A Top-Floor Idyl Part 22

I rose, angrily, and paced the room several times.

"That's arrant nonsense," I finally declared. "You will go to Gordon's and you will also return to Madame Felicie Smith's, for a short time. In the meanwhile I will have the piano moved into your room, because it is a silly inc.u.mbrance in mine. You can practise a little by yourself, if Porter allows you to. Then, as soon as he says it is all right, you will go to the Signora Stefano, or to Richetti or some such expert teacher.

I have some money in the bank and I am going to advance it to you, because you can return it later on, when you give concerts or sing at the opera. If you don't give it back, I'll dun you, sue you, set the minions of the law after you, if such a promise can give you any comfort. Don't you dare answer, it is bad for your throat to speak too much, especially when it is nonsense. And I'm going to make a lot more money besides. I have an idea about an old maid and a canary that the magazines will bid for, hungrily. It's the finest thing I ever wrote, although it is still incubating in my head."

She rose, ever so carefully, so as not to awaken Baby Paul, and deposited him in his crib. Then she came to me with both hands outstretched.

"Do you really think, David, that I would squander your poor little savings? Do you think I am one to speculate on friendship and try to coin money out of kindness?"

She held both my shoulders, her great beautiful eyes seeming to search my soul, which the tears that trembled on her lashes appeared to sear as if they had been drops of molten lead. With some effort, I brought a smile to my lips and shook my head.

"You are a silly infant," I told her, gravely. "Little Paul, on the other hand, is a man, an individual endowed with intelligence beyond his months. He will understand that you are not at all concerned in this matter and that I only want to help him out. I want to give him a mother of whom he will be proud, one who will make the little scrivener she met on a top floor ever boastful that once upon a time he was a friend and still maintains her regard. I am only seeking to help him, since we are great pals, to graduate from long frocks to trousers, in antic.i.p.ation of college and other steps towards useful manhood. He is a particular friend of mine; he smiles upon me; he has drooled upon my shirtfront and pulled my moustache. We understand one another, Paul and I, and together we deplore your feminine obstinacy."

To my frightful embarra.s.sment Frances let go of my shoulders and seized my hands, which she carried swiftly as a flash to her lips, before I could draw them away.

"When I teach him to pray, you will not be forgotten, David. We--we will speak of this some other time, because, perhaps, after all, my voice will never return--as it was before, and then all this will have been but--but idle speculations--and--and I will never forget your goodness."

Just then, Baby Paul, perhaps thinking that our conversation had lasted long enough, gave the signal for me to retire. He is a rather impatient young man, and I stepped out, closing the door behind me, and went to my room where I thankfully removed the frock coat, after which, David was himself again.

Richetti, I have heard, is a marvelous teacher, and there is no better judge of the possibilities of a voice. I am going to interview him and explain the intricacies of the case. Then, I shall tell him that if he sees the slightest chance he will put me under lasting obligation by sending the bills to me, meanwhile, a.s.suring Frances that he is teaching her gratuitously, in order to enhance his reputation by turning out such a consummate artist. She will fall in my snare and be captured by my wiles.

There are various fashions, I have always heard, of causing the demise of a cat. Here is where the shrewd and clever conspirator is going to use the plots of his fiction in real life. I am thankful that my professional training is at last to serve me so well!

CHAPTER XV

THE LIGHTNING STROKE

More days have gone by. This morning I happened to meet Jamieson, who is always exceedingly kind and urbane to his flock of authors.

"My dear fellow," he told me, "you must not be discouraged if the 'Land o' Love' does not sell quite so well as some of the others, for I have not the slightest doubt that your next book will more than make up for it. A man is not a machine and he cannot always maintain the same level of accomplishment. We are only printing a couple of thousand copies to start with, but, of course, your advance payment, on the day of publication, will be the same as usual."

He said all this so pleasantly that I almost forgot that this payment was called for on my contract and felt personally obliged to him.

"We will send you a few advance copies by the end of the week," he said.

"It might pay you to look one of them over, carefully. You have not read the thing for a good many months, now, and you will get a better perspective on it. I have no doubt that you will agree with me that a return to your former manner is rather advisable. I am ever so glad to have seen you. Now, don't worry over this because you have not yet written half the good stuff that's in you, and I certainly look forward to a big seller from you, some day."

I shook hands with him, feeling greatly indebted, and walked slowly home. There can be few better judges than Jamieson, and his estimate of the "Land o' Love" leaves me rather blue. I have been so anxious to make money in order to be able to help in the improvement of those repaired vocal chords of Frances and start her on the way towards the success I believe is in store for her, that I feel as if the impending failure of my novel were a vicious blow of fate directed against her. Why was I ever impelled to leave aside some of the conventions of my trade, to abandon the path I have hitherto trodden in safety? One or two multimillionaires may have been able to condemn the public to perdition, but a struggling author might as safely, in broad daylight, throw s...o...b..a.l.l.s at a chief of police. Before I go any further I must carefully read over the seven or eight score pages I have already done for the successor of "Land o' Love," and find out whether I am not drifting into too iconoclastic a way of writing.

With my head full of such disquieting thoughts I walked home. As I turned the corner of my street, I saw Frances, a good way ahead of me.

She was doubtless returning from Gordon's studio. Her darling little bundle was in her arms and she hurried along, very fast.

"Baby Paul must be hungry," I decided, "and she will run up the stairs.

No use hastening after her, for her door will be closed. Frieda will soon come in, and we shall all go over to Camus, as we arranged last evening."

Once in my room I took up my ma.n.u.script and began to study it, trying to disguise myself under the skin of the severest critic. I started, with a frown, to read the lines, in a manner that was an excellent imitation of a grumpy teacher I remembered, who used to read our poor little essays as if they had been doc.u.ments convicting us of manslaughter, to say the very least. And yet, so hopelessly vacillating is my nature that I had read but half a chapter before I was figuratively patting myself on the back, in egotistic approval of my own work. I continued, changing a word here and there and dreamily repeating some sentences, the better to judge of their effectiveness, until there was a knock at my door and Frieda came in, looking scared.

"See here, Dave, I've just been in to see Frances. She's come back with a dreadful headache and can't go out to dinner with us. I asked if I could make her a cup of tea and she wouldn't hear of it. The room is all dark and she's lying on the bed."

"I'll go out at once and get Dr. Porter!" I exclaimed.

"No, I proposed it, but she won't see any one. She a.s.sures me that it will be all right by to-morrow and insists that it is not worth while bothering about. She wants us to go without her."

"Well, at least I can go in and find out whether there is anything I can do," I persisted.

"No, Dave, she told me that she wanted to be left alone. Please don't go in. Her head aches so dreadfully that she must have absolute quiet, for a time."

I looked at Frieda, helplessly, and she returned the glance. This was not a bit like Frances; she is always so glad of our company, so thankful for my stout friend's petting and so evidently relieved by such sympathy as we can extend that we could make no head nor tail of the change so suddenly come upon her. The two of us felt like children open-eyed at some undeserved scolding.

"Well, come along, Frieda," I said, much disgruntled. "I suppose we might as well have something to eat."

"I don't care whether I have anything or not," she answered, dubiously.

"Neither do I, my dear," I a.s.sented.

"Then put on your hat and coat and come to the flat. I have half a cold chicken in the icebox and a bottle of beer. I don't want to go to Camus."

So we departed, dully, pa.s.sing before the door that had been denied us for the first time in lo, these many months. The loose stair creaked dismally under Frieda's weight, and the dim hall lights reminded me of Eulalie's churchly tapers. On the way to the flat I stopped at a bakery and purchased four chocolate eclairs wherewith to help console Frieda.

Once in the apartment, my friend seemed to regain some of her flagging spirits. She exhumed the fowl from her icebox and cut slices from a loaf of bread, while I opened a can of small French peas, which she set in a saucepan placed on her gas-stove. Also, I laid the eclairs symmetrically on a blue plate I took from the dresser, after which Frieda signalled to me to open the bottle of beer and our feast began in silence.

"I wonder how Trappists enjoy their meals," I finally remarked.

"They don't!" snapped out Frieda.

Yet a moment later she was talking as fast as usual, giving me many interesting details in regard to the effects of sick-headache on womankind and gradually abandoning the subject to revert to painting.

"I have sold Orion," she said. "He is going to Chicago. I have been thinking of a Leda with a swan, but I'm afraid it's too hackneyed. Why don't you suggest something to me? That beer is getting flat in your gla.s.s; you haven't touched it. Hand me an eclair."

I held the plate out to her, the while I sought to remember something mythological, and she helped herself. With profound disdain she treated the few suggestions I timidly made.

"You had better go home, David," she told me at last. "We are as cheerful as the two remaining tails of the Kilkenny cats. Good night, I am going to darn stockings."

So I took my departure and returned to Mrs. Milliken's where I found a message waiting for me:

"Why the devil don't you have a telephone? Come right up to the studio.

"GORDON."

I knocked very softly at the door of the room opposite mine and was bidden to come in. Frances was lying on her sofa, and the light was not turned on. I saw her only vaguely and thought that she put a hand up to her forehead with a weary motion rather foreign to her.

"I hope you will pardon me," I said. "I have just come back from dinner and find that I must go out again. Before leaving, I wanted to make sure that you were not very ill and to ascertain whether there is anything I can do for you."

"No, David. Thank you ever so much," she answered. "As always you are ever so kind. By to-morrow this will have pa.s.sed away and I shall be as well as ever. It--it is one of those things that never last very long and I am already better. Mrs. Milliken sent me up something, and I need nothing more. Good night, David."

She had spoken very softly and gently, in the new voice that was very clear. The change in it was most remarkable. I had been so used to the husky little tone that I could hardly realize that it was the same Frances. And yet its present purity of timbre was like a normal and natural part of her, like her heavy tresses and glorious eyes or the brave strong soul of her.