The Early Life and Adventures of Sylvia Scarlett Part 30

"I have?" Sylvia burst in.

"Of course you have. But I'm not going to be treated like a mantis."

"Like a what?"

"A mantis. You can read about it in that French book on insects. The female eats the male. Well, I'm d.a.m.ned well not going to be eaten. I'm not going back to England with you unless you marry me."

"Well, I'm not going to marry you," Sylvia declared.

"Very well, then I shall try to get an engagement on tour and we'll separate."

"So much the better," she said. "I've got a good deal to occupy myself at present."

"Of course you can have the music I wrote for those poems," said Arthur.

"d.a.m.n your music," she replied.

Sylvia was so much obsessed with the conviction of having at last found a medium for expressing herself in art that, though she was vaguely aware of having a higher regard for Arthur at this moment than she had ever had, she could only behold him as a troublesome visitor that was preventing her from sitting down to work.

Arthur went off on tour. Sylvia took an apartment in New York far away up-town and settled down to test her inspiration. In six months she lived her whole life over again, and of every personality that had touched her own and left its mark she made a separate presentation. Her great anxiety was to give to each sketch the air of an improvisation, and in the course of it to make her people reveal their permanent characters rather than their transient emotions. It was really based on the art of the impersonator who comes on with a c.o.c.ked hat, sticks out his neck, puts his hands behind his back, and his legs apart, leans over to the audience, and whispers Napoleon. Sylvia thought she could extend the pleasures of recognition beyond the mere mimicry of externals to a finer mimicry of essentials. She wanted an audience to clap not because she could bark sufficiently like a real dog to avoid being mistaken for a kangaroo, but because she could be sufficiently Mrs. Gainsborough not to be recognized as Mrs. Beardmore--yet without relying upon their respective sizes in corsets to mark the difference. She did not intend to use even make-up; the entertainment was always to be an improvisation. It was also to be undramatic; that is to say, it was not to obtain its effect by working to a climax, so that, however well hidden the mechanism might have been during the course of the presentation, the machinery would reveal itself at the end. Sylvia wanted to make each member of the audience feel that he had dreamed her improvisation, or rather she hoped that he would gain from it that elusive sensation of having lived it before, and that the effect upon each person listening to her should be ultimately incommunicable, like a dream. She was sure now that she could achieve this effect with the poems, not, as she had originally supposed, through their objective truthfulness, but through their subjective truth. That outcast Englishman should be one of her improvisations, and of course the original idea of letting the poems be accompanied by music would be ruinous; one might as well ill.u.s.trate them with a magic lantern. As to her own inventions, she must avoid giving them a set form, because, whatever actors might urge to the contrary, a play could never really be performed twice by the same caste. She would have a scene painted like those futurist Italian pictures; they were trying to do with color what she was trying to do with acting; they were striving to escape from the representation of mere externals, and often succeeding almost too well, she added, with a smile. She would get hold of Ronald Walker in London, who doubtless by now would be too prosperous to serve her purpose himself, but who would probably know of some newly fledged painter anxious to flap his wings.

At the end of six months Sylvia had evolved enough improvisations to make a start. She went to bed tired out with the last night's work, and woke up in the morning with a sense of blankness at the realization of there being nothing to do that day. All the time she had been working she had been content to be alone; she had even looked forward to amusing herself in New York when her work was finished. Now the happy moment had come and she could feel nothing but this empty boredom. She wondered what Arthur was doing, and she reproached herself for the way in which she had discarded him. She had been so thrilled by the notion that she was necessary to somebody; it had seemed to her the consummation of so many heedless years. Yet no sooner had she successfully imposed herself upon Arthur than she was eager to think of nothing but herself without caring a bit about his point of view. Now that she could do nothing more with her work until the test of public performance was applied to it, she was bored; in fact, she missed Arthur. The truth was that half the pleasure of being necessary to somebody else had been that he should be necessary to her. But marriage with Arthur? Marriage with a curly-headed actor? Marriage with anybody? No, that must wait, at any rate until she had given the fruit of these six months to the world. She could not be hampered by belonging to anybody before that.

"I do think I'm justified in taking myself a little seriously for a while," said Sylvia, "and in shutting my eyes to my own absurdity. Self-mockery is dangerous beyond a certain point. I really will give this idea of mine a fair chance. If I'm a failure, Arthur will love me all the more through vanity, and if I'm a success--I suppose really he'll be vain of that, too."

Sylvia telegraphed to Arthur, and heard that he expected to be back in New York at the end of the month. He was in Buffalo this week. Nothing could keep her a moment longer in New York alone, and she went up to join him. She had a sudden fear when she arrived that she might find him occupied with a girl; in fact, really, when she came to think of the manner in which she had left him, it was most improbable that she should not. She nearly turned round and went back to New York; but her real anxiety to see Arthur and talk to him about her work made her decide to take the risk of what might be the deepest humiliation of her life. It was strange how much she wanted to talk about what she had done; the desire to do so now was as overmastering an emotion as had been in the first moment of conception the urgency of silence.

Sylvia was spared the shock of finding Arthur wrapped up in some one else.

"Sylvia, how wonderful! What a relief to see you again!" he exclaimed. "I've been longing for you to see me in the part I'm playing now. It's certainly the most successful thing I've done. I'm so glad you kept me from wasting myself any longer on that concert work. I really believe I've made a big hit at last."

Sylvia was almost as much taken aback to find Arthur radiant with the prospect of success as she would have been to find him head over ears in love. She derived very little satisfaction from the way in which he attributed his success to her; she was not at all in the mood for being a G.o.dmother, now that she had a baby of her own.

"I'm so glad, old son. That's splendid. Now I want to talk about the work I've been doing all these six months."

Forthwith she plunged into the details of the scheme, to which Arthur listened attentively enough, though he only became really enthusiastic when she could introduce a.n.a.logies with his own successful performance.

"You will go in front to-night?" he begged. "I'm awfully keen to hear what you think of my show. Half my pleasure in the hit has been spoiled by your not having seen it. Besides, I think you'll be interested in noticing that once or twice I try to get the same effect as you're trying for in these impersonations."

"d.a.m.n your eyes, Arthur, they're not impersonations; they're improvisations."

"Did I say impersonations? I'm sorry," said Arthur, looking rather frightened.

"Yes, you'd better placate me," she threatened. "Or I'll spend my whole time looking at Niagara and never go near your show."

However, Sylvia did go to see the play that night and found that Arthur really was excellent in his part, which was that of the usual young man in musical comedy who wanders about in a well-cut flannel suit, followed by six young women with parasols ready to smother him with affection, melody, and lace. But how, even in the intoxication of success, he had managed to establish a single a.n.a.logy with what she proposed to do was beyond comprehension.

Arthur came out of the stage door, wreathed in questions.

"You were in such a hurry to get out," said Sylvia, "that you didn't take off your make-up properly. You'll get arrested if you walk about like that. I hear the sumptuary laws in Buffalo are very strict."

"No, don't rag. Did you like the hydrangea song? Do you remember the one I mean?"

He hummed the tune.

"I warn you, Arthur, there's recently been a moral up-lift in Buffalo. You will be sewn up in a barrel and flung into Niagara if you don't take care. No, seriously. I think your show was capital. Which brings me to the point. We sail for Europe at the end of April."

"Oh, but do you think it's wise for me to leave America now that I've really got my foot in?"

"Do you still want to marry me?"

"More than ever," he a.s.sured her.

"Very well, then. Your only chance of marrying me is to leave New York without a murmur. I've thought it all out. As soon as I get back I shall spend my last shilling on fitting out my show. When I've produced it and when I've found out that I've not been making a fool of myself for the last six months, perhaps I'll marry you. Until then--as friends we met, as anything more than friends we part. Got me, Steve?"

"But, Sylvia--"

"But me no buts, or you'll get my goat. Understand my meaning, Mr. Stevenson?"

"Yes, only--"

"The discussion's closed."

"Are we engaged?"

"I don't know. We'll have to see our agents about that."

"Oh, don't rag. Marriage is not a joke. You are a most extraordinary girl."

"Thanks for the discount. I shall be thirty in three months, don't forget. Talking of the advantages of rouge, you might get rid of some of yours before supper, if you don't mind."

"Are we engaged?" Arthur repeated, firmly.

"No, the engagement ring and the marriage-bells will be pealed simultaneously. You're as free as Boccaccio, old son."

"You're in one of those moods when it's impossible to argue with you."

"So much the better. We shall enjoy our supper all the more. I'm so excited at the idea of going back to England. After all, I shall have been away nearly three years. I shall find G.o.dchildren who can talk. Think of that. Arthur, don't you want to go back?"

"Yes, if I can get a shop. I think it's madness for me to leave New York, but I daren't let you go alone."

The antic.i.p.ation of being in England again and of putting to the test her achievement could not charm away all Sylvia's regret at leaving America, most of all New York. She owed to New York this new stability that she discovered in her life. She owed to some action of New York upon herself the delight of inspiration, the sweet purgatory of effort, the hope of a successful end to her dreams. It was the only city of which she had ever taken a formal farewell, such as she took from the top of the Metropolitan Tower upon a lucid morning in April. The city lay beneath, with no magic of smoke to lend a meretricious romance to its checkered severity; a city encircled with silver waters and pavilioned by huge skies, expressing modern humanity, as the great monuments of ancient architecture express the mighty dead.

"We too can create our Parthenons," thought Sylvia, as she sank to earth in the florid elevator.

They crossed the Atlantic on one of the smaller Cunard liners. The voyage was uneventful. Nearly all the pa.s.sengers in turn told Sylvia why they were not traveling by one of the large ships, but n.o.body suggested as a reason that the smaller ships were cheaper.

When they reached England Arthur went to stay with his mother at Dulwich. Sylvia went to the Airdales; she wanted to set her scheme in motion, but she promised to come and stay at Dulwich later on.

"At last you've come back," Olive said, on the verge of tears. "I've missed you dreadfully."

"Great Scott! Look at Sylvius and Rose!" Sylvia exclaimed. "They're like two pigs made of pink sugar. Pity we never thought of it at the time, or they could have been christened Scarlet and Crimson."

"Darlings, isn't G.o.dmamma horrid to you?" said Olive.

"Here! Here! What are you teaching them to call me?"

"Dat's G.o.dmamma," said Sylvius, in a thick voice.

"Dat's G.o.dmamma," Rose echoed.

"Not on your life, cullies," their G.o.dmother announced, "unless you want a thick ear each."

"Give me one," said Sylvius, stolidly.

"Give me one," Rose echoed.

"How can you tease the poor darlings so?" Olive exclaimed.

"Sylvius will have one," he announced, in the same thick monotone.

"Rose will have one," echoed his sister.

Sylvia handed her G.o.dson a large painted ball.

"Here's your thick ear, Pork."

Sylvius laughed fatly; the ball and the new name both pleased him.

"And here's yours," she said, offering another to Rose, who waited to see what her brother did with his and then proceeded to do the same with the same fat laugh. Suddenly, however, her lips puckered.

"What is it, darling?" her mother asked, anxiously.

"Rose wants to be said Pork."

"You didn't call her Pork," Olive translated, reproachfully, to Sylvia.

"Give me back the ball," said Sylvia. "Now then, here's your thick ear, Porka."

Rose laughed ecstatically. After two ornaments had been broken Jack came in, and the children retired with their nurse.

Sylvia found that family life had not spoiled Jack's interest in that career of hers; indeed, he was so much excited by her news that he suggested omitting for once the ceremony of seeing the twins being given their bath in order not to lose any of the short time available before he should have to go down to the theater. Sylvia, however, would not hear of any change in the domestic order, and reminded Jack that she was proposing to quarter herself on them for some time.

"I know, it's terrific," he said.

The excitement of the bath was always considerable, but this evening, with Sylvia's a.s.sistance, it became acute. Sylvius. .h.i.t his nurse in the eye with the soap, and Rose, wrought up to a fever of emulation, managed to hurl the sponge into the grate.

Jack was enthusiastic about Sylvia's scheme. She was not quite sure that he understood exactly at what she was aiming, but he wished her so well that in any case his criticism would have had slight value; he gave instead his devoted attention, and that seemed a pledge of success. Success! Success! it sounded like a cataract in her ears, drowning every other sound. She wondered if the pa.s.sion of her life was to be success. On no thoughts urged so irresistibly had she ever sailed to sleep, nor had she ever wakened in such a buoyancy, greeting the day as a swimmer greets the sea.

"Now what about the backing?" Jack asked.

"Backing? I'll back myself. You'll be my manager. I've enough to hire the Pierian Hall for a day and a night. I've enough to pay for one scene. Which reminds me I must get hold of Ronald Walker. You'll sing, Jack, two songs? Oh, and there's Arthur Madden. He'll sing, too."

"Who's he?" Olive asked.

"Oh, didn't I tell you about him?" said Sylvia, almost too nonchalantly, she feared. "He's rather good. Quite good, really. I'll tell you about him sometime. By the way, I've talked so much about myself and my plans that I've never asked about other people. How's the countess?"

Olive looked grave. "We don't ever see them, but everybody says that Clarehaven is going the pace tremendously."

"Have they retreated to Devonshire?"

"Oh no! Didn't you hear? I thought I'd told you in one of my letters. He had to sell the family place. Do you remember a man called Leopold Hausberg?"

"Do I not?" Sylvia exclaimed. "He took a flat once for a chimpanzee instead of Lily."

"Well, he's become Lionel Houston this year, and he's talked about with Dorothy a good deal. Of course he's very rich, but I do hope there's nothing in what people say. Poor Dorothy!"

"She'll survive even the divorce court," Sylvia said. "I wish I knew what had become of Lily. She might have danced in my show. I suppose it's too late now, though. Poor Lily! I say, we're getting very compa.s.sionate, you and I, Olive. Are you and Jack going to have any more kids?"

"Sylvia darling," Olive exclaimed, with a blush.

Sylvia had intended to stay a week or two with the Airdales, and, after having set in motion the preliminaries of her undertaking, to go down to Dulwich and visit Mrs. Madden, but she thought she would get hold of Ronnie Walker first, and with this object went to the Cafe Royal, where she should be certain of finding either him or a friend who would know where he was.

Sylvia had scarcely time to look round her in the swirl of gilt and smoke and chatter before Ronald Walker himself, wearing now a long pale beard, greeted her.

"My dear Ronald, what's the matter? Are you tired of women? You look more like a grate than a great man," Sylvia exclaimed. "Cut it off and give it to your landlady to stuff her fireplace this summer."

"What shall we drink?" he asked, imperturbably.

"I've been absinthe for so long that really--"

"It's a vermouth point," added Ronald.

"Ronnie, you devil, I can't go on, it's too whisky. Well, of course after that we ought both to drink port and brandy. Don't you find it difficult to clean your beard?"

"I'm not a messy feeder," said Ronnie.

"You don't paint with it, then?"

"Only Cubist pictures."

Sylvia launched out into an account of her work, and demanded his help for the painting of the scene.

"I want the back-cloth to be a city, not to represent a city, mark you, but to be a city."

She told him about New York as beheld from the Metropolitan Tower, and exacted from the chosen painter the ability to make the audience think that.

"I'm too old-fashioned for you, my dear," said Ronald.