Joan Thursday: A Novel

Interim, the task of whipping "The Lie" into shape went on so steadily that she had little leisure to waste wondering about Marbridge or feeling flattered by his interest; and she even ceased, except at odd moments, to regard Quard as a man and therefore a possible conquest: Gloucester drilled the actors without mercy and spared himself as little.

A pursy body, with the childish, moon-like face of a born comedian, he applied himself to the work with the extravagant solemnity of a minor poet mouthing his own perfumed verses at a literary dinner. During rehearsals his manner was immitigably austere, aloof, inspired; but however precious his methods, he achieved brilliant effects in the despised medium of clap-trap melodrama; and under his tutelage even Joan achieved surprising feats of emotional portrayal – and this, singularly enough, without learning to despise him as she had despised Wilbrow.

She learned what either Wilbrow had lacked the time to teach her or she had then been unable to learn: how to assume the requisite mood the moment she left the wings and drop it like a mask as soon as she came off-stage again. She was soon able to hate and fear Quard with every fibre of her being throughout their long scenes of dialogue, and to chat with him in unfeigned amiability both before and after. And her liking and admiration for the man deepened daily, as Gloucester deftly moulded Quard's plastic talents into a rude but powerful impersonation.

Partly because of the brevity of the little play, which enabled them to run through it several times of an afternoon as soon as they were familiar with its lines, and partly because Gloucester was hard up and in a hurry to collect his fee, the company was prepared well within the designated ten days. And through the agent Boskerk's influence, they were favoured with an early opportunity to present it at a "professional try-out" matinée, a weekly feature of one of the better-class moving-picture and vaudeville houses.

The audiences attracted by such trial performances are the most singular imaginable in composition, and of a temper the most difficult – with the possible exceptions of a London first-night house bent on booing whatever the merits of the offering, and a body of jaded New York dramatic critics and apathetic theatre loungers assembled for the fourth consecutive first-night of a week toward the end of a long, hard winter.

On Tuesday afternoons and nights (as a rule) they foregather in the "combination houses" of New York, animated (save for a sprinkling of agents and bored managers) by a single motive, the desire to laugh – preferably at, but at a pinch with, those attempting to win their approbation. Their sense of humour has been nourished on the sidewalk banana-peel, the slap-stick and the patch on the southern exposure of the tramp's trousers; and while they will accept with the silence of curiosity, if not of respect, and at times even applaud, straight "legitimate" acting, the slightest slip or evidence of hesitation on the part of an actor, the faintest suggestion of bathos in a line, or even the tardy adjustment of one of the wings after the rise of the curtain, will be hailed with shrieks of delight and derision.

Before an assemblage of this character, "The Distinguished Romantic Actor, Chas. H. Quard & Company," presented "The Lie" as the fifth number of a matinée bill.

Waiting in the wings and watching the stage-hands shift and manœuvre flats and ceiling, and arrange furniture and properties at the direction of the David (who doubled that rôle with the duties of stage manager) Joan listened to the dreadful wails of a voiceless vocalist who, on the other side of the scene-drop, was rendering with sublime disregard for key and tempo a ballad of sickening sentimentality; heard the feet of the audience, stamping in time, drown out both song and accompaniment, the subsequent roar of laughter and hand-clapping that signalized the retirement of the singer, and experienced, for the first and only time, premonitory symptoms of stage-fright.

Through what seemed a wait of several minutes after the disappearance of the despised singer – who, half-reeling, half-running, with tears furrowing her enameled cheeks, brushed past Joan on her way to her dressing-room – the applause continued, rising, falling, dying out and reviving in vain attempts to lure the object of its ridicule back to the footlights.

At a word from David, the stage-hands vanished, and at his nod Joan moved on. David seated himself and opened a newspaper while the girl, trembling, took up a position near a property fireplace, with an after-dinner coffee-cup and saucer in her hands. She was looking her best in the evening frock purchased for the week-end at Tanglewood, and was in full command of her lines and business; but there was a lump in her throat and a sickly sensation in the pit of her stomach as the cheap orchestra took up the refrain of a time-worn melody which had been pressed into service as curtain music.

Peering over the edge of his newspaper, David spoke final words of kindly counsel: "Don't you mind, whatever happens. Make believe they ain't no audience."

The house was quiet, now, and the music very clear.

Kneeling within the recess of the fireplace, almost near enough to touch her hand, Quard begged plaintively: "For the love of Gawd, don't let their kidding queer you, girlie. Remember, Boskerk promised he'd have Martin Beck out front!"

Joan nodded – gulped.

The curtain rose. Through the glare of footlights the auditorium was vaguely revealed, a vast and gloomy amphitheatre dotted with an infinite, orderly multitude of round pink spots, and still with the hush of expectancy. Joan thought of a dotted lavender foulard she had recently coveted in a department-store; and the ridiculous incongruity of this comparison in some measure restored her assurance. Turning her head slowly, she looked at David, who was properly intent on his newspaper, smiled, and parted her lips to speak the opening line.

From the gallery floated a shrill, boyish squeal:

"Gee! pipe the pippin!"

The audience rocked and roared. Joan's heart sank; then, suddenly, resentment kindled her temper; she grew coldly, furiously angry, and forgot entirely to be afraid of that stupid, bawling beast, the public. But her faint, charming smile never varied a fraction. Turning, she spoke the first line, heedless of the uproar; and as if magically it was stilled. A feeling of contempt and superiority further encouraged her. She repeated the words, which were of no special value to the plot – merely a trick of construction to postpone the ringing of a telephone-bell long enough to let the audience grasp the relationship of those upon the stage.

In a respectful silence, David looked up from the newspaper and replied. The telephone-bell rang. Turning to the instrument on the table beside him, he lifted the receiver to his ear and – the plot began to unfold.

David, the husband, in his suburban home, was being called to New York on unexpected business with a client booked to sail for Europe in the morning. It was night; reluctant to go, he none the less yielded to pressure, rang for the coachman and ordered a carriage, in the face of the protests of Joan, his wife. She was to be left alone in the house with their little son; for the maids were out and the coachman slept beyond call in the stable. Reassuring her with his promise to return at the earliest possible moment, David departed…

A brief and affectionate passage between the two was rendered inaudible by derisive laughter; but this was almost instantly silenced when Quard showed himself at a window in the back of the set, peering furtively in at the lonely woman in the unguarded house.

An excellent actor when properly guided, and fresh from the hands of one of the most astute producers connected with the American stage, without uttering a word Quard contrived to infuse into this first brief appearance at the window a sense of criminal and sinister mystery which instantly enchained the imagination of the audience.

In the tense silence of the house, the nervous gasp of a high-strung woman was distinctly audible. But it passed without eliciting a single hoot.

Darting round to the door, Quard entered and addressed Joan. She cried out strongly in mingled terror and horror. A few crisp and rapid lines uncovered the argument: Quard was the woman's first husband, who had married and deserted her all in a week and whom she had been given every reason to believe dead. Ashamed of that mad union with a dissolute blackguard, she had concealed it from the husband of her second marriage. Now she was confronted with the knowledge that her innocently bigamous position would be made public unless she submitted to blackmail. Promising in her torment to give the man all he demanded, she induced him to leave before the return of the servant… Alone she realized suddenly the illegitimacy of the child of her second marriage.

At this, a scene-curtain fell, and a notice was flashed upon it informing the audience that the short moment it remained down indicated a lapse of five hours in the action.

Already the interest of the audience had become so fixed that it applauded with sincerity.

Hurrying to her dressing-room, Joan stepped out of her pretty frock and into a negligee. The removal of a few pins permitted her hair to fall down her back, a long, thick, plaited rope of bronze. Then grasping a revolver loaded with blanks, she ran back to the second left entrance.

The scene-curtain was already up; on the stage, in semi-darkness, the Thief, having broken into the house by way of the back window, was attempting to force the combination of a small safe behind a screen… Quard, kneeling to peer through the fireplace, lifted a signalling hand to Joan. David stamped loudly, off-stage. In alarm, the Thief hid himself behind the screen; and Joan came on, with a line of soliloquy to indicate that she had been awakened by the noise of the burglar's entrance. As she turned up the lights by means of a wall-switch, Quard re-entered by way of the window, in a well-simulated state of semi-drunkenness which had ostensibly roused his distrust and brought him back to watch and threaten his wife anew…

Here happened one of those terrible blunders which seem almost inseparable from first performances.

As Joan wheeled round to recognize Quard, her hand nervously contracted on the revolver, and it exploded point-blank at Quard's chest. Had it been loaded he must inevitably have been killed then and there; and when, pulling himself together, Quard managed to go on with the business – springing upon Joan and wresting the weapon from her – the audience betrayed exquisite appreciation of the impossibility, and shrieked and whooped with joy unrestrained.

It was some minutes before they were able audibly to take up the dialogue. And this was fortunate, in a way; for the shock of that unexpected explosion had caused Quard to "dry up" – as the slang of the stage terms nervous dryness of the throat whether or not accompanied by forgetfulness. He required that pandemoniac pause in which to recover; and even when able to make himself heard, he repeated hoarsely and with extreme difficulty the line called to him by David– who was holding the prompt-book, in the fireplace.

But the instinct of one bred to the stage from childhood saved him. And with comparative quiet restored, he braced up and played out the scene with admirable verve and technique. Joan was well aware that, stronger though her rôle might be, the man was giving a performance that overshadowed it heavily.

He was drunk and he was brutal: David had telephoned that he was at the railroad station and would be home in a few minutes; Quard, not content with promises, insisted on money, of which the woman had none to give him, or her jewels, which were locked away in the safe. When she refused to disclose the combination or to open the safe, Quard in besotted rage attempted to force her to open it. Struggling, they overturned the screen, exposing the Thief. Through a breathless and silent instant the two men faced one another, Quard bewildered, the Thief seeing his way of escape barred. Then simultaneously they fired – Quard using the woman's revolver. One shot only took effect – the Thief's– and that fatally. Quard fell. Joan seized the arm of the Thief and urged him from the house; as he vanished through the window, she picked up the revolver which Quard had dropped, and turned to the door. Frantic with alarm, David entered. Joan reeled into his arms, screaming: "I have killed a burglar!"

On this tableau the curtain fell – and rose and fell again and again at the direction of the house-manager deferring to an enthusiastic audience. Crude and raw as was this composition, the surprise of its last line and the strength with which it was acted, had won the unstinted approval of a public ever hungry for melodrama.

Quard, revivified, bowing and smiling with suave and deprecatory grace, Joan in tears of excitement and delight, and the subordinate members of the company in varying stages of gratification over the prospect of prompt booking and a long engagement, were obliged to hold the stage through nine curtain-calls…

On her way back to her dressing-room Joan was halted by a touch on her shoulder. She paused, to recognize Gloucester, of whose presence in the house she had been ignorant.

"Very well done, my dear," he said loftily; "very well done. You've got the makings of an actress in you, if you don't lose your head. Now run along and dry your eyes, like a good girl, and don't bother me with your silly gratitude."

With this he brusquely turned his back to her.

But Quard, overtaking her in the gangway, without hesitation or apology folded her in his arms and kissed her on the lips. And Joan submitted without remonstrance, athrill and elate.

"Girlie!" he cried exultantly – "you're a wonder!

"I knew you could do it!.. But, O my Gawd! you nearly finished me when you let that gun off right in my face!.."

Somehow she found her way home alone, and shut herself up in the hall-bedroom to calm down and try to review the triumph sensibly.

Unquestionably she had done well.

Quard had done much better – but no wonder! She wasn't jealous: she was glad for his sake as well as for her own.

Of course, this meant a great change. There was to come the day of reckoning with Matthias… She had four letters of his, not one of which she had answered… If "The Lie" got booking, and she went on the road with it – as she knew in her soul she would: nothing now could keep her off the stage – she would almost certainly lose Matthias.

Quard, however, would remain to her; and of Quard she was very sure. That he loved her with genuine and generous devotion was now the one clear and indisputable fact in her unstable existence. If only he would refrain from drinking…

He was to telephone as soon as he received any encouraging news; and he had expected definite word from Boskerk before the afternoon was over. In anticipation of being called down-stairs at any minute, Joan remained in her street dress, aching for her bed though she was with reaction and simple fatigue. But it was nearly eight o'clock before she was summoned.

"That you, girlie?" the answer came to her breathless "Hello?"

"Yes – yes, Charlie. What is it?"

"I've seen Boskerk – in fact, I'm eating with him now. It's all settled. We're to open next Monday somewhere in New England – Springfield, probably; and we get forty weeks solid on top of that."