Chapter XXI

The tomb scene of ‘Romeo and Juliet’ was nearing the end. The big New York audience was strangely hushed--a hush that meant more than all their previous enthusiastic applause. The house was so still that you could not hear a pin drop--no pin would drop from such rigid rows of tense humanity. At last, as the white-robed Juliet snatched up the dagger, a tremor ran through the house. John Vandeleur, who had kept himself carefully concealed all the evening at the back of his box, made an involuntary start forward. His movement was not noticed, for everybody’s attention, like his own, was concentrated on the stage; recovering himself he retreated to his former unseen position. “This is thy sheath,” Juliet went on in her wonderful, poignant voice; “there rest and let me die.” As she fell forward on her lover’s body, several women in the audience broke into hysterical sobbing. A tear was rolling down Mr. Vandeleur’s cheek; he did not seem to know it.

This was practically the end of the play, and certainly the end of Juliet. The curtain fell amid a perfect cannonade of applause, but although it rose repeatedly, showing the actors in various combinations, ‘Joan North’ was not among them. The delay merely whetted the appetite of the audience. She must be reserving herself for a grand final call, they felt. The cheering and clapping increased rather than diminished in fervour. No one imagined for a moment that the actress would not appear when the evening’s triumph had been so largely her personal one. As a red-eyed lady remarked to her neighbour, “I declare I quite forgot the play was Shakespeare and improving, Juliet was that lovely.”

The scene in front of the house was louder, but not more intense, than the scene that was taking place in Miss North’s dressing-room. For Joan, in her white robe, was standing defiantly at bay, while her grandmother, still in her dress as the Nurse, was vainly trying to pull her forward, and Mr. Hobson, scarlet with rage, literally danced in the corridor outside. “Don’t, Granny,” the girl was saying, “I can’t come on. I can’t.”

“But surely you went on at Boston?” Mrs. Lennox urged. She was clearly on the verge of tears.

“That was different. I was only an understudy. But I always planned that I would not go on if I had the part myself. Don’t you see that it would not be art? I can’t do it. Juliet is killed.”

“It’s the production that will be killed,” Mr. Hobson shouted as he stood in the doorway. “And your career too. I tell you it’ll be all in. Do you want to throw away every chance? The house won’t stand it much longer. Come on, don’t be a fool.” He caught hold of the girl as though to drag her by main force.

Joan snatched away her hand. The manager’s fury only stiffened her resolution. “I won’t go on.” She stamped her foot.

“Oh, if only Mr. Fletcher were here, he might make you see some sense,” Mrs. Lennox wailed.

“Mr. Fletcher would agree with me. So would the audience if you or Mr. Hobson would explain it to them. Juliet is dead, and it is ridiculous for her to bob up, bowing and smiling.”

“Ridiculous, is it? It’s you that’s making yourself ridiculous. Who in thunder are you to carry on in this style? You can take your notice, and that’s all there is to it.” Mr. Hobson turned and slammed the door behind him in a final paroxysm of rage.

“Oh, Joan, how can you, my dear child?” Mrs. Lennox was beginning tremulously, when she heard Mr. Hobson call. “Miss West,” he was shouting. She hurried from the dressing-room after him. “Come on, Miss West, it’s up to us to smooth them down somehow,” and seizing her hand, he raced her towards the stage.

The applause of the audience had changed. The manager’s practised ear caught the note of anger. “Juliet, Juliet, Juliet,” they were shouting staccato. “Not even an author to send on, curse it,” Mr. Hobson muttered. As they reached the centre of the stage he called, “Ring up!”

There was a sudden pause in the uproar as the rising curtain disclosed this new couple, and then a burst of good-natured and interested laughter. The great little manager did not as a rule ‘come on’ at his productions, and so he had the charm of novelty. Moreover his rotund form, neatly clad in a trim, blue serge suit, presented an amusing contrast with the picturesque old nurse and her voluminous white draperies. The first moment of silence was penetrated by Mr. Hobson’s cheery, nasal voice. “I’m not here in the hope of being mistook for Juliet,” he informed the audience in his most colloquial tone, with his hand in his trouser pocket. “I guess I ain’t exactly got the figger ‘to cut out in little stars,’ don’t you know? I’m just Juliet’s manager, and Miss West, of course, is her Nurse. Well, we’ve come to say we’re a failure. I can’t manage Juliet one little bit, and she won’t mind Nurse. As you may have discovered from the play, Miss Juliet is a young lady who knows what she wants and has it. What she wants just now is not to take her calls. She says she’s a corpse and can’t. We’ve done every mortal thing to persuade her, but it’s no use. She says it isn’t art with a big A for a dead woman to bob up smiling. That being so, she says she’s certain sure you can’t want her to. And for the same reason the Author can’t take his call either. I’m mighty sorry, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you for a bully reception.” He hastily signed down the curtain.

The audience was charmed. There were shouts of laughter. Mr. Vandeleur in his box was smiling too, although a shade grimly. “So it appears I am not the only person who cannot manage her!” he was thinking. Although he would not have admitted it, he felt an immense pride in his daughter. Delight in success and disgust at vulgarity had always been his two strong, and usually antagonistic, sentiments. But Joan’s triumph in a Shakespearean tragedy, especially with this climax, could hardly be dismissed as vulgar notoriety. An uneasy feeling began to steal over him that perhaps genius made its own rules.

Meanwhile, as the laughter was dying down, a man in the upper gallery suddenly sprang on his seat. “Three cheers for Juliet,” he cried, waving his hat. “Loud enough to reach the tomb,” another voice shouted. Three terrific cheers followed. They penetrated even to the street: passers-by stopped and asked what was happening. Then the audience melted away. The great Mr. Hobson was still standing on the stage. “Good land,” he murmured, “she’s going to pull it off after all.”

Joan did ‘pull it off’--although unintentionally--even from Mr. Hobson’s and the box office point of view. That instinct which the great manager’s friends called his ‘genius for publicity’ and his enemies his ‘tub-thumping commercialism’ had for once failed him. Joan’s non-appearance instead of killing the evening’s success, definitely stamped it. The morning papers came out with flaring headlines. “New Actress Appears but Won’t Re-appear,” “Juliet Dead at Last,” “Joan North too Great for Applause.” The box office was besieged. By the evening people were booking for a fortnight ahead. All New York flocked to see Joan North not take her calls.

The second performance went even better than the first. At the end there was the same ovation and the same three cheers. They had apparently become part of the ritual. Mr. Hobson was in a strangely chastened mood. To his relief Joan was merciful enough not to refer to the notice he had flung at her. Indeed, she was too radiant even to remember it. The one cloud on her horizon was Adam Fletcher’s absence. The Pittsburg engineers were again threatening a strike, this time against the orders of their own Union officials, and the young labour leader had been frantically telegraphed for the previous day. Joan began talking about it in the flower-laden automobile as she and her grandmother drove home together on the second night. “They said Adam was the only person in the country who might be able to bring the men to reason,” she announced. “I do wish though the men had chosen another time to be unreasonable and not taken Adam away just for my opening! Perhaps it was to keep me from being too outrageously happy.”

Mrs. Lennox looked up quickly, but in the dim automobile she could not see Joan’s face. Both the words and the tone had been more loverlike than any she had ever heard from her granddaughter before. Probably Joan was conscious of the scrutiny, for she gave a slightly embarrassed laugh and then changed the subject. “Look at this mountain of letters for me, Granny.” She held up a big bundle that had been handed her at the stage door. “I shall soon want a secretary!” When they got home she laughingly spread them out all over the table. “Why, this is Father’s writing,” she suddenly exclaimed.

As Mrs. Lennox watched her granddaughter reading the letter, her thoughts turned to its writer. John Vandeleur had been a good deal in her mind of late, for the papers had been full of Imogen’s recent marriage to her Senator. The fashion journals had gloated over the wonderful trousseau. The bride’s dress had been of orthodox white satin with a veil and deep flounce of priceless point de Venise--part of the famed Vandeleur lace--while she carried a bouquet of lilies of the valley. How could Imogen have done it? her mother felt again with a quiver of amused disgust. And how John must have hated it, John with his patrician pride, his scornful reserve! A feeling almost of compassion came over Mrs. Lennox for her superior son-in-law.

Joan now silently handed her the letter. The girl’s eyelashes were glistening suspiciously; she turned aside her head. “I am to read it?” Mrs. Lennox said, and put on her pince-nez.

“My dear Joan,--For the first time for forty years I visited
a play-house last night and witnessed your début. Your
determination not to appear at the end, in accordance with the
present detestable and vulgar custom, showed both courage and
artistic feeling. I have been giving the whole matter a great
deal of consideration, and I have come to the conclusion that
when a talent is as strongly marked as in your case, I was in
the wrong to oppose it. Your work, instead of tarnishing the
name of Vandeleur as I feared, may serve to add a lustre to
it--a lustre which is at present decidedly needed. Therefore
if you will openly resume your position as my daughter, as you
kindly suggested some eighteen months ago, I shall be more than
pleased--I shall be proud. Probably you will prefer to continue
making your home with your grandmother, but I trust that we may
meet very often. Business calls me away from New York to-day, but
I expect to return on Sunday evening. I shall then hope to find
your reply awaiting me. I remain your very affectionate father.”

“Well?” Mrs. Lennox asked as the letter came to an end. As Joan did not answer, she looked up. How white the child had got. “Well, what are you going to reply?”

“Oh, I told Father long ago that I would come whenever he wanted me--if it did not interfere with my work.” Her voice sounded husky. “I saw Father in an automobile a few days ago; he didn’t see me. He looks very changed and old.--I am tired. I shall go to bed,” the girl broke off.

Her granddaughter took the reconciliation very calmly, Mrs. Lennox felt. Still as John Vandeleur did not want her to live with him, it would not make so very much difference--except to the newspapers. What a sensation there would be! Mr. Hobson would be more delighted than ever! Well, she was tired, too, the grandmother realized. She gathered together the rest of the letters that Joan had left strewn over the table, and she also went to bed.

To bed, but not to sleep. Her brain was too stimulated for that. In not unpleasant meditation the hours slipped away. She was surprised to hear the clock strike two. Was Joan asleep yet? she wondered. But, of course, she would be; she always slept well and she had looked so tired. Dear child, what a magnificent success she had had! Mrs. Lennox felt reproachfully that she had never really told her granddaughter how glad she was about it. The night before she had been too upset over the business of not taking the calls. And to-night, in the automobile, Joan had been in such spirits that it had been almost impossible to get in a word; then when they reached home, there had been John Vandeleur’s letter. But perhaps Joan had been thinking that she was unsympathetic. She would like just to tell her child how her old Granny rejoiced in her triumph. Possibly, after all the excitement, Joan might still be awake. Slipping on a dressing-gown, Mrs. Lennox crept to the girl’s room.

Joan was awake. Mrs. Lennox could see the line of light under the door. A curious sound reached her ears. It sounded as though someone were weeping. But Joan never cried. What could be the matter? She must be ill--in pain. Mrs. Lennox quickly opened the door.

Joan was still dressed. She was lying face downward on the bed, sobbing in absolute abandonment. She must have heard her grandmother come in, but it did not check her. “My dear child, my darling, what is it?” Mrs. Lennox exclaimed.

The heartbroken crying continued. What should she do? Mrs. Lennox asked herself. If only Joan would speak. She could not bear to see her child in such grief. But how could she comfort her, when she could not imagine what was wrong? Joan had had a triumph that any other actress in the States might have envied. It could not be about her work. Nor could it be anything to do with Adam Fletcher. The grandmother reminded herself of the way Joan had spoken of him in the auto. It was impossible for her to have heard anything either from or about the young man since. A mere desire to see him would not account for such a transport of woe. “What is it, dear one? Do try and tell me,” she repeated.

Probably the distress in her grandmother’s voice penetrated to Joan. There came a sobbing gasp. “Father!”

Mrs. Lennox could hardly believe her ears. It seemed such an inadequate cause for so much misery. “But, my dear, surely you cannot mind seeing your father so much?” she remonstrated. “Why, you are not even going to live with him.”

“I shall like seeing him,” Joan sobbed. Her grandmother grew more perplexed. Then there came another gasp. “It’s Adam.”

Oh, of course, how stupid she had been, the grandmother told herself. Of course, Joan was thinking that her father would object to Mr. Fletcher, or rather to Mr. Fletcher’s socialism. She must be meaning to marry him soon after all. “But, my dear child,” Mrs. Lennox ventured mildly, “if your father’s disapproval did not keep you from going on the stage, I cannot imagine you will let it make much difference with regard to Mr. Fletcher. Indeed, I do not think your father would have any right to object,” the grandmother went on warmly, “after washing his hands of you for nearly three years.”

Joan raised her face. It was swollen and disfigured with tears, but a certain surprise was now manifest. “It isn’t Father objecting to Adam!” she said. “I had not thought of that. It is Adam objecting to Father!”

“What?” Mrs. Lennox was so surprised that she subsided into a chair. “Why should he object to your father? I didn’t know he even knew him.”

“He doesn’t; it’s the money.” Joan had again buried her face in the pillow.

“But Mr. Fletcher need not take your father’s money!” Mrs. Lennox’s sympathy was almost submerged in astonishment. “Do explain, darling,” she pleaded.

Joan sat up with unusual obedience. “Don’t you see, Granny,” she began tremulously, “Adam is out to fight capitalism. If he married John Vandeleur’s daughter it would make his whole position ridiculous. His work would be of no use. Why, he was frightfully shocked when I first told him who Father was. Only we both felt that as no one knew, and as we thought Father had cut me off for ever, it didn’t matter. But now--” She again broke down.

Mrs. Lennox had never had much opinion of socialism; now she had still less. To think of an absurd thing of this sort making the child so miserable. “Well, let Mr. Fletcher give up that work then,” she suggested cheerfully. “He has got the playwriting, and mighty fine he is at it too. Mr. Hobson thinks the new play is going to be another ‘Under Dog.’ Your father’s money won’t harm him in that!”

But Joan had started up. “Granny, how can you?” she cried indignantly. “Don’t you know that Adam is a labour leader? That is his real interest--what he cares about--just as I care about my acting. And his work is going to make the world better, fairer--it is a splendid work! I wouldn’t let him give it up even if he wanted to.--And I wouldn’t mind about not getting married,” she went on desperately, “if we could go on being friends. But you will say that isn’t fair on him. You will want me to give him up altogether--never to see him any more. I can’t bear it. I can’t, I can’t. And I can’t be cruel to Father either. Father needs me--he needs me as his daughter--just seeing him privately would be of no use. I am all he has to be proud of now. Oh Father--Adam--” The sobbing broke out again with a renewed intensity.

The poor grandmother began to feel the whole position was beyond her, though she had a shrewd suspicion that it was all dramatically exaggerated, with youth’s tragic intensity and headlong extremism, not to mention the special emotionality of an actress feeling a situation for all it was worth. However of one thing she was certain--if Joan went on crying like this, she would be ill. “Remember, you have no understudy yet,” she said decisively.

The effect was magical. The sobs ceased almost at once. Although the girl’s breast was still heaving, she was evidently making an extraordinary effort to master herself. Her three years on the stage had been long enough to stamp her with its tradition. “We shall surely find some way out of this tangle, when Mr. Fletcher gets back,” her grandmother went on soothingly. “And till then you have got to think of your Juliet and nothing else.”

“Yes, Granny.” Joan got up and began to sponge her eyes. “Granny, will you give me one of your headache tabloids?” She took it and went to bed. Ten minutes later, when Mrs. Lennox again crept in, Joan was asleep.