On that day when she discovered the disappearance of John Matthias, Joan
left the house later than had been her wont, and returned earlier, after
a faint-hearted and abortive attempt to interview the stage-manager of a
new musical production then being assembled to rehearse against an early
opening in the Autumn.
The Deans were out. She had no place to go other than to her bare and
lonely room, and she felt uncommonly hopeless and friendless.
Subconsciously she had been holding in reserve, as a last hope, an
appeal to the generosity of Matthias. He was a playwright, an intimate
of managers: surely he would be able to suggest something, no matter how
poorly paid or inconspicuous. Now, with the date of his return
indefinite, she felt unjustly bereft of that last resource.
She spent two weary, wretched hours on her bed, harassed by a singularly
fresh and clear perception of her unfitness, for the first time made
conscious that she had actually possessed no reasonable excuse for her
determination to go on the stage. Her qualifications, which hitherto
might have been expressed, according to her own estimate, by the
algebraic X, now assumed a value only to be indicated by a cipher. She
had a good strong voice, it's true, but no ear whatever for music; she
didn't "know steps" (Maizie's term, denoting ability for eccentric
dancing) and of the art of acting she was completely ignorant. In fact,
her theatrical ambitions had been founded more upon need of money than
upon any real or fancied passion for the stage. Other girls had done
likewise and bettered themselves: Joan knew no reason why she should
fall short of their enviable achievements; but she was innocent of
dramatic feeling and even of any real yearning for applause. Only her
looks, of which she was confident, were to be counted upon to carry her
beyond the stage doors.
She thought of her home, of her mother, her father, Edna and Butch, with
a dull and temperate regret. Since that first afternoon she had never
attempted to revisit them, and she felt now no inclination toward
returning. Still, her thoughts yearned back to the miserable flat as to
an assured shelter: there, at least, she had been safe from rude weather
and positive hunger.
As things were with her, another week would find her destitute, but
there was still the chance that something would turn up within that
week. She felt almost sure that something would turn up. In this
incurable optimism resided almost her sole endowment for the career of
an actress: this, and a certain dogged temper which wouldn't permit her
to acknowledge defeat until every possible expedient had been
explored....
Toward evening she heard footsteps on the stairs. To her surprise they
paused by her door, upon which fell a confident knock. Jumping up from
her bed in a flurry, she answered to find Quard on the threshold.
No one had been farther from her thoughts. She stared, agape and
speechless.
"Hello, Miss Thursday!" said the actor genially. "Can I come in?"
He entered, cast a comprehensive glance round the poor little room,
deposited his hat upon the bed and himself beside it. Leaving the door
open, and murmuring some inarticulate response, Joan turned back to her
one chair.
"Hope I don't intrude," Quard rattled on cheerfully. "The girl told me
the Deans was out and you in, so I took a chance and said I'd come right
up."
"I--I'm sorry Maizie isn't home," stammered the girl.
"I ain't." Quard's eyes looked her over with open admiration. "I didn't
want to see either of 'em, really. What I wanted was a little confab
with you."
"With _me_!"
"Surest thing you know. I wanta talk business. I don't guess you've
landed anything yet?"
Joan shook her head blankly.
"Well, I got a little proposition to make you. Yunno that sketch I wrote
and you liked so much the other night?"
"Yes...."
"Well, I got hold of Schneider yesterday, and read it to him, and he
says he can get me four or five weeks' booking at least, if I can put it
over at the try-out. How does that strike you?"
"Why--I'm glad," Joan faltered, still mystified. "It must be fine to get
something to do."
"Well, I haven't got it yet; and of course, maybe I won't get it. One of
the first things you gotta learn in this business is, never spend your
pay envelope till you got it in your mitt. And in this case, a lot
depends on you."
"I don't get you," Joan returned frankly. "What've I got to do with it?"
Quard smiled indulgently, offered her a cigarette, which she refused,
and lighted one for himself.
"If I can't get you to play the woman's part," he said, spurting twin
jets of smoke through his nostrils, "it's all up--unless I can hitch up
with summonelse just like you."
"You mean--you want _me_ to--to act--?"
"Right, the very first time outa the box! Yunno, it's this way with
these cheap houses: they can't afford to pay much for a turn, even a
good one--and this one of ours is going to be about as bum as any act
that ever broke through: take that from me. So it's up to me to find
somebody who'll work with me for little enough money to leave something
for myself, after I've squared up with the agent and stage-hands, and
all that. You make me now?"
"Yes; but I haven't any experience--"
"That's just it: if you had, I couldn't afford you. But you gotta start
sometime, and it won't do you no harm to get wise to what little I can
teach you. Now the most I can count on dragging down for this act is
sixty a week. I want twenty-five of that for myself. Fifteen, more will
fix the agent and the rest. That leaves twenty for you. It ain't much,
but it's a long sight better than nothing."
"But--how do you know I can do it?"
"That'll be all right. I know all about acting--anyway, I know enough to
show you how to put across anything you'll have to do in this piece. Now
how about it?"
"Why, I'll be glad--"
"Good enough. Now here: I've had this dope type-written, and here's your
copy. Let's run through it now, and tonight you can start in learning.
Tomorrow we'll have a rehearsal, and just as soon's we got our lines
pat, we'll let Schneider have a pipe at it. Don't worry. It ain't going
to be hard."
Thus reassured, but still a trifle dubious, Joan accepted a duplicate of
the manuscript, and composed herself to follow to the best of her
ability Quard's second reading.
This time he took less pains with his enunciation, scanned the lines
more rapidly, and frequently interrupted himself in order to explain a
trick of stage-craft or to detail with genuine gusto some bit of
business which he counted upon to prove especially telling.
In consequence of this exposition, Joan acquired a much clearer
understanding of the nature of the sketch. It concerned two persons
only: a remarkably successful stage dancer, to be played by Joan; her
convict husband, fresh from the penitentiary, by Quard. _Scene_: the
dressing-room of the dancer. _Time_: just after the dancer's "turn."
Joan, discovered "on", informs the audience of her fortunate
circumstances through the medium of a brief soliloquy. _Enter_ Quard
(shambling gait, convict pallor, etc.) to inform her that she has been
living in the lap of luxury during the eight years that he has been
serving time: "I'm goin' to have my share now!" Comedy business:
humorously brutal attitude toward wife; slangy description of prison
life. ("They'll simply eat that up!"--_Quard._) More comedy business
involving a gratuitous box of property cigars and a cuspidor. Suddenly
and without shadow of excuse, husband accuses wife of infidelity.
Indignant denials; wife exhibits portrait of child born after commitment
of husband, and of whose existence he has heretofore been ignorant: "It
was for him I fought my way to the top of the ladder: he has _your_
eyes!" Incontinently husband experiences change of heart; kisses
photograph; snuffles into cap crushed between hands; slavers over wife's
hand; refuses her offer of assistance; announces he will go West to
"make a _man_ of myself!" before returning to claim his wife and child.
And the _Curtain_ falls upon him in the act of going out, all broken up.
"Of course," Quard admitted, "it's bunk stuff, but we can put it across
all right. I'm going to call it _The Convict's Return_ and bill it as by
_Charles D'Arcy and Company_. You'll be the company. I don't want to use
my name, because it ain't going to do me any good to have it known I've
taken to this graft, and if I'm lucky no one's going to spot me through
my make-up."
Suddenly apprised by the failing light that the hour was growing late,
he pocketed the manuscript and rose.
"Come on out and eat--business dinner. We'll talk things over, and I'll
fetch you home early, so's you can start getting up on your lines."
They dined again at the Italian boarding-house. Quard drank but
sparingly, considerably to the relief of Joan....
She was home by half-past eight, her head buzzing with her efforts to
remember all he had told her, and sat up till three in the morning,
conning the inhuman speeches of her part until she had them by rote; no
very wonderful accomplishment, considering that the sketch was to play
less than fifteen minutes, and that two-thirds of its lines were to be
delivered by Quard.
But once with head on pillow, it was not her rôle that she remembered,
but the man: his coarsely musical tones, his eloquent white hands, the
overt admiration that shone in his eyes whenever he forgot his sketch
and remembered momentarily Joan the woman. She felt sure he liked her.
And she liked him well. Of the merits of his enterprise she knew
nothing, but he had succeeded in inspiring her with confidence that he
knew what he was about.
She drifted off into sleep, comforted by the conviction that she had
found a friend.
By the time of her return from breakfast, the next morning, Quard was
waiting for her at the lodging-house. He had already arranged with
Madame Duprat for the use of the front parlour for rehearsals, pending
its lease to some fortuitous tenant; and here he proceeded to work out
the physical action of the sketch. His gratitude to Joan for knowing her
part was almost affecting; he himself was by no means familiar with his
own and her prompt response to cues he read from manuscript facilitated
his task considerably. When they adjourned for luncheon he announced
himself persuaded that they would be ready to "open" within a week.
Within that period Joan learned many things. She was a tractable and
docile student, keen-set to profit by the scraps of dramatic chicanery
which formed the major part of Quard's stage intelligence. He himself
had a very fair memory and had been drilled by more than one competent
stage-director whose instructions had stuck in his mind, forming a
valuable addition to his professional equipment. Joan soon learned to
speak out clearly; to infuse some little semblance of human feeling into
several of her turgid lines; to suffer herself to be dragged by one
wrist round the room on her knees, by the romantical convict; to time
her actions by mental counting; to "feed lines" to her partner in a
rapid patter through the passages of putative comedy. She learned also
to answer to "dearie" as to her given name, and to submit to being
handled in a way she did not like but which, from all that she could
observe, was considered neither familiar nor objectionable as between
people of the stage. And she learned, furthermore, that May Dean's
opinion of the venture was never to be drawn beyond a mildly derisive
"My Gawd!" while Maizie's ran to the sense that it was all a chance and
Joan a little fool if she didn't grab it--and anyway Joan was old enough
to take care of herself with Charlie Quard or any man living!
And it was Maizie who was responsible for insisting that Joan wheedle an
advance of ten dollars from Quard, ostensibly toward the purchase of
costume and make-up. But when this had been successfully negotiated, the
dancers advised Joan to save it against an emergency, and between them
provided her with an outfit composed of cast-offs: a black satin
décolleté bodice, an accordion-pleated short skirt of the period of
1890, wear-proof silk stockings, a pair of broken-down satin slippers
with red heels, a japanned tin make-up box with a broken lock, and a
generous supply of cheap grease-paint and cold cream.
Joan's début occurred within the time-limit set by Quard and before an
audience of two, not counting a few grinning stage-hands. The two were
the agent Schneider, and the manager of a small moving-picture house in
the Twenty-third Street shopping district; on the half-lighted stage of
which their "try-out" took place at half-past ten of a rainy and
disheartening morning. The judges sat in the darkened auditorium,
staring apathetically and chewing large cigars. Joan, though a little
self-conscious, was not at all nervous, and remembered her lines
perfectly; better than this, she looked very fetching indeed in her
makeshift costume. Quard forgot several of his speeches, floundered all
over the stage, and in a frantic effort to redeem himself clowned his
part outrageously. Nevertheless they were engaged.
Convinced of their failure, Joan had only succeeded in removing her
make-up and struggling into her shabby street clothing, when Quard
knocked at the door of her dressing-room. He had played without make-up,
and consequently had been able to catch the manager and agent before
they could escape. Lounging in the doorway, he breathed a spirit of
congratulation strongly tainted with fumes of whiskey.
"We're on!" he declared exultantly. "What'd I _tell_ you? You needn't
have changed, because we're going to stick here, and open today. One of
the turns on this week's bill fell down at the last minute, and so we
cop this chance to fill in. We go on after the first films--about a
quarter of one; and then at four-thirty, seven-thirty, ten-forty-five.
Now whadda yunno about that?"
Joan gulped and shook her head, her eyes a little misty. For the first
time she began to perceive that she had counted desperately on success.
"I think--we're awful' lucky!" she said faintly.
"Lucky nothing! I knew I could get away with it--always providing I had
you to play up to."
"Me!"
"That's right. After we'd fixed things up I took Schneider down to the
corner and bought him a drink. He said--I dunno as I ought to tell you
this, but anyway--he said the sketch was punk (God knows it is) and
never would've gone if it hadn't been for you. He said all the women
would go crazy about you--you'd got the prettiest shape he'd seen in a
month of Sundays. Yunno they get most of their afternoon houses from the
women shoppers down here."
He paused and after a moment added meditatively: "Of course, you can't
_act_ for shucks."
Joan, looking down, said nothing. Quard dropped a hand intimately across
her shoulder and infused a caressing note into his voice.
"I guess I'm a bad little guesser--eh, dearie?"
Joan stood motionless for an instant. His hand seemed as if afire, as if
burning through her shirtwaist the flesh of her shoulder. And she
resented passionately the intimacy of his tone. Of a sudden she shook
his hand off and moved a pace or two away.
"Let me alone," she said sullenly.