The Relentless City/Chapter 9
CHAPTER IX
Mrs. Emsworth had a rehearsal early next morning at New York, and in consequence she had to leave by the Stock Exchange train at nine, while most of the inhabitants of Mon Repos were still reposing. She herself was down and out before anyone had appeared, for she had slept but badly, and had awoke, definitely and irrevocably, soon after six. Sleeping, as her custom was, with blinds up and curtains undrawn, the glory of the morning quickly weaned her from her bed, and by soon after seven she was strolling about outside in the perfection of an early September hour. There had been a little thunder during the night, and betwixt waking and sleeping she had heard somewhat heavy rain sluicing on to the shrubberies and thirsty grass, and now, when she went out, the moisture was lying like unthreaded diamonds in the sun, and like a carpet of pearls in the shade. Many gardeners were already at work, some on the grass and flower-beds, others bringing up fruit from the greenhouses, and all looked with wide-eyed yokel amazement at the famous actress as she walked up and down. One of them had brought his small child, a boy of about six years old, with him, and the little lad, with a bunch of Michaelmas daisies in his cap, very gravely pushed at one handle of his father's wheelbarrow.
Now, children and Mrs. Emsworth were mutually irresistible, and the barrow was stopped, and the father stood by in a sort of proud, admiring sheepishness, while Mrs. Emsworth made herself fascinating. She had a story to tell about those particular flowers the child had in his hat. The fairies had made them during the night. One had brought the white silk out of which they were cut, another had brought oil-paints to colour them, a third had brought a watering-pot with a rose to sprinkle them. But the bad fairy had seen them, and had come on her broomstick, surrounded by an army of flying toads and spiders and slugs, to destroy the flowers. And a toad had just begun to eat the top of one of the flowers when the sun said, ' Pop, I'm coming,' and before the bad fairy could get under shelter it had shone on her, so that she instantly curled up like a burnt feather, and died with a pain so awful that stomach-ache was nothing to it.
This was so absorbing both to the narrator and the audience that neither had observed that someone else was listening, and as the boy broke out into childish laughter, crying, ' That was nice!' at the awful fate of the wicked fairy, Mrs. Emsworth looked behind her, half hearing a sudden rustle, and saw Amelie standing there, also absorbed.
She instantly sat down on the other handle of the barrow.
' Yes, Tommy, that was nice,' she echoed. ' And do you think the lady will tell us another story? Ask her.'
The lady was so kind as to oblige them again. This time it was about a real live person, who was always very good in the morning, and sat down and did her work as she should, with the good fairy sitting beside her. But later on the good fairy would sometimes go to sleep, and as soon as she was asleep all the bad fairies who had not curled up like burnt feathers came in. And one of them made her eat peas with her knife, and another made her spill her bread-and-milk down her new dress, and another made her lose her temper, and another made her make mud pies in the middle of her nice room, so that it had to be swept again. And she was very unhappy about this, and used to put pins in the good fairy's seat to prevent her going to sleep, and give her strong coffee to drink for the same purpose. But it was all no good, until one day she noticed that as long as a child was with her the good fairy kept awake. So the poor lady set to work again, and tried to see a child every day, because even if she talked to a child for a little in the morning, and especially if it gave her a kiss, the good fairy was much less sleepy.
Tommy's eyes grew wide.
' Oh, I do love you!' he said, and hoisted himself with his dirty boots into her lap. Then, smitten with a child's sudden shyness, he clambered down again, and the wheelbarrow went on its way.
The two others strolled on in silence for a moment over the grass, Amelie with a strange lump in her throat. Then she put her arm round Mrs. Emsworth's waist.
' Good-morning,' she said quietly, and they kissed.
' I think I love you too,' she said. ' I came out to tell you that.'
Mrs. Emsworth kissed her again.
' That is nice too,' she said. ' But what makes you?'
' I don't know. I think it was seeing you in that horrid play last night. You were like a sunbeam in—in a cesspool. But why do that sort of thing?'
Mrs. Emsworth shrugged her shoulders.
' Because people are beasts, my dear,' she said—' because they like that sort of thing. And one has to live.'
Amelie thought a moment, with her face growing grave.
' Oh, I am sorry, I am sorry,' she said.
A sudden impatience and ungovernable irritation filled Dorothy. She felt as if she was being hauled back to her ordinary life, when she was so happy in the sweetness of the early morning hour. Why did this stupid, gawky girl come and speak to her like this? But with an effort at self-control stronger than she usually bothered herself to make, she mastered it.
' Oh, never mind, never mind,' she said. ' Walk with me a little further, and let me look at you because you are beautiful, and the trees because they are beautiful, and the grass and the sky. What a heavenly moment! Do not let us waste it. Look, the lawns are empty, where yesterday they were full with all sorts of silly and wicked people. Is that an insult to your mother's guests? I think it is. Anyhow, I was one of the silly, wicked people. But now I am not silly or wicked; I am very good, and very innocent, and I want to take everything into my arms and stroke it. My God! what a beautiful world! I am so glad I did not die in the night.'
Amelie laughed. This mood found in her a ready response.
' Yes, yes,' she cried; ' go on. I know what you mean. You want to be rid of all else, to be just a consciousness in the world. I have felt that. What does it say?'
Dorothy shook her head.
' It never says the same thing for five minutes,' she said. ' Just now you and I feel that. If we sat here for a quarter of an hour we should begin to talk chiffon. If we sat here longer we might talk scandal. Only I think these moments are given us as a sort of refreshment. God washes our faces every now and then, and we proceed to soil them instantly.'
She turned to her companion eagerly.
' Don't soil yours,' she said. ' Don't let others soil it. It grows on you; it is like using rouge,' and she broke off suddenly.
There was silence a moment, then Amelie said:
' Look, here is Tommy coming back from the house.'
Mrs. Emsworth rose.
' Let us go in,' she said. ' It is time for me to have breakfast, as I am going by the early train. But remember that I was good for ten minutes—if '—and her voice quavered—' if people, as they are sure to do, tell you things.'
They passed Tommy, who paused as they got near. Mrs. Emsworth seemed not to notice him. Then she looked back.
' Dear little chap,' she said, and, retracing her steps, kissed him again.
It must be allowed that by the time they got to the station there was nothing of the early-morning Mrs. Emsworth left about her. On the platform Bilton approached her with rather an anxious face.
' I particularly want to speak to you, Dorothy,' he said in a low voice. ' You can help me.'
She looked at him with extremely vivid virulence.
' Oh, go away, you beast!' she said. ' I can help you, you say. No doubt I can. But I won't. Go away!'
Bilton had the sense to see that he needed help, for there had been a very awkward moment when he went into Mrs. Emsworth's room the night before. He himself was very good at acting quickly in any emergency he had foreseen, but this one was utterly unforeseen, and had found him helplessly unprepared. Had he had even a moment's preparation, he felt sure that he could have said something which would anyhow have been palliative; but since the thing was done, he did not trouble his head about what the palliative would have been. For he had come in—his knock unheard—and found the two ladies together. Upon which Dorothy laughed, Mrs. Massington turned pink, and he retreated. There was the situation. And the most unpromising feature of it was that Dorothy had laughed. With all his quickness he could see no way out. It was clearly impossible for him to open the subject again to Mrs. Massington; it was equally obvious that she would put a construction on his presence. The only person who could conceivably help him was Dorothy, and now she had called him a beast.
But, apparently, during the journey to New York she relented, for as they boarded the mangy-looking ferry-boat that conveyed them across the river, she threw a word to him over her shoulder.
' I shall be in at lunch,' she said. ' You can come if you like.'
He did not like that either, though it was better than nothing, for he felt that she had in a sense the whip-hand of him, and knew it. And Bilton was not accustomed to let anybody have the whip-hand of him.
Mrs. Emsworth always took her rehearsals herself; she had a stage-manager, it is true, who sat meekly in the wings, and whom she contradicted from time to time, his office being to be contradicted, and to write down stage directions which she gave him. Occasionally Bilton looked in for an hour or two; him she contradicted also at the time, but usually incorporated his suggestions afterwards. Her author, if it was a new play, was also in attendance in the stalls; his office was to cut lines out or put lines in. Though, perhaps, she could not act, she certainly had a strong sense of drama; that was why she had laughed at Bilton's entrance the night before, for the situation struck her as admirably constructed. She had seen, with a woman's sixth sense, as correctly and minutely as in a photograph on what footing he and Mrs. Massington were, and though she was not in the slightest degree in love with the man—or, indeed, ever had been—yet she looked on him as her possession, and while she did not want him, she distinctly did not wish him to change hands. Jealousy of the ordinary green variety had something to do with it. A shrewd eye to business, the knowledge of how much better her career went if the great impresario was her devoted admirer, had about as much. Only, if her devoted admirer was to become the confirmed, settled, and sealed-up admirer of someone else, she did not propose to be the candle at which the sealing was done. To be cat's-paw to an act of treason against herself was a feat of altruism of which she was hopelessly incapable. Then, finally, in this jumble of feelings which had resulted in her calling Bilton a beast, there was something neither sordid nor selfish—namely, the determination, distinct and honest, that Mrs. Massington, a woman whom she both liked and respected, should not, at any rate by any auxiliary help of hers, be deceived as to what Bilton really was. She herself, no doubt, with the aid of liquid eyes and a mouth so beautiful that it looked as if it must be made for the utterance of perfect verity, could persuade Mrs. Massington that she and Bilton had never been in intimate relations, and assure her, even to conviction, that his slightly informal visit last night was only—as was indeed true—a visit for the utterance of a few words of congratulation on her success. But she did not intend—from motives good, bad, and indifferent, all mixed—to do this for him. Only, into the composition of this intention the good and honest and fine motive entered.
It was not wonderful that this pot-au-feu of feeling, amounting to positive agitation, did not tend towards the comfort of her company at the rehearsal, nor indeed, on the part of the manageress, toward the calm attitude of the thoughtful critic. In consequence, before the rehearsal was an hour old—it was the first ' without books ' rehearsal—the second leading lady was next door to tears, the leading gentleman in sulks, the author in despair, and Mrs. Emsworth in a mood of dangerous suavity that made the aspiring actors heart-sick.
' Miss Dayrell,' she was saying, ' would you mind not turning your back completely on the audience when you speak those lines. Mr. Yates '—this was the leading gentleman—' I am so sorry to interrupt your conversation, but my throat is rather sore this morning, and I cannot hear myself speak if you talk so loud to your friends. Yes; I think, as you are not on the stage just now, it would be better if you left it. Yes, Miss Dayrell, you see these are perhaps the most important lines in the play which you have to speak, and the audience will have a better chance of understanding it if you let them hear what Mr. Farquar has given you to say. Mr. Farquar, I am afraid the second act is about twice as long as it ought to be. I have cut some of it—at least, with your approval, I propose to cut some of it.'
Mr. Farquar sighed heavily in the stalls. He had spent the greater part of the last three nights in writing more of the second act, because it was not long enough.
' Thank you,' continued Mrs. Emsworth, interpreting the sigh as silence. ' You will see my alterations when we get to them. Would you kindly begin, Miss Dayrell, at “ If I had a pitch-fork.” '
Suddenly her voice changed to a wheedling tenderness.
' And if my own Teddy Roosevelt hasn't come down of his own delicious accord to see his aunt in her pretty theatre! Teddy, the world is very evil, and my mother bids me bind my hair. I beg your pardon, ladies and gentlemen, but I had to say a word to Popsie Tootsicums. Now, dear Miss Dayrell, let's begin again. You enter. Excellent. You turn. Yes, that's exactly what I want. Now.'
A murmur of relief went round, and the faded actors and actresses raised their drooped heads as when a shower has passed over a drought-dried garden. And Teddy R., the angel in disguise, sat sparsely down in the middle of the stage, and smiled on the spectacle of his beneficent work.
But because the happy appearance of Teddy Roosevelt had made le beau temps for the members of Mrs. Emsworth's company, it did not at all follow that Bilton, when he came to lunch, would find the same sunshine awaiting him, even as there is no guarantee that, because at twelve o'clock on an April day pellucid tranquillity flooded the earth, there will not be a smart hail-storm an hour afterwards. On the contrary, it was safe to bet that, whatever mood Mrs. Emsworth was in, she would be in a different one before long. The spring-day temperament of hers was, in fact, the only thing to be reckoned on. Consequently, since Bilton had not witnessed the varied phases exhibited at the theatre, he hoped, somehow sanguinely, that she would not be in a temper that so roundly labelled him ' beast ' at Port Washington Station.
She seemed to have forgotten he was coming to lunch—as a matter of fact, she had, and welcomed him charmingly.
' Dear man,' she said, ' how nice of you to look in. I'm nearly dead with fatigue; let's have lunch at once. Harold, I've acted every part in ' Telegrams ' through from beginning to end this morning. Those people are so hardworking, but they are so stupid. In fact, I know every part but my own. That I have promised them to be word perfect in by five o'clock this afternoon.'
' You don't rehearse again this afternoon?' asked he.
' Oh yes, I do. Three hours more this afternoon, then just time for dinner, then theatre again till half-past eleven, then supper at the Waldorf. To-morrow, rehearsal all morning, matinée, evening performance, every interval filled up with reporters and milliners and limelight people. Oh, well, thank God, we shall all soon be dead. Time to rest then, and time to lunch now.'
' Don't overdo it, Dolly,' said he, as they sat down.
' Overdo it?' My dear boy it is rather late in the day to recommend me not to overdo it. Besides, we women, and in special this woman, are so much stronger than men. My company follow me through hours of rehearsal, faint yet pursuing. They drop asleep, and I wake them with a gentle touch on their shoulders, and they say, “ Is it morning yet?” And I say, “ Kindly wake up for ten minutes, and go through this scene, dear, and then you shall go to sleep again.” Then, at the end, when I say, “ That is all for to-night, ladies and gentlemen,” they all hurry away in desperate fear lest I should ask them to supper. “ Il faut lutter pour l'art,” as Daudet says. I'm so glad I'm not a prig, Harold, who thinks about the exigencies of the artistic temperament. I'm not an artist at all. People come to see me act because I'm (a) rather good-looking, (b) in rollicking good spirits. What delicious cantaloupe! I like my food.}}
' All the same, I wish you would take more care of yourself,' said he, fostering her present temper with a light and, he hoped, skilful hand. ' I'm sure you do too much, and some day you will break down. You are spending more than your income of nervous energy, you are living on the capital.'
' Just what I mean to do. Like Mr. Carnegie, I think it would be a disgrace to die with an ounce of nervous force left in one. What use is it when one is dead? I am living on the capital; I intend to spend it all. I shall die sooner, no doubt—but, oh, Harold, what an awful old person I should be at sixty if I proposed, which I do not, to live as long. Look at the old women who have spent their youth as I have done. Rouge on their raddled cheeks, clinging to life, mortally afraid of dying, trying to get a few more successes, with one bleary eye anxiously fixed on some back door into heaven, the other roaming round to see if they can't have another little flirtation before they die. No; let me die at the height of my success. I don't want to stumble down-hill into my grave. I want to find it on the mountain-top. And I shall lie down in it quite content, for I have had a good time, and ask no further questions. And, Harold, plant a great crimson rambler, and a vine like Omar, and a few daffodils, and some Michaelmas daisies, on my grave, so that I shall flower all the year round. And come, if you like, once a year to it, and think over any occasion when I have pleased or amused you, and say to yourself if you can, “ She was rather a good sort.” Then go away to the woman who happens at the time to—oh, I forgot. We've got to have a talk. And I've been doing all the talking. Have you finished lunch? Come into the next room.'
The April day was behaving quite characteristically. It had got cold and cloudy, and a bitter wind blew suddenly. Mentally he shivered, and followed her.
She had thrown herself down on the big Louis XV. couch. Teddy Roosevelt was having his dinner. There was no mitigation within the horizon.
' About Sybil Massington,' she said, and shut her mouth again as if it worked on a steel spring.
Bilton lit his cigar, and took his time, wishing to appear not nervous.
' Ah, yes,' he said. ' I remember.'
' That line is no good,' remarked Dorothy critically. ' You must get more sincerity into it, or drop it.'
He dropped it, and sat down.
' I've been wanting to tell you for some time, Dorothy,' he said, ' that I hope to marry Mrs. Massington. I should have done so before, only it's an awkward thing to say.'
' There is always a slight crudeness in that situation,' said she. ' Men always try to explain away what can't be explained at all. So cut it short. I know you must say a few words, but let them be few.'
' Well, it's just this,' said he: ' we've been great friends, we've got along excellently; you have always been charming to me, and I hope I haven't treated you badly.'
' Oh no, first-class time,' said she, the gamin coming to the surface.
' Well, now I want to marry,' he said, ' and I come to you for your help. If you had been in my position, I would have helped you.'
' Thanks. Well?'
' You know it was a devilish awkward moment last night. And you made it worse. You laughed. You shouldn't have done that.'
Dorothy's face relaxed.
' I couldn't help it,' she said. ' Dramatically, it was perfect, and so funny. Harold, if you could have seen your own face of blank amazement, I really believe you would have laughed too.'
He frowned.
' A pal ought to help a man out,' he said.
' I'm sure you went out pretty quick,' she interpolated.
' Oh, don't peashoot me,' he said. ' Now, a word from you will help me. I can't offer any explanation to Mrs. Massington, simply because, if I tried, she would be convinced there is something to explain. You can. A half word from you will do it. Represent me as your business manager—very business—with an urgent question to ask, and in my stupid, unconventional American way, it not occurring to me that there was any impropriety——— '
' And my laugh? How shall I explain that?'
' Because it did occur to you what construction Mrs. Massington would put on it. Because my face of horror when I saw what I had done was so funny. You said so yourself.'
Dorothy paused.
' In other words,' said she slowly, ' I am to tell Mrs. Massington, either directly or by implication, that you and I are you and I, not we—that—just that.'
' Quite so,' he said, ' and very neatly put.'
She sat up.
' I refuse,' she said.
' Why? For what possible reason?'
' For a reason you couldn't appreciate.'
' Let me try.'
' I can't explain it even. But the outline is this: I respect and like Sybil Massington, therefore I will not assist you to marry her. It is not my business to open her eyes—you may marry her if you can—but neither is it my business to close them. Even if you wished it, I would not marry you myself, because I don't think you would be a—well, a satisfactory husband. So I will not help you.'
Bilton's face was clearly given him to conceal his thoughts. On this occasion it expressed nothing whatever, though he thought a good deal.
' You want to stand in my light, then,' he said.
' Not at all, only I won't hold the candle for you.'
' You refuse to tell the truth to Mrs. Massington; you refuse to tell her what you know—namely, that I came to your room last night merely to congratulate you on your success?'
' I refuse to tell her a fag-end of the truth like that—a truth that is designed to deceive.'
His eye wandered round the room before he replied, and in its course fell on the grate. To-day also there was a torn letter lying in it. A slight tinge of colour came into his face.
' I can't understand you,' he said. ' As far as I know, you on the whole wish me well; you have assured me that you would not marry me yourself. What do you want, then? Do you want to be paid for doing it? If you are not unreasonable in your demands, I will meet them.'
She got up, her eyes blazing.
' That is enough,' she said. ' Not another word, Harold, or I assure you I will throw the heaviest and hardest thing I can lift at you. I mean it.'
A rather ugly light came into his eyes—a stale, unwholesome sort of glow.
' Pray don't,' he said; ' we will leave the subject. I think you are behaving most ungenerously—that is all. I should like a few words with you about your dresses in “ Telegrams.” I will wait till you are ready to discuss them with me. Take a cigarette.'
She looked at him a moment in silence. In spite of herself, she could not help feeling the infernal mastery he had over her. As always, the more violent she became the more he seemed steeped in a calm compound of indifference and almost boredom. And since it is obviously more exhausting to continue violent than to continue calm, it followed that she had to compose herself, thus changing first, while he merely remained unmoved. It had happened often before, and it happened now.
' What is it you want me to say to Mrs. Massington?' she asked at length.
' Pray do not let us discuss it. You might throw something at me,' said he, smiling inwardly.
' Don't you see my point?' she asked. ' Besides, a word from me would do no good. She saw the terms we were on. It was obvious, blatant.'
' Then no harm would be done by your saying a word. She would not be deceived.'
' No; but she would think I tried to deceive her.'
' Would you mind that?' he asked.
' Very much. I like her.'
Bilton knew well the value of the waiting game in an argument, the futility of trying to persuade a woman to do something, especially if she shows the least sign of persuading herself. So he said nothing whatever, since her re-opening the subject pointed to an already existing indecision. But her final answer, when it came, was not in the least what he expected.
' And I refuse finally to help you,' she said. ' If you wish, I will discuss the dresses.'
Bilton would never have made himself so successful a career as he had had he not possessed to a very high degree the power of concentrating his mind on one thing, to the complete exclusion of other preoccupations, and for the next half-hour no cloud of what had happened crossed in his mind the very clear sky of the new play's prospects. He was able to give his whole and complete attention to it, until between them they had settled what he desired to settle. Then, since, like all other days, it was a busy day with him, he rose.
' Good-bye, Dorothy,' he said, ' and don't overdo it.'
Once again she wavered.
' And do you forgive me?' she asked.
' Not in the least. But I don't imagine you care.'
' But I do care.'
He drew on his gloves with great precision.
' I beg your pardon; if you really cared you would do as I ask,' he said. ' Good-bye. I shall be at the theatre this evening.'
She let him go without further words, and, in spite of the heat, he walked briskly down Fifth Avenue. He was not a forgiving man, and though he would not put himself out to revenge himself on anyone, since he had more lucrative ways of employing his time and energies, he was perfectly ready, even anxious, to do her an ill-turn if he had the opportunity. And certainly it seemed to him that there was a handle ready to his grasping when he remembered the torn note from Bertie Keynes which he had picked up in the grate. How exactly to use it he did not at present see, but it seemed to him an asset.