Firecrackers/Chapter 6
Consuelo sat very quiet, her slender legs dangling over the edge of the couch.
Of course, it is with Campaspe, Laura was qualifying, and it would probably be all right this time. There's certainly no harm in her attending a vaudeville entertainment, except for the fact that she is going out altogether too much. She's acquiring, Laura concluded darkly, too many ideas.
Consuelo's face was pale and emotionless. One could hardly be sure that she was listening at all to this family discussion conducted insensitively without regard for her presence, notwithstanding the certainty that she herself provided the theme for it.
I can't imagine where she gets them all, Laura wailed.
Perhaps, George suggested, from her governess.
No, George . . . Laura spoke decisively . . . I am sure they do not come from Miss Pinchon. I have the utmost faith in her conservatism. I think it must be from books. Consuelo, dear, why aren't you like other little girls?
Directly addressed, the child replied, although without altering her position and apparently without any special interest, I don't profess to have the slightest idea, maman, what other little girls may be like. I must admit that I don't understand them at all. I only know that they're not in the least like me.
She complained of a headache and excused herself from the dance Mrs. Nicander gave for the children last week, after she had been there five minutes, Laura continued.
Well, maman, frankly I was bored.
But Consuelo dear, you don't even appear to be interested in your home and your mama and papa and sister.
I'm sorry, maman. I'm fond of you all—in a way—and I know you do all you can—that is everything you know how to do—to make it pleasant for me, but you will acknowledge that the conversation in this house is on a pretty inferior plane.
George turned aside and blew his nose violently. Laura gasped, and gave the impression—opening and closing her mouth rapidly several times—that she was about to make some drastic comment. Apparently, she altered her original intention, for her lips eventually formed these words instead, Consuelo dear, you may certainly accompany Mrs. Lorillard to the Riverside, and now run away. Papa and I want to talk.
Slowly, the child slid down from the couch until her feet touched the floor. Then rising, with great dignity she retired from the room, first casting her mother one of the most subdolous in her extensive repertory of glances, any one of which was calculated to puzzle and disquiet Laura for several hours after she had received it.
As Consuelo, with a great show of courtesy, closed the door carefully behind her, Laura demanded, Did you hear that?
George was laughing. Of course, I heard it, Laura. By Jove, the kid's a wonder. I never thought I'd live to be jacked up by my own child about the tone of my conversation.
Laura was thoughtful. It isn't, she mused audibly, as if she were impolite. I don't think she is ever really that. Her governess reports that she is an angel so far as her deportment goes, but she has such a disconcerting habit of saying what she thinks, and she thinks so much!
Well, Laura, George suggested, I suppose the best thing to do, since she hasn't yet joined the Bolshevists or tried to set fire to the house, is to let her go right on thinking, even if she thinks out loud. That's the English system regarding free speech. In London they give radicals the opportunity to say anything they please publicly or privately, even to write it. This serves to let off a lot of steam and probably preserves the empire. People who talk seldom act. The Russian Tsars never learned that lesson and look where they are now. So long as Consuelo behaves herself to any reasonable degree, let her think or say what she wants to.
But George, Laura protested, we can't do that. She'd grow up a barbarian. She expresses the strangest, most mature ideas on every conceivable subject, subjects that I wouldn't dare allow my mind to dwell on, even yet. Why, when I was a girl . . .
I know, I know. George was becoming a trifle impatient. Times have changed, Laura. It's the younger generation.
I've read a good deal about this younger generation and these young intellectuals, but I've always understood that they were over ten.
We should be proud that we have raised a prodigy.
Laura perpended this statement. I think, she put forward, after a pause, that we should send her away to school.
George laughed again. Why, they wouldn't stand for that child in any school, he exclaimed. She'd corrupt the minds of all the other pupils. Besides, she'd never learn anything. She already knows more than any Yale graduate I ever met.
Then, what are we to do?
I think we'll just have to wait and see what happens, George counselled. Let's be patient. Leave the girl alone. Let her think, let her talk. You'll see: the family will be as stable as Britannia in the end. Don't make the Romanoff mistake of sending free-thinkers to Siberia. It never works.
You may be right, George, Laura assented, but her tone did not carry the ring of assurance.
Paul and Vera arrived at the Riverside shortly after three, just in time to observe a pair of comedians whacking each other frantically with folded newspapers. Vaudeville audiences, originally, had accepted this gesture as funny in itself. Now the humour lay in appreciating the fact that it had once been considered amusing. Paul had notified Campaspe that, as the Brothers Steel were announced to close the bill, she need not, therefore, present herself before four-thirty. He himself, however, had experienced apprehension lest there might be an inversion in the promised order of the program, which would bring on the acrobats before their appointed hour.
Vera was so delighted by the idea of being permitted to go out in the joint company of her husband and Campaspe that she gave the impression of resembling a stout bottle, so charged with soda, the bubbles constantly rising to the top to seek release, that it might explode at any moment.
I know we shall enjoy ourselves, she explained. I haven't been to a vaudeville show for ages.
Paul, too, was in an excellent, withal somewhat grave, mood. They settled themselves in the gilded cane ball-room chairs which furnished the box, with plaster cupids in amorous attitudes presiding symbolically in a great shell above their heads. Vera sought her husband's hand, and he did not withdraw it immediately.
I shall just die! Vera cackled. Did you hear what that man said?
Yes, I heard. Paul smiled.
An exhibition of trained seals followed the two comedians. These incipient coats caught rubber balls on their noses, played musical instruments, shot off revolvers, and waved American flags. After each of these feats they barked excitedly until their trainer, a young woman in high, white, Russian boots and a blue satin costume, edged around the bottom with polar bear fur, dropped her whip to toss them fish, which they caught in the air and devoured edaciously.
O, Paul, I'm having such a good time, Vera declared. Let's go out together oftener.
Whenever you like, Vera. . . . Paul slowly withdrew his hand from the grasp of her palm. . . I think that seal is about to ride a bicycle.
Paul, Vera begged, and her manner had become coy and whimpering, please promise me something.
What is it, Vera?
Promise me you won't go to work.
I can't do that, Vera.
I don't think it's fair to me, Paul. Really, I don't. People will take it as a reflection on the way I treat you. I've done everything I could for you, Paul, but the cats will say you're not satisfied, that you want more. . . . I'll give you more, she avowed wildly, anything you want!
You've been wonderful, Vera. It isn't that you haven't, he lied. God! This was worse than Amy!
Let me be wonderful to you—let me go on being, I mean. It makes me happy, Paul. I shall never be happy again if you go to work.
I'm sorry, Vera. The band was playing What'll I Do? to accompany the evolutions of the seals, but it sounded like incidental music for this conversation.
If you really loved me, you'd be content to let me support you. You don't love me any more. Vera was weeping, softly at first, but Paul was acquainted with her capacity for making a noise as soon as she truly began to enjoy her grief.
Of course, I do, he countered distractedly, and he was grateful at this moment to observe the name of Nora Bayes flash in the announcement frame. Vera chose the instant when the self-confident performer, screened by a preposterously enormous fan of orange feathers, undulated in the direction of the footlights to permit a sob of anguish to escape. As Paul had anticipated, however, this cry was drowned out by the power of sound expelled from the stage. The scene was further interrupted by the arrival of Campaspe and Consuelo. The former took in the situation at once, understood it, and ignored it, seating herself in the place reserved for her and, with a wave of the hand, inviting Consuelo to follow her example. The child was bundled in a cloak of white fox on which she had fastened a spray of brown and yellow orchids. Hesitating a little before she removed this outer covering and her gloves, she sat watching and listening intently to the entertainer on the stage.
She sings so loud: Consuelo explained the reason for her interest, as Miss Bayes retired to change her dress, while the pianist fingered through Chopin's Minute Waltz in a manner which reminded Campaspe of eggs boiling with the advice of a sand-glass. I never heard any one sing so loud before, the awed child continued, not even Rosa Ponselle or Jeritza.
You should hear Sophie Tucker or Eva Tanguay, Paul advised.
Do they sing louder?
Much louder.
I want to, the little girl averred with great simplicity, as she consulted her program.
Vera, whose display of mental anguish had created neither sympathy nor comment, began to dry her eyes. Long ago, Campaspe had learned that the proper manner of dealing with Vera's emotions was to disregard them, for if Vera discovered that she was not pleasing you in one way she immediately tried another. Vera's whole existence had been devoted to a vain effort to please somebody or other. It cannot be said that she ever quite succeeded even in pleasing herself.
Nora Bayes was interpreting another popular ditty.
I think she's very clever, Vera, who had now reassumed some semblance of a cheerful, social tone, informed her friends.
She uses her fan well, Campaspe tossed her.
Doesn't she? Vera gushed, grateful for this first slight attention.
It's almost as big as her voice, Consuelo piped up.
Campaspe arrided her. Quite, you delicious child! When do your friends come on, Paul?
They follow this number.
Then we arrived just in time.
Rather, too early. Bayes will sing for half-an-hour.
This apparently mantic prognostication proved to be entirely correct. Miss Bayes rendered song after song, and when, at last, she seemed willing to desist, the crowd in the theatre, by its exuberant applause, persuaded her to begin another, and another, and another. In the end, she made a little speech, kissed her hand, waved her fan in a final flourish, and disappeared from view. Even then, even, indeed, after the illuminated placard had signalled the appearance of the Brothers Steel: Acrobats, the clapping of hands persisted. As it seemed impossible, however, to drag the popular entertainer out again, a general exodus began, and the trio offered the opening moments of their act to an audience composed largely of retreating backs.
It's my O'Grady! Consuelo cried, and then, annoyed by the sound of retreating footsteps, Why are they all going away?
No one ever stays for the last act of a vaudeville bill, Paul explained, but he was as much put out as Consuelo.
Why not? the child demanded.
It's taken for granted it will be dull.
No longer interrupted by the stamping of outgoing feet, the little group in the box devoted their exclusive attention to the stage. The act began tamely enough, as is customary with acrobats, with a prodigious amount of saltatorial exercise, allez houplaing, and fumbling with handkerchiefs. As it continued, there was a crescendo in the difficulty of the feats. Campaspe had adjusted her lorgnette. Without asking for an identification, she recognized Gunnar at once. The brothers wore moustaches and their hair was piled in a ridiculous fashion above their foreheads. O'Grady's hair was combed straight back and his face was clean shaven. And, although all three were dressed precisely alike in purple tights covering their bodies with the exception of the loins which were encased in indigo trunks, tricked out with gold ruchings and ribbons, she was immediately aware of still more subtle distinctions. It was evident, for instance, that O'Grady possessed a far superior skill to that of the Brothers Steel. Not only did he perform his part in the intricate manœuvres with consummate dexterity, but also there was a rhythm in his movement, a continuity which, Campaspe reflected, she had never before witnessed save in the dancing of Nijinsky. And there was still something else. . . .
Isn't he lovely! Consuelo cried.
The act continued in all its familiar routine, including the swift run of the performers to the footlights, with the terminal raising of the right arm, a traditional gesture which has persisted since the days of the Roman circus, even when there is no public enthusiasm to encourage it. On this occasion, assuredly, there was very little enthusiasm. Not only did the Brothers Steel occupy the final position on the bill, but also they were acrobats. Ignominy in vaudeville could scarcely sink to a lower level. Individual spectators continued to file out, and the theatre was nearly empty when the brothers were going through their last evolutions, in complicated mazes of pleached arms and legs. These, at length, came to an end and the curtain fell, nor did it rise again in response to the faint championship, most of which was contributed by the tiny hands and inadequate physical force of Consuelo. Then, abruptly, to the accompaniment of a jolly tune by George Gershwin, the asbestos curtain was lowered.
It's over, Consuelo sighed.
It was very nice, Vera conceded, very. Still, Miss Bayes. . . .
Shall we go back? Paul demanded, hoping they would refuse.
. . . is certainly an artist.
Naturally, Campaspe replied to Paul.
Naturally, was Consuelo's psittaceous comment.
Shall I wait for you, Paul dear? Vera inquired tremulously.
Certainly not, her husband growled. Come along.
At the stage-door, however, they were halted by a human hulk, with a black cigar between its teeth, which informed them that never, by no means, I should say not, could they set foot inside the theatre. As a concession to their obviously plausible appearance he was good enough to add, Rules.
But why? Campaspe insisted. What are the rules for?
Say! Where d'ya tink y'are? At de Bee-lasco? Why? Cause yer might be a heel from de Police Gazette back here to pick up de low-down, or yer might be . . . Say! How de hell do I know who y'are?
Why, the idea! Vera cried, giggling nervously.
Well, we'll wait for him here, Campaspe decided, the weather being propitious enough to make this possible, and she pointed to a long, wooden bench against the wall, on a board above which had been pasted advertisements of and testimonials to various teams and acts. Presently Nora Bayes emerged, a dog in her arms and a coloured maid at her heels. She devoted more than a passing glance to the curious quartet seated on the bench before she entered her car. Now the stage-hands were issuing from the guarded portal, and Consuelo listened to a number of novel words and phrases. Fortunately, her memory was excellent. And, at last, the Brothers Steel and O'Grady. Paul presented the trio to the quartet in one general introduction.
We flopped, Hugo complained.
We'll be back on Pantages next week, Robin sighed.
Nonsense! Gunnar encouraged them. It went all right.
At this moment Gunnar's stare met that of Campaspe and some kind of aberrant communication passed between the two.
Paul, who had not observed this pregnant phenomenon, was corroborating Gunnar's protestation. Vera, not a little thrilled in the presence of so many handsome young men, athletically inclined too, gurgled her enjoyment. Consuelo appeared to be somewhat reserved, even discomfited. Presently, she explained the cause of her annoyance. You don't recognize me! she declared.
Gunnar turned his eyes away from Campaspe to focus them on the child. He seemed to be strangely, and unreasonably, perturbed.
Why, of course, I do, he said. Then, in a whisper. They don't know, the Steels, about the florist. Don't tell them, will you?
Delighted to share a confidence, Consuelo gave him the requisite assurance. Then she inquired, When am I going to see you again?
Once more Gunnar looked at Campaspe as he replied, I don't know. He seemed troubled, even a little dazed. Campaspe had not yet spoken one word. Her eyes were hyaline. Paul was chatting with the brothers. Suddenly, without warning, O'Grady broke away from the group and dashed down the street.
Hey! Gunnar! Robin cried. Come along, he urged Hugo, and they followed hot after their vanishing friend.
Consuelo's eyes filled with tears. Paul was petulantly angry. Campaspe's face was a mask. Vera, alone, remained entirely placid.
He's a very nice young man, Mrs. Moody remarked. I wonder why he ran away.