Fancies and Goodnights Part 46

When everything was resettled, she began again, and, lighting a new saucerful, "Come forth, Beelzebub!" she demanded.

"Wrong again," said the fiend, with a louder chuckle than before.

"They'll never guess, darling," said Angela.

The old bedlam went on, at a prodigious expense of the Bengal Light, which was of a special kind. She called on Belial, Belphegor, Mahound, Radamanth, Minos, all the fiends ever heard of, and all she brought forth was taunts and laughter.

"Then who the devil are you?" cried the Colonel at last "William Wakefield Wall," replied the fiend.

"You might have asked that at the beginning," said Angela quietly.

"And who, if you please, is William Wakefield Wan?" inquired her mother, with dignity. "At least dear, he is not one of those foreign fiends," she added to the Colonel "He is some charlatan," said the old woman. "I have never heard of him."

"Very few Philistines have," rejoined the fiend, with great equanimity. "However, if there is, by any odd chance, anyone in this suburb who is familiar with the latest developments of modem poetry, I advise you to make your inquiries there."

"Do you mean to say you're a poet?" cried the Colonel "I am not a Poona jingler," replied the other, "if that is what you mean by the term. Nor do I describe in saccharine doggerel such scenes as are often reproduced on coloured calendars. If, however, by the word 'poetry' you imply a certain precision, intensity, and clarity of -"

"He is a poet, Father," said Angela, "and a very good one. He had a poem in a magazine printed in Paris. Didn't you, Will?"

"If the rascal is a poet," cried the Colonel, "bring in a bottle of whiskey. That'll get him out, if I know the breed."

"A typical army idea!" replied the poet. "Perhaps the only one. No, Colonel, you need not bring whiskey here, unless you need some yourself, and you may send away that old woman, at whom I do nothing but laugh. I shall come out on my own terms, or not at all"

"And your terms are -?" said the Colonel "Permission to marry your daughter," said the poet. "And the settlement upon her of a sum commensurate with the honour which my profession will bestow upon the family."

"And if I refuse?" cried the outraged father.

"I am very comfortable where I am," replied William Watt. "Angela can eat enough for two, and we are both as happy as anything. Aren't we, Angela?"

"Yes, dear," said Angela. "Oh, don't!"

"We shall continue to have our bit of fun, of course," added the poet.

"My dear," said the Colonel to his wife, "I think we had better sleep on this."

"I think it must be settled before eleven, my dear," said Mrs. Bradshaw.

They could see no way out of it, so they had to come to an agreement. The poet at once emerged, and proved to be quite a presentable young man, though a little free in his mode of speech, and he was able to satisfy them that he came of an estimable family.

He explained that he had first seen Angela in the foyer of a theatre, during the entr'acte, and, gazing into her eyes (for he was much attracted), he had been amazed and delighted to find himself enter into possession of her. He was forced to reply in the affirmative to a certain question of Mrs. Bradshaw's, but after all young people have their own standards in these days. They were married at once, and, as he soon took to writing novels, the financial side worked out very satisfactorily, and they spent all their winters on the Riviera.

CANCEL ALL I SAID.

Give the commuter Spring! Because, where the white walls are cl.u.s.tered close among the rocks and woods, the first daffodil is a portent most regarded; because among the companionable roofs there are more planes, more variously coloured lilac, plum and rose, for the last h.o.a.rfrost to moisten, glisten, and steam upon; because of the ice-break tinkle in the voices of children, and the appeal of their small rubbers; because of the untrustworthy l.u.s.tre of the sky over Tarrytown and the east wind yet guerrilla on the plain, because of the glad heartbreaking babble at the breakfast table, and the bill beside the plate, give the commuter Spring!

Henry Sanford II, somewhat sloping about the shoulders, but dark, slim, and hollow of abdomen, clad in loosely fitting grey with a tweedy touch to it, and a well-worn tweedy touch at that, was granted his full share of this delectable season. It was the last morning in April. The wood's edge, round two sides of the garden, smoked and flashed in the stainless air, the buds were bursting, the twigs glistened, birds flickered in and out, their songs were liquid among the awakening trees. Edna's foot was on the stair. She, too, was early for breakfast Last night she had been so tired, having come all the way from California - and little Joyce a handful all the way - that it might have been said she had not got home at all, but, having slept, was arriving now, and with this spring morning to welcome her. "After breakfast," thought Henry, "there'll be time to walk round the garden together, before I catch the train."

Little Joyce, earliest of the three, was out there already. Her curls floating, golden, a daffodil child, a fairy child, she ran squeaking from new planted apple to new planted pear and plum, and looked up into their frail little branches as if in hope to find blossoms there. Or, since new fruit trees have the naive uncertain lines of a child's drawing, as if she had come back, like a kindergarten Proserpine, to add the flowers herself. As a matter of fact, being more optimistic than her father supposed, and a good deal less poetic, the child was looking for fruit.

She now ran in as Edna came down, and they seated themselves for breakfast, smiling like a family in an advertis.e.m.e.nt. There was so much news to exchange, it was like opening a tremendous mail. Edna had been visiting her parents; her father was a professor at U.C.L.A.

"He is postponing his Sabbatical year," said Edna. "He wants to wait till the wars are all over. Maybe he'll take it the year before his retiring date. Then he'll be able really to see China."

"Lucky old devil!" said Henry. "I wish they gave us a Sabbatical year at the museum. My G.o.d, with a morning like this, and you back, I could do with a Sabbatical day. It's a pity you were so tired last night. d.a.m.n the museum!"

"That reminds me," said Edna. "I've a dreadful confession to make, darling."

"Dreadful?" said Henry. "No vast expenditure, I hope. We're pretty pinched."

"Not that sort of thing," said she. "Perhaps it's worse. To me, at the time, it seemed just sort of super-silliness. You know how different things seem out there."

"Why, what was it?" said Henry. "What are you driving at?"

"Joyce," said Edna. "Is your milk all gone? Go out in the garden, darling. Go and see if your little table and chair are still there."

"Mummy, I want to hear what you did, that was silly."

"You can't hear that, darling. It's not for a little girl to hear."

"Oh, Mummy!"

"Joyce," said Henry. "Your mother said 'go out.' Go at once, please. Right away. That's right. Now, Edna, what on earth is it?"

"Well, it was when I spent that week at the d.i.c.kinsons. There was a man there, at lunch one day ..."

"Oh? Go on."

"He was in pictures."

"An actor?" cried Henry. "Not an actor!"

"No, not an actor. Though, after all, why not? However, he was just in one of the big companies. He seemed quite all right. Well - I know it was ridiculous of me -"

"Do go on," said Henry.

"He saw Joyce. She was showing off a little - you know how she shows off. Anyway, he begged me to let him have a screen test made."

"Of Joyce?" cried Henry. "Well! Well! Well! Is that all? Ha! Ha! Ha!"

"But I did. I let him. I took her down."

"Well, after all, why not?" said Henry. "If it gave you pleasure. Of course, nothing will ever make you scrupulous, darling, about wasting people's time and money. It's just the same in shops. Did they give you a print?"

"No. They don't give you a print. I don't know why I let them do it. It was just silly. I didn't want to seem stuffy."

"I wish you hadn't done it," said Henry. "It's not the right thing for a child. She's self-conscious enough already. I really don't know, Edna, how you could do such a thing. One has no right to be silly, as you call it, where a child is concerned."

He went on in this strain for some time. "You are perfectly right," said Edna. "But you need not go on so long. I've said I was a fool, and I'm sorry. Now it's late: we shan't see the garden. You must get your tram."

"It is your fault," said he, "for taking the child to a d.a.m.ned film studio. The garden must wait. Goodbye, I'm off."

Henry caught his train, and vastly enjoyed the landscape all the way to the edge of the city, where the spring haze had thickened and greyed a little, and the day had lost its bloom. The park, outside Henry's office in the museum building, looked pinched and mean and dull compared with the neighbourhood of Tarrytown. The morning was rather tedious, lunch was dull; after lunch, Henry's telephone rang. "Mr. Sanford? This is the New York office of Cosmos Films."

"Yes. Go on."

"Mr. Sanford, you heard of your lovely little girl's screen test? Well, I've been calling your home, Mr. Sanford. Seemed like n.o.body was in. Finally we located you at your office."

"So I observe. But why?"

"Very good news, Mr. Sanford. In fact, my very heartiest congratulations. I wonder if we could get together for a little chat."

"Better tell me about it right away," said Henry, seeing what was coming. "I'm afraid I'm having a very busy spell."

"The fact is," said the other, "our Hollywood end is mighty interested in the results of your little girl's screen test. I think if we can get together I can tell you something that would interest you a lot."

"I don't think you could," said Henry, luxuriously s.a.d.i.s.tic. "Thanks very much. Goodbye."

"Mr. Sanford. Mr. Sanford," came the voice at the other end. "You don't understand. Please don't hang up."

"I take it you are offering my child a ... a screen contract?" said Henry.

"Well, yes, Mr. Sanford. I think I can go as far as that."

"And I think I can go so far as to refuse," said Henry.

"But, Mr. Sanford, do you realize? Do you realize what sort of money's involved in this, what it can build up to? The fame. The world-wide prestige ... Mr. Sanford, I'm just asking you to think, to consider."

"My dear sir," said Henry, "I consider it all a very bad joke."

"Oh, no," said the other voice in a positive anguish of earnestness. "This is Cosmos Films all right. Call me back if you doubt it. Maurice Werner. Just call me back."

"I mean," said Henry, "I think the fame, prestige, and all that is a bad joke. I should not like my child to have anything whatever to do with your industry. I dislike theatrical children. Now I must say goodbye."

So saying, he hung up, cutting off a squeal of protest He turned to his work, which, it so happened, had to do with tenders for the electric wiring of showcases. The relish with which he had rebuked the powers of spiritual darkness abated a little in face of these figures on cultural light He fondled the flake from a stone cheek that served him as a paper-weight. All winter it had exuded a little of its stored four thousand years of suns.h.i.+ne into the grey of his office. Today, however, it seemed just a lump of stone. Yet somewhere in the general greyness there was something - it was very vague, very elusive - a mere memory of a golden gleam.

Suddenly, he found himself thinking of the yellow waistcoat. Or rather, he just saw it. He saw the waistcoat, and he saw himself inside that waistcoat, on the steps of a small but solid country house; a man of leisure, a scholar, a gentleman.

This vivid but very secret waistcoat, of a colour strong as corn colour, but bright as canary, was not wholly imaginary. Seven years ago, on their honeymoon, Henry and Edna had been to Europe, including England, and, in England, to the races. In the paddock Henry had noticed an old man with a red face and white hair. Even as he looked at him he overheard someone saying, "See the old man with the red face and white hair. That's Lord Lonsdale. The one in the yellow waistcoat"

Henry had had a good look at him; he found his red-faced lords.h.i.+p more interesting than the horses. He noted the unusual amplitude of the whitey-grey tweeds, which gave the old boy, with his side whiskers and apple cheeks, the appearance of a bluff old farmer as he stood among the fas.h.i.+onable crowd. Henry, whose taste was of the best, recognized this bucolic touch as the mark of the true prince.

The yellow waistcoat was unquestionably the key and signature to this masterpiece. "For a fat man," thought Henry, "it is certainly necessary to be a prince to wear a waistcoat of that colour. But a dark, slim man, if he was very rich, and lived the right way ..."

"Who is it you are staring at so hard?" Edna had asked.

"No one in particular," he had said. "Do you see that old man with the red face? I think they said he was Lord Lonsdale."

"He looks an old darling," she had said.

Since then, when in vacant and in pensive mood, Henry had found this glorious waistcoat flash upon his inner eye with an effect much like that of Wordsworth's daffodils. When he read of Lord Lonsdale's death, he felt almost like a missing heir.

He once saw a waistcoat, not quite so arrogantly unwearable, but nearly, in the window of Abercrombie & Fitch. He thought of the long history of man, and his own poor seventy years of it. And in that - no yellow waistcoat.

Who else was to wear it? Henry reviewed the trivial lives and unsatisfactory appearances of the very rich. One could hardly imagine Mr. Ford in a waistcoat of that description. His soul cried out to the waistcoat, and the waistcoat cried out to him. They needed one another. A sliver of plate gla.s.s and a paltry million or two utterly divided them.

"That man, the slim one with the s.h.i.+ning dark hair, is Henry Sanford, the millionaire archeologist"

"He looks a darling."

Never had the yellow waistcoat gleamed so persistently in the dark recesses of Henry's thoughts, never had all it symbolized of leisure, and position, and the good life, and being a darling, been so clear as this afternoon. A full hour had pa.s.sed, and the reports were almost where they were. Then Henry's telephone rang again.

"Is that Mr. Sanford? Will you hold the wire, please? This is Cosmos, Hollywood. Mr. Fishbein wishes to speak to you."

"Oh, h.e.l.l!" said Henry to himself.

"Mr. Sanford, I've called up personally to make you a very, very humble apology."

"What's that? Oh, no."

"I gather our New York branch has been wasting your time, bothering you."

"Oh, no. Really. They just called up."

"We know what the museum stands for, Mr. Sanford. Several of our stars make it their first port of call just as soon as ever they hit New York. Here in Hollywood we've come to realize what a museum means in the way of background, authenticity. I'm afraid our New York office was a little brash."

"Not at all," said Henry. "Not in the least."

"I've often wondered what the people thought when the first Greek produced the first statue," pursued the imperturbable voice, smooth and irresistible as that of an after-dinner speaker reading from notes. "I guess maybe they put it down as just a phase, something that hadn't come to stay. I don't expect a Greek aristocrat would have liked the idea of his child sitting for a nymph or cherub. Mr. Sanford, there's a very great deal of difference between the spoiled prodigy of the Victorian theatre phase, and the natural, simple, thoroughly wholesome and normal child genius of motion pictures, who is to all intents and purposes unconscious of the lens."

"Oh, quite, quite," said Henry.

"I wish you had met up with one or two of our princ.i.p.al Hollywood children," continued Mr. Fishbein. "I mean the top one or two, raised under parental control, with a qualified psychiatrist in the background. You would enjoy a romp with these unspoiled youngsters. Has it ever struck you, Mr. Sanford, that in any up-to-date school your daughter will be called upon to take part in little playlets, calculated to foster the instinct for dramatic art?"

"There is a very great difference," said Henry.

"There is a difference," said Mr. Fishbein, "of two or three million dollars. I am not talking salary to you, Mr. Sanford, though this is a big vehicle we are casting, about the biggest child-opportunity in film history. But do you ever think of royalties, royalties on toys, children's underwear, that sort of thing? However, I don't expect that phase interests a man of your standing. I know you feel all the publicity and ballyhoo might spoil the kiddie. If you saw some of the screen mamas we have to cope with here, you'd know who did the spoiling. With parents of your background, your little girl might go to Bryn Mawr when she was through out here, and, apart from her dress, no one could pick her out from any bunch of sub-debs on the campus. Well, it's been very nice to chat with you, Mr. Sanford. I hope you'll let me drop in at your museum next time I come East - have a look at some of those splendid pictures and busts. By the way, how do you folks in the art world regard the screen drama in its present phase?"

"Well ..." said Henry.

He was still saying "well" fifteen minutes later. Mr. Fishbein seemed determined to say a great deal.