My Brother's Keeper

by Marcia Davenport

  His self-approval hung on for several days, diminishing all the time though he did not know it. Seymour was preoccupied with excitement and pleasure about his automobile, which he said would be delivered in a few days. He was so full of his own concerns that he forgot to tease Randall about his. In four days they only dined together once, so Randall had three lonely evenings, eating in the cheap places where he went alone, and sitting afterwards in the library with his scores and a pencil, making notations and also filling several sheets of blank music-paper with cramped scribblings. He had a way of not noticing these once he had written them. He stuck them away in his room, between the pages of the scores and musical books which he kept in an old glass-fronted book case which had once been in the day-nursery upstairs. By degrees Randall lost track of the scribbled music-paper. He had accumulated and forgotten a considerable quantity of it in the past two years, and might never have thought to move it, except that several of the sheets fell out of a volume of Bach Preludes one day when he was practising in the church. He decided then to find somewhere else to put them, though this seemed a contradiction of his real intention; he had thought to destroy them. It was on one of those evenings alone that he rummaged through the house to find a place to keep his papers. Nobody ever went to the fourth floor, and there he found the child’s desk on which he had done his first lessons. It had a slanting top which closed over several drawers and a row of pigeon-holes. It seemed just the thing and Randall began then to use it as a repository for his music-papers and other oddments for which he had no other private place.

  He had a long, dull, and lonely week end, broken only by choir-practice and services at St. Timothy’s. From now on through the later spring and even more during the summer, the music at the church would be simpler and take less of his time. When he woke on Monday morning he realized that he had no work scheduled at St. Timothy’s until Wednesday afternoon.

  The empty time yawned ahead of him. Even with the best will in the world he could not see how to kill almost three whole days—not to mention the dreaded evenings—by practising on the piano and the organ. He did not feel like practising. He felt restless and sick of being alone. Seymour was still asleep and might sleep all morning. Randall went down to the side door and took in the daily pint of milk, the bag of rolls, and Seymour’s Times. He noticed the dust gathering thickly on the stairs, as it had in the library and his own room, a rude reminder that he ought to go out and do something about finding another cleaning-woman. So far he had ignored Mrs. McBane’s absence, making his own bed with a few careless tugs, and washing up the breakfast things in cold water in the bathroom down the hall from the library. They seldom bothered to make a fire in the water-heater in the deserted kitchen. A little shaving-water heated in the teakettle on the gas-ring was as much trouble as any daily hot water was worth. They bathed sporadically, in summer taking sponge-baths in a little cold water in the deep tin tub; in winter occasionally lighting a fire in the boiler. But they regarded that as a nuisance. It was all a messy and increasingly uncomfortable state of affairs, and at the same time Randall felt defiant about it. It was nobody else’s business. Proper people didn’t live in that way, but proper people didn’t have to live in a horrible old warren and try to find ways to keep it from swallowing them up entirely. Randall envied Seymour his stronger will and his clearer sense of what he wanted. He wished he were the one more eager to leave this house, but now that Seymour could not move for a year, Randall was certainly not going to do so. Even this sparse companionship was better than the thought of living all alone.

  He felt more and more jangled and disturbed. His coffee was poor, he must have been inattentive and measured it out carelessly; and the prospect of having nothing to do today was almost unendurable. He went downstairs and practised finger-exercises for a while, but he became careless and broke off with a bang. This kind of botch was worse than no practice at all. He wandered upstairs again and looked at the library clock. A little past ten, and not a sign of Seymour. He must have had a night of it.

  Randall flung himself into his chair, on the opposite side of the library fire from Seymour’s. He took up the folded copy of the Times, childishly guilty because of the ridiculous dictum that this was Seymour’s newspaper and Seymour was violently irritated if Randall opened it first. He sat holding it on his knee for a moment, then with a shrug he opened it and began to look through it. Nothing fixed his attention until he came to the page of musical and theatrical news. At that point he had a sense as if of the raising of a thin, confusing curtain, something which had drifted across the panes of his mind and obscured the clear view of his intentions which had always been there. His decision to forget Renata Tosi now appeared clumsy and artificial. In truth he had not forgotten her, he had only succeeded in shrouding her behind that figurative curtain. She had been right there all the time. And this was Monday morning and she had tried to convey to him that she hoped he would come to her rehearsal at eleven—or so he thought. He had had no idea of going. Now he sat wondering why he should not. It might be interesting to see how well he had prepared her for something so new and strange to her.

  His eye fell on the article about the week’s repertoire at the opera. “Last week but one of opera season,” was the heading. He found himself facing another thought which he must have been holding hidden for some time. What would become of Renata Tosi when the season was over? How could that possibly be any concern of his! Then he glanced at the cast for tonight’s performance of Aïda. Ugo Baldini was singing and Renata Tosi was not. Randall sat for a short time and meditated. The idea which was taking shape almost frightened him by its bold novelty; he could scarcely recognize himself in it. Timidity struggled briefly with inclination and retired. He folded Seymour’s Times carefully in its original creases and laid it on the arm of Seymour’s chair. Then he went downstairs and took his hat and started uptown to the opera house.

  CHAPTER 10

  They were halfway through dinner and Renata was still laughing and saying, “I am so surprise’. How you have thought of something so intelligente and furbo?”

  “What does ‘furbo’ mean?”

  She waved her hand as if trying to pluck the word from the air. “Oh! Dio! I don’t know. It means, how is it, clever?—but maybe, too clever? Is possible?”

  “You mean ‘tricky’? ‘Deceitful’?”

  She pulled a face of mock protest. “Ma no!” Her eyes were wide. “I never deceive nobody! Surely you have never deceive’ nobody?”

  “Not—well, not by arranging it myself, exactly. Until now. You do understand,” he added quickly. “I haven’t meant to, I mean I was not thinking about your—eh—friend.”

  “No?” Again the mock surprise. “Then why we are here?”

  He put his attention on the piece of chicken on his plate. She went on chattering. “If you don’t think about Baldini, why we arrange so carefully come here after Aïda begin, and put me home with the mal di testa before it end?”

  “You ought to be ashamed of yourself,” he said, looking up suddenly.

  “Io!” she gasped, planting her square hand on her breast. “I have thought of these inganni—what I mean—tricks? I?”

  “I mean on account of Mr. Ba—” Randall choked over the name. He swallowed and said firmly, “Baldini.”

  “Ma perchè?” Her surprise appeared sincere this time.

  Randall sighed. “Look here,” he said. “Is this customary in Italy, arrangements like the one you seem to have with him?”

  “That depend’,” she shrugged. “In Italy per esempio Baldini is not free like here. Sometimes he get away, but—”

  “He is married.”

  “Naturally. Is very jealous his wife and he make many bambini to keep her busy.”

  “How many bambini?” He used the word unconsciously.

  “Six. In Piacenza.”

  She drank some of the wine he had almost forgotten to order, and smiled at him charmingly. In the shaded light of the candle on t
he table she looked particularly pretty. She was wearing one of the blouses to which she seemed partial, made of innumerable narrow rows of fine net ruching, with ballooning sleeves. It would never have occurred to him that she made these things herself, or that she had trimmed the coal-scuttle hat framing her brown pompadour and her creamy forehead, with tiny rosettes of pink feathers. He supposed, just because she was an actress and he disapproved of most things she did, that she must also paint her face, but he could see no proof of it; her complexion had the same fresh, clear pallor and her lips the rosy tinge that he had also seen when she was barely awake in the morning. Her eyes above her wineglass were laughing, but in spite of his opinion that she should be ashamed of her situation, they seemed curiously calm and sincere.

  He looked across at her, unaware that his own eyes were much more eloquent than his uncertain tongue. He thought about what he wanted to say, and could not quite say it; then he blurted, “The queerest thing happens to me when I try to talk to you. Either I can’t think of anything to say, or else I blunder into personal things that are none of my business.”

  “Why is not your business? You are jealous of Baldini, you tell it. E’ naturale.” She shrugged.

  “I am not jealous of Baldini!” He felt his face redden. “I scarcely know you. I only said you should be ashamed of your situation with him, and you should.”

  “D’accordo,” she laughed, blinking at him, “Let us agree. Baldini is not your business. He go away soon, back to La Scala and the wife in Piacenza with six bambini. Anche sette finora, può darsi,” she added, muttering.

  “What did you say?”

  “I say maybe is already seven. Why you make me think to talk English? I grow tired. Invece better I teach you Italian. For some things is only possible Italian.”

  “For what things?”

  “For making love,” she said, as coolly as if she were describing a dance step. “English would be scandaloso.”

  Oh, God, he thought. She is impossible.

  “You would speak well Italian,” she murmured, resting her chin on her folded hands, her elbows on the table. “Bel giovane che sei!” Randall obeyed his instinct not to notice that remark; he was afraid he had understood it. Had she called him beautiful?

  “No, seriously,” he said. “What would you do if I asked you questions? Without stopping to think whether they are too personal or not?”

  “Answer them,” she said calmly. “I only tell the lies to save the trouble. What is so, is so.”

  “That’s the way it seems,” he sighed. “I just can’t see why you have that—why you—ah—why—Baldini.” He drew a breath and summoned his courage and said, “You couldn’t be in love with him.”

  “Ecco! At last you talk the sense!”

  “Then, why—?”

  She shook her head a little and smiled as if excusing the ignorance of a child. “You were never poor?” she asked gently. “Very poor, like us? Peasants and artigiani?”

  “I’m sorry you have to ask that.” He felt a little ashamed of himself. But he said, “You ought to be better off by now. Isn’t that so? And you were fairly well started in Milano before, otherwise they wouldn’t have brought you here.”

  She was eating ice cream in tiny spoonfuls, and she only said, “Ah, Milano. You should taste the gelati there. Una meraviglia.”

  “I don’t care about the ice cream in Milano. I was talking about you. Do you mean to say you really need Baldini? Madame, Signorina …”

  “Renata. And I call you Randalo. Che bel nome!” She smiled like a delighted child and his attention was diverted by admiration for her beautifully white teeth. He had noticed them before; her wide but delicately modelled singer’s mouth with its fresh red lips was one of her most charming features. She knew how to play on these features for any purpose of her own and she was playing now, turning him away from his solemn aim. He decided not to let her get away with it and he repeated, “Is the whole thing—” he implied Baldini—“necessary?”

  “Oh! Dio! You talk like a priest. Madonna!” she exclaimed, in sudden horror, “how I know what you are in that pagan church of yours?”

  “Nothing,” he said coldly. He was resigned that there was no use sparring with her if one could not hold one’s own. “I am absolutely nothing in that church but a minor musician employed to work there. And we are just as Christian as you are, so restrain your insults. Now look here—Renata.” He pronounced her name with obvious pleasure and she beamed at him. “Must you really go on with this arrangement of yours? I’ve been trying to tell you—it’s not—well—people in this country don’t see these things in the same light you do. We—”

  “What people?” she interrupted.

  “Why—” he frowned irritably. She burst into a laugh and leaned over and put her hand on top of his.

  “Sei troppo serio,” she said. “People you know, they do not care what I do, Baldini do, all the artists do. We like to play, we like pleasure.”

  “So you play with me too,” he said with bitterness. “I bet Baldini wouldn’t be amused. This wouldn’t be his idea of play.”

  “Indeed, no. E’ gelosissimo, lui.”

  “So you are playing with fire as well as with me and Baldini and—” suddenly he saw in retrospect her room as it had looked in the mornings, strewn with the finery in which she had been dressed the night before. “With others too, I suppose,” he said hopelessly. He decided to drop the subject. He sat with his head bent, crumbling a wafer and pushing the crumbs with his forefinger into a meaningless pattern. She watched him. He was surely, she told herself, beautiful, a beautiful young man, and different from any she had ever seen. It must be that difference, that foreignness, which attracted her and which had carried her so far as to be sitting here now. His views were preposterous. Anybody else so earnest and serious would seem an intolerable prude and a bore. But this one had some strange appeal, perhaps his looks, perhaps his extraordinary innocence which to her realistic eye seemed virginal although she could not believe that this was so. Up to now it had been refreshing and flattering that he was plainly falling in love with her, which he himself in that very innocence did not yet realize. When he did, he would be afraid to take the initiative and his solemn, puritanical American character would never let him enjoy any pleasure—unless she taught him to. She sighed. Could this be worth all the trouble?—all the questions he had been raising and many which she herself kept strictly out of mind? Perhaps she ought to cut him off right now while it was still soon enough not to hurt him. She had never seen a man whom it would more have displeased her to hurt.

  “How old are you, Randalo?” she asked him, speaking low.

  “Twenty-three.” He did not look up.

  Two years younger than herself, her real age which she never stated because no singer ever did. She said slowly, “I think perhaps is because you are young you have so little tolerance. The human nature she is not what you believe should be, only what is.”

  He was so astonished at her words, spoken in a tone of calm sincerity and, indeed, wisdom, that he raised his head and stared at her in spite of his intention not to do so. He was quite startled at what he saw. There was no raillery in her face, no mischief in her eyes; she had her hands folded on the edge of the table and her face above her high rucked collar had the serenity of a classic mask. She smiled quietly, a smile of kindliness without the sparkle of her constant mirth. She had had the idea of telling him that he would be wise to go his way and forget her. But watching the clear trustfulness which superseded the resentment in his blue eyes, her resolution wavered and she was left impaled upon the pinpoint of one serious moment.

  “You think very bad of me,” she said. “Perhaps I deserve. But is not for you I would change, not for any man. Life will change me, like you, like tutti. When is time, is time. Until come this time, I want to enjoy. You do not like how I live because is troppo di lusso and Baldini pay something for it. But not everything, understand,” she flashed, with a wink of mischi
ef. “When I tell you I don’t like to work hard, you are shock’. Some day I tell you how I have work’ hard da bambina and you understand maybe why I want the pleasure while I am still young. Also, is my nature. Basta. I talk too much.”

  “Will you really tell me about all that?”

  “Vediamo. Now is no more the time, you watch your clock?”

  He looked and saw that they should leave at once. They went out and got into a hansom and Randall told the driver to hurry. When the apron slammed shut Renata settled into her corner with the certainty, a novelty to her, that this man would not immediately besiege her with kisses as anybody else would do. He sat with his hands clasped on his knees. She copied his prim attitude. They chatted about the opera while the cab jounced up Broadway; about the week’s repertoire, which for Randall was tantamount to asking on what evenings she and also Baldini would be singing. He soon had it clear: On Wednesday both were cast in Rigoletto, Renata as Contessa Ceprano; on Thursday she was to sing Micaela in a Carmen without Baldini, and on Friday Baldini was down for Angelotti. Renata laughed sharply when she said that there would never be a part for her in Tosca unless she aimed at the title role itself. “Me?” she scoffed. “Troppo lavoro!” So that left her free again on Friday. Randall looked at her with a question unspoken, and she nodded and laughed again and they dropped the matter there. She sat back farther in her corner. Her eyes sparkled in the dim light of the street lamps but her expression was demure and she sat asking herself what would happen if she should make it clear that she was willing, if not waiting, for him to kiss her, now or very soon. She was also weighing whether he would take the initiative before she should be begin to be bored by him.