The Light of the Star: A Novel

X

AT two o'clock, when Douglass returned to his hotel, tired and reckless of any man's scorn, the night clerk smiled and said, as he handed him a handful of letters, "I hear you had a great audience, Mr. Douglass."

The playwright did not discover Helen's note among his letters till he had reached his room, and then, without removing his overcoat, he stood beneath the gas-jet and read:

"My dear Author, – My heart bleeds for you. I know how you must suffer, but you must not despair. A first night is not conclusive. Do not blame yourself. I took up your play with my eyes open to consequences. You are wrong if you think even the failure of this play (which I do not grant) can make any difference in my feeling towards you. The power of the lines, your high purpose, remain. Suppose it does fail? You are young and fertile of imagination. You can write another and better play in a month, and I will produce it. My faith in you is not weakened, for I know your work is good. I have turned my back on the old art and the old rôles; I need you to supply me with new ones. This is no light thing with me. I confess to surprise and dismay to-night, but I should not have been depressed had you been there beside me. I was deeply hurt and puzzled by your absence, but I think I understand how sore and wounded you were. Come in to see me to-morrow, as usual, and we will consider what can be done with this play and plan for a new one. Come! You are too strong and too proud to let a single unfriendly audience dishearten you. We will read the papers together at luncheon and laugh at the critics. Don't let your enemies think they have driven you into retirement. Forget them in some new work, and remember my faith in you is not shaken."

This letter, so brave, so gravely tender and so generous, filled him with love, choked him with grateful admiration. "You are the noblest woman in the world, the bravest, the most forgiving. I will not disappoint you."

His bitterness and shame vanished, his fists clinched in new resolution. "You are right. I can write another play, and I will. My critics shall laugh from the other side of their mouths. They shall not have the satisfaction of knowing that they have even wounded me. I will justify your faith in my powers. I will set to work to-morrow – this very night – on a new play. I will make you proud of me yet, Helen, my queen, my love." With that word all his doubts vanished. "Yes, I love her, and I will win her."

In the glow of his love-born resolution he began to search among his papers for an unfinished scenario called Enid's Choice. When he had found it he set to work upon it with a concentration that seemed uncanny in the light of his day's distraction and dismay. Lillian's Duty and the evening's bitter failure had already grown dim in his mind.

Helen's understanding of him was precise. He was of those who never really capitulate to the storm, no matter how deeply they may sink at times in the trough of the sea. As everything had been against him up to that moment, he was not really taken by surprise. All his life he had gone directly against the advice and wishes of his family. He had studied architecture rather than medicine, and had set his face towards the East rather than the West. Every dollar he had spent he had earned by toil, and the things he loved had always seemed the wasteful and dangerous things. He wrote plays in secret when he should have been soliciting commissions for warehouses, and read novels when he should have been intent upon his business.

"It was impossible that I should succeed so quickly, so easily, even with the help of one so powerful as Helen Merival. It is my fate to work for what I get." And with this return of his belief that to himself alone he must look for victory, his self-poise and self-confidence came back.

He looked strong, happy, and very handsome next morning as he greeted the clerk of the Embric, who had no guile in his voice as he said:

"Good-morning, Mr. Douglass. I hear that your play made a big hit last night."

"I reckon it hit something," he replied, with easy evasion.

The clerk continued: "My wife's sister was there. She liked it very much."

"I am very glad she did," replied Douglass, heartily. As he walked over towards the elevator a couple of young men accosted him.

"Good-morning, Mr. Douglass. We are from The Blazon. We would like to get a little talk out of you about last night's performance. How do you feel about the verdict."

"It was a 'frost,'" replied Douglass, with engaging candor, "but I don't consider the verdict final. I am not at all discouraged. You see, it's all in getting a hearing. Miss Merival gave my play a superb production, and her impersonation ought to fill the theatre, even if Lillian's Duty were an indifferent play, which it is not. Miss Merival, in changing the entire tone and character of her work, must necessarily disappoint a certain type of admirer. Last night's audience was very largely made up of those who hate serious drama, and naturally they did not like my text. All that is a detail. We will create our own audience."

The reporters carried away a vivid impression of the author's youth, strength, and confidence, and one of them sat down to convey to the public his admiration in these words:

"Mr. Douglass is a Western man, and boldly shies his buckskin into the arena and invites the keenest of his critics to take it up. If any one thinks the 'roast' of his play has even singed the author's wings, he is mistaken. He is very much pleased with himself. As he says, a hearing is a great thing. He may be a chopping-block, but he don't look it."

Helen met her playwright with an anxious, tired look upon her face, but when he touched her fingers to his lips and said, "At your service, my lady," she laughed in radiant, sudden relief.

"Oh, but I'm glad to see you looking so gay and strong. I was heart-sore for you last night. I fancied you in all kinds of torture."

His face darkened. "I was. My blue devils assailed me, but I vanquished them, thanks to your note," he added, with a burning glance deep-sent, and his voice fell to a tenderness which betrayed his heart. "I think you are the most tolerant star that ever put out a hand to a poor author. What a beast I was to run away! But I couldn't help it then. I wanted to see you, but I couldn't face Westervelt and Royleston. I couldn't endure to hear them say, 'I told you so.' You understood, I'm sure of it."

She studied him with admiring eyes. "Yes, I understood – later. At first I was crushed. It shook my faith in you for a little while." She put off this mood (whose recollected shadows translated into her face filled Douglass's throat with remorse) and a smile disclosed her returning sense of humor. "Oh, Hugh and Westervelt are angry – perfectly purple with indignation against you for leading me into a trap – "

"I feared that. That is why I begged you to throw my play – "

She laid a finger on her lips, for Mrs. MacDavitt came in. "Mother, here is Mr. Douglass. I told you he would come. I hope you are hungry. Let us take our places. Hugh is fairly used up this morning. Do you see that bunch of papers?" she asked, pointing at a ragged pile. "After breakfast we take our medicine."

"No," he said, firmly. "I have determined not to read a line of them. To every word you speak I will listen, but I will not be harrowed up by a hodgepodge of personal prejudices written by my enemies before the play was produced or in a hurried hour between the fall of the curtain and going to press. I know too much about how these judgments are cooked up. I saw the faults of the play a good deal clearer than did any of those sleepy gentlemen who came to the theatre surfeited and weary and resentful of your change of programme."

She looked thoughtful. "Perhaps you are right," she said, at last. "I will not read them. I know what they will say – "

"I thought the play was very beautiful," said Mrs. MacDavitt. "And my Nellie was grand."

Helen patted her mother's hand. "We have one loyal supporter, Mr. Douglass."

"Ye've many more, if the truth were known," said the old mother, stoutly, for she liked young Douglass.

"I believe that," cried Helen. "Did you consider that as I change my rôles and plays I must also, to a large extent, change my audience? The people who like me as Baroness Telka are amazed and angered by your play. They will not come to see me. But there are others," she added, with a smile at the slang phrase.

"I thought of that, but not till last night."

"It will take longer to inform and interest our new public than any of us realized. I am determined to keep Lillian on for at least four weeks. Meanwhile you can prune it and set to work on a new one. Have you a theme?"

"I have a scenario," he triumphantly answered. "I worked it out this morning between two o'clock and four."

She reached her hand to him impulsively, and as he took it a warm flush came into her face and her eyes were suffused with happy tears.

"That's brave," she said. "I told them you could not be crushed. I knew you were of those who fight hardest when closest pressed. You must tell me about it at once – not this minute, of course, but when we are alone."

When Hugh came in a few minutes later he found them discussing a new automobile which had just made a successful trial run. The play became the topic of conversation again, but on a different plane.

Hugh was blunt, but not so abusive as he had declared his intention to be. "There's nothing in Lillian," he said – "not a dollar. We're throwing our money away. We might better close the theatre. We won't have fifty dollars in the house to-night. It's all right as a story, but it won't do for the stage."

Douglass kept his temper. "It was too long; but I can better that in a few hours. I'll have a much closer-knit action by Wednesday night."

As they were rising from the table Westervelt entered with a face like a horse, so long and lax was it. "They have burned us alive!" he exclaimed, as he sank into a chair and mopped his red neck. He shook like a gelatine pudding, and Helen could not repress a smile.

"Your mistake was in reading them. We burned the critics."

The manager stared in vast amaze. "You didn't read the papers?"

"Not one."

"Well, they say – "

She stopped him. "Don't tell me what they say – not a word. We did our best and we did good work, and will do better to-night, so don't come here like a bird of ill-omen, Herr Westervelt. Go kill the critics if you feel like it, but don't worry us with tales of woe. Our duty is to the play. We cannot afford to waste nervous energy writhing under criticism. What is said is said, and repeating it only hurts us all." Her tone became friendly. "Really, you take it too hard. It is only a matter of a few thousand dollars at the worst, and to free you from all further anxiety I will assume the entire risk. I will rent your theatre."

"No, no!" cried Hugh. "We can't afford to do that."

"We can't afford to do less. I insist," she replied, firmly.

The manager lifted his fat shoulders in a convulsive shrug. His face indicated despair of her folly. "Good Gott! Well, you are the doctor, only remember there will not be one hundred people in the house to-night." He began to recover speech. "Think of that! Helen Merival playing to empty chairs – in my theatre. Himmel!"

"It is sad, I confess, but not hopeless, Herr Westervelt. We must work the harder to let the thoughtful people of the city know what we are trying to do."

"Thoughtful people!" Again his scorn ran beyond his words for a moment and his tongue grew German. "Doughtful beople. Dey dondt bay dwo tollors fer seats! Our pusiness iss to attract the rich – the gay theatre-goers. Who is going to pring a theatre-barty to see a sermon on the stage – hay?"

"You are unjust to Lillian's Duty. It is not a sermon; it is a powerful acting play – the best part, from a purely acting standpoint, I have ever undertaken to do. But we will not discuss that now. The venture is my own, and you will be safe-guarded. I will instruct my brother to make the new arrangement at once."

With a final, despairing shrug the manager rose and went out, and Helen, turning an amused face to Douglass, asked, humorously: "Isn't he the typical manager? – in the clouds to-day, stuck in the mud to-morrow. Sometimes he is excruciatingly funny, and then he disgusts me. They're almost all alike. If business should be unexpectedly good to-night he would be a man transformed. His face would shine, he would grasp every actor by the hand, he would fairly fall upon your neck; but if business went down ten dollars on Wednesday night then look for the 'icy mitt' again. Big as he is he curls up like a sensitive plant when touched by adversity. He can't help it; he's really a child – a big, fat boy. But come, we must now consider the cuts for Lillian; then to our scenario."

As the attendants whisked away the breakfast things Helen brought out the original manuscript of Lillian's Duty, and took a seat beside her playwright. "Now, what is the matter with the first act?"

"Nothing."

"I agree. What is out in the second?"

"Needs cutting."

"Where?"

"Here and here and here," he answered, turning the leaves rapidly.

"I felt it. I couldn't hold them there. Royleston's part wants the knife badly. Now, the third act?"

"It is too diffuse, and the sociologic background gets obstinately into the foreground. As I sat there last night I saw that the interest was too abstract, too impersonal for the ordinary play-goer. I can better that. The fourth act must be entirely rewritten. I will do that this afternoon."

She faced him, glowing with recovered joy and recovered confidence. "Now you are Richard once again upon his horse."

"A hobby horse," he answered, with a laugh, then sobered. "In truth, my strength comes from you. At least you roused me. I was fairly in the grasp of the Evil One when your note came. Your splendid confidence set me free. It was beautiful of you to write me after I had sneaked away like a wounded coyote. I cannot tell you what your letter was to me."

She held up a finger. "Hush! No more of that. We are forgetting, and you are becoming personal." She said this in a tone peculiarly at variance with the words. "Now read me the scenario of the new play. I am eager to know what has moved you, set you on high again."

The creative fire began to glow in his eyes. "This is to be as individual, as poetic, as the other was sociologic. The character you are to play is that of a young girl who knows nothing of life, but a great deal of books. Enid's whole world is revealed by the light which streams from the window of a convent library – a gray, cold light with deep shadows. She is tall and pale and severe of line, but her blue eyes are deep and brooding. Her father, a Western mine-owner, losing his second wife, calls on his daughter to return from the Canadian convent in which she has spent seven years. She takes her position as an heiress in his great house. She is plunged at once into the midst of a pleasure-seeking, thoughtless throng of young people whose interests in life seem to her to be grossly material. She becomes the prey of adventurers, male and female, and has nothing but her innate purity to defend her. Ultimately there come to her two men who type the forces at war around her, and she is forced to choose between them."

As he outlined this new drama the mind of the actress took hold of Enid's character, so opposite in energy to Lillian, and its great possibilities exalted her, filled her with admiration for the mind which could so quickly create a new character.

"I see I shall never want for parts while you are my playwright," she said, when he had finished.

"Oh, I can write – so long as I have you to write for and to work for," he replied. "You are the greatest woman in the world. Your faith in me, your forgiveness of my cowardice, have given me a sense of power – "

She spoke quickly and with an effort to smile. "We are getting personal again."

He bowed to the reminder. "I beg your pardon. I will not offend again."

XI

HELEN'S warning was not as playful as it seemed to her lover, for something in the glow of his eyes and something vibrant in the tones of his voice had disturbed her profoundly. The fear of something which he seemed perilously near saying filled her with unrest, bringing up questions which had thus far been kept in the background of her scheme of life.

"Some time I shall marry, I suppose," she had said to one of her friends, "but not now; my art will not permit it. Wedlock to an actress," she added, "is almost as significant as death. It may mean an end of her playing – a death to her ambitions. When I decide to marry I shall also decide to give up the stage."

"Oh, I don't know," replied the other. "There are plenty who do not. In fact, Mary Anderson is the exception. When the conquering one comes along you'll marry him and make him your leading man, the way so many others do."