Herma

by MacDonald Harris

  Paderewski: “Oh, perfect.”

  Madame Modjeska: “Besides there are my begonias. If I left who would take care of my begonias?”

  Paderewski: “You know that all Europe would fall at your feet if you returned to the stage.”

  Madame Modjeska: “On one leg like Bernhardt?”

  Paderewski: “You have two legs.”

  Madame Modjeska: “I can hardly walk on either. My acting days are over, Pan Ignace, my dear friend. I am going to buy a little island in Balboa Bay and live out the rest of my years there, like a hermit.”

  “You are already a hermit here, Pani Helena.”

  Madame Modjeska: “Ah, fine. Stop and think what you are saying, you precious imbecile, my dearest Pan Ignace. We have dined like Lucullus this evening, and then we went to the opera, and now here we are surrounded by books and fine paintings and drinking champagne and you are telling me I am a hermit. I am old, old, but I draw my strength from youth. I must constantly have youth. Herma,” she said, “you must sing. Sing your Canzonetta. Ignace, to the piano.”

  “I am a person of the city,” he continued to complain while she led him to the piano, “and too much open space disconsolates me.”

  “No one is interested in your disconsolation, Pan Ignace. Play the piano. Music,” she explained to Herma, “is good for the soul but bad for the character.” And, perhaps in order to show that he did not have a bad character, Paderewski did in fact cheer up as he straightened his elbows and embarked into an improvisation of Susanna’s guitar continuo.

  Under the circumstances, and after the champagne, it seemed quite natural to Herma that she should have so distinguished an accompanist. With her hands clasped at her waist, she lifted her head and sang.

  “Voi che sapete

  che cosa e amor …”

  The Canzonetta was so familiar now that she could have sung it in her sleep, underwater in the bath, or hanging upside down on a trapeze. She lilted through the short lines with her young voice at its sweetest and most pleading. She could act too; a little wrinkle of pathos appeared in the immaculate and unmarred brow, belied by the smile in the eyes. And she concluded confidently: “Ladies, see whether I’ve love in my heart.”

  Everyone clapped politely. Madame Modjeska was wearing her restrained little smile, with an ironic look in her eyes. After a little conference with her accompanist, Herma went on to some other things. First the Bell Song from Lakmé, to demonstrate her coloratura, and then “Mi chiamano Mimì,” as an example of her mastery of the more intricate and modern harmonic effects. The greatest pianist in the world, in fact, wrinkled his brow a little as he worked his way through Puccini’s modulations. The clear young voice, dodging the harmonies deftly, came to its simple recitative statement at the end. “Altro di me non le saprei narrare.” Another polite patter of applause.

  Herma glanced at Mr. Paderewski. He nodded. After a review of the chords, and a fragment of melody for a cue, the piano paused. Herma slipped softly into the song.

  “’Tis the last rose of summer

  Left blooming alone;

  All her lovely companions

  Are faded and gone;

  No flower of her kindred,

  No rosebud is nigh,

  To reflect back her blushes,

  Or give sigh for sigh.”

  These were three stanzas, as Herma, and Madame Modjeska herself, very well knew. The clear and slightly thin voice lingered over the lines with a skillful pathos, coming up to the high notes a little flat and then gliding to the pitch, in the style of the sentimental song of the period. In the dulcet tone of angels, who pity and yet are unmoved, it described the gems dropping away from Love’s shining circle, and advised the Rose to go to sleep with the lovely who lay scentless and dead. Herma’s expression was placid except for the small wrinkle of sadness in her brow. She came to the last line, slowing to the ritardando in a clear and perfect pitch: “Oh! who would inhabit this bleak world alone?”

  The piano chord died away and the room was silent. Madame Modjeska couldn’t help herself. Out came the handkerchief and she dabbed at the corner of her eye. It was so flagrant a device that she laughed while she wiped a tear from her eye; but still she wept. “You young witch. You knew—didn’t you—that that song touched my heart?” Still laughing, she wiped the other eye and put away the handkerchief.

  The others applauded, the shy Mr. Sienkiewicz in what was evidently the Polish manner, holding one hand horizontal and bringing the other down on top of it. “Not a great voice but a good voice,” said Paderewski. “I see you have studied with Nellie Melba, who is a friend of mine.”

  Herma said, “No. My teacher’s name is Mrs. Opdike.”

  “There is a mystery here about Melba which is yet to be resolved, my dear Ignace. However, I believe it is more than a good voice. It is a remarkable voice. Her character is another matter. I warn everyone to beware of this creature. She is a crafty little thing.”

  “In your days, Pani Helena,” said Paderewski respectfully, “you were as crafty as a fox.”

  “Yes. That’s why I like this one. My dear, let me tell you something about myself. No, no!” she protested to the others, who were smiling, “let me tell it to her, even though you have all heard it before. I have played in the Staatstheater in Berlin, the Opera House in Vienna, and the Odéon in Paris. Also I am very rich, I have this house which is called Arden after my As You Like It, and which was designed by Stanford White. I have an estate in Poland near Krakow. And I have a private railroad car which is also called Arden. When I travel about the world, everyone crowds to see me, and they pay large sums of money to see me walk on the stage. I have played with Booth, I have played with Mr. Otis Skinner, I have played with La Duse, who,” she put in, “is a very conceited creature, I can tell you. My acting has been photographed with cinema machines. They even named a ship after me. And I am married to a count—Karol is a count, aren’t you, Karol?” Mr. Chlapowski smiled. “And,” continued Madame, “do you know how I got all this?”

  “No,” said Herma, since this seemed to be the vocable called for at this point.

  “First of all I work very hard, and second I do not trust anyone to tell me what is right for myself. Managers agents critics no one, not even my beloved husband Karol.” (Herma caught Mr. Chlapowski’s eye; he raised his brows and sighed.) “I myself decide what is right for myself. I trust no one. Particularly not men. But this includes everyone, because as the world is presently organized, all the decisions are made by men. But not,” she added, “those which I make for myself. Do not,” she reiterated as though afraid that Herma had not grasped the point, “trust men to tell you what to do. Because they will advise you first of all,” she concluded, “to get in bed with them.”

  “Oh, Pani Helena,” sighed Paderewski, “you make it sound as though it were all our fault.”

  Madame seemed a little exhausted after this speech. Mr. Chlapowski was lighting another long thin cigar. “For me too, my dear friend, if you please.” He extracted another from his coat pocket, passed it to her, and lighted it. She drew on it and turned to Herma. She still seemed tired. “You’ve never seen a lady with a cigar before, have you? But in my country we have a saying: Break bread with an Arab and smoke with a Pole. Don’t be alarmed.” She laughed. “I shan’t ask you to join me.”

  Herma was rather hoping, in fact, that someone would offer her a cigar, since the customs at Arden seemed to be so free. She said, “I’ve seen you smoking a cigar before.”

  “Have you?” inquired Madame archly. “And on what occasion, if you please?”

  “It was in the S. P. station in Santa Ana, when I was a small girl. You stopped there for a moment in your private car.”

  “It’s fate,” said Madame, throwing up her hands. “We were destined to be flung together, you and I. And now, my dear, let’s leave these gentlemen, who probably want to tell unseemly stories to each other, and go into the study.”

  She led Herma into a small room
with books and musical scores on one wall, an escritoire, a small round table with a scarf and a lamp on it, and two chairs upholstered in tapestry. She herself sat down at the escritoire and Herma took the other chair. It was almost daylight. Through the window the sky was beginning to lighten in the east.

  “My dear,” she said fixedly, “have you obligations in the world?”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “What do your Papa and Mama wish for you in the world?”

  “I’m going to become a singer.”

  “H’mm,” said Madame. She regarded her reflectively out of her dark, melancholy, and yet somehow humorous eyes. Then she smiled, but this time as though to herself.

  She opened the drawer of the escritoire, took out a piece of monogrammed notepaper, and dipped her pen into violet ink. “Dear Mr. Larkin,” she wrote. “I have something for you. And I think you will know how to appreciate it.”

  27.

  Fred went down Ross Street under the sycamores, which were leafless now in the bright winter sun. In his right hand he carried a large tapestry portmanteau, with brass fittings and leather reinforcements at the corners, and in his left hand an equally large horsehide suitcase, oblong in form. In this way balanced, like a whale ship hoisting two whales, he managed to stagger down the sidewalk. As luck would have it, after only a block or two he met Mr. Farkuss, who was coming the other way in his wagon. The carpenter, who as usual had a grizzle of gray on his red face, pulled up on the reins.

  “Git in,” he invited.

  Fred threw the suitcases into the wagon and climbed aboard.

  Mr. Farkuss got the horse going again with a slap of the leathers. He turned and stared at Fred in a rather blurred way, attempting to focus his attention.

  “Goin’ to the station?”

  “Yes.”

  “Leavin’ town?”

  “Yes.”

  “That’s a smart thing,” said Mr. Farkuss.

  He took the bottle from between his knees, tipped it up, and swallowed half a cupful or so. He sighed and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.

  “Care for a drink?”

  Fred accepted, first wiping the mouth of the bottle on his sleeve and then taking a good-sized swig. He barely managed to avoid choking, but he maintained his aplomb. He handed the bottle back.

  Mr. Farkuss picked his nose. “Last time I picked you up,” he said, “you wasn’t no bigger than a grasshopper.”

  Fred met his glance steadily. “I don’t believe you ever picked me up before.”

  Mr. Farkuss examined him more carefully, in his blurry and yet fixed way, for quite a long time. One eye did not look in quite the same direction as the other. “No,” he said after a while, “I guess I never did.”

  At the S. P. station he stopped to let Fred down. He watched while Fred pulled the suitcases off the wagon and balanced them one at the end of each arm.

  “Them Spaniards,” he said, “didn’t mean no harm, but they might of run right over a little fella like you.”

  “Bye,” said Fred. “Thanks for the ride.”

  Mr. Farkuss stared after him fuzzily, still trying to focus his attention. Then he shook up the reins and drove off slowly.

  Fred carried the two suitcases into the station. He sat on one and put his feet on the other. In only a few minutes the morning train from San Diego appeared around the bend in the orange trees, rushed with a clatter into the station, and slowed to a stop with squeaking brakes. Fred pushed the two suitcases into the nearest car and then climbed in after them. There were no other passengers for Los Angeles. The conductor, out on the platform, consulted his watch. Then he yelled “Board!” to himself and clambered on. The train jerked, groaned, and launched into motion.

  It gathered speed little by little down the track. Fred looked out the window. Over the roofs he could see the top of French’s Opera House and the steeple of the First Baptist Church, the ragged tops of palm trees, a red flare of bougainvillea blossoms in a patch of green. A sort of hard walnut appeared in his throat, and he swallowed it with difficulty. Farewell, Santa Ana! With its rows of orange trees baking in the sun, and the sea crashing nearby on the white beach—nevermore, croaked some raven. It was a childhood he was leaving behind, or was it two childhoods? He was a little muddled on this point, but the walnut was still there in his throat. For some reason, perhaps remembering Aunt Minnie and her Neapolitan song, he cried inside himself, addio!

  Then he saw something else. Down Fourth Street, and turning left in front of the station, came Gambrinus in his dogcart. He was dressed as usual in his frock coat and beaver. He was going at a mad pace, and there was a furious look on his face. The train was still gathering speed, and the dwarf overtook it until he was even with Fred’s car. They stared at each other through the glass and Gambrinus shook his fist. “Thief! Seducer! Despoiler! Kidnapper! Assassin!” He was beside himself with rage. Fred gazed at him, safe behind the glass. Whipping up Bernard, the dwarf galloped him along the platform, off the end of it, and on along the dirt right-of-way that paralleled the tracks, kicking up a storm of leaves and dust. But more and more the train outpaced him, and finally he was left behind.

  28.

  Las Flores, which was about thirty miles east of Los Angeles, was on the Pomona line of the S. P. Fred had to transfer at Los Angeles, and it was a ride of about an hour after that. The station was a small rococo building covered with scrollwork and ornament, painted a gleaming white with green trim. The sign on the roof was almost as big as the station:

  LAS FLORES

  in large ornate letters. There was no town anywhere near it. The S. P. had built the station for the sole convenience of Mr. Larkin, and no one ever used it except Mr. Larkin or his guests.

  Here Fred was met by a coachman driving an elegant coach, a tallyho drawn by four splendid bays. The two bags were loaded and Fred got on top of the tallyho next to the coachman. They went off along a broad avenue lined with oleanders in bloom. Presently they crossed through the gate, a kind of Trajan’s Arch imitated in carved wood and scrollwork, and entered the ranch. It stretched as far as the eye could see in all directions, with the foothills of the Sierras behind it. There were woods and lakes, what appeared to be an enormous horse barn, fruit and nut trees, grapevines, and fields of grain. Prize beef cattle stood about in aristocratic poses. In the distance, on a pond, Fred caught sight of a pair of swans.

  The coachman seemed to have metamorphized out of a novel by Dickens. He wore a short frock coat and breeches, which he was almost portly enough to burst, and a porkpie hat. His beefy face was clean shaven. Quite possibly he was genuine and had been imported from England along with the tallyho. When he began to talk, however, it was in a pure western twang.

  “You a friend o’ Mr. Larkin’s?”

  “Nope.”

  He peered sideways at Fred out of his piglike but friendly eyes. Quite patently he liked to talk, and just as obviously he was a man of insatiable curiosity about his fellow human beings. He was favorably inclined toward Fred from the start, since he had chosen to ride on top of the tallyho, where they could have a little friendly conversation, rather than inside.

  “He must know who you are. Sent me to the depot to pick up somebody off the 3:20. That’s you, ain’t it?”

  “Yep.”

  But after a moment, not wishing to seem unfriendly himself, Fred remarked, “This is quite a place.”

  “I’ll say it’s quite a place. Ole Lucky, he made it all in the gold fields, y’know. Come out here in the fifties, at the time o’ the Rush. But he didn’t dig it out with no pick and shovel—not him.”

  “Not his style, eh?”

  “Not ole Lucky. Didn’t care for blisters on his hands. He lent’em money at twenty percent. That was his style. And he snooped around and bought up claims that nobody thought was worth anything, and they made him millions. That’s how ole Lucky got rich.”

  He was silent for a moment, allowing Fred to observe the wonders of the ranch as
they passed.

  “That there’s the horse barn,” he resumed after a moment. “Over a hundred prize Ayrabs in there, and some ridin’ horses for the ladies. Horses and women, that’s what he likes. Yep,” he went on, “in his time old Lucky was a great one for actresses. That’s why he built the Larkin Theayter in Frisco. Cause if you got a theayter,” he explained in case Fred didn’t see the point, “you got lots of actresses around.”

  “Course,” he said after a pause, “all that was a long time ago. He still has a hotel and the theayter in Frisco, but he don’t go up there much anymore. He sticks pretty close to the ranch. He don’t need to go anywhere. He’s got three houses right here on the ranch.”

  He pointed out the Big House, a kind of rococo wooden palace in the curlicued style of the seventies, painted white with green trim like the station, and the Cottage, in the same style but in miniature. Even so, it was as big as the largest house in Santa Ana. The Cottage, he explained, was used for guests of special importance, or those who brought an entourage with them. Lily Langtry had stayed there, Mr. Leland Stanford, and more than one President.

  “And that there,” he pointed with the end of his whip, “is the Adobe. First house built on the ranch. That’s the only place where ole Lucky really feels comfort’ble. When there’s no guests he likes to set around in the Adobe and talk to the boys. Me, and the hostlers, and them Spanish vaqueros he has to chase the cattle around. It’s more homey there. He can set and drink whiskey, and tell stories with the boys, and fart when he feels like it. The Big House is for his lady friends. The Cottage ain’t much used anymore.”

  “Where are you taking me?”

  “To the Big House.”

  “I’m not a lady friend.”

  “That’s where he tole me to bring you.”

  The tallyho drew up before the Big House, and Fred got out and set his suitcases down. He turned around. On the steps of the house he was confronted by an old man with a pale face and a wispy and dangling mustache. He wore a Stetson, a black suit with fine stripes, a white shirt, a black bow tie, and high-buttoned shoes, these last immaculately polished. Fred took a deep breath. This was it. Now he had to worm his way around this old codger who looked as wily as Proteus, and almost as wiry and tough—a man who had outwitted the shrewdest bankers of San Francisco and tricked people out of whole railroads. Still, he was getting a little senile now. At least Fred hoped so.