Bambi Part 34

"That great mammoth?"

"He's like Apollo, or Adonis."

"He certainly needs all Olympus to stretch out on. He clutters up this little house."

"I am sorry you don't like Jarvis, Professor."

"I do like him. I am used to him. I enjoy disagreeing with him. I wish he would come home."

His daughter beamed on him.

"Then he is also useful as a whetstone upon which you sharpen your wits.

William Morris had nothing on me when I added Jarvis to our Penates."

Jarvis's first letter she read aloud to her father, and they both laughed at it, it was so Jarvis-like.

"Dear Bambi," he wrote, "I am in this vile cesspool of humanity again, and I feel like a drowning gnat. I did not go to the club, as you told me to, because I thought I could live more economically if I took a room somewhere and 'ate around,' I left my bag at the station, while I went to an address given me by a young man I met on the train. He said it was plain but clean. He told me some experiences he had had in boarding and lodging houses. They were awful! This place is an old three-story house, of the fiendish mid-Victorian brand--dark halls, high ceilings, and marble mantels. It seemed clean, so I took a room, almost as large as your linen closet, where I shall spend the few days I am here. My room has a court outlook, and was hotter than Tophet last night, but of course you expect to be hot in summer.

"I went to see Miss Harper, at the time appointed, this morning. She lives up Riverside Drive. She is a pleasant woman, who seems to know what she wants. She thinks that if I write a new third act, and change some things in the second act, Mr. Parke might produce it. I defended the present form, and tried to show her that the changes she wants will weaken the message of the play. She says she doesn't care a fig for my message. She wants a good part. My impulse was to take my work and leave, but I remembered how important this chance seemed to you, so I swallowed my pride, though it choked me, and promised to make a scenario of the changes, to submit at once. I may have to stay on a few days to do things over as she wants me to do. The play is ruined for me, already.

"I suppose it is cool and quiet where you are. The noise and heat are terrible here. I forgot to say that I have to hurry with 'Success,'

because the lady is going to Europe in a fortnight, and insists it must be finished by that time. I hope she won't crack the whip. It makes me nervous. I am such a new trained bear.

"I'd rather argue with the Professor to-night than be here, or even talk with you. I wish you didn't want me to be a success, Bambi. Couldn't you let me off? My regards to you both. Tell Ardelia that n.o.body in New York knows anything about cooking. There seem to be thousands of people eating around, and oh, such food! Good night.

"JARVIS."

"He is homesick," said the Professor, as Bambi finished and folded the letter.

"Homesick to argue with you," snapped Bambi.

"He said, 'Or talk with you.'"

"Excuse me. He said, 'Or even talk with you.' I shall punish him for that."

"He isn't comfortable. Hot and mid-Victorian. He isn't responsible,"

excused her father.

"He won't be comfortable when he gets the penalty," said Bambi, fiercely.

"I am surprised that he consented to change his play. Samson's locks are certainly shorn."

"What do you mean by that?"

"You have shaved him, my dear."

"Are you calling me Delilah?"

"You can't deny that he would never be where he is, doing what he is now, if he were not married to you."

"What of it? Time he had a little discipline. He needs it and his work needs it."

"Well, he's getting it."

"Are you pitying him because he isn't as mad as he was when I caught him?"

"He's still mad, nor' by nor'east."

"I'll make a human being and a big artist out of Jarvis before I am through."

"Be careful that you don't lose everything in him that makes him Jarvis."

"Do you think that I can't do it?"

"I only say that creation, like vengeance, is G.o.d's. It is dangerous when man tampers with it."

Upon a sudden impulse, she went to lean over him and kiss his bald head.

"I'll remember that, Herr Vater," said she.

As the result of their talk, her reply to Jarvis was not so fierce as she had planned to make it, in her first indignation at his "even you."

She did not pat him on the back for making concessions about the play.

She merely said she was glad he was acting so sensibly about it, and that if she was the mainspring of that action she was proud. As for letting him off, he was the only living person who could keep him on, or let him off. If he was the sort of softling who could not stand up under life's discipline because it was uncomfortable or unpleasant, then no power on earth could hold him to accomplishment. But, endowed as he was, with brain, imagination, sensibilities, health, it lay in his power to actually create himself, to say "such and such a man will I be," making every touch of life's sculpturing fingers count, "even the pinches," she added, picturesquely. Of course he must stay in New York as long as necessary. If he was uncomfortable, he must move. He could not do good work under irritating conditions. She told him that the Professor missed him, and Ardelia contemplated sending a box of goodies. She omitted any mention of her own state of mind or feelings in regard to him or his actions. Here was the punishment for his "even you," and he pondered long over it.

"What on earth did she marry me for? She doesn't care a straw about me, only what I can make of myself," he mused, a trifle bitterly. But he went to work at "Success" with the abandon of a house-wrecker, pulling it to the foundation. He used the sledgehammer on scenes he loved. He loosened and pitched out phrases he had mulled over long, and in the dust of the affray he forgot the sting that lay behind Bambi's words. If she wanted him famous, famous would he be.

XIV

Three boiling days, and the major part of three boiling nights, Jarvis sweated and toiled over the scenario for the revised two acts. It was work that irked him, because he hated doing things over when the first glad joy of inspiration was gone, but he stuck to it. And the fourth day he set out for the house far up the Riverside Drive, armed with his ma.n.u.script and a sense of triumph.

Arrived at his destination, the butler announced that Miss Harper had gone on a motor trip for two days. No, she had left no word. Angry at himself for not having provided against such a situation by an appointment with the lady, furious at the thought of two days' delay, he betook himself to the Parke offices in the hope of finding some word for him there. Mr. Parke was busy and could not see him, announced the keeper of the keys to heaven, who sat at the outer gate. No, Mrs. Parke had left no word for a Mr. Jocelyn. No, she knew nothing of Mrs. Parke's plans or movements. No, she could not ask Mr. Parke. Besides, he wouldn't know.

Jarvis descended the many stairs in a thickening gloom. Wait, wait, wait! That was part of the discipline Bambi talked of so wisely. Well, he then and there decided that the day would come when he would walk past every managerial outpost in the city, and invade the sanctum without so much as presenting a visiting-card.

The automobile trip lasted four days instead of two, and he spent them in a fret of impatience. He worked at the third act, sure of her approval. On the fifth day she received him. She liked the idea of the second act--she would have none of the new third act. At the end of his enthusiastic sketch of how it would run, the reading of new scenes, the telling of new business, she yawned slightly, and said she didn't like it at all. Unless he could get a good third act, she wouldn't care for the piece. He a.s.sured her this would be a good third act when it was worked up. No use working it up. She knew now she would never like it.

Jarvis rose.

"I will submit the new third act to-morrow. Have you any suggestions you wish to incorporate?"

"Oh, no. If I could write plays, I would not be acting them. It's easier and more lucrative to write."

"I don't find it easy enough to be a bore," replied Jarvis. "I will be here at eleven to-morrow."

"Make it three."

"Very well, three."