“nicoline” lasted until april, 1896. mark played the country boy in “mr. bell” all the next season and, duly coached by sarah cowell lemoyne, figured as the young duke in “the princess of croy” when carlson imported that disaster in the autumn of 1897. its failure afflicted mark less than his private griefs. he played for four months in carlson’s boston stock company. this was penible. he had never been so far from his adored family. true, freed of cora, he could send ten or twenty dollars a week to his father but he missed sundays in fayettesville and the boston wind gave him chilblains. the friendly women of the stock company found him shy and here began the legend of mark’s misogyny. he read novels and tramped about boston, surveyed the theatrical setting of louisburg square and sidelong admired the ladies walking rigidly in sober hats on commonwealth avenue. such persons, he mused, would never fling hot curling irons in a husband’s face and it wasn’t possible to imagine them smoking cigarettes[24] in bed. but he hated boston and the war was welcome as it honourably pulled him back to a new jersey infantry regiment.
in june, 1898, he sat on a palmetto trunk in the filthy camp of tampa watching eddie bernamer pitch a ball to joe walling. mark had every satisfaction in the sight and liked his piebald uniform much more than any costume hitherto. the camp pleased him as a problem. there would be plays made on the war, of course, and it wouldn’t be easy to mount them. these bright trees and the muddle of railroad ties could be effected but the theatre lacked lights to send down this parching glitter on black mud and strolling men. he sighed for realism. he had spent hours in davidge’s workshop while the grass of “the princess of croy” was being made. it hadn’t the right sheen. the sunset had turned it blue and the sunset was all wrong even though the critics had praised it. mark swung his gaiters and pondered irreproducible nature. but it would be nice to counterfeit all this—the glister of remote tin roofing, the harsh palms, the listless soldiery. the police would object to exactness of course. brother joe was pitching the ball with great flexures of his bronze, naked chest. eddie bernamer swore astoundingly when he ripped his undershirt. one couldn’t be so honest on the stage or echo the sharp, unreal note of[25] mail call sounding. mark ran off to see if the wayward postal service had brought him a letter. there was a roll of newspapers addressed to his brother-in-law and bernamer, a bad reader, turned them over to mark and joe. it was joe who found the pencilled paragraph mark rather expected. he slapped mark’s back and grunted, “well, so there y’are, bud.”
mark read, “the suit for divorce begun by mark walling, the well known young actor against his wife, cora boyle walling, was concluded yesterday. neither party to the action was present in court. miss boyle is touring the west with the jarvis hope stock company. jarvis hope is named as co-respondent in the case. the action was not defended. mr. walling is now with the —th n.j. infantry. the divorced couple were married in august, 1895. they have no children.”
“good riddance to bad rubbish,” said eddie bernamer, “and don’t you let the next woman looks at you haul you off to a preacher, neither.”
mark felt dubious. there had never been a divorce in the family. he said, “i guess if we’d had a baby, she wouldn’t of—dunno.... it’s kind of too bad.”
his relatives denied it. they had never liked cora boyle. she wasn’t a lady and her clothes had shocked sadie’s conservative mind. they[26] pointed out that a stable and meritorious woman wouldn’t have seduced mark before marriage. they were glad to see the boy free and were puzzled by his mournfulness. he agreed with their judgments. but his eyes moistened for all their affectionate pawing. he muttered, “she was awful good lookin’,” and sat moody while they indicated advantages. he could save his pay, now, and wear respectable, black neckties, as a walling should. he wouldn’t be bullied or have hot curling irons flung in his face. he could come home on the saturday midnight train and stay until monday afternoon. and joe reasonably assured him that women were plentiful. but mark mourned, in his tangled fashion, the collapse of beauty. cora, he choked, didn’t match her outside. she was ruthless, disturbing. she cared nothing for mark’s pet plan of an ideal lighting system for theatres. she had spilled coffee on his smudged, laborious chart of a stage to be made in hinged parts. she called his sacred family a parcel of mossbacks and left the flat when sadie and bernamer brought their baby to town for a day. still, mark was mournful and often missed her for several years. he shuddered from marriage as a game more complicated than golf.
he was playing golf in may, 1902, with ian gail when the english playwright checked his[27] grammar. mark flushed. the englishman fooled with a putter for a second, considering this colour. he said, “i say, old son, d’you mind my giving you some advice?”
“go ahead.”
“carlson’s closing the play next week, he tells me. what will you do with yourself, all summer?”
“go home.”
“where’s that and what’s it like?”
mark sat down on the green and chattered of the farm, and his family with particular mention of his nephew george dewey bernamer (born may 15, 1898) who called himself gurdy. about joe walling’s baby daughter mark wasn’t as yet enthusiastic. he talked with broad lapses into new jersey singsong. his grey eyes dilated. he babbled like an upset pail. the lean englishman didn’t seem bored. other people—mrs. lemoyne, old mrs. gilbert—had scolded mark about these explosions. gail let him talk for twenty minutes of warm noon and then said, “quite right, old son. stick to your people.... you’re a sentimental ass, of course. i dare say that’s why you can put up with dinner at carlson’s in that seething mass of red plush.”
“but i like mr. carlson. been mighty good—”
“of course he’s good to you. and it was good of you to make him mount my last act so[28] decently.... for some reason or other you’ve an eye for decoration. that’s by the way.—now, i’ve a female cousin in winchester, a mrs. ilden. she writes bad novels that no one reads and her husband’s in the navy. i’m going to write her about you. you run across after the play stops. she’ll put you up for a month and you’ll pay her—i suggest a hundred pounds.”
“pay her for what?”
“her conversation, my boy. she’s quite clever and fearfully learned. shaw likes her. she’s an anarchist and a determinist and all that and much older than you. she makes a business of tutoring youngsters who need—doing over a bit. you seem to have been reared on henty and shakespeare. even carlson says you need pruning. there’s no use being antediluvian even if you are a rising young leading man.... god, how i hate the breed! i shouldn’t waste these words on you if you didn’t show vagrom gleams of common sense now and then. so i most seriously beg of you to go and let olive—mrs. ilden, tutor you for a fortnight.”
mark was always docile before authority. he asked, “what’ll she do to me?”
“she can tell you anything you want to know and explain winchester. the history of winchester is the history of england,” gail said, “and, of course, that’s the history of the world.”
[29]thus, in early june, mark was driven through winchester and landed at the door of a brick house painted plum colour. a grey wall continued on either side of the ruddy front and nameless vines waved on the coping. mark’s head ached from a supper at romano’s the night previous but he admired the house and the obvious romance of the curving lane stippled with sunshine in plaques of honey. he rang the bell, gave a fat parlour-maid his card and waited for mrs. ilden in stolid terror. the hall had white panels of an approved stage pattern and was dotted with photographs. mark was looking at the face of a bearded man whose eyebrows had a diabolic slant when olive ilden came in from her garden.
she came in a bad temper, deserting the discussion of chamberlain’s imperial policy about her tea table. she was prepared for a repetition of her last paying pupil, the one son of a rand millionaire, a cub who wore five rubies on one hand and who talked racing at four meals a day. mark unsettled her by his wooden stare and the black decency of his dress. his clothes were english. he was always tanned. the scar of cora boyle’s curling irons lay in a thread along his left jaw. olive revised a theory that americans were short and looked up at him.
“i’ve some friends at tea,” she said, “of[30] course, i don’t wish to impose tea on a yankee.”
“i think i’d like some,” mark said miserably and followed her trailing, white skirts down an endless garden. he thought her gown distinctly bad and sloppy. she must be older than she looked or she wouldn’t be so careless. the girdle was crooked and the gauze across her shoulders was too tight. but it was a fine body, tall and proportionate. her hair was a lustreless black. meanwhile he had to think about this scene of an english garden. it phrased itself simply. wall, rear. tower of church, right background. two small children playing with a kitten. tea-table. three ladies. young man in tweeds. one clergyman.—it was like the garden set for the “princess of croy.” mark braced himself, bowed and murmured in the manner of mrs. lemoyne, leaned on one of the limes in the manner of herbert kelcey, and drank his tea in the manner of mr. drew. the minor canon gave him a cigarette and mark said, “thanks so much.” the youth in tweeds asserted that it was beastly hot for june and mark admitted, “rather.” he stood sombre against the lime and the group was chilled by his chill. two of the ladies fancied him a poet by the red curling of his hair. the guests withdrew. olive ilden fiddled with a teaspoon and frowned.
[31]“i rather expected you on tuesday.”
“had to stay in london. mr. carlson wanted me to look at a couple of plays he’s thinkin’ of bringing over.”
“really, i don’t see why you yankees always import our nonsense. one hears of the pinero rubbish playing for thousands of nights in the states. why?”
“the women like it,” he wildly said, quoting carlson. “are those your kids?”
“mine and my husband’s,” olive laughed and called joan and robert ilden from their game with the kitten. mark played with them in all content for half an hour, didn’t glance at olive, and told her blond children about his best nephew, gurdy bernamer. the bored infants broke his watch chain and their puzzled mother took mark to walk. she led him down through the college and wondered why he paused to stare at the cathedral walls where the sunshine was pallid on the weathered stone.—he was thinking that bulbs tinted straw colour might get this glow against properly painted canvas.—his eyes opened and his drowsy gaze pleased the woman. she said, “do you like it? the cathedral?”
“the tower’s too small,” he said.
“clever of you. yes, architects think so. glad you noticed.”
“anybody could see that. is that the bishop?”[32] he asked, seeing black gaiters in motion on a lawn.
“a mere dean. and the birds are rooks. all the best cathedrals have rooks about. shall we go in?”
“i’d just as soon,” he nodded, regretting that the queer shade of the elms wasn’t possible on a backdrop.
the interior charmed him. he forgot his headache. his thoughts hopped. church scenes never went well. no way to capture this slow echo for the stage. the upper brightness made him raise his eyes. this range of high windows where the lights melted together was called a “clerestory.” the mingled glory almost frightened him. he saw a white butterfly that jigged and wheeled, irreverent, solitary on the far shadows of the vault. mark smiled. small gurdy bernamer named butterflies “bruffles” and was probably chasing one, now, across the hot perfume of the fayettesville garden. the fancy made him homesick. he blinked. the woman watching him saw crystal wetness point his lashes and hastily stated, “this is william de wykeham’s tomb.”
mark examined the painted tomb, wished he could sketch the canopy and the pygmy monks who pray at the bishop’s feet. gurdy bernamer would like the monks and would break them. he rubbed his nose and chuckled.
[33]“i suppose,” olive said, “that all this seems rather silly to you. you’re a practical people.”
“it’s good lookin’. i don’t see how a good lookin’ thing can be silly, exactly. i was thinkin’ my kid nephew’d like those monks to play with. but he’d bust them.—isn’t king william rufus buried here?”
“you’ve been reading a guide book!”
“oh, no. that’s in history. they lugged him here on a wagon or something and buried him. where’s he plant—buried?”
mark wished that the dark lady would stop frowning as she steered him to the glum, polished tomb in the choir. he must be offensive to her. she said, “this is supposed to be the tomb. they’re not sure,” and mark stared at the raised slab of ugly stone with awe. the organ began to growl softly in a transept. it was solemn to stand, reflecting on the red king while the organ moaned a marching air. william rufus had been dead so long. history was amazing.... when he had a theatre of his own mark meant to open it with richard iii or with henry v. carlson told him that no one would ever play richard iii again as booth had gone too high in the part. but the walling theatre would be opened with a romantic play full of radiant clothes and scenes that would match the playhouse itself. the walling would have a ceiling of dull[34] blue and boxes curtained in silk, black as a woman’s hair. the lamps should wane in the new manner when the acts began and there would be mirrors rimmed in faint silver to gleam in far nooks of the balcony—something to shimmer in corners and shadows of his dream.... mark stared down the nave and built his theatre against the grey age of this place until olive sat in a heap of muslin on the tomb of william rufus.
“one doesn’t have to bother about such an indifferent king. there are some more in those tins—i mean caskets—on top of the choir screen. edmund and so on.”
“more kings? but won’t a—a sacristan or something come an’ chase you off of here?”
“what do you know about sacristans?”
“cathedrals always have sacristans in books.”
“i dare say you read quantities of bad novels,” she observed.
“well, i like monsieur beaucaire and kim better’n anything i’ve read lately,” said her bewildering pupil, “say, who was pico della mirandola?”
“i don’t think i can talk about the renascence in winchester choir,” olive choked and took him away.
save for the studied clarity of voice he showed no theatrical traits. he resented the sign of the plume of feathers beside the west gate because[35] “it spoiled the wall.” he asked if the butter cross was a well and bought several postcards at a shop where the squared panes arrested him. olive made conjectures. she was twenty-six. she had known actors in some bulk. this wasn’t an actor, observably. she guided him back toward the college and through a swarm of lads in flannels. at these mark looked and sighed.
“why that sob?”
“dunno. i s’pose because kids are havin’ such an awful good time and don’t know it. i mean—they’ll get married and all that.”
“are you married?”
mark said cheerfully, “divorced.”
“tell me about it.”
“d—don’t think i’d better, mrs. ilden.”
“is that american?”
“is—is what?”
“that delicate respect for my sensibilities.”
“don’t know what you mean exactly. i had to divorce cor—my wife and i’d rather not talk about it.”
olive felt alarmed. she said, “i’m supposed to tutor you in art and ethics and i’m merely trying to get your point of view, you know? don’t look so shocked.”
“i don’t see what my gettin’ divorced has to do with art and ethics.... oh, was this man leighton a better painter’n whistler?”
[36]his questions ranged from the salary of canons to professional cricket. he wore a small and single pearl in his shirt at dinner, sat eating chastely and stared at olive between the candles that made his grey eyes black in the brown of his face. the parlour-maid brought him the silver bowl of chutney three unnecessary times. he timidly corrected olive’s views on farm labour in the united states with, “i’m afraid you’re wrong. i was brought up on a farm.”
“really? i was wondering.”
“fayettesville. it’s up in the woods behind trenton. say, what’s the primrose league?”
for a week olive tried to outline this mentality. he plunged from subject to subject. economics wearied him. “what’s it matter what kind of a gover’ment you have so long as folks get enough to eat and the kids ain’t—don’t have to work?” religion, he said, was all poppycock. his “papa” admired robert ingersoll and “what’s it matter whether folks have souls or not?”
“you’re a materialist,” she laughed.
“well, what of it?”
“i’m trying to find out what your ethical standards are. why don’t you cheat at poker?”
“because it ain’t fair. it’s like stealin’ a man’s wife.”
“some one stole your wife, didn’t he?”
mark finally chuckled. “you’d hardly call it[37] stealing. she just walked off when she knew i’d—heard about it.”
he blushed, hoping he hadn’t transgressed and hurriedly asked whether bernard shaw was really a vegetarian. he had no opinion of shaw’s plays but thought “the devil’s disciple” a better play than “magda.” “the sunken bell” was “pretty near up to shakespeare.” he was worried because “treasure island” couldn’t be dramatized and recited “thanatopsis” to the horror of olive’s children. olive interrupted the recital.
“that’ll be quite enough, thanks! wherever did you pick up that sentimental rot?”
“just what is bein’ sentimental?” mark demanded.
“writing such stuff and liking it when it’s written! i suspect you of tennyson.”
“never read any. tried to. couldn’t, except that ulysses thing. let’s go take a walk.”
“too warm, thanks,” said olive, wanting to see whether this would hold him in his basket chair under the limes.
“i’ll be back about tea time,” mark promised, paused on his way up the garden to kiss bobby ilden’s fair head as the little boy reminded him of gurdy bernamer and vanished whistling “the banks of the wabash.”
“all his clothes are black,” said young joan ilden, “but i was helping edith dust in his room[38] this morning and he has the nicest blue pyjamas.”
“do go pull bobby out of the raspberries,” olive said and fell into a sulk which she didn’t define. she lounged in her chair watching the light play on the straight bole of a tree behind the emptied place where mark had been sitting.... rage succeeded the sulk. this was a stupid augmentation of her income. olive disapproved landholding but it would be easier every way when ilden’s uncle died and he came into the suffolk property. then she would be able to live in london instead of flitting there for a breath of diversion. she hoped mark would go to london soon.... he had the mind of a badly schooled stock-broker! olive lifted her portfolio from the table and penciled a note to her husband. “i do wish you could slaughter your dear uncle, jack. ian gail has sent me a silly yankee to educate. i hope i have no insular prejudice against the harmless, necessary colonial but this cad—” then she thought. “what am i saying here? i don’t mean it. i’m lying,” and tore up the paper.
mark went swimming in the itchen and did not come home until seven. he dressed in six minutes and found olive clad in black lace by the drawing room mantel of white stone. he said, “say, i ran into a flock of sheep an’ an old feller with a crook. do they still do that?”
[39]“do?”
“crooks. and he had on a blue—what d’you call it?—smock?”
olive laughed and lifted her arms behind her head.
“did you think some one was staging a pastoral for your benefit? but you didn’t come home to tea and there were some quite amusing people here. i kept them as long as i could.”
“too bad,” said mark, “i’m sorry.”
“you shouldn’t lie so. you’re not at all sorry. you’re bored when people come and you have to play the british gentleman. and there are so many other things better worth doing.”
“that’s in shaw,” mark guessed, “clyde fitch was talkin’ about it. but what’s wrong with actin’ like a gentleman?”
“what’s the use? your manners are quite all right. if you’d talk to people and collect ideas.... it’s so much more important to straighten out your ideas than to stand and hold a teacup properly. a butler can do that. i could train a navvy to do that. and—”
“that’s an awful good looking dress,” he broke in, “nicest you’ve had on since i’ve been here.”
olive let an arm trail on the mantel where the stone cooled it. “i’m talking about your intellect and you talk about my frock.”
“i know something about dresses and i don’t[40] know a thing about intellect. you ought to wear dark things because you’ve got such a nice sk—complexion.”
“i don’t bother about clothes except when jack’s at home and i want to keep his attention.... you were in cuba, you said? did you kill any one?”
“don’t know. tried to. why?”
“i was wondering whether you’d mind killing an old duffer in suffolk. he keeps my husband out of twelve hundred a year and a decentish house. would you mind?”
mark saw this was meant as a joke and laughed, studying her arm which gleamed white on the white stone.
“my husband’s uncle. he’s easily eighty and he’s very tory.”
“haven’t got any uncles. got an aunt that’s pretty awful. she’s a methodist.”
he wouldn’t look at her. he still stared at the arm sprawled on the mantel and smiled like a child. olive wanted to hurt him suddenly, to rouse him. the glowing stare was too childish. she drawled, “i went into your bedroom to see that they’d swept it decently. are those the family portraits on the desk? who’s the fat girl with the baby?”
“sadie. my sister. she’s puttin’ on weight. papa keeps two hired girls now and she don’t[41] have to cook. the yellow-headed fellow’s her husband—eddie bernamer. awful fine man.”
he beamed at olive now, doting on eddie bernamer’s perfections. olive tried, “and the lad with the very huge pearl in his scarf is your brother? and they all live on your father’s farm? and you go down there and bore yourself to death over weekends?”
“don’t bore myself at all. i get all the new york i want weekdays. fine to get out and ride a horse round. nice house. we built a wing on when joe got married last year.”
the parlour-maid announced dinner. mark gave olive his arm and wanted to stroke her arm white across the black of his sleeve. he talked of his family through the meal and after it, leaning on the piano while olive played. he tortured her with anecdotes of his and joe’s infancy and with the deeds of gurdy bernamer. he sighed, reporting that sadie’s oldest girl had died.
“you mean you’re wearing mourning for a six year old child!”
“of course,” said mark.
“and then you ask me what a sentimentalist is!” olive struck a discord into the good friday spell and sneered, “i dare say you think life’s so full of unpleasantness that it shouldn’t be brought into the theatre!”
“no. i don’t think that, exactly. but i don’t[42] think there’s any sense in doin’ a play where you can’t—can’t—well, make it good lookin’. these plays where there’s nothin’ but a perfec’ly ordinary family havin’ a fight and all that—a show ought to be something more.—you get the music in an opera. carmen’d be a fine hunk of bosh if you didn’t have the music and the spanish clothes. just a dirty yarn!... there’d ought to be somethin’ good lookin’ in a play.... nobody believes a play but girls out of high school.... if you can’t have poetry like shakespeare you ought to have something—something pretty—i don’t mean pretty—i mean—” olive stopped the music. mark descended rapidly and went on, “i don’t care about these two cent comedies, either.”
“you don’t like comedy?”
“not much. truth is, i don’t catch a joke easy. i’ve tried readin’ molière but it sounds pretty dry to me. haven’t tried—aristophanes?—i guess that’s deeper’n i could swim—”
“rot! you mustn’t let yourself—what is it?—be blinded by the glory of great names. any one who can see the point in patience can understand aristophanes.... but you haven’t much humour. but you’ve played in comedy?”
“some. i’d just as soon.”
olive began “anitra’s dance” knowing that he liked melodrama and watched his eyes brighten,[43] dilating. she said amiably, “a fine comedian’s the greatest boon in the world. women especially. is it true that women who’re good in comedy are usually rather serious off the stage?”
“can’t say—well, my wife was pretty damn serious!”
his huge sigh made olive laugh. she asked, “you’ve no children?”
“no. guess that was the trouble.—play that peer gynt mornin’ thing.”
“i’ve played enough,” said olive. “you say mr. carlson sent you over to look at some plays for him? he must trust your judgment.”
mark answered happily, “sure. he says that if i take to a play so’ll every one else. he says i’ve got lots of judgment about plays.”
olive shut the piano and rose. her face wrinkled off into laughter. she said, “you dear thing! i dare say he’s quite right about that. good night.”
she strolled out of the drawing room and mark could see her passing up the long stairs. she moved splendidly against the white panels. one wrist caressed the rail. the black gown dragged gently up the rosy treads. she vanished slowly into the dark and mark said, “golly,” as he went to get his hat. he wandered over to the bar of the black swan and drank cold ale while he meditated.
[44]he mustn’t fall in love. eddie bernamer and joe disapproved of affairs with married women. they were right, of course. and nothing must interfere with his tutelage. and ilden was at sea. but this was vexatious! he wished she did not stroll so lazily up stairs, across gardens. he wished that her hair wasn’t black.—he found himself blushing at breakfast when she came in with a yellow garden hat on the black of her hair. now that he’d begun to think of it she looked rather like cora boyle.
he thought of cora boyle again in the garden after luncheon. the children had left a green rubber ball on the turf. mark rolled it about with one sole and watched olive trim a patch of dull blue flowers. his place and the ball underfoot recalled something cloudy. he worked to evolve a real memory and laughed. olive quickly glanced up.
“you keep asking about my wife. she was boardin’ with us at the farm. first time she ever spoke to me i was kicking a ball around, in the garden. this way. i was barefoot. cora said, ‘ain’t you too old to go barefooted?’ i forget what i said.”
“but with the ball that day you played no more?”
“that sounds like a piece of a play,” said mark.
“it’s from a comedy,” olive snapped, “do get[45] your hat and take a walk. i’ll be busy for an hour. look at the deanery garden. the dean’s gone to scotland.”
“got to write a letter first. boat from liverpool tomorrow.”
he mailed a letter to joe’s wife, born margaret healy, tramped down to the close and examined the dean’s garden. it would make a neat setting, the mass of the cathedral to the left, the foliate house to the right. a maid in black and white passed over the grass and reminded him of joe’s wife again by a certain dragging gait. he went into the cathedral and studied the wykeham tomb from all angles. some tourists hummed in the nave; a guide in a frock coat ambled after them descanting thinly of dead kings. mark fell into a genial peace, leaned on a column, smiling at the far roof. the feet of the tourists made a small melody among the tombs and this seemed to increase. he heard a rapid breath and saw olive with his coat over her arm. she panted, “i’ve packed your things. they’re in the cab. at the gates. hurry. you’ve hardly time to get to the station. do hurry! i’ll telegraph to liverpool and ask them to hold a cabin—stateroom—whatever they call them.—oh, do hurry!”
“what’s happened?”
“oh, this!—i didn’t look at the cover—thought it was from jack—”
[46]mark snatched the telegram and read, “joe and margaret killed wreck trenton come if—” then rolled the paper into his palm. olive saw his eyes swell and gasped, “who’s margaret?”
“joe’s wife. where’s cab?”
“at the gates. run.”
he dashed into the sun beyond the open doors then the red hair gleamed as he came wheeling back to gulp, “send you a check from—”
olive spread her hands out crying, “no! i shan’t take it!” and saw him rush off again. the cab made no noise that she could hear. she shivered as if a warming fire died suddenly in winter and left her cold. presently she struck a palm on the stone beside her and said, “sentimentalist! sentimentalist!” while she wept. she made use of mark, though, in her next novel, the barbarian, which began her success. mark was rather flattered by the picture and glad that he hadn’t insulted this clever, wise woman by making love to her. he thought of olive as exalted from the ranks of passionate, clutching females and often wrote long, artless letters to her.
