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 España—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.
VIII
He took her driving the next evening, that being the only way she could ever see the country. They followed the river drive, and a full moon was strewing its showers of light over the water; fireflies were flickering, and the world was lovely, as well as mysterious. Over in France the doughboys had begun their long-expected drive, and the newspapers were full of their exploits; which lent a strange quality to any happiness you felt—as if it were something you had no right to, and that might disappear while you held it in your hands.
“Gracyn,” said Lanny, “I’ve been thinking that if you’re going to get a job this season, you ought to be in New York now, while the managers are getting their fall productions ready.”
“I know, Lanny; but I can’t!”
“What I thought was, I’d ask my father to back you to the extent of a trip there. He saw your performance and liked it a lot.”
“Oh, Lanny!” The girl caught her breath. “Oh, I couldn’t let you do that!”
“It wouldn’t break him.”
“I know—but I haven’t the right—”
“You can call it a loan. Anybody starting in business borrows money and pays it back out of his earnings. You surely won’t fail to earn something; and it would make me happy if I could help you.”
“Oh, Lanny, what a darling you are!”
“You’ll do it, then?”
“How could I say no?”
“I haven’t asked him, you understand; but he’s never refused to do anything within reason.”
“Lanny, I’ll work so hard—I’ll have one reason more for making good!”
“I know you’ll work; the chances are you’ll work too hard and do yourself up.”
The road passed a wooded point, and came to an open spot with a tiny bay. “Oh, Lanny, how lovely!” whispered the girl. “Stop for a bit.”
They drew up by the roadside, as young couples were doing along ten thousand rivers and streams of America. They sat looking over the water, strewn with shimmering bright jewels; and Gracyn put her hand on Lanny’s and murmured: “Lanny, you are the kindest, sweetest man I’ve ever known.”
“It’s easy for me to be generous with money I don’t have to earn,” said he.
She answered: “I don’t mean only that. I mean a lot, lot more than that.”
He felt her hand trembling, and a strange feeling which he had learned to know began to steal over him. When she leaned toward him he put his arm about her. They sat so for quite a while; until at last the girl whispered: “Lanny, let me tell you how I feel.”
She waited, as if it were a question; he answered: “Yes, dear, of course.”
“I think you are the best person I’ve ever known, and I’ll do anything I can to make you happy—anything in this world. You have my promise that I’ll never ask anything of you, never make any claim upon you—never, never!”
So there was Lanny mixed up with the sex problem again. His father had said: “It’s hard to say no.” Lanny found that it was
impossible.
24
The World Well Lost
I
There had come a post card from Sergeant Jerry Pendleton in France. “We are ready. Everything fine. Watch our smoke!” And right after that the big news began to come in. The Americans hit the spearhead of the German advance on Paris, at a little village called Château-Thierry, difficult for doughboys to pronounce. The Americans furnished two divisions for the great attack at Soissons, which caught the Germans on the flank, and cut the supply lines of their advancing armies. The same fellows that Lanny had met and talked with; they had been training for a new kind of fighting, to attack and keep on attacking, and take machine-gun nests in spite of losses—and now they were doing it! In the few days of that battle the Germans sent in seven divisions to stop the First Division of the Americans, and when they failed, their leaders knew that the tide of the war had turned.
From that time on there was one battle that went on day and night for three months. The fifty thousand sergeants led their million and a quarter men, and the machine guns mowed some of them down and left them crumpled and writhing on the ground—but others got close, and threw their hand grenades and silenced the guns. After three days of such attacks, one of the battalions from Camp Devens, a thousand strong, came out with two hundred men unwounded. But they had taken the positions.
People read about these exploits with pride and exultation, or with shuddering and grief, according to their temperaments. Lanny, who knew more about war than anybody else he met, was of two moods in as many minutes. A poet had expressed his state of mind in alternating verses:
I sing the song of the great clean guns that belch forth death at will.
Ah, but the wailing mothers, the lifeless forms and still!
At the country club Lanny had met officers who were now in France, directing this all-summer and autumn battle, and he was proud of these stern, capable men and the job they were doing. As the poet had said:
I sing the acclaimèd generals that bring the victory home.
Ah, but the broken bodies that drip like honey-comb!
A letter from Nina: “It is so dreadful, the way poor Rick has to suffer. I do not know how he can stand it. They are going to have to take out another piece of bone. Perhaps they ought to take the whole leg, but the doctors are not able to agree about it.” And then one from Beauty, with words of apology for the tear stains which marred it. These were the days when she was waiting in vain for some message from Marcel; she had to pass a still longer period, clinging to the hope that he might have been captured, and that she would get word through the organization in Switzerland which exchanged lists of prisoners.
One day there came in Lanny’s mail a carefully wrapped package from France, and when he opened it, there was a charming little figure of a dancing man carved in wood. M. Pinjon, the gigolo, was back in his native village and wished to greet and thank his old friend. He didn’t suggest that Lanny might interest some rich Americans in giving little dancing men as Christmas gifts; but of course Lanny knew how happy the poor cripple would be if this were done. Kind-hearted persons would take duties like this upon themselves—even while they knew how pathetically futile it was.
II
Gracyn Phillipson didn’t take the trip to New York; at least not right away. The morning after her understanding with Lanny she received a letter from Walter Hayden. He had meant his praise, it appeared. He was at the town of Holborn, thirty or forty miles away, about to direct a show for the Red Cross ladies there. It was a war play, and had a “fat” part for a leading lady; the committee were dubious about their local talent, and Hayden had told them about his “find” in Newcastle. They couldn’t pay any salary, but would guarantee her fifty dollars’ expenses for two weeks if she cared to come. It would be a chance for her to have Hayden’s direction in a straight dramatic role, and the experience might be very helpful to her. The girl was wild with delight, and phoned Lanny that she was leaving by the first train.
So now the youth had another art project to be absorbed in. When he finished his study of contracts and specifications for Budd fuses furnished to the United States navy, he did not go to the country club to play tennis, but motored to Holborn and took Gracyn Phillipson to dinner—an inexpensive, procedure, since she was too excited to eat. Then he drove her to the hot little “opera house” where the rehearsals were held, and watched the work, and criticized and made suggestions, and drove home late at night. On Saturday afternoon he went and stayed overnight and on Sunday took her to the beach.
This again was supposed to be “art”; and again the gossips wouldn’t believe it. It was too bad that there had to be truth in their worst suspicions. There are persons who believe in the ascetic life, and when their stories of renunciation are told, as in Browning’s Ring and the Book, they make noble and inspiring literature. But Lanny Budd had been brought up under a different code, and his leading lady also had ideas of her own. On the stage she was acting a part of conventional “virtue,” and pouring intense feeling into it; but when she and Lanny were alone, she embraced him with ardor, and did not trouble to fit these two codes to each other.
Lanny felt free and happy, so long as he was in Holborn; but when he started on the long drive back to the home of Esther Remson Budd, a chill would settle over his spirit, and when he put his car in the garage and stole softly up to his room, he felt like a burglar. His stepmother didn’t wait up for him, but she knew the worst—and, alas, the worst was true. She never said a word to him about it, but as the days passed, their relationship grew more and more formal. Esther saw herself justified in everything she had feared when she had let this bad woman’s son into her home; he had that woman’s blood and would follow her ways; he belonged in France, not in New England—at any rate not in her home, making it a target for the arrows of scandal. From that time on Esther would count the days to the latter part of September, when Lanny would be going back to school.
The thing made for unhappiness between her and her husband also. Robbie didn’t feel as she did; Robbie had met the girl, and thought she was the right sort for Lanny to have at this stage of his life. He couldn’t say that to Esther, of course; he had to pretend that he didn’t know what was going on—at the same time knowing that Esther didn’t believe him.
III
This interlude with Gracyn was a strange experience for Lanny. She was a “daughter of the people,” and his acquaintance with these had been limited to servants and his childhood playmates in France. She had hardly any tradition of culture; her mother had been a clerk who had married her employer late in his life and inherited his small business. Gracyn had gone through school as Lanny was doing, bored with most subjects and forgetting them overnight. She had lived through four years of world war and it had become known to her that America was helping England and France to fight Germany; but she hadn’t got quite clear about Britain and England, she didn’t know which side Austria was on, and if you had mentioned Bulgaria and Bougainvillaea, she couldn’t have told which was which. She was all the time pulling “boners” like that, and never minded if you laughed. “Don’t expect me to know about anything but acting,” she would say.
When she was a child in school she had posed in some tableaux, representing “Columbia,” and “Innocence,” and so on, and it had set her imagination on fire; she had discovered a way of escape from the harassments of daily life, with a mother always in debt and very rarely a good substantial meal on the table. She found that she could lose herself in a world of imagination, full of beautiful, rich, and delightful people—“like you, Lanny,” she said. She had driven her childhood friends to act in stories which she made up and in which she played the princess, the endangered and adored one. She haunted the local “opera house,” to which traveling companies now and then came; she learned that sometimes they would use a child to walk across the stage in a crowd scene, or to be dressed up and petted by some actress playing the mother. Thus she had watched plays from the wings, a
bsorbed in the story, and, no matter how humble her part, she had lived it.
She was passionate and intense in whatever she did; making love to her was like holding a live bird in your hand and feeling the throbbing of its heart. Her emotions came like waves rolling on the ocean, sweeping a boat along; but they passed quickly and were succeeded by another kind of waves. Lanny would become aware that she was no longer loving him, but was thinking about love to be enacted on the stage. It would be one of the principal things she had to do, of course; and while she did it she would start to talk about it from the technical point of view. She had studied the fine points of the actresses she had been able to see; also the favorites of the motion picture screen, and Lanny found it startling in the midst of a tête-à-tête to be told that Gloria Swanson heaved her bosom thus and so when she was manifesting passion, and the audiences seemed to like it, but Gracyn thought it was rather overdone, and what did Lanny think?
It was unfortunate that two great crises had come piling into the life of this highstrung creature at the same time: the arrival of her Prince Charming, and the dawning of her stage career. It made too much excitement to be packed into one small female frame, and she seemed likely to burst with it. As it happened, the career part had a time-schedule that could not be altered; she had to be on hand for rehearsals, and she had to know her lines and every detail of her “business” as the exacting Mr. Hayden ordered it. So love-making had to be put off to odd moments, and food and sleep were neglected almost entirely.
World's End (The Lanny Budd Novels) Page 48
