Lepine’s bald head where he sat alone, half-way up the house, and the
two pale faces of Shackleton and Mrs. Willers. The Italian conductor
had left them and was sitting by himself at one side of the parquet.
In the stillness, the notes of the piano were curiously tinkling and
feeble.
Mariposa raised her chest with a deep inspiration. A sudden excited
expectation seized her at the thought of letting her voice swell out
into the hushed void before her. The listening people seemed so small
and insignificant in it, they suddenly lost their terror. She began to
sing.
It seemed to her that her first notes were hardly audible. They seemed
as ineffectual as the piano. Then her confidence grew, and delight
with it. She never before had felt as if she had enough room. Her
voice rolled itself out like a breaking wave, lapping the walls of the
building.
The first verse came to an end. The accompaniment ceased. Lepine moved
in his distant seat.
“Continue, Mademoiselle,” he said sharply; “the second verse, if you
please. Again, Mr. Martinez.”
Mariposa saw the woman in the box look at the man beside her, raise her
eyebrows, and nod.
She began the second verse and sang it through. As its last notes
died out there was silence for a moment. In the silence the Italian
conductor rose and came forward to where Lepine sat. Mariposa, standing
on the stage, saw them conferring for a space. The Italian talked in a
low voice, with much gesticulation. Shackleton and Mrs. Willers were
motionless and dumb. The woman in the box began to whisper with the man.
“And now the second piece, if Mademoiselle has no objection,” came the
voice of the impresario across the parquet. “One can not judge well
from one song.”
The second song, “Lochaber,” had been chosen by Mariposa’s teacher to
show off her lower register--those curious, disturbing notes that were
so deep and full of vague melancholy. She had gained such control as
she had over her voice and sang with an almost joyous exultation. She
had never realized what it was to sing before people who knew and who
listened in this way in a place that was large enough.
When the last notes died away, the tinkling of the piano sounding like
the frail specters of music gafte the tones of the rich, vibrant voice,
there was a sudden noise of clapping hands. It came from the box on
the right, where the woman in the ulster was leaning over the rail,
clapping with her bare hands held far out.
“_Brava!_” she cried in a loud, full voice. “_Brava! La belle voix! Et
quel volume! Brava!_”
She bounced round on her chair to look at the man beside her, and,
leaning forward, clapped again, crying her gay “brava.”
Mariposa walked toward the box, feeling suddenly shy. As she drew
nearer she saw the woman’s face more distinctly. It was a dark French
face, with a brunette skin warming to brick-dust red on the cheeks, set
in a frame of wiry black hair, and with a big mouth that, laughing,
showed strong white teeth, well separated. As Mariposa saw it fairly in
the light of an adjacent lamp she recognized it as that of the Leonora
of “Il Trovatore.” It was the prima donna.
She started forward with flushing cheek and held out a hesitating hand.
The fat, ungloved palms of the singer closed on it with Gælic effusion.
Mariposa was aware of something delightfully wholesome and kind in the
broad, ruddy visage, with its big, smiling mouth and the firm teeth
like the halves of cleanly-broken hazelnuts. The singer, leaning over
the rail, poured a rumbling volume of French into the girl’s blushing,
upturned face. Mariposa understood it and was trying to answer in her
halting schoolgirl phrases, when the voice of Mrs. Willers, at the
bottom of the steps, summoned her.
“Come down, quick! They think it’s fine. Oh, dearie,” stretching up
a helping hand as Mariposa swept her skirts over the line of the
footlights, “you did fine. It was great. You’ve just outdone yourself.
And you looked stunning, too. I only wished the place had been full.
Heavens! but I thought I’d die at first. While you were standing there
waiting to begin I felt seasick. It was an awful moment. And you looked
just as cool! Mr. Shackleton don’t say much, but I know he’s tickled to
death.”
They walked up the aisle as she talked to where Shackleton and the two
men were standing in earnest conversation. As they approached Lepine
turned toward her and gave a slight smile.
“We were saying, Mademoiselle,” he said, “that you have unquestionably
a voice. The lower register is remarkably fine. Of course, it is very
untrained; absolutely in the rough. But Signor Tojetti, here, finds
that a strong point in your favor.”
“Signor Tojetti,” said Shackleton, “seems to think that two years of
study would be ample to fit you for the operatic stage.”
Mariposa looked from one to the other with beaming eyes, hardly able to
believe it all.
“You really did like it, then?” she said to Lepine with her most
ingenuous air.
He shrugged his shoulders, with a queer French expression of quizzical
amusement.
“It was a truly interesting performance, and after a period of study
with a good master it should be a truly delightful one.”
The Italian, to whom these sentences were only half intelligible, now
broke in with a quick series of sonorous phrases, directed to Lepine,
but now and then turned upon Shackleton. Mariposa’s eyes went from one
to the other in an effort to understand. The impresario, listening
with frowning intentness, responded with a nod and a word of brusk
acquiescence. Turning to Shackleton, he said:
“Tojetti also thinks that the appearance of Mademoiselle is much in her
favor. She has an admirable stage presence”--he looked at Mariposa as
if she were a piece of furniture he was appraising. “Her height alone
is of inestimable value. She would have at least five feet eight or
nine inches.”
At this moment the lady in the box, who had risen to her feet, and was
leaning against the railing, called suddenly:
“_Lepine, vraiment une belle voix, et aussi une belle fille! Vous avez
fait une trouvaille._”
Lepine wheeled round to his star, who in the shadowy light stood, a
pale-colored, burly figure, buttoning her ulster over her redundant
chest.
“A moment,” he said, apologetically to the others, and, running to the
box, stood with his head back, talking to her, while the prima donna
leaned over and a rapid interchange of French sentences passed between
them.
Signor Tojetti turned to Mariposa, and, with solemn effort, produced an
English phrase:
“Eet ees time to went.” Then he waved his hand toward the stage. The
sound of feet echoed therefrom, and as Mariposa looked, an irruption
of vague, spectral shapes rose from some unseen cavernous entrance and
peopled the orchestra.
“It’s the rehearsal,” she said. “We must be going.”
They moved forward toward the entrance, the auditorium behind them
beginning to resound with the noise of the incoming performers. A
scraping of strings came from the darkened orchestra, and mingled with
the tentative chords struck from the piano. At the door Lepine joined
them, falling into step beside Shackleton and conversing with him in
low tones. Signor Tojetti escorted them to the brass rail and there
withdrew with low bows. The ladies made out that the rehearsal demanded
his presence.
Once again in the gray light of the afternoon they stood for a moment
at the curb waiting for the carriage.
Lepine offered his farewells to Mariposa and his wishes to see her
again.
“In Paris,” he said, giving his little quizzical smile--“that is the
place in which I should like to see Mademoiselle.”
“We’ll talk about that again,” said Shackleton; “I’m going to see Mr.
Lepine before he goes and have another talk about you. You see, you’re
becoming a very important young lady.”
The carriage rolled up and Mariposa was assisted in, several street
boys watching her with wide-eyed interest as evidently a personage of
distinction.
Her face at the window smiled a radiant farewell at the group on the
sidewalk; then she sank back breathless. What an afternoon! Would the
carriage ever get her home, that she might pour it all out to her
mother! What a thrilling, wonderful, unheard-of afternoon!