VI
The dramatics committee assembled, and Miss Gracyn Phillipson, alias Pillwiggle, showed how she would propose to enact the role of Puck, alias Robin Goodfellow. After the demonstration had been completed, the committee asked the advice of Mr. Walter Hayden, and this experienced director of the rich replied that it was his practice to leave such decisions to the members; he would give his professional opinion only upon formal request. This having been solemnly voted, Mr. Hayden said that Miss Adelaide Hitchcock was endowed with gifts to make a very lovely fairy with wings on her shoulders; whereas Miss Phillipson was an actress and something of a find, who might some day reflect credit upon her native city.
Adelaide declined to put wings on her shoulders, and went away in a huff, declaring that she would never darken the doors of the country club again. The rehearsals went forward, and every evening for the next ten Lanny watched Gracyn Phillipson manifest enraptured gaiety upon the dimly lighted stage of a woodland theater. Every evening he staggered about in mock confusion, seeking to capture her, and crying:
“Nay, then, thou mock'st me. Thou shalt buy this dear, If ever I thy face by daylight see.”
He hardly knew her as a human being; he was under the spell of the play, a victim of enchantment, and she the fairy creature who poured into his eyes the magic juice which transformed the world. “But, my good lord, I wot not by what power! — ”
The long-awaited evening came, and Gracyn was trembling so that she was pitiful. But the moment she danced onto the stage something took hold of her — “I am that merry wanderer of the night!” She swept through the part in triumph, and lifted an amateur performance into something unique. The audience gave her a polite ovation.
Then next day — and the spell was broken. Lanny was an apprentice salesman of armaments, and Gracyn was a poor girl whose mother kept a shop and lived over it. The members of the club had had an evening's diversion, the Red Cross had got a thousand dollars, Lanny had made some enemies and Gracyn some friends; at least so she thought, but she waited in vain for another invitation to the club, and the painful realization dawned upon her that it took more than talent to crash those golden gates.
It was too bad that Lanny had to justify the gossips. Now that it was no longer a question of “art,” he had no excuse for seeing this young female. But he was interested enough to come and take her driving in his car, and investigate her as a human being. He discovered a quivering creature devoured by ambition, a prey alternately to hopes and fears. She wanted to get on the stage; how was it to be done? Go to New York, of course. Mr. Hayden had promised her introductions; but wasn't that just politeness? Didn't he do that to young actresses in every town he visited? Already he was on another job — and doubtless telling a stage-struck amateur that she had talent.
So far in Newcastle Lanny had lived a restricted life and hadn't met a single person outside his own class. But the impulse to get interested in strangers was still alive in him; and now he met Gracyn's friends, a group of young people with feeble and pathetic yearnings for beauty, and having no idea where to find it. Several were working in factories during the summer months, earning money to go to college; others had taken commercial courses in school, and now were taking jobs in offices, knowing themselves doomed to the dull round of business life. Most of them had never seen a great painting, or a “show” except vaudeville and cheap “road shows,” or heard music except jazz dances and the bellowing of a movie theater organ.
And now came Lanny Budd, an Oberon, master of magic. Lanny could sit at the little upright piano in the Phillipson home and, without stopping to think for a moment, could cause ecstasy to flow out of the astonished instrument; could weave patterns of beauty, build towering structures of gorgeous sound. He would play snatches of Chabrier's Espana — and Gracyn, who knew nothing about Spanish dancing except for pictures of girls with tambourines, would listen and catch the mood. She would say: “Play it again”; the young people would pull the chairs out of the way and she would make up dance steps while he watched her over his shoulder. Among the country-club crowd everybody had so much and was bored with everything; whereas here they had so little and were so pathetically grateful for a crumb of culture and beauty.
VII
Lanny took to being out frequently in the evening; and of course the watchful Esther did not fail to make note of it. Once more, she would say nothing to her stepson but only to his father. Robbie didn't feel the same way about a young man enjoying his evenings, provided he had done his job during the day; but Robbie understood his wife and tried to please her, and said he would speak to the boy.
What he said was: “I hope you're not getting in too deep with that girl, Lanny.”
“Oh, it's quite innocent, I assure you, Robbie. Her mother sits in one room and paints watercolor designs for house decorations; I play the piano and Gracyn dances and her young friends watch. Then we make cheese sandwiches, and twice we've had beer, and felt bohemian, really devilish.”
“Couldn't you do that with some of our own crowd?”
“It just happens that I haven't met any of them who take my music or dancing seriously.”
“They are a rather frozen-up lot, I suppose.”
“The trouble with most of them is they have no conversation.”
Robbie repressed a smile, and asked: “Aren't you ever alone with the girl?”
“I've taken her driving two or three times; that's the only way she'd ever see the country. But we talk about the theater; I've told her books to study, and she has done it. Her whole heart is set on being an actress.”
“It's a dog's life for a woman, son.”
“I suppose so; but if you're really in love with art, you don't mind hard work.”
“What usually happens is that a woman thinks she's in love with art, but really it's with a man. You mustn't get her into trouble.”
“Oh, no, Robbie; it won't be anything like that, I assure you. I've made up my mind that I'm through with love until I've got my education, and know what I want to be and do. I had some talk with Mr. Baldwin, my master at St. Thomas's, and he convinced me that that's the wisest way to live.”
“Maybe so,” said the cautious father; “but sometimes the women won't let you, and it's hard to say no. You find you've got your foot in a trap before you realize it.”
So Lanny had to go off and consider in his mind: was he the least bit in love with Gracyn Phillipson, or she with him? He was sure that if he had been thinking of falling in love, he'd have chosen some girl like Adelaide, who was soft and warm, and obviously made to melt in your arms. It would have been a wiser choice, because his parents would have been pleased, and her parents, and they would have a lovely church wedding with bridesmaids and orange blossoms and yards and yards of white veils spread all around her like a pedestal. But he hadn't been thinking about love, he had been interested in acting, and in music and dancing and poetry and the other arts that Shakespeare had woven into an immortal fairy tale. Gracyn was boylike and frank and interested in the same things, and they had made a pleasant friendship on that basis.
If she'd been thinking about anything else, she'd have let him know it. Or would she? She was an actress; and might it be that she was acting the part of boylike frankness? Acting is a tricky business, and a woman might fool herself as well as others. Gracyn wanted a start in life, and could surely not be unaware of the fact that Lanny might give it to her. His father could get her a start if he chose to take the trouble. Gracyn must have thought of this; and would she think that Lanny was careless and indifferent to her needs? Would she be too proud to hint at it, or take advantage of their friendship? If so, she must be a fine person, and Lanny was putting her to a severe test.