The Imitator: A Novel

by Percival Pollard

  CHAPTER XVI.

  It was the fashionable bathing hour at the most exclusive summer resorton the Atlantic coast. The sand in front of the Surf Club was dottedwith gaudy tents and umbrellas. Persons whom not to know was to beunknowable were picturesquely distributed about the club verandahs inwicker chairs and lounges. The eye of an artist would have beendistracted by the beauties that were suggested in the half-lifted skirtsof this beauty, and revealed in the bathing-suit of that one. The littlewaves that came politely rippling up the slope of sand seemed to knowwhat was expected of them; they were in nowise rude. They may havelonged to ruffle this or that bit of feminine frippery, but theyrefrained. They may have ached to drown out Orson Vane's voice as hesaid "good morning" to everybody in and out of the water; but theypermitted themselves no such luxury.

  Orson Vane was a beautiful picture as he entered the water. His suit wasimmaculate; a belt prevented the least wrinkle in his jersey; a rakishsombrero gave his head a sort of halo. He poised a cigarette in onehand, keeping himself afloat with the other. He bowed obsequiously toall the pretty women; he invited all the rich ones to tea and toast--"Wealways have a little tea and toast at my cottage on Sundays, you know;you'll meet only nice-looking people, really; we have a jolly time."Most of the men he was unable to see; the sunlight on the water did makesuch a glare.

  On the raft Orson Vane found the only Mrs. Carlos.

  "If it were not for you, Mrs. Carlos," he assured her, "the ocean wouldbe quite unfashionable."

  Mrs. Carlos smiled amiably. Speeches of that sort were part of thetribute the world was expected to pay her. She asked him if the yachtsin the harbor were not too pretty for anything.

  "No," said Vane, "no. Most melancholy sight. Bring up the wickedness ofman, whenever I look at them. I bought a yacht you know, early in thesummer. Liked her looks, made an offer, bought her. A swindle, Mrs.Carlos, an utter swindle. A disgraceful hulk. And now I can't sell her.And my cook is a rascal. Oh--don't mention yachts! And my private car,Mrs. Carlos, you cannot imagine the trials I endure over that! Therailroads overcharge me, and the mob comes pottering about with thosebeastly cameras. Really, you know, I am thinking of living abroad. Thetheatre is better supported in Europe. I am thinking of devoting my lifeto the theatre altogether. It is the one true passion. It shows peoplehow life should be lived; it is at once a school of morals andcomportment." He peered into the water near the raft. Then he plungedprettily into the sea. "I see that dear little Imogene," he told Mrs.Carlos, as he swam off. Imogene was the little heiress of the house ofCarlos; a mere schoolgirl. It was one of Vane's most deliberate appealsfor public admiration, this worship of the society of children. Hegamboled with all the tots and blossoms he could find. He knew them allby name; they dispelled his shortsightedness marvelously.

  After a proper interval Vane appeared, in the coolest of flannels, onthe verandah of the Club. He bowed to all the women, whether he knewthem or not; he peered under the largest picture hats with an air thatsaid "What sweet creature is hidden here?" as plainly as words.

  Someone asked him why he had not been to the Casino the night before.

  "Oh," he sighed, "I was fearfully busy."

  "Busy?" The word came in a tone of reproach. A suspicion of any sort oftoil will brand one more hopelessly in the smart set of America than inany other; one may pretend an occupation but one may not profess it inactuality.

  "Oh, terribly busy," said Vane. "I am writing a comedy. I have decidedthat we must make authorship smarter than it has been. I shall sacrificemyself in that attempt. You've noticed that not one writing-chap in amillion knows anything about our little world except what is not true?Yes; it's unmistakable. An entirely false impression of us is given tothe world at large. The real picture of us must come from one ofourselves."

  "And you will try it?"

  "Yes. I shall do my very best. When it is finished I want you all toplay parts in it. We must do something for the arts, you know. Why notthe arts, as well as tailors and milliners? By the way, I want you allto come to my little lantern-dance to-night, on the _Beaurivage_. It issomething quite novel. You must all come disguised as flowers. Therewill be no lights but Chinese lanterns. I shall have launches ready foryou at the Casino landing. My cook is quite sober to-day, and the yachtis as presentable as if she were not an arrant fraud. I mean to have adance that shall fit the history of society in America. For that reasonthe newspapers must know nothing about it. There can be no history wherethere are newspapers. I shall invite nobody who knows how to write; I amthe only one whose taste I can trust. Some people write to live, andsome live to write, and the worst class of all are merely dying towrite. They are all barred to-night. We must try and break all theconventions. Conventions are like the strolling players: made to bebroke."

  He rattled on in this way, with painful efforts at brilliance, for quitea time. His hearers really considered it brilliance and listenedpatiently. Summer was not their season for intellectual exertion; itmight be a virtue in others, in themselves it would have been a mistake.

  The lantern-dance on Orson Vane's _Beaurivage_ was, as everyone willremember, an event of exceeding picturesqueness. Mrs. Sclatersbyappeared as a carnation; Mrs. Carlos as a rose. Some of the younger anddivinely figured women appeared as various blossoms that necessitatedimitation of part of Rosalind's costume under the trees. The slender,tapering stem of one white lily, fragrant and delicious, lingered longin the memories of the men who were there.

  A sensation was caused by the arrival of Mrs. Barrett Weston. She camein a scow, seated on her automobile. A shriek of delight from thecompany greeted her. The weary minds of the elect were really tickled bythis conceit. The automobile was arranged to imitate a crysanthemum.Just before she alighted Mrs. Barrett Weston touched a hidden lever andthe automobile began to grind out a rag-time tune.

  A stranger, approaching the _Beaurivage_ at that moment, might havefancied himself in the politest ward of the most insane of asylums. ButOrson Vane found it all most delightful. It was the affair of theseason.

  "Look," he cried, in the midst of a game of leapfrog in which a numberof the younger guests had plunged with desperate glee, "there is themoon. How pitably weak she seems, against this brilliance here! It bearsout the theory that art is always finer than nature, and that thetheatre is more picturesque than life. Look at what we are doing, thismoment! We are imitating pleasure. And will you show me any unconsciouspleasure that is so delightful as this?"

  By the time people had begun to feel a polite hunger Vane had completedhis scheme of having several unwieldy barges brought alongside the_Beaurivage_. There were two of the clumsy but roomy decks on eitherside of the slender, shapely yacht. Over this now quite wide space thetables were arranged. While the supper went on, Orson Vane did a littlemonologue of his own. Nobody paid any attention, but everyone applauded.

  "What a scene for a comedy," he explained, proudly surveying the pictureof the gaiety before him, "what a delicious scene! It is almost real. Imust write a play around it. I have quite made up my mind to devote mylife to the theatre. It is the only real life. It touches the emotionsat all points; it is not isolated in one narrow field of personality.Have I your permission to put you all in my play? How sweet of you! Ishall have a scene where we all race in automobiles. We will be quitelike dear little children who have their donkey-races. But I thinkautomobiles are so much more intelligent than donkeys, don't you? Andthey have such profound voices! Have you ever noticed the intonation ofthe automobiles here? That one of Mrs. Barrett Weston has a delicatetenor; it is always singing love-songs as if it were tired of life. Thenwe have bassos, and baritones, and repulsive falsettos. My automobilehas a voice like a phonograph. When it bubbles along the avenue I canhear, as plainly as anything, that it is imitating one of the otherautomobiles. Some automobiles, I suppose, have the true instinct for thetheatre. Have you noticed how theatric some of the things are, how theycontrive to run away just when everyone is looking?"

  "Just like horses," murmu
red one of his listeners.

  "Oh, no; I wouldn't say that. Horses have a merely natural intelligence;it is nothing like the splendidly artificial reasoning of theautomobile. The poor horse, I really pity him! He has nothing before himbut polo. But how thankful he should be to polo. He was a broncho withdisreputable manners; now he is a polo-pony with a neat tail. In time, Idare say, the horse can learn some of the higher civilization of theautomobile, just as society may still manage to be as intelligent as thetheatre."

  The conclusion of that entertainment marked the height of Orson Vane'speculiar fame. The radical newspapers caught echoes of it and inventedwhat they could not transcribe. The young men who owned newspapers hadnot been invited by Orson Vane, because, in spite of his theatric mania,he had no illusions about the decency of metropolitan journalism. Heavowed that the theatre might be a trifle highflavored, but it had, atthe least, nothing of the hypocrisy that smothers the town in liesto-day and reads it a sermon to-morrow. The most conspicuous of thesenewspaper owners went into something like convulsions over what hecalled the degeneracy of our society. Himself most lamentably in a stateof table-d'hotage, this young man trumpeted forth the most bittereditorials against Orson Vane and his doings. He frothed withanarchistic ravings. Finally, since the world will always listen if youonly make noise loud enough and long enough, the general public began tobelieve that Vane was really a dreadful person. He was a leader in thesmart set; he stood for the entire family. His taste for the theaterwould debauch all society. His egoisms would spoil what little of thenatural was left in the regions of Vanity Fair. So went the chatter ofthe man-on-the-street, that mighty power, whom the most insignificant oflittle men-behind-the-pen can move at will.

  One may be ever so immersed in affairs that are not of the world and itssuperficial doings, yet it is almost impossible to escape some faintecho of what the world is chattering about. Professor Vanlief, who hadbetaken himself and Jeanette, for the summer, to a little place in themountains, was finally routed out of his peace by the rumors concerningOrson Vane. The give and take of conversation, even at a littlefarm-house in the hills, does not long leave any prominent subjectuntouched. So Augustus Vanlief one morning bought all the morningpapers.

  He found more than he had wanted. The editorials against the doings ofthe smart set, the reports of the sermons preached against theirgoings-on, were especially pregnant that morning.

  In another part of the paper he found a line or two, however, thatbrought him sharply to a sense of necessary action. The lines werethese:

  "Mr. Arthur Wantage is still seriously ill at Framley Lodge. Unless a decided turn for the better takes place very shortly, it is doubtful if he can undertake his starring season at the usual time this year."

  Augustus Vanlief saw what no other mortal could have guessed. He saw theconnection between those two newspaper items, the one about Vane and theone about Wantage.