My Actor Husband Part 16

I went to the telephone directly I entered my room and called for the room clerk. I told him I wanted another room on the same floor. While I waited for the bell-boy to bring the key I wrote a note and pinned it on the mirror where it would attract Will's attention. "I have gone to another room. Don't disturb me, please. We'll talk it over to-morrow."

When I had turned the key in the lock and had surveyed my own domain I felt strangely light in the head. I opened a window and mechanically arranged my toilet articles. Then I disrobed, unpinned my hair and cleansed my face with cold cream. At least, I _a.s.sume_ that I did all these, for the next day, when I awoke to consciousness, everything was in place, my hair was braided in two pig-tails, and my face still showed traces of cold cream. From the moment I had locked myself in I had no recollection of what followed. The doctor called it "syncope."

CHAPTER XIV

"St. Louis, Mo., March 10th.

"Darling Girl:

"I am taking for granted that you arrived safely. There has been no word from you since you returned home a week since. I hope you found the apartment in good shape and that things did not suffer too much wear and tear at the hands of our late tenants.

"Just as I predicted, the folks were much disappointed at not seeing you here. There was a regular family reunion. Grandma Murray came on from Indianapolis and two of my paternal aunts all the way from Kansas. As none of the relatives has ever seen Boy you may imagine how disappointed they were. However, it couldn't be helped.

Naturally I did not tell them that you had been to Cincinnati. I let them infer that you were not sufficiently recovered from the effects of your recent operation to permit your making the trip. I fully appreciate the state of your nerves and that a relapse was inevitable; just the same I think you should write me and keep me informed of your condition. Take it quietly for a few weeks and you'll come out all right. Don't let that Cincinnati affair prey on your mind: a little later when your health is better, you won't take it so seriously. Now don't jump at the conclusion that I don't appreciate the way you played up, or the narrow escape I have had. You may feel sure that sort of thing will never happen again.

And that reminds me: I had a letter from Mr. F. saying he had consulted his lawyer about taking action against the Club Window and had been advised to let the matter drop. (_Requiescat in pace!_) He wished to be remembered to you.

"The weather is depressing. I'm not feeling up to my standard. I suspect I have been eating too much and exercising too little.

Well, Girlie, the train leaves in an hour and I have still some odds and ends to look after. I enclose our route to follow Kansas City. Now write me at once or I shall begin to worry about you. A bunch of kisses to Boy from his Dad, reserving all you want for yourself, of course.

"With all my love,

"Your devoted husband,

"WILL."

This letter was a week old. I had made several attempts to answer it but all had ended in the waste-basket. Following my home-coming, I had been glad to lie quietly in bed in obedience to the doctor's orders. A heavy inertia lay upon me. My nights were an amorphous jumble of improbable situations; I awoke of mornings with a nausea at heart. My mind was furred with unpleasant memories. It revolved in circles. The more I thought the faster it whirled, resulting in complete confusion. Inner adjustment seemed impossible. I realized in a hazy way that I must arouse myself or fall a prey to melancholia. Even Boy's laughter as it was wafted to me from another room unleashed a thousand apprehensions.

The effulgence his being had shed into my life was now dimmed by fears for his future. Should I be able to steer his craft, even launch it safely, _preparedly_ on the turbulent sea of life? It was, probably, in the very nature of things that I should exclude my husband from any partic.i.p.ation in my plans for the child. A fierce, almost a defiant, sense of proprietary right began to a.s.sert itself in relation to our son. The inertia gave way to a state of turbulence, which burned like a consuming fever. To Will's numerous letters and enquiries I at last responded by telegraph, "All well," I said.

One day there came a bulky envelope addressed in Will's handwriting. It enclosed a letter from John Gailbraith, the sculptor, who was still in Paris. Across the top Will had written: "This will interest you." Under separate cover came a package of photographs, reproductions of the colossal work he had recently completed for the Spring Exhibition at the Salon.

"I have great hopes for this," he wrote. "(Hope is always promise-crammed, isn't it?) You will see that I have called it 'Super-Creation.' It was conceived like a lightning flash but the working out, the compelling cold, hard stone to express clearly what I intended to convey is the result of a dogged grind of nearly three years' incessant toil. Have I succeeded, do you think? Of course you have not seen the original, but the photographs are excellent work, having been taken at various angles and positions and under my supervision. You will observe that the work is--well, nothing short of monumental will express it. And, unless a government or an inst.i.tution is moved to buy it, I shall probably have to build a house around it! However, I'm not discouraged though I've gone in debt for years to come and mortgaged almost my soul in order to get the wherewithal to complete the work. I suppose this is what you call 'the artistic temperament.' But I simply had to do it--I had to get it out of my system and in doing so I feel that I have lived up to the best that was in me. After all there is some consolation in the thought that one _has_ lived up to one's best instincts. How goes your own work? And your missus? Ask her to write me and tell me without circ.u.mlocution what she thinks of my effort, especially the conception on the whole. I should like to have discussed it with her and to have had her opinion in the making. Over here one gets only the one-sided opinion of one's confreres or the unimaginative view-point of a few moneyed Americans who want names (_BIG TYPE_) to fill up the bare wall-s.p.a.ces.... I should like to ask your wife whether she is pursuing her work in earnest or whether like so many lady _dilettantes_ she is only amusing herself.... How I should like to see you both here this coming summer! Is it not possible? I'll turn over my menage to you if that is an inducement. Let me hear from you soon and send me the latest picture of the son and heir.

"Yours fraternally,

"J. G."

I had thrilled at the mere suggestion of a trip abroad but relegated the thought to a background of remote probabilities and gave myself up to an eager contemplation of the photographic reproductions of the sculptor's work. Following the numbers indicated on the back of each, I arranged the photographs consecutively across the wall.

The form appeared to be a kind of spiral, each step or incline complete in itself yet suggesting a connecting thread. At first glance I was struck with the multiplicity of figures, all nearly life size. But as my eagerness gave way to soberer perspective, something I had overlooked now a.s.serted itself: _In the score of characters represented there were but two faces--that of one man and one woman!_ That is to say, the two faces were reproduced ... yet ... or did one's fancy play at tricks?...

I applied the magnifying gla.s.s.... Yes, there were but two faces, both repeatedly used by the artist, but with what wondrous and illuminating difference! Starting from the left and lowest plane--symbolic of the theme--there was embodied in the figures of the man and maid the lowest form of love.... The youthful prettiness of the girl, the soft roundness of her form, the maiden breast ... all these but accentuated the undeveloped soul. Her very att.i.tude, the abandon as she lay smiling, half-hid amongst the leaves and blooms ... here, indeed, was "a parley to provocation." ... Above her towered the figure of a man. In his spare, sinewy form, conscient of its strength, vibrant with s.e.x, the young male was epitomized.... "Instinct" need not be carved across the base.... Instinct, the first and lowest form of love.

From the gra.s.sy knoll the path ascended to a rocky promontory, bleak, arid. Straining 'gainst the fury of the storm, the man and woman climbed; his muscles tense, confusion limned upon his face; the woman, crouching in her fright, hiding her face in her wind-tossed hair; while underfoot they trampled on a mask, the leering mask of former self ...

and, riding on the wind, half cloud, half G.o.d, a phantom with veiled face laid on the lash.... Confusion.... Chaos....

The path led on and up through th.o.r.n.y underbrush; a parched earth; the cactus plant; some blanched bones, a horned toad. He stood apart with sullen mien; his features thick and brutalized; his muscles lax and loose, as if impotent rage had yielded to dumb apathy. The woman, lying p.r.o.ne, distorted with revolt and fright, seeking to shut out from view the hideous deformity at her breast--half man, half beast; its clenched fists, contorted legs raised to rebel; the grotesque mask miming its own despair. And in the background, poised on abyss-edge, a Hecate band whirled in orgy-dance.... Where is the tutelary G.o.ddess now--the Better Self, the Soul of Things? And even as I asked I followed in the path which, still inclining, reached a broad plateau. In the foreground, the man--gaunt and grim--the grimness of despair; his muscles knotted, his h.o.r.n.y hands, the poised axe. Through the matted woods a skulking wolf.... Beyond, the woman; haggard of face, drawn with fatigue; no longer full and round of form. Dropping seeds on fresh-tilled earth; a living burden on her back; around her neck two chubby arms. And at the entrance to the cave, half blended with the rocks, the Inscrutable One stood guard.... "The Will to Live" was written here....

The path winds on, steeper, more tortuous still; by cliffs, abyss, _impa.s.se_, bald peaks, the Mount is reached ... and here they rest....

Like complements they stand, hand clasping hand, looking out and beyond; serene of brow, though scarred with age. An august peace, the harvest yield. A straight firm youth hangs on his mother's arm ... and in that life is blent the best of both--the purpose of the race. The mantle of the clouds half moulds a form; the hands reach forth to stroke their eyes.... It is _the awakening_....

CHAPTER XV

When Experience came in some time later, bringing a cup of chicken broth, she found me at my writing desk. Commenting on my flushed cheeks, she urged me back to bed. But a feverish energy had seized upon me: to work, to accomplish, to be independent of another's maintenance. There was a prescience that in the not far distant future I should have need of such resource, materially and spiritually. I shook off the foreboding as a connotation of my physical condition. To take my place in the world's work was the grandiose euphemism with which I lulled my uneasiness. That same night I unearthed my working kit from the closet in which it had been stored. One of the rooms of our apartment bearing the honorary t.i.tle of "boudoir" had a southern exposure, and, as we were on the first floor nearest heaven, the light was good even on gloomy days, which abounded at this season of the year. I shall never forget the sense of exhilaration with which I cleared the decks for action. It was as if some great force had breathed the vital impetus into my nostrils. When I had donned my brown overall-ap.r.o.n I paused and inhaled, deep and long. It was the first free breath I had drawn for weeks.

In reviewing the busts I had made of Boy while he was still a baby I was struck with the child's likeness to his father. Even Experience commented on it. I set to modelling other heads. Inspired by the example of our sculptor friend I essayed studies in expression. Boy, in a laughing mood; Boy, crying; sulking, in a temper; Boy asleep, his head pillowed on Snyder--Snyder, now so altered and disfigured by painless surgery at the hands of Experience as to be hardly recognizable. From the face and head I turned to a study of the hands. It had always appeared to me that there was more of the real character written in the human hand than in any other feature of the human form. I studied, absorbingly, the expression the artist had portrayed in the hands of the Inscrutable One as they emerged from the cloud-like drapery in the final grouping on the Mount. Strength, firmness, a certain largeness and benignity and withal a caressing tenderness.... It pleased and surprised me to observe, how, with each new effort, the clay responded more readily to my touch. Sometimes I made experiments with modelling wax; a pinch here, a pressure there and the whole expression changed.

When my touch had mastered a certain sureness and deftness I planned a nude of Boy with the idea of later executing it in marble. I worked unceasingly; a relentless energy urged me on--to what purpose it never suggested itself to enquire. In my ardour I hardly paused to eat. But, conception is one thing; execution another. I began to understand the "dogged grind" the sculptor had spoken of. A kind of despair flagged my spirit. At such times I dragged myself out of doors. Sometimes Boy would accompany me on these walks, but for the greater part I went alone. I liked the overcast, drizzly days best. There was a quiet, a solace, in the unfrequented paths and woodsy corners of the upper boundaries of the Park. I spent hours sitting upon the rocks feeding the friendly squirrels, or tramping in the leaf-mouldy tangle. And by degrees my spirit yielded to the balm of solitude. Once again life fell into a groove. I told myself I had reached a readjustment of my life. For Boy's sake, if for no other, my husband and I should go on together. The fact that I still loved my husband I placed as a parenthetic consideration, in my plans. Boy was the capstone of our married life.

Having brought him into the world without the desire or power of selection on his part, obviously our first duty was to the child.

"Honour thy father and thy mother" had always appeared to me in dire need of amendment. Why honour parents who are not qualified to command either respect or affection? "Be fruitful and multiply": whether saint or sinner, breed! breed! breed! Paugh! When will a Wise Prophet arise to reveal a doctrine of eugenics?--to preach that _quality, not quant.i.ty_, makes for the betterment of a race--that to be well born is the rightful heritage of the unborn....

With the resolution to write my husband out of the fullness of my convictions I hurried homeward. The wind had shifted, and sharp bits of sleet cut against my face. Hearing me come in, Experience had brought me a cup of tea. I smiled at the ginger-bread dogs--all replicas of Snyder--which she told me she had made with the hope of amusing Boy. He had been querulous and quite unlike his happy self; she feared he was not well, though at this moment he was sleeping quietly. I tip-toed into his room and, discerning no unnatural symptoms, I left him undisturbed.

The letter written, I gave myself up to the quiet hour: it was dusk, and with night a soothing hush seemed to pervade the activities of man. In the shadows of the room the whiteness of the plaster casts gleamed like tombstones, the lonely sentinels of the dead. I recall I shuddered at the thought and forthwith switched on the light. Once in every little while I looked in upon my Boy. When at last he opened his eyes and smiled at me, I hugged him to my breast with such vehemence as to make him cry out. His bedtime bath had always been the signal for a romp.

To-night, however, he seemed disinclined to play. A hot dryness of his skin caused me to take his temperature. I found nothing disquieting in the slight rise, and in response to his mood I lay down beside him to wait for the sand-man. All night he tossed. In the morning the temperature had risen to an alarming degree. I sent for the doctor. He came twice during the day. In the night Boy was seized with a convulsion. When the doctor arrived in answer to a summons by telephone, he looked grave. Something clutched about my heart. It was with almost superhuman effort I framed the words.... "Shall I ... send for his father?..." The doctor nodded. "How long will it take him to get here?" he said....

CHAPTER XVI

In a driving rain, under a weeping sky, we followed the little white casket to the grave--the three of us. There, in the presence of only the mole-faced grave-diggers and the man of professional black, we yielded him up. Experience had asked, with a kind of awe, whether she should call in a minister. I could have shrieked at the mere suggestion! A minister? On what pretence? To mumble plat.i.tudinous euphemisms, worn thread-bare from usage--to essay to comfort me with specious consolation ground out like a gramophone: "Be brave, my child! He has gone to a better world," or "The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away," or, again, "You are not alone in your affliction; other mothers have suffered their dear ones to be removed," et cetera, et cetera. Words! Words! Words!...

As they lowered him in the grave, his father held me close and, in a voice tremulous with tears, he quoted reverently: "And from his fair and unpolluted flesh may violets spring." ... And when the earth thud harshly 'gainst the coffin lid, closing him away forever ... never again to hold him in my arms--never again to feel his cheek on mine.... O, Death! your sting lies buried in the hearts of those who stay behind ...

and then to leave him there ... alone ... in the heavy silence of the dead ... so cold ... all unresisting, his roguish laughter hushed ...

his lips, once red, now blue and drawn ... the wax-like lids shadowed with heavy fringe ... my Boy ... my Boy ... whose coming we had deplored, whose little life had so entwined itself about my heart as made a part of me--the better part.... Well ... he had not tarried long.... Boy ... _Boy_....

In the overwhelming grief which had come to me, life appeared a void; a vacuous, heavy-footed thing, with moments of suspended thought, a merciful numbness of despair, a sound, a familiar sight, a rush of memory, a freshet of tears, each overlapped the other, so fast they followed. One of the unpardonable and most resented slights to those in affliction is the even tenor with which the world wags on its way, callous and indifferent. One would have it stop, take heed, upheave....

So, when Will announced that it were expedient to rejoin his company almost immediately I felt a sacrilege was about to be committed. His role was being played by an understudy, who, after the manner of understudies, was neither prepared nor equal to the emergency which had suddenly confronted him. Will urged me to accompany him, pointing out that to remain in the apartment alone with ever-present reminders of my loss were to nurse my grief and keep the wound always fresh

"Unnumbered cords, frail strands full fraught with pain, That join the soul to things of time and sense."

The thought of leaving all that held the nearness of his spirit was repugnant to me. I wanted to be alone with my grief. Gradually I came to realize that it was for the best. Experience, too--simple, honest soul--was shaken by the suddenness and swiftness of our loss. I decided to send her to her home for a rest and change of scene. After all, what did it matter where I went?... Boy was not there....

The season dragged by, drab and comfortless. Will's devotion to me was the only ray of light in the murkiness of my spirit. Our common grief had bridged the gulf between us. All the gentleness, the tenderness in his nature seemed to revive. He never left me to accept invitations in which he knew I could not share; something like the old camaraderie was restored between us. I found a kind of balm in the thought that, if the death of my son had been the means of bringing my husband and me closer together, the sacrifice had not been in vain--and yet--and yet ... in the inner consciousness of my heart I knew the truth: had I been called upon to choose, the sacrifice had not been Boy. Truly, life is a continuous compromise.

The season ended, we returned to New York. Because we could not afford to move--there being the usual deficit in the family budget--we opened the apartment. To dwell upon the resurging pain which the reminders in my home undammed were to make fetish of my grief. Neither did I ask Experience to return. She, too, belonged to the past of things.

Will had determined to leave his present management and seek new fields.

The company for the next season was to be curtailed and the cast cheapened, an extended tour of one-night stands. The summer was pa.s.sed in New York, and luckily, except for periodic waves of tropical heat, the weather was not unendurable. Will spent a goodly part of his time at the Lambs' Club, where he said he kept in touch with the activities of the managerial world. The season promised to be backward. Plans appeared to be slow of consummation. The tedium began to tell on Will's nerves and his temper, especially when he found himself suspended from the Lambs for non-payment of dues. None of his colleagues came to his rescue. That the theatrical profession is a fraternal organization is another of those popular fallacies. There can be no spirit of fraternity in an overcrowded profession.