Firecrackers/Chapter 10
George, Laura Everest tearfully exclaimed to her husband one evening on his return from the City, I just don't know what to do about Consuelo!
What's the trouble now, Laura? George demanded indifferently, a trifle bored by his wife's chronic, if still bewildered, complaint.
She wants to become an acrobat, wants to study with those awful circus People she met through Campaspe.
George chuckled. I thought she met them first.
Well, at any rate she never would have seen that man again if Campaspe hadn't invited her to go to the Riverside. If I had known . . . !
Why not let her, Laura?
Are you out of your head, George?
George shielded a permanent smile behind the newspaper he held in his hands as he persisted, Why not let her, I say? All the babies in town are doing something of the sort now. Hiram Mason's son is studying pugilism, doubtless with the intention of challenging Young Stribling. Ira Barber's little girl is striving to acquire the rudiments of interpretative dancing. Already her picture, in Greek costume, has appeared in the illustrated section of the Sunday Times. Maida Sonsconsett, aged nine, attends the Institute where Dalcroze Eurythmics are expounded, and Helen Blair has gone in for Gurdjieff. . . .
That is an entirely different matter, and you know it, George, Laura expostulated. Everybody has gone in for Gurdjieff, but acrobats are vulgar.
Laura dear, you're not up on acrobats. Why, I recently read somewhere or other that all circus performers are good to their wives, never get divorces, and attend church services regularly. They never drink and they never swear. Laura, if the younger generation is insisting on physical training, I don't think we could put Consuelo in more moral hands.
George, you're not serious. You are praising middle-class virtues. Do you want your daughter brought up that way?
I am serious. I don't think it would do Consuelo any harm at all to imbibe a few middle-class ideas. Of course, we'll ask Miss Pinchon to accompany her to the studio or whatever they call it and chaperon Consuelo while she takes her lesson. In a short time, doubtless, she will be able to turn cartwheels and handsprings all over the drawing-room floor. The Masons and the Sonsconsetts and the Barbers and the Blairs will die of envy. I predict that you'll live to see an epidemic of fashionable acrobats. Think of it: they can all perform together like a troupe of Arabs. You'll always have entertainment for an evening party. And if I lose my money, he added slyly, Consuelo will have a profession. She can support us in our old age.
George! Will you never be serious?
Laura, Consuelo knows too much. George certainly was more serious now. Why, already she's read books that you and I will never read, and probably wouldn't understand if we did. This is a dangerous state of affairs. If we don't look out for her she'll fall ill. Physical culture is the very thing she needs.
She'll develop horrid muscles on her arms and legs!
You're thinking of the ballet. This sort of thing is quite different, Laura. She won't learn to stand on her toes; she'll learn to stand on her head.
Ultimately Laura was persuaded if not convinced. A day or so later, vetoing her final protestations, George paid a call on the Brothers Steel to discuss the matter. Hugo and Robin, disconsolate over the defection of Gunnar, their booking over the Orpheum Circuit cancelled and their time on the Pantages dated a month ahead, were immeasurably cheered by the profitable prospect that opened before them, and gave their ready assent to the plan.
After George Everest's departure, sitting, as was their wont, side by side on the long bench, stroking their moustaches in unison, their faces actually assumed an expression of hope. Observing this sign, Mrs. Hugo suggested that the scheme had infinite future possibilities. You'd be home all the time, boys, and I'm sure you'll get more pupils and make a pile of money, and never have to worry about bookin' no more. This was, indeed, they believed, a new idea which might prove remunerative. Now that a connection had been formed with the upper East Side, more rich little boys and girls might be induced to apply for instruction in the acrobatic arts. If this possibility faded, they might take on poor little boys and girls and train them for the circus and the vaudeville stage. The idea had never occurred to them before, and now it had been put into their heads by a business man from Wall Street! If Gunnar were only here to offer them advice and encouragement! Their faces fell again.
One morning, shortly after their interview with her father, Consuelo, accompanied by Miss Pinchon, appeared at the gymnasium. Mrs. Hugo conducted the child behind the curtains and assisted her in donning the costume which her mother had provided. When she emerged from the recess, her arms bare, her slender hips encased in baggy knickerbockers, she presented, with her pale, solemn face, shadowed by golden curls, her great staring eyes, and her slender arms and legs, an extremely curious picture. Miss Pinchon had brought a book with her, but she did not open it. Her gaze was portentously ardent.
Well, Miss Consuelo, whadya want to learn? Robin demanded politely.
I want to do everything that Gunnar can do, she replied without hesitation.
Whew! Some ambish! Hugo cried. It'll take a long time.
I expect it to, Consuelo calmly assured him, the longer the better.
When the primitive first excercises began, Consuelo in the gravest manner devoted her whole soul to the accomplishment of what was demanded of her, while Miss Pinchon studied the execution of the evolutions with an attention which seemed entirely out of proportion to the spectacle offered to her vision.
When do you expect Gunnar back? Consuelo inquired, suspending her fatiguing exercise.
The twins, who had been in the best of spirits, wilted at this question.
You mustn't ask about Gunnar, dearie, Mrs. Hugo patiently explained. We don't know when he'll be back.
If ever, Robin solemnly added.
Consuelo appeared not to have taken this in. Well, she urged, I'm rested now. Let's go back to work.
Day after day the lessons continued, Consuelo throwing all her nervous energy, all her intelligence, into the achievement of professional agility. She proved pliable and exceedingly limber. It was amazing how fast she learned. It was necessary at first, of course, to give her excercises for the strengthening of the muscles, and these she was advised to practise at home. She followed this counsel with so much assiduity that for the time being she entirely neglected her reading. Every morning, accompanied by Miss Pinchon, she visited the brothers for a lesson. The governess, seated on a hard, wooden chair, did not appear to be uncomfortable. A vague idea was gradually becoming concrete in Miss Pinchon's brain.
Consuelo's parents were by no means blind to the physical improvement in the child. Even Laura was now satisfied that some good might come out of this vagary.
If there were only a philosophy behind this, George chucklingly remarked to Campaspe one day, there would be no stopping it. All it needs is a philosophy . . . something about soul hunger being satisfied . . . and then every mother in New York would send her child down there.
I am not altogether certain, Campaspe suggested, that there is not a philosophy behind it.
Well, you know what I mean, the mystified George countered.
Yes, I know what you mean, was Campaspe's cryptic response.
While they were talking in the Everest drawing-room, Miss Pinchon crossed the room, ostensibly in search of a book. There was an expression on her face that no one had ever seen there before. No one, as a matter of fact, observed it now.