by Willa Cather
At the sound of a muffled buzz, Mr. Landry sprang up.
“May I answer the telephone for you?” He went to the writing-table and took up the receiver. “Mr. Ottenburg is downstairs,” he said, turning to Thea and holding the mouthpiece against his coat.
“Tell him to come up,” she replied without hesitation. “How long are you going to be in town, Dr. Archie?”
“Oh, several weeks, if you’ll let me stay. I won’t hang around and be a burden to you, but I want to try to get educated up to you, though I expect it’s late to begin.”
Thea rose and touched him lightly on the shoulder. “Well, you’ll never be any younger, will you?”
“I’m not so sure about that,” the doctor replied gallantly.
The maid appeared at the door and announced Mr. Frederick Ottenburg. Fred came in, very much got up, the doctor reflected, as he watched him bending over Thea’s hand. He was still pale and looked somewhat chastened, and the lock of hair that hung down over his forehead was distinctly moist. But his black afternoon coat, his gray tie and gaiters were of a correctness that Dr. Archie could never attain for all the efforts of his faithful slave, Van Deusen, the Denver haberdasher. To be properly up to those tricks, the doctor supposed, you had to learn them young. If he were to buy a silk hat that was the twin of Ottenburg’s, it would be shaggy in a week, and he could never carry it as Fred held his.
Ottenburg had greeted Thea in German, and as she replied in the same language, Archie joined Mr. Landry at the window. “You know Mr. Ottenburg, he tells me?”
Mr. Landry’s eyes twinkled. “Yes, I regularly follow him about, when he’s in town. I would, even if he didn’t send me such wonderful Christmas presents: Russian vodka by the half-dozen!”
Thea called to them, “Come, Mr. Ottenburg is calling on all of us. Here’s the tea.”
The maid opened the door and two waiters from downstairs appeared with covered trays. The tea-table was in the parlor. Thea drew Ottenburg with her and went to inspect it. “Where’s the rum? Oh, yes, in that thing! Everything seems to be here, but send up some currant preserves and cream cheese for Mr. Ottenburg. And in about fifteen minutes, bring some fresh toast. That’s all, thank you.”
For the next few minutes there was a clatter of teacups and responses about sugar. “Landry always takes rum. I’m glad the rest of you don’t. I’m sure it’s bad.” Thea poured the tea standing and got through with it as quickly as possible, as if it were a refreshment snatched between trains. The tea-table and the little room in which it stood seemed to be out of scale with her long step, her long reach, and the energy of her movements. Dr. Archie, standing near her, was pleasantly aware of the animation of her figure. Under the clinging velvet, her body seemed independent and unsubdued.
They drifted, with their plates and cups, back to the music-room. When Thea followed them, Ottenburg put down his tea suddenly. “Aren’t you taking anything? Please let me.” He started back to the table.
“No, thank you, nothing. I’m going to run over that aria for you presently, to convince you that I can do it. How did the duet go, with Schlag?”
She was standing in the doorway and Fred came up to her: “That you’ll never do any better. You’ve worked your voice into it perfectly. Every nuance—wonderful!”
“Think so?” She gave him a sidelong glance and spoke with a certain gruff shyness which did not deceive anybody, and was not meant to deceive. The tone was equivalent to “Keep it up. I like it, but I’m awkward with it.”
Fred held her by the door and did keep it up, furiously, for full five minutes. She took it with some confusion, seeming all the while to be hesitating, to be arrested in her course and trying to pass him. But she did not really try to pass, and her color deepened. Fred spoke in German, and Archie caught from her an occasional ja? So? muttered rather than spoken.
When they rejoined Landry and Dr. Archie, Fred took up his tea again. “I see you’re singing Venus Saturday night. Will they never let you have a chance at Elizabeth ?”
She shrugged her shoulders. “Not here. There are so many singers here, and they try us out in such a stingy way. Think of it, last year I came over in October, and it was the first of December before I went on at all! I’m often sorry I left Dresden.”
“Still,” Fred argued, “Dresden is limited.”
“Just so, and I’ve begun to sigh for those very limitations. In New York everything is impersonal. Your audience never knows its own mind, and its mind is never twice the same. I’d rather sing where the people are pig-headed and throw carrots at you if you don’t do it the way they like it. The house here is splendid, and the night audiences are exciting. I hate the matinees; like singing at a Kaffeeklatsch.” She rose and turned on the lights.
“Ah!” Fred exclaimed, “why do you do that? That is a signal that tea is over.” He got up and drew out his gloves.
“Not at all. Shall you be here Saturday night?” She sat down on the piano bench and leaned her elbow back on the keyboard. “Necker sings Elizabeth. Make Dr. Archie go. Everything she sings is worth hearing.”
“But she’s failing so. The last time I heard her she had no voice at all. She is a poor vocalist!”
Thea cut him off. “She’s a great artist, whether she’s in voice or not, and she’s the only one here. If you want a big voice, you can take my Ortrud of last night; that’s big enough, and vulgar enough.”
Fred laughed and turned away, this time with decision. “I don’t want her!” he protested energetically. “I only wanted to get a rise out of you. I like Necker’s Elizabeth well enough. I like your Venus well enough, too.”
“It’s a beautiful part, and it’s often dreadfully sung. It’s very hard to sing, of course.”
Ottenburg bent over the hand she held out to him. “For an uninvited guest, I’ve fared very well. You were nice to let me come up. I’d have been terribly cut up if you’d sent me away. May I?” He kissed her hand lightly and backed toward the door, still smiling, and promising to keep an eye on Archie. “He can’t be trusted at all, Thea. One of the waiters at Martin’s worked a Tourainian hare off on him at luncheon yesterday, for seven twenty-five.”
Thea broke into a laugh, the deep one he recognized. “Did he have a ribbon on, this hare? Did they bring him in a gilt cage?”
“No,”—Archie spoke up for himself,—”they brought him in a brown sauce, which was very good. He didn’t taste very different from any rabbit.”
“Probably came from a push-cart on the East Side.” Thea looked at her old friend commiseratingly. “Yes, do keep an eye on him, Fred. I had no idea,” shaking her head. “Yes, I’ll be obliged to you.”
“Count on me!” Their eyes met in a gay smile, and Fred bowed himself out.
VII
On Saturday night Dr. Archie went with Fred Ottenburg to hear “Tannhauser.” Thea had a rehearsal on Sunday afternoon, but as she was not on the bill again until Wednesday, she promised to dine with Archie and Ottenburg on Monday, if they could make the dinner early.
At a little after eight on Monday evening, the three friends returned to Thea’s apartment and seated themselves for an hour of quiet talk.
“I’m sorry we couldn’t have had Landry with us tonight,” Thea said, “but he’s on at Weber and Fields’ every night now. You ought to hear him, Dr. Archie. He often sings the old Scotch airs you used to love.”
“Why not go down this evening?” Fred suggested hopefully, glancing at his watch. “That is, if you’d like to go. I can telephone and find what time he comes on.”
Thea hesitated. “No, I think not. I took a long walk this afternoon and I’m rather tired. I think I can get to sleep early and be so much ahead. I don’t mean at once, however,” seeing Dr. Archie’s disappointed look. “I always like to hear Landry,” she added. “He never had much voice, and it’s worn, but there’s a sweetness about it, and he sings with such taste.”
“Yes, doesn’t he? May I?” Fred took out his cigarette case. “It rea
lly doesn’t bother your throat?”
“A little doesn’t. But cigar smoke does. Poor Dr. Archie! Can you do with one of those?”
“I’m learning to like them,” the doctor declared, taking one from the case Fred proffered him.
“Landry’s the only fellow I know in this country who can do that sort of thing,” Fred went on. “Like the best English ballad singers. He can sing even popular stuff by higher lights, as it were.”
Thea nodded. “Yes; sometimes I make him sing his most foolish things for me. It’s restful, as he does it. That’s when I’m homesick, Dr. Archie.”
“You knew him in Germany, Thea?” Dr. Archie had quietly abandoned his cigarette as a comfortless article. “When you first went over?”
“Yes. He was a good friend to a green girl. He helped me with my German and my music and my general discouragement. Seemed to care more about my getting on than about himself. He had no money, either. An old aunt had loaned him a little to study on.—Will you answer that, Fred?”
Fred caught up the telephone and stopped the buzz while Thea went on talking to Dr. Archie about Landry. Telling some one to hold the wire, he presently put down the instrument and approached Thea with a startled expression on his face.
“It’s the management,” he said quietly. “Gloeckler has broken down: fainting fits. Madame Rheinecker is in Atlantic City and Schramm is singing in Philadelphia tonight. They want to know whether you can come down and finish Sieglinde.”
“What time is it?”
“Eight fifty-five. The first act is just over. They can hold the curtain twenty-five minutes.”
Thea did not move. “Twenty-five and thirty-five makes sixty,” she muttered. “Tell them I’ll come if they hold the curtain till I am in the dressing-room. Say I’ll have to wear her costumes, and the dresser must have everything ready. Then call a taxi, please.”
Thea had not changed her position since he first interrupted her, but she had grown pale and was opening and shutting her hands rapidly. She looked, Fred thought, terrified. He half turned toward the telephone, but hung on one foot.
“Have you ever sung the part?” he asked.
“No, but I’ve rehearsed it. That’s all right. Get the cab.” Still she made no move. She merely turned perfectly blank eyes to Dr. Archie and said absently, “It’s curious, but just at this minute I can’t remember a bar of ‘Walkure’ after the first act. And I let my maid go out.” She sprang up and beckoned Archie without so much, he felt sure, as knowing who he was. “Come with me.” She went quickly into her sleeping-chamber and threw open a door into a trunk-room. “See that white trunk? It’s not locked. It’s full of wigs, in boxes. Look until you find one marked ‘Ring 2.’ Bring it quick!” While she directed him, she threw open a square trunk and began tossing out shoes of every shape and color.
Ottenburg appeared at the door. “Can I help you?”
She threw him some white sandals with long laces and silk stockings pinned to them. “Put those in something, and then go to the piano and give me a few measures in there—you know.” She was behaving somewhat like a cyclone now, and while she wrenched open drawers and closet doors, Ottenburg got to the piano as quickly as possible and began to herald the reappearance of the Volsung pair, trusting to memory.
In a few moments Thea came out enveloped in her long fur coat with a scarf over her head and knitted woolen gloves on her hands. Her glassy eye took in the fact that Fred was playing from memory, and even in her distracted state, a faint smile flickered over her colorless lips. She stretched out a woolly hand, “The score, please. Behind you, there.”
Dr. Archie followed with a canvas box and a satchel. As they went through the hall, the men caught up their hats and coats. They left the music-room, Fred noticed, just seven minutes after he got the telephone message. In the elevator Thea said in that husky whisper which had so perplexed Dr. Archie when he first heard it, “Tell the driver he must do it in twenty minutes, less if he can. He must leave the light on in the cab. I can do a good deal in twenty minutes. If only you hadn’t made me eat—Damn that duck!” she broke out bitterly; “why did you?”
“Wish I had it back! But it won’t bother you, to-night. You need strength,” he pleaded consolingly.
But she only muttered angrily under her breath, “Idiot, idiot!”
Ottenburg shot ahead and instructed the driver, while the doctor put Thea into the cab and shut the door. She did not speak to either of them again. As the driver scrambled into his seat she opened the score and fixed her eyes upon it. Her face, in the white light, looked as bleak as a stone quarry.
As her cab slid away, Ottenburg shoved Archie into a second taxi that waited by the curb. “We’d better trail her,” he explained. “There might be a hold-up of some kind.” As the cab whizzed off he broke into an eruption of profanity.
“What’s the matter, Fred?” the doctor asked. He was a good deal dazed by the rapid evolutions of the last ten minutes.
“Matter enough!” Fred growled, buttoning his overcoat with a shiver. “What a way to sing a part for the first time! That duck really is on my conscience. It will be a wonder if she can do anything but quack! Scrambling on in the middle of a performance like this, with no rehearsal! The stuff she has to sing in there is a fright—rhythm, pitch,—and terribly difficult intervals.”
“She looked frightened,” Dr. Archie said thoughtfully, “but I thought she looked—determined.”
Fred sniffed. “Oh, determined! That’s the kind of rough deal that makes savages of singers. Here’s a part she’s worked on and got ready for for years, and now they give her a chance to go on and butcher it. Goodness knows when she’s looked at the score last, or whether she can use the business she’s studied with this cast. Necker’s singing Brünnhilde; she may help her, if it’s not one of her sore nights.”
“Is she sore at Thea?” Dr. Archie asked wonderingly.
“My dear man, Necker’s sore at everything. She’s breaking up; too early; just when she ought to be at her best. There’s one story that she is struggling under some serious malady, another that she learned a bad method at the Prague Conservatory and has ruined her organ. She’s the sorest thing in the world. If she weathers this winter through, it’ll be her last. She’s paying for it with the last rags of her voice. And then—” Fred whistled softly.
“Well, what then?”
“Then our girl may come in for some of it. It’s dog eat dog, in this game as in every other.”
The cab stopped and Fred and Dr. Archie hurried to the box office. The Monday-night house was sold out. They bought standing room and entered the auditorium just as the press representative of the house was thanking the audience for their patience and telling them that although Madame Gloeckler was too ill to sing, Miss Kronborg had kindly consented to finish her part. This announcement was met with vehement applause from the upper circles of the house.
“She has her—constituents,” Dr. Archie murmured.
“Yes, up there, where they’re young and hungry. These people down here have dined too well. They won’t mind, however. They like fires and accidents and divertissements. Two Sieglindes are more unusual than one, so they’ll be satisfied.”
After the final disappearance of the mother of Siegfried, Ottenburg and the doctor slipped out through the crowd and left the house. Near the stage entrance Fred found the driver who had brought Thea down. He dismissed him and got a larger car. He and Archie waited on the sidewalk, and when Kronborg came out alone they gathered her into the cab and sprang in after her.
Thea sank back into a corner of the back seat and yawned. “Well, I got through, eh?” Her tone was reassuring. “On the whole, I think I’ve given you gentlemen a pretty lively evening, for one who has no social accomplishments.”
“Rather! There was something like a popular uprising at the end of the second act. Archie and I couldn’t keep it up as long as the rest of them did. A howl like that ought to show the management which way the wind is bl
owing. You probably know you were magnificent.”
“I thought it went pretty well,” she spoke impartially. “I was rather smart to catch his tempo there, at the beginning of the first recitative, when he came in too soon, don’t you think? It’s tricky in there, without a rehearsal. Oh, I was all right! He took that syncopation too fast in the beginning. Some singers take it fast there—think it sounds more impassioned. That’s one way!” She sniffed, and Fred shot a mirthful glance at Archie. Her boastfulness would have been childish in a schoolboy. In the light of what she had done, of the strain they had lived through during the last two hours, it made one laugh,—almost cry. She went on, robustly: “And I didn’t feel my dinner, really, Fred. I am hungry again, I’m ashamed to say,—and I forgot to order anything at my hotel.”
Fred put his hand on the door. “Where to? You must have food.”
“Do you know any quiet place, where I won’t be stared at? I’ve still got make-up on.”
“I do. Nice English chop-house on Forty-fourth Street. Nobody there at night but theater people after the show, and a few bachelors.” He opened the door and spoke to the driver.
As the car turned, Thea reached across to the front seat and drew Dr. Archie’s handkerchief out of his breast pocket.
“This comes to me naturally,” she said, rubbing her cheeks and eyebrows. “When I was little I always loved your handkerchiefs because they were silk and smelled of Cologne water. I think they must have been the only really clean handkerchiefs in Moonstone. You were always wiping my face with them, when you met me out in the dust, I remember. Did I never have any?”
“I think you’d nearly always used yours up on your baby brother.”
Thea sighed. “Yes, Thor had such a way of getting messy. You say he’s a good chauffeur?” She closed her eyes for a moment as if they were tired. Suddenly she looked up. “Isn’t it funny, how we travel in circles? Here you are, still getting me clean, and Fred is still feeding me. I would have died of starvation at that boarding-house on Indiana Avenue if he hadn’t taken me out to the Buckingham and filled me up once in a while. What a cavern I was to fill, too. The waiters used to look astonished. I’m still singing on that food.”