CHAPTER TEN—AND ELSEWHERE
Before port was reached two facts important to this history had been established: the first that Jerome was to join the troupe—not, indeed, as a member of the chorus (since he had satisfactorily demonstrated to the impresario that his allusion to fog horns had not been in exaggeration) but instead as a clerical assistant to Mr. Curry; and the second, that he had fallen madly in love with Lili.
The first fact was simple enough; as for the second, no doubt the gods on far Olympus smiled a little. But love spurns the orthodox, and after all heeds few conventions.
Of course everybody knew about it, for theSkipping Goonewas poor soil in which to cultivate secrets. So the clerk’s love affair was discussed, just as any issue of general public interest would be anywhere.
That a clerk should fall in love with a girl who sang on the stage could not possibly cause any surprise, though that Lili should likewise be smitten with the clerk might seem a little less true to type. But somehow Lili wasn’t quite a type. She rather baffled. Besides, she hadn’t exactly fallen in love with Jerome the way he had fallen in love with her. However, it was a most interesting case; Mr. Curry’s songbirds found it so, and adapted themselves to its oddities in the easy manner of men and women of the world. It wasn’t, for that matter, the first time they had beheld the alluring little singer with a beau.
Any one who had known Jerome intimately during the slow-moving years in San Francisco would have been astonishedenough upon encountering him in the flushed midst of this new phase of his career. One of the first momentous changes was an entire absence of the classic tie clip, which Lili, in playful mood, had snatched off one day and flung far out to sea. Thus, in a flash, one of the most eloquent emblems of his whole former life vanished away. It was really wonderful how much less obscure Jerome looked without the clip. But that was only that. As for the rest—well, Lili’s beaming eyes alone were a liberal education. And, though she often enough shocked Jerome with brazenries for which he wasn’t yet altogether prepared, and while she never seemed to take anything quite so seriously as he did, her knowledge of the great world opened his mind to somewhat wider horizons (despite her occasional deficiencies in grammar and manners) than he had even remotely glimpsed during the epoch when he used sometimes to think of “cutting quite a figure in the world some day.”
Well, he was cutting a figure now! No, he didn’t feel altogether at home with himself any more. But it was broadening not to—there was such a thing, he now began to realize, as feeling too much at home.
Gradually his entire viewpoint changed, so that it was with amazement he perceived how he had been satisfied just to drudge along in San Francisco, with nothing ever happening. He had definitely shaken the dust of the past off his shoes. He was through with the old life forever.
A persisting lightness in Lili troubled him some. She had what at first struck him as an unnecessarily vulgar way of shouting to her friends: “I’ve got a man! I’ve got a man!” And he could never, for instance, begin seriously talking about the way he felt, and about the future but Lili would laugh it all away with some perfectly frivolous, or at least irrelevant remark. Her tolerance of the incessantly interrupting pleasantries of the comedian was distinctly a bore. Jerome’s incorrigibly healthy ego assured him something was wrong, and that while the mock-respect of earlier days had largely worn off, he still wasn’t treated with that degree of honest respectwhich the majesty of his ambitious manhood demanded. Jerome had buried his past with its mistakes and its follies and humiliations, and he demanded of the world that it treat him accordingly.
Sometimes the startling suddenness of everything would momentarily overcome. And he didn’t know ... well, at any rate, he mustn’t permit life to run away with him; to have life run away with him might not be so bad as to have it crawl away with him; but it would be bad enough. Sometimes when Lili laughed he had a feeling that lifewasrunning away with him. He had moments of feeling a trifle wobbly about life. Only one thing seemed, through everything, perfectly clear: it was too late now to think of turning back!
Arrival at Honolulu was plentifully exciting. Naturally every one was on deck. Captain Bearman set up a sort of preliminary barking through his splendid whiskers.
Mr. Curry’s press agent, though not conspicuous for creative ingenuity, had carried out with tolerable success most of the “advance” ideas with which the impresario had eagerly and patiently supplied him. There was a throng down to welcome in the band of venturesome troupers. The newspapers sent their most gifted reporters, and had reserved space on their front pages for a generous human-interest yarn. A native orchestra was strumming on the dock. Of course all the songbirds were wild to debark.
Shore connections established, the reporters descended and tongues were ardently loosed. Most of the songbirds had a very efficiently developed sense of publicity. Miss Valentine, the coloratura who could sing up to F, turned from one to another, talking with elaborate elegance and conveying the impression that she considered this a very great lark indeed—something in the nature of a playful interlude between triumphs of the past (a little yawn and much patting of curls) and radiant contracts in the future. The comedian told funny stories of life aboard theSkipping Goone, and agreeably notedout of a corner of his eye that some of them were being reduced to hieroglyphics. One story they all seized upon was the story of the clerk who had failed to wake up; and the clerk must be found and interviewed, and somebody even snapped his picture.
As for the impresario—of course he was made use of to the fullest advantage. “Like a conquering monarch,” one of the papers next day proclaimed his arrival; nor was this an exaggeration, for Xenophon Curry in all his bright habiliments did look like a conquering monarch, and carried himself like one, too, so proud was he—oh, a very human sort of conquering monarch: one with a smile such as, in the words of another paper, “it would be worth walking all the way around Oahu to see.”
Preference might have carried Xenophon Curry out to the Beach, butars longa; vita brevis—he settled cheerfully at the Alexander Young so as to be near the theatre.
Scarcely had he descended from his room when a most surprising circumstance developed. Over in one corner of the lobby stood a small booth where ladies of social prominence were selling flowers for the benefit of a local charity. All at once the impresario stopped and gazed, unbelieving, fascinated. And at the very same moment there was a stir inside the booth, and lo! one of the ladies came forth from it, came smiling and nodding toward him across the lobby, her face shining with welcome, and a ready hand outstretched.
Flora Utterbourne—yes, it was really she! Their greeting, as may well be imagined, was effusive and faintly loud. It was really beautiful!
“But—I left you on the dock...!” he faltered lamely, but happily.
“I know,” she laughed, with warm joyousness, though without his amazement, “but you see—I took the next steamerdown, for there were somefriendswho had been planning to spend a fewweekshere and asked me to goalong, and I foundI could getaway, though I really hadn’t intended leaving town just at thistime!”
They chattered, then, delightedly, and for ever so long couldn’t seem to exhaust the stock of superlative congratulations, self and mutual. At last, however, they seated themselves, and she went on flowingly: “It really was myfriends”—just a faintly blushing insistence—“who ‘carried me off’—the Trents, originally ofToronto—perhaps youknowthem?—and Mrs. Clyde, who was MissSpurling,—she is the friend I was with inMadeira, the year we met Signora Martinella, who nearly ‘took her life’ in such a strange and tragicway!” And Flora was enthusiastically launched, right then and there, upon a most amazing digression, all about the Signora Martinella, who was encountered first in the ball room—“ratherflirting, we thought—quite afrivolouslittle thing!” And then it developed—oh, well, it was a very absorbing affair, and the Signora in the enddidn’ttake poison. Oh yes, it was most elaborately enthusiastic; and when the end was reached she and the impresario sat facing each other in a state of breathlessness: it was several seconds before they seemed to realize that all this had no essential point for them! When at length they did realize this, she smiled, a little self-consciously, while he was humorously devouring her with his bright black eyes, and trying to convince himself that this incredible fact reallywasa fact.
“We’ve been scanning the ‘horizon’ with suchanxiety,” she told him, “hoping each day for a glimpse of theschooner—trusting and praying that nothing had ‘gone wrong’, and in the meantime we’ve been advertising your ‘songbirds’ really mostextensively, and are planning to attend the ‘first night’ of each newproduction, which quite takes me back to the old days inParis, when I was doing a little studyingmyself, though of course I knew I never had anything more than a ‘parlour’ voice, and only wanted to train it a little so that I could give pleasure to myfriends, in a way!” And then—it seemed so irresistibly to fit in here—he was told all about the funny old Italian teacher who would jump up and down, exclaiming:“Troppo apperto!” till she would ask in despair: “But what can Idoabout it?” whereupon the Italian would cry: “Chiudi! Chiudi!” Flora smiled richly over the reminiscence.
And then, as they proceeded, she was so very sympathetic that the impresario just poured out, on the spot, all his business and artistic troubles, and told her about the clerk—“Lord, a sheer stroke of luck from my point of view!” And she humorously sighed: “It’salwayspuzzled me how you’ve managed to keep everythinggoingin your own head!” And he asked: “But you see how mysteriously life works? Isn’t it really remarkable? You never know if people you just casually meet may be destined....” It trailed off in the wake of a gesture just a little wild; for obviously both had instantly caught from this a personal not to say a most thrilling application.
Well, in a word, both of them rejoiced—like a couple of youngsters—at being together again!
“I know you’ve athousandthings todo,” she said at last, rising, “and I mustn’t keep you any longer, though Icouldn’thelp ‘waylaying’ you the firstthing! You see, I’m helping some of my friends—we’re selling flowers for homeless babies!” She laughed softly. “I really feel almost like a ‘native’, and you know—I’ve taken ahouse, and have it nearly allfurnished, though I’d intended merely toresthere in Honolulu! I understand howbusyyou are, and that it won’t be possible for you to ‘drop in’ quite so frequently asbefore, though the little ‘villino’ by the sea will be always wide open towelcomeyou, and I must show you mycharmingJapanese ‘breakfast’ dishes!”
“I think you’ll find I’ll manage,” he said, stroking his toupee delightedly with a couple of deft, tender fingers. He was perfectly radiant.
“Perhaps I’ll give a little gardenteaone day, for I’ve a really mostdeliciousterrace, and invite your ‘songbirds,’ and maybe Miss Valentine wouldsing!” Whereupon the big impresarioalmost whooped—yes, right there in the lobby—because his temperamental heart was making such an enormous commotion. And for that matter the lady’s heart was making a commotion also.
“Addio, signore!” she murmured cordially—and was gone, her skirts rustling very much.
Jerome made off as soon as he could—or rather as soon as the intense delight of this new type of excitement permitted him to think of it—and sent a cable to his family. Mr. Curry paid him a month’s salary in advance, so that he wasn’t quite penniless. Indeed, he felt himself rolling in riches. He supplied himself with a small trunk and considerable necessary apparel. In a shop window where he saw them displayed Jerome hesitated over the necessity of a new clip; but he astutely argued that since Lili had snatched off his old clip and flung it to sea, evidently there was something about clips—or at any rate as associated with himself—which made sophisticated people laugh; the temptation was stoutly resisted. He purchased a haircut, too, which helped enormously; and went about smoking his short-stemmed pipe—not exactly jauntily, as in the old days when he thought he knew so much and really knew so little, but rather in a resolute, sober manner, which seemed proclaiming at least one highly important milestone passed.
Everybody was furiously busy, getting settled and trying to see the sights and do the required rehearsing and necessary shopping all at the same time. As for the sight-seeing, that could no doubt have waited; but in the case of most of Mr. Curry’s songbirds, temperament dictated otherwise. And it frequently happened, during the first days in Honolulu, that members of the troupe would bow to each other, sometimes a shade haughtily but usually with whole-hearted zest, from carriages in which they were being driven everywhere.
Jerome and Lili did a little sight-seeing together, though (being not, as one has already seen, quite a type) she very sensibly wouldn’t hear of his hiring a carriage, but insisted that “Gawd knows I’m not too elegant to ride on a street caryet!”