Into James Boyd’s apartment she had walked, stepping on fleecy clouds of rapture, to tell him the great news.
She told him the great news.
He said, ‘Ah!’
There are many ways of saying ‘Ah!’ You can put joy, amazement, rapture into it; you can also make it sound as if it were a reply to a remark on the weather. James Boyd made it sound just like that. His hair was rumpled, his brow contracted, and his manner absent. The impression he gave Elizabeth was that he had barely heard her. The next moment he was deep in a recital of the misdemeanours of the actors now rehearsing for his four-act comedy. The star had done this, the leading woman that, the juvenile something else. For the first time Elizabeth listened unsympathetically.
The time came when speech failed James Boyd, and he sat back in his chair, brooding. Elizabeth, cross and wounded, sat in hers, nursing Joseph. And so, in a dim light, time flowed by.
Just how it happened she never knew. One moment, peace; the next chaos. One moment stillness; the next, Joseph hurtling through the air, all claws and expletives, and herself caught in a clasp which shook the breath from her.
One can dimly reconstruct James’s train of thought. He is in despair; things are going badly at the theatre, and life has lost its savour. His eye, as he sits, is caught by Elizabeth’s profile. It is a pretty—above all, a soothing—profile. An almost painful sentimentality sweeps over James Boyd. There she sits, his only friend in this cruel city. If you argue that there is no necessity to spring at your only friend and nearly choke her, you argue soundly; the point is well taken. But James Boyd was beyond the reach of sound argument. Much rehearsing had frayed his nerves to ribbons. One may say that he was not responsible for his actions.
That is the case for James. Elizabeth, naturally, was not in a position to take a wide and understanding view of it. All she knew was that James had played her false, abused her trust in him. For a moment, such was the shock of the surprise, she was not conscious of indignation—or, indeed, of any sensation except the purely physical one of semi-strangulation. Then, flushed, and more bitterly angry than she could ever have imagined herself capable of being, she began to struggle. She tore herself away from him. Coming on top of her grievance, this thing filled her with a sudden, very vivid hatred of James. At the back of her anger, feeding it, was the humiliating thought that it was all her own fault, that by her presence there she had invited this.
She groped her way to the door. Something was writhing and struggling inside her, blinding her eyes, and robbing her of speech. She was only conscious of a desire to be alone, to be back and safe in her own home. She was aware that he was speaking, but the words did not reach her. She found the door, and pulled it open. She felt a hand on her arm, but she shook it off. And then she was back behind her own door, alone and at liberty to contemplate at leisure the ruins of that little temple of friendship which she had built up so carefully and in which she had been so happy.
The broad fact that she would never forgive him was for a while her only coherent thought. To this succeeded the determination that she would never forgive herself. And having thus placed beyond the pale the only two friends she had in New York, she was free to devote herself without hindrance to the task of feeling thoroughly lonely and wretched.
The shadows deepened. Across the street a sort of bubbling explosion, followed by a jerky glare that shot athwart the room, announced the lighting of the big arc-lamp on the opposite sidewalk. She resented it, being in the mood for undiluted gloom; but she had not the energy to pull down the shade and shut it out. She sat where she was, thinking thoughts that hurt.
The door of the apartment opposite opened. There was a single ring at her bell. She did not answer it. There came another. She sat where she was, motionless. The door closed again.
The days dragged by. Elizabeth lost count of time. Each day had its duties, which ended when you went to bed; that was all she knew—except that life had become very grey and very lonely, far lonelier even than in the time when James Boyd was nothing to her but an occasional sound of footsteps.
Of James she saw nothing. It is not difficult to avoid anyone in New York, even when you live just across the way.
It was Elizabeth’s first act each morning, immediately on awaking, to open her front door and gather in whatever lay outside it. Sometimes there would be mail; and always, unless Francis, as he sometimes did, got mixed and absent-minded, the morning milk and the morning paper.
One morning, some two weeks after that evening of which she tried not to think, Elizabeth, opening the door, found immediately outside it a folded scrap of paper. She unfolded it.
I am just off to the theatre. Won’t you wish me luck? I feel sure it is going to be a hit. Joseph is purring like a dynamo.—J.R.B.
In the early morning the brain works sluggishly. For an instant Elizabeth stood looking at the words uncomprehendingly; then, with a leaping of the heart, their meaning came home to her. He must have left this at her door on the previous night. The play had been produced! And somewhere in the folded interior of the morning paper at her feet must be the opinion of ‘One in Authority’ concerning it!
Dramatic criticisms have this peculiarity, that if you are looking for them, they burrow and hide like rabbits. They dodge behind murders; they duck behind baseball scores; they lie up snugly behind the Wall Street news. It was a full minute before Elizabeth found what she sought, and the first words she read smote her like a blow.
In that vein of delightful facetiousness which so endears him to all followers and perpetrators of the drama, the ‘One in Authority’ rent and tore James Boyd’s play. He knocked James Boyd’s play down, and kicked it; he jumped on it with large feet; he poured cold water on it, and chopped it into little bits. He merrily disembowelled James Boyd’s play.
Elizabeth quivered from head to foot. She caught at the doorpost to steady herself. In a flash all her resentment had gone, wiped away and annihilated like a mist before the sun. She loved him, and she knew now that she had always loved him.
It took her two seconds to realize that the ‘One in Authority’ was a miserable incompetent, incapable of recognizing merit when it was displayed before him. It took her five minutes to dress. It took her a minute to run downstairs and out to the newsstand on the corner of the street. Here, with a lavishness which charmed and exhilarated the proprietor, she bought all the other papers which he could supply.
Moments of tragedy are best described briefly. Each of the papers noticed the play, and each of them damned it with uncompromising heartiness. The criticisms varied only in tone. One cursed with relish and gusto; another with a certain pity; a third with a kind of wounded superiority, as of one compelled against his will to speak of something unspeakable; but the meaning of all was the same. James Boyd’s play was a hideous failure.
Back to the house sped Elizabeth, leaving the organs of a free people to be gathered up, smoothed, and replaced on the stand by the now more than ever charmed proprietor. Up the stairs she sped, and arriving breathlessly at James’s door rang the bell.
Heavy footsteps came down the passage; crushed, disheartened footsteps; footsteps that sent a chill to Elizabeth’s heart. The door opened. James Boyd stood before her, heavy-eyed and haggard. In his eyes was despair, and on his chin the blue growth of beard of the man from whom the mailed fist of Fate has smitten the energy to perform his morning shave.
Behind him, littering the floor, were the morning papers; and at the sight of them Elizabeth broke down.
‘Oh, Jimmy, darling!’ she cried; and the next moment she was in his arms, and for a space time stood still.
How long afterwards it was she never knew; but eventually James Boyd spoke.
‘If you’ll marry me,’ he said hoarsely, ‘I don’t care a hang.’
‘Jimmy, darling!’ said Elizabeth, ‘of course I will.’
Past them, as they stood there
, a black streak shot silently, and disappeared out of the door. Joseph was leaving the sinking ship.
‘Let him go, the fraud,’ said Elizabeth bitterly. ‘I shall never believe in black cats again.’
But James was not of this opinion.
‘Joseph has brought me all the luck I need.’
‘But the play meant everything to you.’
‘It did then.’
Elizabeth hesitated.
‘Jimmy, dear, it’s all right, you know. I know you will make a fortune out of your next play, and I’ve heaps for us both to live on till you make good. We can manage splendidly on my salary from the Evening Chronicle.’
‘What! Have you got a job on a New York paper?’
‘Yes, I told you about it. I am doing Heloise Milton. Why, what’s the matter?’
He groaned hollowly.
‘And I was thinking that you would come back to Chicago with me!’
‘But I will. Of course I will. What did you think I meant to do?’
‘What! Give up a real job in New York!’ He blinked. ‘This isn’t really happening. I’m dreaming.’
‘But, Jimmy, are you sure you can get work in Chicago? Wouldn’t it be better to stay on here, where all the managers are, and—’
He shook his head.
‘I think it’s time I told you about myself,’ he said. ‘Am I sure I can get work in Chicago? I am, worse luck. Darling, have you in your more material moments ever toyed with a Boyd’s Premier Breakfast-Sausage or kept body and soul together with a slice off a Boyd’s Excelsior Home-Cured Ham? My father makes them, and the tragedy of my life is that he wants me to help him at it. This was my position. I loathed the family business as much as dad loved it. I had a notion—a fool notion, as it has turned out—that I could make good in the literary line. I’ve scribbled in a sort of way ever since I was in college. When the time came for me to join the firm, I put it to dad straight. I said, “Give me a chance, one good, square chance, to see if the divine fire is really there, or if somebody has just turned on the alarm as a practical joke.” And we made a bargain. I had written this play, and we made it a test case. We fixed it up that dad should put up the money to give it a Broadway production. If it succeeded, all right; I’m the young Gus Thomas, and may go ahead in the literary game. If it’s a fizzle, off goes my coat, and I abandon pipe dreams of literary triumphs and start in as the guy who put the Co. in Boyd & Co. Well, events have proved that I am the guy, and now I’m going to keep my part of the bargain just as squarely as dad kept his. I know quite well that if I refused to play fair and chose to stick on here in New York and try again, dad would go on staking me. That’s the sort of man he is. But I wouldn’t do it for a million Broadway successes. I’ve had my chance, and I’ve foozled; and now I’m going back to make him happy by being a real live member of the firm. And the queer thing about it is that last night I hated the idea, and this morning, now that I’ve got you, I almost look forward to it.’
He gave a little shiver.
‘And yet—I don’t know. There’s something rather gruesome still to my near-artist soul in living in luxury on murdered piggies. Have you ever seen them persuading a pig to play the stellar role in a Boyd Premier Breakfast Sausage? It’s pretty ghastly. They string them up by their hind legs, and—b-r-r-r-r!’
‘Never mind,’ said Elizabeth soothingly. ‘Perhaps they don’t mind it really.’
‘Well, I don’t know,’ said James Boyd, doubtfully. ‘I’ve watched them at it, and I’m bound to say they didn’t seem any too well pleased.’
‘Try not to think of it.’
‘Very well,’ said James dutifully.
There came a sudden shout from the floor above, and on the heels of it a shock-haired youth in pyjamas burst into the apartment.
‘Now what?’ said James. ‘By the way, Miss Herrold, my fiancée; Mr. Briggs—Paul Axworthy Briggs, sometimes known as the Boy Novelist. What’s troubling you, Paul?’
Mr. Briggs was stammering with excitement.
‘Jimmy,’ cried the Boy Novelist, ‘what do you think has happened! A black cat has just come into my apartment. I heard him mewing outside the door, and opened it, and he streaked in. And I started my new novel last night! Say, you do believe this thing of black cats bringing luck, don’t you?’
‘Luck! My lad, grapple that cat to your soul with hoops of steel. He’s the greatest little luck-bringer in New York. He was boarding with me till this morning.’
‘Then—by Jove! I nearly forgot to ask—your play was a hit? I haven’t seen the papers yet’
‘Well, when you see them, don’t read the notices. It was the worst frost Broadway has seen since Columbus’s time.’
‘But—I don’t understand.’
‘Don’t worry. You don’t have to. Go back and fill that cat with fish, or she’ll be leaving you. I suppose you left the door open?’
‘My God!’ said the Boy Novelist, paling, and dashed for the door.
‘Do you think Joseph will bring him luck?’ said Elizabeth, thoughtfully.
‘It depends what sort of luck you mean. Joseph seems to work in devious ways. If I know Joseph’s methods, Briggs’s new novel will be rejected by every publisher in the city; and then, when he is sitting in his apartment, wondering which of his razors to end himself with, there will be a ring at the bell, and in will come the most beautiful girl in the world, and then—well, then, take it from me, he will be all right.’
‘He won’t mind about the novel?’
‘Not in the least.’
‘Not even if it means that he will have to go away and kill pigs and things.’
‘About the pig business, dear. I’ve noticed a slight tendency in you to let yourself get rather morbid about it. I know they string them up by the hind legs, and all that sort of thing; but you must remember that a pig looks at these things from a different standpoint. My belief is that the pigs like it. Try not to think of it.’
‘Very well,’ said Elizabeth, dutifully.
The Romance of an Ugly Policeman
Crossing the Thames by Chelsea Bridge, the wanderer through London finds himself in pleasant Battersea. Rounding the park, where the female of the species wanders with its young by the ornamental water where the wild-fowl are, he comes upon a vast road. One side of this is given up to nature, the other to Intellect. On the right, green trees stretch into the middle distance; on the left, endless blocks of residential flats. It is Battersea Park Road, the home of the cliff-dwellers.
Police constable Plimmer’s beat embraced the first quarter of a mile of the cliffs. It was his duty to pace in the measured fashion of the London policeman along the front of them, turn to the right, turn to the left, and come back along the road which ran behind them. In this way he was enabled to keep the king’s peace over no fewer than four blocks of mansions.
It did not require a deal of keeping. Battersea may have its tough citizens, but they do not live in Battersea Park Road. Battersea Park Road’s speciality is brain, not crime. Authors, musicians, newspaper men, actors, and artists are the inhabitants of these mansions. A child could control them. They assault and batter nothing but pianos; they steal nothing but ideas; they murder nobody except Chopin and Beethoven. Not through these shall an ambitious young constable achieve promotion.
At this conclusion Edward Plimmer arrived within forty-eight hours of his installation. He recognized the flats for what they were—just so many layers of big-brained blamelessness. And there was not even the chance of a burglary. No burglar wastes his time burgling authors. Constable Plimmer reconciled his mind to the fact that his term in Battersea must be looked on as something in the nature of a vacation.
He was not altogether sorry. At first, indeed, he found the new atmosphere soothing. His last beat had been in the heart of tempestuous Whitechapel, where his arms had ached from the incessant hauling of
wiry inebriates to the station, and his shins had revolted at the kicks showered upon them by haughty spirits impatient of restraint. Also, one Saturday night, three friends of a gentleman whom he was trying to induce not to murder his wife had so wrought upon him that, when he came out of hospital, his already homely appearance was further marred by a nose which resembled the gnarled root of a tree. All these things had taken from the charm of Whitechapel, and the cloistral peace of Battersea Park Road was grateful and comforting.
And just when the unbroken calm had begun to lose its attraction and dreams of action were once more troubling him, a new interest entered his life; and with its coming he ceased to wish to be removed from Battersea. He fell in love.
It happened at the back of York Mansions. Anything that ever happened, happened there; for it is at the back of these blocks of flats that the real life is. At the front you never see anything, except an occasional tousle-headed young man smoking a pipe; but at the back, where the cooks come out to parley with the tradesmen, there is at certain hours of the day quite a respectable activity. Pointed dialogues about yesterday’s eggs and the toughness of Saturday’s meat are conducted fortissimo between cheerful youths in the road and satirical young women in print dresses, who come out of their kitchen doors on to little balconies. The whole thing has a pleasing Romeo and Juliet touch. Romeo rattles up in his cart. ‘Sixty-four!’ he cries. ‘Sixty-fower, sixty-fower, sixty-fow—’ The kitchen door opens, and Juliet emerges. She eyes Romeo without any great show of affection. ‘Are you Perkins and Blissett?’ she inquires coldly. Romeo admits it. ‘Two of them yesterday’s eggs was bad.’ Romeo protests. He defends his eggs. They were fresh from the hen; he stood over her while she laid them. Juliet listens frigidly. ‘I don’t think,’ she says. ‘Well, half of sugar, one marmalade, and two of breakfast bacon,’ she adds, and ends the argument. There is a rattling as of a steamer weighing anchor; the goods go up in the tradesman’s lift; Juliet collects them, and exits, banging the door. The little drama is over.
The Man With Two Left Feet Page 17