Before leaving the restaurant Quard outlined in detail his plans for
producing "The Lie" for vaudeville presentation. He named the other two
actors, spoke of hiring a negro dresser who would double as the servant,
and indicated his intention of engaging a producing director of the
first calibre who, he said, thought highly of the play.
Joan was a little overcome. Peter Gloucester was a producer quite worthy
to be named in the same breath with Wilbrow.
"Well, he believes in the piece," Quard explained--"the same as me--and
he says he'll give us ten afternoon rehearsals for a hundred and fifty.
It'll be worth it."
"You must think so," said Joan, a little awed.
"You bet I do. This means a lot to me, anyway; I gotta do something to
keep my head above out-of-town stock--or the movies again." Mentioning
his recent experience, he shuddered realistically. "But if this piece
ain't actor-proof, I'm no judge. Gloucester says so, too. And to have
him tune it up into a reg'lar classy act will be worth ... something, I
tell you!"
His hesitation was due to the fact that Quard was secretly counting on
the representations of his agent, Boskerk, who insisted that, properly
presented, the sketch would earn at least four hundred and fifty dollars
a week, instead of the sum he had named to Joan.
But Joan overlooked this lamely retrieved slip; she was all preoccupied
with a glowing sense of gratification growing out of this endorsement of
her first surmise, that Quard had only waited on her consent to go
ahead. The thought was unctuous flattery to her conceit, inflating it
tremendously even in the face of a shrewd suspicion that it was
sentiment more than an exaggerated conception of her ability that made
Quard reckon her coöperation indispensable. That the man was infatuated
with her she was quite convinced; on the other hand, she didn't believe
him sufficiently blinded by passion to imperil the success of his
venture by giving her the chief part unless he believed she could play
it--"actor-proof" or no.
"Lis'n, girlie," Quard pursued after one meditative moment: "could you
begin rehearsing tomorrow?"
"Of course I could."
"Because if we don't, we lose three days...."
"How?"
"Well," Quard explained with a sheepish grin, "I guess I ain't any more
nutty than the next actor you'll meet on Broadway; but I'd as lief slip
my bank-roll to the waiter for a tip as start anything on a Friday. And
Sat'day and Sunday's busy days for the Jinx, too. I got too much up to
wish anything mean onto this piece!..."
At his suggestion they left the dining-room by the hotel entrance on
Forty-fourth Street, and Joan waited in the lobby while Quard telephoned
Gloucester.
"It's all right," he announced, beaming as he emerged from the
booth--"Pete's ready to commence tomorrow aft'noon. Now I got to hustle
and round up the rest of the bunch."
"Where will it be?" asked Joan.
"Don't know yet--I'll 'phone you where in the morning, at the
latest...."
Hastening home, Joan plunged at once into the study of her part, with
the greater readiness since the occupation was anodynous to an uneasy
conscience. Though she was always what is known as a "quick study," this
new rôle was a difficult one; by far the longest, and unquestionably the
most important, it comprised fully half the total number of "sides" in
the manuscript--nearly half as many again as were contained in Quard's
part, the next in order of significance. And her application, that
first day, was hindered by a perplexing interruption in the early
evening, when a box was delivered to her containing a dozen magnificent
red roses and nothing else--neither a card nor a line of identification.
At first inclining to credit Quard with this extravagance, on second
thought she remembered Marbridge, whom she felt instinctively to be
quite capable of such overtures. And her mind was largely distracted for
the rest of the night by empty guesswork and futile attempts to decide
whether or not she ought to run the risk of thanking Quard when next
they met.
Eventually she made up her mind to let the sender furnish the clue; and
inasmuch as Quard never said anything which the most ready imagination
could interpret as a reference to the offering, she came in time to feel
tolerably satisfied that the anonymous donor must have been Marbridge.
It was to be long, however, before this surmise could be confirmed;
although, on getting home Saturday night, after a hard day's work and a
late dinner with Quard, she was informed that a gentleman had called and
asked for her during the afternoon, but had left neither word nor card.
The same thing happened on Monday, under like circumstances; after which
the attempts to see her were discontinued.
And then, Joan noticed that Venetia didn't call....
Interim, the task of whipping "The Lie" into shape went on so steadily
that she had little leisure to waste wondering about Marbridge or
feeling flattered by his interest; and she even ceased, except at odd
moments, to regard Quard as a man and therefore a possible conquest:
Gloucester drilled the actors without mercy and spared himself as
little.
A pursy body, with the childish, moon-like face of a born comedian, he
applied himself to the work with the extravagant solemnity of a minor
poet mouthing his own perfumed verses at a literary dinner. During
rehearsals his manner was immitigably austere, aloof, inspired; but
however precious his methods, he achieved brilliant effects in the
despised medium of clap-trap melodrama; and under his tutelage even Joan
achieved surprising feats of emotional portrayal--and this, singularly
enough, without learning to despise him as she had despised Wilbrow.
She learned what either Wilbrow had lacked the time to teach her or she
had then been unable to learn: how to assume the requisite mood the
moment she left the wings and drop it like a mask as soon as she came
off-stage again. She was soon able to hate and fear Quard with every
fibre of her being throughout their long scenes of dialogue, and to chat
with him in unfeigned amiability both before and after. And her liking
and admiration for the man deepened daily, as Gloucester deftly moulded
Quard's plastic talents into a rude but powerful impersonation.
Partly because of the brevity of the little play, which enabled them to
run through it several times of an afternoon as soon as they were
familiar with its lines, and partly because Gloucester was hard up and
in a hurry to collect his fee, the company was prepared well within the
designated ten days. And through the agent Boskerk's influence, they
were favoured with an early opportunity to present it at a "professional
try-out" matinée, a weekly feature of one of the better-class
moving-picture and vaudeville houses.
The audiences attracted by such trial performances are the most singular
imaginable in composition, and of a temper the most difficult--with the
possible exceptions of a London first-night house bent on booing
whatever the merits of the offering, and a body of jaded New York
dramatic critics and apathetic theatre loungers assembled for the fourth
consecutive first-night of a week toward the end of a long, hard winter.
On Tuesday afternoons and nights (as a rule) they foregather in the
"combination houses" of New York, animated (save for a sprinkling of
agents and bored managers) by a single motive, the desire to
laugh--preferably at, but at a pinch with, those attempting to win their
approbation. Their sense of humour has been nourished on the sidewalk
banana-peel, the slap-stick and the patch on the southern exposure of
the tramp's trousers; and while they will accept with the silence of
curiosity, if not of respect, and at times even applaud, straight
"legitimate" acting, the slightest slip or evidence of hesitation on the
part of an actor, the faintest suggestion of bathos in a line, or even
the tardy adjustment of one of the wings after the rise of the curtain,
will be hailed with shrieks of delight and derision.
Before an assemblage of this character, "The Distinguished Romantic
Actor, Chas. H. Quard & Company," presented "The Lie" as the fifth
number of a matinée bill.
Waiting in the wings and watching the stage-hands shift and manoeuvre
flats and ceiling, and arrange furniture and properties at the direction
of the _David_ (who doubled that rôle with the duties of stage manager)
Joan listened to the dreadful wails of a voiceless vocalist who, on the
other side of the scene-drop, was rendering with sublime disregard for
key and tempo a ballad of sickening sentimentality; heard the feet of
the audience, stamping in time, drown out both song and accompaniment,
the subsequent roar of laughter and hand-clapping that signalized the
retirement of the singer, and experienced, for the first and only time,
premonitory symptoms of stage-fright.
Through what seemed a wait of several minutes after the disappearance of
the despised singer--who, half-reeling, half-running, with tears
furrowing her enameled cheeks, brushed past Joan on her way to her
dressing-room--the applause continued, rising, falling, dying out and
reviving in vain attempts to lure the object of its ridicule back to the
footlights.
At a word from _David_, the stage-hands vanished, and at his nod Joan
moved on. _David_ seated himself and opened a newspaper while the girl,
trembling, took up a position near a property fireplace, with an
after-dinner coffee-cup and saucer in her hands. She was looking her
best in the evening frock purchased for the week-end at Tanglewood, and
was in full command of her lines and business; but there was a lump in
her throat and a sickly sensation in the pit of her stomach as the cheap
orchestra took up the refrain of a time-worn melody which had been
pressed into service as curtain music.
Peering over the edge of his newspaper, _David_ spoke final words of
kindly counsel: "Don't you mind, whatever happens. Make believe they
ain't no audience."
The house was quiet, now, and the music very clear.
Kneeling within the recess of the fireplace, almost near enough to touch
her hand, Quard begged plaintively: "For the love of Gawd, don't let
their kidding queer you, girlie. Remember, Boskerk promised he'd have
Martin Beck out front!"
Joan nodded--gulped.
The curtain rose. Through the glare of footlights the auditorium was
vaguely revealed, a vast and gloomy amphitheatre dotted with an
infinite, orderly multitude of round pink spots, and still with the hush
of expectancy. Joan thought of a dotted lavender foulard she had
recently coveted in a department-store; and the ridiculous incongruity
of this comparison in some measure restored her assurance. Turning her
head slowly, she looked at _David_, who was properly intent on his
newspaper, smiled, and parted her lips to speak the opening line.
From the gallery floated a shrill, boyish squeal:
"_Gee! pipe the pippin!_"
The audience rocked and roared. Joan's heart sank; then, suddenly,
resentment kindled her temper; she grew coldly, furiously angry, and
forgot entirely to be afraid of that stupid, bawling beast, the public.
But her faint, charming smile never varied a fraction. Turning, she
spoke the first line, heedless of the uproar; and as if magically it was
stilled. A feeling of contempt and superiority further encouraged her.
She repeated the words, which were of no special value to the
plot--merely a trick of construction to postpone the ringing of a
telephone-bell long enough to let the audience grasp the relationship of
those upon the stage.
In a respectful silence, _David_ looked up from the newspaper and
replied. The telephone-bell rang. Turning to the instrument on the table
beside him, he lifted the receiver to his ear and--the plot began to
unfold.
_David_, the husband, in his suburban home, was being called to New York
on unexpected business with a client booked to sail for Europe in the
morning. It was night; reluctant to go, he none the less yielded to
pressure, rang for the coachman and ordered a carriage, in the face of
the protests of Joan, his wife. She was to be left alone in the house
with their little son; for the maids were out and the coachman slept
beyond call in the stable. Reassuring her with his promise to return at
the earliest possible moment, _David_ departed....
A brief and affectionate passage between the two was rendered inaudible
by derisive laughter; but this was almost instantly silenced when Quard
showed himself at a window in the back of the set, peering furtively in
at the lonely woman in the unguarded house.
An excellent actor when properly guided, and fresh from the hands of one
of the most astute producers connected with the American stage, without
uttering a word Quard contrived to infuse into this first brief
appearance at the window a sense of criminal and sinister mystery which
instantly enchained the imagination of the audience.
In the tense silence of the house, the nervous gasp of a high-strung
woman was distinctly audible. But it passed without eliciting a single
hoot.
Darting round to the door, Quard entered and addressed Joan. She cried
out strongly in mingled terror and horror. A few crisp and rapid lines
uncovered the argument: Quard was the woman's first husband, who had
married and deserted her all in a week and whom she had been given every
reason to believe dead. Ashamed of that mad union with a dissolute
blackguard, she had concealed it from the husband of her second
marriage. Now she was confronted with the knowledge that her innocently
bigamous position would be made public unless she submitted to
blackmail. Promising in her torment to give the man all he demanded, she
induced him to leave before the return of the servant.... Alone she
realized suddenly the illegitimacy of the child of her second marriage.
At this, a scene-curtain fell, and a notice was flashed upon it
informing the audience that the short moment it remained down indicated
a lapse of five hours in the action.
Already the interest of the audience had become so fixed that it
applauded with sincerity.
Hurrying to her dressing-room, Joan stepped out of her pretty frock and
into a negligee. The removal of a few pins permitted her hair to fall
down her back, a long, thick, plaited rope of bronze. Then grasping a
revolver loaded with blanks, she ran back to the second left entrance.
The scene-curtain was already up; on the stage, in semi-darkness, the
_Thief_, having broken into the house by way of the back window, was
attempting to force the combination of a small safe behind a screen....
Quard, kneeling to peer through the fireplace, lifted a signalling hand
to Joan. _David_ stamped loudly, off-stage. In alarm, the _Thief_ hid
himself behind the screen; and Joan came on, with a line of soliloquy to
indicate that she had been awakened by the noise of the burglar's
entrance. As she turned up the lights by means of a wall-switch, Quard
re-entered by way of the window, in a well-simulated state of
semi-drunkenness which had ostensibly roused his distrust and brought
him back to watch and threaten his wife anew....
Here happened one of those terrible blunders which seem almost
inseparable from first performances.
As Joan wheeled round to recognize Quard, her hand nervously contracted
on the revolver, and it exploded point-blank at Quard's chest. Had it
been loaded he must inevitably have been killed then and there; and
when, pulling himself together, Quard managed to go on with the
business--springing upon Joan and wresting the weapon from her--the
audience betrayed exquisite appreciation of the impossibility, and
shrieked and whooped with joy unrestrained.
It was some minutes before they were able audibly to take up the
dialogue. And this was fortunate, in a way; for the shock of that
unexpected explosion had caused Quard to "dry up"--as the slang of the
stage terms nervous dryness of the throat whether or not accompanied by
forgetfulness. He required that pandemoniac pause in which to recover;
and even when able to make himself heard, he repeated hoarsely and with
extreme difficulty the line called to him by _David_--who was holding
the prompt-book, in the fireplace.
But the instinct of one bred to the stage from childhood saved him. And
with comparative quiet restored, he braced up and played out the scene
with admirable verve and technique. Joan was well aware that, stronger
though her rôle might be, the man was giving a performance that
overshadowed it heavily.
He was drunk and he was brutal: _David_ had telephoned that he was at
the railroad station and would be home in a few minutes; Quard, not
content with promises, insisted on money, of which the woman had none to
give him, or her jewels, which were locked away in the safe. When she
refused to disclose the combination or to open the safe, Quard in
besotted rage attempted to force her to open it. Struggling, they
overturned the screen, exposing the _Thief_. Through a breathless and
silent instant the two men faced one another, Quard bewildered, the
_Thief_ seeing his way of escape barred. Then simultaneously they
fired--Quard using the woman's revolver. One shot only took effect--the
_Thief's_--and that fatally. Quard fell. Joan seized the arm of the
_Thief_ and urged him from the house; as he vanished through the window,
she picked up the revolver which Quard had dropped, and turned to the
door. Frantic with alarm, _David_ entered. Joan reeled into his arms,
screaming: "I have killed a burglar!"
On this tableau the curtain fell--and rose and fell again and again at
the direction of the house-manager deferring to an enthusiastic
audience. Crude and raw as was this composition, the surprise of its
last line and the strength with which it was acted, had won the
unstinted approval of a public ever hungry for melodrama.
Quard, revivified, bowing and smiling with suave and deprecatory grace,
Joan in tears of excitement and delight, and the subordinate members of
the company in varying stages of gratification over the prospect of
prompt booking and a long engagement, were obliged to hold the stage
through nine curtain-calls....
On her way back to her dressing-room Joan was halted by a touch on her
shoulder. She paused, to recognize Gloucester, of whose presence in the
house she had been ignorant.
"Very well done, my dear," he said loftily; "very well done. You've got
the makings of an actress in you, if you don't lose your head. Now run
along and dry your eyes, like a good girl, and don't bother me with your
silly gratitude."
With this he brusquely turned his back to her.
But Quard, overtaking her in the gangway, without hesitation or apology
folded her in his arms and kissed her on the lips. And Joan submitted
without remonstrance, athrill and elate.
"Girlie!" he cried exultantly--"you're a wonder!
"I _knew_ you could do it!... But, O my Gawd! you nearly finished me
when you let that gun off right in my face!..."
Somehow she found her way home alone, and shut herself up in the
hall-bedroom to calm down and try to review the triumph sensibly.
Unquestionably she had done well.
Quard had done much better--but no wonder! She wasn't jealous: she was
glad for his sake as well as for her own.
Of course, this meant a great change. There was to come the day of
reckoning with Matthias.... She had four letters of his, not one of
which she had answered.... If "The Lie" got booking, and she went on the
road with it--as she knew in her soul she would: nothing now could keep
her off the stage--she would almost certainly lose Matthias.
Quard, however, would remain to her; and of Quard she was very sure.
That he loved her with genuine and generous devotion was now the one
clear and indisputable fact in her unstable existence. If only he would
refrain from drinking....
He was to telephone as soon as he received any encouraging news; and he
had expected definite word from Boskerk before the afternoon was over.
In anticipation of being called down-stairs at any minute, Joan remained
in her street dress, aching for her bed though she was with reaction and
simple fatigue. But it was nearly eight o'clock before she was summoned.
"That you, girlie?" the answer came to her breathless "Hello?"
"Yes--yes, Charlie. What is it?"
"I've seen Boskerk--in fact, I'm eating with him now. It's all settled.
We're to open next Monday somewhere in New England--Springfield,
probably; and we get forty weeks solid on top of that."
"I'm so glad!"
"Sure you are. We're all glad, I guess."
"And--Charlie--" she stammered.
"Hello?"
"Are you--are you all right?"
"Sure I'm all right. Good night, girlie. Take care of yourself. See you
tomorrow."
"Good night," said Joan.
Hooking up the receiver, she leaned momentarily against the wall,
feeling a little faint and ill.
Was it simply overtaxed imagination that had made her believe she
detected a slight constraint in Quard's voice--a hesitation assumed to
mask blurred enunciation?