Who Cares? A Story of Adolescence

  VII

  It was the first dress rehearsal of "The Ukelele Girl," to be produced"under the personal direction of Stanwood Mosely." The piece had beenin rehearsal for eleven weeks.

  The curtain had been up on the second act for an hour. Scene designers,scene painters and scene shifters were standing about with a stagedirector, whose raucous voice cut the fuggy atmosphere incessantly inwhat was intended to represent the exterior of a hotel at Monte Carlo.It more nearly resembled the materialization of a dope fiend's dream ofan opium factory. What might have been a bank building in Utopia, anold Spanish galleon in drydock, or the exterior of a German beer gardenaccording to the cover of Vogue occupied the center of the scene. Thebricks were violet and old gold, sprayed with tomato juice and markedby the indeterminate silver tracks of snails. Pillars, modeled on thesugar-stick posts that advertise barber's shops, ran up and lostthemselves among the flies. A number of wide stairs, all over winestains, wandered aimlessly about, coming to a conclusion betweengigantic urns filled with unnatural flowers of all the colors of adiseased rainbow. Jotted about here and there on the stage wereoctopus-limbed trees with magenta leaves growing in flower pots allcovered with bilious blobs. Stan Mosely didn't profess to understandit, but having been assured by the designer that it was art nouveau,which also he didn't understand, he was wholly satisfied.

  Not so the stage director, whose language in describing the effect ithad upon him would have done credit to a gunman under the influence ofcheap brandy and fright. The rehearsal, which had commenced at eighto'clock, had been hung up for a time considerable enough to allow himto give vent to his sentiments. The pause enabled Mosely, squattingfrog-wise in the middle of the orchestra stalls, to surround himselfwith several women whose gigantic proportions were horribly exposed tothe eye. The rumble of his voice and the high squeals of their laughterclashed with the sounds of the vitriolic argument on the stage, and thenoises of a bored band, in which an oboe was giving a remarkableimitation of a gobbling turkey cock, and a cornet of a man blowing hisnose. The leader of the band was pacing up and down the musicians'room, saying to himself: "Zis is ze last timer. Zis is ze last timer,"well knowing that it wasn't. The poor devil had a wife and children tofeed.

  Bevies of weary and spirit-broken chorus girls in costume weresprawling on the chairs in the lower boxes, some sleeping, some tootired to sleep, and some eating ravenously from paper bags. Chorus menand costumers, wig makers and lyric writers, authors and friends of thecompany, sat about singly and in pairs in the orchestra seats. Theywere mostly bored so far beyond mere impatience by all thissuper-inefficiency and chaos as to have arrived at a state ofintellectual coma. The various men out of whose brains had originallycome the book and lyrics no longer hated each other and themselves;they lusted for the blood of the stage director or saw gorgeous mentalpictures of a little fat oozy corpse surrounded by the gleeful faces ofthe army of people who had been impotent to protest against the lash ofhis whip, the impertinence of his tongue or the gross dishonesty of hismethods.

  One other man in addition to the raucous, self-advertising stagedirector, Jackrack, commonly called "Jack-in-office," showed distinctsigns of life--a short, overdressed, perky person with piano fingersand baldish head much too big for his body, who flitted about among thechorus girls, followed by a pale, drab woman with pins, and touchedtheir dresses and sniggered and made remarks with a certain touch ofliterary excellence in a slightly guttural voice. This was PoppyShemalitz, the frock expert, the man milliner of the firm, who wasrequired to make bricks out of straw, or as he frequently said to thefriends of his "bosom," "make fifteen dollars look like fifty."Self-preservation and a sense of humor encouraged him through theabusive days of a dog's life.

  Sitting in the last row of the orchestra, wearing the expression ofinterest and astonishment of a man who had fallen suddenly into anotherworld, was Martin. He had been there since eight o'clock. For over sixhours he had watched banality emerge from chaos and had listened to theblasphemy and insults of Jackrack. He would have continued to watch andlisten until daylight peered upbraidingly through the chinks in theexit doors but for the sudden appearance of Susie Capper, dressed forthe street.

  "Hello, Tootles! But you're not through, are you?"

  "Absobloominlootely," she said emphatically.

  "I thought you said your best bit was in the second act?"

  "'Was' is right. Come on outer here. I can't stand the place a minutelonger. It'll give me apoplexy."

  Martin followed her into the foyer. The tragic rage on the girl'slittle, pretty, usually good-natured face worried him. He knew that shehad looked forward to this production to make her name on Broadway.

  "My dear Tootles, what's happened?"

  She turned to him and clutched his arm. Tears welled up into her eyes,and her red lips began to tremble. "What did I look like?" she demanded.

  "Splendid!"

  "Didn't I get every ounce of comedy out of my two scenes in Act One?"

  "Every ounce."

  "I know I did. Even the stage hands laughed, and if you can do thatthere's no argument. And didn't my number go over fine? Wasn't it thebest thing in the act? I don't care what you say. I know it was. Eventhe orchestra wanted it over again."

  "But it was," said Martin, "and I heard one of the authors say that itwould be the hit of the piece."

  "Oh, Martin, I've been sweating blood for this chance for five years,and I'm not going to get it. I'm not going to get it. I wish I wasdead." She put her arms against the wall and her face down on her armsand burst into an agony of tears.

  Martin was moved. This plucky, struggling, hardworking atom of aremorseless world deserved a little luck for a change. Hitherto it hadeluded her eager hands, although she had paid for it in advance withsomething more than blood and energy. "Dear old Tootles," he said,"what's happened? Try and tell me what's happened? I don't understand."

  "You don't understand, because you don't know the tricks of this rottentheater. For eleven weeks I've been rehearsing. For eleven weeks--timeenough to produce a couple of Shakespeare's bally plays in Latin,--I'veput up with the brow-beating of that mad dog Jackrack. For elevenweeks, without touching one dirty little Mosely cent, I've worked at mypart and numbers, morning, noon and night; and now, on the edge ofproduction, he cuts me out and puts in a simpering cow with afifteen-thousand-dollar necklace and a snapping little Pekinese tooblige one of his angels, and I'm reduced to the chorus. I wish I wasdead, I tell you--I wish I was dead and buried and at peace. I wish Icould creep home and get into bed and never see another day of thiscruel life. Oh, I'm just whipped and broke and out. Take me away, takeme away, Martin. I'm through."

  Martin put his arm round the slight, shaking form, led her to one ofthe doors and out into a narrow passage that ran up into the desertedstreet. To have gone down into the stalls and hit that oily martinet inthe mouth would have been to lay himself open to a charge of cruelty toanimals. He was so puny and fat and soft. Poor little Tootles, who hadhad a tardy and elusive recognition torn from her grasp! It was atragedy.

  It was not much more than a stone's-throw from the theater to therabbit warren in West Forty-sixth Street, but Martin gave a shout at aprowling taxi. Not even policemen and newspaper boys and streetcleaners must see this girl as she was then, in a collapse of smashedhopes, sobbing dreadfully, completely broken down. It wasn't fair. Inall that city of courageous under-dogs and fate-fighters, there was notone who pretended to careless contentment with a chin so high asTootles. He half carried her into the cab, trying with a queerblundering sympathy to soothe and quiet her. And he had almostsucceeded by the time they reached the brownstone house of sitters,bedrooms and baths, gas stoves, cubby-holes, the persistent reek ofonions, cigarettes and hot cheese. The hysteria of the artistictemperament, or the natural exaggeration of an artificial life, hadworn itself out for the time being. Rather pathetic little sobs hadtaken its place, it was with a face streaked with the black stuff fromher eyelashes that Tootles turned quickly to Martin
at the foot of thenarrow, dirty staircase.

  "Let's go up quiet," she said. "If any of the others are about, I don'twant 'em to know tonight. See?"

  "I see," said Martin.

  And it was good to watch the way in which she took hold of herself witha grip of iron, scrubbed her face with his handkerchief, dabbed itthickly with powder from a small silver box, threw back her head andwent up two stairs at a time. On the second floor there was a cackle oflaughter, but doors were shut. On the third all was quiet. But on thefourth the tall, thin, Raphael-headed man was drunk again, arguingthickly in the usual cloud of smoke, which drifted sullenly into thepassage through the open door.

  With deft fingers Tootles used her latchkey, and they slipped into theapartment like thieves. And then Martin took the pins out of her littleonce-white hat, drew her coat off, picked her up as if she were a childand put her on the sofa.

  "There you are, Tootles," he said, without aggressive cheerfulness, butstill cheerful. "You lie there, young 'un, and I'll get you somethingto eat. It's nearly a day since you saw food."

  And after a little while, humanized by the honest kindness of thisobvious man, she sat up and leaned on an elbow and watched him throughthe gap in the curtains that hid her domestic arrangements. He wasscrambling some eggs. He had made a pile of chicken sandwiches and laidthe table. He had put some flowers that he had brought for her earlierin the evening in the middle of it, stuck into an empty milk bottle. Inher excitement and joy about the play, she had forgotten to put them inwater. They were distinctly sad.

  "Me word!" she said to herself, through the aftermath of her emotion."That's some boy. Gee, that's some good boy." Even her thoughts wereconducted in a mixture of Brixton and Broadway.

  "Now, then," he said, "all ready, marm," and put his handiwork in whathe hoped was an appetizing manner on the table. The hot eggs were on acold plate, but did that really matter?

  Not to Tootles, who was glad to get anything, anyhow. That room was theRitz Hotel in comparison with the slatterly tenement in which she hadwon through the first unsoaped years of a sordid life. AndMartin--well, Martin was something out of a fairy tale.

  Between them they made a clean sweep of everything, falling backfinally on a huge round box of candies contributed the previous day byMartin.

  They made short work of several bottles of beer, also contributed byMartin. He knew that Tootles was not paid a penny during rehearsals.She laughed several times and cracked one or two feeble jokes--poorlittle soul with the swollen eyes and powder-dabbed face! Her bobbedhair glistened under the light like the dome of the Palace of CoochBehar under the Indian sun.

  "Boy," she said presently, putting her hand on his knees and closingher tired eyes, "where's that magic carpet? If I could sit on it withyou and be taken to where the air's clean and the trees are whisperin'and all the young things hoppin' about--I'd give twenty-five years ofme life, s'elp me Bob, I would."

  "Would you, Tootles?" A sudden thought struck Martin. Make use of thathouse in the country, make use of it, lying idle and neglected!

  "Oh," she said, "to get away from all this for a bit--to shake Broadwayand grease paint and slang and electric light, if only for a week. I'mfed up, boy. I'm all out, like an empty gasoline tin. I want to seesomething clean and sweet."

  Martin had made up his mind. Look at that poor little bruised soul, asmuch in need of water as those sad flowers in the milk bottle."Tootles," he said, "pack up your troubles in your old kit-bag, and beready for me in the morning."

  "What d'yer mean, boy?"

  "What I say. At eleven o'clock to-morrow--to-day, I'll have a car hereand drive you away to woods and birds and all clean things. I'll giveyou a holiday in a big cathedral, and you shall lie and listen to God'sown choir."

  "Go on--ye're pullin' me leg!"

  She waved her hand to stop him. It was all too good to joke about.

  "No, I'm not. I've got a house away in the country. It was my father's.We shall both be proud to welcome you there, Tootles."

  She sprang up, put her hands on his face and tilted it back and lookedinto his eyes. It was true! It was true! She saw it there. And shekissed him and gave a great sobbing sigh and went into her bedroom andbegan to undress. Was there anything like life, after all?

  Martin cleared the table and drew the curtains over the domesticarrangements. He didn't like domestic arrangements. Then he sat downand lighted a cigarette. His head was all blurred with sleep.

  And presently a tired voice, called "Boy!" and he went in. Theall-too-golden head was deep into the pillow and long lashes made fanson that powdered face.

  "Where did you pinch the magic carpet?" she asked, and smiled, and fellinto sleep as a stone disappears into water.

  As Martin drew the clothes over her thinly clad shoulder, somethingtouched him. It was like a tap on the heart. Before he knew what he wasdoing, he had turned out the light, gone into the sitting room, thepassage, down the stairs and into the silent street. At top speed heran into Sixth Avenue, yelled to a cab that was slipping along thetrolley lines and told the driver to go to East Sixty-seventh Streetfor all that he was worth.

  Joan wanted him.

  Joan!

  Joan heard the cab drive up and stop, heard Martin sing out "That's allright," open and shut the front door and mount the stairs; heard him goquickly to her room and knock.

  She went out and called "Marty, Marty," and stood on the threshold ofhis dressing room, smiling a welcome. She was glad, beyond words glad,and surprised. There had seemed to be no chance of seeing him thatmorning.

  Martin came along the passage with his characteristic light tread anddrew up short. He looked anxious.

  "You wanted me?" he said.

  And Joan held out her hand. "I did and do, Marty. But how did youguess?"

  "I didn't guess; I knew." And he held her hand nervously.

  She looked younger and sweeter than ever in her blue silk dressing gownand shorter in her heelless slippers. What a kid she was, after all, hethought.

  "How amazing!" she said. "I wonder how?"

  He shook his head. "I dunno--just as I did the first time, when I torethrough the woods and found you on the hill."

  "Isn't that wonderful! Do you suppose I shall always be able to get youwhen I want you very much?"

  "Yes, always."

  "Why?"

  She had gone back into the dressing room. The light was on her face.Her usual expression of elfish impertinence was not there. She was thegirl of the stolen meetings once more, the girl whose eyes reflectedthe open beauty of what Martin had called the big cathedral. For allthat, she was the girl who had hurt him to the soul, shown him herdoor, played that trick upon him at the Ritz and sent him adrift fullof the spirit of "Who cares?" which was her fetish. It was in his heartto say: "Because I adore you! Because I am so much yours that you haveonly to think my name for me to hear it across the world as if you hadshouted it through a giant megaphone! Because whatever I do andwhatever you do, I shall love you!" But she had hurt him twice. She hadcut him to the very core. He couldn't forget. He was too proud to layhimself open to yet another of her laughing snubs.

  So he shook his head again. "I dunno," he said. "It's like that. It'ssomething that can't be explained."

  She sat on the arm of the chair with her hands round a knee. A littleof her pink ankle showed. The pipe that she had dropped when his voicehad come up from the street lay on the floor.

  His answer had disappointed her; she didn't quite know why. The oldMarty would have been franker and more spontaneous. The old Marty mighthave made her laugh with his boyish ingenuousness, but he would havewarmed her and made her feel delightfully vain. Could it be that shewas responsible for this new Marty? Was Alice too terribly right whenshe had talked about armor turning into broadcloth because of herselfish desire to remain a kid a little longer? She was afraid to askhim where he was when he had felt that she wanted him, and she hatedherself for that.

  There was a short silence.

 
These two young things had lost the complete confidence that had beentheirs before they had come to that great town. What a pity!

  "Well," he asked, standing straight like a man ready to take orders,"why did you call?"

  And then an overwhelming shyness seized her. It had seemed easy enoughin thought to tell Martin that she was ready to cross the bridge andbe, as Alice had called it, honest, and as Gilbert had said, to playthe game. But it was far from easy when he stood in the middle of theroom in the glare of the light, with something all about him that frozeher words and made her self-conscious and timid. And yet a clear,unmistakable voice urged her to have courage and make her confession,say that she was sorry for having been a feather-brained little fooland ask him to forgive--to win him back, if--if she hadn't already losthim.

  But she blundered into an answer and spoke flippantly from nervousness."Because it's rather soon to become a grass widow, and I want you to beseen with me somewhere to-morrow."

  That was all, then. She was only amusing herself. It was a case of"Horse, horse, play with me!"--the other horses being otherwiseoccupied. She wasn't serious. He needn't have come. "I can't," he said."I'm sorry, but I'm going out of town."

  She saw him look at the clock on the mantelshelf and crinkle up hisforehead. Day must be stretching itself somewhere. She got up, quickly.How could she say it? She was losing him.

  "Are you angry with me, Marty?" she asked, trying to fumble her way tohonesty.

  "No, Joan. But it's very late. You ought to be in bed."

  "Didn't you think that I should miss you while you've been away?"

  "No, Joan. Look. It's half-past two. A kid like you ought to have beenasleep hours ago." He went over to the door.

  "I'm not a kid--I'm not" she burst out.

  He was too tired to be surprised. He had not forgotten how she hadhidden behind her youth. He couldn't understand her mood. "I must getto bed," he said, "if you don't mind. I must be up pretty early. Runalong, Joany."

  He couldn't have hurt her more awfully whatever he had said. To betreated like a naughty girl! But it served her right, and she knew it.Her plea had come back like a boomerang.

  "Well, have a good time," she said, with her chin high. "I shall seeyou again some day, I suppose," and she went out.

  It was no use. She had lost him--she had lost him, just as she haddiscovered that she wanted him. There was a girl with a white face andred lips and hair that came out of a bottle. Martin watched her go andshut the door, and stood with his hands over his face.