“You’ve made my summer for me, little witch,” Cartel said“You’ve made my summer for me, little witch,” Cartel said
He left. There passed three days of utter misery and boredom. Wally went to New York on business, and refused to take her along; Max was cross; the devil of revolt entered Isabelle.
She wired Cartel:
Terrible row. Disinherited by parents. Will apply at theatre to-morrow, at ten, for promised job.Isabelle.
Terrible row. Disinherited by parents. Will apply at theatre to-morrow, at ten, for promised job.
Isabelle.
She sneaked two dress-suit cases on to the hotel baggage ’bus, and she took a morning train to New York. Arrived there she wired Max:
Am going on stage. Useless to try to stop me. Am determined on a career.Isabelle.
Am going on stage. Useless to try to stop me. Am determined on a career.
Isabelle.
Max received this message at tea time, as she sat with a group of merry idlers on the piazza. She read it—frowned. With an exclamation of annoyance she summoned a boy, and wrote as follows to Wally:
Isabelle has joined Cartel. Catch her and bring her back.Max.
Isabelle has joined Cartel. Catch her and bring her back.
Max.
“Is anything wrong, dear Max?” inquired her best beau, noting her expression.
“Yes,” she replied, “but it’s chronic in our family!”
Table of Contents
Isabelle went directly to their town house and demanded a bed of the caretaker, who was an old family servant. At ten in the morning she presented herself at the stage door of the New York Theatre, and sent in a card to Mr. Cartel. Word came out that he had not arrived. She was not permitted to go in, and to her great indignation she had to march up and down the alley for an hour until the great one came.
At sight of him she felt that all her troubles were at an end. She hurried forward with a confident smile, as he stepped from his motor. No gleam of delight at the sight of her overspread his features, however. He saw her; he bowed.
“Ah—I got your message,” he said, absently. “I don’t think that there is anything for you.”
“There’s got to be something for me,” said Isabelle with promptness and vigour. “You let me desert my family for a career, and you’ve got to help me.”
“But, my dear girl, I urged you not to break with your family, you know.”
“It’s too late to talk about that. Here I am. Now, what are you going to do about it?”
“Well, come in,” he said, curtly; and they went into the theatre.
It was Isabelle’s first view of the hindside of the mysteries. It was a hot day, and rehearsal was in progress. A group of people sat listlessly about the stage, on kitchen chairs, while a man in a négligé shirt and no coat urged them to get a little “pep” into the scene “for the love of God!” Cartel’s arrival caused a ripple. All the actors sat up, as if electrified. The stage manager advanced at once to speak with him. He glanced at Isabelle, but Cartel made no move to introduce them. In fact he seemed to have forgotten about her. He issued brief orders, asked a few questions, turned to go. Then, as if on an afterthought, he added:
“By the way, Jenkins, this is Miss Isabelle Bryce. Try her out in the maid’s part, will you?”
Mr. Jenkins nodded to Isabelle, who was furious at her hero for this casual treatment of her career.
“Come over here,” ordered Jenkins, indicating a chair and offering her a script. “Read ‘Mary,’” he added, briefly, and went on with the rehearsal.
Isabelle was dazed. It was so different from her idea of it. She had supposed Cartel would introduce her to the company and the manager as a genius he had discovered this summer. She thought she would be made much of, as his protégée. Instead of which she was set upon a kitchen chair, like a strange kitten, and told to read “Mary.” Nobody paid any attention to her. They did not even look at her. They went on, indifferently, reading their parts, moving here and there on orders from Jenkins. Suddenly her name was rapped out:
“Your cue, Miss Bryce.”
She fumbled her script, blushed furiously, found the place, and read stupidly, beginning with the cue.
“ . . . Where is she? Mrs. Horton telephoned she would be here at five, sir.”
“Well, get up,” ordered Jenkins, testily. “You enter R., upper door. Come front and answer Horton, who stands L. C. Then you exit L., up stage.”
They all looked at her now. She felt their impatience, their supercilious smiles. She knew she was that leper in the theatre—an amateur. She did not know what Jenkins was talking about with his down R’s, and his up L’s. He entered as Mary and showed her the business. She caught the idea at once, and he grunted something which might have been approval or a curse. The rest of the time she spent in fevered attention to the script, looking for the signal, “Mary,” but it came no more in that act. They went all over it again, and she managed it without a hitch. Then they were dismissed until two o’clock, and every one hurried off for lunch.
Isabelle waited, thinking that of course Cartel would ask her to lunch with him. But there were no signs of him. She inquired where his office was, and ascended the stairs with the intention of expressing her dissatisfaction with her part. She stopped outside the door at the sound of voices—Cartel’s and Wally’s. She went in.
“Well!” exploded her father, “so there you are!”
“Good morning, Wally. Max wired you?”
“She did. You will come home with me at once.”
“There is no need of our boring Mr. Cartel with our family rows,” shesaid, sweetly. “I have no intention of going anywhere with you. I’ve decided upon a stage career, and I’m rehearsing with Mr. Cartel now.”
The manager stifled a smile.
“You’re not of age, young woman, and you can bemadeto do things!” said Wally.
“Take it to law, you mean? Jail and all that? Public announcement that you and Max can’t manage me? Stupid, Wally, very stupid.”
“You’re not through with your education. It will be time enough to decide on a career when you finish school.”
“I have finished school. That I am determined upon. You may as well face it, Wally. I am on the stage, and I intend to stay on it.”
“Look here, Bryce, take a word of advice from me. I meet this every day. Girls get this germ, and my experience is that it’s better to let the disease run its course. If you force her to go back to school, she has a grievance for life. If she goes back of her own accord, she’s cured.”
“It’s ridiculous! We’d be the laughing stock of the town!”
“Oh, no; it happens in the best families. Believe me, it is not such bad training for young women who have never been disciplined—like your daughter. She’ll get it, in this business. She’ll learn to obey orders and to respect authority.”
“But she’s struck on herself now, and if she goes on the stage——”
“Don’t bother; we’ll take that out of her,” remarked Cartel.
Wally looked from Isabelle’s set face to the manager’s smiling one.
“What is your idea?” he asked.
“Let her try it. Let her live at home. Send her back and forth in your car; protect her, of course. But let her have her fling; it won’t take long,” said Cartel, with a wise nod at Wally.
“Try it, Wally, just give me a chance,” cried the near actress.
“Your mother will raise the roof!” he began.
“She’ll come round, if you back me up.”
“I don’t know,” he said, miserably.
Isabelle flew at him and hugged him wildly.
“Oh, Wally, you’re a dear,” she cried, thus committing him to partnership.
“We needn’t treat Cartel to our family reconciliations,” he said.
“Come take me to lunch, then. I have to be back at two. That isn’t much of a part,” she added to Cartel.
“No? Well, we all must begin, you know. That is the first blow to young ladies of your proclivities.”
He rose, and bowed them out, as sign of dismissal. Wally and Isabelle went to lunch, and it took them so long to work out their plans—where Isabelle was to stay at present, how the matter was to be presented to Max, and such weighty subjects—that Isabelle was late to rehearsal, and was sharply reprimanded.
She felt this to be very unjust as her line did not come for a long time. At the end of a long, tedious day, she went home to dine in lonely state with the caretakeras cook, and to crawl into bed immediately thereafter.
Wally managed the situation very well. He made Max see the futility of fighting their child; he assured her that Cartel promised that the seizure would be brief. He looked up old Miss Watts, and engaged her to act as companion to the girl, accompanying her to all rehearsals. They were to live in a suite of rooms, opened for them in the house, with the caretaker providing their meals.
It was all satisfactory to Isabelle. She remembered Miss Watts with pleasure, and she proved an unobjectionable companion. She took a book and read during rehearsals. She seemed interested in Isabelle’s future.
The career was not exciting so far. The first real event was the day Cartel came to rehearsal. Everybody was on tiptoe with excitement. The stupid, mumbling thing they called the play suddenly took shape, and point, and brilliancy. It infuriated Isabelle that her only chance lay in a vagrant, unimportant line here and there, when she knew she could play the lead, Mrs. Horton, with a dash and distinction totally lacking in the performance of the actress who was to play it.
She told Cartel so, on one of the infrequent occasions when she saw him to talk to. He laughed.
“The nerve of you kids!” he said. “You think the Lord has made you an actress, don’t you? All you need is a chance at a leading part, in order to startle New York!”
Isabelle tried to reply, but he swept on.
“This is an Art; you want to desecrate a great, important Art! It takes long years of preparation, hard labour, infinite patience, aching disappointment; it takes brain, and passion, and intelligence to make an actor. Now where do you come in?”
“Well, but you thought this summer——”
“I thought you were a clever little girl doing a sleight-of-hand performance,” was his crushing answer.
“But——”
“Can you dance? Can you fence? Can you run? Is your body as mobile and lithe as an animal’s? Do you breathe properly? Can you sing? Is your voice a cultivated instrument with an octave and a half of tones, or have you five tones at your command? Do you know how to fill a theatre with a whisper? Can you carry your body with distinction? Can you sit and rise with grace? Is your speech perfect?” He hurled the questions at her.
“No,” she admitted.
“Then you don’t know the a-b-c’s of this art. When you can say ‘yes’ to all these questions, then you are ready to begin, and not until then. Mind you—tobegin!”
“But everybody on the stage cannot say ‘yes’ to all those things.”
“No, worse luck! Because soft-hearted fools like me permit crude little girls like you to speak a line without any excuse for so doing. We’ll have no great acting in America until we shut the door upon every boy and girl who thinks he can act, by the grace of God.”
With this finale, the great man walked away, leaving Isabelle feeling very young and very flat. But she rallied presently. Of course, he had exaggerated it. It mightbe that the majority of people had to go that long, hard road of preparation, but always there would be some who would leap to the top without the ladder. In her deepest, secret heart she knew herself to be of that few.
She took up the subject again that very night, after dinner, with Miss Watts.
“What do you think is the most necessary thing for success, Miss Watts?”
“Work.”
“But in something like the stage, I mean.”
“It doesn’t make any difference what it is, true success is the result of hard work and nothing else,” that lady persisted, bromidically enough.
“Don’t you think it is ever an accident?”
“If it is, it’s the worst accident that can happen to you.”
“Why?”
“Because then you have to live up to something you haven’t earned. You don’t know what to do, and in most cases you slump back into mediocrity.”
“But there must be some people who don’t grind——”
“Geniuses, maybe; but they usually do.”
“How do you suppose geniuses recognize themselves?”
“They don’t, in most cases.”
“But if you felt that you had a great gift, that you were going to do wonderful things, mightn’t it be that you were a genius?”
“I should say that it meant that you were merely young,” smiled Miss Watts.
Isabelle decided that doubtless all geniuses met with this lack of recognition in those about them. She pinnedher faith to herself! In spite of Cartel and Miss Watts—who, after all, wereold—she rather thought that on the opening night, when she spoke her lines, few as they were, the critics would say simply, in large-type headlines:
“CARTEL HAS FOUND A GENIUS!”
Table of Contents
October came, dragged by, with the opening night of the play coming nearer. Wally induced Max to come to town and open the house. It was a cold autumn and nearly all of their friends returned early, too.
“I had hoped that nobody would be in town when this idiot child of ours makes her ridiculous début, but now everybody on earth is home. Even the weather favours Isabelle’s plans,” complained Max to her spouse.
“No one need know about it, if we can keep it out of the papers.”
“Yes,if!”
“Better make the best of it. Ask a lot of people to dinner, take all the boxes, and make a joke of it.”
“Isabelle may make a joke of us,” commented her mother.
“She gets away with things,” Wally encouraged her.
As for Isabelle, she was bored to the point of despair with her career. Day in, day out, she said her stupid lines. If she varied one inflection from yesterday’s inflection she was reprimanded by Jenkins. Mary and her lines were as standardized as Webster’s Dictionary, and no original turns were to be permitted. Cartel continued distant, every inch a star, wrapped in his greatness.The other members of the company paid scant attention to her, so she made no friends.
It was all very dull and mechanical. The play started off and ground itself through as automatically as a machine. Jenkins ruled like the boss of the shop. There was no room for genius.
Just to help herself endure the tedium of eternal rehearsal, Isabelle invented an absorbing game. She rewrote the play, in innumerable ways, with the plot revolving around Mary as the central figure. Mary was now the friend and adviser of Mrs. Horton, now the trusted confidante of Mr. Horton. But whichever she was, she was a noble, sublimated creature—no possible relation to Mary, the automatic servant. She had long, beautiful speeches, interesting and unusual stage business; she wore a striking maid’s costume, designed by Isabelle. This Mary managed to keep Isabelle’s imagination awake during the weary weeks in which the other Mary walked on and off, with her “Yes, Mrs. Horton,” and her “No, Mr. Horton.”
Suddenly a Sunday Supplement blossomed out with a full-page drawing of Isabelle, and the announcement of her coming début on the stage, in Sidney Cartel’s new production to open on such-and-such a date. Thereafter every paper in town blared forth the news of this event. There were full columns of talk about the Bryces, their money, their position, Mrs. Bryce’s beauty, Isabelle’s eccentricities. The originality and daring of their only child were dwelt upon at great length.
The performance with Cartel at the mountain inn wasdescribed. The hungry public was told how Cartel had seen her genius at a glance and persuaded her parents to let him have the training of her talent. Isabelle was snapshotted leaving the theatre, or riding in the Park. She was not safe a moment from reporters and camera men.
There was unanimous disapproval of this state of affairs on the part of her parents and her manager. It was difficult to tell which was the angrier. The Bryces accused Isabelle, but for once she was innocent. She had no idea how the reports started. She had talked to nobody. Miss Watts corroborated this statement. Neither of them knew when the artist made the sketch of her, and they never supposed that the photographers were taking her picture.
Cartel was furious. It was not in his plans at all to let this youngster take the middle of his stage on the occasion of his New York opening. He would have dismissed her at once, had the newspaper talk not gone so far. As it was he joined her parents heartily in a determined effort to shut them off. But it couldn’t be done. Isabelle had caught the public eye; she was a marked personality, and editors played her up big.
Secretly she triumphed. It was only the beginning in the inevitable recognition of her greatness. It strengthened her belief that she was of the elect, and she rarely ever thought of the “Mary” part with which she was actually to prove herself, but she hurled herself into the development of the other Mary, which should have been hers, by all the laws of right. The two creatures merged—were one. Once or twice at rehearsal, aroused by her cuefrom some wonderful scene where Mary held the spotlight, she faltered for a second for those barren lines of the real Mary.
“What’s the matter with you, Miss Bryce? Keep your mind on what you’re doing,” warned Jenkins.
She smiled at him. Poor fool! In a few weeks he would be bragging that he stage-managed her first appearance. She could afford to be patient with his bad temper, now.
Dress rehearsal was called and became a fevered memory. The day of the opening Isabelle spent quietly at home, except for a ride in the Park. She was to rest, and have her supper in her sitting room. Wally came in, in the midst of her repast, and fussed about her room.
“Aren’t you nervous?” he inquired.
“Oh, no.”
“I am. I’m so nervous I could scream!” he exploded. “I hate all this notoriety. They say the house will be packed.”
“We always like a full house,” she said, serenely.
“Suppose you flunk it!”
“But I won’t!”—promptly.
He looked at her uncomprehendingly.
“If you could only be kept in a cage, in the cellar!”
She laughed gaily at that.
“Poor old Wally! Don’t fret. You’ll be very proud of me some day.”
Max floated in.
“I thought I heard laughter.”
“You did,” Isabelle replied.
“Are you cool enough to laugh?”
“Quite. Wally is the only nervous one. Who is coming to dinner, Max?”
“Eighteen people. Christiansen for one.”
“Oh, good!”
“When do you go to the theatre?”
“Seven.”
“Come along, Wally, she ought to rest. For all our sakes, Isabelle, keep your head and don’t make a fool of yourself.”
“Much obliged,” said Isabelle. “I take it you are wishing me luck.”
Wally kissed her cheek, and they went out.
“Poor dears,” mused Isabelle, “it will be hard for them to accommodate themselves to my importance.”
Then she gave herself up to dreams of triumph until it was time to go. There was excitement in the air at the theatre. Voices were high, and eyes were bright. She was greeted loudly from open doors, as she went to her dressing room. Since the papers had boomed her, her position in the company had changed. Every one was dressed early and little knots of people discussed the big house, the critics, the chances of success for the play. It was a “strong” play, and, so far, the season had offered only trifles. It was too soon to know yet what the public appetite craved.
“You got to change its meat. When it’s fed up on crooks, ye got to give it sex; when it turns against that, ye got to try comedy.Myopinion is, this is a comedy season,” said the gentleman who played the butler—a parteven more inconspicuous than Isabelle’s. They all inquired the state of her pulse, and marvelled at her calm.
“She’ll be a hit, or she’ll be rotten,” was the butler gentleman’s comment.
“She can’t do much in that maid’s part.”
“Can’tshe? Remember the time they tried to bury Ethel Barrymore in a maid’s part, when she was a kid? Took the show right away from John Drew!” said the authority.
Finally the curtain was up, and the play was on. Isabelle’s initial appearance was late in the first act, when Cartel was building carefully the foundations of plot for the subsequent superstructure. Isabelle entered with a visitor’s card in the middle of an important speech by Cartel. She had one line. To his intense fury, at sight of her the house burst into applause, and he had to halt his oration until she disappeared.
The play was a domestic drama, with the popular old-fashioned man, wed to the popular-new-fashioned woman who wants to “live her life.” In the first act, the husband’s point of view and character are expounded and contrasted with the woman’s.
In a daring second act, the husband—on the casual invitation of an acquaintance to come along to a supper party in a certain man’s rooms—finds his own wife acting as hostess. After the modern manner he breaks no furniture, makes no scene; but in tense tones, aside, he demands an explanation from her. She promises him an interview at their home, the following day, at five. Herefuses to wait; she insists. He leaves. Events follow rapidly. The host has a stroke of apoplexy and dies. A muddle-headed guest summons a police ambulance instead of a hospital one. Police arrive, murder is suspected, every one is arrested. There is a strong finale, with hints of astounding revelations to come—in act three, of course.
The third act opens with a very tense atmosphere. Horton (Cartel), the husband—unaware that his wife is under arrest, suspected of murder—comes to his home, from the club, where he has spent a sleepless night. It is nearly five o’clock, the hour of the interview. Business of excitement, pacing, looking at watch. He rings for Mary, who enters.
“Where is Mrs. Horton, Mary?” he asks.
“Mrs. Horton telephoned she would be here at five o’clock, sir,” answers Mary, who, according to the playwright, then goes out. But Mary did not exit.
“She hasn’t been home all night, sir,” she added suddenly, unexpectedly, “and it may be that she is in some trouble.”
Cartel turned a fierce frown upon her.
“That will do, Mary,” he said, threateningly.
Mary threw herself at his feet.
“Oh, Mr. Horton, don’t be hard on her! She may have been misled by this man; but at heart she is a good woman—I could swear it.”
Cartel was shaking with fury. He leaned over and grasped the prostrate Mary by the arm, so hard that he nearly cracked her bones. “Ouch!” she cried, “you’re hurting me.”
The audience slowly grasped the fact that this scene was a surprise to Cartel. It was so still you could have heard a sigh. Mary resisted any attempt to get her on her feet, and this side of carrying her off Cartel was helpless.
“If you’d only make a confidante of me, Mr. Horton, I could be a help to you in your hour of need,” she cried passionately.
“Get out!” hissed Cartel,sotto voce.
“It looks as if she committed that murder, but I have facts to prove that she did not.”
The rest of the act was devoted to breaking the news of the murder to Horton. In one fell line this demon had demolished the play. The audience began to titter, to laugh, to roar! Cartel dragged Isabelle to the door, and literally flung her forth. But at the expression on her face the audience actually shouted with delight, they applauded deafeningly.
Cartel acted quickly. He went up stage, turned his back, and looked out of a prop. window, for what seemed a lifetime, till the hysterics out in front subsided. Finally it was still enough for him to take up the scene again. But at the dramatic entrance of his wife, fresh from a night in jail, they were off again. Cartel glared at them, and in a shamefaced sort of way, they subsided, and the play creaked on, as dead as last year’s news.
Mary had a later entrance, which Cartel cut, but it necessitated the mention of her name, whereupon the monster mirth was loosed again.
Finally the curtain descended upon the tragedy. Mrs.Horton went into hysterics, and Mr. Horton, bathed in sweat, went to look for Isabelle.
The company stood about in frightened groups, but he did not see them. He threw open her door without so much as a knock upon it, and he shouted so you could have heard him in Harlem.
“You little beast! You—you hell-cat! What d’ye mean by spoiling my scene like that?”
“Oh, I am so sorry,” said Isabelle, “I didn’t mean to do it, but I got the two Marys all mixed up.”
“You’re crazy—you’re a mad woman! What do you think this will mean to me? It means failure—complete failure! I never could get through the scene again. It means thousands of dollars, that’s what it means. Because I let a stage-struck fool like you speak a line! Talk about gratitude! You turn and ruin me!”
“But I didn’t know——”
“Don’t pull that baby stuff!” he shrieked. “Youdidknow. Youintendedto do it all the time. You’re so crazy about yourself, that you’d murder your own mother to get the spotlight! Get out of here! Don’t you ever let me see your face again! Don’t you ever step in this theatre, you dirty spy! Take her away! Take her away!” he raved, now entirely beside himself.
Isabelle for once was dumb. Poor, terrified Miss Watts seized her by the arm, and dragged her out the stage door, and down the alley.
Table of Contents
Isabelle walked Miss Watts for miles. She would not answer questions, nor discuss the events leading up to Cartel’s outburst.
“Of course, he isn’t a gentleman,” was her only remark during the entire walk. Poor Miss Watts was utterly in the dark over the whole situation. She was sitting quietly in the dressing room, reading theAtlantic Monthly, under the impression that the play was going nicely, when the terrible outbreak of Cartel occurred. One thing she grasped, and that was that the girl was suffering, so she let her alone and trudged along beside her, as well as she could.
Suddenly Isabelle called a taxi, and ordered the driver to hurry them home.
“I won’t see the Wallys to-night,” she said, as they reached the house. “If they’re home, you tell them whatever you like.”
But the Bryces were not in yet, so Matthews told them. Isabelle rushed upstairs, and went to bed, with a brief good-night to Miss Watts. An hour later Max snapped on the light in Isabelle’s room, and evidently spoke to Wally.
“The little beast is asleep!” she said. “Did you ever hear anything equal to that?”
Isabelle heard him laugh; the light was turned off, and her parents went on their way. They never had any part in her crises. They thought this terrible, wracking fiasco was funny! She covered her ears to shut out the hideous wild laughing of that audience. She could never forget it as long as she lived—that gust of laughter, as if the solid earth had begun to rock and roll.
She tried to think back to the beginning of the disaster, but it was all hazy in her mind—a chaos of lights, people, applause, excitement—a mixture of the rôle she was playing and the one she had made up for herself. She could not remember when it was that she began on the wrong Mary.
She viewed the ruins of her hopes, lying all about her. She heard Cartel’s shrieks of rage, and that awful laughing! It was terrible—terrible! And nobody would understand. There was nothing for her to do, but die.
She thought back to another time when she had wanted to die, and dear Mrs. Benjamin had comforted her. If only she were here now she would understand, and help her to face her disgrace. What was she to do? How could she live it down? She must hide somewhere. Maybe she ought to disappear in the morning, before her parents were awake. That would let her out of the much-dreaded interview with them. So with this idea in her mind, she fell into troubled sleep, at dawn.
When she woke, it was to broad daylight, and the presence of her father and mother.
“Oh!” sighed Isabelle, as her eyes fell on them.
“You’ve been asleep all day,” said her mother. “We thought maybe you’d taken something.”
“Taken something?”
“Drug, or something.”
“Is it late?”
“Four o’clock in the afternoon.”
“Oh, and I intended to get away early this morning.”
“Get away where?” inquired Wally.
“Anywhere out of sight”—desperately.
He sat on the edge of her bed.
“Look here, kid, just what did happen?”
“You’ll never understand, and I’m not going to talk about it,” she said, sullenly.
“You needn’t take that tone,” said her mother, sharply. “You’ve made an utter fool of yourself, and of us, too.”
“Now, Max, let her alone to-day,” Wally protested.
“It’s always ‘Let her do it her own way,’ with you. You backed her up in this foolishness. We’ve had all the publicity I intend to have through Isabelle. She will go back to school, and stay in retirement, until we are ready to bring her out,” said Mrs. Bryce, firmly.
“All I say is that to-morrow is soon enough to take it up with her. The kid’s had a bad fall, and she needs to get together.”
“Yes, she has! She comes home and goes to sleep for sixteen hours, while we read the newspapers.”
“Newspapers?”
“Column after column of what you did to Cartel’s opening. If he doesn’t sue Wally for a fat sum, I miss my guess.”
“What did they say?”
“You can read them for yourself. I intend that you shall. If there is any way to cure your conceit, I’d like to see it done,” Mrs. Bryce continued.
“Plenty of time later,” urged Wally, distressed at his daughter’s white, tragic face. “Did Cartel say anything to you last night?”
Isabelle nodded.
“Dismissed you?”
Again she inclined her head.
“I should hope so,” laughed Max, shortly. “Paper says he has gone to Atlantic City with a nervous collapse.”
“And the play?” Isabelle said.
“Closed. That’s what you did. Must have endeared yourself to the company.”
With a groan, Isabelle turned her face to the wall, and Wally dragged Max out of the room.
Later Miss Watts came in to offer tea. The girl refused it, but she begged her companion to bring her all the morning papers.
“Wait until to-morrow, my dear,” Miss Watts begged, alarmed at the change in her.
“No. I want to get it over.”
So the papers were brought.
After propping her up on pillows and seeing that she was bodily comfortable at least, Miss Watts withdrew. Isabelle began at the beginning and read every word about that unhappy opening. The articles were written with a jocularity hard to bear. Most of them had graduated out of the regular dramatic review columns on to the first page. “Hilarious Opening at the New York Theatre!” “Cartel’s Find!” “Impromptu Artist Makes Bow.” These were some of the captions.
They all developed the story for what it was worth: Cartel’s discovery of Isabelle at the inn; a few paragraphs about her family; mention of the wonderful publicity provided for her; a description of the brilliant first-night audience, with the Bryces’ distinguished guests in all the boxes; Isabelle’s reception as the maid. Then followed the plot of the play, up to the awful moment when Cartel’s “discovery” forgot her lines and began to improvise. They painted the star’s astonishment and subsequent fury. They added speculation as to the real climax of the evening which must have taken place back on the stage after the dropping of the final curtain. Every article made you hear the uncontrollable laughter of the audience.
Isabelle agonized over each one. She raged at the opinion of one dramatic critic who said that no doubt Cartel would release Miss Bryce on the morrow, but that a dozen managers would step forward to capture a young woman of such marked personality, and such a talent for publicity.
Max was right; they were all ruined. She had made the whole family ridiculous. She wasn’t surprised that Max hated her for it. She deserved anything from them now. She lay in bed for several days, scarcely touching food, brooding upon her disgrace until she was really ill.
Wally hovered about her, deeply concerned, but not knowing how to comfort her. He kept Max out of the room as much as he could. Finally he sent for a doctor.
“Perfectly unnecessary,” said his wife. “She isn’t sick. She’s made a fool of herself and lost the middle of the stage, so now she goes on a hunger strike to work up a little sympathy.”
“The kid is suffering, I tell you. She is all broken up over this. I think we ought to take her away somewhere.”
“You can count me out. I’ve been dragged home to open this house for her convenience. I’m not going off to some empty resort place because she needs a change.”
The doctor had a talk with Isabelle, told her to cheer up, gave her a tonic, agreed with Wally that she needed a change, and went on his way.
Martin Christiansen asked Max about Isabelle and was informed that she had the sulks. He asked permission to see her, and he was the first visitor admitted to her room. He was shocked at the change in her. She was thin, and haggard, and old. Her eyes hurt him. She was sitting up, in a big chair, wearing a bizarre Chinese coat, all orange and black and gold. She looked any age, an exotic little creature. The hand she offered was thin as a bird’s claw.
“I’ve been thinking that you might understand,” she said to him, before he could speak.
“Thank you.”
He drew a chair beside hers and waited.
“You didn’t think I forgot my lines, did you?”
“It wasn’t like you.”
“I didn’t. I was bored at rehearsals, and so I made up a wonderful Mary-part for myself, a noble character whom every one trusted.”
Her eyes were upon his face, and he nodded slowly,hoping that his amusement did not leak through his expression.
“Every day, all those hours, I used to be this made-up Mary, and just toward the last I got a little wobbly as to which Mary was which,” she admitted.
“Naturally.”
“I knew you would see that. Well, the night of the opening I was so excited that I mixed them all up.”
She said this with such tragic emphasis that he did not even want to laugh.
“How unfortunate!” he exclaimed.
“No, it wasn’t unfortunate,” she cried; “it was stupid, stupid, stupid!”
“Yes, it was, a trifle,” he admitted.
“I thought I was going to be such a success. I just knew I could act. Cartel said it would take me years of hard work even to begin to be an artist, and I thought I could just show him.”
“I think you may be said to have shown him!” Christiansen remarked.
“Yes, I did. I showed him I was a fool. I don’t wonder that he nearly killed me for it.”
“No doubt it was real agony for a man as highly strung as he is. For months he had been building a fine house, and in three blows you sent it crumbling.”
“Oh, don’t!” groaned Isabelle.
“I didn’t come to reproach you. I came to help. I want to be sure that we both understand that you have been to blame in this affair. That settled, we’ll go on to the next step.”
“There isn’t any next step. I’ve disgraced us all.”
“Oh, come, it isn’t so bad as that. You have given a great many people a good laugh, and no doubt they are very grateful to you for it. Now, do you want to go on with the stage?—really to study the fine art of acting?”
“No!no! NO!”
“What are your plans?”
“I haven’t any.”
“You cannot spend the rest of your life in this room, my child.”
“I’d like to.”
“There’s always something to be made of our tragedies, Isabelle. The first thing is to get yourself well again. You’re all eyes. It won’t do. You must go away and get together, and when you come back we will have a talk about your work. I’m sure you have talent of some sort, if we can just direct it properly.”
“I’ll never believe in myself again.”
He laughed and patted her hand.
“Europe is out of the question. How about Bermuda? Ever been there?”
“No”—indifferently.
“Just the place. Lots doing. Soldiers recuperating, people to watch, people to play with. Fine place for you. I’ll suggest it to your parents.”
He rose and took her two small hands.
“You promise me to get well, and to come back your old vivid self?”
“I’ll try. Youarea comfort. You helped that other time, too, when the guillotine nearly broke Tommy Page’s neck.”
He threw back his head and laughed so heartily at the memory, that she laughed too.
“I’ve always been rather ridiculous, haven’t I?” she asked him.
“My child, that is an elderly remark,” he said, and he left her—on the whole, cheered.
He promptly made his suggestion to the Bryces. It was discussed pro and con and then finally it was decided to ship the girl off, in Miss Watts’s care, for it was evident that she was making herself ill with the humiliation of her failure.
So, one day in November Wally saw them off.
“You look like a Brownie,” he said, as he kissed Isabelle good-bye. “For goodness’ sake, get some flesh on your bones.”
“Don’t worry, old thing,” she answered. “I’ll come back fat, and chastened in spirit.”
He grinned, and ran for the gangway, and stood waving and smiling as the steamer slipped from the pier.
Table of Contents
The two travellers settled themselves and took stock of the passengers in the casual way of those who go down to the sea in ships. Miss Watts was prepared to have Isabelle throw herself into the activities of the brief voyage, in order that she might forget her troubles. She did just the opposite. She lay in her chair, reading or contemplating the sea; she marched the deck in absent-minded solitude. Miss Watts was the only person she spoke to, or permitted to speak to her.
But her odd face, her unusual clothes, and her greathauteurmarked her at once in the eyes of the idlers who sat on deck and gossiped. She was soon identified as the heroine of the Cartel opening. Speculation and much interest followed her.
The second day out the chair to the right of Isabelle was occupied for the first time. A cursory glance was enough to assure her of the following facts: he was handsome “as an army with banners”; he wore an English officer’s uniform; and he was very pale. She decided to have another look in a moment.
She settled herself comfortably—aware that his eyes were upon her—and opened her book, with an air of great detachment. Miss Watts was not on deck at the moment.It was some time before she got another chance to look at him unobserved. She saw that he had crinkly hair and a ridiculous little moustache, twisted at the tips. He had his eyes closed. He certainly was white, but one strong, lean, brown hand lay on his lap, giving her a feeling of relaxed power. His eyes opened unexpectedly, and she had to return to her book in haste. His eyes were very blue and she thought there was a smile in them.
Miss Watts’s arrival interrupted this interchange, if it was an interchange. But in a few minutes another officer came to chat with the invalid.
“Hello, Larry, old man, how are ye?” he inquired.
“I’m fairly fit to-day, thanks.”
“Glad you can be on deck.”
“Rather. I thought I’d croak in that hole of a stateroom.”
“Lot of people aboard we know. Mrs. Darlington, for one. Remember her in London?”
“Rather.”
“She’s dying to see ‘dear old Larry.’ Sit tight, she’s on her way now,” he added, in a lower voice.
Isabelle permitted herself a look. A tall, handsome woman was coming down the deck, with a swaying sort of walk that was fascinating. She was very smartly turned out. A rather fat man, with prominent eyes, accompanied her. They stopped beside Larry’s chair, and she exclaimed enthusiastically:
“How are you, old dear? They would not let me into your stateroom, or I should have been holding your hand, and giving Mrs. Grundy a treat.”
“Larry” got to his feet and accomplished a gallant bow.
“Awf’lly good of ye,” he said, smiling, holding her hand in his.
“You know Monty Haven, don’t you? Captain Larry O’Leary, Monty, and Major O’Dell.”
So his name was Larry O’Leary, mused Isabelle. She liked its softness on the tongue.
“Does your wound trouble you, you brave thing?” Mrs. Darlington purred.
“Oh, no. Coming all right. It’s nothing.”
“Nothing? Do you know what this wonderful creature did, under fire and all, Monty?” she demanded.
“O kind and beautiful lady, spare me blushes. I’m after being Irish and susceptible to flattery,” he cried.
“Larry, you old heart-breaker, don’t look at me in that wistful Celtic way,” she commanded.
“Mrs. Darlington, dear, ye may as well resign yersilf to bein’ looked at,” he retorted.
“It is good to hear your blarney and your brogue, Larry. By the way, old Mrs. Van Dyke is aboard and demands a sight of you.”
“Does she now? Come along and let’s pay our respects to the old lady.”
She put her hand through his arm, and they sauntered off, with the other two men in their wake.
“Handsome woman, wasn’t she?” Miss Watts remarked.
“No. I don’t like that type. She struck me asbold.”
Captain Larry O’Leary was the spoiled and petted darling of the boat. The tale of his gallant action underfire, of his wounds, of his decoration for valour, was passed from mouth to mouth, and lost nothing in the retelling.
The men liked him because he was a simple, modest chap, in spite of it all. The women followed him around like a cloud of gnats. He jollied them all from old Madam Van Dyke, who was seventy, to the smallest girl child on the boat.
He looked like a hero out of a fairy book. He had a rollicking, contagious laugh, and a courteous heart toward every one. At the ship concert for the benefit of wounded soldiers, he sang the songs of the trenches, and the marching songs of the Irish troops, the English and the French, in a clear baritone voice. There is no hope of disguising the fact that Larry O’Leary was too good to be true. Like the star in the melodrama, he was 99 per cent. hero.
His only rival for the centre of the stage on the brief voyage was Isabelle. At first she kept to herself, because she was ill, and wanted to be alone. But after a bit she grasped the fact that her aloofness was a sensation, and she was not too ill to enjoy that. Her perambulations about the deck were watched with undiminished interest. Everybody knew everybody else. There were dances, and games and knitting contests, but to all invitations Isabelle replied in the negative.
“Why don’t you talk to some of these people, Isabelle? They seem very pleasant,” Miss Watts said.
“Oh,” sighed the girl, “they bore me.”
Captain O’Leary had made several attempts to get an opening to speak to her in the afternoon, but she hadsuccessfully evaded them. Mrs. Darlington in search of the bonny Captain spoke to her.
“Your handsome neighbour isn’t on deck?”
“Isn’t he?” said Isabelle. “I hadn’t noticed.”
Mrs. Darlington stared, laughed, retreated and the story went the rounds. It amused O’Leary, and it also piqued him. He was used to being noticed by ladies in his vicinity. He made up his mind that he would make that girl look at him. He intended to lay siege to Miss Watts, but he came upon Isabelle unattended, in deep contemplation of the sea, and he promptly sat down beside her.
“I beg pardon, Miss Bryce, but are you Irish?” he said deliberately.
She turned big, enquiring eyes upon him.
“No. Why?”
“I thought nobody could be as sad as you look except an Irishman.”
“I’m not Irish,” she said, and returned her gaze to the sea.
“I am,” he exclaimed.
No answer.
“We’re very sensitive to—to rebuffs.”
“I suppose so. You were shot in a rebuff, weren’t you?” she said, politely.
His laugh rang out at that.
“Yes, but we’re not so sensitive to a rebuff from guns as we are to a rebuff from ladies.”
“No?”
“Have ye taken an unconquerable dislike to me, Miss Bryce?” he begged.
“I think you’re very—pleasant,” admitted Isabelle.
“Couldn’t ye take a lesson from me?”
“You think I’m unpleasant?”
“I think your heart is as hard as the rocks in Flodden Field,” he exclaimed.
“Being pleasant hasn’t anything to do with your heart,” was her calm reply.
“Hasn’t it? Ye think I can be as pleasant as I am, and still have a hard, black heart?”
She shrugged her shoulders.
“So you don’t like me?” he persisted.
“Yes, rather. But I’m a little tired of heroes just now,” was her reply.
“I’m afraid I don’t qualify,” he said curtly, “but as a possible nuisance I’ll take mesilf off.”
He rose. He stopped behind her chair and leaned over her to say:
“That rebuff, ye spoke of, in France. After all, it was an amateur affair, as rebuffs go.”
With which he marched off down the deck, his head very high in the air. Miss Watts sat down beside Isabelle with a quick glance at her.
“Weren’t you talking to Captain O’Leary?”
“He talked to me.”
“Isn’t he charming? All the women are so excited about him.”
“That’s what’s the matter with him.”
“Is he conceited?”
“Fearfully!” quoth Isabelle.
She went over that interview dozens of times. Of coursehe would never look at her again. She remembered how Mrs. Darlington purred over him—how Madam Van Dyke patted him. That was the way to make him like you, but she had scratched and spit at him, like an angry kitten. She couldn’t imagine why she had acted like that. She admired him immensely. He was more attractive than Jerry Paxton or Sidney Cartel or any man she had ever loved, and yet—she had deliberately made him hate her. Well, anyhow, she liked the idea of her heart being as hard as the rocks in Flodden Field. It had an important sound. He could never say that to the gushing Mrs. Darlington, or any of the other women who ran around after him.
So she closed the chapter of their acquaintance on the boat, but she worked out a scene or two at Bermuda, including an aeroplane flight in which he and she were lost in the clouds. On the whole she preferred the things she made up to the things that happened.
As they neared the Islands the weather grew warmer. White clothes appeared on deck. Captain O’Leary appeared in an undress uniform that caused a flutter in feminine hearts. The night of the day of her encounter with her hero was stuffy and very hot.
Isabelle was restless and wakeful. She tossed and turned and tried to banish all thoughts of the Irishman, but it was no use. She leaned out of her upper berth to gaze down upon the sleeping features of Miss Watts.
“How wonderful to be so old that you don’t care about handsome Irishmen!” mused Isabelle.
A few minutes later she decided that, unless she hadsome air, she would perish. She made a most careful descent from her perch, without waking her companion. She opened the door cautiously, and put her head out. It was a trifle cooler in the passageway. Her watch reported three o’clock. There would be no one awake at that hour.
She put on her slippers, and the tight little orange-and-black Chinese cloak. She left the door open, and went into the corridor. She walked up and down, up and down, trying to believe that she was cooler. It was rather spooky! Several stateroom doors stood open, and the sound of sleepers—breathing evenly, or snoring—came to her as she passed.
Finally she turned in at her own door, slipped off the Chinese coat, and laid it across the chair. She moved very quietly not to disturb Miss Watts. She put her foot on the extreme edge of the lower berth to mount, when the boat rolled and threw her off her balance. To save herself from falling, she put out her hand; it descended upon the upturned face—it should have been the face of Miss Watts, but it was not. Her hand fell upon a moustache! With one bound Isabelle was out of the door, into the passageway, and into the next open door.
“Miss Watts!” she gasped.
“Yes, what is it?”—sleepily.
“Oh, nothing. I went out to get a breath of air. I left the door open, but I wasn’t just sure——”
She was climbing up into her berth during this explanation. Suddenly a hideous thought caused her to collapse on the edge of her bed—she had left her Chinese coat behind!
Table of Contents
The day after the loss of her Chinese coat was the last day at sea. They were to land sometime in the morning. When she woke from her troubled dreams, Isabelle’s thought was that she would stay in her stateroom until it was time to disembark. She could not decide whether to tell Miss Watts the story of her mistake and ask her advice, or whether it was sufficiently disgraceful to be kept a secret.
She reviewed it for the thousandth time,—the open doors, all alike, the entrance into the wrong one, her leisurely disposal of her coat, and then her hand planted firmly in the middle of that strange face—that moustached face! Could he have seen her and recognized her in the moment she stood before him? It was dark in the room, except for a dim light from the corridor. Was there anything about the coat which could identify her? Should she give the stewardess twenty-five dollars and tell her to get it, and answer no questions? But how would she explain its being in that room? It was simple enough to her, how it got there, but you never could tell how other people would take a thing. She decided to let the coat remain, and tell no one of the incident.
But granted that there was no way for the man to identify her, why need she hide? It was a beautiful warmday and the cabin was stuffy. No, she would go forth and count the number of men aboard who wore moustaches.
He wore one!!!
It flashed into her mind in italics! Captain Larry O’Leary wore one! Suppose . . . ! She blushed at the thought, and began hurriedly to dress. Miss Watts had already gone forth for a promenade before breakfast. Arrayed in one of her white linen suits and a close boyish white hat, Isabelle fared forth to join her companion. But half way down the deck, she hesitated, for her companion was already companioned. None other than the gallant Captain O’Leary strode the deck by her side. Before Isabelle could flee, they turned suddenly and saw her. They came toward her. Two feet from where she stood, the Captain halted, bowed, said audibly:
“Thus far, and no farther, Miss Watts. Here lies the safety line.” He indicated an imaginary line with an immaculate boot.
Miss Watts looked her surprise.
“You know Captain O’Leary, Isabelle? Surely I saw you talking. Miss Bryce, Captain O’Leary.”
He bowed gravely.
“Miss Bryce,” he said, formally.
“Captain O’Leary,” she replied, looking intently at his moustache.
He passed his hand over his face slowly with inquiry in his eyes.
“I beg your pardon,” mumbled Isabelle, blushing.
“I know. I remind ye of somebody. I always remind everybody of somebody,” he added, with his pleasant suggestion of brogue.
Isabelle seized upon the opportunity.
“You do, rather. Isn’t he like Patsy Reilly, the gardener’s boy at The Beeches, Miss Watts?”
“Why no!” exploded Miss Watts. “Certainly not.”
The Captain laughed.
“I told ye so. Mine is the universal physiognomy! Stuffy night, wasn’t it?” he added, changing the subject abruptly.
Isabelle glanced at him quickly.
“I didn’t find it so,” she said. “Coming to breakfast, Miss Watts?”
“Yes. Walk round the deck with us once, as an appetizer?”
“No, thanks. I’m famished.”
“Miss Bryce would rather devour an Irishman as an appetizer before breakfast. ‘Fee, fi, fo, fum, I smell the blood of an Irishman’.”
“I’d prefer an Englishman, or a German!” retorted Isabelle, as she nodded and led the way to breakfast.
She pondered his remark about the stuffy night with a fluttering heart. Did he know? Did he suspect her? She watched men with moustaches, and tried to listen to their conversation. There were a good many English officers aboard with the regulation hirsute adornment of the upper lip. True to our custom of following English fashions, more than half the American men aboard had diminutive twisted affairs on the upper lip. There was no use trying to identify “the man” by the moustache.She listened for conversation verging upon the Far East—incidentally Chinese embroideries—but in vain.
She watched her chance when no one was about, to consult the ship register to see what men were in that corridor. She discovered five English officers were in that tier. In short they arrived, and disembarked without Isabelle finding a single clue to the gentleman who had her treasured coat.
Captain O’Leary was civil about their baggage, and getting them a vehicle to go to the hotel.
“Are ye sure that ye have everything that belongs to ye?” he inquired, his eyes on Isabelle.
What did he mean? Did he mean anything except what he said?
“Yes, thanks,” replied Miss Watts. “So glad you are staying at our hotel. We’ll see you later,” she added, and they rode off, leaving him smiling after them, bare-headed in the sunlight.
“Most charming man I ever met!” exclaimed Miss Watts.
“Umm-m,” said Isabelle.
It was like a miracle to step out on to the terrace of the hotel, after dinner that night. To have left New York on a cold, raw fall day, and in two days to find oneself in this warm, odorous night air. The band played, and white-clad figures walked, danced, sat in groups over coffee. Everywhere relaxed, happy, laughing people.
It was not the season on the island but so many English officers came to recuperate here, so many Americans, shutout of Europe, came down from New York for a week or so, that it was unusually gay.
Mrs. Darlington and Captain O’Leary were dancing when Miss Watts and Isabelle entered the large gallery at the edge of the platform. Mrs. Darlington was regal in evening dress, and the pair attracted much attention as they danced. The Captain bowed as he passed and evidently spoke to his partner about them, for she glanced back at them. She shrugged her shoulders, and he led her in their direction.
“Lovely night, isn’t it? Mrs. Darlington, Miss Watts and Miss Bryce,” he said.
“I tried to meet Miss Bryce on the boat, but she snubbed me,” laughed Mrs. Darlington, making Isabelle feel very young and crude.
Isabelle frowned and made no denial, so Captain O’Leary remarked:
“Do you disdain the dance, Miss Bryce?”
“No.”
“Would you honour me?”
Isabelle glanced at Miss Watts, who looked uncomfortable.
“Isabelle is not out yet. Her mother wishes her to be inconspicuous here,” she began.
“Imagine Isabelle inconspicuous,” laughed Mrs. Darlington again.
Isabelle decided that she hated her!
“But it’s different out here—it’s not a ball room, ye know. It’s just dancin’ round,” said the Irishman.
“Yes, that’s true. Oh, I think it would be all right,”agreed Miss Watts, unable to deny him the moon, if he asked for it.
“The next then, Miss Bryce?”
“Thank you,” she said.
He went away with his partner, who was decidedly bored with the conversation.
“Surly little thing,” she remarked, audibly.
“She is certainly a beautiful woman,” Miss Watts remarked, looking after them.
“Beautiful? Oh, yes, if you like a vamp.”
“A what?”
“Vampire; you see them in movies.”
“Isabelle!” protested the older woman.
They strolled about, drank in the rich tropical perfume of the night, and looked off to where the sea lay—huge, mysterious, and musical—lipping the beach. There was a moon and the stars hung low and yellow in a deep blue velvet sky.
The band swung into a waltz, and the dancers began to revolve. Isabelle’s heart beat an extra tap or two. She saw Captain O’Leary’s closely cropped head in the distance. He caught sight of her, and hurried toward them with that swinging, marching gait of his. He bowed and offered his arm. Isabelle took it in silence and they went to the dancing floor.