Читать книгу Presenting Lily Mars - Booth Tarkington - Страница 3

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People who have read “The Lost Theatre” by Owen Gilbert may recall his printed opinion that the heyday of the theatre and the best time to be young were in the days when the dépôt hack still struggled against the station taxicab and extinction. Intimate friends of Mr. Gilbert, reading this passage, have smiled, knowing that the celebrated gentleman was himself young in the favored period and guessing that he preferred a dépôt hack to a taxicab on the very day of his return to his native city for the visit that was to bring him his first acquaintance with Lily Mars.

The guess is accurate. Mr. Owen Gilbert, playwright, aged twenty-nine, comely, dark-eyed and of a reticent air, descended from the train that had borne him from New York to the heart of the midland plain; then, coming out of the station into September afternoon sunshine, he ignored the suggestions of several taxicab drivers and stepped into one of the two or three shabby old hacks that still competed with them.

The hackman, fat and red-faced, was pleased; a benevolent smile widened his dissipated old moustache. “Reckanize you, I guess,” he said. “Ain’t you the late Henry J. Gilbert of Gilbert and Company’s son, Owen? Thought so. Seen you many a time when you was growin’ up. I used to work for Foudray’s Livery and Undertaking, and I’ve drove you and your family I don’t know how often to funerals and parties when they wasn’t usin’ their own carriage. Guess you ’member my face, too, likely. Likely why you took my hack ’stead o’ one them automobile cabs.”

“Yes.”

The hackman sighed conversationally as he climbed to his seat. “Times all changin’. Goin’ to make a man scramble to git a livin’, it looks like. You rather have the top up?”

“No.”

“Thought not, account the nice warm fall weather.” He took up the reins and whip; the two flaccid old black horses walked a short distance, then conscientiously pushed themselves into a patient trot, and the hackman, turning his head a little for greater audibility, continued the conversation. “Ain’t seen you fer quite some time lately. Two or three years maybe. Ain’t been back here fer a good while, have you?”

“No, I haven’t.”

“Seems like I heard somebody say you was livin’ in New York or Europe or somewheres nowadays. That right?”

“Yes.”

“Ain’t seen any your kinfolks all the time you been away?”

“Oh, yes. My mother comes to New York for a day or so sometimes.”

“I expect so.” The hackman, about to speak of his own beloved city, made wide gestures with his whip. “Well, sir, you’ll see big changes in this old burg, I guess. Bigger! Newhouse and Treadwell’s puttin’ up a ’leven-story building. Say the Chamber of Commerce is talkin’ about a skyscraper even higher’n that. Oh, we’re growin’! Say we’re goin’ to be ’way up over two-hundred thousand time o’ the next census. Guess you’ll find everything lookin’ natural up on Harrison Avenue, though, and all around through that neighborhood where your kin live. All them old fine big houses you’ll find them jest the same. Guess you ain’t found no place to live no better’n what we got here, have you?”

“No.”

“No, sir! Must feel mighty good to git back to God’s country when you’re able to!”

The old liveryman, pleased with himself, stopped talking and gave his attention to the guidance of his horses through a thickening traffic. His passenger, meanwhile, glancing with thoughtful eye at the thronged sidewalks of the “business section”, meditated upon an impression that to anybody fresh from New York, all these bustling honest people, their buildings and the broad irregular prospects of their streets must have an appearance of some rusticity. They had that appearance to him, a returned native; and, as it was his habit to observe professionally his own thoughts and sensations, he inquired of himself whether or not there was anything vivid enough in his feeling about the rusticity to be put into a play. He decided that there wasn’t, and then, annoyed by the persistence of his habit, “Good heavens!” he thought. “Can’t I even come home to see my mother without worrying at every tiny thing on earth to find if I can’t use it for the stage?”

The hack crossed a wide thoroughfare, climax spectacle of the city’s trade and tumultuous with people and vehicles; then, after another block, hoof-beats had a softer sound. The old hack-horses trotted now not upon asphalt but upon a more genially resonant pavement of cedar, and abruptly were beyond the crowded ways and in a quiet neighborhood of churches and old-fashioned houses. Farther on, they passed an open green square with a busily plashing fountain in the centre and benches where old men sat in revery, their beards upon their G. A. R. buttons, while along graveled paths nurses pushed baby-carriages and small children rode velocipedes and trundled hoops.

Beyond this, the wide sunny street seemed to wear a mildly prouder air; for now, with bordering shady sidewalks, it entered the purlieus of the city’s obvious grandees. Here, with simple enough architecture, yet a touch of Mansard, there was a spaciousness not lacking dignity; and the large brick houses, none of them new, rose from clipped green lawns and softened their outlines graciously among the foliage of tall trees. The hackman, driving placidly in the middle of the street, turned his head slightly to inquire, “Want me to drive up your driveway?”

“No; just let me out at the front gate.”

“Well, so-so—whoa up!”

The horses immediately stopped trotting, and, upon the signal of one slightly twitched rein, walked obliquely to the left and halted near the curbstone on the left side of the street, their noses in line with a horse-headed cast iron hitching post under a big elm. The fat old hackman got down from his seat and glanced benevolently at the commodious stone-trimmed brick house of the Seventies, deep in its groomed lawn. “I guess you didn’t need to tell me where to bring you,” he said, smiling self-congratulation. “I’ll carry them valises in fer you if you’d like me to.”

The passenger rewarded the offer generously but carried the bags himself. He passed through the gateway of the tall iron fence, walked up the cement path, ascended white stone steps to the white stone verandah and pulled a bronze knob at the side of the carved walnut double front doors. A moment later a remote tinkling let him know that the bell at the end of the long wire was in operation; then there were faint sounds of movement within the house, and a middle-aged stout neat colored woman opened the door.

“Yes, suh, Mist’ Owen,” she said amiably. “I spectin’ you.”

“You were?” He was astonished. “Expecting me, Martha? Why, no; I’m a surprise. I wrote my mother I’d be here the last of next week.”

“No, suh; she ain’t spectin’ you. I said I was. She ain’t home an’ nobody wasn’t spectin’ you till couple minutes ago when telephome rung an’ says they want to speak to you. ‘No, suh,’ I says. ‘Mist’ Owen Gilbert in New York,’ I says. ‘No, ma’am, he ain’t either,’ telephome say. ‘He right in this city,’ telephome say. ‘Ef he ain’t home right now he goin’ be in ve’y few minutes. You please ask him call number five-hundud soon’s he git there,’ it tell me.”

“All right, Martha,” Gilbert said, coming into the ample hallway that bisected the forward part of the house. “Where’s my mother?”

“She out payin’ calls. Nelson he drivin’ her, so please res’ them valises right on the flo’ until they git back an’ Nelson carry ’em to your room fer you. Your mamma goin’ be mighty tickle’ see you here when she git home from payin’ them calls. Telephome on the wall behine stairway same’s it use’ to were, Mist’ Owen. Ev’ything stay jes’ the same in this house year in, year out, Mist’ Owen.”

Gilbert was already sure of that. At his left the doors stood open into the “reception room” whither formal callers had been shown, when they came, throughout his boyhood and youth. The stiff, gilded chairs and the brown velvet sofa were in their old accustomed places, and the oval portrait of his grandfather—side-burns, wavy black hair, velvet coat collar and all—hung coldly over the white marble mantelpiece where it had been in the grandson’s babyhood. Revealed by open double doors on the other side of the hall was the “library”, with the ponderous black grand piano near the bay-window. Fresh from New York he felt the size of this big room, like the width of the city’s streets, as something astonishing; yet here, under that high, high ceiling, he had spent hours enough to be counted into years. Here were the same old rows of books on the same old polished brown shelves, and, on the walls above, the same old steel engravings of Lincoln and his Cabinet, of Anthony and Cleopatra, and of Rebecca and Ivanhoe, the same old watercolors of Amalfi, the Grand Canal and Pisa’s tower. Upon the same old gayly floral Brussels carpet stood the same old Eastlake sofas and the same comfortable, unpleasantly carved old rosewood chairs in their old places precisely; and everything, including the almost imperceptible same old smell of cleanness, emanated to the young playwright the touching and reproachful eloquence of old familiar things half forgotten in long absence.

He went to the telephone instrument that was screwed to the yellow-papered wall behind the wide black-walnut staircase, rang the bell, and, after a few moments of waiting, rang again, then gave to a languidly responsive voice the number five-hundred. Two or three minutes later, in reply to another languid voice, he mentioned his name, said that five-hundred had called him and was asked to wait. Then a brisker voice, a man’s, said, “This is the Gazette. We heard from New York you’d be here to-day and I figured out you’d most likely get in on the four-twelve. We picked up a story you were intending to open a new play here under Adler and Company’s management—going to use your own home town to ‘try it on the dog’ before opening in New York, what? I s’pose you know our old burg here takes quite some interest in your being a home town boy that’s making his way in the world and’s had successes on the New York stage. So if it’s a fact you’re going to put a play on here for its first première it’ll be quite an event and we’d like to make a feature of it. Anything in it?”

“No. That is—” Gilbert hesitated; then explained. “It’s true Adler and Company are going to put on a new play of mine; but it’s not to open here. Probably some rehearsing will be done here; that’s all.”

“Rehearse here? Well, that sounds interesting,” the voice returned ingratiatingly. “What’s the name of your new play, Mr. Gilbert, and what’s it about?”

“It’s called ‘Catalpa House’ and it’s about old times on the Mississippi River.”

“Romantic and all that?”

“Yes, I suppose so.”

“Good enough,” the voice said. “How does it happen you’re going to rehearse it here instead of in New York, Mr. Gilbert?”

“There’ll be only a week of rehearsing here—week after next. Adler and Company’s ‘Skylark’ will be playing here that week. It has quite a small cast and they’re all engaged for my play, which requires a few more people; but they’ll be brought here with the ‘Skylark’ company for rehearsal, because the Adler firm means to put my piece on rather soon.”

“I see,” the voice said. “The ‘Skylark’ company’ll be rehearsing your play in its off hours. Very good. How about yourself, Mr. Gilbert? You’re combining pleasure with business, I take it, and getting in a little visit with your relations here before your work on rehearsals begins?”

“Yes.”

“Let’s see, now, Mr. Gilbert; you’ve had three very successful plays up to the present, haven’t you?”

“No. Only one. I’ve had only three plays produced altogether.”

“Is that so?” the voice from the telephone said sympathetically. “But your last was a big hit, wasn’t it?”

“No; not even a small one.”

“Is that so? Well, better luck with this next one. I guess that’s all, Mr. Gilbert; I’ll probably be calling you up again for something on your rehearsals when the ‘Skylark’ company gets here. Thank you for the information, and good day.”

Gilbert went out to the verandah and looked contemplatively at one of its wicker chairs, but did not sit down, for his ear caught a sound from a little distance down the street—conglomerate hoof-beats that seemed familiar. “Jeff and Joey,” he said, half aloud. “It couldn’t be any other horses in the world!”

Then, dappled with disks of sunshine beneath the Gothic shade trees, there came trotting down the middle of the street his mother’s two fat bay steeds, drawing the black and shiny “family carriage” and driven by a proud-looking thin old black man undoubtedly certain of the lofty effect of his white cotton gloves, his glistening high white collar and ministerial white lawn necktie. Behind him, a graceful shape in the graceful vehicle, sat a dark haired lady of fifty in wine-colored silk and white lace. The top of the carriage was down, and in one white-gloved hand she held the coral handle of the white silk parasol that kept sunlight from her plumed black hat; her other hand, in her lap, negligently clasped an ivory card-case carved in Chinese filigree. Already this was a picture beginning to be a little old-fashioned, the adopted New Yorker on the white stone verandah thought, and liked it all the more for that. The midland lady, returning in style from “paying calls”—formal calls accumulated for months against her precisely kept accounts of social credits—seemed the eloquent symbol of a whole historical period now perhaps about to vanish.

Could such a picture and its significance be expressed in the theatre, he wondered. No; even if he went to the trouble and expense (expense for the manager) of putting an actress in wine-colored silk into just such a carriage, with just such a coachman as old Nelson, and just such fat, brisk bay horses, and should place the whole equipage upon the resounding boards of the stage, the audience might be too thick-headed. “Doubt if they’d get it,” he murmured. However, he wasn’t sure, and reminded himself that almost impossible things could be made into theatrical effects. Hadn’t Augustus Thomas used actual perfumes in the theatre to transport audiences into the blossoming sweetness of Alabama springtime? “I’d put the driveway gates extreme left, with a shrubbery and foliage back-drop,” Gilbert thought, and then, catching himself at his tricks again, felt shame. “Nice of me, isn’t it? Haven’t seen my mother for six months and at sight of her begin trying to dramatize her!”

But the carriage was now on the driveway, his mother saw him, and, as the expression of her handsome face changed from absent placidity to startled brightest happiness, “No,” he thought. “Couldn’t get that out of any actress on Adler and Company’s lists!”

The mutual greeting, caressive and gently exclamatory, brought them all the way from the driveway stone mounting-block to the library, where each found further delight in the other’s “looking so well” and the son explained his premature arrival. “There really isn’t anything more for me to do about the new play until the ‘Skylark’ company gets here and I begin watching rehearsals. It just struck me yesterday rather suddenly that if I didn’t give myself a recess from ‘theatrical atmosphere’ I’d go crazy, and in all the world there isn’t anything more untheatrical than home and you, Mother; so I made a hansom cab dash for the train.”

Mrs. Gilbert laughed. “That’s funny talk from anybody who was as wild to be in the ‘theatrical atmosphere’ as you were a few years ago, Owen.”

“Oh, I know, I know! Of course the thing’s my life; but, Mother, I’ve got so soaked with it that I can’t even breathe except in what’s odiously called ‘terms of the theatre’. I’m getting to be so lost to life and drowned in theatre I’m like Barrie’s journalist who’d become so horribly nothing else that he knew, himself, he’d get material for a paragraph out of his own mother’s funeral!”

Mrs. Gilbert wasn’t alarmed; she laughed again and said, “You’d have a hard time to get a play out of mine, dear, and besides, it won’t be ready for a long, long time. For me I’m afraid the main thing is that you’re here, no matter what brought you.” But her glance, thus reminded, went gently to two silver-framed photographs upon the piano. “We could drive out to the cemetery to-morrow morning with some flowers, do you think? I’d like you to see how nice the lot looks—it’s so lovely out there—and——”

“Yes; of course, dear Mother.”

“Then in the afternoon,” she went on musingly, “of course we’ll have to call on your Aunt Fanny and your poor old Uncle Harry and the Lord and Pennington cousins and all the rest of ’em. I suppose I’d better ask Cousin Jenny and the Whitlocks and some more in for dinner to-morrow evening. They’re all so genuinely interested in your career, Owen, and——” She stopped speaking, looked thoughtful for a moment, and said, “Oh, that reminds me!”

“Of what, Mother?”

“There’s a special reason I’m glad you’ll have a little time here before your theatrical people arrive and begin their rehearsing. As a matter of fact, I’ve just come from their house. I was lucky and found a lot of people out this afternoon, so I had time and stopped in there on my way home.”

“You stopped in where?” her son asked, and laughed affectionately at the characteristic, unconscious cart-before-the-horse method of narrative just displayed to him. Yet, before she answered, he had that rather infrequent sensation commonly described as the memory of a previous incarnation; it seemed to him that long ago he and his mother had said to each other what they were saying now and that he ought to remember, as it were, what she was going to say next. Moreover, in addition to this disturbing sense of echoing the past, he had a feeling that what she was about to say was portentous, that it was to prove of great moment to himself and that these very seconds before she spoke were the final ones before the rising of the curtain to begin a dramatic period in his life. “Could I use this?” he thought. “Young man feeling it’s all happened before and having a premonition of something important and dangerous going to happen and—Oh, dear! There I go again! Shame on me!”

He broke off the thought despairingly, and, with a disappointed sense of anticlimax, looked plaintively at his mother as she said, “At that poor little place where they’re living now. Such a beautiful woman she used to be, poor Mrs. Mars! They’d heard you were coming home and wrote me a note to ask about it. Really, Owen, I never knew a young girl who showed a greater talent for the stage.”

They were still standing; but, at this, Owen Gilbert sat down heavily. “Mother! It’s what I came home to get away from, and, of all things on earth, talented young girls who want to go on the stage! Besides, I can’t put anybody on the stage; I’m only a playwright. Who is it?”

Mrs. Gilbert looked surprised. “Why, I just told you! You remember the Mars family, Owen.”

“No, I don’t.”

“Why, yes, you do! All the time you were a little boy they lived in that big brown brick house with the Mansard roof where the Hubbards do now, with a fountain in the front yard, only Mr. Hubbard’s had the fountain taken out. They only had one child then and you used to play with him. Surely you remember little Willie Mars and his mother and father, too.”

“Oh, vaguely, vaguely,” the young man admitted. “What about Willie Mars? Seems to me I recall he died when he was a child.”

“He did. I’m talking about the survivors! Really, they’re in a pretty distressing situation, Owen. Mr. Mars failed in the Panic while you were in college. They dropped out of everything and he died, and Mrs. Mars and the two little girls that came after Willie’s death were left with scarcely anything.”

“I see, Mother, you want me to——”

“No!” Mrs. Gilbert exclaimed. “Not money! About that, Mrs. Mars has always had the pride of Satan. I tried once to lend her a little money myself in a tactful way; but she said that if I wished I could use it to bury her—while she lived she wasn’t an object of charity! Finally she got something to do in the city library, and that kept them going; but she fell downstairs and hurt her spine and now she’s a helpless invalid. I just don’t know how they have lived, except that Clara, the older daughter, has been clerking in Vance’s Dry Goods Store and that brings in a little something, I suppose. The younger daughter had to leave high school last winter without graduating, because Mrs. Mars can’t do anything at all for herself and of course couldn’t be left alone. It’s been a constant sacrifice for both those poor girls, and if they hadn’t been upheld by their absolute conviction that the younger one’s a genius I don’t know what they’d have done.”

“A genius?” the young man asked, and added apprehensively, “Mother, if you don’t mind I believe I’d rather not hear much about the kind of genius she is.”

“Would you, poor lamb?” Mrs. Gilbert laughed, and again became solicitous. “Of course I could see they’d been looking forward desperately to your coming home, Owen—it’s just life or death to them, and oh, I do hope you’ll try your best to do something for them, dear! They feel if you could just get her started! Of course you can’t do it the first day or two; but after you’ve got a little rested and seen all the relatives—I told them that of course you’ll be glad to hear her recite and——”

“Recite?” Gilbert said. “Recite! Oh, Mother! Oh, my goodness! What’s her name?”

“Owen! I’ve just been telling you! Lily Mars!”