Headpiece Page 570THE GUTTER-NICKELBY ESTELLE LOOMISAuthor of “Out of Bondage”WITH A PICTURE BY J. MONTGOMERY FLAGGISUCCESS seldom comes as in a lottery—one big prize, and it’s all over, the winner satisfied.No; Destiny, like a demonstrator at a pure-food exhibition, stands back of her counter in the world, and to those who happen to pass the booth of success she hands a sample. Sometimes the samples are small, sometimes large; but, whatever the size, let him who receives one never mistake his sample for a complete package of success.It was strange that Jean Caspian made this blunder. Surely four years of theatrical experience were enough to have proved to her that, for an actor, there is only one real success—a hit in New York. How could she have forgotten that theatrical judgment-seat, where the sheep are separated from the goats?But here, in Milwaukee, with applause still ringing in her ears, with the local papers full of her praise, her head was fairly turned with her triumph. Guy Norman’s leading lady! As she had won her way up step by step in his company, how she had longed for this final moment to come! Intoxicated with the realization of her ambition, she had already begun to live in a glorious future.On the morning of the third day in Milwaukee, as Jean sat on her bed, reading a joyous letter from her mother, a high-spirited rap sounded on the door.“Are you in, old pal?” Clara Coolwood, just from an understudy rehearsal, entered excitedly.“Jean, what d’ you think! Company’s going to close! Norman’s ill!”Jean heard the words, but, instead of seeing Clara’s agitated face, a vision loomed before her: she had forgotten New York. Broadway was still unattained.Clara caught her look of despair, and continued:“Oh, it may not be for long, Jean. Anyway, you needn’t worry, with the big start you’ve made.”“A big start! Yes, two nights as leading woman—in Milwaukee!”“But with Guy Norman,” Clara insisted.“Guy Norman,” said Jean deliberately, “is under his own management. If he doesn’t play again this year, where shall I be? Have any of the big New York managers ever heard of me—B. B. Littleton, for instance? If heshouldhappen to hear of my brief career as leading lady, has he ever seen me act? No. Therefore Jean Caspian does not exist. Why, you know very well, Clara Coolwood, that until the curtain goes up on you on Broadway, and they see you in the actual flesh, you might just as well have been playing on Mars.”Jean was mechanically pulling on her coat.Clara nodded thoughtfully.“I’m afraid you’re right, Jean. Yes, remember poor Julia Wilcox, drawing crowds every day to that Baltimore stock theater for eight years? And when she opened in New York the critics said, ‘Unknown actress makes a sensation.’ Where are you going, Jean?”“Why, I’m going to find Davey. Stage-managers usually know the truth, if they’ll only tell.”Jean put on her hat and set out for the theater. In the stage entrance she met Guy Norman, calm, smiling, the picture of health. As he lifted his hat with his customary air of distinction, Jean inquired timidly for news.“Why, yes; we’re going to close Saturday night. It’s all so silly, in a way, but my physician and manager were so importunate about my having a rest that I decided to humor them. I thought it might be wise to recuperate for the New York engagement.”Jean smiled her relief, and was about to leave when he called her back.“Oh, Miss Caspian, just a minute. I’m going to send a manuscript over to you to-day; it’s a play we’re expecting to put on in New York. And, oh—I may want to do some Shakspere, too. You’d better be up onJuliet.” He looked at her piercingly. “I’m not so sure that you re not the very person I’ve been waiting for.”Jean flew back delightedly to the hotel, and two days later the still grumbling theatrical party left for New York in Guy Norman’s private cars.In Mrs. Bunting’s boarding-house, where “the meals made up for the rooms,” Jean Caspian wrote to her chum, “back home” in Wisconsin:Dear Clara:Spent my first day in New York traveling the streets, trying to get some of “the road” worn off. You can’t imagine what a hole it made in my salary before I became a real New Yorker again. How I laughed at those hats we bought in Davenport when I caught a glimpse of myself on Broadway!I dropped in to see Dell yesterday. She’s still haunting the agencies. Poor Dell! Went with her to Smiley’s, and it certainly seemed like old times. I even heard some one ask Smiley, “How’s the baby?” Remember how you used to make those tender inquiries in vain for six months?Oh, those pathetic whipped-cur faces! Two thousand actors out of work this season, they say! Wearelucky, aren’t we?Yours gleefully,JEANC.P.S. Hear we’re to open in Pittsburgh, the fifteenth. Come on soon and take in a few plays. J. C.P.P.S. Wait till you see my white satin “Countess” costume! You’ll see where four hundred of my good dollars have gone. I’m certainly all ready for my new salary. J. C.Early Saturday morning Jean Caspian sat in her room darning a long “run” in a silk stocking, to the mental accompaniment of herJulietcues. Suddenly she dropped her work to listen. Some one was running up-stairs at a breakneck speed. Then, simultaneously with a loud bang, her door opened. Clara Coolwood pale and excited, stood panting before her.“Oh, Jean, isn’t itterrible! I heard it just as soon as I got off the train! It makes me perfectly sick!”“What?”“Why—why, Jean—didn’t you know that Guy Norman is dead?”Jean Caspian jumped to her feet and stared blankly.“Why, the papers are full of it; he died in Florida yesterday!”Jean did not answer; she was trembling violently. Gradually her face grew inexplicably empty, as if her stricken soul were receding into some secret refuge, leaving her body to act mechanically. Suddenly she burst into a paroxysm of laughter, loud and strident, void of mirth.“Well, it’s back to Grandpa Smiley’s, Clara dear,” she chanted hysterically, and with a flippant gesture she chucked Clara under the chin. “Don’t be blue, little girl! Don’t you know that your old friend Smiley is waiting to hear you ask about the baby? Back to the agencies, darling; back ‘from ten till four!’ Four chairs for eighty: six hours to wait. Six hours? Six weeks, six months, six years!”Her voice ended in a moan, and she fell headlong upon the bed, where she lay, face down, in crumpled folds of lace and velvet and white satin, unconscious.Clara Coolwood had been schooled and poised by her theatrical experience; she knew every heartbreaking phase of the cruel competition of her profession; she had seen its inevitable disappointments and failures. So up to this moment she had thought she felt the full force of this day’s shock; but it was not until she had drawn the costly white satin ball-gown from under Jean that she began to lose her self-control.It was the first time she had seen the wonderful “Countess” costume. She held it up and looked at it sadly, almost with reverence; new and unworn, it was already a relic. Slowly, thoughtfully, caressingly, she smoothed out the creases; then, sobbing, she hung it in the closet.An hour later, Jean, left alone, still sat staring, still idly tracing with her finger the scrollwork pattern on an exquisite silver slipper. The prolonged ringing of the bell for luncheon aroused her from her lethargy. She rose mechanically, and walked over to the window. How foreign everything looked outside in the sunlight! The passers-by, how queer and busy!“Dead!” she whispered to herself. Then, drawing a deep breath, she opened the new, unopened chapter of her life. Jean Caspian had awakened to the realization that Destiny had handed her only a sample of success, not a complete package.
Headpiece Page 570THE GUTTER-NICKELBY ESTELLE LOOMISAuthor of “Out of Bondage”WITH A PICTURE BY J. MONTGOMERY FLAGG
Headpiece Page 570
BY ESTELLE LOOMIS
Author of “Out of Bondage”
WITH A PICTURE BY J. MONTGOMERY FLAGG
SUCCESS seldom comes as in a lottery—one big prize, and it’s all over, the winner satisfied.
No; Destiny, like a demonstrator at a pure-food exhibition, stands back of her counter in the world, and to those who happen to pass the booth of success she hands a sample. Sometimes the samples are small, sometimes large; but, whatever the size, let him who receives one never mistake his sample for a complete package of success.
It was strange that Jean Caspian made this blunder. Surely four years of theatrical experience were enough to have proved to her that, for an actor, there is only one real success—a hit in New York. How could she have forgotten that theatrical judgment-seat, where the sheep are separated from the goats?
But here, in Milwaukee, with applause still ringing in her ears, with the local papers full of her praise, her head was fairly turned with her triumph. Guy Norman’s leading lady! As she had won her way up step by step in his company, how she had longed for this final moment to come! Intoxicated with the realization of her ambition, she had already begun to live in a glorious future.
On the morning of the third day in Milwaukee, as Jean sat on her bed, reading a joyous letter from her mother, a high-spirited rap sounded on the door.
“Are you in, old pal?” Clara Coolwood, just from an understudy rehearsal, entered excitedly.
“Jean, what d’ you think! Company’s going to close! Norman’s ill!”
Jean heard the words, but, instead of seeing Clara’s agitated face, a vision loomed before her: she had forgotten New York. Broadway was still unattained.
Clara caught her look of despair, and continued:
“Oh, it may not be for long, Jean. Anyway, you needn’t worry, with the big start you’ve made.”
“A big start! Yes, two nights as leading woman—in Milwaukee!”
“But with Guy Norman,” Clara insisted.
“Guy Norman,” said Jean deliberately, “is under his own management. If he doesn’t play again this year, where shall I be? Have any of the big New York managers ever heard of me—B. B. Littleton, for instance? If heshouldhappen to hear of my brief career as leading lady, has he ever seen me act? No. Therefore Jean Caspian does not exist. Why, you know very well, Clara Coolwood, that until the curtain goes up on you on Broadway, and they see you in the actual flesh, you might just as well have been playing on Mars.”
Jean was mechanically pulling on her coat.
Clara nodded thoughtfully.
“I’m afraid you’re right, Jean. Yes, remember poor Julia Wilcox, drawing crowds every day to that Baltimore stock theater for eight years? And when she opened in New York the critics said, ‘Unknown actress makes a sensation.’ Where are you going, Jean?”
“Why, I’m going to find Davey. Stage-managers usually know the truth, if they’ll only tell.”
Jean put on her hat and set out for the theater. In the stage entrance she met Guy Norman, calm, smiling, the picture of health. As he lifted his hat with his customary air of distinction, Jean inquired timidly for news.
“Why, yes; we’re going to close Saturday night. It’s all so silly, in a way, but my physician and manager were so importunate about my having a rest that I decided to humor them. I thought it might be wise to recuperate for the New York engagement.”
Jean smiled her relief, and was about to leave when he called her back.
“Oh, Miss Caspian, just a minute. I’m going to send a manuscript over to you to-day; it’s a play we’re expecting to put on in New York. And, oh—I may want to do some Shakspere, too. You’d better be up onJuliet.” He looked at her piercingly. “I’m not so sure that you re not the very person I’ve been waiting for.”
Jean flew back delightedly to the hotel, and two days later the still grumbling theatrical party left for New York in Guy Norman’s private cars.
In Mrs. Bunting’s boarding-house, where “the meals made up for the rooms,” Jean Caspian wrote to her chum, “back home” in Wisconsin:
Dear Clara:Spent my first day in New York traveling the streets, trying to get some of “the road” worn off. You can’t imagine what a hole it made in my salary before I became a real New Yorker again. How I laughed at those hats we bought in Davenport when I caught a glimpse of myself on Broadway!I dropped in to see Dell yesterday. She’s still haunting the agencies. Poor Dell! Went with her to Smiley’s, and it certainly seemed like old times. I even heard some one ask Smiley, “How’s the baby?” Remember how you used to make those tender inquiries in vain for six months?Oh, those pathetic whipped-cur faces! Two thousand actors out of work this season, they say! Wearelucky, aren’t we?Yours gleefully,JEANC.P.S. Hear we’re to open in Pittsburgh, the fifteenth. Come on soon and take in a few plays. J. C.P.P.S. Wait till you see my white satin “Countess” costume! You’ll see where four hundred of my good dollars have gone. I’m certainly all ready for my new salary. J. C.
Dear Clara:
Spent my first day in New York traveling the streets, trying to get some of “the road” worn off. You can’t imagine what a hole it made in my salary before I became a real New Yorker again. How I laughed at those hats we bought in Davenport when I caught a glimpse of myself on Broadway!
I dropped in to see Dell yesterday. She’s still haunting the agencies. Poor Dell! Went with her to Smiley’s, and it certainly seemed like old times. I even heard some one ask Smiley, “How’s the baby?” Remember how you used to make those tender inquiries in vain for six months?
Oh, those pathetic whipped-cur faces! Two thousand actors out of work this season, they say! Wearelucky, aren’t we?
Yours gleefully,JEANC.
P.S. Hear we’re to open in Pittsburgh, the fifteenth. Come on soon and take in a few plays. J. C.
P.P.S. Wait till you see my white satin “Countess” costume! You’ll see where four hundred of my good dollars have gone. I’m certainly all ready for my new salary. J. C.
Early Saturday morning Jean Caspian sat in her room darning a long “run” in a silk stocking, to the mental accompaniment of herJulietcues. Suddenly she dropped her work to listen. Some one was running up-stairs at a breakneck speed. Then, simultaneously with a loud bang, her door opened. Clara Coolwood pale and excited, stood panting before her.
“Oh, Jean, isn’t itterrible! I heard it just as soon as I got off the train! It makes me perfectly sick!”
“What?”
“Why—why, Jean—didn’t you know that Guy Norman is dead?”
Jean Caspian jumped to her feet and stared blankly.
“Why, the papers are full of it; he died in Florida yesterday!”
Jean did not answer; she was trembling violently. Gradually her face grew inexplicably empty, as if her stricken soul were receding into some secret refuge, leaving her body to act mechanically. Suddenly she burst into a paroxysm of laughter, loud and strident, void of mirth.
“Well, it’s back to Grandpa Smiley’s, Clara dear,” she chanted hysterically, and with a flippant gesture she chucked Clara under the chin. “Don’t be blue, little girl! Don’t you know that your old friend Smiley is waiting to hear you ask about the baby? Back to the agencies, darling; back ‘from ten till four!’ Four chairs for eighty: six hours to wait. Six hours? Six weeks, six months, six years!”
Her voice ended in a moan, and she fell headlong upon the bed, where she lay, face down, in crumpled folds of lace and velvet and white satin, unconscious.
Clara Coolwood had been schooled and poised by her theatrical experience; she knew every heartbreaking phase of the cruel competition of her profession; she had seen its inevitable disappointments and failures. So up to this moment she had thought she felt the full force of this day’s shock; but it was not until she had drawn the costly white satin ball-gown from under Jean that she began to lose her self-control.
It was the first time she had seen the wonderful “Countess” costume. She held it up and looked at it sadly, almost with reverence; new and unworn, it was already a relic. Slowly, thoughtfully, caressingly, she smoothed out the creases; then, sobbing, she hung it in the closet.
An hour later, Jean, left alone, still sat staring, still idly tracing with her finger the scrollwork pattern on an exquisite silver slipper. The prolonged ringing of the bell for luncheon aroused her from her lethargy. She rose mechanically, and walked over to the window. How foreign everything looked outside in the sunlight! The passers-by, how queer and busy!
“Dead!” she whispered to herself. Then, drawing a deep breath, she opened the new, unopened chapter of her life. Jean Caspian had awakened to the realization that Destiny had handed her only a sample of success, not a complete package.