“And it occurs to me,” he thoughtfully added, “that this may be a time
for Vane-Basingwell to silence the slurs upon himself that are
becoming so common. I shall beg him to meet our guest at his hotel and
escort him to my place. A note to my friend, ‘the bearer, the
Honourable George Augustus Vane-Basingwell, brother of his lordship
the Earl of Brinstead, will take great pleasure in escorting to my
home----’ You get the idea? Not bad!”
Again I applauded, resolving that for once the Honourable George would
be suitably attired even if I had to bully him. And so was launched
what promised to be Red Gap’s most notable social event of the season.
The Honourable George, being consulted, promised after a rather sulky
hesitation to act as the great artist’s escort, though he persisted in
referring to him as “that piano Johnny,” and betrayed a suspicion that
Belknap-Jackson was merely bent upon getting him to perform without
price.
“But no,” cried Belknap-Jackson, “I should never think of anything so
indelicate as asking him to play. My own piano will be tightly closed
and I dare say removed to another room.”
At this the Honourable George professed to wonder why the chap was
desired if he wasn’t to perform. “All hair and bad English--silly
brutes when they don’t play,” he declared. In the end, however, as I
have said, he consented to act as he was wished to. Cousin Egbert, who
was present at this interview, took somewhat the same view as the
Honourable George, even asserting that he should not attend the
recital.
“He don’t sing, he don’t dance, he don’t recite; just plays the piano.
That ain’t any kind of a show for folks to set up a whole evening
for,” he protested bitterly, and he went on to mention various
theatrical pieces which he had considered worthy, among them I recall
being one entitled “The Two Johns,” which he regretted not having
witnessed for several years, and another called “Ben Hur,” which was
better than all the piano players alive, he declared. But with the
Honourable George enlisted, both Belknap-Jackson and I considered the
opinions of Cousin Egbert to be quite wholly negligible.
Saturday’s _Recorder_, in its advance notice of the recital,
announced that the Belknap-Jacksons of Boston and Red Gap would
entertain the artist on the following afternoon at their palatial home
in the Pettengill addition, where a select few of the North Side set
had been invited to meet him. Belknap-Jackson himself was as a man
uplifted. He constantly revised and re-revised his invitation list; he
sought me out each day to suggest subtle changes in the very artistic
menu I had prepared for the affair. His last touch was to supplement
the decanter of sherry with a bottle of vodka. About the caviare he
worried quite fearfully until it proved upon arrival to be fresh and
of prime quality. My man, the Hobbs boy, had under my instructions
pressed and smarted the Honourable George’s suit for afternoon wear.
The carriage was engaged. Saturday night it was tremendously certain
that no hitch could occur to mar the affair. We had left no detail to
chance.
The recital itself was quite all that could have been expected, but
underneath the enthusiastic applause there ran even a more intense
fervour among those fortunate ones who were to meet the artist on the
morrow.
Belknap-Jackson knew himself to be a hero. He was elaborately cool. He
smiled tolerantly at intervals and undoubtedly applauded with the
least hint of languid proprietorship in his manner. He was heard to
speak of the artist by his first name. The Klondike woman and many of
her Bohemian set were prominently among those present and sustained
glances of pitying triumph from those members of the North Side set so
soon to be distinguished above her.
The morrow dawned auspiciously, very cloudy with smartish drives of
wind and rain. Confined to the dingy squalor of his hotel, how gladly
would the artist, it was felt, seek the refined cheer of one of our
best homes where he would be enlivened by an hour or so of contact
with our most cultivated people. Belknap-Jackson telephoned me with
increasing frequency as the hour drew near, nervously seeming to dread
that I would have overlooked some detail of his refined refreshments,
or that I would not have them at his house on time. He telephoned
often to the Honourable George to be assured that the carriage with
its escort would be prompt. He telephoned repeatedly to the driver
chap, to impress upon him the importance of his mission.
His guests began to arrive even before I had decked his sideboard with
what was, I have no hesitation in declaring, the most superbly dainty
buffet collation that Red Gap had ever beheld. The atmosphere at once
became tense with expectation.
At three o’clock the host announced from the telephone:
“Vane-Basingwell has started from the Floud house.” The guests
thrilled and hushed the careless chatter of new arrivals.
Belknap-Jackson remained heroically at the telephone, having demanded
to be put through to the hotel. He was flushed with excitement. A
score of minutes later he announced with an effort to control his
voice: “They have left the hotel--they are on the way.”
The guests stiffened in their seats. Some of them nervously and for no
apparent reason exchanged chairs with others. Some late arrivals
bustled in and were immediately awed to the same electric silence of
waiting. Belknap-Jackson placed the sherry decanter where the vodka
bottle had been and the vodka bottle where the sherry decanter had
been. “The effect is better,” he remarked, and went to stand where he
could view the driveway. The moments passed.
At such crises, which I need not say have been plentiful in my life, I
have always known that I possessed an immense reserve of coolness.
Seldom have I ever been so much as slightly flustered. Now I was
calmness itself, and the knowledge brought me no little satisfaction
as I noted the rather painful distraction of our host. The moments
passed--long, heavy, silent moments. Our host ascended trippingly to
an upper floor whence he could see farther down the drive. The guests
held themselves in smiling readiness. Our host descended and again
took up his post at a lower window.
The moments passed--stilled, leaden moments. The silence had become
intolerable. Our host jiggled on his feet. Some of the quicker-minded
guests made a pretence of little conversational flurries: “That second
movement--oh, exquisitely rendered!... No one has ever read Chopin so
divinely.... How his family must idolize him!... They say.... That
exquisite concerto!... Hasn’t he the most stunning hair.... Those
staccato passages left me actually limp--I’m starting Myrtle in
Tuesday to take of Professor Gluckstein. She wants to take
stenography, but I tell her.... Did you think the preludes were just
the tiniest bit idealized.... I always say if one has one’s music, and
one’s books, of course--He must be very, _very_ fond of music!”
Such were the hushed, tentative fragments I caught.
The moments passed. Belknap-Jackson went to the telephone. “What? But
they’re not here! Very strange! They should have been here half an
hour ago. Send some one--yes, at once.” In the ensuing silence he
repaired to the buffet and drank a glass of vodka. Quite distraught he
was.
The moments passed. Again several guests exchanged seats with other
guests. It seemed to be a device for relieving the strain. Once more
there were scattering efforts at normal talk. “Myrtle is a strange
girl--a creature of moods, I call her. She wanted to act in the moving
pictures until papa bought the car. And she knows every one of the new
tango steps, but I tell her a few lessons in cooking wouldn’t--Beryl
Mae is just the same puzzling child; one thing one day, and another
thing the next; a mere bundle of nerves, and so sensitive if you say
the least little thing to her ... If we could only get Ling Wong
back--this Jap boy is always threatening to leave if the men don’t get
up to breakfast on time, or if Gertie makes fudge in his kitchen of an
afternoon ... Our boy sends all his wages to his uncle in China, but I
simply can’t get him to say, ‘Dinner is served.’ He just slides in and
says, ‘All right, you come!’ It’s very annoying, but I always tell the
family, ‘Remember what a time we had with the Swede----’”
I mean to say, things were becoming rapidly impossible. The moments
passed. Belknap-Jackson again telephoned: “You did send a man after
them? Send some one after him, then. Yes, at once!” He poured himself
another peg of the vodka. Silence fell again. The waiting was terrific.
We had endured an hour of it, and but little more was possible to any
sensitive human organism. All at once, as if the very last possible
moment of silence had passed, the conversation broke loudly and
generally: “And did you notice that slimpsy thing she wore last
night? Indecent, if you ask me, with not a petticoat under it, I’ll
be bound!... Always wears shoes twice too small for her ... What men
can see in her ... How they can endure that perpetual smirk!...” They
were at last discussing the Klondike woman, and whatever had befallen
our guest of honour I knew that those present would never regain their
first awe of the occasion. It was now unrestrained gabble.
The second hour passed quickly enough, the latter half of it being
enlivened by the buffet collation which elicited many compliments upon
my ingenuity and good taste. Quite almost every guest partook of a
glass of the vodka. They chattered of everything but music, I dare say
it being thought graceful to ignore the afternoon’s disaster.
Belknap-Jackson had sunk into a mood of sullen desperation. He drained
the vodka bottle. Perhaps the liquor brought him something of the
chill Russian fatalism. He was dignified but sodden, with a depression
that seemed to blow from the bleak Siberian steppes. His wife was
already receiving the adieus of their guests. She was smouldering
ominously, uncertain where the blame lay, but certain there was blame.
Criminal blame! I could read as much in her narrowed eyes as she
tried for aplomb with her guests.
My own leave I took unobtrusively. I knew our strangely missing guest
was to depart by the six-two train, and I strolled toward the station.
A block away I halted, waiting. It had been a time of waiting. The
moments passed. I heard the whistle of the approaching train. At the
same moment I was startled by the approach of a team that I took to be
running away.
I saw it was the carriage of the Pierce chap and that he was driving
with the most abandoned recklessness. His passengers were the
Honourable George, Cousin Egbert, and our missing guest. The great
artist as they passed me seemed to feel a vast delight in his wild
ride. He was cheering on the driver. He waved his arms and himself
shouted to the maddened horses. The carriage drew up to the station
with the train, and the three descended.
The artist hurriedly shook hands in the warmest manner with his
companions, including the Pierce chap, who had driven them. He
beckoned to his secretary, who was waiting with his bags. He mounted
the steps of the coach, and as the train pulled out he waved
frantically to the three. He kissed his hand to them, looking far out
as the train gathered momentum. Again and again he kissed his hand to
the hat-waving trio.
It was too much. The strain of the afternoon had told even upon my own
iron nerves. I felt unequal at that moment to the simplest inquiry,
and plainly the situation was not one to attack in haste. I mean to
say, it was too pregnant with meaning. I withdrew rapidly from the
scene, feeling the need for rest and silence.
As I walked I meditated profoundly.