Grand Magazine, March 1921
 

 

 

CHAPTER XXIX

FREDDIE ROOKE—AMBASSADOR.

“I SAY, Mason, old top,” said Freddie, entering the sitting-room, “I hope you don’t mind my barging in like this, but the fact is things are a bit thick. I’m dashed worried, and I didn’t know another soul I could talk it over with. As a matter of fact, I wasn’t sure you were in New York at all, but I remembered hearing you say in London that you were popping back almost at once, so I looked you up in the telephone book and took a chance. I’m dashed glad you are back. When did you arrive?”

“This afternoon.”

“I’ve been here two or three days. Well, it’s a bit of luck catching you. You see, what I want to ask your advice about. . . .”

Wally looked at his watch. He understood Jill’s feelings perfectly, and was anxious to get rid of the inopportune Freddie as soon as possible.

“You’ll have to talk quick, I’m afraid,” he said. “I’ve lent this place to a man for the evening, and he’s having some people to dinner. What’s the trouble?”

“It’s about Jill. Jill Mariner, you know. You haven’t forgotten my telling you all that? About her losing her money and coming over to America?”

“No. I remember your telling me that.”

Freddie seemed to miss something in his companion’s manner, some note of excitement and perturbation.

“Of course,” he said, as if endeavouring to explain this to himself, “you hardly knew her, I suppose. But I’m a pal of hers, and I’m dashed upset by the whole business. Poor girl, you know, landed on her uppers in a strange country. Well, I mean, it worries me. So the first thing I did when I got here was to try to find her. That’s why I came over, really, to try to find her. Apart from anything else, you see, poor old Derek is dashed worried about her.”

“Need we bring Underhill in?”

“Oh, I know you don’t like him, and think he behaved rather rummily and so forth, but that’s all right now. It’s all on again.”

“What’s all on again?”

“Why, I mean he wants to marry Jill. I came over to find her and tell her so.”

Wally’s eyes glowed.

“If you have come over as an ambassador——”

“That’s right. Jolly old ambassador. Very word I used myself.”

“I say, if you have come over as an ambassador with the idea of reopening negotiations with Jill on behalf of that infernal swine——”

“Old man!” protested Freddie, pained. “Pal of mine, you know.”

“I can’t understand you, Freddie. If ever there was a fellow who might have been expected to take the only possible view of Underhill’s behaviour in this business, I should have said it was you. You’re a public-school man. You’ve mixed all the time with decent people. You wouldn’t do anything that wasn’t straight yourself to save your life. Yet it seems to have made absolutely no difference in your opinion of this man Underhill that he behaved like an utter cad to a girl who was one of your best friends. And you have travelled three thousand miles to bring a message from him to Jill—good God! Jill!—to the effect, as far as I can understand it, that he has thought it over and come to the conclusion that after all she may possibly be good enough for him!”

Freddie recovered the eyeglass which the raising of his eyebrows had caused to fall, and polished it in a crushed sort of way.

“You don’t understand,” he said. “You don’t realise. You’ve never met Lady Underhill, have you?”

“What has she got to do with it?”

“Everything, old bean, everything. If it hadn’t been for her there wouldn’t have been any trouble of any description, sort, or order. But she barged in and savaged poor old Derek till she absolutely made him break off the engagement.”

“If you call him ‘poor old Derek’ again, Freddie,” said Wally viciously, “I’ll drop you out of the window and throw your hat after you! If he’s such a gelatine-backboned worm that his mother can——”

“You don’t know her, old thing. She’s the original hell-hound. Must be seen to be believed,” mumbled Freddie.

“I don’t care what she’s like. Any man who could——”

“Once seen, never forgotten.”

“Damn you! Don’t interrupt every time I try to get a word in.”

“Sorry, old man. Shan’t occur again.”

Wally moved to the window, and stood looking out.

“Well, all I can say is,” he remarked savagely, “that, if you have come over here as an ambassador to try and effect a reconciliation between Jill and Underhill, I hope to God you’ll never find her.”

“I have found her.”

Wally spun round.

“What!”

“When I say that, I don’t absolutely mean I’ve seen her. I mean I know where she is. That’s what I came round to see you about. The fact is, old man, she’s gone on the stage. In the chorus, you know. And, I mean to say, well, if you follow what I’m driving at, what, what?”

“How do you know?”

“Well, that was a bit of luck, as a matter of fact. When I first got here, you know, it seemed to me the only thing to do was to round up a merry old detective and put the matter in his hands, like they do in stories. Then this evening, just before I came here, I met a girl I had known in England—she was in a show over there—a girl called Nelly Bryant——”

“Nelly Bryant? I know her.”

“Yes? Fancy that! She was in a thing called Follow the Girl in London. Did you see it by any chance? Topping show! There was one scene where the——”

“Get on! Get on! I wrote it.”

“You wrote it?” Freddie beamed simple-hearted admiration. “My dear old chap, I congratulate you! One of the ripest and most all-wool musical comedies I’ve ever seen. I went twenty-four times. Well, to cut a long story short, Nelly Bryant told me that she and Jill were rehearsing with a piece called The Rose of America.”

“That’s Ike Goble’s show. He called me up on the phone about it half an hour ago. I promised to go and see a rehearsal of it to-morrow or the day after. And Jill’s in that?”

“Yes. How about it? I mean, I don’t know much about this sort of thing, but do you think it’s the sort of thing Jill ought to be doing?”

Wally was moving restlessly about the room.

“I know a lot about it,” he replied, “and it certainly isn’t.” He scowled at the carpet. “Oh, damn everybody!”

“I’m sure poor old Derek wouldn’t like her being in the chorus.”

Wally started so violently that for a moment Freddie was uneasy.

“I mean Underhill,” he corrected himself hastily.

“Freddie,” said Wally, “you’re an awfully good chap, but I wish you would exit rapidly now. Thanks for coming and telling me. Very good of you. This way out.”

“But, old man, I thought we were going to discuss this binge and decide what to do, and all that sort of thing.”

“Some other time. I want to think about it.”

“Oh, you will think about it. Topping! You see, you’re a brainy sort of feller, and you’ll probably hit something.”

“I probably shall, if you don’t go.”

“Eh? Oh, ah, yes!” Freddie struggled into his coat. More than ever did the adult Wally remind him of the dangerous stripling of years gone by. “Well, cheerio. You’ll let me know if you scare up some devilish fruity wheeze, won’t you? I’m at the Biltmore.”

“Very good place to be. Go there now.”

Wally closed the door, and ran down the passage.

“Jill!” he called. He opened the bedroom window and stepped out. “Jill!”

There was no reply.

 

 

CHAPTER XXX

PROMOTING A JILL COMPANY.

TWO mornings later young Mr. Pilkington awoke to happy day-dreams, which had their source in a conversation which had taken place between himself and Jill’s Uncle Chris on the previous night. Somehow, before he was fully aware of what he was saying, he had begun to pour into Major Selby’s sympathetic ears the story of his romance. Encouraged by the other’s kindly receptiveness, he had told him all—his love for Jill, his hopes that some day it might be returned, the difficulties complicating the situation owing to the known prejudices of Mrs. Waddesleigh Peagrim concerning girls who formed the personnel of musical comedy ensembles.

To all these outpourings Major Selby had listened with keen attention, and finally had made one of those luminous suggestions, so simple yet so shrewd, which emanate only from your man of the world. It was Jill’s girlish ambition, it seemed from Major Selby’s statement, to become a force in the motion-picture world. The movies were her objective. When she had told him of this, said Uncle Chris, he had urged her to gain experience by joining in the humblest capacity the company of some good musical play, where she could learn from the best masters so much of the technique of the business. That done, she could go about her life-work, fortified and competent.

There was, said Uncle Chris, a future for a girl in the movies. “Look at Mary Pickford!” said Uncle Chris. “Millions a year. Observe how it would simplify the whole matter if Jill were to become a motion-picture artist and win fame and wealth in her profession. And there can be no reasonable doubt, my boy, that she would with her appearance and charm. Once started, with the proper backing behind her, her future would be assured. And then—of course, as regards her feelings I cannot speak, as I know nothing of them, but we will assume that she is not indifferent to you—what then? You go to your excellent aunt and announce that you are engaged to be married to Jill Mariner. There is a momentary pause. ‘Not the Jill Mariner?’ falters Mrs. Peagrim. ‘Yes, the famous Miss Mariner!’ you reply. Well, I ask you, my boy, can you see her making any objection? Such a thing would be absurd. No, I can see no flaw in the project whatsoever. Of course, there would be the preliminaries.”

“The preliminaries?”

Uncle Chris’ voice became a melodious coo. He beamed upon Mr. Pilkington.

“Well, think for yourself, my boy. These things cannot be done without money. If Jill is to become a motion-picture artist, a special company must be formed to promote her. She must be made a feature, a star, from the beginning. She must learn to walk before she runs. But when the moment arrives for her to take the step, she must not be hampered by lack of money. Whether,” said Uncle Chris, smoothing the crease of his trousers, “you would wish to take shares in the company yourself——”

“Oo——”

“. . . is a matter,” proceeded Uncle Chris, ignoring the interruption, “for you yourself to decide. But I know a dozen men—I can go down Wall Street to-morrow and pick out twenty men—who will be glad to advance the necessary capital. I can assure you that I personally shall not hesitate to risk—if one can call it risking—any loose cash which I may have lying idle at my banker’s.”

He rattled the loose cash which he had lying idle in his trouser-pocket—fifteen cents in all—and stopped to flick a piece of fluff off his coat-sleeve. Mr. Pilkington was thus enabled to insert a word.

“How much would you want?”

“That,” said Uncle Chris meditatively, “is a little hard to say. I should have to look into the matter more closely in order to give you the exact figures. But let us say for the sake of argument that you put up—what shall we say?—a hundred thousand? fifty thousand? No, we will be conservative. Perhaps you had better not begin with more than ten thousand. You can always buy more shares later. I don’t suppose I shall begin with more than ten thousand myself.”

“I could manage ten thousand all right.”

“Excellent. We make progress, we make progress. Very well, then. I go to my Wall Street friends—I would give you their names, only for the present, till something definite has been done, that would hardly be politic—I go to my Wall Street friends, and tell them about the scheme, and say ‘Here is ten thousand dollars. What is your contribution?’ It puts the affair on a business-like basis, you understand. Then we really get to work. But use your own judgment, my boy, you know. Use your own judgment. And, whatever you decide to do, on no account say a word about it to Jill. It would be cruel to raise her hopes until we are certain that we are in a position to enable her to realise them. And, of course, not a word to Mrs. Peagrim.”

“Of course.”

“Very well, then, my boy,” said Uncle Chris affably. “I will leave you to turn the whole thing over in your mind.”

Otis Pilkington had been turning the thing over in his mind, with an interval for sleep, ever since. And the more he thought of it, the better the scheme appeared to him. There was no doubt that this would put a completely different aspect on his wooing of Jill, as far as his aunt Olive was concerned. Against the higher strata of Bohemia Mrs. Peagrim had no prejudice at all. Quite the reverse, in fact. She liked the society of those whose names were often in the papers and much in the public mouth. It seemed to Otis Pilkington, in short, that Love had found a way.

 

 

CHAPTER XXXI

FREDDIE JOINS THE MERRY THRONG.

ON the stage of the Gotham Theatre gloom reigned. Things were going even worse than usual with the ‘My Heart and I’ number, and Johnson Miller, always of an emotional and easily-stirred temperament, had been goaded by the incompetence of his male chorus to a state of frenzy.

“Gentlemen, you silly idiots,” complained Mr. Miller loudly, “you’ve had three weeks to get these movements into your thick heads, and you haven’t done a damn thing right. You’re all over the place. What’s the matter with you? You’re not doing the movements I showed you, you’re doing some you have invented yourselves, and they are rotten. Don’t try to use your own intelligence, because you haven’t any. I’m not blaming you for it. It wasn’t your fault that your nurses dropped you on your heads when you were babies. But it handicaps you when you try to think.”

Of the seven gentlemanly members of the male ensemble present, six looked wounded by this tirade. They had the air of good men wrongfully accused. The seventh, a long-legged young man in faultlessly-fitting tweeds of English cut, seemed, on the other hand, not so much hurt as embarrassed. It was this youth who now stepped down to the darkened footlights and spoke in a remorseful and conscience-stricken manner.

“I say!”

Mr. Miller was a martyr to deafness.

“What?” he shouted. “Can’t hear you!”

“I say, you know, it’s my fault, really.”

“What? Speak up, can’t you!”

Mr. Saltzburg, who had been seated at the piano, absently playing a melody from his unproduced musical comedy, awoke to the fact that the services of an interpreter were needed. He placed his arm about Mr. Miller’s shoulders and his lips to Mr. Miller’s left ear, and drew a deep breath.

“This young man says it is his fault that the movement went wrong.”

“Tell him I only signed on this morning, laddie,” urged the tweed-clad young man, “and I don’t know the steps.”

“He does not know the steps!” roared Mr. Saltzburg.

“I know he doesn’t know the steps,” said Mr. Miller. “Why doesn’t he know the steps? He’s had long enough to learn them.”

“He is new.”

“Why the devil is he new?” cried Mr. Miller, awaking suddenly to the truth and filled with a sense of outrage. “Why didn’t he join with the rest of the company? How can I put on chorus numbers if I am saddled every day with new people to teach? Who engaged him?”

“Mr. Pilkington.”

Mr. Miller waved his hands in a gesture of divine despair, spun round, darted up the aisle, turned, and bounded back.

“What can I do?” he wailed. “My hands are tied. I am hampered. I am handicapped. We open in two weeks, and every day I find somebody new in the company to upset everything I have done. I shall go to Mr. Goble and ask to be released from my contract. I shall. Come along, come along, come along now!” he broke off suddenly. “Why are we wasting time? The whole number once more. The whole number once more from the beginning.”

The young man tottered back to his gentlemanly colleagues, running a finger in an agitated manner round the inside of his collar. He was not used to this sort of thing. In a large experience of amateur theatricals he had never encountered anything like it.

The leading lady came to the end of her refrain, and the gentlemen of the ensemble, who had been hanging about up-stage, began to curvet nimbly down towards her in a double line; the new arrival, with an eye on his nearest neighbour, endeavouring to curvet as nimbly as the others. A clapping of hands from the dark auditorium indicated—inappropriately—that he had failed to do so. Mr. Miller could be perceived—dimly—with all his fingers entwined in his hair.

“Clear the stage!” yelled Mr. Miller. “Not you!” he shouted, as the latest addition to the company began to drift off with the others. “You stay.”

“Me?”

“Yes, you. I shall have to teach you the steps by yourself, or we shall get nowhere. Go up-stage. Start the music again, Mr. Saltzburg. Now, when the refrain begins, come down. Gracefully! Gracefully!”

The young man, pink but determined, began to come down gracefully. And it was while he was thus occupied that Jill and Nelly Bryant entered the wings.

“Who ever is that?” said Nelly.

“New man,” replied one of the chorus gentlemen. “Came this morning.”

Nelly turned to Jill.

“He looks just like Mr. Rooke!” she exclaimed.

“He is Mr. Rooke,” said Jill.

“But what is he doing here?”

Jill bit her lip.

“That’s just what I’m going to ask him myself,” she said.

The opportunity for a private conversation with Freddie did not occur immediately. For ten minutes he remained alone on the stage, absorbing abusive tuition from Mr. Miller; and at the end of that period a further ten minutes was occupied with the rehearsing of the number with the leading lady and the rest of the male chorus. When, finally, a roar from the back of the auditorium announced the arrival of Mr. Goble and at the same time indicated Mr. Goble’s desire that the stage should be cleared and the rehearsal proper begin, a wan smile of recognition and a faint “What ho!” was all that Freddie was able to bestow upon Jill, before—with the rest of the ensemble—they had to go out and group themselves for the opening chorus. It was only when the stage was left vacant for two of the principals to play a scene that Jill was able to draw the last of the Rookes aside in a dark corner and put him to the question.

“Freddie, what are you doing here?”

Freddie mopped his streaming brow. He was feeling limp, battered, and exhausted: and, from what he had gathered, the worst was yet to come.

“Oh, ah, yes! I see what you mean! I suppose you’re surprised to find me in New York, what?”

“I’m not surprised to find you in New York. I knew you had come over. But I am surprised to find you on the stage, being bullied by Mr. Miller.”

“I say,” said Freddie in an awed voice. “He’s a bit of a nut, that lad, what? He reminds me of the troops of Midian in the hymn. The chappies who prowled and prowled around. Like a jolly old tiger at the Zoo at feeding time.”

Jill seized his arm and shook it.

“Don’t ramble, Freddie! Tell me how you got here.”

“Oh, that was pretty simple. I had a letter of introduction to this chappie Pilkington who’s running this show, and, we having got tolerably pally in the last few days, I went to him and asked him to let me join the merry throng. I said I didn’t want any money and the little bit of work I would do wouldn’t make any difference, so he said ‘Right ho!’ ”

“But why? You can’t be doing this for fun, surely?”

“Fun!” A pained expression came into Freddie’s face. “My idea of fun isn’t anything in which jolly old Miller, the bird with the snowy hair, is permitted to mix. No, I didn’t do this for fun. I had a talk with Wally Mason the night before last, and he seemed to think that being in the chorus wasn’t the sort of thing you ought to be doing, so I thought it over and decided that I ought to join the troupe too. Then I could always be on the spot, don’t you know, if there was any trouble.”

Jill was touched.

“You’re a dear, Freddie!”

“I thought, don’t you know, it would make poor old Derek a bit easier in his mind.”

Jill froze.

“I don’t want to talk about Derek, Freddie, please.”

“Oh, I know what you must be feeling. Pretty sick, I’ll bet, what? But if you could see him now. . . .”

“I don’t want to talk about him.”

“He’s pretty cut up, you know. Regrets bitterly and all that sort of thing. He wants you to come back again.”

“I see! He sent you to fetch me?”

“That was more or less the idea.”

“It’s a shame that you had all the trouble. You can get messenger-boys to go anywhere, and do anything, nowadays. Derek ought to have thought of that.”

Freddie looked at her doubtfully.

“You’re rotting, aren’t you? I mean to say you wouldn’t have liked that.”

“Can’t you understand, Freddie? You’ve known me a long time. I should have thought that you would have found out by now that I have a certain amount of pride. If Derek wanted me back, there was only one thing for him to do—come over and find me.”

“Rummy! That’s what Mason said when I told him. You two don’t realise how dashed busy Derek is these days.”

“Busy!”

Something in her face seemed to tell Freddie that he was not saying the right thing, but he stumbled on.

“You’ve no notion how busy he is. I mean to say, elections coming on and so forth. He daren’t stir from the metrop.”

“Of course I couldn’t expect him to do anything that might interfere with his career, could I?”

“Absolutely not. I knew you would see it,” said Freddie, charmed at her reasonableness. All rot, what you read about women being unreasonable. “Then I take it it’s all right, eh, and you will toddle home with me at the earliest opp., and make poor old Derek happy?”

Jill laughed discordantly.

“Poor old Derek,” she echoed. “He has been badly treated, hasn’t he?”

“Well, I wouldn’t say that,” said Freddie doubtfully. “You see, coming down to it, the thing was more or less his fault, what?”

“More or less.”

Freddie glanced at her anxiously. He was not at all sure now that he liked the way she was looking or the tone in which she spoke.

Then he proceeded to approach the matter from another angle.

“I say!”

“Yes?”

“You do love old Derek, don’t you? I mean to say, you know what I mean, love him and all that sort of rot?”

“I don’t know.”

“You don’t know! Oh, I say, come now. You must know! Pull up your socks, old thing. I mean, pull yourself together! You either love a chappie or you don’t.”

Jill smiled painfully.

“How nice it would be if everything were as simple and straightforward as that. Haven’t you ever heard that the dividing line between love and hate is just a thread? Poets have said so a great number of times.”

“Oh, poets!” said Freddie, dismissing the genus with a wave of the hand.

“Can’t you understand a girl in my position not being able to make up her mind whether she loves a man or despises him?”

Freddie shook his head.

“No,” he said. “It sounds dashed silly to me.”

“Then what’s the good of talking?” cried Jill. “It only hurts.”

“But—won’t you come back to England?”

“No.”

“Oh, I say! Be a sport! Take a stab at it!”

Jill laughed again—another of those grating laughs which afflicted Freddie with a sense of foreboding and failure. Something had undoubtedly gone wrong with the works.

“You speak as if you were inviting me to a garden-party. No, I won’t take a stab at it. You’ve a lot to learn about women, Freddie.”

“Women are rum,” conceded that perplexed ambassador.

Jill began to move away.

“Don’t go,” urged Freddie.

“Why not? What’s the use of talking any more? Have you ever broken an arm or a leg, Freddie?”

“Yes,” said Freddie, mystified. “As a matter of fact, my last year at Oxford, playing soccer for the college in a friendly, some blighter barged into me and I came down on my wrist. But——”

“It hurt?”

“Like the deuce.”

“And then it began to get better, I suppose. Well, used you to hit it and twist it and prod it, or did you leave it alone to try and heal? I won’t talk any more about Derek! I simply won’t. I’m all smashed up inside, and I don’t know if I’m ever going to get well again, but at least I’m going to give myself a chance. I’m working as hard as ever I can, and I’m forcing myself not to think of him. I’m in a sling, Freddie, like your wrist, and I don’t want to be prodded. I hope we shall see a lot of each other while you’re over here—you always were the greatest dear in the world—but you mustn’t mention Derek again, and you mustn’t ask me to go home. If you avoid those subjects, we’ll be as happy as possible. And now I’m going to leave you to talk to poor Nelly. She has been hovering round for the last ten minutes, waiting for a chance to speak to you. She worships you, you know.”

Freddie started violently.

“Oh, I say! What rot!”

Jill had gone, and he was still gaping after her, when Nelly Bryant moved towards him—shyly, like a worshipper approaching a shrine.

“Hello, Mr. Rooke!” said Nelly.

“Hullo-ullo-ullo!” said Freddie.

Nelly fixed her large eyes on his face. A fleeting impression passed through Freddie’s mind that she was looking unusually pretty this morning; nor was the impression unjustified.

“How nice it is, your being here.”

Freddie waited for the inevitable question, the question with which Jill had opened their conversation; but it did not come. He was surprised, but relieved. He hated long explanations, and he was very doubtful whether loyalty to Jill could allow him to give them to Nelly. A wave of gratitude to Nelly swept through him when he realised that she was either incurious or else too delicate-minded to show inquisitiveness.

As a matter of fact, it was delicacy that kept Nelly silent. Seeing Freddie here at the theatre she had, as is not uncommon with fallible mortals, put two and two together and made the answer four when it was not four at all. She had been deceived by circumstantial evidence. Jill, whom she had left in England wealthy and secure, she had met again in New York penniless as the result of some Stock Exchange cataclysm in which she remembered with the vagueness with which one recalls once-heard pieces of information, Freddie Rooke had been involved. True, she seemed to recollect hearing that Freddie’s losses had been comparatively slight, but his presence in the chorus of The Rose of America seemed to her proof that after all they must have been devastating. She could think of no other reason except loss of money, which could have placed Freddie in the position in which she now found him, so she accepted it; and, with the delicacy which was innate in her and which a hard life had never blunted, decided, directly she saw him, to make no allusion to the disaster.

Sympathy gave to her manner a kind of maternal gentleness which acted on Freddie, raw from his late encounter with Mr. Johnson Miller, and disturbed by Jill’s attitude in the matter of poor old Derek, like a healing balm. He was glad to be with Nelly as he had never been glad to be with a girl before, and found her soothing as he had never supposed a girl could be soothing.

“I say,” he said. “When this binge is over . . . when the rehearsal finishes, you know, how about a bite to eat?”

“I should love it. I generally go to the Automat.”

“I was thinking of the Cosmopolis.”

“But that’s so expensive.”

“Oh, I don’t know. Much the same as any of the other places, isn’t it?”

Nelly’s manner became more motherly than ever. She bent forward and touched his arm affectionately.

“You haven’t to keep up any front with me,” she said gently. “I don’t care whether you’re rich or poor or what. I mean, of course I’m awfully sorry you’ve lost your money, but it makes it all the easier for us to be real pals, don’t you think so?”

“Lost my money!”

“Well, I know you wouldn’t be here if you hadn’t. I wasn’t going to say anything about it, but when you talked of the Cosmopolis, I just had to. You lost your money in the same thing Jill Mariner lost hers, didn’t you? I was sure you had, the moment I saw you here. Who cares? Money isn’t everything!”

Astonishment kept Freddie silent for an instant. After that he refrained from explanations of his own free will. He accepted the situation and rejoiced in it. Like many other wealthy and modest young men, he had always had a sneaking suspicion at the back of his mind that any girl who was decently civil to him was so from mixed motives—or, more likely, motives that were not even mixed. Well, dash it, here was a girl who seemed to like him, although under the impression that he was broke to the wide. It was an intoxicating experience. It made him feel a better chap.

“You know,” he said, stammering a little, for he found a sudden difficulty in controlling his voice, “you’re a dashed good sort.”

“I’m awfully glad you think so.”

“What was the name of that place again?” asked Freddie after a moment. “The what-ho-something?”

“The Automat?”

“That’s the little chap. We’ll go there, shall we?”

“The food’s quite good. You go and help yourself out of slot-machines, you know.”

“My favourite indoor sport,” said Freddie with enthusiasm.

 

 

CHAPTER XXXII

A JOLLY OLD STAR.

THERE is an insidious something about the atmosphere of a rehearsal of a musical play which saps the finer feelings of those connected with it. Softened by the gentle beauty of the spring weather, Mr. Goble had come to the Gotham Theatre that morning in an excellent temper. Five minutes of The Rose of America had sent him back to the normal; and at ten minutes past eleven he was chewing his cigar and glowering at the stage with all the sweetness gone from his soul. When Wally Mason arrived at a quarter past eleven the manager received him with a grunt and even omitted to offer him a cigar. And when a New York theatrical manager does that, it is a certain sign that his mood is of the worst.

One may find excuses for Mr. Goble. The Rose of America would have tested the equanimity of a far more amiable man: and on Mr. Goble what Otis Pilkington had called its delicate whimsicality jarred profoundly. He had been brought up in the lower-browed school of musical comedy, where you shelved the plot after the opening number and filled in the rest of the evening by bringing on the girls in a variety of exotic costumes, with some good vaudeville specialists to get the laughs. The austere legitimateness of The Rose of America gave him a pain in the neck. He loathed plot, and The Rose of America was all plot.

Why, then, had the earthy Mr. Goble consented to associate himself with the production of this intellectual play? Because he was subject, like all other New York managers, to intermittent spasms of the idea that the time is ripe for a revival of comic opera.

Otis Pilkington, happening along with the script of The Rose of America and the cash to back it, had caught Mr. Goble in the full grip of an attack, and all the arrangements had been made before the latter emerged from the influence. He now regretted his rash act.

“Say, listen,” he said to Wally, his gaze on the stage, his words proceeding from the corner of his mouth, “you’ve got to stick around with this show after it opens on the road. We’ll talk terms later. But we’ve got to get it right, don’t care what it costs. See?”

“You think it will need fixing?”

“Fixing! It’s all wrong! It don’t add up right! You’ll have to re-write it from end to end.”

“Well, I’ve got some ideas about it. I saw it played by amateurs last summer, you know. I could make a quick job of it, if you want me to. But will the author stand for it?”

Mr. Goble allowed a belligerent eye to stray from the stage, and twisted it round in Wally’s direction.

“Say, listen! He’ll stand for anything I say! I’m the little guy that gives orders around here. I’m the big noise.”

As if in support of this statement he suddenly emitted a terrific bellow. The effect was magical. The refined and painstaking artists on the stage stopped as if they had been shot. The assistant stage-director bent sedulously over the footlights, which had now been turned up, shading his eyes with the prompt script.

“What was that that guy said? Lord Finchley’s last speech. Take it again.”

The gentleman who was playing the part of Lord Finchley, an English character actor who specialised in London “nuts,” raised his eyebrows, annoyed. He had never before come into contact with Mr. Goble as stage-director, and, accustomed to the suaver methods of his native land, he was finding the experience trying.

“The speech about Omar Khayyam?” he inquired with suppressed irritation.

“I thought that was the way you said it. All wrong! It’s Omar of Khayyam.”

“I think you will find that Omar Khayyam is the—ah—generally accepted version of the poet’s name,” said the portrayer of Lord Finchley, adding beneath his breath, “You silly ass.”

“That wasn’t the way I heard it,” said Mr. Goble doggedly. “Did you?” he enquired of Wally. “I thought he was born at Khayyam.”

“You’re probably quite right,” said Wally, “but, if so, everybody else has been wrong for a good many years. It’s usually supposed that the gentleman’s name was Omar Khayyam. Khayyam, Omar J. Born 1050 a.d., educated privately and at Bagdad University. Represented Persia in the Olympic Games of 1072, winning the sitting high-jump and the egg-and-spoon race. The Khayyams were quite a well-known family in Bagdad, and there was a lot of talk when Omar, who was Mrs. Khayyam’s pet son, took to drink and writing poetry. They had had it all fixed for him to go into his father’s date business.”

Mr. Goble was impressed. He had a respect for Wally’s opinion, for Wally had written Follow the Girl, and look what a knock-out that had been. He stopped the rehearsal again.

“Go back to that Khayyam speech,” he said, interrupting Lord Finchley in mid-sentence.

“ ‘In the words of Omar of Khayyam. . . .’ ”

Mr. Goble clapped his hands.

“Cut that ‘of,’ ” he said. “The show’s too long anyway.”

And, having handled a delicate matter in masterly fashion, he leaned back in his chair and chewed the end off another cigar.

“How I ever came to put on junk like this beats me,” he confessed frankly to Wally.

“You probably saw that there was a good idea at the back of it,” suggested Wally. “There is, you know. Properly handled, it’s an idea that could be made into a success.”

“What would you do with it?”

“Oh, a lot of things,” said Wally warily. In his younger and callower days he had sometimes been rash enough to scatter views on the reconstruction of plays broadcast, to find them gratefully absorbed and acted upon and treated as a friendly gift. His affection for Mr. Goble was not so overpowering as to cause him to give him ideas for nothing now. “Any time you want me to fix it for you, I’ll come along. About one and a half per cent. of the gross would meet the case, I think.”

Mr. Goble faced him, registering the utmost astonishment and horror.

“One and a half per cent. for fixing a show like this? Why, darn it, there’s hardly anything to do to it. It’s in!”

“You called it junk just now.”

“Well, all I meant was that it wasn’t the sort of thing I cared for myself. The public will eat it. Take it from me, the time is just about ripe for a revival of comic opera.”

“This one will want all the reviving you can give it.”

“But that long boob, that Pilkington—he would never stand for my handing you one and a half per cent.”

“I thought you were the little guy who arranged things round here.”

“But he’s got money in the show.”

“Well, if he wants to get any out he’d better call in somebody to rewrite it. You don’t have to engage me if you don’t want to. But I know I could make a good job of it. There’s just one little twist the thing needs, and you would have quite a different piece.”

“What’s that?” inquired Mr. Goble casually.

“Oh, just a little—what shall I say?—a little touch of what-d’-you-call-it and a bit of thingummy. You know the sort of thing. That’s all it wants.”

Mr. Goble worried his cigar, and essayed a new form of attack.

“You’re a good kid. I like having you around. I was half thinking of giving you a show to do this fall. Corking book. French farce. Ran two years in Paris. But what’s the good, if you want the earth?”

“Always useful, the earth. Good thing to have.”

“See here, if you’ll fix up this show for half of one per cent., I’ll give you the other to do.”

“You shouldn’t slur your words so. For a moment I thought you said ‘half of one per cent.’ One and a half of course you really said.”

“Oh, damn it, one and a half, then,” said Mr. Goble morosely. “What’s the good of splitting straws?”

“Forgotten Sports of the Past—Splitting the Straw. All right. If you drop me a line to that effect, legibly signed with your name, I’ll wear it next my heart. I shall have to go now. I have a date. Good-bye. Glad everything’s settled and everybody happy.”

For some moments after Wally had left Mr. Goble sat hunched up in his orchestra chair, smoking sullenly. There was, of course, no real necessity why he should have employed Wally. New York was full of librettists who would have done the work equally well for half the money, but, like most managers, Mr. Goble’s mental processes were like those of a sheep. Follow the Girl was the last outstanding musical success in New York theatrical history; Wally had written it; therefore nobody but Wally was capable of re-writing The Rose of America. The thing had for Mr. Goble the inevitability of Fate.

Having decided that Wally had swelled head, and not feeling much better, Mr. Goble concentrated his attention on the stage. The unfortunate Lord Finchley was back again, playing another of his scenes. Mr. Goble glared at Lord Finchley. He did not like him, and he did not like the way he was speaking his lines.

Otis Pilkington had gone to the straight stage to find an artist, and had secured the not uncelebrated Wentworth Hill, who had come over from London to play in an English comedy which had just closed. The newspapers had called the play thin, but had thought that Wentworth Hill was an excellent comedian. Mr. Hill thought so, too, and it was consequently a shock to his already disordered nerves when a bellow from the auditorium stopped him in the middle of one of his speeches and a rasping voice informed him that he was doing it all wrong.

“Really?” Wentworth Hill, who a few years earlier had spent several terms at Oxford before being sent down for aggravated disorderliness, had brought little away with him from that seat of learning except the Oxford manner. This he now employed upon Mr. Goble with an icy severity which put the last touch to the manager’s fermenting state of mind. “Perhaps you would be kind enough to tell me just how you think the part should be played?”

Mr. Goble marched down the aisle.

“Speak out to the audience,” he said, stationing himself by the orchestra pit. “You’re turning your head away all the darned time.”

“I may be wrong,” said Mr. Hill, “but I have played a certain amount, don’t you know, in pretty good companies, and I was always under the impression that one should address one’s remarks to the person one was speaking to, not deliver a recitation to the gallery. I was taught that that was the legitimate method.”

The word touched off all the dynamite in Mr. Goble. Of all things in the theatre he detested most the “legitimate method.”

“Legitimate! Where do you get that legitimate stuff? You aren’t playing Ibsen!”

“Nor am I playing a knock-out vaudeville sketch.”

“Don’t talk back at me.”

“Kindly don’t shout at me! Your voice is unpleasant enough without your raising it.”

Open defiance was a thing which Mr. Goble had never encountered before, and for a moment it deprived him of breath. He recovered it, however, almost immediately.

“You’re fired!”

“On the contrary,” said Mr. Hill, “I’m resigning.” He drew a green-covered script from his pocket and handed it with an air to the pallid assistant stage-director. “I trust that you will be able to find someone who will play the part according to your ideas,” he said.

“I’ll find,” bellowed Mr. Goble at his vanishing back, “a chorus-man who’ll play it a damned sight better than you.” He waved to the assistant stage-director. “Send the chorus-men on the stage.”

There was a moment, when the seven male members of The Rose of America ensemble lined up self-consciously before his gleaming eyes, when Mr. Goble repented his brave words. An uncomfortable feeling passed across his mind that Fate had called his bluff and that he would not be able to make good.

And then, just as a cold reaction from his fervid mood was about to set in, he perceived that Providence had been good to him. There, at the extreme end of the line, stood a young man who, as far as appearance went, was the ideal Lord Finchley—as far as appearance went, a far better Lord Finchley than the late Mr. Hill. He beckoned imperiously.

“You at the end, what’s your name?”

“Rooke. Frederick Rooke, don’t you know.”

“You’re English, aren’t you?”

“Eh? Oh, yes, absolutely!”

“Ever played a part before?”

“Part? Oh, I see what you mean. Well, in amateur theatricals, you know, and all that sort of rot.”

His words were music to Mr. Goble’s ears. He felt that his Napoleonic action had justified itself by success. His fury left him.

“Well, you play the part of Lord Finchley from now on. Come to my office this afternoon for your contract. Clear the stage. We’ve wasted enough time.”

Five minutes later, in the wings, Freddie, receiving congratulations from Nelly Bryant, asserted himself.

“Not the Automat to-day, I think, what! Now that I’m a jolly old star and all that sort of thing, it can’t be done. Directly this is over we’ll roll round to the Cosmopolis. A slight celebration is indicated, what? Right ho! Rally round, dear heart, rally round.”

 

 

CHAPTER XXXIII

THE MIDDEST VICTORIAN.

THE lobby of the Hotel Cosmopolis is the exact centre of New York, the spot where at certain hours one is sure of meeting everybody one knows. The first person that Nelly and Freddie saw, as they passed through the swing doors, was Jill.

“What ho!” said Freddie. “Waiting for someone?”

“Hullo, Freddie. Yes, I’m waiting for Wally Mason. I got a note from him this morning, asking me to meet him here. I’m a little early. I haven’t congratulated you yet. You’re wonderful!”

“Thanks, old girl. Our young hero is making pretty hefty strides in his chosen profesh, what! Yes, it is a bit of all right, taking it by and large, isn’t it? I mean to say, the salary, the jolly old salary, you know . . . quite a help when a fellow’s lost all his money.”

Jill was surprised to observe that the Last of the Rookes was contorting his face in an unsightly manner that seemed to be an attempt at a wink, pregnant with hidden meaning. She took her cue dutifully, though without understanding.

“Oh, yes,” she replied.

Freddie seemed grateful. With a cordial “Cheerio!” he led Nelly off to the grill-room.

His interview with Jill at the theatre had left him with the conviction that there was only one thing for him to do, and that was to cable poor old Derek to forget impending elections and all the rest of it and trickle over to America at once. He knew that he would never have the courage to reopen the matter with Jill himself. As an ambassador he was a spent force. If Jill was to be wooed from her mood of intractability, Derek was the only man to do it. Freddie was convinced that, seeing him in person, she would melt and fall into his arms.

Jill, left alone in the lobby, was finding the moments pass quite pleasantly. She liked watching the people as they came in.

Presently the swing-doors revolved rather more violently than usual, and Mr. Goble burst into view.

“Hello!” said Mr. Goble. “All alone?”

Jill was about to say that the condition was merely temporary when the manager went on:

“Come and have a bit of lunch.”

“Thank you very much,” said Jill, with the politeness of dislike, “but I’m waiting for someone.”

“Chuck him!” advised Mr. Goble cordially.

“No, thanks, I couldn’t, really.”

Mr. Goble subjected her to a prolonged stare, seemed about to speak, changed his mind, and swung off moodily in the direction of the grill-room. He was not used to this sort of treatment.

He had hardly gone when Wally appeared.

“What was he saying to you?” demanded Wally abruptly, without preliminary greeting.

“He was asking me to lunch.”

Wally was silent for a moment. His good-natured face wore an unwonted scowl.

“He went in there, of course?” he said, pointing to the grill-room.

“Yes.”

“Then let’s go into the other room,” said Wally. He regained his good-humour. “It was awfully good of you to come. I didn’t know whether you would be able to.”

“It was very nice of you to invite me.”

Wally grinned.

“How perfect our manners are! It’s a treat to listen. How did you know that that was the one hat in New York I wanted you to wear?”

“Oh, these things get about. Do you like it?”

“It’s wonderful. Let’s take this table, shall we?”

They sat down. The dim, tapestry-hung room soothed Jill. She was feeling a little tired after the rehearsal. At the far end of the room an orchestra was playing a tune that she remembered and liked. Her mind went back to the last occasion on which she and Wally had sat opposite each other at a restaurant. How long ago it seemed. She returned to the present to find Wally speaking to her.

“You left very suddenly the other night,” said Wally.

“I didn’t want to meet Freddie.”

Wally looked at her commiseratingly.

“I don’t want to spoil your lunch,” he said, “but Freddie knows all. He has tracked you down. He met Nelly Bryant, whom he seems to have made friends with in London, and she told him where you were and what you were doing. For a girl who fled at his mere approach the night before last, you don’t seem very agitated by the news,” he said, as Jill burst into a peal of laughter.

“You haven’t heard?”

“Heard what?”

She told him the story of Freddie’s stage triumph.

Wally threw his head back and uttered a roar of appreciation.

“But what on earth made Freddie join the company at all?”

A sudden gravity descended upon Jill. The words had reminded her of the thing which she was perpetually striving to keep out of her thoughts.

“He said he wanted to be there to keep an eye on me.”

Gravity is infectious. Wally’s smile disappeared. He, too, had been recalled to thoughts which were not pleasant.

“Freddie was quite right. I didn’t think he had so much sense.”

“Freddie was not right,” flared Jill. The recollection of her conversation with that prominent artist still had the power to fire her independent soul. “I’m not a child. I can look after myself. What I do is my own business.”

“I’m afraid you’re going to find that your business is several people’s business. I am interested in it myself. I don’t like your being on the stage. Now bite my head off.”

“It’s very kind of you to bother about me. . . .”

“I said ‘Bite my head off!’ I didn’t say ‘Freeze me!’ I take the licence of an old friend who in his time has put worms down your back, and I repeat—I don’t like your being on the stage.”

“I shouldn’t have thought you would have been so”—Jill sought for a devastating adjective—“so mid-Victorian.”

“As far as you are concerned, I’m the middest Victorian in existence.” Wally met her indignant gaze squarely. “I—do—not—like—your—being—on—the—stage! Especially in any company which Ike Goble is running.”

“I can take care of myself,” she said.

“I don’t doubt it,” said Wally. “And you could probably take care of yourself if you fell into a muddy pond. But I shouldn’t like to stand on the bank and watch you doing it. I know what girls in the chorus have to go through. Hanging about for hours in draughts, doing nothing, while the principals go through their scenes, and yelled at if they try to relieve the tedium of captivity with a little light conversation. . . .”

“I like the work.”

“While it’s new, perhaps, but——”

Jill interrupted him passionately.

“Oh, can’t you understand!” she cried. “I want the work. I need it. I want something to do, something to occupy my mind. I hate talking about it, but you know how things are with me. Freddie must have told you. Even if he didn’t, you must have guessed, meeting me here all alone and remembering how things were when we last met. You must understand! Haven’t you ever had a terrible shock or a dreadful disappointment that seemed to smash up the whole world? And didn’t you find that the only possible thing to do was to work and work and work as hard as ever you could? When I first came to America I nearly went mad. Then I met Nelly Bryant and got this work to do. It saved me. It kept me busy all day and tired me out, and didn’t give me time to think. The harder it is, the better it suits me. It’s an antidote. I simply wouldn’t give it up now. As for what you were saying, I must put up with that. The other girls do, so why shouldn’t I?”

“They are toughened to it.”

“Then I must get toughened to it. What else is there for me to do? I must do something.”

“Marry me!” said Wally, reaching across the table and putting his hand on hers. The light in his eyes lit up his homely face like a lantern.

(To be continued.)

 

---

Notes:
Compare this with the American serialization in Collier’s Weekly.

Note that the chapter divisions and their titles and numbering are different in this edition than in other versions of the novel. A table of correspondences (opens in a new browser window or tab) is on this site.

Printer’s error corrected above:
Magazine, p. 99b, had «Salzburg» twice; corrected to «Saltzburg» as in previous parts and as in all other versions

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