Part 45 (1/2)
”That will be lovely, dear. Lucy wrote me when she was there on her wedding trip that she used to sit for hours in the corridor looking at the people that went by, and that it was as good as a play.”
”That settles it. I'll telegraph for rooms,” he said cheerfully, relieved to find that she fell in so readily with his suggestion.
She was giving a last caressing pat to the tray before closing the trunk, and the look of her thin hands, with their slightly swollen knuckles, caused him to lean forward suddenly and wrest the keys away from her.
”Let me do that. I hate to see you stooping,” he said.
The telegram was sent, and late the next evening, as they rolled through the brilliant streets towards the hotel, Virginia's interest was as effervescent as if she were indeed the girl that she almost felt herself to have become. The sound of the streets excited her like martial music, and little gasps of surprise and pleasure broke from her lips as the taxicab turned into Broadway. It was all so different from her other visit when she had come alone to find Oliver, sick with failure, in the dismal bedroom of that hotel. Now it seemed to her that the city had grown younger, that it was more awake, that it was brighter, gayer, and that she herself had a part in its brightness and its gaiety. The crowds on Broadway seemed keeping step to some happy tune, and she felt that her heart was dancing with them, so elated, so girlishly irresponsible was her mood.
”Why, Oliver, there is a sign of your play with a picture of Miss Oldcastle on it!” she exclaimed delightedly, pointing to an advertis.e.m.e.nt before a theatre they were pa.s.sing. Then, suddenly, it appeared to her that the whole city was waving this advertis.e.m.e.nt.
Wherever she turned ”The Home” stared back at her, an orgy of red and blue surrounding the smiling effigy of the actress. And this proof of Oliver's fame thrilled her as she had not been thrilled since the telegram had come announcing that Harry had won the scholars.h.i.+p which would take him to Oxford. The woman's power of sinking her ambition and even her ident.i.ty into the activities of the man was deeply interwoven with all that was essential and permanent in her soul. Her keenest joys, as well as her sharpest sorrows, had never belonged to herself, but to others. It was doubtful, indeed, if, since the day of her marriage, she had been profoundly moved by any feeling which was centred merely in a personal desire. She had wanted things for Oliver and for the children, but for herself there had been no separate existence apart from them.
”Oliver, I never dreamed that it would be like this. The play will be a great success--even a greater one than the last, won't it, dear?” Her face, with its exquisite look of exaltation, of self-forgetfulness, was turned eagerly towards the crowd of feverish pleasure-seekers that pa.s.sed on, pursuing its little joys, under the garish signs of the street.
”Well, it ought to be,” he returned; ”it's bad enough anyway.”
His eyes, like hers, were fixed on the thronging streets, but, unlike hers, they reflected the restless animation, the pathetic hunger, which made each of those pa.s.sing faces appear to be the plastic medium of an insatiable craving for life. Handsome, well-preserved, a little over-coloured, a little square of figure, with his look of worldly importance, of a.s.sured material success, he stood to-day, as Cyrus had stood a quarter of a century ago, as an imposing example of that Treadwell spirit from which his youth had revolted.
That night, when they had finished dinner, and Oliver, in response to a telephone message, had hurried down to the theatre, Virginia went upstairs to her room, and, after putting on the lavender silk dressing-gown which Miss w.i.l.l.y had made for the occasion, sat down to write her weekly letter to Harry.
MY DARLING BOY.
I know you will be surprised to see from this letter that I am really in New York at last--and at the Waldorf! It seems almost like a dream to me, and whenever I shut my eyes, I find myself forgetting that I am not in Dinwiddie--but, you remember, your father had always promised me that I should come for the first night of his new play, which will be acted to-morrow. You simply can't imagine till you get here how famous he is and how interested people are in everything about him, even the smallest trifles.
Wherever you look you see advertis.e.m.e.nts of his plays (he has three running now) and coming up Broadway for only a block or two last night, I am sure that I saw Miss Oldcastle's picture a dozen times.
I should think she would hate dreadfully to have to make herself so conspicuous--for she has a nice, refined face--but Oliver says all actresses have to do it if they want to get on. He takes all the fuss they make over him just as if he despised it, though I am sure that in his heart he can't help being pleased. While we were having dinner, everybody in the dining-room was turning to look at him, and if I hadn't known, of course, that not a soul was thinking of me, I should have felt badly because I hadn't time to change my dress after I got here. All the other women were beautifully dressed (I never dreamed that there were so many diamonds in the world. Miss w.i.l.l.y would simply go crazy over them), but I didn't mind a bit, and if anybody thought of me at all, of course, they knew that I had just stepped off the train. After dinner your father went to the theatre, and I sat downstairs alone in the corridor for a while and watched the people coming and going. It was perfectly fascinating at first. I never saw so many beautiful women, and their hair was arranged in such a lovely way, all just alike, that it must have taken hours to do each head. The fas.h.i.+ons that are worn here are not in the least like those of Dinwiddie, though Miss w.i.l.l.y made my black brocade exactly like one in a fas.h.i.+on plate that came directly from Paris, but I know that you aren't as much interested in this as Lucy and Jenny would be. The dear girls are both well, and Lucy is carried away with her stepchildren. She says she doesn't see why every woman doesn't marry a widower. Isn't that exactly like Lucy? She is always so funny. If only one of you were here with me, I should enjoy every minute, but after I'd sat there for a while in the midst of all those strangers, I began to feel a little lonely, so I came upstairs to write you this letter. New York is a fascinating place to visit, but I am glad I live in Dinwiddie where everybody knows me.
And now, my dearest boy, I must tell you how perfectly overjoyed I was to get your last letter, and to know that you are so delighted with Oxford. I think of you every minute, and I pray for you the last thing at night before I get into bed. Try to keep well and strong, and if you get a cold, be sure not to let it run on till it turns to a hacking cough. Remember that Doctor Fraser always used to say that every cough, no matter how slight, is dangerous. I hope you aren't studying too hard or overdoing athletics. It is so easy to tax one's strength too much when one gets excited. I am sure I don't know what to think of the English students being ”standoffish” with Americans. It seems very foolish of them not to be nice and friendly, especially to Virginians, who were really English in the beginning. But I am glad that you don't mind, and that you would rather be a countryman of George Was.h.i.+ngton than a countryman of George the Third. Of course England is the greatest country in the world--you remember your grandfather always said that--and we owe it everything that we have, but I think it very silly of English people to be stiff and ill-mannered.
I hope you still read your Bible, darling, and that you find time to go to church once every Sunday. Even if it seems a waste of time to you, it would have pleased your grandfather, and for his sake I hope you will go whenever you can possibly do so. It was so sweet of you to write in Addison's Walk because you did not want to miss my Sunday letter and yet the day was too beautiful not to be out of doors. G.o.d only knows, my boy, what a comfort you are to me. There was never a better son nor one who was loved more devotedly.
YOUR MOTHER.
In the morning, with the breakfast tray, there arrived a bunch of orchids from one of Oliver's theatrical friends, who had heard that his wife was in town; and while Virginia laid the box carefully in the bathtub, her eyes shone with the grateful light which came into them whenever some one did her a small kindness or courtesy.
”They will be lovely for me to wear to-night, Oliver. It was so nice of him to send them, wasn't it?”
”Yes, it was rather nice,” Oliver replied, looking up from his paper at the pleased sound of her voice. Ever since his return at a late hour last night, she had noticed the nervousness in his manner and had sympathetically attributed it to his anxiety about the fate of his play.
It was so like Oliver to be silent and self-absorbed when he was anxious.
Through the day he was absent, and when he returned, in the evening, to dress for the theatre, she was standing before the mirror fastening the bunch of orchids on the front of her gown. As he entered, she turned toward him with a look of eager interest, of pleasant yet anxious excitement. She had never in her life, except on the morning of her wedding day, taken so long to dress; but it seemed to her important that as Oliver's wife she should look as nice as she could.
”Am I all right?” she asked timidly, while she cast a doubtful glance in the mirror at the skirt of the black brocade.
”Yes, you're all right,” he responded, without looking at her, and the suppressed pain in his voice caused her to move suddenly toward him with the question, ”Aren't you well, Oliver?”
”Oh, I'm well, but I'm tired. I had a headache on the way up and I haven't been able to shake it off.”
”Shall I get you something for it?”