Part 13

There was a moment of silence. Those on the stage stood still, oddly like children halted in the middle of a game. I don't suppose Fagan's words were deliberately intended as a personal insult, but seemed to himself a legitimate comment on the action of the piece. I think his offences came more often from boorish obtuseness than calculated malice. But the brutal interruption, coming after a long and difficult afternoon, strained the players' nerves to snapping. Brooks sat down with an air of calculated nonchalance and took out a cigarette. Then a tinkling hammering began again somewhere up in the flies. Edwards was flushed.

“For God's sake stop that infernal racket up there,” he cried. Then, coming down to the unlit gutter of footlights, he said quietly:

“Mr. Fagan, I've studied this part rather more carefully than you have. If the author is in the house, I'd like to appeal to him as to whether my conception is correct.”

There was such a quiver of passion in his voice that even Fagan seemed taken aback.

“What's got into you folks to-day?” he growled. “Oh, very well. Is Mr. Sampson here?”

The little man behind me got up and walked down the aisle in an embarrassed way.

“Mr. Author,” said Fagan, “have you been watching the rehearsal?”

Sampson murmured something.

“Is Mr. Edwards doing the part as you want it done?”

“Mr. Edwards is perfectly right,” said Sampson.

“Thank you, sir,” said Edwards from the stage. “Fagan, when you are ready to conduct rehearsals like a gentleman, I will be here.” He turned and walked off the stage.

Brooks snapped his cigarette case to, and the sharp click seemed to bring the scene to an end. Fagan picked up his coat from the seat beside him. “Bolshevism!” he said. “All right, folks, ten o'clock to-morrow, here. Miss Cunningham, will you tell Mr. Edwards ten o'clock tomorrow?”

This last might be taken either as a surly apology, or as an added insult. Rather subtle for Fagan, I thought. As I was getting out of my seat, the director and a venomous-looking young man whom I had seen in and out of Upton's office walked up the aisle together. Sampson was just behind them. I could see that the director was either furiously angry, or else (more likely) deemed it his duty to pretend to be.

“This show's no good as long as Edwards is in it,” he said, loudly, spitting out fragments of cigar-wrapper. “That fellow's breaking up the company. I sha'n't be able to handle 'em at all, pretty soon. This kind of thing puts an omen on a show.”

*****

Well, that was my introduction to “Obedience”. I watched Fagan and the hanger-on of Upton's office--one of those innumerable black-haired young infidels who run errands for a man like Upton, hobnob with the ticket speculators in the enigmatic argot of the box office, and seem to look out upon the world from behind a little grill of brass railings. They moved up the velvet slope of the passage, arguing hoarsely. Sampson faded gently away into the darkness and disappeared through the thick blue curtains of the foyer. An idea struck me, and I ran behind to see the stage manager, Cervaux, who was playing one of the minor parts. I cajoled his own copy of the script away from him, promising to return it to the office the next morning. I wanted to read the play entire. Going out toward the stage door, behind a big flat of scenery I came upon Miss Cunningham. She was sitting in a rolling chair, one of those things you see on the boardwalk at Atlantic City. There was a whole fleet of them drawn up in the wings, they were used in that idiotic revue playing at the Stratford. It added to the curiously unreal atmosphere of the occasion to see her crouching there, crying, alone in the half light, among those absurd vehicles of joy.

I intended to pass as though I hadn't seen her, but she called out to me. If Upton could have seen her then, her honey-brown eyes glazed with tears, black rings in her poor little pale face, he would have raised her salary--or else fired her, I don't know which.

“Mr. Roberts,” she said, slowly and tremulously--“I don't know who else to ask. Will you try to help Morgan?”

“Why of course,” I said. “Anything I can do----”

“You were at the rehearsal? Then you saw how Fagan treats him. It's been like that every day. The brute! It's abominable! You know how we had set our hearts on playing this together, Morgan and I.... Now I've almost come to pray that Morgan will throw it up. That's what Fagan wants, of course, but I don't care. All I want is his happiness. I said something to him about giving up the part, but he... Mr. Roberts, I'm _worried_. I've never seen Morgan so strange before. He's not himself. I don't know what's the matter, I have a feeling that something-----”

The electricians were still fooling about with their spotlights, and a great arrow of brilliance sliced across the stage and groped about us. It blazed brutally upon her tear-stained face, and then see-sawed among the little flock of rolling chairs. It was that shaft of light that dispelled, once for all, the feeling I had had that this was all some sort of theatrical gibberish, pantomime stuff intended to impress the greenhorn press agent. For when she recoiled under the blow of that sudden stroke of brightness I could read unquestionable trouble on her face. There was not only perplexity, there was fear.

She was silent, turning her face away. Then she stepped down from the chair, in a blind sort of way.

“I begged him to give it up,” she said, quietly. “He said that no one but the author could take him out of this part. I wish the author would.--Oh, I don't know what to wish! Morgan's making himself ill fighting against Fagan.”

We walked across Fortieth Street together, and I escorted her as far as a Fifth Avenue bus. As we waited for the bus she said:

“You'll probably see him to-night. Tell him about rehearsal to-morrow, ten o'clock. He had gone before I could speak to him. You see, he's not himself. We were to have taken supper together.”

She added something that I have never forgotten:

“The worst tragedy in the world is when lovely things get in the hands of people who don't understand them. If you see Mr. Sampson, you might tell him that. Some day he may write another play.”

When I got up to Seventy-third Street I tapped at Edwards's door. He was at his table, writing. I had intended to ask him to take dinner with me, thinking that perhaps I could help him, but his manner showed plainly that he wanted to be alone. If I had been an old friend of his, perhaps I could have done something; but I did not feel I knew him well enough to force myself upon his mood.

“Fagan sent you word, rehearsal to-morrow at ten,” I said. “It sounds to me like an apology.”

He looked at me steadily.

“You were there to-day? You will understand a little, then.”

“I understand that Fagan is a ruffian.”

“Fagan--Oh, I don't mean Fagan.” He paused and looked at the wet point of his pen. “I was just writing a note to Sampson,” he said. He hesitated a moment, and then tore the written sheet across several times and dropped it in the basket.

“Oh, hell,” he said. “I can't appeal to Sampson again. I'll have to work it out myself.--Don't imagine I take Fagan too seriously. Fagan is only an accident. A tragic accident. That's part of my weird, as the Scotch say. I mean, you'll understand better about Dunbar.”

I didn't quite understand, and said nothing.

“I wouldn't let a man like Fagan stand between me and Dunbar,” he said. “It's in the hands of the author now. You heard what he said. He put Dunbar into the play, he's the only one who can take him out of it.”

The next morning Upton broke the news to me that I was to go out as advance man. The opening was set for Providence, only ten days later. There was to be a two-weeks' tour of three-night engagements, and I had to arrange for the publicity, poster-printing, accommodations for the company, and so on. This did not appeal to me very strongly, but I scrambled together a lot of photographs, interviewed the cast as to their preferences in hotel rooms, and set off. I got back a week later. We were then only three days away from the opening. They were rehearsing with the sets, Upton's telephone blonde told me, and I hurried round to the Stratford to see how the scenic artist had done the job.

They had just knocked off for lunch when I got there, and at the stage door I met Edwards coming out with Miss Cunningham. He looked very white and tired.

“Hullo,” I said; “just in time to have lunch with me! Come on, we'll go to Maxim's. I've still got some of Upton's expense money.”

“I've got to rush round to the modiste for a fitting,” said Miss Cunningham. “The gowns are just finished. You take Morgan and give him a good talking-to. He needs it.” I did not quite understand the appeal in her eyes, but I saw that she wanted me to talk with Edwards alone. She went toward Bryant Park, and we turned down to Thirty-eighth. Edwards stood a moment at the corner looking after her.

“Sylvia says I'm a fool,” he said, wearily. “I don't know: most of us are, one way or another.--You know I told you that I put my confidence in the author.”

“Quite right,” I said. “I myself heard Sampson say he thought you were corking.”

“Well, I wonder if he's double-crossing me?” said Edwards, slowly, as though to himself.

“In what way?”

“Yesterday, when I was coming down to rehearsal, there was a tie-up of some kind on the subway. The train stood still for a long time, and then the lights went out. We stayed in the dark for I don't know how long--everybody got nervous. It was pitch black, and awfully hot and stuffy. The women began to scream. I felt pretty queer myself--you know I haven't been well--and as we sat there I went off into a kind of doze or something. Then, just as everybody was on the edge of a panic, the lights came on and we went ahead. When we got to Times Square I think I must have been a bit off colour, for the damned rehearsal went out of my head entirely. Suddenly I realized I was in a drugstore drinking some headache fizz when I was over an hour late at the theatre. My God! I hustled down there as fast as I could go. Queer thing. I went in through the stage door, and as I came round behind the set I heard voices on the stage. They were rehearsing, of course. Naturally, they couldn't wait all morning for me. But this is what I'm getting at. You know that scene in the second act where I say to Brooks: _It's all very well for you to say that. Ah, hah! I see! But suppose you had been in my place---_

“You know that's a turning point in the act. There's a particular inflection I give that speech--the way I say the 'Ah, hah! I see!' that makes the point clear to the audience and gets it over. Well, they were rehearsing that scene, and from behind the canvas I heard that speech. And what I heard was my own voice.”

“What on earth do you mean?” I said.

He hesitated. He was sitting, his lunch almost untasted, with one elbow on the table and his forehead leaning on his hand. Under his long, sinewy fingers I could see his brows tightened and frowning downward upon his plate.

“Exactly what I say. It was my own voice. Or, if you prefer, Dunbar's voice. I heard that speech uttered, tone for tone, as I had been saying it. It was the precise accent and pitch of ironical comment which I had thought appropriate for Dunbar at that point in the action. The sudden change of tone, the pause, the placing of the emphasis--the words were just as if they had come out of my own mouth. I stopped, instinctively. I said to myself, has Fagan got someone else to play the part, and been coaching him on the side? Someone who's been sitting in at rehearsals and has picked up my conception of Dunbar? And at that moment I heard Fagan sing out 'All right, folks, the carpenter wants to work on this set. We'll quit until after lunch.'

“I tell you, I was staggered. If I was out, I was out, but they might have been straight with me. It was a matter for the Equity, I thought. I didn't want to chin it over with the others just then, and I heard them coming off, so I slipped through the door that opens into the passage behind the stage box. I meant to tell Fagan what I thought about it. There was Sampson sitting in one of the boxes. He saw me, and got up. He said: 'By Jove, Mr. Edwards, you were fine this morning. I've never seen you do it so well. It was bully, all through. Keep it like that, and you're the hit of the play.'

“I thought at first he was making fun of me. I was about to make some sarcastic retort, when he put out his hand in the friendliest way, and said:

“'I want to thank you for what you're doing for that part, and I know it hasn't been easy. I've never seen anything so beautifully done, and just want to tell you that if the play is a success it will be largely due to you.'

“This, on the heels of the other, astounded me so that I didn't know what to say. I made some automatic reply, and he left. I sat down in the cool darkness of the box to rest, for I was feeling very seedy. My head went round and round--touch of the sun, I dare say, or that foul air in the crowded subway car. I was still there when they came back, an hour later, for the afternoon rehearsal. I tried to talk to Sylvia about it, but all she would say was that I ought to go to a doctor.”

“I think she's right,” I said. “Look here, have you had any sleep lately?”

“You seem to have forgotten Dunbar's line,” he said. “'_There'll be 'plenty of time to sleep by and bye._'”

“For God's sake forget about Dunbar,” I said. “Man, dear, you're on the tip of a nervous breakdown. Now listen. This is Friday. Dress rehearsal to-morrow. Sunday you'll have all day off. Take Miss Cunningham and go away into the country somewhere and rest. Put the damned play out of your mind and give her a good time. You both need it.”

I didn't see him again until Monday morning.

I went up to Providence on the train with the company. As I passed through one of the Pullmans looking for a seat in a smoking compartment, I found Miss Cunningham and Edwards sitting in adjoining chairs. To my delight, they seemed very cheerful, and smiled up at me charmingly.

“Took your advice yesterday,” he said. “We went down to Long Beach again. Had a lovely day, not even a pickpocket to spoil it.”

“What an unfortunate remark!” said Sylvia, laughing. “He means, not a pickpocket to bring us a friend in need and give us a jolly evening in Jamaica.”

“I spoke the speech trippingly,” he admitted.

“And we left Dunbar behind!” said Sylvia. She flashed me a grateful little look that showed she knew I had tried to help.

“Have you decided where to spend the honeymoon?” I asked, greatly pleased to see them so happy.

“Hush!” she said. “We'll wait till we see what sort of notices the show gets.”

“Think of the poor press agent. I've used up all my dope. Get spliced while we're in Providence and it'll give me a nice little story. You know the kind of thing--'_Critics' Praise Brings Pair to Altar; Press Clippings Cupid's Aid_'.”

“You're getting as vulgar as a regular press agent,” she said, merrily. “They don't think of anything except in terms of good stories for the paper.”

“Oh,” I said, “the press agent has his tragedies, too. Think how many stories he knows that he can't tell.”

I felt that this remark was not very happily inspired, and went on through the car calling myself a clumsy idiot. In the smoking compartment, as luck would have it, were both Upton and Fagan, smoking huge cigars and talking together. I sat down and lit my pipe. Fagan, in his usual way, was trying to impress Upton with his own sagacity. There was another musical horror of Upton's scheduled to begin rehearsal shortly, and probably Fagan was hoping to land the job as director.

“What did you think of Edwards at the dress rehearsal?” said Fagan.

Upton grunted. He had a way of retaining his ideas until others had committed themselves.

“I've been telling you right along, he's impossible,” said Fagan. “No one can work with him. He's too damned upstage. Now I got Billy Mitford to promise he'd run up and see the opening. Billy is the man you need for that part. I had him in at the dress, and he'll be there tonight. I've given him a line on the part, and if Edwards falls down we can start rehearsing Billy right away. He could get set in a week, and open with the show in New York.”

“Four hundred a week,” was Upton's comment, seemingly addressed to the end of his cigar.

“All right, he's worth it. He's got a following. This guy Edwards is dear at any price. He'll kill the show. He doesn't get his stuff over. God knows I've worked on him. And he crabs Brooks's work more'n half the time. What you want is one of these birds that gets the women climbing over the orchestra rail. Billy is your one best bet, take it from me.”

“Well, we'll open her up and see what we got,” said Upton. “Is Sampson along?”

“No. Scared. Said he was too nervous to come. He'll learn to write a play afterwhile. What a mess that script was until I got her straightened out.”

When we got to Providence I had several jobs to do around town. I visited the newspaper offices, stopped in at the theatre where the stage crew were busy unloading scenery, and when I returned to the hotel I lay down in my room and had a good nap, I was awakened late in the afternoon--about five o'clock, because I looked at my watch--by a knocking at the door. I got up and opened. It was Edwards. To my dismay, his cheerfulness had vanished. He had gone back to the old pallid and anxious mood.

“Nervous, old man?” I said. When I had booked the rooms for the company I had arranged that he and I should be next door to each other, so that I could keep an eye on him.

“Nervous?” he said. “I'm ill. Had another of those damned swimming spells in my head. Haven't got any brandy, have you?”

I hadn't, but offered to go in search of some. He wouldn't let me.

“Don't go,” he said. “Look here, I saw Mit-ford in the lobby just now. What the devil is he doing here?”

“Perhaps there's some other show on,” I suggested, miserably.

“I told you they were trying to double-cross me,” he said. “I know perfectly well what he's here for. Fagan is trying to razz me into a breakdown. Then he'll put Mitford in as Dunbar. But I tell you, I'll play this thing in spite of hell and high water.”

He paced feverishly up and down, and I tried to ease his mind.

“By God, they sha'n't!” he cried. “I'll put this thing up to the author. Where's Sampson?”

“He's not here. For heaven's sake, man, don't get in a state. Everything's all right.”

“Everything's all right!” he repeated, bitterly. “Yes, everything's lovely. Let's 'lift it into the domain of comedy'. But if you see Fagan, tell him to keep away from me.”

I begged him to rest until dinner-time. I went into his room with him, made him lie down on the bed, rang for a bottle of ice water, and left him there. Then I went downstairs and wrote a couple of letters. I was just leaving the hotel when I met Fagan coming in. He stopped me to ask if I had taken care to put his name on the playbill as director. I had. If the show was a flop, I at least wanted his name attached as a participial cause.

I wandered uneasily about the busy streets until theatre time. I couldn't have been more nervous if I had been going on the boards myself. I spent part of the time prowling about trying to see how much “Obedience” paper I could find on the billboards and in shop windows. I stopped in at a lunchroom and had some supper. The place reminded me of the little café in Jamaica where Sylvia and Edwards and I had eaten together.

My mind was full of the picture of the two, and his face as he leaned across the table toward her. I thought that I had never seen a couple who so deserved happiness, or who had fought harder to earn it. What was the subtle appeal in this play that made it react so strangely upon him? The tragedy of Dunbar in the piece, the sacrifice of the poor, well-meaning fellow whose virtue always seemed to turn and rend him, did this echo some secret experience in his own life? I wondered whether an actor's career was really the gay business I had conceived it. It occurred to me that perhaps the actor's profession is doomed to suffering, because it takes the most dangerous explosives in life and plays with them. Love, ambition, jealousy, hatred, those are the things actors deal with. You can't play with those without one of them going off every now and then. They go off with a bang, and somebody gets hurt.

I suppose I'm sentimental. I wanted those two to win out. It seemed to me that a defeat for their fine and honourable passion would be a defeat for Love everywhere, and for all who believe in the worthy aspirations of the heart. I don't suppose any press agent ever pondered more generous philosophies than I did that night, over my lunch-counter supper.

Time went so fast that it was after eight when I got to the theatre. I went in and took a seat in the last row. The house, to my surprise, was crowded. I could see Upton's big bald head, well down in front, beside a massively carved lady, all bust and beads, whom I supposed to be Mrs. Upton. The élite of Providence were out in force, for Brooks's name is always a drawing card. Some of them, I feared, were going to be disappointed. It is all very well to introduce a new Barrie or a new Pinero to the playgoing public, but you've got to remember that it is bound to be grievous for those who prefer the other sort of thing.

The curtain, of course, was late, and I gave a sigh of relief when I saw it go up. Edwards, waiting carefully for the hush, had the house with him in three speeches. I have never seen better work, before or since. It was noticeable that at his first exit he got a bigger hand than Brooks at his carefully prepared entrance. The only thing that seemed to me out of the way was his extreme pallor. The silly ass, I said to myself, he hasn't made himself up properly. Then it struck me that it was probably a sound touch of realism, for certainly Dunbar would not be described as a full-blooded creature. I had read the play carefully, and had seen it in rehearsal; but I had never known how much there was in it. Strangely enough, Edwards was the only one who showed no trace of nervousness. All the others, even Brooks, seemed unaccountably at a loss now and then, trampled on their lines, and smothered their points. At first the house was inclined to applaud, but as the action tightened, they hushed into the perfect and passionate silence that is the playwright's dream. There were six curtains at the end of the first act. I could tell by the tilt of old Upton's pink pate that he was in fine spirits. I looked about for Fagan in the lobby, as I was keen to see how he was taking it, but missed him in the arguing and shifting crowd.

By the time the third act was under way it was plain that we had a sure-fire success. Novice as I was, I could read the signs when I saw Upton scribbling telegrams at the box-office window in the second intermission, and observed the face of Mr. Mitford. The usual slips that always happen on first nights were there, of course. In the third act, when Edwards had to take Sylvia in his arms, she seemed to trip and almost fell; and I noticed that Brooks crossed the stage and helped her off, which was not in the script; but these things were not marked by most of the audience. Dunbar, you remember, makes his final exit several minutes before the end of the third act. When he went off there was a little stir among the audience--far more eloquent than applause would have been. That beautiful delineation of a blundering high-minded failure had made its appeal.