OLIVE ILDEN was detained and surrendered her mid July sailing. Her brother died. This did not grieve her; they had been on strained terms. But she was unwilling to offend his daughters. Offence had grown hateful with years. The personal matter flung to and fro among critics wearied her. It wasn’t amusing to hear that an elderly novelist was “a doddering relic of the Victorian era.” She envisaged the man’s pain. Thus, she bore the formalities of her brother’s passing and so missed three liners. About her, London recaptured something of its tireless motion. She wished for Margot and the youth Margot had kept parading through the quiet house. She hoped that the girl’s frankness never shocked Mark and puzzled again over the rise of that frankness. In her first two English years the child had been sedate, almost solemn, reading a great deal and talking primly. Then her conversation had risen to a rattle. It must be rattling mightily in New York which Olive still fancied a place of cheerful freedom. Letters recorded[171] the change from Fayettesville to a cottage on the Long Island shore: “Cottage was frightful but dad behaved quite as if he was mounting a play in a hurry. We drove from shop to shop and all the stuff came roaring along in motor trucks. I went to Southampton and camped with a rather nice woman, Mrs. Corliss Stannard, who picked me up coming across. It was dull as Westminster Abbey as every one kept cursing the Prohibition amendment. But dad had the cottage—(fourteen rooms and four baths)—all decorated by the time I got back. Some decentish friends of Gurdy live near here. The men are all Goths and the women are fearfully stiff but a broker proposed last night at a dance and I felt rather silly, as he has just been divorced two days and I hardly knew his name. But dad has bought an option to ‘Todgers Intrudes.’” Then, “Dad very busy in town. The actors are threatening a strike. Gurdy pretends that he does not like ‘Todgers Intrudes.’ For a man who did a smart school and who knows his way about Gurdy is rather heavy. Rather decent lunch today. Dad brought down one of the other managers who talks through his nose and is a duck. He taught me how to do a soft shoe step.” And later, “Dad very émotionné about a tragedy he is putting on in the autumn. It is rather thrilling. He means to open The Walling with it. Gurdy does not fancy ‘Todgers[172] Intrudes.’ He thinks himself a Bolshevik or something and I dare say the county family business in it annoys him.” Immediately after this, while the letter was fresh in mind Olive met Ronald Dufford on Regent Street. He took her congratulations on the American sale of his play with a dubious air, swung his stick and said, “Thanks. Fancy Margot made her guv’nor take it on. Between ourselves it hasn’t more than just paid. You’re going to the States, aren’t you?”
“Next week. Yes, I think Margot had her father buy the play, Ronny. It’s my sad duty to warn him that it hasn’t been what the Yankees call a three bagger—whatever that means.”
The playwright grinned amiably, saying, “Rather wish you would. My things haven’t done well in the States. I’m not so keen on being known as a blight, out there. Walling’s paid me two hundred pounds, no less, for American rights. Charitable lad he must be!—I say, I hear that Cossy Rand’s gone over to play for him.”
“Who’s Cossy Rand?”
“Cora Boyle’s little husband. Nice thing. You’ve met him? He rehearsed us for that thing of mine at Christmas. A thin beggar with—”
[173]“Of course. I’ve even danced with him but he passed out of the other eye.”
“But isn’t it rather odd for Walling to take on his ex-wife’s present husband? Bit unusual? You’ve always told me that Walling’s a conservative sort.”
“Why shouldn’t Walling take him on, Ronny? The man’s rather good, isn’t he?”
“Fairish. Frightfully stiff. He played the Earl in ‘Todgers’ while Ealy was fluing.—What I meant was that it seems odd Walling should cable him to come over. But I’ll be awfully bucked if old ‘Todgers’ gets along in the States. ’Tisn’t Shaw, you know?”
Olive was lightly vexed with Margot. The girl was irresponsible when she wanted something for a friend. But the trait was commendable; Olive still ranked personal loyalty higher than most static virtues. But “Todgers Intrudes” was a dreary business. She spoke of it to Mark when he met her at the New York pier. The idolator chuckled.
“The actors have struck. I hope Margot’ll forget about the thing before the strike’s over. She likes Dufford? Well, that’s all the excuse she needed. She isn’t—”
“Are you letting her stamp on your face, old man?”
[174]“It don’t hurt. She don’t weigh a heap. She says Dufford’s poor.”
His eyes were dancing. He wore a yellow flower in his coat and patted Olive’s arm as he steered her to the lustrous blue car. “We’ll go up to my house for lunch. Mr. Carlson’s crazy to see you. Mustn’t mind if he curses at you. We’ll go on down to the shore after lunch. Where’s Sir John, m’lady?”
“Malta. Shall I see Gurdy? The nicest child!”
“Ain’t he? I’ve got him reading plays.” Mark soared into eulogies, came down to state, “This is Broadway,” as the car plunged over the tracks between two drays.
“If that’s Broadway,” Olive considered, “I quite understand why half of New York lives in Paris. I do want to see Fifth Avenue. The sky-scrapers disappointed me but Arnold Bennett says Fifth Avenue’s really dynamic.” A moment after when the car faced the greasy slope of asphalt she said, “Bennett’s mad.”
Mark sighed, “It’s an ugly town. But this street’s nice at sunset, in winter. It turns a kind of purple.... It was bully when the women wore violets. They don’t wear real flowers any more.—You used to smell violets everywhere. Violets and furs and cigar smoke. I used to like it.” His eyes sparkled on the revocation. He smiled[175] at the foul asphalt and the drooping flags of shops where the windows gave out a torturing gleam.
“You great boy,” said Olive.
“Boy? Be forty-one the second of November.—Oh, awful sorry about your brother, Olive.”
“I’m not. Gerald was null and void. I never even discovered where he found the energy to marry and beget daughters. Margot’s lived more at the age of eighteen than Gerald had at fifty. I don’t suppose that you can understand how I can slang my own family.”
“Oh, sure. Because my folks are all nice it don’t follow I think every one ought to be crazy about theirs. Did he have a son?”
“No. The land goes to our cousin—Shelmardine of Potterhanworth—that idiot his wife pushed into Peerage. She was one of the managing Colthursts. Loathsome woman. Her son’s a V.C. though.—Oh, this improves!” The car passed Forty Fifth Street. Olive gazed ahead, cheered by the statelier tone of the white avenue. Mark wondered how a woman who had lost both children could yet smile at the dignity of Saint Patrick’s and again at the homesick bewilderment of her maid getting down before his house.
Old Carlson bobbed his head to this lady, abandoning his ancient fancy that she had been Mark’s mistress. He studied her grey hair and the worn,[176] sharp line of her face. Then he cackled that she was to blame for turning Margot into a “sassy turnip.”
“My dealings with turnips have always been conducted through a cook. Has she been shocking you?”
“Ma’am,” said Carlson, “You can’t shock me. I was in the show business from eighteen sixty-nine to nineteen fourteen. I lugged a spear in the ‘Black Crook’ and I was a gladyator when the Police arrested McCullough for playin’ Spartacus in his bare legs. No, Margot can’t shock me any more’n a kitten.” He rolled a cigarette shakily, spilling tobacco on his cerise quilt. Olive held a match for him. He coughed, “But you’d ought of seen her ballyrag Mark into buyin’ this English piece—What the hell do you call it, Mark?”
“Todgers Intrudes.”
“That’s a name for you! Gurdy don’t like it. I say it’s hogwash. Maggie, she set on a table smokin’ her cheroot and just made the big calf buy it.... She did, Mark. So don’t stand there lookin’ like Charlie Thorne in ‘Camille’!”
Mark was stirring with laughter at the old man’s venom. He said, “I told Olive Margot made me buy it.”
“Oh,” Olive said, “if you let Margot run your affairs you’ll have strange creatures from darkest Chelsea mounting all your plays and flappers[177] who’ve acted twice in a charity show playing Monna Vanna. She made my poor husband buy a cubist portrait of Winston Churchill some pal of hers painted. When he found it was meant to be Churchill he took to his bed.”
“Mr. Hopkins, Mr. Williams,” said the butler against Mark’s swift, “Ask ’em to go to the drawing room. ’Xcuse me, Olive. Got to go talk strike a minute.”
She looked about the sinless library with its severe panels and blue rug then at Mark’s patron—an exhumed Pharaoh, his yellow hawk face and bloodless hands motionless, the cigarette smoking in a corner of his mouth. He had just the pathos of oncoming death. He squeaked, “Mark’s busy as a pup with fleas. Actors strikin’! The lazy hounds! It’s enough to make Gus Daly turn in his grave!”
“You’ve no sympathy with them?”
“Not a speck! The show business is war and war’s hell. Here’s this Boyle onion Mark was married to, Bill Loeffler sends for her to come back from England and get a thousand a week to play in a French piece. Pays her passage. Then what? Minute she sets foot on land she grabs a movie contract and pikes off to California. She’s a hot baby, she is! Actors!”
“I hear that Mark’s engaged her husband.”
“That slimjim sissy from Ioway? Not much!”
[178]“Is Rand an American?”
“He-ell, yes! He’s old Quincy Rand’s Son that used to run the Opera House in Des Moines. He run off with a stock comp’ny that played Montreal and got to talkin’ English. I told Margot that and she was mad enough to bust.—Say, you British are cracked, lettin’ a pack of actors loose in your houses like they was human—” He fell asleep. The nurse came to take the cigarette from his lips. Olive strolled off to examine the shelves packed tightly with books. Here was the medley of Mark’s brain—volumes of Whyte Melville mingled with unknown American novels, folios on decoration, collected prints from the European galleries. A copy of “Capital” surprised her but she found Gurdy’s signature dated, “Yale College, November, 1916,” on the first page. Gurdy came up the white stairway and saw the black gown with relief. Lady Ilden could be a buffer between Margot and himself. There would be less need of visits to the seashore house. He led the Englishwoman into the broad hall.
“Something odd has just happened, Gurdy.”
“Mr. Carlson swear at you?”
“Before, not at. But he tells me that Mark did not send for Cosmo Rand to act in something over here whereas Ronny Dufford most distinctly told me that Mark did. It interested me because[179] Mark’s so coy about his old wife and it seemed queer that he’d cable for her husband.”
“I expect Rand’s lying a little, for advertisement. No, Mark didn’t send for him. He never engages people to come from England. Has Rand come over? According to Margot he’s such an idol in London that it’d take an act of Parliament to get him away. Miss Boyle’s here. We saw her at lunch in the Algonquin and she patronized Mark for a minute. Didn’t Rand play some part in this ‘Todgers Intrudes’ piffle in London?”
“Which reminds me,” said Olive, “Margot made Mark take that? Is she making him cover her with emeralds and give masked balls?”
Gurdy said honestly, “No, not at all. We’ve had some house parties—some friends of mine and some of the reviewers and so on. She seems to be amusing herself.”
“And she hasn’t shocked Mark?”
“Why should she?” Gurdy laughed, leaning on the white handrail, “she doesn’t do any of the things he dislikes seeing women do. She doesn’t drink anything, for instance, and she doesn’t paint. When did she go in for pacifism—not that I’ve any objection to it.”
“That was a way of helping me out when my boy fell, I think. She raged about the war as a sort of outlet for me. Really, she enjoyed the[180] war tremendously. As most girls did. Is she still raving about the slaughter of the artist?”
“The slaughter of actors. Some Englishman—an actor—said that too many actors slacked and she lit on him. He mentioned half a dozen—can’t remember them.—You told me in London that she wanted to act?”
“Yes. Has she been teasing Mark—”
“No. But I think she could.”
“My dear boy, I’ve seen her in amateur things twice and she was appalling! Vivacity isn’t ability. Of course she has a full equipment in the way of looks.—You mustn’t get dazzled over Margot, Gurdy.” His face was blank. Olive chanced a probe. “I forbid you to fall in love with her, either. You’re cousins and it’s not healthy.”
“I’m not thinking of it,” said Gurdy, red, and so convinced Olive that he was deep in love. But the dying blush left him grave. He stood listening to the slow drawl of Mark’s voice below them and wondering what tone would overtake its husky music if Margot should turn on the worshipper, screaming and hateful. He wondered at himself, too. His passion had blown out. It had no ash, no regret. He was free of anger, even, and he had done the girl mental justice. He didn’t want her back.
“You look rather done up, old man.”
[181]“War nerves. We’ve all got them. And I’m reading plays and some of them make me howl. Such awful junk! ‘Don’t, don’t look at me like that. I’m a good woman, and you have taken from me the only thing I had to love in the whole world.’ That sort of stuff. And the plays for reform are as bad as the ones against it. I don’t know why people always lose their sense of humour when they start talking economics!”
“Old man, when you’ve lived to be forty you’ll find out that only one person in a thousand can resist a sentimentalism on their side of the question. And it’s almost always a sentimentalist who writes plays on economics. But you do look seedy. Are you coming to the country with us after luncheon?”
“No.”
But he drove with Mark and Olive to the half finished front of The Walling in West 47th Street. Mark pointed out the design of Doric columns and bare tablets. Olive guessed at a simple richness and stared after Mark when he walked through groups of hot, noisy workmen into the shadow of his own creation. His black height disappeared among the girders and the dust of lime.
“Did it all himself,” said Gurdy. “The architects just followed what he wanted done.—You called him a kid with a box of paints. You[182] should see him fuss over a stage setting!—D’you know—my father’s an awfully observant man. He was talking about Mark the other day. Dad says that when Mark was a kid he used to draw all the time. And they’ve got some pictures he drew in old school books and things. They’re not bad. Dad says that before Mark married Cora Boyle and came to New York they all thought he was going to turn out an artist.”
“Is it true that his whole success is because he decorates plays so well?”
“No. The truth is, he’s an awfully good business man. And I’ve seen enough of the theatre to see that some of the managers and producers aren’t any good at business. They mess about and talk and—He’s coming back.”
She saw Gurdy’s eyes centre on Mark with a queer, tense look. The boy stood on the filthy pavement studying the theatre as the car drove east.
“Crazy about the place,” said Mark, brushing his sleeve, “I do think people will like it, Olive. Won’t be so dark that they can’t read a program or so light the women’ll have to wear extra paint.—My God, I’m glad Margot don’t daub herself up! Well, she don’t have to. And I’m glad she don’t want to act.”
“Why?” Olive asked, “You were an actor. You live entirely surrounded by actors. It’s an[183] ancient and honourable calling—much more so than the law or the army.”
Mark rubbed his short nose and grinned.
“I’m just prejudiced. I suppose it’s because I used to hear how tough actresses were when I was a kid. And because Cora Boyle made a doormat of me. Ain’t it true we never get over the way we’re brought up?—That’s what Gurdy calls a platitude, I guess.”
“Gurdy’s horridly mature for twenty-one, Mark.”
“Thunder,” said Mark, “He was always grown up and he’s knocked around a lot for his age. Enough to make anybody mature!—And he’s in love with sister up to his neck. You should have seen him take a runnin’ jump and start for Chicago the minute he heard she was landing! Simply hopped the next train and flew! Stayed out there a month, pretty nearly. Brings his friends down over Sundays and then sits and watches them wobble round Margot like a cat watching a fat mouse. Love’s awful hard on these dignified kids, Olive.”
“You want them married?” she murmured.
“Of course.—I know I’m silly about the kids but I don’t see where Margot’ll get any one much better. Don’t start lecturin’ me and say that there’s ten million eight hundred thousand and twenty-two better boys loose around than[184] Gurdy. You’d be talking at a stone wall. Waste of breath. And he’s sensible about her too. A kid in love ordinarily wouldn’t argue about anything the way he did about this play of Colonel Duffords. They had a regular cat fight and Gurdy’s right. It’s a pretty poor show.—This is the East river.”
The car moved diligently through the heat. Olive thought that Gurdy had belied his outer calm by his flight to Chicago. But it was hard to think of anything save the thick air. Mark’s tanned face was damp and he fanned Olive steadily. They swung past a procession of vans where the drivers lolled in torn undershirts. The rancorous sun on the houses of unfamiliar shingle dizzied her. She saw strange trees in the country as the suburbs thinned and the blistered paint of billboards showed strange wares for sale.
“Movie plant over there,” said Mark, “Like to be movied for one of the current event weeklies? Lady Olive Ilden, the celebrated British authoress?”
“Horrors! Drinking tea with a Pom in my lap. Never!—Good heavens, Mark, is it like this summer after summer? Why don’t people simply go naked?”
“Margot does her best. If her grandmother Walling could see her bathsuit she’d rise from the tomb.”
[185]“How long has your mother been dead, old man?”
“Since I was eight—no, nine.”
“Do you look like her?”
“No. Joe—Margot’s dad—looked something like her. His hair was nearly black and he had brown eyes. She was nice. Used to take her hair down and let me play with it. Black.” He smiled, did not speak for minutes and then talked of Gurdy again, “He’s mighty nice to his father and mother. Eddie and Sadie are scared he’ll marry an actress on account of his bein’ in my office. Gurdy was teasin’ them last week—They came up to do some shopping. Said he’d got hold of a yellow headed stomach dancer. Called her some crazy French name.—My lord, haven’t things changed on the stage since we were kids! I remember when Ruth Saint Denis was doing her Hindoo dances first and people were kind of shocked. I dropped in one afternoon and the place was packed full of women. Heard this drawly kind of voice behind me and looked round. It was Mark Twain and Mr. Howells. Ruth did a dance without much on and the women all gabbled like fury. But they all applauded a lot. Mr. Howells was sort of bored. He said, ‘What are they making that fuss for, Sam?’ ‘Oh,’ old Clemens said, ‘they’re hoping the next dance’ll be dirtier so they can feel like Christians.’ My[186] God, he was a wonder to look at!—Ever think how much good looks do help a man along?”
“I can’t think unless you fan me, Mark. My brain’s boiling. How many more miles to a bath?”
“Twenty.”
“I’ve always been fond of you,” said Olive, “but I never realized what a brave man you were! You work in this furnace? Fan me!”
The cottage stood on a slope of presentable lawn that ended in a pebbly shore. The motor rushed through a fir plantation, reached the Georgian portico and Olive gladly smelled salt wind rising from the water fading in sunset.
“There she is,” said Mark and whistled to a shape, black and tan against the sound, poised at the lip of a whitewashed pier. Margot came running and some men in bathsuits stared, deserted. The girl raced in a shimmer that reddened her legs to copper. Olive wondered if anything so alive, so gay existed elsewhere on this barbarous shore crushed by summer. Mark saw them happy, wiped his silly eyes and went down to chat in guarded grammar with the three young men from across the shallow bay. Inevitable that youngsters should come swimming and these were likeable fellows. Gurdy vouched for them. They slid soon like piebald seals into the water and swam off in a flurry of spray and bronze[187] arms. Delicate wakes of fine bubbling spread on the surface. The wet heads grew small in this wide space of beryl. Again he watched irreproducible beauty.... It was right that the best makers of scenes wouldn’t paint the sea on back-drops. Let the people fancy it there below the vacancy of some open window. He must have the Cuban seas suggested thus in ‘Captain Salvador.’ He wished that Margot didn’t dislike the tragedy. Perhaps its stiff denial of lasting love afflicted her. It afflicted Mark. And yet the poet was right. The passion in the play would be a fleet, hot thing, engrossing for a week, a month and then stale for ever. Lust went so. He nodded and picked up Margot’s black and yellow bath wrap, a foolish, lovely cape in which she looked like an Arab. Then she called to him and he walked back to where she sat on the tiled steps reading a letter.
“Olive brought me a note from Doris Arbuthnot. Lives in Devonshire. She’s a dear ... rather like aunt Sadie but not quite so hefty. All the Wacks have come home from France, now, and they won’t work. They sit about and talk to the heroes about France. Doris owns gobs of land and she’s having a poky time.—What are you laughing at?”
“Your hair, sister.”
She passed her hands over the sponge of black[188] down and shrugged, “Sorry I had it bobbed. All the typists do, over here. Olive’s frightfully done up. Gone to bathe.”
“Glad to have her, ain’t you?”
“Ra—ther!—Oh, Cosmo Rand called up.”
“What the—deuce did he want?”
“Ronny Dufford gave him a heap of notes about ‘Todgers Intrudes.’ I told him he’d best leave them at your office.—Shall you start rehearsing ‘Todgers’ as soon as the strike’s over?”
She sneezed, the efflorescence of her hair flapping. Mark tossed the wrap about her, kissed her ear and sat down on the steps. He said, “Don’t know, daughter. Fact is, this piece of Dufford’s hasn’t played to big business in London. I’ve got a report on it. Gurdy don’t think—”
“Oh, Gurdy! He simply can’t like a play unless it’s about the long suffering proletariat or Russia!—Why didn’t he come down?”
“Got a party with some men.”
“And I wanted the brute to show me putting tomorrow! D’you put well? Of course you do!—Oh, I know ‘Todgers’ isn’t a new Man and Superman, of course. But it’s witty and it isn’t commonplace—don’t laugh.”
Mark marshalled words, lighting a cigarette. “Honey, that’s just the trouble with the thing. It is commonplace. It’s all about nothing. And it’s too blamed English. You and Gurd seem to[189] think it’s the bounden duty of every one to know all the latest English slang off Piccadilly—or wherever they make slang up. It ain’t so. We’ll have to have some of this piece translated as it is. Suppose you were a stenographer going to the play? You wouldn’t have been abroad. You wouldn’t know an Earl beats a Baron. You wouldn’t know that Chelsea’s a big sister to Greenwich village and the slang’d bore you to death. There’s that three speech joke about Gippies and Chokers in the second act. I expect that raised a laugh in London. How many folks in the house here would know it meant cigarettes? I didn’t till you told me. Now in London with Ealy playing the Earl—he did, didn’t he?—Well, with a smart man like that to play the Earl, the thing might go pretty well. If I had some one like that—”
Margot yawned, “Why not try Cosmo Rand? He played the Earl in London while Ealy was having the flu and had very good notices. He was awfully good in the scene where he rows with his wife. The poor devil’s had a good deal of practice, they say. Cora Boyle leads him a dog’s life. Ronny Dufford tells me that she’s horribly jealous. Mr. Rand’s had a success on his own, you know? He’s not her leading man any more.—She doesn’t like his getting ahead of her.—Now what are you laughing at?”
[190]“The leopard don’t change her spots,” said Mark.
“Poor dad!”
“Oh, well,” he said in a luxury of amusement, “She wasn’t raised right. Her folks were circus people. I guess you couldn’t imagine how tough the old style circus people were if you worked all night at it. This Rand’s a nice fellow, is he?”
“Very pleasant. He rehearsed a lot of us in a show and we were all rather rotten and he was very patient.—I do wish Gurdy had come down!—We shan’t have four for bridge. Might have Olive’s maid play. She’s dreadfully grand, you know? She’s the Presidentess of the Chelsea Lady Helpers Association. Used to be in the scullery at Windsor and Queen Alexandra spoke to her once. I’m rather afraid of her.”
“Is there any one you are afraid of, sister?”
She rose, the yellow and black gown moulding in, and gave her muffled, slow chuckle, patting the step with a sole. “Don’t know. Gurdy, when he’s grouchy. I must go dress.—Oh, I had whitewine cup made for dinner. That’s what you like when it’s hot, isn’t it? Do put on a white suit for dinner, dad. Makes your hair so red. God be with you till we meet again.”
She wandered over the white and red tiles of the portico, leaving a trail of damp, iridescent prints in the last glitter of the sun. She hummed[191] some air he did not know and this hung in his ear like the pulse of a muted violin when she herself was gone. The man sat dreaming until the night about him was dull blue and the wind died. He sat in warm felicity, guarding the silent house until the rose spark of the light across the bay began to turn and a silver, mighty star flared high on the darker blue of heaven.