Held to Answer/Chapter 1
Two well-dressed men waited outside the rail on what was facetiously denominated the mourners' bench. One was a packer of olives, the other the owner of oil wells. A third, an orange shipper, leaned against the rail, pulling at his red moustaches and yearning wistfully across at a wattle-throated person behind the roll-top desk who was talking impatiently on the telephone. Just as the receiver was hung up with an audible click, a buzzer on the wall croaked harshly,—one long and two short croaks.
Instantly there was a scuffling of feet upon the linoleum over in a corner, where mail was being opened by a huge young fellow with the profile of a mountain and a gale of tawny hair blown up from his brow. Undoubling suddenly, this rangy figure of a man shot upward with Jack-in-the-box abruptness and a violence which threatened the stability of both the desk before him and the absurdly small typewriter stand upon his left. Seizing a select portion of the correspondence, he lunged past the roll-top desk of Heitmuller, the chief clerk, and aimed toward the double doors of grained oak which loomed behind. But his progress was grotesque, for he careened like a camel when he walked. In the first stride or two these careenings only threatened to be dangerous, but in the third or fourth they made good their promise. One lurching hip joint banged the drawn-out leaf of the chief clerk's desk, sweeping a shower of papers to the floor.
"John—dammit!" snapped Heitmuller irritably. The other hip caracoled against the unopened half of the double doors as John yawed through. The door complained loudly, rattling upon its hinges and in its brazen sockets, so that for a moment there was clatter and disturbance from one end of the office to the other.
The orange shipper started nervously, and the chief clerk, cocking his head gander-wise, gazed in disgust at the confusion on the floor, while far within Robert Mitchell, the General Freight Agent of the California Consolidated Railway, lifted a massive face from his desk with a look of mild reproof in his small blue eyes.
Yet when the huge stenographer came back, and with another scuffling of clumsy feet stooped to retrieve the litter about Heitmuller's revolving chair, he seemed so regretful and his features lighted with such a helplessly apologetic smile that even his awkwardness appeared commendable, since it was so obviously seasoned with the grace of perfectly good intent.
Appreciation of this was advertised in the forgiving chuckle of the chief clerk who, standing now at the rail, remarked sotto voce to the orange shipper: "John is as good as a vaudeville act!"
At this the red moustaches undulated appreciatively, while the two "mourners" laughed so audibly that the awkward man, once more in his chair, darted an embarrassed glance at them, and the red flush came again to his face. He suspected they were laughing at him, and as if to comfort himself, a finger and thumb went into his right vest pocket and drew out a clipping from the advertising columns of the morning paper. Holding it deep in his hand, he read furtively:
ACTING TAUGHT. Charles Kenton, character actor, temporarily disengaged, will receive a few select pupils in dramatic expression at his studio in The Albemarle. Terms reasonable.Then John looked across aggressively at the men who had laughed. They were not laughing now, but nodding in his direction, and whispering busily.
What were they saying? That he was a joke, a failure? That he had been in this chair seven years? That he was a big, snubbed, defeated, over-worked handy-man about this big, loosely organized office? That in seven years he had neither been able to get himself promoted nor discharged? No doubt!
As if to get away from the thought, John turned from his typewriter to the open window and looked out. There was the spire of the grand old First Church down there below him. Yonder were the sky-notching business blocks of the pushing city of Los Angeles, as it was in the early nineteen hundreds. There, too, were the villa-crowned heights to the north, shut in at last by the barren ridges of the Sierra Madre Mountains, some of which, in this month of January, were snow-capped.
But here were these foolish men still nodding and whispering. Good fellows, too, but blind. What did they know about him really?
They knew that he was a stenographer, but they did not know that he was a stenographer to the glory of God!—one who cleaned his typewriter, dusted his desk, opened the mail, wrote his letters, ate, walked, slept, all to the honor of his creator—that the whole of life to him was a sort of sacrament.
They thought he was beaten and discouraged, an industrial slave, drawn helplessly into the cogs. They, poor, purblind materialists, were without vision. They did not know that there were finer things than pickles and crude oil. They did not know that he was to soar; that already his wings were budding, nor that he lived in an inner state of spiritual exaltation as delicious as it was unsuspected. They pitied him; they laughed commiseratingly. He did not want their commiseration; he spurned their laughter and their pity. He was full of youth and the exuberance of hope. He was full of an expanding strength that made him stronger as his dream grew brighter. Only his eyes were tired. The cross lights were bad. For a moment he shaded his brow tenderly with his hand, reflecting that he must hereafter use an eye-shade by day as methodically he used one in his nightly study.
The morning moved along. The yearning orange shipper went away. One mourner rose and passed inside. The other waited impatiently for his turn to do the same. Luncheon time came for John, and he ate it in the file room—ravenously; and while he ate he read—the Congressional Record; and reading, made notations on the margin, for John was preparing for what he was preparing, although he did not quite know what. The train of destiny was rumbling along, and when it stopped at his station, he proposed to swing on board.
His luncheon down swiftly, as much through hunger as through haste, he swung out of the door, bound for Charles Kenton, "actor—temporarily disengaged—Hotel Albemarle—terms reasonable," moving with such headlong speed that he was soon within that self-important presence.
"Hampstead is my name," he blurted, with clumsy directness, "John Hampstead," and the interview with Destiny was on.
"The first trouble with you," declared the white-haired actor critically, "is that your face doesn't fit."
John wet a lip and hitched a nervous leg, but sat awkwardly silent, his eyes boring hungrily, as if waiting for more. The actor, however, was slow to add more. Faces were his enthusiasm, as well as the raw material of his profession, but this face puzzled him, so that before committing himself further he paused to survey it again: the strong nose with its hump of energy, the well buttressed chin, and then the broad forehead with its unusually thick, bony ridge encircling the base of the brows like a bilge keel, proclaiming loudly that here was a man with racial dynamite in his system, one who, whatever else he might become, was now and always a first-class animal.
The eyebrows heightened this suggestion by being thick and yellow, and sweeping off to the temples in a scroll-like flare. The forehead itself was broad, but gathered a high look from that welter of tawny hair which was roached straight up and back, giving the effect of one who plunges headlong.
But the eyes completely modified the countenance. They did not plunge. They halted and beamed softly. Gray and deep-seated, they made all that face's force the force of tenderness, by burning with a light that was obviously inner and spiritual. The mouth, again, while as cleanly chiseled as if cut from marble,—sensitive, impressionistic, fine, was, alas! weak; or if not weak, advertising weakness by an habitual expression of lax amiability; although along with this the actor noted that the two lips, buttoning so loosely at the corners, could none the less collaborate in a most engaging smile.
Kenton concluded his second appraisal with a little gesture of impatience. The man's features gave each other the lie direct, and that was all there was to it. They said: This man is a beast, a great, roaring lion of a man; and then they said: No, this lion is a lamb, a mild, dreamy, sucking dove sort of person.
"That's it," he iterated. "Your face doesn't fit."
Hampstead did not wince.
"The question is," he proposed, in a voice husky with a mixture of embarrassment and determination, "how am I to make it fit? Or, failing that, how am I to get somewhere with a face that doesn't fit?"
The actor's reply was half sagacity, half "selling talk", mixed with some judicious flattery and tinged with inevitable gallery play, although there was no gallery.
"Elocution?" Kenton observed, with a little grimace of derision. "No! Oratory? Not at all!" The weight of his withering scorn was tremendous. "There are no such things. It is all acting! A man speaks with the whole of himself—his eyes, his mouth, his body, his walk, his pose—everything. That's what you need to learn. Self-expression! I can make your face fit. That's simple enough," and Kenton waved his hand as if the re-stamping of a man's features was the easiest thing he did. "I can make your body graceful. I can take that voice of yours and make it strong as the roar of a bull, and as soft as rich, brown velvet. Yes," and the actor leaped to his feet in growing enthusiasm, "I can make 'em all respond to every whim of what's passing inside. But," he asked suddenly, with a penetrating glance, "will that make an orator of you? Well, that depends on what's passing inside. It takes a great soul to make an orator—great imagination, mind, feelings, sentiments. Have you got 'em? I doubt it! I doubt it!"
The old man confirmed his dubiousness with the uncomplimentary emphasis of hesitating silence. In the sincerity of his critical analysis, he had forgotten that he was trying to secure a pupil. "And yet—and yet—" his eye began to kindle as he looked, "I tell you I don't know, boy—there's something—there might be something behind that face of yours. It might come out, you know, it might come out!"
Kenton drawled the last words out slowly in a deeply speculative tone, and then asked abruptly: "How old are you?"
"Twenty-four," admitted John, feeling suddenly as if he confessed the years of Methuselah.
But the dark eyes of the old actor sparkled, and his long, mobile lips parted in the ghost of a sigh which crept out through teeth stained yellow by years and tobacco, after which he ejaculated admiringly: "My God, but you are young!"
This came as an inspiring thought to John. He did feel young, all but his eyes. What was the matter with them that the lids were so woodeny of late? Yes; he was young, despite seven submerged years, and the wings of his soul were preening.
Back in the General Freight Office, John fell upon his work with happy vigor. Spat, spat, spat, and a letter was on its way from Dear Sir to Yours truly. But in the midst of these spattings, he paused to muse.
"Kenton said he could make me graceful," the big fellow was communing over his typewriter, when abruptly the outer door opened and, after a single glance, John appeared to forget both his communings and his work. Swinging about, he sat transfixed, his odd features turned eccentrically handsome by a light of adoration which began to glow upon them, as if an astral presence had entered.
Yet to the unprejudiced observer the newcomer was no heavenly being, but a mere schoolgirl, whose dress had not been long at the shoe-top stage. With a swish of skirts and an excited ripple of laughter, she had burst in like a breeze of youth itself. But to this breeziness of youth the young lady added the indefinable thing called charm, and the promise of greater charm to come. She was already tall and would be taller, fair to look upon and certain to be fairer. To a dress of some warm red color, a touch of piquancy was added by a Tam-o'-Shanter cap of plaid that was itself pushed jauntily to one side by a wealth of crinkly brown hair; while a bit of soft brown fur encircled the neck and cuddled affectionately as a kitten under the smooth, plump chin. The face was oval with a tendency to fullness, and the nose, while by no means retroussé, was as distinctively Irish as the sparkle in the blue of her laughing eyes. Irish, too, were the smiling lips, but the delicious dimples that flecked the white and red of her cheeks were entirely without nationality. They were just woman, budding, ravishing woman; and there is no doubt whatever that they helped to make the fascination of that merry face complete, when its spell was cast over the soul of Hampstead.
"Oh, John!" exclaimed the young lady with impulsive familiarity, bounding through the gate and over to his side, "I want you to write some invitations for me. This is my week to entertain the Phrosos. See! Isn't the paper dear?"
There were caresses in the big man's eyes as the girl drew near, but he replied with less freedom than her own form of address invited: "Good afternoon, Miss Bessie."
The restraint in his speech however was much in contrast to the bold poaching of his eyes. But Bessie appeared to notice neither restraint nor the boldness as, standing by his desk, with the big man looking on interestedly, she undid the package in her hand.
The picture of frank and simple comradeship so immediately established proclaimed a certain mutual unawareness between this pretty, half-developed girl and this big, unawakened man that was as delightful to contemplate as it evidently was to enjoy.
"Isn't it darling?" the girl demanded again, having exposed to view the contents of her box, invitation paper with envelopes to match, in color as pink as her own cheeks.
"Yes, Miss Bessie, it is dear," John concurred placidly.
"But you are not looking at it," protested the girl.
"No," the awkward man confessed, but entirely unabashed, "I am looking at you—devouringly."
"Well, you needn't," Bessie answered spicily.
"Yes, I need," John declared coolly. "You do not know how much I need. You are the only unspoiled human being I ever see in this office."
"Old Heit does look rather shopworn," Bessie whispered roguishly. "But, look here," and she thrust out her lips in a pout that was at once defiant and tantalizing, while her eyes rested for a moment upon the closed double doors: "My father is an unspoiled human being."
"What have you been doing to your hair?" Hampstead demanded critically, refusing to be diverted.
"Doing it up, of course, as grown women should," she vouchsafed with emphasis. "Don't you like it?"
With a flash of her two hands, one of which snatched out a pin while the other swept off the plaid cap, she spun herself rapidly about so that John might view the new coiffure from all angles.
"Oh, of course, I have to like it," he said, with mock mournfulness. "I have to like anything you do, because I like you, and because you are my boss's boss; but I am sorry to lose the thick braids down your back, with that delicious little velvety tuft at the end that I used to catch up and tickle your ear with in the long, long ago."
"But how long ago was that, Sir Critical?" challenged Bessie.
"Long, long ago," affirmed Hampstead, with another of his humorous sighs, "when it was a part of my duty to take you to the circus and buy you peanuts and lemonade of a color to match your cheeks."
"And that," dissented the young lady triumphantly, "was only last September, and the one before that, and, in fact, almost every circus day since I can remember."
"But now that you are doing your hair up high, you will not need me to take you to the circus again."
This time the note of sadness in Hampstead's voice was genuine, whereat all the loyalty in the soul of Bessie leaped up.
"You shall," she declared, with an impulsive sweetness of manner, while she leaned close and added in a whisper that made the assurance deliciously confidential—"as long as you wish."
"Then I shall do it forever," declared John recklessly.
"However," and Miss Elizabeth Mitchell, with a playful acquisition of dignity, switched the subject abruptly by announcing briskly, "business before circuses."
"Phrosos before rhinos, as it were," consented John.
"Yes—now take your pencil and let me dictate."
"But," bantered John, "I allow no woman to dictate to me. Besides, I write a perfectly horrible hand."
"Oh," explained Bessie, "but I want them on the typewriter. It'll make the other girls wild. None of them can command a typewriter."
"Yet," protested Hampstead, "overlooking for the moment the offensiveness in that word 'command', I venture to suggest, Miss Mitchell, that things are not done that way this year. A typewritten invitation isn't considered good form in the best circles."
"I don't care; we'll have 'em," declared Bessie. "We'll set a new fashion." Her little foot smote the floor sharply, and she stood bolt upright, so upright that she leaned back, gazing at John through austere lashes, her face lengthening till the dimples disappeared, while the Cupid's bow of her lips became almost a memory.
"Oh, very well," weakened Hampstead, bowing his head, "I cannot brook that gaze for long. It shall be as your Grace commands."
"Tired, aren't you?" commented Bessie, suddenly mollified, and scanning the big face narrowly, while a look of soberness came into her eyes. "I can see it; and your eyes look bad—very bad, John." Her voice was girlishly sympathetic. "These people do not appreciate you, either. But I do! I know!" and she nodded her round chin stoutly, while she laid a hand upon the arm of this man who, seven years her senior, was in some respects her junior. "You are a very great man in the day of his obscurity. It will come out some time. You will be General Manager of the railroad, or something very, very big. Won't you?" and she leaned close again with that delightfully confidential whisper.
"I admit it," confessed John, with a happy chuckle.
But Bessie's restless eye had fallen upon the clock. "Pickles and artichokes!" she exclaimed, with a sudden change of mood, "I must flit."
Snatching from her bag a crumpled note, she tossed it on the desk, calling back: "Here. This is what I want to say to 'em."
Hampstead sat for a moment looking after her, his lips parted, his great hands set upon his knees with fingers sprawled very widely, until Bessie was out of view behind the double doors that admitted to her father's presence.