Part 25

"No more am I, and it wasn't a musical show I went to see him about. Billy sent me a card of introduction with the tip, and Arlington saw me and--well, I guess it's just about settled. I'm to understudy Nella Cardrow in 'Mrs. Mixer.' Arlington wouldn't promise, but told me to come in Saturday morning, and the understanding is he'll have contracts ready to sign then. I do believe my luck's turned at last!"

"But," Joan argued, perplexed, "I don't understand.... Of course, it's fine to get the job, and all that--and I'm awf'ly glad for you, Hattie--but you act as excited as if it was the title rôle you expected to play."

"Maybe I do," Hattie retorted. "That's what an understudy's for, isn't it--to play the star part in case of an emergency?"

"Yes, but--"

"Anyhow, I don't mind telling you that's what I'm looking forward to."

"You mean you think Mrs. Cardrow--?"

"Now don't you ask me any questions; I can't tell you what I think; it's a secret." Having made this statement, Hattie sat down on the edge of the bed, lighted a cigarette, vacillated one second, and proceeded to divulge the secret: "You see, I called around to thank Billy Emerson, after my talk with Arlington, and he told me the whole story in confidence. Nobody's to know it yet, so you mustn't breathe a word to anybody; but the thing's all fixed, and Nella Cardrow's never going to play 'Mrs. Mixer' before a Broadway audience. She couldn't play it anyhow--'s just a plain-boiled dub--never did anything before she persuaded Marbridge to put her on in this show. It's _his_ money that's behind it, mostly--Arlington's too wise to risk much on an uncertain proposition like the Cardrow. Marbridge just hides behind Arlington."

"What for?"

"Well, I guess he figures home would be none the happier if Friend Wife knew he was footing the bills for Nella Cardrow's show. He and Cardrow, Billy Emerson says, are just about as friendly as the law allows--and that isn't all."

"But," Joan persisted stupidly, "if that's the case, I don't see what makes you think he'll throw her down to give you the part--"

"If they ever caught anybody on Broadway as innocent as you pretend to be," Hattie commented with a scorn for grammar as deep as for Joan's obtuseness--"they'd arrest 'em, that's all! Who ever told you Marbridge was the kind of a guy to stick to a woman forever--not to say when she's losing money for him? Billy Emerson saw the show when they put it on up in Buffalo, a while ago, and he says the play's a wonder but Cardrow can't even look the part, much less act it. He says if they ever let her loose on the stage of a Broadway theatre--well, Marbridge and Arlington can just kiss their investment a fond farewell. For reasons of his own, Marbridge isn't ready to break with Cardrow yet, but he knows he's got a big success on his hands in this 'Mrs. Mixer' with her out of it. So they're going right ahead, just as if she was to be the star, but when the show opens it'll be little Miss Understudy who'll do all the acting."

The actress tossed aside her cigarette and bent forward, regarding Joan with mock solicitude.

"Does it begin to penetrate, dearie?"

"It sounds to me like a pretty mean trick to play on Mrs. Cardrow," Joan suggested.

"Don't you worry about her. She'll survive, all right. And anyhow, when you've been as long in this game as I have, you'll realize that the motto of the profession is 'Everybody for himself and the devil take the hindermost'! I've waited seven years for this chance, and I'm not going to let it get past me through any sentimental considerations, not if I know myself. And you'd do just the same thing in my place, too."

"I don't see what right you've got to say that--"

"Then you don't know yourself as well as I know you," Hattie laughed. "But listen: I oughtn't to have told you all this. You won't say anything, will you, dear?"

"No, I won't say anything...."

Nor did Joan consider it necessary to repay confidence with confidence by confessing the fact of her coincidental interview with Marbridge. The reflection that they must have been in adjoining offices at much the same time, in spite of Marbridge's assertion that Arlington was out, counselled reticence, even if envy hadn't served to impose silence upon Joan. And she was profoundly envious of Hattie's good fortune.

Why could it not have been her own, instead?

If Marbridge honestly esteemed her abilities one-half as highly as he had pretended to, why could he not have seen to it that Joan Thursday rather than Hattie Morrison was selected for Mrs. Cardrow's understudy?

Still, the matter was not yet definitely settled. Hattie's contract remained a thing of the future, and she might be congratulating herself prematurely.

Struck by this reflection, Joan withdrew even more jealously into her reserve....

But she anticipated her appointment for Friday afternoon with an impatience that lent each hour the length of three, and when the time drew near prepared herself for it with such exacting attention to the minutiæ of her toilet that a final survey in a cheval-glass sent her forth radiant with consciousness that she had never looked more charming.

To her surprise and somewhat to her disappointment, Marbridge didn't receive her alone. She was shown into Arlington's office, finding there Marbridge in company with the great man himself.

Entrenched behind his desk, Arlington didn't move when she entered, and only when Marbridge formally presented Joan deigned to rise half out of his chair and extend to her, across the mahogany barrier, a hand almost effeminately white, soft, and bedizened with rings.

"Pleasure to meet you, Miss Thursday, I'm sure," he drawled, his clasp as languid as the glance with which he looked Joan over; and sank wearily back into his chair. "I've been hearing wonderful things about you--ah--from Mr. Marbridge."

"He's very kind," said Joan in her best manner.

"Not at all," Marbridge protested. "I've only been describing how splendid your work was in 'The Lie.' But Mr. Arlington is the original of the gentleman from Missouri: you've got to show him. However, I know you can--so that's all right."

"Oh, I hope so," Joan replied with becoming diffidence--"if I ever get a chance."

"You'll get that, never fear," Arlington observed dispassionately. "Marbridge has fixed it all up for you. It's a risk, a pretty big risk to take with an actress of your--ah--comparative inexperience, but as a rule I find it advisable to give Marbridge his head when he sets his heart on anything."

"You're awf'ly good," Joan murmured.

"Don't think it," Arlington returned in a tone of remote amiability, teetering in his chair. "I've nothing whatever to do with it, beyond engaging you and being responsible for your salary. It's all Marbridge's doing."

He examined with a perplexed air his highly polished fingernails....

"You're to have a small part in a new comedy we're putting on next September," he announced, "and at the same time you will understudy the star--Nella Cardrow in 'Mrs. Mixer.' Your salary will be sixty a week unless through some accident you're called upon to play the title rôle regularly--and accidents will happen in the best regulated theatrical enterprises. In which case you'll draw one-hundred a week for the first season. There are some details which Marbridge will explain to you--and if you'll drop in any time Monday and ask for Mr. Grissom he will have your contracts ready. And now if you'll excuse me, I've an appointment."

Consulting his watch, he rose and moved round from behind his desk. "Good day, Miss Thursday," he said with a shadow of a formal smile. "I shall see much of you, no doubt, when the rehearsals begin."

"Oh, thank you--thank you!" Joan cried.

Arlington disclaimed title to her gratitude with a weary gesture. "Don't thank me, please--thank Marbridge.... You won't be long, Vin?" he added, at the door.

"I'll be with you in ten minutes."

"Right you are. Good afternoon, Miss--ah--Thursday...."

Alone with Marbridge, Joan began impulsively to protest her thanks, but on glancing up, fell silent, abashed by an expression that glowed in the man's eyes like a reflection of firelight.

She lowered demure lashes to cloak her confusion, a smile about her lips at once sophisticated and timid: a distractingly pretty woman fully conscious of her allure and of his attraction for her: a vision of provoking promise.

Marbridge drew a deep breath.

"If you persist in looking like that," he said in a voice that trembled between laughter and a sigh--"don't blame me if I forget myself and take you in my arms and kiss you. There are limits to my endurance...."

Joan looked up, smiling.

"Well--" she said with a little nervous laugh--"Well, what of it?"

XXXIV

Before Joan left Marbridge, they had arrived at an understanding which was not less complete and satisfactory in that it was largely implicit.

Without receiving any definite explanation of the circumstances complicating the production of "Mrs. Mixer," Joan carried away with her a tolerably clear notion thereof, both confirming and supplementing the second-hand information of Hattie Morrison.

Mrs. Cardrow owned a heavy interest in the play, Joan had gathered; and there existed, as well, a contract between her and Arlington which would have to be eliminated before it would be possible to go ahead and make the production with another actress in place of the erstwhile star. Some very delicate diplomatic manoeuvring was indicated....

Interim, Joan was to be privately drilled by Peter Gloucester for some weeks prior to calling together the full company to rehearse for the September production. Gloucester was just then out of Town, but she would be advised when and where to meet him on his return.

Marbridge was to be absent from New York until the middle of September or longer; but he promised to be back a week or two before the opening performance.

There were other promises exchanged....

With her future thus schemed, the girl was very well content, who had attained by easy stages to one of mental development in which those primary moral distinctions upon which she had been reared were no longer perceptible--or, if perceptible, had diminished to purely negligible stature.

It was not in nature for her to disdain or reject her bargain on moral grounds: she knew, or recognized, none that applied.

For over a year during the most impressionable period of her life, Joan Thursday had breathed the atmosphere of the stage. She had become thoroughly accustomed to recognize without criticism those irregular unions and regular disunions that characterized the lives of her associates. She had observed many an instance where the most steadfast and loyal love existed without bonds of any sort, and as many where it existed in matrimony, and as many again where neither party to a marriage made aught but the barest pretence of fidelity.

She had remarked that material and artistic success seemed to depend upon neither the observance nor the disregard of sexual morality. She knew of husbands and wives against whom scandal uttered no whisper and whose talents were considerable, but who had struggled for years and would struggle until the end without winning substantial recognition. And she knew of the reverse. The one unpardonable sin in her world was the sin of drunkenness, and even it was venial except when it "held the curtain" or prevented its rising altogether.

As far as concerned her attitude toward herself, she considered Joan Thursday above reproach, seeing that she had withdrawn from her marriage long before even as much as contemplating any man other than her husband. She held that she was now free, at liberty to do as she liked, untrammelled by opinion whether public or private: that she had outgrown criticism.

True, Quard might divorce her. But what of that? If he did, Joan Thursday wouldn't suffer. If he didn't, he himself would be the last to pretend he was leading a life of celibacy because of her defection.

Marbridge she really liked; his appeal to her nature was stronger than that of any man she had as yet encountered. He attracted her in every way, and he excited her curiosity as well. He was a new type--but in what respect different from other men? He was famously successful with women: why? He had wealth, cultivation of a certain sort (real or spurious, Joan couldn't discriminate) and social position; and this flattered, that such an one should reject the women of his own sphere for Joan Thursday--late of the stocking counter.

And if she could turn this infatuation of his to material profit, while at the same time satisfying the several appetites Marbridge excited in her: why not? Other women by the score did as much without censure or obvious cause for regret. Why not she?

How many women of her acquaintance--women whose interests, running in grooves parallel to hers, were intelligible to Joan--would have refused the chance that was now hers through Marbridge? Not one; none, at least, who was free as Joan was free; not even Hattie Morrison, whose views upon the subject of such arrangements were strong, whom Joan considered straitlaced to the verge of absurdity. Hattie, Joan believed, would have jumped at the opportunity.

But of course, denied, Hattie would be sure to decry it, and with the more bitterness since Joan had won it in the wreck of Hattie's hopes.

And here was the only shadow upon the fair prospect of Joan's contentment. She who had questioned Hattie's right to become a party to the conspiracy against Mrs. Cardrow--how could she ever go home and face the girl, with this treachery on her conscience?

True: Hattie didn't know, wouldn't know before morning, might never learn the truth during the term of their association.

None the less, to be with Hattie that night would be to sit with a skeleton at the feast of her felicity....

On impulse Joan turned to the left on leaving the New York Theatre building, and moved slowly, purposelessly, down Broadway.

It was an afternoon of withering heat: the pavements burning palpably through the paper-thin soles of her pretty slippers, and the air close with the smell of hot asphaltum. The rays of the westering sun made nothing of the fabric of Joan's white parasol, their heat penetrating its sheer shield as though it were glass. Mankind in general sought the shadowed side of the street and moved only reluctantly, with its coat over its arm, a handkerchief tucked in between neck and collar--effectually choking off ventilation and threatening "sun-stroke."

Waiting upon the northeast corner of Forty-second Street for the traffic police to check the cross-town tide, Joan felt half-suffocated and thought longingly of the seashore....

Once across the street, she turned directly in beneath the permanent awning of the Knickerbocker Hotel, and entered the lobby, making her way round, past the entrance to the bar, to the recess dedicated to the public telephone booths.

A semi-exhausted and apathetic operator looked up reluctantly as Joan approached, with one glance appraising her from head to heels. At any other time the dainty perfection of Joan's toilet would have roused antagonism in the woman; today she found energy only sufficient for a perfunctory mumble.

"What numba, please?"

Joan hesitated, feeling herself suddenly upon the verge of dangerous indiscretion, but stung by the operator's look of jaded disdain, took her courage in hand and pursued her original intention.

"One Bryant," she said.

The operator jammed a plug into one of the rows of sockets before her and iterated the number mechanically.

In another moment she nodded, indicating the rank of booths.

"Numba five--One Bryant," she said.

Joan shut herself in with the sliding door and took up the receiver.

"Hello--Lambs' Club?" she enquired.... "Is Mr. Fowey in the club?... Will you page him, please.... Miss Thursday.... Yes, I'll hold the wire."

The booth was hermetically sealed. Perspiration was starting out all over her body. And somewhere in that airless box, probably at her feet, lurked a long unburied cigar. She thrust the door ajar, but only to close it immediately as Fowey's voice saluted her.

"Hello?"

"Hello, Hubert," Joan drawled, with a little touch of laughing mockery in her accents.

"Is that you, Joan--really?" the voice demanded excitedly.

"Real-ly!" she affirmed. "What're you doing there, shut up all alone by yourself in that stupid club, Hubert?"

Prefaced by a brief but intelligible pause, the man's response came briskly: "Where are you now, anyway?"

"That doesn't matter," she retorted. She had meant to ask him to meet her at the hotel, but reconsidered, fearing lest Marbridge might chance to see them. "What really matters is that this is my birthday and I'm going to give a party. Have you got anything better to do?"

"No--"

"Then meet me in half an hour on the southbound platform of the Sixth Avenue L at Battery Place."

"Battery Place! What in thunder--"

"Never mind--tell you all about it when we meet. Will you come?"

"Will I! Well, rawther!"

"Half an hour, then--"

"I'll be there, with bells on!"

"Then good-bye for a little--Hubert."

"Good-bye."

Fowey reached the point of assignation only one train later than Joan.

As he hurried down the platform, almost stumbling in his impatience to join her, the girl surveyed with sudden dislike and regret his slight, dandified figure fitted with finical precision into clothing so ultra-English in fashion that it might have belonged to his younger brother. And the confident smile that lighted up his pinched, eager countenance seemed little short of offensive. She was sorry now that she had yielded to the temptation to make use of him: he was so insignificant in every way, so violently the opposite in all things of the man who now filled all her thoughts--Marbridge; and so transparent that even she could read his mind: he entertained not the least tangible doubt that now, after the manner in which they had last parted, she had at length wakened to appreciation of his irresistible charms, that her requesting him to meet her was but the preface to surrender.

But she permitted nothing of her thoughts to become legible in her manner. After all, she had only wanted an escort for the evening, an excuse to postpone that unavoidable return to the company of the girl she had betrayed; and Fowey had seemed the most convenient and the least dangerous man she could think of. If in the inflation of his insufferable conceit he dreamed for an instant another thing.... Well, Joan promised herself, he'd soon find out his mistake!...

Keeping up the fiction of her imaginary birthday, she outlined her plans: they would take one of the Iron Steamboat Company's boats from Pier 1, North River--a short walk from the station--to Coney Island. When that resort palled, they would drive to Manhattan Beach and dine, perhaps "take in" Pain's Fireworks; and return to New York by the same route.

Fowey's objections were instant and sincere and well-grounded: the boats would be crowded beyond endurance with an unwashed rabble liberally sown with drunks and screaming children. If she would only let him, he'd get a taxicab--or even a touring-car.

Quietly but firmly Joan overruled him. It must be her party or no party, as she proposed or not at all.

He yielded in the end, but the event proved him right in all he had foretold. Joan was very soon made sorry she hadn't suffered herself to be gainsaid.

They had half an hour to wait for the boat, and the waiting-room upon the second-storey of the pier was like an oven, packed with a milling, sweating mob exactly fulfilling Fowey's prediction. They were elbowed, shouldered, walked upon, and at one time openly ridiculed by a gang of hooligans, any one of whom would have made short work of Fowey had he dared show any resentment.

Upon the boat, when at length it turned up tardily to receive them, conditions were little better, save that the open air was an indescribable relief after the reeking atmosphere of the pier. Fowey managed to secure two uncomfortable folding stools, upon which they perched, crowded against the rail of the upper deck; a wretched "orchestra" wrung infamous parodies of popular songs from several tortured instruments; children scuffled and howled; burly ruffians in unclean aprons thrust themselves bodily through the throng, balancing dripping trays laden with glasses of lukewarm beer and "soft drinks" and bawling in every ear their seductive refrain--"Here's the waiter! Want the waiter? _Who_ wants the waiter?"--and an alcoholic, planting his chair next to Joan's, promptly went to sleep, snoring atrociously, and threatened every instant to topple over and rest his head in her lap.

A single circumstance modified in a way Joan's regret that she hadn't heeded Fowey's protests.

As the boat swung away from the pier, a larger steamship of one of the coastwise lines, outward bound from its dock farther up the North River, passed with leeway so scant that the dress and features of those upon its decks were clearly to be discerned. And at the moment when the two vessels were nearest, Joan discovered one who stood just outside an open cabin door, leaning upon the rail with an impressively nonchalant pose, and smoking a heavy cigar. He wore clothing of a conspicuous shepherd's-plaid, and his pose was an arrested dramatic gesture.

In a moment a woman emerged from the open door behind him and joined him at the rail, placing an intimate hand on his forearm and saying something which won from him a laugh and a look of tender admiration: a handsome, able-bodied woman, expensively but loudly dressed, her connection with the stage as unquestionable as was his.

Joan dissembled the odd emotion with which she recognized the man, and turned to Fowey.

"What boat is that, do you know, Hubert?"

Fowey raked her with an indifferent glance, fore and aft. "Belongs to the New Bedford Line," he announced--"can't make out her name--connects at New Bedford for the boats to Martha's Vineyard and Nantucket. Ever been up that way?"

"No. What's it like?"

"Pretty islands. Don't know Martha's Vineyard very well, but Nantucket's my old stamping-ground. Go up there in the middle of the summer--about now--and you'll find every actor and actress you ever heard of, and then some. Great place. Wish we were going there."

"Don't be silly...."

The boats were drawing apart. Joan looked back for the last sight she was ever to have of her husband.

Though she couldn't have known this, she sighed a little, in strange depression.

Perplexed, she tried vainly to analyze her emotion: was it regret--or jealousy?

Of a sudden, in the heart of that immense crowd, with Fowey attentive at her elbow, she was conscious of a feeling of intense loneliness.

XXXV

When, after a long and tedious voyage over a sea as flat as a plate and unflawed by a single cooling drift of air, the steamboat was made fast to the end of that long iron pier which juts out from the flat, low coast of Coney Island, its passengers rose en masse and crowded toward the gangways. Joan and Fowey, attempting to hang back until the crowd had thinned out sufficiently to enable them to go ashore in comfort, were caught in the swirl of it and swept along willy-nilly.

Once on the pier-head the multitude had more elbow room and spread out, the main body streaming headlong shorewards, keen-set for the delights promised by the two great amusement parks which had grown up in the heart of that frontier settlement of gin-mills, dance-halls, side-shows, eating-houses, and dives unspeakable.