The Heart of Rachael
BOOK THREE
CHAPTER II
Magsie had awakened to a sense of pleasure impending. It was many months
since she had felt so important and so sure of herself. Her self-esteem had
received more than one blow of late. Bowman had attempted to persuade her to
take "The Bad Little Lady" on the road; Magsie had indignantly declined. He had
then offered her a poor part in a summer farce; about this Magsie had not yet
made up her mind.
Now, she said to herself, reading Warren's note over her late breakfast tray,
perhaps she might treat Mr. Bowman to the snubbing she had long been anxious to
give him. Perhaps she might spend the summer quietly, inconspicuously,
somewhere, placidly awaiting the hour when she would come out gloriously before
the world as Warren Gregory's wife. Not at all a bad prospect for the daughter
of old Mrs. Torrence's companion and housekeeper.
A caller was announced and was admitted, a thin, restless woman who looked
thirty-five despite or perhaps because of the rouge on her sunken cheeks and the
smart gown she wore. The years had not treated Carol Pickering kindly: she was
an embittered, dissatisfied woman now, noisily interested in the stage as a
possible escape from matrimony for herself, and hence interested in Magsie, with
whom she had lately formed a sort of suspicious and resentful intimacy.
Joe Pickering had entirely justified in eight years the misgivings felt
toward him by everyone who had Carol Breckenridge's interests at heart. His wife
had come to him rich, and a few hours after their wedding her father's death had
more than doubled the fortune left her by her grandmother. But it would be a
sturdy legacy indeed that might hope to resist such inroads as the aimless and
ill-matched young couple made upon it from their first day together.
Idly acquiring, idly losing, being cheated and robbed on all sides, they
drifted through an unhappy and exciting year or two, finally investing much of
their money in bonds, and a handsome residue in that favorite dream of such
young wasters: the breeding of horses for the polo market. "What if we lose it
all — which we won't — we've still got the bonds!" Joe Pickering, leaden
pockets under his eyes, his weak lips hanging loose, had said with his unsteady
laugh. What inevitably followed, and what he had not foreseen, was that he
should lose more than half the bonds, too. They were seriously crippled now, and
began to quarrel, to hate each other for a greater part of the time; and their
little son's handsome dark eyes fell on some sad scenes. But now, in the child's
sixth year, they were still together, still appearing in public, and still, in
that mysterious way known only to their type, rushing about on motor parties,
buying champagne, and entertaining after a fashion in their cramped but
pretentious apartment.
Of late Billy had been seriously considering the stage. She was but
twenty-six, after all, and she still had a girl's thirst for admiration and for
excitement. She had called on Magsie, entertained the young actress, and the two
had discovered a certain affinity. Magsie was delighted to see her now. They
greeted each other affectionately, and Magsie, sending out her tray, settled
herself comfortably in her pillows, and took the interested Carol entirely into
her confidence, with the single reservation of Warren Gregory's name.
"Handsome, and rich as Croesus, and his wife would divorce him, and belongs
to one of the best families," summarized Billy. "Why, I think you would be a
fool to do anything else!"
"S'pose I would," dimpled Magsie in interesting embarrassment.
"Have a heart, and tell me who it is," teased Carol, slipping her foot from
her low shoe to study a hole in the heel of her silk stocking.
"Oh, I couldn't!" Magsie protested.
"Well, I shall guess, if I can," the other woman warned her. And presently
she added: "I'll tell you what, if you do give it up, I'm going straight to
Bowman, and ask for your place in your new show! There's nothing about it that I
couldn't do, and I believe he might give me a chance! I'll tell you what: you
wait until the last moment before you tell him, and then he can't be prepared in
advance. And I'll risk having Jacqueline make me a couple of gowns, and be all
ready to jump in. I'll learn the part, too," said Billy kindling; "you'll coach
me in it, won't you?"
"Of course I will!" Magsie agreed, but she did not say it heartily. The
conversation was not extremely pleasing to Magsie at the moment. She loved
Warren, of course, but it was certainly a good deal to resign, even to marry a
Gregory of New York! Why, here was Billy, who had been a rich man's daughter,
and had married the man of her choice, and had a nice child, mad to step into
her shoes!
And it was a painful reflection that probably Billy could do it. Billy was
smart, she had a dash and finish about her that might well catch a manager's
eye, and more than that, it was a rather poor part. It was no such part as
Magsie had had in "The Bad Little Lady." There was a comedian in this cast, and
a matinee idol for a leading man, and Magsie must content herself with a part
and a salary much smaller than was given to either of these.
She thought of Warren, and also fleetingly of Bryan Masters, and even of
Richie Gardiner, and decided that it was a bitter and empty world, and she
wished she had never been born. Bowman would be smart enough to see that he need
pay Billy almost no salary, that she might be a discovery — the discovery for
which all managers are always so pathetically on the alert, and that in case the
play failed — Magsie was sure, this morning, that it would be the flattest
failure ever seen on Broadway — he would have no irate leading lady to pacify;
Billy would be only too grateful for the opportunity to try and fail.
"Farce is the most difficult thing in the world to play," she said, now
clinging desperately to her little distinction.
"Oh, I know that!" Billy answered absently. She would have a smart apartment
on the Drive, and dear little old Breck should drive with her in the Park, and
go to the smartest boys' school in the country —
"And of course, I may not marry!" said Magsie.
Carol hardly heard her. She was looking about the comfortable hotel
apartment, all in a pretty disorder now, with Magsie's various possessions
scattered about. There were pictures of actors on the mantel, heavily
autographed, and flowers thrust carelessly into vases. There was a great sheaf
of Killarney roses; the envelope that had held a card still dangled from their
stems. Carol would have given a great deal to know whose card had been torn from
it, and whose name was ringing just now in Magsie's brain. She even cared enough
to tentatively interrogate Anna, Magsie's faithful Swedish woman.
"Well, perhaps we shall have a change here, Anna?" Billy said brightly but
cautiously, when she was in the hall. She wondered whether the woman would let
her slip a bill into her hand.
"Maybe," said Anna impassively.
"How shall you like keeping house for a man and wife?" Billy pursued.
"Aye do that bayfore," remarked Anna, responsive to this kindly interest;
"aye ban hahr savan yahre, now, en des country."
"And do you like Miss Clay's young man?" Billy said boldly. But at this shift
of topic the light faded from Anna's infantile blue eyes, and a wary look
replaced it.
"She got more as one feller," she remarked discouragingly. Billy, outfaced,
departed, feeling rather contemptible as she walked down the street. Joe was at
home; she had left him in bed when she left the house at ten o'clock, and little
Breck had been rather listlessly chatting with the colored boy in the elevator,
and had begged his mother to take him downtown. Billy was really sorry for the
little boy, but she did not know what to do about it; she wondered what other
women did with little lonely boys of six. If she went home, it would not
materially better the situation; the cook was cross to-day anyway, and would be
crosser if Joe shouted for his breakfast in his usual ungracious manner. She
could not go to Jacqueline and talk dresses unless she was willing to pay
something on the last bill.
Billy thought of the bank, as she always did think of the bank, when her
reflections reached this point. There were the bonds, not as many as they had
been, but still fine, salable bonds. She could pay the cook, pay the dressmaker,
take Breck home a game, look at hats, spend the day in exactly the manner that
pleased her best. She had promised Joe that they would discuss the sale of the
next one together when they had sold the last bond, a month ago, and avoid it if
possible. But what difference did one make? — a paltry fifty dollars a year!
Perhaps it would be possible not to tell Joe —
Billy looked in her purse. She had a dollar bill and fifty cents, more than
enough to take her to the bank in appropriate style. She signalled a taxicab.
Magsie did not see Warren the next day, but they had tea and a talk on the
day following. She told him gayly that he needed cheering, and presently took
him into Tiffany's, where Warren found himself buying her a coveted emerald.
Somehow during the afternoon he found himself talking and planning as if they
really loved each other, and really were to be married. But it was an
unsatisfactory hour. Magsie was excited and nervous, and was rather relieved
than otherwise that her interviews with her admirer were necessarily short. As a
matter of fact, the undisciplined little creature was overtired and
unreasonable. She would have given her whole future for a quiet week in bed,
with frivolous novels to read, and Anna to spoil her, no captious manager to
please, no exhausting performances to madden her with a sense of her own and
other people's imperfections, and no Warren to worry her with his long face.
Added to Magsie's trials, in this dreadful week, was an interview with the
imposing mother of young Richie Gardiner, a handsome, florid lady, who had
inherited a large fortune from the miner husband whose fortunes she had
gallantly shared through some extraordinary adventures in Nome. Mrs. Gardiner
idolized her son; she was not inclined to be generous to the little flippant
actress who had broken his heart. Richie would not go to the healing desert, he
would not go to any place out of sound of Miss Clay's voice, out of the light of
Miss Clay's eyes. Mrs. Gardiner had no objection to Magsie's person, nor to her
profession, the fact being that her own origin had been even more humble than
that of Miss Clay, but she wanted the treasure of her boy's love to be
appreciated; she had been envying, since the hour of his birth, the woman who
should win Richie's love.
Stout, overdressed, deep-voiced, she came to see the actress, and they both
cried; Magsie said that she was sorry — she was so bitterly sorry — but, yes,
there was someone else. Mrs. Gardiner shrugged philosophically, wiped her eyes,
drew a deep breath. No help for it! Presently she heavily departed; her solid
weight, her tinkling spangles, and her rainbow plumes vanished into the
limousine, and she was whirled away.
Magsie sighed; these complications were romantic. What could one do?