Books: Jill the Reckless)

P >> P. G. Wodehouse >> Jill the Reckless)

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26

The dress-rehearsal had just dragged its weary length to a close. It
is the custom of the dwellers in Atlantic City, who seem to live
entirely for pleasure, to attend a species of vaudeville
performance--incorrectly termed a sacred concert--on Sunday nights:
and it had been one o'clock in the morning before the concert scenery
could be moved out of the theatre and the first act set of "The Rose
of America" moved in. And, as by some unwritten law of the drama no
dress-rehearsal can begin without a delay of at least an hour and a
half, the curtain had not gone up on Mr Miller's opening chorus till
half past two. There had been dress-parades, conferences,
interminable arguments between the stage-director and a mysterious
man in shirtsleeves about the lights, more dress-parades, further
conferences, hitches with regard to the sets, and another outbreak of
debate on the subject of blues, ambers, and the management of the
"spot," which was worked by a plaintive voice, answering to the name
of Charlie, at the back of the family circle. But by six o'clock a
complete, if ragged, performance had been given, and the chorus, who
had partaken of no nourishment since dinner on the previous night,
had limped off round the corner for a bite of breakfast before going
to bed.

They were a battered and a draggled company, some with dark circles
beneath their eyes, others blooming with the unnatural scarlet of the
make-up which they had been too tired to take off. The Duchess,
haughty to the last, had fallen asleep with her head on the table.
The red-headed Babe was lying back in her chair, staring at the
ceiling. The Southern girl blinked like an owl at the morning
sunshine out on the boardwalk.

The Cherub, whose triumphant youth had brought her almost fresh
through a sleepless night, contributed the only remark made during
the interval of waiting for the meal.

"The fascination of a thtage life! Why girls leave home!" She looked
at her reflection in the little mirror of her vanity-bag. "It _is_ a
face!" she murmured reflectively. "But I should hate to have to go
around with it long!"

A sallow young man, with the alertness peculiar to those who work on
the night-shifts of restaurants, dumped a tray down on the table with
a clatter. The Duchess woke up. Babe took her eyes off the ceiling.
The Southern girl ceased to look at the sunshine. Already, at the
mere sight of food, the extraordinary recuperative powers of the
theatrical worker had begun to assert themselves. In five minutes
these girls would be feeling completely restored and fit for
anything.

Conversation broke out with the first sip of coffee, and the calm of
the restaurant was shattered. Its day had begun.

"It's a great life if you don't weaken," said the Cherub, hungrily
attacking her omelette. "And the wortht is yet to come! I thuppose
all you old dears realithe that this show will have to be rewritten
from end to end, and we'll be rehearthing day and night all the time
we're on the road."

"Why?" Lois Denham spoke with her mouth full. "What's wrong with it?"

The Duchess took a sip of coffee.

"Don't make me laugh!" she pleaded. "What's wrong with it? What's
right with it, one would feel more inclined to ask!"

"One would feel thtill more inclined," said the Cherub, "to athk why
one was thuch a chump as to let oneself in for this sort of thing
when one hears on all sides that waitresses earn thixty dollars a
month."

"The numbers are all right," argued Babe. "I don't mean the melodies,
but Johnny has arranged some good business."

"He always does," said the Southern girl. "Some more buckwheat cakes,
please. But what about the book?"

"I never listen to the book."

The Cherub laughed.

"You're too good to yourself! I listened to it right along and take
it from me it's sad! Of courthe they'll have it fixed. We can't open
in New York like this. My professional reputation wouldn't thtand it!
Didn't you thee Wally Mason in front, making notes? They've got him
down to do the rewriting."

Jill, who had been listening in a dazed way to the conversation,
fighting against the waves of sleep which flooded over her, woke up.

"Was Wally--was Mr Mason there?"

"Sure. Sitting at the back."

Jill couldn't have said whether she was glad or sorry. She had not
seen Wally since that afternoon when they lunched together at the
Cosmopolis, and the rush of the final weeks of rehearsals had given
her little opportunity for thinking of him. At the back of her mind
had been the feeling that sooner or later she would have to think of
him, but for two weeks she had been too tired and too busy to
re-examine him as a factor in her life. There had been times when the
thought of him had been like the sunshine on a winter day, warming
her with almost an impersonal glow in moments of depression. And then
some sharp, poignant memory of Derek would come to blot him out. She
remembered the image she had used to explain Derek to Wally, and the
truth of it came home to her more strongly than ever. Whatever Derek
might have done, he was in her heart and she could not get him out.

She came out of her thoughts to find that the talk had taken another
turn.

"And the wortht of it is," the Cherub was saying, "we shall rehearthe
all day and give a show every night and work ourselves to the bone,
and then, when they're good and ready, they'll fire one of us!"

"That's right!" agreed the Southern girl.

"They couldn't!" Jill cried.

"You wait!" said the Cherub. "They'll never open in New York with
thirteen girls. Ike's much too thuperstitious."

"But they wouldn't do a thing like that after we've all worked so
hard!"

There was a general burst of sardonic laughter. Jill's opinion of the
chivalry of theatrical managers seemed to be higher than that of her
more experienced colleagues. "They'll do anything," the Cherub
assured her. "You don't know the half of it, dearie," scoffed Lois
Denham. "You don't know the half of it!"

"Wait till you've been in as many shows as I have," said Babe,
shaking her red locks. "The usual thing is to keep a girl slaving her
head off all through the road-tour and then fire her before the New
York opening."

"But it's a shame! It isn't fair!"

"If one is expecting to be treated fairly," said the Duchess with a
prolonged yawn, "one should not go into the show-business."

And, having uttered this profoundly true maxim, she fell asleep
again.

The slumber of the Duchess was the signal for a general move. Her
somnolence was catching. The restorative effects of the meal were
beginning to wear off. There was a call for a chorus-rehearsal at
four o'clock, and it seemed the wise move to go to bed and get some
sleep while there was time. The Duchess was roused from her dreams by
means of a piece of ice from one of the tumblers; checks were paid;
and the company poured out, yawning and chattering, into the sunlight
of the empty boardwalk.

Jill detached herself from the group, and made her way to a seat
facing the ocean. Tiredness had fallen upon her like a leaden weight,
crushing all the power out of her limbs, and the thought of walking
to the boarding-house where, from motives of economy, she was sharing
a room with the Cherub, paralyzed her.

It was a perfect morning, clear and cloudless, with the warm
freshness of a day that means to be hotter later on. The sea sparkled
in the sun. Little waves broke lazily on the gray sand. Jill closed
her eyes, for the brightness of sun and water was trying; and her
thoughts went back to what the Cherub had said.

If Wally was really going to rewrite the play, they would be thrown
together. She would be obliged to meet him, and she was not sure that
she was ready to meet him. Still, he would be somebody to talk to on
subjects other than the one eternal topic of the theatre, somebody
who belonged to the old life. She had ceased to regard Freddie Rooke
in this light: for Freddie, solemn with his new responsibilities as a
principal, was the most whole-hearted devotee of "shop" in the
company. Freddie nowadays declined to consider any subject for
conversation that did not have to do with "The Rose of America" in
general and his share in it in particular. Jill had given him up, and
he had paired off with Nelly Bryant. The two were inseparable. Jill
had taken one or two meals with them, but Freddie's professional
monologues, of which Nelly seemed never to weary, were too much for
her. As a result she was now very much alone. There were girls in the
company whom she liked, but most of them had their own intimate
friends, and she was always conscious of not being really wanted. She
was lonely, and, after examining the matter as clearly as her tired
mind would allow, she found herself curiously soothed by the thought
that Wally would be near to mitigate her loneliness.

She opened her eyes, blinking. Sleep had crept upon her with an
insidious suddenness, and she had almost fallen over on the seat. She
was just bracing herself to get up and begin the long tramp to the
boarding-house, when a voice spoke at her side.

"Hullo! Good morning!"

Jill looked up.

"Hullo, Wally!"

"Surprised to see me?"

"No. Milly Trevor said she had seen you at the rehearsal last night."

Wally came round the bench and seated himself at her side. His eyes
were tired, and his chin dark and bristly.

"Had breakfast?"

"Yes, thanks. Have you?"

"Not yet. How are you feeling?"

"Rather tired."

"I wonder you're not dead. I've been through a good many
dress-rehearsals, but this one was the record. Why they couldn't have
had it comfortably in New York and just have run through the piece
without scenery last night, I don't know, except that in musical
comedy it's etiquette always to do the most inconvenient thing. They
know perfectly well that there was no chance of getting the scenery
into the theatre till the small hours. You must be worn out. Why
aren't you in bed?"

"I couldn't face the walk. I suppose I ought to be going, though."

She half rose, then sank back again. The glitter of the water
hypnotized her. She closed her eyes again. She could hear Wally
speaking, then his voice grew suddenly faint and far off, and she
ceased to fight the delicious drowsiness.

Jill awoke with a start. She opened her eyes, and shut them again at
once. The sun was very strong now. It was one of those prematurely
warm days of early Spring which have all the languorous heat of late
summer. She opened her eyes once more, and found that she was feeling
greatly refreshed. She also discovered that her head was resting on
Wally's shoulder.

"Have I been asleep?"

Wally laughed.

"You have been having what you might call a nap." He massaged his
left arm vigorously. "You needed it. Do you feel more rested now?"

"Good gracious! Have I been squashing your poor arm all the time? Why
didn't you move?"

"I was afraid you would fall over. You just shut your eyes and
toppled sideways."

"What's the time?"

Wally looked at his watch.

"Just on ten."

"Ten!" Jill was horrified. "Why, I have been giving you cramp for
about three hours! You must have had an awful time!"

"Oh, it was all right. I think I dozed off myself. Except that the
birds didn't come and cover us with leaves; it was rather like the
'Babes in the Wood.'"

"But you haven't had any breakfast! Aren't you starving?"

"Well, I'm not saying I wouldn't spear a fried egg with some vim if
it happened to float past. But there's plenty of time for that. Lots
of doctors say you oughtn't to eat breakfast, and Indian fakirs go
without food for days at a time in order to develop their souls.
Shall I take you back to wherever you're staying? You ought to get a
proper sleep in bed."

"Don't dream of taking me. Go off and have something to eat."

"Oh, that can wait. I'd like to see you safely home."

Jill was conscious of a renewed sense of his comfortingness. There
was no doubt about it, Wally was different from any other man she had
known. She suddenly felt guilty, as if she were obtaining something
valuable under false pretences.

"Wally!"

"Hullo?"

"You--you oughtn't to be so good to me!"

"Nonsense! Where's the harm in lending a hand--or, rather, an arm--to
a pal in trouble?"

"You know what I mean. I can't . . . that is to say . . . it isn't as
though . . . I mean . . ."

Wally smiled a tired, friendly smile.

"If you're trying to say what I think you're trying to say, don't! We
had all that out two weeks ago. I quite understand the position. You
mustn't worry yourself about it." He took her arm, and they crossed
the boardwalk. "Are we going in the right direction? You lead the
way. I know exactly how you feel. We're old friends, and nothing
more. But, as an old friend, I claim the right to behave like an old
friend. If an old friend can't behave like an old friend, how _can_
an old friend behave? And now we'll rule the whole topic out of the
conversation. But perhaps you're too tired for conversation?"

"Oh, no."

"Then I will tell you about the sad death of young Mr Pilkington."

"What!"

"Well, when I say death, I use the word in a loose sense. The human
giraffe still breathes, and I imagine, from the speed with which he
legged it back to his hotel when we parted, that he still takes
nourishment. But really he is dead. His heart is broken. We had a
conference after the dress-rehearsal, and our friend Mr Goble told
him in no uncertain words--in the whole course of my experience I
have never heard words less uncertain--that his damned rotten
high-brow false-alarm of a show--I am quoting Mr Goble--would have to
be rewritten by alien hands. And these are them! On the right, alien
right hand. On the left, alien left hand. Yes, I am the instrument
selected for the murder of Pilkington's artistic aspirations. I'm
going to rewrite the show. In fact, I have already rewritten the
first act and most of the second. Goble foresaw this contingency and
told me to get busy two weeks ago, and I've been working hard ever
since. We shall start rehearsing the new version tomorrow and open in
Baltimore next Monday with practically a different piece. And it's
going to be a pippin, believe me, said our hero modestly. A gang of
composers has been working in shifts for two weeks, and, by chucking
out nearly all of the original music, we shall have a good score. It
means a lot of work for you, I'm afraid. All the business of the
numbers will have to be re-arranged."

"I like work," said Jill. "But I'm sorry for Mr Pilkington."

"He's all right. He owns seventy per cent of the show. He may make a
fortune. He's certain to make a comfortable sum. That is, if he
doesn't sell out his interest in pique--or dudgeon, if you prefer it.
From what he said at the close of the proceedings, I fancy he would
sell out to anybody who asked him. At least, he said that he washed
his hands of the piece. He's going back to New York this
afternoon,--won't even wait for the opening. Of course, I'm sorry for
the poor chap in a way, but he had no right, with the excellent
central idea which he got, to turn out such a rotten book. Oh, by the
way!"

"Yes?"

"Another tragedy! Unavoidable, but pathetic. Poor old Freddie! He's
out!"

"Oh, no!"

"Out!" repeated Wally firmly.

"But didn't you think he was good last night?"

"He was awful! But that isn't why. Goble wanted his part rewritten as
a Scotchman, so as to get McAndrew, the fellow who made such a hit
last season in 'Hoots, Mon!' That sort of thing is always happening
in musical comedy. You have to fit parts to suit whatever good people
happen to be available at the moment. When you've had one or two
experiences of changing your Italian count to a Jewish
millionaire--invariably against time: they always want the script on
Thursday next at noon--and then changing him again to a Russian
Bolshevik, you begin to realize what is meant by the words 'Death,
where is thy sting?' My heart bleeds for Freddie, but what can one
do? At any rate he isn't so badly off as a fellow was in one of my
shows. In the second act he was supposed to have escaped from an
asylum, and the management, in a passion for realism, insisted that
he should shave his head. The day after he shaved it, they heard that
a superior comedian was disengaged and fired him. It's a ruthless
business."

"The girls were saying that one of us would be dismissed."

"Oh, I shouldn't think that's likely."

"I hope not."

"So do I. What are we stopping for?" Jill had halted in front of a
shabby-looking house, one of those depressing buildings which spring
up overnight at seashore resorts and start to decay the moment the
builders have left them.

"I live here."

"Here!" Wally looked at her in consternation. "But . . ."

Jill smiled.

"We working-girls have got to economize. Besides, it's quite
comfortable--fairly comfortable--inside, and it's only for a week."
She yawned. "I believe I'm falling asleep again. I'd better hurry in
and go to bed. Good-bye, Wally dear. You've been wonderful. Mind you
go and get a good breakfast."

2.

When Jill arrived at the theatre at four o'clock for the chorus
rehearsal, the expected blow had not fallen. No steps had apparently
been taken to eliminate the thirteenth girl whose presence in the
cast preyed on Mr. Goble's superstitious mind. But she found her
colleagues still in a condition of pessimistic foreboding. "Wait!"
was the gloomy watchword of "The Rose of America" chorus.

The rehearsal passed off without event. It lasted until six o'clock,
when Jill, the Cherub, and two or three of the other girls went to
snatch a hasty dinner before returning to the theatre to make up. It
was not a cheerful meal. Reaction had set in after the overexertion
of the previous night, and it was too early for first-night
excitement to take its place. Everybody, even the Cherub, whose
spirits seldom failed her, was depressed, and the idea of an
overhanging doom had grown. It seemed now to be merely a question of
speculating on the victim, and the conversation gave Jill, as the
last addition to the company and so the cause of swelling the ranks
of the chorus to the unlucky number, a feeling of guilt. She was glad
when it was time to go back to the theatre.

The moment she and her companions entered the dressing-room, it was
made clear to them that the doom had fallen. In a chair in the
corner, all her pretence and affectation swept away in a flood of
tears, sat the unhappy Duchess, the center of a group of girls
anxious to console but limited in their ideas of consolation to an
occasional pat on the back and an offer of a fresh pocket-handkerchief.

"It's tough, honey!" somebody was saying as Jill came in.

Somebody else said it was fierce, and a third girl declared it to be
the limit. A fourth girl, well-meaning but less helpful than she
would have liked to be, was advising the victim not to worry.

The story of the disaster was brief and easily told. The Duchess,
sailing in at the stage-door, had paused at the letter-box to see if
Cuthbert, her faithful auto-salesman, had sent her a good-luck
telegram. He had, but his good wishes were unfortunately neutralized
by the fact that the very next letter in the box was one from the
management, crisp and to the point, informing the Duchess that her
services would not be required that night or thereafter. It was the
subtle meanness of the blow that roused the indignation of "The Rose
of America" chorus, the cunning villainy with which it had been
timed.

"Poor Mae, if she'd opened tonight, they'd have had to give her two
weeks' notice or her salary. But they can fire her without a cent
just because she's only been rehearsing and hasn't given a show!"

The Duchess burst into fresh flood of tears.

"Don't you worry, honey!" advised the well-meaning girl, who would
have been in her element looking in on Job with Bildad the Shuhite
and his friends. "Don't you worry!"

"It's tough!" said the girl, who had adopted that form of verbal
consolation.

"It's fierce!" said the girl who preferred that adjective.

The other girl, with an air of saying something new, repeated her
statement that it was the limit. The Duchess cried forlornly
throughout. She had needed this engagement badly. Chorus salaries are
not stupendous, but it is possible to save money by means of them
during a New York run, especially if you have spent three years in a
milliner's shop and can make your own clothes, as the Duchess, in
spite of her air of being turned out by Fifth Avenue modistes, could
and did. She had been looking forward, now that this absurd piece was
to be rewritten by someone who knew his business and had a good
chance of success, to putting by just those few dollars that make all
the difference when you are embarking on married life. Cuthbert, for
all his faithfulness, could not hold up the financial end of the
establishment unsupported for at least another eighteen months; and
this disaster meant that the wedding would have to be postponed
again. So the Duchess, abandoning that aristocratic manner criticized
by some of her colleagues as "up-stage" and by others as "Ritz-y,"
sat in her chair and consumed pocket-handkerchiefs as fast as they
were offered to her.

Jill had been the only girl in the room who had spoken no word of
consolation. This was not because she was not sorry for the Duchess.
She had never been sorrier for any one in her life. The pathos of
that swift descent from haughtiness to misery had bitten deep into
her sensitive heart. But she revolted at the idea of echoing the
banal words of the others. Words were no good, she thought, as she
set her little teeth and glared at an absent management,--a
management just about now presumably distending itself with a
luxurious dinner at one of the big hotels. Deeds were what she
demanded. All her life she had been a girl of impulsive action, and
she wanted to act impulsively now. She was in much the same Berserk
mood as had swept her, raging, to the defence of Bill the parrot on
the occasion of his dispute with Henry of London. The fighting spirit
which had been drained from her by the all-night rehearsal had come
back in full measure.

"What are you going to _do?_" she cried. "Aren't you going to _do_
something?"

Do? The members of "The Rose of America" ensemble looked doubtfully
at one another. Do? It had not occurred to them that there was
anything to be done. These things happened, and you regretted them,
but as for doing anything, well, what _could_ you do?

Jill's face was white and her eyes were flaming. She dominated the
roomful of girls like a little Napoleon. The change in her startled
them. Hitherto they had always looked on her as rather an unusually
quiet girl. She had always made herself unobtrusively pleasant to
them all. They all liked her. But they had never suspected her of
possessing this militant quality. Nobody spoke, but there was a
general stir. She had flung a new idea broadcast, and it was
beginning to take root. Do something? Well, if it came to that, why
not?

"We ought all to refuse to go on tonight unless they let her go on!"
Jill declared.

The stir became a movement. Enthusiasm is catching, and every girl is
at heart a rebel. And the idea was appealing to the imagination.
Refuse to give a show on the opening night! Had a chorus ever done
such a thing? They trembled on the verge of making history.

"Strike?" quavered somebody at the back.

"Yes, strike!" cried Jill.

"Hooray! That's the thtuff!" shouted the Cherub, and turned the
scale. She was a popular girl, and her adherence to the Cause
confirmed the doubters. "Thtrike!"

"Strike! Strike!"

Jill turned to the Duchess, who had been gaping amazedly at the
demonstration. She no longer wept, but she seemed in a dream.

"Dress and get ready to go on," Jill commanded. "We'll all dress and
get ready to go on. Then I'll go and find Mr Goble and tell him what
we mean to do. And, if he doesn't give in, we'll stay here in this
room, and there won't be a performance!"

3.

Mr Goble, with a Derby hat on the back of his head and an unlighted
cigar in the corner of his mouth, was superintending the erection of
the first act set when Jill found him. He was standing with his back
to the safety-curtain glowering at a blue canvas, supposed to
represent one of those picturesque summer skies which you get at the
best places on Long Island. Jill, coming down stage from the
staircase that led to the dressing-room, interrupted his line of
vision.

"Get out of the light!" bellowed Mr Goble, always a man of direct
speech, adding "Damn you!" for good measure.

"Please move to one side," interpreted the stage-director. "Mr Goble
is looking at the set."

The head carpenter, who completed the little group, said nothing.
Stage carpenters always say nothing. Long association with fussy
directors has taught them that the only policy to pursue on opening
nights is to withdraw into the silence, wrap themselves up in it, and
not emerge until the enemy has grown tired and gone off to worry
somebody else.

"It don't look right!" said Mr Goble, cocking his head on one side.

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26