CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
1.
Otis Pilkington had left Atlantic City two hours after the conferencewhich had followed the dress rehearsal, firmly resolved never to gonear "The Rose of America" again. He had been wounded in his finestfeelings. There had been a moment, when Mr Goble had given him thechoice between having the piece rewritten and cancelling theproduction altogether, when he had inclined to the heroic course. Butfor one thing, Mr Pilkington would have defied the manager, refusedto allow his script to be touched, and removed the play from hishands. That one thing was the fact that, up to the day of the dressrehearsal, the expenses of the production had amounted to theappalling sum of thirty-two thousand eight hundred and fifty-ninedollars, sixty-eight cents, all of which had to come out of MrPilkington's pocket. The figures, presented to him in a neatlytypewritten column stretching over two long sheets of paper, hadstunned him. He had had no notion that musical plays cost so much.The costumes alone had come to ten thousand six hundred andsixty-three dollars and fifty cents, and somehow that odd fifty centsannoyed Otis Pilkington as much as anything on the list. A darksuspicion that Mr Goble, who had seen to all the executive end of thebusiness, had a secret arrangement with the costumer whereby hereceived a private rebate, deepened his gloom. Why, for ten thousandsix hundred and sixty-three dollars and fifty cents you could dressthe whole female population of New York State and have a bit leftover for Connecticut. So thought Mr Pilkington, as he read the badnews in the train. He only ceased to brood upon the high cost ofcostuming when in the next line but one there smote his eye an itemof four hundred and ninety-eight dollars for "Clothing." Clothing!Weren't costumes clothing? Why should he have to pay twice over forthe same thing? Mr Pilkington was just raging over this, whensomething lower down in the column caught his eye. It was thewords:--
Clothing . . . 187.45
At this Otis Pilkington uttered a stifled cry, so sharp and soanguished that an old lady in the next seat, who was drinking a glassof milk, dropped it and had to refund the railway company thirty-fivecents for breakages. For the remainder of the journey she sat withone eye warily on Mr Pilkington, waiting for his next move.
This misadventure quieted Otis Pilkington down, if it did not soothehim. He returned blushingly to a perusal of his bill of costs, nearlyevery line of which contained some item that infuriated and dismayedhim. "Shoes" ($213.50) he could understand, but what on earth was"Academy. Rehl. $105.50"? What was "Cuts . . . $15"? And what in thename of everything infernal was this item for "Frames," in whichmysterious luxury he had apparently indulged to the extent ofninety-four dollars and fifty cents? "Props" occurred on the list nofewer than seventeen times. Whatever his future, at whateverpoor-house he might spend his declining years, he was supplied withenough props to last his lifetime.
Otis Pilkington stared blankly at the scenery that fitted past thetrain winds. (Scenery! There had been two charges for scenery!"Friedmann, Samuel . . . Scenery . . . $3711" and "Unitt and Wickes. . . Scenery . . . $2120"). He was suffering the torments of theruined gamester at the roulette-table. Thirty-two thousand eighthundred and fifty-nine dollars, sixty-eight cents! And he was out ofpocket ten thousand in addition from the check he had handed over twodays ago to Uncle Chris as his share of the investment of startingJill in the motion-pictures. It was terrible! It deprived one of thepower of thought.
The power of thought, however, returned to Mr Pilkington almostimmediately: for, remembering suddenly that Roland Trevis had assuredhim that no musical production, except one of those elaborategirl-shows with a chorus of ninety, could possibly cost more thanfifteen thousand dollars at an outside figure, he began to thinkabout Roland Trevis, and continued to think about him until the trainpulled into the Pennsylvania Station.
For a week or more the stricken financier confined himself mostly tohis rooms, where he sat smoking cigarettes, gazing at Japaneseprints, and trying not to think about "props" and "rehl." Then,gradually, the almost maternal yearning to see his brain-child oncemore, which can never be wholly crushed out of a young dramatist,returned to him--faintly at first, then getting stronger by degreestill it could no longer be resisted. True, he knew that when hebeheld it, the offspring of his brain would have been mangled almostout of recognition, but that did not deter him. The mother loves hercrippled child, and the author of a musical fantasy loves his musicalfantasy, even if rough hands have changed it into a musical comedyand all that remains of his work is the opening chorus and a scenewhich the assassins have overlooked at the beginning of act two. OtisPilkington, having instructed his Japanese valet to pack a few simplenecessaries in a suitcase, took a cab to the Grand Central Stationand caught an afternoon train for Rochester, where his recollectionof the route planned for the tour told him "The Rose of America"would now be playing.
Looking into his club on the way, to cash a check, the first personhe encountered was Freddie Rooke.
"Good gracious!" said Otis Pilkington. "What are you doing here?"
Freddie looked up dully from his reading. The abrupt stoppage of hisprofessional career--his life-work, one might almost say--had leftFreddie at a very loose end: and so hollow did the world seem to himat the moment, so uniformly futile all its so-called allurements,that, to pass the time, he had just been trying to read the _NationalGeographic Magazine_.
"Hullo!" he said. "Well, might as well be here as anywhere, what?" hereplied to the other's question.
"But why aren't you playing?"
"They sacked me!" Freddie lit a cigarette in the sort of way in whichthe strong, silent, middle-aged man on the stage lights his at theend of act two when he has relinquished the heroine to his youthfulrival. "They've changed my part to a bally Scotchman! Well, I mean tosay, I couldn't play a bally Scotchman!"
Mr Pilkington groaned in spirit. Of all the characters in his musicalfantasy on which he prided himself, that of Lord Finchley was hispet. And he had been burked, murdered, blotted out, in order to makeroom for a bally Scotchman!
"The character's called 'The McWhustle of McWhustle' now!" saidFreddie sombrely.
The McWhustle of McWhustle! Mr Pilkington almost abandoned his tripto Rochester on receiving this devastating piece of information.
"He comes on in act one in kilts!"
"In kilts! At Mrs Stuyvesant van Dyke's lawn-party! On Long Island!"
"It isn't Mrs Stuyvesant van Dyke any longer, either," said Freddie."She's been changed to the wife of a pickle manufacturer."
"A pickle manufacturer!"
"Yes. They said it ought to be a comedy part."
If agony had not caused Mr Pilkington to clutch for support at theback of a chair, he would undoubtedly have wrung his hands.
"But it was a comedy part!" he wailed. "It was full of the subtlest,most delicate satire on Society. They were delighted with it atNewport! Oh, this is too much! I shall make a strong protest! I shallinsist on these parts being kept as I wrote them! I shall . . . Imust be going at once, or I shall miss my train." He paused at thedoor. "How was business in Baltimore?"
"Rotten!" said Freddie, and returned to his _National GeographicMagazine_.
Otis Pilkington tottered into his cab. He was shattered by what hehad heard. They had massacred his beautiful play, and, doing so, hadnot even made a success of it by their own sordid commercial lights.Business at Baltimore had been rotten! That meant more expense,further columns of figures with "frames" and "rehl" in front of them!He staggered into the station.
"Hey!" cried the taxi-driver.
Otis Pilkington turned.
"Sixty-five cents, mister, if you please! Forgetting I'm not yourprivate shovoor, wasn't you?"
Mr Pilkington gave him a dollar. Money--money! Life was just one longround of paying out and paying out.
2.
The day which Mr Pilkington had selected for his visit to theprovinces was a Tuesday. "The Rose of America" had opened atRochester on the previous night, after a week at Atlantic City in itsoriginal form and a week at Baltimore in wh
at might be called itssecond incarnation. Business had been bad in Atlantic City and nobetter in Baltimore, and a meager first-night house at Rochester hadgiven the piece a cold reception, which had put the finishing touchesto the depression of the company in spite of the fact that theRochester critics, like those of Baltimore, had written kindly of theplay. One of the maxims of the theatre is that "out-of-town noticesdon't count," and the company had refused to be cheered by them.
It is to be doubted, however, if even crowded houses would havearoused much response from the principals and chorus of "The Rose ofAmerica." For two weeks without a break they had been working underforced draught, and they were weary in body and spirit. The newprincipals had had to learn parts in exactly half the time usuallygiven for that purpose, and the chorus, after spending five weeksassimilating one set of steps and groupings, had been compelled toforget them and rehearse an entirely new set. From the morning afterthe first performance at Atlantic City, they had not left the theatreexcept for sketchy half-hour meals.
Jill, standing listlessly in the wings while the scene-shiftersarranged the second act set, was aware of Wally approaching from thedirection of the pass-door.
"Miss Mariner, I believe?" said Wally. "I suppose you know you lookperfectly wonderful in that dress? All Rochester's talking about it,and there is some idea of running excursion trains from Troy andUtica. A great stir it has made!"
Jill smiled. Wally was like a tonic to her during these days ofoverwork. He seemed to be entirely unaffected by the generaldepression, a fact which he attributed himself to the happy accidentof being in a position to sit back and watch the others toil. But inreality Jill knew that he was working as hard as any one. He wasworking all the time, changing scenes, adding lines, tinkering withlyrics, smoothing over principals whose nerves had become strained bythe incessant rehearsing, keeping within bounds Mr Goble's passionfor being the big noise about the theatre. His cheerfulness was dueto the spirit that was in him, and Jill appreciated it. She had cometo feel very close to Wally since the driving rush of making over"The Rose of America" had begun.
"They seemed quite calm tonight," she said. "I believe half of themwere asleep."
"They're always like that in Rochester. They cloak their deeperfeelings. They wear the mask. But you can tell from the glassy lookin their eyes that they are really seething inwardly. But what I cameround about was--(a)--to give you this letter . . ."
Jill took the letter, and glanced at the writing. It was from UncleChris. She placed it on the axe over the fire-buckets for perusallater.
"The man at the box-office gave it to me," said Wally, "when I lookedin there to find out how much money there was in the house tonight.The sum was so small that he had to whisper it."
"I'm afraid the piece isn't a success."
"Nonsense! Of course it is! We're doing fine. That brings me tosection (b) of my discourse. I met poor old Pilkington in the lobby,and he said exactly what you have just said, only at greater length."
"Is Mr Pilkington here?"
"He appears to have run down on the afternoon train to have a look atthe show. He is catching the next train back to New York! Whenever Imeet him, he always seems to be dashing off to catch the next trainback to New York! Poor chap! Have you ever done a murder? If youhaven't, don't! I know exactly what it feels like, and it feelsrotten! After two minutes conversation with Pilkington, I couldsympathize with Macbeth when he chatted with Banquo. He said I hadkilled his play. He nearly wept, and he drew such a moving picture ofa poor helpless musical fantasy being lured into a dark alley bythugs and there slaughtered that he almost had me in tears too. Ifelt like a beetle-browed brute with a dripping knife and handsimbrued with innocent gore."
"Poor Mr Pilkington!"
"Once more you say exactly what he said, only more crisply. Icomforted him as well as I could, told him all for the best and soon, and he flung the box-office receipts in my face and said that thepiece was as bad a failure commercially as it was artistically. Icouldn't say anything to that, seeing what a house we've got tonight,except to bid him look out to the horizon where the sun will shortlyshine. In other words, I told him that business was about to buck upand that later on he would be going about the place with a sprainedwrist from clipping coupons. But he refused to be cheered, cursed mesome more for ruining his piece, and ended by begging me to buy hisshare of it cheap."
"You aren't going to?"
"No, I am not--but simply and solely for the reason that, after thatfiasco in London, I raised my right hand--thus--and swore an oaththat never, as long as I lived, would I again put up a cent for aproduction, were it the most obvious cinch on earth. I'm gun-shy. Butif he does happen to get hold of any one with a sporting dispositionand a few thousands to invest, that person will make a fortune. Thispiece is going to be a gold-mine."
Jill looked at him in surprise. With anybody else but Wally she wouldhave attributed this confidence to author's vanity. But with Wally,she felt, the fact that the piece, as played now, was almost entirelyhis own work did not count. He viewed it dispassionately, and shecould not understand why, in the face of half-empty houses, he shouldhave such faith in it.
"But what makes you think so? We've been doing awfully badly so far."
Wally nodded.
"And we shall do awfully badly in Syracuse the last half of thisweek. And why? For one thing, because the show isn't a show at all atpresent. That's what you can't get these fatheads like Goble tounderstand. All they go by is the box-office. Why should people flockto pay for seats for what are practically dress rehearsals of anunknown play? Half the principals have had to get up in their partsin two weeks, and they haven't had time to get anything out of them.They are groping for their lines all the time. The girls can't letthemselves go in the numbers, because they are wondering if they aregoing to remember the steps. The show hasn't had time to clicktogether yet. It's just ragged. Take a look at it in another twoweeks! I _know!_ I don't say musical comedy is a very lofty form ofart, but still there's a certain amount of science about it. If yougo in for it long enough, you learn the tricks, and take it from methat if you have a good cast and some catchy numbers, it's almostimpossible not to have a success. We've got an excellent cast now,and the numbers are fine. The thing can't help being a hit.
"There's another thing to think of. It so happens that we shall gointo New York with practically nothing against us. Usually you havehalf a dozen musical successes to compete with, but just at themoment there's nothing. But the chief reason for not beingdiscouraged by bad houses so far is that we've been playing badtowns. Every town on the road has its special character. Some aregood show-towns, others are bad. Nobody knows why. Detroit will takeanything. So will Washington. Whereas Cincinnati wants something veryspecial. Where have we been? Atlantic City, Baltimore, and here.Atlantic City is a great place to play in the summer and for a coupleof weeks round about Easter. Also at Christmas. But for the rest ofthe year, no. Too many new shows are tried out there. It makes theinhabitants wary. Baltimore is good for a piece with a New Yorkreputation, but they don't want new pieces. Rochester and Syracuseare always bad. 'Follow the Girl' died a hideous death in Rochester,and it went on and played two years in New York and one in London. Itell you--as I tried to tell Pilkington, only he wouldn'tlisten--that this show is all right. There's a fortune in it forsomebody. But I suppose Pilkington is now sitting in the smoking-carof an east-bound train, trying to get the porter to accept his sharein the piece instead of a tip!"
If Otis Pilkington was not actually doing that, he was doingsomething like it. Sunk in gloom, he bumped up and down on anuncomfortable seat, wondering why he had ever taken the trouble tomake the trip to Rochester. He had found exactly what he had expectedto find, a mangled caricature of his brain-child playing to a househalf empty and wholly indifferent. The only redeeming feature, hethought vindictively, as he remembered what Roland Trevis had saidabout the cost of musical productions, was the fact that the newnumbers were undoubtedly better than those which hi
s collaborator hadoriginally supplied.
And "The Rose of America," after a disheartening Wednesday matineeand a not much better reception on the Wednesday night, packed itsbaggage and moved to Syracuse, where it failed just as badly. Thenfor another two weeks it wandered on from one small town to another,up and down New York State and through the doldrums of Connecticut,tacking to and fro like a storm-battered ship, till finally theastute and discerning citizens of Hartford welcomed it with such areception that hardened principals stared at each other in a wildsurmise, wondering if these things could really be: and a wearychorus forgot its weariness and gave encore after encore with a snapand vim which even Mr Johnson Miller was obliged to own approximatedto something like it. Nothing to touch the work of his choruses ofthe old days, of course, but nevertheless fair, quite fair.
The spirits of the company revived. Optimism reigned. Principalssmiled happily and said they had believed in the thing all along. Theladies and gentlemen of the ensemble chattered contentedly of ayear's run in New York. And the citizens of Hartford fought forseats, and, if they could not get seats, stood up at the back.
Of these things Otis Pilkington was not aware. He had sold hisinterest in the piece two weeks ago for ten thousand dollars to alawyer acting for some client unknown, and was glad to feel that hehad saved something out of the wreck.