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The Story of a Play: A novel, a novel by William Dean Howells |
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Chapter 24 |
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_ CHAPTER XXIV Maxwell and Louise had torn at each other's hearts till they were bleeding, and he wished to come back at once and she wished him to come, that they might hurt themselves still more savagely; but when this desire passed, they longed to meet and bind up one another's wounds. This better feeling brought them together before night-fall, when Maxwell returned, and Louise, at the sound of his latch-key in the door, ran to let him in. "Mr. Godolphin is here," she said, in a loud, cheery voice, and he divined that he owed something of his eager welcome to her wish to keep him from resuming the quarrel unwittingly. "He has just come to talk over the rehearsal with you, and I wouldn't let him go. I was sure you would be back soon." She put her finger to her lip, with whatever warning intention, and followed her husband into the presence of the actor, and almost into his arms, so rapturous was the meeting between them. "Well," cried Godolphin, "I couldn't help looking in a moment to talk with you and Mrs. Maxwell about our Salome. I feel that she will make the fortune of the piece--of any piece. Doesn't Miss Havisham's rendition grow upon you? It's magnificent. It's on the grand scale. It's immense. The more I think about it, the more I'm impressed with it. She'll carry the house by storm. I've never seen anything like it; and I'm glad to find that Mrs. Maxwell feels just as I do about it." Maxwell looked at his wife, who returned his glance with a guiltless eye. "I was afraid she might feel the loss of things that certainly _are_ lost in it. I don't say that Miss Havisham's Salome, superb as it is, is _your_ Salome--or Mrs. Maxwell's. I've always fancied that Mrs. Maxwell had a great deal to do with that character, and--I don't know why--I've always thought of her when I've thought of _it_; but at the same time it's a splendid Salome. She makes it Southern, almost tropical. It isn't the Boston Salome. You may say that it is wanting in delicacy and the nice shades; but it's full of passion; there's nothing caviare to the general in it. The average audience will understand just what the girl that Miss Havisham gives is after, and she gives her so abundantly that there's no more doubt of the why than there is of the how. Sometimes I used to think the house couldn't follow Miss Pettrell in her subtle touches, but the house, to the topmost tier of the gallery, will get Miss Havisham's intention." Godolphin was standing while he said all this, and Maxwell now asked: "Won't you sit down?" The actor had his overcoat on his arm, and his hat in one hand. He tapped at his boot with the umbrella he held in the other. "No, I don't believe I will, thank you. The fact is, I just dropped in a moment to reassure you if you had misgivings about the Salome, and to give you my point of view." Maxwell did not say anything; he looked at Louise again, and it seemed to her that he meant her to speak. She said, "Oh, we understood that we couldn't have all kinds of a Salome in one creation of the part; and I'm sure no one can see Mrs. Harley in it without feeling her intensity." "She's a force," said Godolphin. "And if, as we all decided," he continued, to Maxwell, "when we talked it over with Grayson, that a powerful Salome would heighten the effect of Haxard, she is going to make the success of the piece." "_You_ are going to make the success of the piece!" cried Louise. "Ah, I sha'n't care if they forget me altogether," said the actor; "I shall forget myself." He laughed his mellow, hollow laugh, and gave his hand to Louise and then to Maxwell. "I'm so glad you feel as you do about it, and I don't wish you to lose your faith in our Salome for a moment. You've quite confirmed mine." He wrung the hands of each with a fervor of gratitude that left them with a disquiet which their eyes expressed to each other when he was gone. "What does it mean?" asked Louise. Maxwell shook his head. "It's beyond me." "Brice," she appealed, after a moment, "do you think I had been saying anything to set him against her?" "No," he returned, instantly. "Why should I suspect you of anything so base?" Her throat was full, but she made out to say, "No, you are too generous, too good for such a thing;" and now she went on to eat humble-pie with a self-devotion which few women could practise. "I know that if I don't like having her I have no one but myself to thank for it. If I had never written to that miserable Mr. Sterne, or answered his advertisement, he would never have heard of your play, and nothing that has happened would have happened." "No, you don't know that at all," said Maxwell; and it seemed to her that she must sink to her knees under his magnanimity. "The thing might have happened in a dozen different ways." "No matter. I am to blame for it when it did happen; and now you will never hear another word from me. Would you like me to swear it?" "That would be rather unpleasant," said Maxwell. They both felt a great physical fatigue, and they neither had the wish to prolong the evening after dinner. Maxwell was going to lock the door of the apartment at nine o'clock, and then go to bed, when there came a ring at it. He opened it, and stood confronted with Grayson, looking very hot and excited. "Can I come in a moment?" the manager asked. "Are you alone? Can I speak with you?" "There's no one here but Mrs. Maxwell," said her husband, and he led the way into the parlor. "And if you don't like," Louise confessed to have overheard him, "you needn't speak before her even." "No, no," said the manager, "don't go! We may want your wisdom. We certainly want all the wisdom we can get on the question. It's about Godolphin." "Godolphin?" they both echoed. "Yes. He's given up the piece." The manager drew out a letter, which he handed to Maxwell, and which Louise read with her husband, over his shoulder. It was addressed to Grayson, and began very formally. "DEAR SIR: "I wish to resign to you all claim I may have to a joint interest in Mr. Maxwell's piece, and to withdraw from the company formed for its representation. I feel that my part in it has been made secondary to another, and I have finally decided to relinquish it altogether. I trust that you will be able to supply my place, and I offer you my best wishes for the success of your enterprise.
"You see," said the manager, putting the letter back in its envelope, "it's Miss Havisham. I saw some signs of what was coming at the rehearsals, but I didn't think it would take such peremptory shape." "Why, but he was here only a few hours ago, praising her to the skies," said Louise; and she hoped that she was keeping secret the guilty joy she felt; but probably it was not unknown to her husband. "Oh, of course," said Grayson, with a laugh, "that was Godolphin's way. He may have felt all that he said; or he may have been trying to find out what Mr. Maxwell thought, and whether he could count upon him in a move against her." "We said nothing," cried Louise, and she blessed heaven that she could truly say so, "which could possibly be distorted into that." "I didn't suppose you had," said the manager. "But now we have got to act. We have got to do one of two things, and Godolphin knows it; we have got to let Miss Havisham go, or we have got to let him go. For my part I would much rather let him go. She is a finer artist every way, and she is more important to the success of the piece. But it would be more difficult to replace him than it would be to replace her, and he knows it. We could get Miss Pettrell at once for Salome, and we should have to look about for a Haxard. Still, I am disposed to drop Godolphin, if Mr. Maxwell feels as I do." He looked at Maxwell; but Louise lowered her eyes, and would not influence her husband by so much as a glance. It seemed to her that he was a long time answering. "I am satisfied with Godolphin's Haxard much better than I am with Miss Havisham's Salome, strong as it is. On the artistic side alone, I should prefer to keep Godolphin and let her go, if it could be done justly. Then, I know that Godolphin has made sacrifices and borne losses on account of the play, and I think that he has a right to a share in its success, if it has a chance of succeeding. He's jealous of Miss Havisham, of course; I could see that from the first minute; but he's earned the first place, and I'm not surprised he wants to keep it. I shouldn't like to lose it if I were he. I should say that we ought to make any concession he asks in that way." "Very well," said Grayson. "He will ask to have our agreement with Mrs. Harley broken; and we can say that we were compelled to break it. I feel as you do, that he has some right on his side. She's a devilish provoking woman--excuse me, Mrs. Maxwell!--and I've seen her trying to take the centre from Godolphin ever since the rehearsals began; but I don't like to be driven by him; still, there are worse things than being driven. In any case we have to accept the inevitable, and it's only a question of which inevitable we accept. Good-night. I will see Godolphin at once. Good-night, Mrs. Maxwell. We shall expect you to do what you can in consoling your fair neighbor and reconciling _her_ to the inevitable." Louise did not know whether this was ironical or not, and she did not at all like the laugh from Maxwell which greeted the suggestion. "_I_ shall have to reconcile Sterne, and I don't believe that will be half so easy." The manager's words were gloomy, but there was an imaginable relief in his tone and a final cheerfulness in his manner. He left the Maxwells to a certain embarrassment in each other's presence. Louise was the first to break the silence that weighed upon them both. "Brice, did you decide that way to please me?" "I am not such a fool," said Maxwell. "Because," she said, "if you did, you did very wrong, and I don't believe any good could come of it." Yet she did not seem altogether averse to the risks involved; and in fact she could not justly accuse herself of what had happened, however devoutly she had wished for such a consummation. _ |
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