Our Little Girl/Chapter 4
IV
OF SMALL BEGINNINGS
Madame Schneider was one of those local teachers who would have announced “only a limited number of pupils accepted” had she advertised. She was a small, buxom creature, plain-featured, pince-nezed, and coiffured with little regard to aesthetic values. When she listened, she put her head forward. And when she spoke she put it still further forward. She was not impressive, but she had a manner which said: “Isn’t it a pity you failed! If you had only come to me first, I could have shown you so simply!” This manner did little to stimulate prospective pupils, but it convinced many a parent that Madame Schneider would stand for no nonsense and that she could turn out singers as a meat chopper could turn out Salisbury steaks.
There was an overpowering simplicity about Madame Schneider’s studio on upper Broadway. The Madame herself opened the door to a tiny reception room, which contained a few chairs, a table with copies of last year’s musical journals, and a collection of framed autographed pictures from various musical lights. Few of these photographs were inscribed specifically to Madame Schneider, but the gallery was imposing, nevertheless. The studio proper was a slightly larger room, containing a middle-aged piano, several music cabinets, two chairs, and more autographed pictures. Madame Schneider moved from one room to the other like a nurse gliding from a dentist’s waiting-room to his office.
Mrs. Loamford arrived at Madame Schneider’s studio by appointment, bringing with her Dorothy and a roll of music. Madame Schneider permitted the callers to wait for a short interval before answering their ring, and led them into the anteroom.
Dorothy’s first glimpse of Madame Schneider confirmed her preconceived judgment that Michel Soedlich would be the logical teacher. This woman looked hopelessly uninteresting. There had to be romance in an artist’s background, and Madame Schneider was too much like a virtuous seamstress to be romantic.
“Wouldn’t it be cozier,”” Madame Schneider said as soon as her visitors were seated, “if we went into the studio?”
She opened the sliding door between the rooms and waited for Mrs. Loamford and Dorothy to enter. She bowed them into the two chairs and sat on the piano stool.
“This, I take it, is your daughter,” she began.
Dorothy repressed a squirming movement. Madame Schneider was trying to appear important. She spoke of Dorothy as she might speak of a small and undernourished baby. Soedlich might have regarded her at least as one who had something in common with him.
“I believe I talked to you about Dorothy over the phone the other day,” said Mrs. Loamford. “I should be very glad to have you hear her voice.”
“Have you ever had lessons, Miss Loamford?” inquired Madame Schneider.
“My daughter has not,” answered Mrs. Loamford. believe that she has an unusual natural voice.”
Madame Schneider waved amiably at Dorothy.
“And,” Mrs. Loamford continued, "I have brought some of her music-"
"Permit me to test her voice," interrupted Madame Schneider.
She struck a few notes on the piano and asked Dorothy to sing them. Dorothy produced them in a quavering tone. She couldn’t sing for a woman who looked and spoke like a nursery governess.
“Don’t be nervous,” advised her mother.
Madame Schneider admonished silence with a polite but imperious motion.
It was a temptation to sing as badly as possible in the hope of having Madame Schneider declare her impossible. Dorothy thought that to be taught by a pedantic little woman like this was no better than learning French verbs from Mlle. Jeanne, the weak sister of Miss Blagden’s faculty.
“Try it again, my dear,” said Madame Schneider.
There was a slight improvement, and other exercises followed. The final one was beyond Dorothy’s powers.
“I’m afraid I can’t do that,” she confessed.
She didn’t care, either. “Tt’s not very hard,” said Madame Schneider. “Listen."
She played the sequence of notes on the piano, and rather surprised Dorothy and Mrs. Loamford by singing them in a clear, powerful soprano voice, taking the last top-note with ease.
“Some day you'll do that, Dorothy," commented Mrs. Loamford.
Dorothy smiled feebly. She disliked Madame Schneider’s vocal efficiency as much as she disliked her manners.
“It’s a matter of method—and practice,” explained Madame Schneider.
“My daughter’s voice is worth cultivating, isn’t it?” said Mrs. Loamford. “Dorothy dear, please sit outside, while Madame Schneider and I discuss this matter.”
The deprecating glances of Madame Schneider did not prevent Dorothy from obeying the behest.
Entering on a musical career evidently wasn’t at all as she had pictured it. Soedlich, according to pictures in the musical magazines, had an interesting face and there were strange stories of the methods he had used to bring warmth to the voice of a prima donna who had been known as the “icicle.” Now, Madame Schneider-
Going to Madame Schneider would be like going to Dr. Sill, the family dentist. It wouldn’t hurt much and it might even be beneficial, but it would be wearying beyond words. And she would feel constrained before this prim little woman. What she needed was a teacher who would bring things out of her, who would make her sing almost unspeakably well. Madame Schneider would make the most passionate love lyric sound like one of Professor Abendschein’s abominable exercises for developing the little finger.
Dorothy paced the room impatiently and finally looked out of the window. She could see a court and a fat woman cooking. Inspiration? Where? The fat woman cooking symbolized Madame Schneider and her studio. Oh-h!
The sliding door opened, and Madame Schneider ushered Mrs. Loamford into the anteroom.
“Dorothy, my dear,” said Mrs. Loamford, “Madame Schneider has consented to take you as a pupil. She thinks very well of your voice.”
Dorothy wished that Madame Schneider had rejected her—but Madame Schneider had not yet reached stage where possible pupils were discouraged.
“Your lessons will start next week,” continued Mrs. Loamford, “and at the start you will not have to practise very much.”
“I’m sure Miss Dorothy and I will get along together perfectly,” said Madame Schneider. “Don’t you think so, dear?”
Dorothy vouchsafed that she thought so. the beginning of a “career!”
“Meanwhile,” added Madame Schneider, “there are certain things you must do. You must get plenty of rest. No late hours—but you are a sensible girl and you don’t care about staying out late. No smoking—but you do not smoke, I am sure.”
“Certainly not!”
Mrs. Loamford lost no time in confirming this flattering hypothesis.
“Avoid rich foods,” Madame Schneider went on, “and keep regular habits. You will understand what that means, I am sure, or, if not, your mother will tell you. Above all, get plenty of fresh air and breathe deeply every morning on rising and every night on retiring. A good physique and good health are necessary to every successful singer and many a person whose voice has been nothing unusual has risen to the top by taking the best possible care of himself.
“At the end of six months, Mrs. Loamford, I want you to come here again with Miss Dorothy, and hear the difference in her singing. Before that time, I must ask her to sing only the exercises that I prescribe for her and under no circumstances to sing for friends or visitors. And I am sure that we shall get on swimmingly.”
A dull summer for Dorothy followed. Arnold suddenly decided to make a motor trip through Canada. He invited Dorothy to accompany him, but he might as well have invited Helen of Troy. Mrs. Loamford might not have objected to that. Nevertheless, the invitation impressed Mrs. Loamford with Arnold’s generosity. Tommy Borge, after an inexplicable silence of several weeks, sent a highly literary letter from a little town in Connecticut, where, he announced, he would spend several months writing a play, of which no more was heard thereafter. The girls of Miss Blagden’s School had long since scattered. There was little company in town. Mr. Loamford’s activities at the office precluded a vacation until late in July. Except for the almost daily sessions with Madame Schneider, Dorothy had little to do. Lessons were to end temporarily when the Loamfords went to a little colony in Maine, where Dorothy was the only person between the ages of twelve and forty-three. In September Dorothy was to continue “in earnest,” as her mother explained.
Madame Schneider was painstaking and she quoted many authorities, but her method struck Dorothy as singularly futile. There were breathing exercises without end, queer little tunes sung through the nose, tones produced in strange ways on different vowels—but music? There was no singing as such. When, in the privacy of her room, she tried to sing some of the songs she used to know, she could discover no change in the results and the old difficulties with low tones and high notes were still there.
It wasn’t at all as she had imagined it. She had read of the early struggles of famous singers—Madame Schneider insisted that her pupils know something of the history of song—but in all of these there had been something exciting. There was nothing exciting about taking lessons from Madame Schneider and very little to show for it.
Wouldn’t it be a good idea to leave home and to take a little flat downtown, and—this was important—to work with a teacher who could make lessons something more than a series of calisthenics? That would be a thrilling adventure, and all great singers had had thrilling adventures. But how? Her checking account couldn’t last very long, and then-
Well, next fall it would be different. There would be no starting “in earnest,” with Madame Schneider. She would find some way of changing. What had Madame Schneider accomplished, anyhow?
Dorothy was discouraged when she went to Poole’s Orchard, Maine. She was anxious to know what all these strange contortions with the breath and the chest muscles had to do with singing the surprisingly strong and bright tones which Madame Schneider produced now and then without any apparent effort. One Sunday morning she tried to let out her voice at the local Baptist Church. She desisted when she saw several worshipers turn to stare at her and shake their heads mournfully.
“Do you know, Dorothy?” said her mother, that afternoon. “I was surprised when I heard your voice in church this morning. It’s such a beautiful voice—but——”
That “but” was, to Dorothy, a complete criticism of the methods of Madame Schneider. Her momentary mood of despair over her mother's discovery that were was something wrong with her singing gave way quickly was a brilliant idea presented itself. Here was an opportunity to get rid of Madame Schneider! Of course, it would take a careful approach to convince her mother, yet Soedlich was already appearing on the horizon.
"I don't think I'll ever make it as a singer," Dorothy sighed hypocritically.
Her mother stared at her in surprise.
“What nonsense, Dorothy!”
“I’ve taken lessons for several months, and my singing doesn’t sound right. It’s weak, it’s——”
“Don’t be absurd! How can you expect any results after just a few weeks’ training? At the end of a year’s good, steady work you’ll have a right to consider results.”
“Really, I don’t think I’ll ever get results—this way.”
Mrs. Loamford looked at her sharply.
“What does that mean?”
“T’m afraid—I’m afraid I haven’t enough faith in Madame Schneider.”
Her mother glared at her as though she were ready to ignite her at the nearest convenient stake for this heresy.
“She’s most capable. Let us have no more of this. Study hard—and you will see that I am right.”
“But I can’t work with a person who doesn’t—who doesn’t inspire me.”
“That’s a foolish idea. You young people seem to go in heavily for ‘inspiration-—whatever that is. Hard work, Dorothy—that’s all you need. Just do what Madame Schneider says.”
“T haven’t anything against Madame Schneider. It’s just that she doesn’t make me want to sing. Something that ought to be there—isn’t.”
Mrs. Loamford pushed aside her sewing to show that she would settle this debate instantly.
“This is all very foolish and very hysterical of you, Dorothy, and I’m surprised. You have a God-given voice and your father and I are doing everything possible to give you an opportunity to develop it. Before you were born I prayed to God that there might be music in my daughter’s soul. God was very good to me. As a baby you showed your musical instincts. I am sorry now that I permitted you to drop your piano playing. At school, the only subject in which you showed any aptitude was music. And now, because you aren’t able to sing as well as a woman who has devoted her life to singing, you wish to give up your work with her—well, for what?”
Dorothy had no answer. She started to speak and found that there was nothing to say. Then she began to cry and ran from the room.
That evening her father approached her.
“What’s this I hear about your wanting to stop lessons with Madame Schneider?” he demanded.
Dorothy was silent. Mr. Loamford never persisted long. She would let this episode spend itself.
“Your mother and I can’t understand it at all,” he went on. “She’s exceptionally competent. You should consider yourself fortunate to have such a good teacher.”
Dorothy continued silent.
“Tf you have anything to say,” her father added, “I'll be glad to hear it, But I can’t understand what whim has got this idea into your head.”
Mrs. Loamford never had been able to keep aloof from a domestic altercation. She joined in.
“Isn’t it absurd, Samuel,”’ she demanded rhetorically, “how Dorothy has gotten this notion that Madame Schneider isn’t good enough for her?”
Dorothy backed away. Her mother was about to speak again when she let out a loud scream.
“You can’t make me take lessons!” she cried. “You can’t do it! I don’t like that woman! That’s all! I don’t want to sing anyhow! I’m doing it as a favor to you! I don’t like that woman! I hate her! I hate singing! Oh God! Can’t you let me alone?”
Dorothy, sobbing violently, ran upstairs to her room.
“Only hysteria,” declared Mrs, Loamford.
Her husband started away.
“I came here for a rest,” he said, “and I find this sort of thing on my hands. Why do you have to drag me into it?”
“Why, Samuel!”
“I don’t know anything about this business. All I do is pay the bills [sic]. That should be enough for you. I came out here for peace and quiet and what do I get? This! I won’t have anything more to do with it.”
“But I only asked you to speak to her about it, to put some sense into her head-"
“Who put this whole thing into her head? You fix it up! You started it. I’m going out in the garden.”
He left her. It was one of his victories.
Mrs. Loamford went to Dorothy’s room. The door was locked. She rapped on it. No answer.
“Dorothy!”
Her commanding cry brought no response.
Silence—and a sound of sobbing from behind the door.
“Dorothy!”
The firmness of the order evoked nothing. She ran down the stairs to her husband.
“She’s locked herself in. She won’t answer. I don’t know what she’ll do. Go to her. See what she’s doing.”
Loamford looked up coolly from a small hill of potatoes which he was weeding casually.
"Huh?"
“She’s locked herself in! She’s crying! She won’t answer!”
“Let her alone, then. It'll be all right in the morning. She’ll get over it.”
“But she won’t answer!”
“I know it. Let her alone. Maybe it’ll be good for her. Maybe she’ll cry away some of that nonsense you’ve put in her head!” With an exclamation of despair and disgust, Mrs. Loamford made her way back to Dorothy’s room.
“Dorothy!”
Still no answer. She listened carefully at the keyhole. The sobbing had subsided. She could hear steady breathing. She wondered whether she ought to call her husband to open the door with his key. What use would it be with him in his present mood? She went down to the garden. It was dark, but the flash of a pocket lamp showed her that Loamford was still amusing himself with the potatoes. He enjoyed: farming at night. As she approached him he turned the lamp on her.
“Everything all right now?”
He was puffing at a cigar.
She gave up the battle.
“I think so. I’m tired.”
“Good. Go to bed. I'll spray a few plants tonight. Looks like they might need it.”
“But you must speak to Dorothy in the morning.”
“Wait till morning.”
Up in the little room which had been allotted to Dorothy, the perturbed Miss Loamford was sitting on her bed, staring at a bowl of matches on the chiffonier. The matches suggested the gas jet and the gas jet suggested something grimly fascinating. Her parents certainly would be sorry if they rapped at the door the next morning and found their daughter lying lifeless but beautiful in death. She walked about restlessly. And it certainly would serve them right! They had no consideration for her.
She leaned against the chiffonier and looked out of the window. She could see a few stars but no moon, and shadowy treetops. How dull it was! She had seen this view every night. How dull everything was! Why did her parents have to bring her to such a dull place?
Life wasn’t worth living here. She might as well be dead. It would be the end of a promising life cheated of-
She sat in the rickety rocking-chair near the window and wondered about the promising life. It hadn’t been very exciting. When she was small she had somehow passed through school year after year. Then she had gone to Miss Blagden’s School and had passed through year after year. For a moment it seemed as though she might some day escape from passing through things year after year by becoming a great singer. But at the end of this rainbow lay—Madame Schneider. And now— more Madame Schneider!
It was all so hopeless. What had she to live for? Well—there was Arnold. Yes, she might live for Arnold. But she didn’t feel the right sort of love for Arnold or for any man. Oh, what might have been if her parents had given her opportunities, if they had introduced her to the right men, if they had permitted that freedom which some of the girls she knew enjoyed! Perhaps it would help to say a prayer to the moon. Perhaps she could work up a spell about the name of Arnold. But again, there was no moon and the stars didn’t inspire her.
She was friendless. Friendless and alone. Why had she never had any girl friends? But the girls in her set never had close friends. Among girls, that is. And Dorothy hadn’t even a real friend among men, unless it was Arnold. Well, yes-Tommy Borge had shown interest, but he—she could never grow excited about Tommy Borge. She just couldn’t; that was all there was to that.
Now, Arnold. She walked about again, as though by marching to bring before her an enthralling view of Arnold. He was attractive. He was clever—in a way. He was a gentleman. He danced beautifully. She tried to recall how he had held her in his arms at the graduation dance. There had been a waltz, a terribly melting waltz, and Arnold-
She stretched herself out on the bed. The vocalizes of Madame Schneider had faded. A waltz was murmuring to her. Yet there was something missing. If Arnold only had said-
The phantom waltz had become her lullaby.
And, as such things happen, the matter settled itself suddenly in the morning. The Loamford family had nothing to do with it. Madame Schneider settled it with a letter which contained a clipping, showing Edna EIdridge, a new soprano of the Metropolitan Opera House, arrayed in a fetching short-skirted costume as “Nedda” in “I Pagliacci.”
“Dear Madam,” ran the letter. “The enclosed clipping will no doubt surprise you, but I have become a member of the Metropolitan Opera Company and will make my début this season as you will see from enclosed clipping.
“This will make it impossible for me to continue lessons for your daughter Dorothy, and am enclosing bill to date, which please remit at your convenience. With best wishes to Miss Dorothy and thanking you in advance, yours truly, Edna Eldridge (Mme. Schneider).”
Mrs. Loamford passed the letter to her husband without a word. He looked at it with a smile.
“I’m sorry I never saw her,” he remarked, “she’s rather—shapely.”
“Samuel!’”’ objected Mrs. Loamford.
“Well—she has nice legs,” he continued. “A good duet.”
Here Dorothy came to breakfast, red-eyed.
“Cheer up, Dorothy,” cried Loamford. “Your Madame Schneider leads a double life. I won’t let you take lessons from her any more.”
He threw the letter and clippings to Dorothy.
Dorothy read both and smiled.
“Who'd ever think-"
And then she kissed her mother.
“Fine, fine,’ commented Loamford. “Thank Heaven, that’s over. Can’t see, though, why you shouldn’t find something inspiring in such an attractive woman.”
He anticipated his wife’s remark.
“Don’t get jealous, mother. You’re not so bad yourself!”
It was one of his jolly mornings.
“I’m so thankful!”
Dorothy’s half-smothered remark brought inquiring looks from her parents. But she only kissed them and busied herself with breakfast.
If Dorothy had known to whom to be thankful, she would have made a pilgrimage to the shrines of a certain tailor and a certain hair-dresser, one of whom had converted Edna Schneider (whose Madame was hers by courtesy only) into an alluring little body, and the other of whom had swung a mass of unconsidered hair into a design which attracted every eye. Or perhaps she should have sent a letter of thanks to a young actor who had thrown an ironic suggestion about names and makeup to an insignificant vocal teacher and who had been taken seriously.