Rupert Hughes

“ Grease-paint from Eldon’s jaw was on his knuckles. He put his finger on her cheek and it was covered with the same unction. Then he rubbed the odious ointment from his hands. She blushed under her rouge.
“I know it’s been a pitiful honeymoon. But I couldn’t help it, Bret. I did what I could. It has been harder for me than for you, and I’m just worn out. There’s no joy in the world for me. The success is nothing.”
“He loves you, I tell you, and you let him make love to you.”
“Of course, honey; it’s in the play; it’s in the play!” ”

“ Sheila had to be reminded of her cue again and again. Batterson’s voice recalled her as from a distance.
It is as strange as anything so usual and immemorial can be, how madly lovers can love; how much agony they can extract from a brief separation; what bitter terror they can distil from ordinary events. As the tormented girl read her lines and later walked through the positions or stood about in the maddening stupidities of a first rehearsal, she had actually to battle with herself to keep from screaming aloud:
“I don’t want to act! I don’t want the public to love me! I want only my Bret!” ”

“ Winfield hated the situation with all the ferocity of a lover denied, and all the indignation of an old-fashioned youth who believed in taking the woman of his choice under his wing to protect her from the world.
But he had chosen a girl who proposed to conquer the world and who would find the shadow under his wing too close. He felt himself as feeble and misallied as a ring-dove mated with a falcon. She was an artist, a public idol, while he at best was as obscure as a vice-president; he was only the indolent heir of a self-made man. ”

“ Making love is an old and foolish game, but strangely exciting at the time. Winfield was more afraid to withdraw his arm than to complete the embrace.
Sheila’s heart was spinning, too. She had thrilled to the love-croon of the night. The landscape before her and beneath her seemed to be filled with dreams. But she was in love with love and not with Bret Winfield.
When she recognized that he was about to begin to initiate her by a familiar form of amorous hazing into the ancient society whose emblem is a spoon, she abruptly decided that she did not want to belong. ”

“ Vickery and Eldon were not the least alive to Winfield’s incursion into Sheila’s thoughts. Both regarded it as nothing less than a barbaric danger. Both felt that Winfield, for all his good qualities, was a Philistine. They knew that he had little interest in the stage as an institution, and no reverence for it. It was to him an amusement at best, and a scandal at worst.
But to Vickery the theater was the loftiest form of literary publication, and to Eldon it was the noblest forum of human debate. To both of them Sheila was as a high priestess at an altar. ”

“ The part Eldon held in his hand had been taken from Tuell’s trunk. The dead hands seemed to cling to it with grisly jealousy. The laughter of Tuell seemed to haunt the place like the echo of a maniac’s voice. Eldon could not give any color to the lines. He could barely utter them. The company gave him his cues with equal lifelessness.
Sheila was present and read her flippancies in a voice of terror—the terror of youth before the swoop of death. Mrs. Vining muttered her cynicisms with the drear bitterness of one to whom this familiar sort of thing had happened once more. ”

“ She would scream and pull her hair and stamp her feet and wail: “I vow I’ll never act again. Or if I do, I’ll never marry; or if I marry, I’ll marry somebody that never heard of the stage. I’ll marry a Methodist preacher. They don’t believe in the theater, and neither do I!”
Thus Sheila stormed against the men. But her very excitement showed that love was becoming an imperious need. She was growing up to her mating-time. Just now she was like a bird surrounded by suitors, and they were putting on their Sunday feathers for her, trilling their best, and fighting each other for her possession. ”

“ Vining moved uneasily. “If you’d had common sense you wouldn’t have tried to get on the stage.”
“Auntie!” Sheila gasped. But she put up her old hand like a decayed czarina:
“And if you have common sense you’ll never succeed, now that you’re here.”
When this bewildered Eldon, she added, with the dignity of a priestess: “Acting is an art, not a business; and people come to see artists, not business men. Half of the actors are just drummers traveling about; but the real successes are made by geniuses who have charm and individuality and insight and uncommon sense. ”

“ Bret said, “I’ll make her like it!”
“She’s sure to,” Eldon said.
Vickery broke in: “You ought to hear him read it. Sometimes he reads a doubtful scene to me. Then it sounds greater to me than I ever dreamed. A manuscript is like an electric-light bulb, all glass and brass and little loops of thread that don’t mean anything. When the right actor reads it it fills with light like a bowl of fire and shines into dark places.” His mood was so grave that it influenced his language.
Bret said, “Let me take the manuscript to Sheila.” ”

“ Reben abhorred Bret even more than Bret him.
Once more Sheila was in the Odeon, but as one of the laity. When she entered the dark auditorium her eyes rejoiced at the huge, dusty, gold arch of the proscenium framing the deep brilliant canvas where the figures moved and spoke. It was a finer sight to her than any sunset or seascape or any of the works of mere nature, for they just happened; these canvas rocks and cloth flowers were made to fit a story. She preferred the human to the divine, and the theatrical to the real. ”

“ Winfield was completely dissatisfied with life. It was peculiarly distressing to be so deeply in love with so dear a girl so deeply in love in turn, and to have her profession and its necessities brandished like a flaming sword between them.
This experience is likely to play an increasing part in the romances of the future as more and more women claim a larger and larger share of life outside the home. Existence has always been a process of readjustments, but certainly at no time in history has there been such a revolution as this in the relations of man and woman. ”

“ When two lovers have fought over an outsider’s name that name always recurs with all its battle clamor. It is as hard to mention idly as “Gettysburg” or “Waterloo.”
Sheila knew what Bret had said of Eldon, what he had thought of him and done to him. She was amazed, and it is hard not to look guilty when old accusations of guilt are remembered. Bret saw the sudden tensity in her hands where they held the arms of her chair. He felt a miserable return of the old nausea, the incurable regret of love that it can never count on complete possession of its love, past, present, and future. ”

“ Sheila and Mrs. Vining were struck with the panic that such unexpected laughter brings to the actor. They clutched at their garments to make sure that none of them had slipped their moorings. They looked at each other for news. Then they saw the dreadfully solemn Eldon holding aloft the fireless lantern.
The sense of incongruity that makes people laugh got them, too. They turned their backs to the audience and fought with their uncontrollable features. Few things delight an audience like the view of an actress broken up. It is so successful that in comic operas they counterfeit it. ”

“ There was none of the regret on the other side of the footlights that solemnized the stage. The play had been established as a successful comedy. People came to laugh, and laughed with confidence.
But the pity of Tuell’s fate ruined any joy Eldon might have taken in the success he was winning. He played the part through in the same dull, indifferent tone. When he made his final exit he laughed as he had heard Tuell laugh, with uncanny mimicry as if a ghost inhabited him. He was hardly conscious of the salvo of applause that followed him. ”

“ Sheila was hastening to that point in womanhood where the chief demand of her soul is not that her lover should exalt her on a pedestal and worship her, but should tear her thence and love her. She did not suspect this yet herself. All she knew was that she was dissatisfied with her triumph. She bade Eldon a ghostly farewell at the hotel elevator and went up to her room, while he turned away to his dingy boarding-house. He had not yet bettered his lodgings; he was trying to save his pennies against the future need of a married man. ”

“ An almost inconceivable joy rewarded Sheila till the final spectator had italicized the last compliment. Then, just as Samson was caught under his own triumph, so Sheila went down suddenly under the ruination of her brief victory.
She was never to act again! She was never to act again!
When Bret came slowly to her, the last of her audience, she read in his eyes just what he felt, and he read in her eyes just what she felt. They wrung hands in mutual adoration and mutual torment. But all they said was:
“You were never so beautiful! You never acted so well!” ”

“ Separated, the couple pine; united, they quarrel with other members of the company or with each other. Children arrive contrary to bookings and play havoc with youth and vivacity, changing the frivolous Juliet into a Nurse or a Roman Matron.
Reben would have been infuriated to learn that Sheila Kemble, his Sheila of the golden future, was dallying on the brink of an infatuation for an infatuated minor member of one of his companies. A flirtation, even, was too dangerous to permit. He would have dismissed Eldon without a moment’s pity if he had known what none of the company had yet suspected. ”

“ Sheila did not thank him for that pity. She silenced him with a glare, then turned again to her husband, put her arms about his arms, and clung to them with little fetters that he could not break for fear of hurting her. She laid her head on his breast and talked to his battling heart:
“Oh, Bret, Bret! honey, my love! Don’t, don’t! I can’t bear it! You’ll kill me if you fight any more!”
The fights of men and dogs are almost never carried to a finish. One surrenders or runs or a crowd interferes.
Winfield felt all his strength leave him. ”

“ Sheila forgot to be dismal and tried to look solemn for Bret’s sake till she saw that he was overpowered, too. He began to grin, to sniff, to snort, to shake, to roll, to guffaw. He laughed till tears poured down his cheeks. Sheila laughed in a dual joy. Everything solemn, ugly, hateful, dignified, had become foolish and childish; and foolishness had become the one great wisdom of the world.
The jester always wins in a contest with the doldrums because philosophy and honor present riddles that cannot be solved. The mystery of fun is just as insoluble, but you laugh while you wait. ”

“ Winfield laughed this to scorn. Sheila was furious.
“If there weren’t any actors there wouldn’t be any Shakespeare or any of the great plays. Doctors save people from death and disease. Actors save millions from melancholy and from loneliness, and teach them sympathy and understanding. So it is perfectly proper for an actress to be kissed and hugged on the stage. Acting is the noblest profession in the world, the humanest and the most fascinating. And a woman can do just as much good and be just as good on the stage as she can anywhere else. ”

“ You’d let me work for you, and make you famous and rich, and squander fortunes on your glory, and you’d let me die of loneliness. You’d let me eat my heart out like a love-sick stage-door Johnny and you wouldn’t care. But I tell you, Sheila, even a manager is a man, and I can’t live on business alone. I’ve got to have some woman’s companionship and tenderness and devotion. ”

“ A theatrical troupe is like a little village on wheels. Everybody gossips. Everybody imagines—builds a big play out of a little scenario. And so the actor who is a true gentleman has to keep forgetting that he is one. It’s a penalty we women must pay for earning our livings. You see now, don’t you, Mr. Eldon?”
He bowed and blushed to realize that it was all meant as a rebuke to his forwardness. He had been treated with consideration, and had immediately proceeded to make a nuisance of himself. He had no right to carry Sheila’s burdens, and his insistence had been only an embarrassment to her. ”

“ Sheila was breaking your heart, Bret, just because she couldn’t keep her own from breaking. You were like a man chained to a dead woman. If you had gone on, maybe you would have been less happy than you will be now. Look at poor Dorothy. How long will she stand her unhappiness? My royalties will go to her! They will make her independent of that—But I’ve got no time to be bitter against anybody now.
“I hope you’ll be happy, you two. But happiness isn’t the thing to work for. The thing to work for is work—to do all you can with what you have. ”

“ Vickery read there rapture, deprecation, appeal for applause, superiority to flattery, self-confidence, and meekness. And Mrs. Vickery felt that those eyes were born to persuade, to charm, to thrill and compel.
At last Mrs. Vickery said, mainly for politeness’ sake, “I wish I could have seen the performance.”
The hint threw a bombshell of energy into the troupe. The mummers all began to dance and stamp and shriek, “Oh, let’s do it again! Let’s! Oh, let’s!”
Every one shouted but Sheila. Her silence silenced the others at last. ”