The sinking ship

Contents

CHAPTER page

I. The Courtesy Curtain i

II. Will You Walk into My Parlor? . . 31

Chapter I

It was close on twelve of an April morning, and the sunlight flickered cheerfully over the frontage of a red-brick house in Barkston Gardens, S.W.

A housemaid was at work in the drawing-room on the first floor, but in dilatory fashion. She was a small, plump girl, with a pert face, pink as her cotton gown, and it was plain that her real attention belonged to the young footman stretched at full length in his master’s favorite chair before the hearth. At intervals she gave a toss to her yellow head, she snorted; finally, as though the occasion called for yet sterner measures, she pushed a stool noisily across the parquetry floor, mounted it and proceeded to scrub with her duster the surface of the life-size portrait at which her companion was gazing.

A devilish fine woman/’ was all she got, however, in return for this manoeuver, and she descended from her perch as brusquely as she had ascended.

Think so ? ” she replied, stepping backwards as though to get a more comprehensive view of the painted lady. ‘‘ Not my style,” and she ran her feather brush disdainfully round as much of the frame as she could reach.

No — not in the least your style, Maude.”

‘‘ Give me a bit of fresh color, Mr. Roberts, give me a face you ain’t afraid to touch with soap and water.”

Give us, in short, the ‘ bowty doo dabble.’ ”

Precisely,” the young woman agreed with a quite creditable air of acquaintance with the term.

‘‘ And yet from the hupper succle, Maude, there’s a fine heffect; the figure is still magnificent.”

Oh, come now, Mr. Roberts — ^you know as well as I do that that’s stays. If I paid three guineas a pair ’’

If you paid thirty guineas a pair,” he broke in with authority, you wouldn’t look like that.”

“ And who wants to look like that, pray ? That figure isn’t everybody’s money, let me tell you; if you arsked me I’d say it’s a deal more suited to a serpent than a woman — ^wriggle and slither and glide — ugh ! times out of number she’s given me the jumps with her sneaky comings in and goings out, and you might say ' goings on,’ ” she added with an inflection of malice, and not be far out.’'

The serpent,” replied the imperturbable one, ‘‘ ’as always hexercised a spell, Maude, on my himagination; she hexercises a spell, and deny it I can’t in common fairness to the woman.”

You’re too much in the theater, Mr. Roberts — that’s the long and short of it. It’s them red lights. Why, some of them chorus girls (as they call themselves) are turned forty to my knowledge, and there you see ’em skippin’ about like littie lambs. You ain’t taken ’er tea in at seven of a morning, Mr. Roberts. I tell you it’s all flummery.”

‘‘ Some of it’s flummery, Maude, but some of it’s — what shall I say now ? ”

‘^Well, the papers talks of genius,” the girl admitted slowly, as though compelled towards the reminder by something dominating in the pictured eyes above her; but what is genius when all’s said and done? ”

The footman raised a pair of well-tended hands in fervent expostulation.

Don’t talk of genius my dear ; a genius is a pusson as lies in bed all mornin’, rests in the hafternoon, and gets lively towards teatime; it turns night into day and day into night; if it’s a man it wears it’s ’air long, and if it’s a woman it prefers it short; it heats when other folks is sleepin’ and sleeps when they’re heatin’, and it isn’t to be counted on hunder hany circumstances whatsoever ; what it says to-day it contradicts to-morrow, and as to hopenin’ doors to visitors, there ain’t nothin’ to go by, not kerridges nor clothes, nor yet titles; you turns orf a little dowdy, hall paint and wrinkles, and gets the sack; you lets hin a duchess and gets your ’ead blown orf, before the lady as like as not. Don’t talk of geniuses; they’ve been the bane of my life; there’s no haccountin’ for ’em, no trustin’ ’em, no pleasure in working yourself to death for ’em.”

Well, then, what do you sit starin’ at ’er for? She’s a genius. Why don’t you clear out instead of talking of spells and such-like rubbish?”

There’s the master to consider.”

The master ? Why, he’s the bigger genius of the two to my thinking. Look at that there pile of halbums — twice as big as ’ers; speaks for itself.” But the footman shook an obstinate head.

That’s only because there’s more woman fools in London than men fools. The master a genius ? Not a bit of it; the master’s a gentleman, Maude, a gentleman through and through. You watch ’im come into a room. I couldn’t do it in better style myself with hall my years of training. You watch hm ’elp hmself at table; no grabbing no beastly fuss, but — 'e always gets the best of heverything. Same with ’is clothes; no joolry, no flash, but there ain’t a better turned-out man in this town, though I says it that shouldn’t, seein’

that I valet him. Yes, take ’im hall in hall ”

but the quotation was interrupted by the inopportune entrance of Mr. Story, the butler, and the quoter scrambled to his feet, groping wildly at the lid of the coal-box by way of explaining his presence in the room if not his attitude of relaxation. Story was of the good bow-window type of domestic, with a whiskered face, pale, ponderous and puffy; he crossed the room and laid a bundle of papers and letters on the desk beside his master’s chair and he looked sternly from the man to the girl; then, without comment, he ran a fat forefinger along the ebony case of the grand piano and submitted it to the inspection of the now obtrusively pink Maude.

“ Well, Mr. Story, I can’t do heverything at once, not 'avin’ two pairs of ’ands; if you’d wait till a-body was through before breakin’ hout in this way with your complaints and your hobjections and your hinsiniations it ’ud be fairer.”

If I waited till you were through, Miss Pert, I’d be in my grave.”

“ Well, I don’t know as hanybody wants to keep you hout of your grave,” the girl muttered, to the delight of the retreating Roberts, but Mr. Story, who was uncomfortably aware of his own weakness in the art of repartee, feigned inattention and contented himself with altering the arrangement of the room with a fine air of patience.

** The fact is,” he observed judicially, you’re too young for the place, Maude, and so I’ve said from the first.”

“ That’s better than being too old,” she snapped, and retired under cover of the retort.

Left to himself, the man’s expression altered — it became solicitous, almost tender; his touch upon the articles he fingered smacked of reverence and always he appeared to listen with the anxiety of a faithful dog for the sound of a footstep from outside.

But when, presently, the door reopened to admit a woman, it was plain that she was not the bright and particular star on this limited horizon, though Vanda Conquest — more generally known perhaps under her stage name of Vanda Fane — looked quite remarkable enough to pose as a luminary. Her form at all events endorsed the eulogy of her footman; — full and fine, obedient from earliest youth to the laws of mental as well as physical culture, it seemed perfectly adapted to define the values of expression and repression. Instinct with vitality to her finger-tips, she was also instinct with the determination to control the output of that same fund of vitality. To old Story, to young Roberts, to her world in general, she was compelling rather than dear, the puzzle rather than the idol. But as she came slowly forward with a shiver of her long, loose, brown draperies, as she reached the pool of sunlight in the middle of the room, the radiance even of the puzzle appeared to evaporate a little. The eye of a connoisseur would have lost some of its ecstasy, have wandered furtively to the portrait on the wall, for in the painter’s model the colors had begun to run, to fade, to be replaced, alas, by makeshift ones. The face, with its small, fine features, had been carefully tinted with pink; the thick hair, parted down the middle and curled .loosely about the neck and perfect ears, showed a heterogeneous collection of shades, ranging from amber to a dusky red ; the lashes and brows were black — ^just a degree too black — and the long, red-brown eyes wore at the moment an expression both sullen and inert — ^the early-morning look of one who, like a cat, takes her pleasure in the night-season. And as she stood facing thus the portrait of twenty years ago, this same critical eye would have found yet another flaw, for the oval curve, indicative of youth, had been disturbed at that most fatal spot immediately below the cheekbone; the face had fallen a trifle, though the lost line of beauty had been recaptured lo The Sinking Ship

almost at once and ran in a fine, bold sweep from chin to throat, from throat to shoulder and on and through the whole vibrant, grandly-molded body. For a minute or two she stood blinking rather stupidly at the traitorous sunlight, then, with a frown, she moved into the bow-window, lowered the blind, shook out the heavy, damask curtains of rose brocade, pushed a chair into the circle of tempered light that filtered through them, and seated herself with the grace and deliberation of the practised poser. And now the picture had undergone a second transformation. It was precisely as though a clever artist had passed a sponge over a too crude water-color. The hair now showed bronze-like, the face pale, the mouth a satisfying scarlet — all effect of waste had disappeared, or rather been absorbed into one of picturesque melancholy. She sat very still, her eyes upon the carpet, and the old man watched her with mingled admiration and distress; more than once he opened his mouth to address her, but closed it again and it was not until the door reopened that

The Courtesy Curtain ii

the tension, under which he so obviously labored, was relaxed. To the master of the house he turned with a quite pathetic air of devotion, hurrying forward to give a last turn to the angle of the chair upon the hearth, to rearrange, for the tenth time, the papers on the actor’s table.

Adrian Conquest was some years older than his wife, but he still possessed all the smooth and pleasing characteristics of youth. His features were perhaps too aggressively regular, but even this questionable defect had been redeemed by the bright and humorous quality of the eye, while the thin-lipped, shaven mouth had learnt, like Vanda’s lithe body, the value of pliancy. He was famous on the boards for his facial work, for the delicacy of the impressions he could convey with what appeared the minimum of effort.

Morning, Vanda. Story, you old reprobate, you were an hour behind time with my shavingwater.”

“ Well, sir — ^yes, I did presume to give orders.

A first night you know, sir — the strain, and you sleeping like a baby/’

His master laughed, the typical stage laugh, which was at once a pardon and a caress to the servant, and an invitation to his wife to share the atmosphere of gaiety and good-humor — an invitation to which she responded by a sarcastic lift of the short, upper lip.

With a slight shrug he turned to his writing-table and picked up the topmost of the pile of daily papers.

“ And what’s the verdict below stairs. Story ? I always begin with the basement, you know.”

“ Just as usual, sir, only a little more so.”

The laugh came from the woman this time, but it was drowned by her husband’s cheery voice.

‘‘ Another walk over, eh ? ”

“Why, of course, sir; best thing you’ve ever put on.”

“ I seem to have heard that remark before,” Vanda observed, and the butler turned to her with pathetic disregard of any irony. “Yes, ma’am, it was a pretty general remark last night — in our part of the theater — the dresses that wonderful, and the moonlight in act two ” but she

interrupted him with scant ceremony.

‘‘ It was an excellent moon, I’ll allow, but there was an even more excellent one out in the street to be seen for nothing. Don’t tell me the public pays to see a fine counterfeit of the moon.”

‘‘No, ma’am, of course not; but there was you, ma’am, beautiful as a picture.”

“A picture! Yes, to be sure; but there again we’ve a rival. What of the Tate Gallery ? Hundreds of pictures, the best in the land, and nothing to pay, unless it’s a penny for your umbrella.”

“ Well, ma’am, there was the story, such a pretty tale of love and valor. It brought the tears to my eyes every minute.”

“ Tales of love I ” she mocked lightly. “ But there’s the library. Story; for twopence a week you’re cordially invited to cry your eyes out.”

Nonplused he looked for succor, but only to find his master immersed in the dramatic column of the Times.

‘‘ It was a great night, ma'am,” he said, with the obstinacy of little Wilhelmina of poetic fame. ” Folks were turned away by the dozen, and we were packed that tight Fd a job to breathe.”

‘‘ Full ! By Jove ! yes,” Conquest put in cheerily, changing his paper. Lawson's in the seventh heaven of satisfaction. Packed, Vanda, from stalls to gallery, and could have been filled twice over, and just listen to this: ‘ Seldom has Miss Fane given us a more finished and charming representation of sweet, English girlhood. In the line she has now for so many years been steadily pursuing we do not hesitate to say she is without a rival, and, if that line runs into no very mysterious channel of thought, we are not disposed to cavil. The problem-play and the femme incomprise flourish elsewhere; in this pretty and comfortable theater one can be assured of finding recreation confined well within the bounds of good taste. As for Mr. Conquest, he is younger, hand-

IS somer, than twenty years ago, and infinitely more polished. Can one say more ? ’ etc., etc. Sounds about right; and they’re all much the same: 'A big success’; ‘an undoubted success’; ‘quite as successful as anything of its kind’; ‘the success of the season ’ ; ‘ dainty in the extreme ’ ; ‘lavishly put on’; ‘admirably portrayed’” — he picked a sentence here and there from his pile, and to each Story nodded an eager, almost a joyous agreement.

“ Just what I said, sir — just what we all said downstairs, sir. The public knows — the public won’t be put off with trash; but there’s my front-door bell, and that man Roberts is as deaf as a post.”

He hurried off, his bearing almost jaunty, his last look — thrown towards the figure in the window — one of defiance. As the door closed behind him Conquest began to read again, ignorant of, or else indifferent to, that sullen glance with which his wife regarded him.

“ ‘ It is impossible to find a flaw in last night’s representation. Lovely women and brave men pass before the eye in delicious garments and harmonious groups; one can enjoy the performance as one enjoys an expensive cigar, with no qualms as to its later disagreement with one’s constitution. All who seek the theater for recreation only will appreciate Mr. Conquest’s latest venture; a kind bachelor uncle seeking to amuse a schoolgirl niece, a shy wooer, anxious to prosper his romantic cause, could do no better than visit this delightful theater where, for so many years, we have been treated to the fantasy of life as it might have been, never has been, and never will be. But who wants sordid reality in leisure hours? Let us be grateful for illusion ’ What are you laugh-

ing at?”

‘‘ At you. But never mind — read me some more; read me the one you dropped into the waste-paper basket so unobtrusively.”

“ With pleasure,” he said, equably, stopping to secure the sheet in question. ‘‘ I rather like a little of their satire myself — shows they’ve been roused. Let’s see — ^yes — here we are : ' There

have been so many thorns of late among the roses of the stage that it would perhaps be hardly tactful to complain of last night’s flowery production; the flowers, too, were so perfect of their kind — they were offered with so much grace and generosity, and yet — with shame we own it — the invitation to siesta scarcely seemed opportune. We had a sense of being put to sleep on a narcotic a degree too mild to do the trick. To be sure we were regaled at intervals by . pretty bursts of passion, but it was toy-passion; we were treated to the occasional murder of a villain — the discomfiture of a libertine — but these excesses were committed with one hand, so to speak, tied behind the back and the other half smothered in Honiton lace; we yawned — it was ungrateful, but, alas, unavoidable; we came away with the uncomfortable and unkind impression of having taken part in a Barmecide Feast.’ Oh, what awful rot ! ”

He pitched the condemnatory article aside and turned to find her crossing the room.

i8 The Sinking Ship

‘‘ It isn’t rot,” she said, “ it’s true — it’s something we’ve got to face.”

It’s the blues,” he amended, as she took the arm of his chair; ‘‘they’ve never failed us after a new production. Let ’em out, dear; it soothes you and it don’t worry me.”

“ Does anything ever worry you, Adrian? ”

“ Not that I know of.”

“ And you’re nearly forty-nine.”

“ Hush, hush ! the walls have ears.”

“ And you’re not afraid of those ears — that’s the trouble ; you don’t care, you don’t change, you don’t age. Look up there at our two portraits.”

“ What’s the matter with them? ”

“ Nothing. There was nothing the matter with us — with me — when they were painted; but now — ^look, look — I’m a caricature. No, don’t deny it — it’s impossible to deny it.”

“ Then I won’t. I’ll take the picture down and have you repainted.”

“ Never — never; that picture is my consolation as well as my torment, for I was once like that —

I was once greater than that; the painter used to drop his head upon his hand and groan because — because there wasn’t a color in his box that would express my buoyancy; but he caught something, he preserved something — something that these men ” — she struck the bundle of newspapers viciously — “ would take away.”

‘‘ What am I to say, Vanda, to all this? ”

Say what you think,” she begged with sudden tenderness, say what you really think, not just what’s likely to be soothing.”

I’m afraid I think this scene unnecessary. According to general opinion we’ve made another hit — a hit quite good enough to run the season.”

“ And when the season’s run ? ”

Sufficient, dearest, unto the day ”

“ No,” she broke in impetuously; that’s where your common-sense fails. The piece might run the season, but it would be a la^t run for us.”

‘‘ Vanda!”

‘^Adrian, there was a threat in every one of those notices, and you can't, or you won’t, see them. There you sit as you used to sit when that picture was taken, line for line the same, handsome and smug, for all the world as though but a single decade of years had gone over you. What does it mean? It frightens me, this evasion of common law. Why are you never ill ? Why are you never cross? You’re close to me, and yet you’re an utter stranger — you’ve always been a stranger; the love I gave you long ago comes back to me at moments like an unopened letter — it hasn’t been received. You don’t receive anything but your day’s rations. No, it’s no use trying to hush me up. I’ve smoldered a long time. I’m going to have some sort of an eruption. I’ll show you something.”

She re-crossed the room to rummage in an escritoire, and when she returned she had a crumpled newspaper of ancient appearance in her hand.

“ This was written a few months before our marriage. ‘ Miss Fane is an erratic, undeveloped creature, but in her refusal to toe the line one seems to read a promise of that quality which, for want of a better term, we christen genius. As a child-actress she earned an enviable reputation, but it is a well-known fact that these precocious triumphs seldom survive the bud, and it is with unfeigned pleasure that we remark in this case a tendency to robust development. If Miss Fane has still a great deal to learn, we fancy she has also a great deal to teach, and we sincerely hope that the spirit of the times — which might be interpreted as the spirit of policy — will not be permitted to woo this quite remarkable young person into the primrose path.’

You know as well as I do,” she added fiercely, that I was wooed into it, for you were the wooer, and last night we reached the culminating point of our disgrace. That treacly story of life, that travesty of existence, makes me feel sick, though Fve been steadily educated down to it. But to talk of success — to swallow those journalistic satires without a qualm; to set up Story —

Story and his servants' hall — as a bulwark to the fallacy — I’ve not come down to that. Why, there isn’t a reviewer of the lot who hasn’t his dig at us; I only wonder they’d the patience and the kindness to do it so gently. I’ve been cramped by you and that ridiculous manager of yours till I’m no more than a specialist in triviality, until I’m the butt of every pressman in town, the secret scorn of realist and idealist alike. No — don’t move — I haven’t finished — I’ve only just begun.”

This is quite the worst attack of nerves, my dear Vanda, that we’ve enjoyed together. I’m at a loss how to treat it.”

There’s only one way in which you never treat my moods ? ”

‘‘ And what may that be ? ”

With sincerity. Try it for once on me and on the occasion.”

But, my dear girl ”

But, my dear, blind, deaf man, everybody understands the position except you and your beloved Lawson. Even Story understands it.

though he’ll die gladly with a lie on his lips.”

“ But the reviews — read ’em for yourself, Vanda.”

‘‘ I have read them while you were sleeping like a baby. I know — I tell you I know only too well — what I’m talking about — ^what they'll be talking about in a week or two. My ‘ finished study,’ my ‘ sweet gowns,’ my ‘ pretty movements ’ — bah ! they once spoke of something besides polish ; they were carried out of the beaten track of their stock phrases and praises; they argued over me and round me and at me; they didn’t lacquer me with a coat of satiric approval; they didn’t suggest, with all due deference, I should go this way or that; they followed the lead of that undeveloped spirit of genius with more or less appreciation. ‘ Seldom has Miss Fane given us a more dainty and gracious performance.’ Oh, I understand the verdict, though it’s so admirably non-committal. These men know their business and, what’s more, they perform it with decency.”

‘‘ Let me remind you,” he said, with a rare touch of impatience, ‘‘that there were five curtains to each act.”

“ Courtesy curtains, Adrian. Do you suppose I can’t distinguish between courtesy and enthusiasm? Have I never tasted bread to be deceived by the stone? There were five proofs of the truth of what I’m telling you — that the public and its mouthpieces have a sense of decency, even a sense of gratitude. They don’t bury us the moment the breath goes out of our bodies; they allow a period for tears, for lying-in- state, they cover us with flowers, they honor us with kind and pitiful looks, they talk and they write of ‘ the great dead,’ ‘ the good dead.’ I died last night, or they think I did, and I’m being treated to my fine funeral, to my wreaths and tributes, to my five curtains; to-night there will be four, to-morrow three; soon, very soon, there will be empty benches, the mourners will go home, having done their duty, and we two shall be left in the graveyard. You won’t mind, you’ll find it quite a comfortable sleeping-place; but I’m not an Indian slave to be burnt alive with your dead body; Tm not for the graveyard yet, Fm for escape; there's a line of retreat, there's just one line of retreat."

Well, my dear? "

** Well," she mocked, “ is that all you've got to say ? "

‘‘ Not quite. I may be a paralytic of sorts, but let me remind you Fm not an unkind or malicious paralytic. There's no occasion for that look of enmity."

“ No, no. Forgive me, Adrian; Fm half mad with inner revolt and fear, and if you were to refuse me this last chance, if you were to talk — to

let Lawson talk of expense " She stopped,

eyeing him with anxiety.

‘‘ Ah, I begin to see daylight. You're paving the way for a rather drastic remedy — a new production, eh ? Have you any idea what that affair of last night is going to figure out at ? "

“ I know we can't afford to play it often," she retorted.

But there’s really nothing — nothing whatever in our line.”

She followed his glance to the writing-table, where a pile of manuscript was visible.

Our line has failed. We must try another.”

‘‘ You’ve found something, Vanda? ”

She nodded, still with a nervous eye on him.

‘‘ And what’s the name of your selection? ”

“ ‘ The Sinking Ship.’ ”

Not an ingratiating title,” he commented, after what seemed to her a long interval of time.

“ We’ve not an ingratiating tale to tell, Adrian. Idylls are played out. We’re no longer children; we’re no longer young and sportive and gallant, and the public’s tired of hearing us declare we are; it’s tired of our fancy dresses and scenic effects. We can’t hold it any longer by pretenses, but we might hold it by the truth. The truth isn’t much to look at, and it isn’t easy to express, but it might be made interesting; it’s been made interesting — extraordinarily interesting.”

Again she crossed the room and took the topmost manuscript. ‘‘ YouVe read it, I suppose? ’’ “ Perfunctorily. It’s the work of a boy, of course, and lamentably deficient in the knowledge of stagecraft.’’

“ Hadden Renshaw,” she murmured. “ The name isn’t quite unfamiliar. Can you place it ? ” “ Only son of a bigwig in the city,” he said carelessly — “ a product of young Oxford, letting off steam; broken loose from his family, I heard, on account of these high flights of opinion.”

Ah, that accounts, Adrian. There’s the bite of sacrifice in his work, and I believe in him. You’ve got to believe in him too, for he’s our last chance. Last night that theater was an arena. I looked round it, and I saw what the despairing gladiator sees when he lifts his torn body from the dust and sues for mercy — all the thumbs were down!'

“ Dearest, isn’t this a trifle theatrical ? ”

Well, and aren’t we face to face with a crisis ? I’ve got to stoke up if I’m to persuade you to take the last tide at the ebb.”

“ Lawson will make a devil of a row, and it’s a risky venture at the best. Sure there’s not a personal element about ? ”

What do you mean? ”

‘‘ Well, my recollection of the stuff’s a bit hazy, but isn’t it a sort of cap suited, we’ll say, to a woman past her teens ? ”

“ Suited, in point of fact, to me, Adrian. It is; but whether there’s anything beyond coincidence in the championship. I’m not prepared to say. I’m as much at sea as you are. It’s a puzzle. He certainly doesn’t do his worshiping (if it is personal worship) from the stalls; I must have spotted him. On the whole I’m inclined to think it’s abstract defense. He’s fighting for a principle; he’s ranging himself on the side of an ideal.”