Nalbro Bartley

“ For Lorraine would have probably remarked, after viewing Thurley’s apartment, “How in the world does she ever get the work done!” letting the panorama of joys and possibilities sweep on uncomprehended.
Therefore, Dan had decided, after very arduous sophistry, it was not wrong to see Thurley, to keep her in his bewildered heart as a sort of lovely idol, something set apart from the Corners and his house-and-garden life—something as different as the scarlet tanager or the jewelled dragon-fly is different from the barn-swallow or the field-daisy! Each has its own place. ”

“ Lorraine was engaged in making “over-drapes” for the spare room which was to be in pink. She was the sort who could smother a heartache in making over-drapes and planning color schemes as reflected in candle-shades, braided rugs and embroidered bed-shams.
“Tell you what, father?” she did not look at him.
“Is he happy?” the old man added, which surprised her for she thought he would have asked if she was happy.
“I hope so,” she told him, laying aside the over-drapes.
“You’re a good girl, Lorraine, and you are doing your part. If God sees fit, some day you will be happy, too.” ”

“ As Thurley stared at the strange face with its rare smile of understanding, she recalled the Scotch legend of the Wells of Peace which an old circus clown had told her of years ago.
The Wells of Peace, so the clown had said, were Love, Beauty, Dreams, Endurance, Compassion, Rest, Love Fulfilled! All the “little people” of the hills and forest, even the peewits who had been baseborn children, were searching endlessly for the Wells of Peace—for he who found them and drank of the water could wish for anything in the world and it would be his!
“Kiss her, Collin; that will make her speak! ”

“ Sometimes I think you’ll never grow old. We’ll be tottering graybeards and Ernestine and Thurley wrinkled dowagers, but you will still be Polly, brown-faced and boyish! Now, I say, why not give up your big dream for a bit, leave it for the next lifetime and will yourself to be born a long-haired Polish genius with opera scores fairly dripping off your brow—come on, Polly, be my secretary. I need one. Look at the young women who do Caleb’s stuff and Ernestine has that depressing, rubber tired young woman with a bumpy forehead and Thurley the Quinby monstrosity. I’m terribly behind. ”

“ After Polly halfway promised that she would find the shortest, most forceful method of requesting marriage to a blind hero who could become a sublime poet in deathless stone and bronze, Ernestine departed to find Caleb in a changed, softened mood in which he admitted that when a chap witnessed such a tragedy—and such rose-colored clouds encircling it, who saw what Thurley had done, forgetting herself and her career, and the men at the Fincherie quietly getting used to themselves and ‘life as usual’ all about, it made him realize what a smashing story could be written about such real people. ”

“ Surely these people would turn in protest to art as their solace. What a task America had set for her, what herculean effort Bliss must make ... for these people would appeal to the accepted standards of art as their defense. The plays, poems, stories, songs, pictures, useless bohemian lives that would follow if permitted, the refusal to become one of many—to take an interest in the neighbors and not the enemies!
Thurley rose with sudden determination. Right always ends by acquiring might, she told herself, and if Bliss Hobart possessed a vision he, himself, was powerless to execute it. ”

“ Don’t become lop-sided, Thurley, or change into a crabbed spinster. Live and let love come to you—you are a genius, a super-creature—you have the right to love as you please!”
“You do believe so?” Thurley fairly whispered the words. She fancied she had so stolidly locked away love from her wild-rose heart!
“I know so! The greatest artists have always been exceptions to the rule, never meek slaves of the law.” ”

“ You have that fire, dash, touch of strangeness that one sees very seldom. You really would have hard work to spoil your voice, Thurley. Moreover, I would have hard work to teach you how to sing. Are you surprised? Oh, you thought as do so many that I would teach you to sing as one learns to dance or paint on china, some systematic, mechanical accomplishment ... all wrong!” He brushed the entire range of keys with his hands as if to express denial of the fact. “God taught you to sing, Thurley. You sang as well in your Birge’s Corners as you will sing in opera—and perhaps better. ”

“ But the town never knew quite all about Dan’s sudden engagement to Lorraine nor Lorraine’s acceptance of Thurley’s suitor. They never knew that Dan, white-faced and with a strange, red light in his eyes, had come to Lorraine to plead with her that she marry him.
To Dan’s despairing anger of youth, Lorraine yielded because of her own despairing love. “I know you love Thurley,” she said, when he scarcely embraced her. “You want to show her some one loves you enough to marry you ... and you knew I always cared. Dan, will you learn to care afterwards? I’ll be the best wife I can! ”

“ The drawing-room had the intimate charm of a French salon with its old ivory and dull blue brocaded hangings. The furniture was painted peacock blue and covered with rose taffeta with a silver sheen and a solemn, stuffed parrot on a gaily painted stand looked at her in cynical amusement.
All about the room, which was oppressively perfumed as well, were numerous photographs of Lissa taken at various ages and of handsome men, young, old, middle-aged and all of them autographed with superlative sentiments to, “Lissa Dearest” or “Dear Girl Lissa” or “Adorable Madame Dagmar”! ”

“ Oftentimes Thurley felt she must stop playing a part—mischievous young person!—and say to these misguided rebel-dolls that they were fortunate in having just plain folks, to have any one really belonging to them—a vista of forbidden joys would open before her blue eyes as these “hysterical hikers,” as Bliss Hobart had named them, told her of how they had come away from the sordid, uninteresting atmosphere which strangled their inner selves and they were willing to go hungry—all the great ones had gone hungry—to deny the fleshpots if they might only achieve—might win the laurel! ”

“ Lorraine answered fearlessly. “You knew I always loved you. If Thurley would not marry you and you asked me in her stead, I felt that you would better be married. You might have done some ugly, cheap things, Dan, if you had not been engaged to me. I love you enough to make myself—content, by keeping your house and having your name. I know I’m not Thurley,” she smiled wistfully, “but I’ll always be Lorraine. Some day you may come to care a little more.” ”

“ Art is the expression of a man’s joy in his work and you’ve everything about and in you, as well as before you, to prove to the world the truth of that saying. Many new and confusing things will happen shortly. All sorts and conditions of people, attentions, praise, blame, drudgery, ease, dissipations, monotonous routine—heavens, child, it makes my head ache to think of an absolutely de luxe Topsy from Birge’s Backyard with the voice of an announcing angel set down in New York and told to prepare herself for grand opera! ”

“ Lorraine was to face readjustment as much as the man who would return to civilian life minus an arm. It seemed to Thurley that perhaps here was where gray angel demonstration must begin—to stop Lorraine’s neglect of her home and child, and convince her that when Dan came back expecting to find the same gentle wife whose house was her kingdom and whose outlook on life would be his tempering element—she must not fail him. ”

“ Here Thurley’s mind wandered back to the old man’s confession, “I heard Bliss Hobart sing,” and she was lost in reverie until she caught again the master’s earnest voice as he advised all young artists to see statuary by lamplight in order to find the ivory shades of light and dark shadows that daytime never reveals, not to put more color in the sunrise than did Dame Nature nor carmine on young lips nor fat greens in the summer foliage.
“For then,” he said, smiling wisely, “you cease to be artists, but become dreamy and conceited liars! ”

“ Before the vacation occurred, with Owen, Josie and Cora as the guests, Lorraine rummaged in Dan’s chiffonier to find extra goggles for Cora and a linen motor coat for Owen. She came upon a magazine lying face downward.
She understood why it was almost hidden, for it was a recent issue of a musical journal and the cover page was a brilliant color reproduction of a photograph of Thurley Precore as Aïda, glowing praise briefly written underneath. Thurley wore a mesh of lace studded with brilliants; she half reclined on a divan, like some legendary queen dreaming in the blue-black night! ”

“ I am better placed as I am; but you, Thurley, are running amuck. Why this shallow flippancy? This false basis of theories, mistaking shadow for substance? Because you hear such and such a great diva bore a child for a crown prince—that this artist acts under the influence of morphine and that one paints only when addled from absinthe—you must not pursue these phantoms of self-indulgence—and you who sit there looking confused yet combative, you are at this very moment halfway inviting an intrigue with an honest country lad—Dan Birge! ”

“ Because you and I and other creatures who live by their wits most of the time and have the tasks of physical existence performed for them, need to remember that one can almost see and feel the truth of eternity ... the eternal seasons, Thurley, the ever-dying, ever-reviving blossoms, the migration of the birds, the continual progress and continual decay of all forms of life—that is what makes us really seem so busy. ”

“ As the hall was clearing, Thurley flew down to find them.
“Oh, Dan,” she held on to his hands, “it is yourself for certain, I’m so terribly glad!” She read in his dark eyes the shadow which will rest on most of those who have fought and returned, a dangerous expression liable to turn into haunted, ugly memories, desperate longings and unwise impulses.
Lorraine wondered if Thurley read the same problem which she had discerned even while he was kissing her his welcome.
“It is mighty good to be back,” was all he said. “A man doesn’t know what he is going to miss until it is too late. ”

“ In New York, Thurley took another method when pessimism interrupted common sense routine. She went to the piano and practised until her throat gave warning to cease and she could again face the world as the wild-rose-with-a-prophecy-of-the-hothouse-variety Thurley, baby of the great “family,” an interesting young goddess who seldom voiced an opinion but who could sweep away opinions if she sang a ballad (unbeknownst to her present audience) with thoughts of Dan or Philena or the old days in the wagon as the inspiration! ”

“ How rich a confession Caleb could wring out of us, if he were not so sluggish! We dream-play, fancy, create a world within a world. Bliss Hobart in a fit of cynicism—I noticed he began taking pepsin the following week—named it ‘the ooze’—and it became our trade name for it. The ooze, the unreal, really unimportant and absurd, yet ready to be lived with and yet to vanish, the state of mind which we people as we wish and live house-and-garden lives for as much as half an hour at a time! You may not give this credence, but it is quite as real as my piano or Collin’s brush. ”

“ Meanwhile, Thurley went on to the dinner party remembering Sam’s audacity with annoyance intermingled with delight. There was and always will be to every woman, if she is honest, a rare charm in being treated as a little girl. White-haired matrons delight in being named “girl” and being told by some one a trifle whiter of hair and more numerous of birthdays: “My child, what in the world are you dreaming of?” It is a harmless notion with which every woman is endowed. ”

“ Dan stayed at home that evening as if wishing to prove his devotion to Lorraine. Usually he would have wandered down to the hotel or the lodge room. They talked of everything else but Thurley’s return, although each thought of nothing else, and in the morning Dan said carelessly,
“Don’t call on Thurley unless you like. I dare say she does not expect it. Every gawk of a country girl will crowd in on her, curious and self-seeking, and if Thurley wants to see any one, she’ll come to them. She doesn’t belong to the town any more but to the world.” ”

“ Every one is bound to be selfish in some way or other, but when you both hit the same trail, it usually ends in a crash ... please, wait until I finish. Then we’re too fond of having our own ways. I’d like it if you became Daniel Precore instead of my becoming Thurley Birge; yes, I truly would. I don’t want to promise to love, honor and obey any one—not a bit of it. I want to do what I dreamed of as a child—those dreams kept me alive, Dan. I want to sing, not in the town, but in New York, London, Paris. I’ve read of girls from the country who made good, and I can sing, Dan! ”

“ You may loathe the tenor who sings Romeo to your Juliet and the woman who is leading contralto may be a deadly enemy—but that matters nothing. You sing your rôle and leave it and your art personality behind in your dressing-room. You will find that the others also have their own affairs, interests and opinions. They are not keen for the advent of a new, charming diva of whom they are certain to be jealous and angry of success so swiftly, easily achieved. You are a musical phenomenon, Thurley, and, as there are not many in any one generation, you must be guided accordingly. ”

“ For the older generation had spoken the truth. About the perfect little lake, an emerald in its coloring and flanked by pungent pine woods and an amphitheater of tiny hills, some half a century before, had been built the summer homes of the oldest of America’s aristocracy. In those days when Birge’s Corners was but a post office and a few stray dogs, the lake had been an oasis for the tired rich; here families came to grow tanned [4] and rosy, while love affairs ripened and wedding bells were listened for and the elders sat back in pleased approval. ”

“ Blessed Memory, buried in the wildest part of Maine, with the nearest post office entirely unpronounceable, proved to be an advance sample of paradise. Being perfect there was nothing complex about it—and very little to tell concerning it. Time flew, the hours tumbling over themselves like babies at play. It was exactly like the thirsty traveller coming upon the ice-cold mountain spring and drinking his fill with no comment but the satisfied and grateful, “A-a-h, man alive!” So it was with Thurley. ”