Don-A-Dreams/Part 3/Chapter 8
VIII
The "Rialto," on these August mornings, was the resort of all the actors and actresses who were still in search of an engagement for the "season"; and Don accompanied Walter Pittsey, from agency to agency, in the atmosphere of a life that was new to him. Here were the leading men of road companies, bearing themselves with an obvious "stage presence," dressed in the correct summer costume of the footlights and preserving the unreality of the stage in the very faultlessness of clothes that had the appearance of being part of a theatrical "wardrobe." Here were comedians, more or less "low," who carried a lighter manner, a necktie fluttering in the breeze, a straw hat slanted over the eyes, a hand waved in an airy greeting as they hurried by. Chorus girls of conspicuous complexions, in gowns of lace and appliqué, raised their dragging skirts to show silk petticoats of pink or green, and stared through their heavy chiffon veils at the would-be "ingenues" in their simple frocks. Soubrettes, "heavies," "general utilities" and young graduates from dramatic schools, walked haughtily past the groups of untrained and awkward beginners who had registered—as Don had—with the agent who engaged "supers." And they all passed and repassed, met and nodded, bowed and shook hands effusively, in a way that reminded Don of the students in the college corridors, meeting after their Christmas holidays, hailing friends and acknowledging acquaintances. There was the same air of camaraderie, tempered by the same marked distinction of distance in the manner of the upper years to the lower ones; there was the same tone of social irresponsibility in the circle of a privileged life; and there was the same note of unreality and evanescence—derived, in this case, from the exaggerated manner of these Bohemians who "made up" for the street as if for a stage entrance, and walked in the sunshine as if it had been a calcium light.
But though they reminded him of his college days, it was only to make him happy that he had left those days behind him. His last letter from his mother had brought him word that Frank had passed his "matriculation" with honours, at the head of his school; and Don was glad of the fact that his brother's rivalry could not pursue him to the Rialto. He contrasted this street with the streets of Coulton, and his liberty here with the life which he might have led at home. The difference for him was all the difference between romantic adventure and drab matter-of-fact. The catchwords of greeting which he heard in the waiting-rooms of the agencies —"Hello! What luck?"—came to him like the croupier's call to a gambler. Youth pursued opportunity in a game of chance in which futures were at stake, and every turn of the hour was watched with eagerness. This was a life to keep the heart beating.
He had met Kidder, the "super's" agent, and been looked on with a favour which was largely of Walter Pittsey's procuring. "You're all right," Pittsey had assured him. "Kidder has a problem here, trying to get intelligent-looking supers. He has to pick up all sorts of bums and muckers to fill up his ranks. I've asked him to get us something together. I've told him you'll stay with him— though I'll go on the road if I can get a part. He's put us down for an English thing they're going to begin rehearsing next week."
That, Don felt, would be the beginning of his worldly progress; the rest would be merely a matter of time. And with his new pseudo-scientific theory of religion to comfort his doubts, his future began to regain some of the tints of happiness — the misty blue tints of distant peace. The figure in the immediate foreground of his outlook was still Miss Morris; but he had not yet had his confessional tête-a-tête with her, because she gave him no opportunity to do so. She carried herself among the actors on the street as if she were ashamed of being seen with them; and she admitted to Don that she was sorry to see him there. Why? "Because you'll never make a success of acting," she said. It's absurd." He tried to make her understand that he was not ambitious. "Then you should be," she replied. "At least you should be taking up some work that you can remain in all your life. I hope you don't intend to keep at this sort of thing."
"Why not?"
She turned into the door of an office building that was full of theatrical agencies. "Well," she said curtly, "I supposed that you intended, some day, to settle down."
He went back toward his room undepressed by her criticism. Evidently, as Walter Pittsey had said, she was out of her element. She should have remained in Coulton, teaching in her sister's school, if settling down made up her idea of the whole end and object of life.
He hesitated at Madison Square, intending to sit under the trees for a moment and think it all over. But he remembered that he had left the breakfast dishes unwashed on the table; and it had been his turn, that morning, to wash up. He continued down Fifth Avenue, in the scant shade of mid-day, tired by the heat and excitement of a crowded morning.
As he ascended the stairs to his rooms, Bert Pittsey called over the railing: "Is that you, Don?"
"Yes. What is it?" He supposed that Pittsey wished him to do some shopping for luncheon, and he waited on the step. Hearing no reply, he continued his ascent; and as he approached the landing on which their apartment opened, Pittsey came out—his hat in his hand—and whispered as he escaped past him: "Your father's in there. Someone's written him that you're going on the stage."
Don's irresolution carried him to the doorway. His father was sitting beside the dining-table; it was covered with a disorder of stale food and dirty dishes; and he looked strangely out of place and as if degraded by the indignity of his surroundings. He did not rise. At Don's challenging stare, he said: "Well, come in."
Don crossed the threshold. His father scrutinized him silently as if trying to see in his appearance some indication of what had been happening to him in New York. He was pale, shabby, thin, and as dumb as guilt.
Mr. Gregg pushed away from him a dish of half-eaten porridge that had turned brown in its milk. He put his elbow on the table with the air of beginning an examination. "Your mother hears that you are going on the stage. Is this true?"
Don said thickly: "Yes."
Mr. Gregg raised his eyebrows. "Do you find that sort of life particularly inviting?"
Don shook his head. "No."
"You do it, then, because you feel that you have great dramatic ability?"
But this sarcasm made Don aware that he was being treated as a child, and recovering from the first instinctive obedience that had moved his tongue in spite of himself, he refused to reply.
Mr. Gregg went on slowly: "Or is it because the wages are so high for beginners? . . . and the prospects of advancement so alluring?"
Don looked up at him with narrowed eyes, meditating a defiant answer. His father put in, quickly, in another tone: "Don't misunderstand me, now. I have not come here to find fault with you. I merely wish to know why you are doing it."
"Because there's nothing else," he replied sullenly.
His father refused to accept the challenge of his manner, but looked down, frowning, at the bare floor, his eyes concealed by his heavy grey eyebrows. "Surely you don't think that?" he said. "Surely you understand that there's a place in life made ready for you in Coulton—that there's honest work for you there, among your friends, among your schoolmates, with a home for you to live in—and your mother. . . . She has not had a happy minute, you know, since you left."
Don fumbled with his hat; this manner of attack unnerved him. He had not expected gentleness.
"I don't understand you," Mr. Gregg continued. "I have never professed to. I had to leave these things to your mother. But I have never been consciously unkind to you. I have tried to do my duty to you. And it seems to me that you have behaved in a way that is cruel to your mother and most undutiful to me. Why is it? Why are you here? What is it you wish to do with your life? Surely, as your parents, we are entitled to some consideration—to some explanation."
He was asking for a confidence which he should never have had to ask for. It was too late. It was too late for him to ask from the young man what he had repelled in the child and never encouraged in the boy. Don struggled with himself to speak, but when he raised his eyes to his father, he saw only the tyrant of his past, now impotent. The figure of oppression had shrunken; he was old and worried, and he had even a provincial appearance in his lawyer's frock-coat and his collar that was out of style. He was pathetic, but he was not lovable.
Don stammered: "I can't—I can't explain."
"Why not?"
"I can't go back—that's all. I can't go back."
"Why not?"
Don shook his head, his face averted. There was a long silence. He leaned back against the jamb of the door, and his eyes fell on a frying-pan that was on the end of the table. The bacon fat in it had jellied disgustingly. He found himself wishing that he had washed up before his father came.
Mr. Gregg continued: "I came down with your uncle, who is taking Conroy home. He wished you to return with us. Will you go with him—if you will not with me?" When he received no answer, he said more sharply: "You understand that he will not assist you to remain here. Any arrangement which he made with you terminates on your cousin's leaving. If you are determined to defy us, you must do so without his assistance."
Don saw and despised the diplomacy with which his father had manœuvred in order to arrive with this ultimatum. He said: "He hasn't assisted me."
"Don't lie, sir!" his father snapped.
"I don't lie."
"You tell a falsehood!"
"I borrowed money from him. I"
"Exactly."
"I'll pay it back."
"No doubt. You are apparently"—he glanced at the table—"living in luxury here. Have you earned a single penny yet?"
Don shut his lips. He felt that no matter what a son of his had done, he could not have stung him with such a taunt as that. And his thought showed in his face.
"Well, then," his father cried, "answer me! What do you hope to do here? Why did you leave college? Why do you refuse to come home? Do you hear?" He brought his fist down on the table with a blow that jarred the dishes. "Answer me!"
Don threw out a hand in one of those nervous and futile gestures that were characteristic of him. "Because I can't! Because I won't! Because there's nothing there—the life—nothing! I hate it. I'd die first."
The lawyer pointed a keen finger at him. "You'll die here—or you'll do worse. You've been here now a whole summer, and you're no farther ahead than you were the day you came. Don't think you can deceive me. I know you. You're as foolish—as unpractical—as a girl. You've been living on the money you had from your aunt and your uncle. When you haven't that—you'll have nothing. You're living a beggar's life now, and you refuse to come home because there you'd have to work. The fear of work drove you to college. You idled for a whole year, and when your examinations impended you ran away. You're a lazy loafer. You'll come home and get to work—or you'll stay here and starve. Your uncle will help you no more. I'll see to that!"
Don swallowed, white. "Thanks. If you won't help me, at least you can"
"Help you! Help you to what?"
He threw his hat on the table. "I don't want your help. I don't want anybody's help. I'm going to live my life in my own way." He took up the frying-pan and the coffee-pot and carried them into the kitchen. "Leave me alone; that's all. I can take care of myself."
He began to clear off the table, filling the kettle and making the dishes ready in the wash-pan. He was trembling with a resentful determination, tall, fragile, pitiful in this ludicrous occupation of scullion.
When he went into the kitchen, his father wiped his forehead, his eyes wandering over the poor discomforts of the room—which he had thought to find Don eager to leave—baffled, but still resolved to take the son home to the mother and save him from this folly. He had tried sarcasm, gentleness, abuse and anger; he had played all the tricks which his trade uses to draw the truth from the witness in the box; and as yet he did not even understand what it was that his son was concealing from him, what had brought the boy here, what kept him here, what he hoped to find here that he could not find at home.
He lighted a cigar which he had accepted from his brother-in-law on their railroad journey together; and he smoked it as if he did not know that it was in his mouth—his eyes darting from point to point of the evidence which he had gathered from Mr. McLean, from Pittsey and from Don himself—his eyebrows working—sometimes shaking his head, and more than once closing his hands on a parental impulse to thrash the young fool into submission and take him home by the ear.
Don washed and dried the dishes, emptied the water into the sink, scoured the pan, hung up the dish-rag, washed his hands, and at last had no further excuse to keep him from the dining-room.
He did not look at his father. He filled his pipe and sat down beside the window.
"Well," Mr. Gregg said, with a calculated mildness, "if you are going to stay here, will you tell me what you intend to do?"
"I don't know."
"You're going on the stage?"
"Yes. I'm going on the stage."
"As your life work?"
"I suppose so."
"You have no training for it."
"No."
"You hope to succeed at it?"
"I don't hope to succeed very well at anything."
"Why not?"
"I don't care whether I do or not."
"You don't care whether you succeed or not?"
"No."
"Why?"
"There are other things in life more important."
"What are they?"
"Oh, you know them as well as I do."
Mr. Gregg studied his cigar with an admirable self-restraint. "You hope to marry, I suppose."
"I suppose so."
"To support your wife and children?"
"I suppose so."
"On the stage?"
"Or in some other way."
"You haven't decided how?"
"No."
"Do you appreciate the difficulty of making an honest living for a wife and family in a city where you have no friends, no relatives? You are starting out, here, like a man in a new country, and you are leaving behind you, in Coulton, all the assistance that would make the way easy for you."
"I understand all that. I can't go back to Coulton."
Mr. Gregg sprang the next question like a trap: "Who is the young woman?"
Don did not answer.
"Is it Miss Morris?"
He flushed resentfully.
"Do you think she would sooner have you on the stage than in some honest employment? . . . Do you think she would be happier here than in Coulton? . . . Do you?"
Don put down his pipe and stood up to face his father. "What's the use?" he said wildly. "What's the use of all this? I couldn't make you understand if we were to keep this up forever. You don't The things that are important to you, to Coulton, I don't care that for." He tossed them away with his bony hand. "The things that make up my life—if I were to tell you—you'd laugh at me. Why can't you leave me alone? Why can't you go away and leave me alone?"
"Because, unfortunately, you're my son. Because your mother worries herself sick about you. Because she's ill and weak, and this is killing her. Because"—he raised his voice in a trembling passion—"you owe it to her, you ungrateful dog, to go back there, and behave yourself. Do you think I care? If it weren't for her God! that it should be in your power to make a woman suffer, and lie sleepless, and watch me as if I were a brute that had driven you out of the house!" He clenched his hands, with a terrible face. "You callous young hound! This is the important thing in life! To make everyone miserable that loves you! To kill the mother that almost gave her life for you once already! To break up the home that sheltered you! Oh, you whelp! You"
"Stop!" Don gasped. The horror of the accusation was more than he could bear to listen to. "I won't—I won't" He caught up his hat and ran to the door. I won't"
His father heard him slip and fall on the stairs. He stood holding to the table, until he heard nothing but the noises from the street echoing in a dull rumble in the air-court outside the window. Then he sat down to wait.
Don did not return.
He did not return until late at night, and then he came limping, to find Bert Pittsey sitting alone at the dining-table working on one of his "specials." Conroy had packed his trunk and departed with his father. There had been no messages left for Don, except a note from his uncle enclosing a small cheque and advising him to return home.
He sat down to write a letter of frantic affection to his mother, appealing to her not to worry about him, exonerating his father from all responsibility for his misbehaviour and promising an impossible success for himself and an end of all trouble for her in the near future. His hand, wet with perspiration, stuck to the pages as his pen trembled across them.
He wrote another letter to his uncle, returning the cheque with thanks. He ate bread and butter at midnight, chewing mechanically, his eyes fixed on the lamp; and then he went to his bed, alone, abandoned, with a sinking tremor of nervous apprehension that lay like a nightmare on him in the stifling darkness and heat of the room.