Joan Thursday: A Novel

But with all this she never failed to practise a certain amount of circumspection. In one respect, she refrained from growing too confidential about herself. That she had been the leading woman with "The Lie" was something to brag about: the very cards which she had been quick to have printed proclaimed the fact loudly in imitation Old English engraving. But that she had been wife to its star was something which she was not long in discovering wasn't generally known. The success of the sketch was a by-word of envy among actors facing the prospect of an idle summer; and the route columns of Variety told her that, in line with her prediction, Quard had somehow surmounted his San Francisco predicament and was continuing to guide the little play upon its triumphal course. But Quard himself had always been too closely identified with stock companies of the second class to have many friends among those with whom his wife was now thrown: actors for the most part of the so-called legitimate stage, with scant knowledge or experience (little, at least, that they would own to) of theatrical conditions away from Broadway and the leading theatres of a few principal cities. So Joan kept her own counsel about her matrimonial adventure: its publication could do her no good, if possibly no harm; and she preferred the freedom of ostensible spinsterhood. Her wedding-ring had long since disappeared from her hand, giving place to the handsome diamond with which Matthias had pledged her his faith.

Furthermore, such dissipation as she indulged in was never permitted to carry her beyond the border-line which, in her understanding, limited discretion in her relations with men. She enjoyed leading them on, but marriage had made her too completely cognizant of herself to permit of any affair going beyond a certain clearly defined point: she couldn't afford to throw herself away. And more than once she checked sharply and left an undrained glass, warned by her throbbing pulses that she was responding a trace too ardently to the admiration in the eyes of some male companion of the evening.

But there were only two whom she held dangerous to her peace of mind, one because she was afraid of him, the other because she admired him against her will.

The first was an eccentric dancer and comedian calling himself Billy Salute. A man of middle-age and old beyond his years in viciousness, the gymnastic violence of his calling in great measure counteracted the effects of his excesses and kept him young in body. He was a constant and heavy but what was known to Joan's circle as a safe drinker; drunkenness never obliterated his consciousness or disturbed his physical equilibrium; in spite of its web of wrinkles, his skin remained fair and clear as a boy's, and retained much of the fresh colouring of youth. But his eyes were cold and hard and profoundly informed with knowledge of womankind. His regard affected Joan as had Marbridge's, that day at Tanglewood; under its analysis she felt herself denuded; pretence were futile to combat it: the man knew her.

He made no advances; but he watched her closely whenever they were together; and she knew that he was only waiting, patient in the conviction that he had only to wait.

And thus he affected her with such fear and fascination that she avoided him as much as possible; but he was never far out of her thoughts; he lingered always on the horizon of her consciousness like the seemingly immobile yet portentous bank of cloud that masks the fury of a summer storm…

The other man pursued her without ceasing. He was young, not over twenty-five or six – an age to which Joan felt herself immeasurably superior in the knowledge and practice of life – and happened to be the one man of her acquaintance who was neither an actor nor connected with the business side of the stage. By some accident he had blundered from newspaper reporting to writing for cheaply sensational magazines, and from this to writing for the stage. It is true that his achievements in this last quarter had thus far been confined to collaboration with a successful playwright on the dramatization of one of his stories; but that didn't lessen his self-esteem and assertiveness. He claimed extraordinary ability for himself in a quite matter-of-fact tone, and on his own word was on terms of intimacy with every leading manager and star in the country. Nobody Joan knew troubled to contradict his pretensions, and despite that wide and seasoned view of life she believed herself to possess she was still inexperienced enough to credit more than half that he told her, never appreciating that, had the man been what he claimed, he would have had no time to waste toadying to actors.

He might, if not discouraged, prove very useful to her.

In fact, he promised to – repeatedly.

More than this, his attentions flattered her more than she would have cared to confess even to herself. He didn't lack wit, wasn't without intelligence, and the power of his imagination couldn't be denied; thus he figured to her as the only man of mental attainments she had known since Matthias. It was something to be desired by such as this one, even though his abnormally developed egotism sometimes seemed appalling.

It manifested itself in more ways than one: in his strut, in the foppishness of his dress, in his elaborate affectation of an English accent. He was a small person by the average standard, and slender, but well-formed, and wore clothing admirably tailored if always of an extreme cut. His cheeks were too fleshy, almost plump: something which had the effect of making his rather delicate features seem pinched. Near-sighted, he wore customarily a horn-rimmed pince-nez from which a wide black ribbon dangled like a mourning-band.

His name was Hubert Fowey.

So Joan tolerated him, encouraged him moderately through motives of self-interest, checked him with laughter when he tried to make love to her, secretly admired him even when his conceit was most fatiguing, and wondered what manner of women he had known to make him think that she would ever yield to his insistence…

She had been nearly six weeks in New York when she awoke one morning to rest in languorous regret of a late supper the preceding night, and to wonder whither she was tending, spurred to self-examination by that singularly clear introspective vision which not infrequently follows intemperance – at least, when one is young.

She was reminded sharply that, since returning to Town, she had made hardly a single attempt to find work, beyond having her professional cards printed.

And this was the edge of Summer…

Where would the Autumn find her?

Slipping quickly out of bed, she collected her store of money, and counted it for the first time in several weeks.

The sum total showed a shocking discrepancy between cold fact and the small fortune she had all along been permitting herself to believe she possessed. Even allowing for these heavy initial purchases on returning to New York, her capital had shrunk alarmingly.

She began anew, that day, the rounds of managers' offices.

Also, she laid down for her guidance a rigid schedule of economies. Only by strict observance thereof would she be able to scrape through the Summer without work or financial assistance from some quarter.

Characteristically, she mourned now, but transiently, that she had so long deferred going to see her mother and Edna – something now obviously out of the question; they would want money, to a certainty, and Joan had none to spare them.

A few days later she moved to share, half-and-half, the expenses of a three-room apartment on Fiftieth Street, near Eighth Avenue, with a minor actress whom she had recently met and taken a fancy to. Life was rather less expensive under this régime; the young women got their own breakfasts and, as a rule, lunches that were quite as meagre: repasts chiefly composed of crackers, cold meats from a convenient delicatessen shop, with sometimes a bottle of beer shared between two. If no one offered a dinner in exchange for their society, they would dine frugally at the cheaper restaurants of the neighbourhood. But their admirers they shared loyally: if one were invited to dine, the other accompanied her as a matter of course.

An arrangement apparently conducive to the most complete intimacy; neither party thereto doubted that she was in the full confidence of the other. There were, none the less, reservations on both sides.

Harriet Morrison, Joan's latest companion, was a girl whose very considerable personal attractions and innate love of pleasure were balanced by greenish eyes, a firm jaw, and the sincere conviction that straight-going and hard work would lead her to success upon the legitimate stage. She knew Joan for an incurable opportunist with few convictions of any sort other than that she could act if given a chance, and that men, if properly managed, would give her that chance. For one so temperamentally her opposite, Hattie couldn't help entertaining some unspoken contempt. On the other hand, she believed Joan to be decent, as yet; and halving the cost of living permitted her to indulge in the luxury of a week-end at the seaside once or twice a month.

One day near the first of July the two, happening to meet on Broadway after a morning of fruitless search for engagements, turned for luncheon into Shanley's new restaurant – by way of an unusual treat.

They had barely given their order when Matthias came in accompanied by a manager who had offices in the Bryant Building, and sat down at a table not altogether out of speaking-distance.

To cover her discomfiture, which betrayed itself in flushed cheeks, Joan complained of the heat: an explanation accepted by Hattie without question, since Matthias had not yet looked their way.

Joan prayed that he might not; but the thing was inevitable, and it was no less inevitable that he should look at the precise instant when Joan, unable longer to curb her curiosity, raised her eyes to his.

For a moment she fancied that he didn't recognize her. But then his face brightened, and he nodded and smiled, coolly, perhaps, but civilly, without the least evidence of confusion. They might have been the most casual acquaintances.

And, indeed, the incident would probably have passed unremarked but for the promptings of Joan's conscience. She was sure the glance of Matthias had shifted from her face to the hand on which his diamond shone, and had rested there for a significant moment.

As a matter of fact, nothing of the sort had happened. Matthias was absorbed in negotiations concerning an old play which had caught the fancy of the manager. Joan, though he knew her at sight, was now too inconsiderable a figure in his world for him to recall, off-hand, that he had ever made her a present.

Nevertheless the girl coloured furiously, and blushed again under the inquisitive stare of her companion.

"Who's that?"

"Who?" Joan muttered sullenly.

"The fellow who bowed to you just now."

"Oh, that?" Joan made an unconvincing effort at speaking casually: "A man named Matthias – a playwright, I believe."

"Oh," said the other girl quietly. "Never done anything much, has he?"

"I don't know."

"You don't know him very well?"

There was a touch of irony in the question that struck sparks from Joan's temper.

"That's my business!"

"I'm sure I beg your pardon," Hattie drawled exasperatingly.

And the incident was considered closed, though it didn't pass without leaving its indelible effect upon their association.

With Joan it had another result: it made her think. Retrospectively examining the contretemps, after she had gone to bed that night, she arrived at the comforting conclusion that she had been a little fool to think that Matthias "held that old ring against her." He hadn't been her lover for several weeks without furnishing the girl with a fairly clear revelation of his character. He was simple-hearted and sincere; she could not remember his uttering one ungenerous word or being guilty of one ungenerous action, and she didn't believe he could make room in his mind for an ungenerous thought.

Now if she were to return it, he would think that fine of her…

Of course, she must take it back in person. If she returned it by registered mail, he would have reason to believe her afraid to meet him – that she had been frightened by his mere glance into sending it back.

Not that she hadn't every right in the world to keep it, if she liked: there was no law compelling a girl to return her engagement ring when she broke with a man.

But Matthias would admire her for it.

Moreover, it was just possible that he hadn't as yet arrived at the stage of complete indifference toward her. And he had "the ear of the managers."

Nerving herself to the ordeal, two days later, she dressed with elaborate care in the suit she had worn on her flight from Quard. Newly sponged and pressed, it was quite presentable, if a little heavy for the season; moreover, it lacked the lustre and style of her later acquisitions. It wouldn't do to seem too prosperous…

It was a Saturday afternoon, and Hattie had taken herself off to a nearby ocean beach for the week-end; something for which Joan was grateful, inasmuch as it enabled her to dress her part without exciting comment.

To her relief, a servant new to the house since her time, answered her ring at the bell of Number 289, and with an indifferent nod indicated the door to the back-parlour.

Behind that portal Matthias was working furiously against time, carpentering against the grain that play to discuss which he had lunched at Shanley's; the managerial personage having offered to consider it seriously if certain changes were made. And the playwright was in haste to be quit of the job, not only because he disapproved heartily of the stipulated alterations, but further because he was booked for some weeks in Maine as soon as the revision was finished.

Humanly, then, he was little pleased to be warned, through the medium of a knock, that his work was to suffer interruption.

He swore mildly beneath his breath, glanced suspiciously at the non-committal door, growled brusque permission to enter, and bent again over the manuscript, refusing to look up until he had pursued a thread of thought to its conclusion, and knotted that same all ship-shape.

And when at length he consented to be aware of the young woman on his threshold, waiting in a pose of patience, her eyes wide with doubt and apprehensions, his mind was so completely detached from any thought of Joan that he failed, at first, to recognize her.

But the alien presence brought him to his feet quickly enough.

"I beg your pardon," he said with an uncertain nod. "You wished to see me about something?"

Closing the door, Joan came slowly forward into stronger light.

"You don't remember me?" she asked, half perplexed, half wistful of aspect. "But I thought – the other day – at Shanley's – "

"But of course I remember you," Matthias interrupted with a constrained smile. "But I wasn't – ah – expecting you – not exactly – you understand."

"Oh, yes," Joan replied in subdued and dubious accents – "I understand."

She waited a moment, watching narrowly under cover of assumed embarrassment, the signs of genuine astonishment which Matthias felt too keenly to think of concealing. Then she added an uneasy:

"Of course…"

"Of course!" Matthias echoed witlessly. "You wanted to see me about something," he iterated, wandering. With an effort he pulled himself together. "Won't you sit down – ah – Joan?"

"Thank you," said the girl. "But I'm afraid I'm in the way," she amended, dropping back into the old, worn, easy-chair.

"Oh, no – I – "

The insincerity of his disclaimer was manifest in an apologetic glance toward the manuscript and a hasty thrust of fingers up through his hair. Joan caught him up quickly.

"Oh, but I know I am, so I shan't stay," she said, settling herself comfortably. "I only ask a minute or two of your time. You don't mind?"

"Mind? Why, I – certainly not."

She looked down as if disconcerted by his honest, perplexed, questioning eyes.

"I was afraid you might, after – after what's happened – "

He fumbled for a cigarette, beginning to feel more calm, less nervous than annoyed. The fact of her unruffled self-possession had at length penetrated his understanding.

"No," he said slowly, rolling the cigarette between his palms, "I don't mind in the least, if I can be of service to you."

"But I was very foolish," Joan persisted, "and – and unkind. I've been sorry ever since…"

"Don't be," Matthias begged, his tone so odd that she looked up swiftly and coloured.

Thus far everything had gone famously, quite as rehearsed in the theatre of her optimistic fancy; but the new accent in his voice made her suddenly fear lest, after all, the little scene might not play itself out as smoothly as it had promised to.

"Don't be," Matthias repeated coolly. "It's quite all right. Take my word for it: as far as I'm concerned you've nothing at all to reproach yourself with."

Her flush deepened. "You mean you didn't care – !"

Matthias smiled, but not unkindly. "I mean," he said slowly – "neither of us really cared."

"Speak for yourself – " Joan cut in with a flash of temper; but he obtained her silence with a gentle gesture.

"Please … I mean, we both lost our heads for a time. That was all there was to it, I think. Naturally it couldn't last. You were wise enough to see that first and – ah – did the only thing you decently could, when you threw me over. I understood that, at once."

"But I," she began in a desperate effort to regain lost ground – "I was afraid you'd hate and despise me – "

"Not a bit, Joan – believe me, not for an instant. When I had had time to think it all out, I was simply grateful. I could never have learned to hate or despise you – as you put it – whatever happened; but if you hadn't been so sensible and far-sighted, the affair might have run on too far to be remedied. In which case we'd both have been horribly unhappy."

This was so far from the attitude she had believed he would adopt, that Joan understood her cause to be worse than forlorn: it was lost; lost, that is, unless it could be saved by her premeditated heroic measure.

Fumbling in her bag, she found his ring.

"Perhaps you're right," she said with a little sigh. "Anyhow, it's like you to put it that way… But what I really came for, was to return this."

She offered the ring. He looked, startled, from it to her face, hesitated, and took it. "O – thanks!" he said, adding quite truthfully: "I'd forgotten about that"; and tossed it carelessly to his work-table where, rolling across the face of a manuscript, it oscillated momentarily and settling to rest, seemed to wink cynically at its late possessor.

Joan blinked hastily in response: there was a transient little mist before her eyes; and momentarily her lips trembled with true emotion. The scene was working out more painfully than she had ever in her direst misgivings dreamed it might.

Deep in her heart she had all along nursed the hope that he would insist on her retaining the ring. That would have been like the Matthias of her memories!

But now he seemed to think that she ought to be glad thus to disburden her conscience and by just so much to modify her indebtedness to him!

Struck by this thought, Joan gasped inwardly, and examined with startled eyes the face of Matthias. It was her first reminder of the fact that he had left her one hundred and fifty unearned dollars. She had forgotten all about that till this instant. Otherwise, she would have hesitated longer about calling. She wondered if he were thinking of the same thing; but his face afforded no index to his thoughts. He wasn't looking at her at all, in fact, but down, in abstraction, studying the faded pattern of the carpet at his feet.

She wondered if perhaps it would advance her interests to offer to return the money, to pay it back bit by bit – when she found work. But wisely she refrained from acting on this suggestion.

"I'm sorry I was so long about bringing it back," she resumed with an artificial manner. "I was always meaning to, you know, and always kept putting it off. You know how it is when you're on the road: one never seems to have any time to one's self."

"I quite understand," Matthias assured her gravely.

She grew sensitive to the fact that he was being patient with her.

"But I really mustn't keep you from your work," she said, rising. "You – you knew I was working, didn't you?"

"I heard," Matthias evaded – "in a roundabout way – that you were playing in vaudeville."

The girl nodded vigorously. "Oh, yes; I was all over, playing the lead in a sketch called 'The Lie.' It was a regular knock-out. You ought to have seen how it got over. It's still playing, somewhere out West, I guess."

"You left it, then?" Matthias asked, bored, heartily wishing her out of the house.

She was aching to know if he had learned of her marriage. But then she felt sure he couldn't possibly have heard about it. Still, she wondered, if he did know, would it modify his attitude toward her in any way?

"Yes," she resumed briskly, to cover her momentary hesitation, "I left it the week we played 'Frisco. I had to. The star and I couldn't seem to hit it off, somehow. You know how that is."

"And yet you must have managed to agree with him pretty well, from all I hear."

"What did you hear?"

(Did he really know, then?)

"Why," Matthias explained ingeniously, "you must have been with the sketch for several months, by your own account. You couldn't have been bickering all that time."

Confidence returned… "Oh, that! Yes, of course. But I could see it coming a long ways ahead. So I quit, and came back to look for another engagement. You – "

She broke off, stammering.

"Beg pardon?" Matthias queried curiously.

Joan flushed again. "You don't know of anything I could do, just now, I suppose?"

He shook his head. "Not at present, I'm afraid."

"If you should hear of anything, it would be awful' good of you to let me know."

"Depend upon me, I shall."

"Care of The Dramatic Mirror will always get me."

"I shan't forget."

"Well…" She offered him her hand with a splendidly timid smile. "I suppose it's good-bye for good this time."

Matthias accepted her hand, shook it without a tremor, and released it easily.

"I've a notion it is, Joan," he admitted.

She turned toward the door, advanced a pace or two, and paused.

"They say Arlington's going to make a lot of new productions next Fall…"

"Yes?"

"Well, I was wondering if you wouldn't mind putting in a good word for me."

"I would be glad to, but unfortunately I don't know Mr. Arlington."

"But you know Mr. Marbridge, and everybody says he's Arlington's silent partner."

Matthias looked as uncomfortable as he felt.

"I am not sure that is true," he said slowly, "and – well, to tell the truth, Marbridge and I aren't on the best of terms. I'm afraid I couldn't influence him in any way – except, perhaps, to prejudice him."

"Oh!" Joan said blankly…

It came to her, in a flash, that the two men might have quarrelled about her, thanks to the obvious fascination she had exerted over Marbridge, that age-old day at Tanglewood.

"I suppose," she ventured pensively, "I might go to see him – Mr. Marbridge – myself – ?"

"I'm afraid I can't advise you."

This time the accent of finality was unmistakable. Joan bridled with resentment. After all, he'd no real call to be so uppish, simply because she hadn't let him stand between her and her career…

"You don't really think I ought to go and see him, do you?"

"I wish you wouldn't ask me, Joan."

"But I've got no one to advise me… If you don't think it wise, I wish you'd say so. I thought perhaps it was a chance…"

Matthias shrugged, excessively irritated by her persistence. "I can only say that I wouldn't advise any woman to look to Marbridge for anything honourable," he said reluctantly.

"Oh!" the girl said in a startled tone.

"But – I'm sorry you made me say that. It's none of my affair. Please forget I said it."

"But you make it so hard for me."

"I?" he cried indignantly – "I make it hard for you!"

"Well, I come to you for advice – friendly advice – and you close in my very face the only door I can see to any sort of work. It's – it's pretty hard. I can act, I know I can act! I guess I proved that when I was with Charlie – Mr. Quard – the star of 'The Lie,' you know. I couldn't've stuck as long as I did if I hadn't had talent… But back here in New York, all that doesn't seem to count. Here I've been going around for two months, and all they offer me is a chorus job with some road company. But Arlington … he employs more girls than anybody in the business. I know he'd give me a chance to show what I can do, if I could only get to him. And then you tell me not to try to get to him the only way I know."