Mummers in Mufti/Chapter 25

OW, this is my idea," said Charlie Barnes earnestly. "You 've got the girl in the garden but as yet you don't know what you want to do with her. Do you see what I mean?"

He looked up. Bellsmith and Pete Surdam, sitting at opposite sides of the table, in Bellsmith's library, nodded gravely. From the long windows the November sunlight flickered down, pale lemon in color, on the huge patterns of the old fashioned carpet. In the hall outside William pattered briskly to the front door, took in a circular from the Blue Method Laundry Co., and pattered back down the hall again.

Charlie Barnes tapped a very thin, very soiled budget of type-script which lay on the table before him, done up in blue legal covers. As he had pointed out on the previous Sunday evening, it was the nearest thing which had ever existed to a complete "book" of "Eleanor" and, little as it was, most of it had become obsolete before it had even been put in rehearsal. Beside it stood a very much higher pile of orchestral music in manuscript, each number separate in a loose brown folder. On the floor were stacked the original furnishings of Bellsmith's library table: a Bagdad scarf in gilt threads, a small statuette from Pompeii, a brass paper-knife, a colossal edition of the "Divina Commedia" with steel engravings after Gustave Doré, and a small green voltune, "The Letters of John Quincy Adams," which had been put there by a casual house-maid in 1882 and had remained there by rigid precedent ever since.

"The trouble with this thing," insisted Barnes, tapping the thin blue book, "is that it really never gets anywhere. Now, in that garden scene, what we 've got to do is to fasten some crime on Tommy Knight, something bad enough so that it will get him in Dutch with the girl and her people but not bad enough so that it will make him lose the sympathy of the audience, if you see what I mean. We don't want any old stuff, like this business of stealing the duchess's emeralds. We want to think up some new and original crime, something that might really get a decent chap into trouble."

"Shooting rail-birds at high tide," suggested Bellsmith, "or keeping hogs inside the city limits."

Surdam looked across the table with a grin, but Charlie Barnes did not even glance up. As already noted, Charlie Barnes had little use for humor outside of his profession. "But look here, Charlie," proposed Surdam, "why not fasten that crime on you, instead of on Tommy? The way your part is now, you 're supposed to be a pathetic, helpless old fool and nobody would blame you very much whatever you did. Then, since you 're sort of an old retainer, Tommy could know you did it but he could be willing to take all the blame for it rather than squeal."

Barnes sat for a moment transfixed, making sure that the idea was valid before he accepted it.

"By George! I believe you're right," he said at last. "Now we 've got the whole key to the story."

Surdam had a way of smiling faintly without really changing expression.

"And as to that," continued Surdam, "what we 've got to do right now is get ahead with the numbers. You can dope out the plot and the comedy whenever you please. What I want is something that I can rehearse with those loafers down town. If we don't give them something to do pretty soon they 'll get so soft they can't even dance. Not that they ever could anyway."

This comical suggestion met with no response, and Surdam himself was obliged to continue with the business before the meeting.

"How many of Maida Maine's songs did you intend to give to Tilly Marshall? All of them?"

Barnes did not reply directly.

"When is Miss Marshall going to be able to work again?" he asked.

The form of the question showed that it was intended for Bellsmith and both men looked at him with a certain diplomatic hesitation. Bellsmith cleared his throat.

"The doctor won't give any direct answer," he replied, "but I think you can count on the middle of December." "Does she know what's happened yet?"

Bellsmith shook his head. "Not unless the doctor has told her."

It did not seem a very promising state of affairs to Surdam, but both he and Barnes showed a certain delicacy by getting away from the subject swiftly. Both turned to the blue book on the table with officious briskness. Yet the leading rôle of the piece could hardly be avoided indefinitely, and Surdam was forced to come back to it eventually.

"The trouble is," he said slowly, "that I frankly don't believe that Miss Marshall can sing all those songs."

He evidently decided to get the delicate subject over once and for all and turned squarely to Bellsmith.

"Do you—honestly?" he questioned.

Bellsmith looked down at the table and fingered the edges of the pile of music.

"No," he admitted, "I don't know that she can."

His answer seemed to take a certain weight off the minds of both of the others, and in an access of good nature Barnes hastened to fill in the gap.

"And I don't believe that she'd want to, if she could," he added. "Look here."

With his hands held stiffly he began to measure off little equal distances on the table, like a man placing dominoes.

"Now, look here," he repeated, "the trouble with this whole show has been that all the numbers were just plunked down, one after the other, like a vaudeville or an olio. I 've been lying awake nights over this thing. I did even before we busted. The trouble is that we 've got about ninety-five more songs than we want, anyway. The way they are now they only just kill each other. The song numbers are like the book—all bla. What we want to do is to get one single song and hammer and hammer and hammer it in—build up the whole show around it."

Barnes turned professionally to Surdam, leaving Bellsmith out of it for the moment.

"You know the 'Eve' song?" he asked.

Surdam nodded.

"Well, Tilly—Miss Marshall—can sing that song all right." "Good song for her," agreed Surdam.

Barnes turned and translated for Bellsmith. "Do you happen to remember a song 'way at the end of the second act, 'Ah, Women, All Daughters of Eve'?"

"I remember it very well," replied Bellsmith. "It's pretty."

"Pretty?" snorted Barnes, outraged to the depths of his soul. "It's a beauty! It's a gem! Worked right, that song's enough to make a show all by itself. But where is it now! It's lost. It does n't come until people are putting on their hats and coats to go home. Nobody ever hears it."

For added force Barnes began to tap the blue booklet. "Now there's your song. Furthermore, it's just the star song for Miss Marshall. A pure soubrette song, that is. It was never any song for Maida Maine, anyway. A great big amazon of a woman like her never had any business to sing it. Is n't that so, Pete?"

Surdam nodded.

"Now here's my dope," said Barnes. "I want you to listen." For a long moment the little man sat absolutely motionless, his mouth puckered into a distorted little circle, his eyes fixed on the opposite wall. One finger began to tap softly on the table.

"First of all," he began, "that song ought to be played in the overture. That would get it into people's heads, and then when they first heard it in the show they'd have a vague idea that they'd heard it before. See! And that's the biggest pull any song can have.

"Then," continued Barnes, "that song should be played to introduce Tilly's entrance and she should come in singing it, so that whenever people see Tilly they 'll think of that song and whenever they hear the song they 'll think of Tilly. At her first entrance she'd sing it to Tommy, sort of leaning over and tantalizing and wistful—so! You understand that that's before they 've had their quarrel. Everything is all honey.

"Then we can string that song along in the dances—octet and then the whole gang. Pound it in and pound it in and pound it in until the biggest blockhead in the whole house won't ever forget it. See what I mean?"

Surdam nodded, and even Bellsmith was becoming slowly fascinated by the crude structure which was beginning to form itself before his mind.

"Then they quarrel!" announced Barnes. "Tommy gets in disgrace. Regular quarrel. Never going to see each other again. Tilly pouts up her nose in the air. Tommy turns—all sorrowful. Going off to Australia or somewhere. Then slowly that same damn tune begins to creep up over the footlights again, and this time it is Tommy who stops, listens. Then he begins to sing it, 'Ah, Women, All Daughters of Eve!'—sarcastic at first, then sad and drooping—so! He is n't to blame, but still he won't go back on his word. He's just reproachful. Sorrowful. Get me? So off goes Tommy, right in the middle of the song, still singing it, his voice growing farther and farther away in the distance.

Then bing! The whole bunch comes on laughing and chattering: that's the way it is now, you remember. But I would n't leave it that way. Now, here's the joker. Here's the kick. I'd bring on the bunch all right and have Tilly mix around among them, laughing and gayer than all the rest, trying to fight down her tears. But then! instead of making that the curtain, as it is now, I'd shoot the whole bunch right off again—'We 're all going to the Casino.' See? "That would leave Tilly all alone in the little garden. You remember, Pete, at the end of that act there's a fine, mellow sunlight effect on the wall! And a row of hollyhocks and old-fashioned flowers down in front of it?

"Now, then! Tilly's all alone again—all the bunch gone—silence. End of the act is coming. Now she begins to think of Tommy. Wishes she had n't acted as she did. Then slowly up begins to creep a strain of that song again, thin as a needle. Of course it's really a muted violin, but it's supposed to be Tilly's thoughts—memories.

"She stops. She's sort of scared. Listens. Never moves a step. Stands there through one whole verse. Not a word. Not a note. Just droops her head. Then slowly she picks up one single flower. Looks at it for a minute. Then slowly drops it again. And there's your curtain!"

The little man stopped abruptly, the tears glistening in his eyes, and Bellsmith himself was feeling rather queer. Opposite, Surdam was gazing fixedly at the table.

Barnes, however, was not nearly through.

"That's the first act," he announced. "Now the second act is evening. On the terrace. Outside the Casino. Ocean over there. But the way it is now it just starts right in. There they all are. Just happen to be there.

"Now," continued Barnes, "what I'd do would be this: Keep the terrace scene all right, just as it is—evening dresses, Japanese lanterns, all that sort of thing. But I'd bring in a little fragment of flower-garden on the terrace, just enough of it to give the idea and just enough of a wall to give a background, make you think of the first act. See! Furthermore, I would n't have it really evening at the start but just the last end of sunset—pink in the sky—just getting dark. Understand? Costumes just the same, people all dressed for the ball, coming in and out of the garden. Then right away it grows darker and darker, moonlight, Japanese lanterns, and so on."

Surdam was about to speak but Barnes held up his hand.

"Wait a minute," he commanded. "Wait till I tell you what I 've got in mind."

Surdam obeyed and Barnes continued.

"Now you remember," he said, "that the end of the first act was just that thin thread of music and Tilly standing before the wall. She'd dropped a flower. Between that and the second act we 've got to think of the entr'acte music. All they do now is just play an arrangement of all the first act songs which run over into the second. I'd can that. Can it completely. Can 'em all. Just keep that one big song, 'Ah, Women, All Daughters of Eve.'

"In the music of the entr'acte, I'd pick up that air from just where it was dropped at the first curtain. Build up the whole entr'acte around it just like an opera. Start first with little, quavering, distant violin notes, pick up one instrument after another—always that song. Play it in three or four keys, play it in half a dozen different ways, building up one on the other. Toy with it. Throw it and catch it like a ball. Have the strings play it, then the wood winds, then maybe even the drums and trombones, booming it out. Play it first soft and wistful, then faster and mocking. Then play it stiff and funny, almost like a stifflegged jig. Then have two sets of instruments play it against each other, almost in discord. Then back to slow and wistful, just a thin thread again. Then Pete, up goes your curtain and there's Tilly again, standing before a wall. But, this time, she stoops and picks up a flower—get me?—and as she holds it and keeps it the same faint music begins to rise up, growing up stronger and stronger. Then, of course, the act goes on."

Barnes stopped proudly and looked around in happy defiance, but neither of the others had a word to say.

"That's good dope, Charlie," commented Surdam at last, "but is n't there anybody in this show except Tilly Marshall?"

Barnes laughed curtly. "Don't you worry about that. Tommy's provided for, and I always write most of my own stuff, anyway. So far as I'm concerned you 've got the idea. I'm the old goop that Tommy gets into trouble for, the old gardener or something. But I can tell you this, Pete, that I'm not going to play it the way I've had to play my old part in 'Eleanor.' There ought to be pathos in that part of mine, and, now that there's no Walter Gay to kick me in the pants, it's pathos I'm going to get out of it."

But the little man never lost sight of his original issue. He turned to Bellsmith.

"Say, Mr. Bellsmith, do you think you could play over that 'Eve' song? I want Pete to listen to something. You need n't bother whether you get it just right or not. Just the air is all I want to show him."

Bellsmith had almost acquired Surdam's trick of smiling without showing it.

"I think so," he said.

He sorted through the tall stack of orchestral music, drew out a violin part, glanced through it swiftly, then, discarding it, took the conductor's score. Surdam watched him with a sudden surprised interest, but when Bellsmith rose and went to the grand piano in the drawing-room he made no move to follow. Lighting a cigarette, the stage-manager was content to put his feet on the table and gaze luxuriously around the big library. Pete Surdam found consolation in life no matter for whom he was working.

Charlie Barnes, for his part, could never endure the idea of being anywhere except at the very center of operations. He followed at Bellsmith's heels like a fretting little terrier, and as Bellsmith sat down and spread out the score he stood two inches behind him, breathing heavily on his neck, hoping, no doubt to encourage him.

At the first rich, easy arpeggio, however, on what really was one of the finest pianos ever built in America, Bellsmith was aware that even Surdam was stirring out of his lethargy in the other room, and a moment later he came in to join them.

The whole song was entirely in the strings at the bottom of the page, the other parts being little more than vamping. It was simple enough to see four straight parts, but as he went on into a second chorus Bellsmith found a mild amusement in doing a little borrowing. He ended on a new finale of his own, and then turned to where Barnes and Surdam were now sitting on yellow silk chairs at opposite sides of the long room. The two men were looking at each other with very odd expressions.

The comedian turned to Bellsmith. "Say, mister!" he exclaimed, "nobody's got very much to teach you, have they?"

Bellsmith looked down and began to run over the keys. There is no use of saying that he did n't like it.

Barnes turned back to Surdam. "Now, Pete, see what I mean? Could n't that song be a winner?"

Surdam nodded non-committally, but Barnes, determined not to let enthusiasm die, called over to Bellsmith.

"Say, Mr. Bellsmith, could n't you play that song again and do monkey-shines with it?"

Bellsmith had heard worse names for improvisation. He turned willingly enough to the keyboard, and indeed he needed no better chart for a rough symphonic scheme than that which Barnes had already given him. He whipped off a crashing and formal introduction, then gradually worked into a broad synoptic suggestion of the little air. Then with augmenting progressions he sketched out a clearer and clearer tone picture of the air itself, building it up and up with balanced, contrasted treatments to a powerful leaping finale based on his own introduction. He stopped completely then hastily remembered Barnes's own idea for the second act curtain. With one hand he drew out a little thin thread of the simple air, leaving it suspended and expectant.

"Is that what you mean?" he asked.

He turned, and the little comedian breathed a huge sigh.

"George! that's fine!" he exclaimed. "It's got me all excited. Now I want to get to work on my own part George! Mr. Bellsmith, I wish there was such a thing as comedian music!"

Bellsmith smiled. "Well, maybe there is."

He sat a minute ruminating over the keyboard; then turned again.

"I have a large idea," he announced.

As Surdam and Barnes watched him with curious interest he stood up and, reaching over into the instrument lightly muted the lowest E, A, and D strings with the tips of his fingers. When the keys were struck it made them sound amazingly like a bass viol, pizzicato. With his left hand still muting the strings, Bellsmith played sketchily the idea which had been lingering in his mind, for a week, of "The Policeman's Sonata."

With his fingers still on the strings, Bellsmith looked over his shoulder to Barnes.

"What does that sound like?" he asked.

Barnes grinned. "George! it sounds like me!"

Excitedly he rose to his feet and began a funny little bow-legged walk, while Bellsmith played through the sketch again.

"That can be your motif," he remarked. "One could work that into the overture too. Play it every time you made an entrance."

"It's a man with a wooden leg!" shouted Barnes gleefully. "I 've got it! I 've got it!"

"Yes, but we ought to have something to play against you," said Bellsmith.

He sat down again, and as he worked into quaint little trills in upper octaves, the querulous tenor picture of William began to form itself in the music, playing back and forth against the bass policeman. It was William then and for some time after, but eventually this upper part, on squealing clarinets, became the motif for Celestine Trip, the heavy woman, in the part of the badgering, hectoring, wealthy old duchess, the employer of the pathetic, comic gardener, always pursuing him but never quite catching him.

"Wonderful! Wonderful!" applauded Barnes. "Say, Mr. Bellsmith, if we got Jake Ziegler, the leader of the orchestra, up here to help you, do you think you could write that down?"

"I think so," admitted Bellsmith, "and if he won't there is a kindly old gentleman in town who will."

"In the meantime," suggested Surdam, "let's get back to that book and decide on just what numbers we 're going to leave in and what we 're going to leave out."

With a sense of glory enough for the afternoon Bellsmith followed him into the library, but Barnes remained behind at the piano, trying to pick out "The Policeman's Sonata" with one stubby forefinger. It was not very successful.

Surdam, the stage-manager, apparently had two voices and two manners, one, rather non-committal, which he used when any of his company were present and one, more frank and informal, into which he dropped whenever they were not. He relaxed immediately into this more informal tone as Bellsmith and he sat down again at the library table. He nodded toward the tall pile of scores.

"Mr. Bellsmith, what do you think of that music, anyway?"

Bellsmith did not reply for a moment. He had the usual fear of seeming pedantic. Very much as Barnes had done with the blue book, he ruffled the edges of the scores. "Well," he confessed at last, "the chief thing that's the matter with all this is that nothing's the matter with it. So much of it sounds as if it had been taken out of Czerny's studies and put into ragtime."

The stage-manager grinned. "Well, you 're not so far away from the truth at that."

Encouraged, Bellsmith went on, still looking down at the table.

"Music like that has always been a puzzle to me. There's only one number in that whole score that is n't written in four-four time or two-four, and that's in rapid six-eight. Fundamentally there's nothing but marches. Why can't they shake them up? Why don't they mix their speeds, so to speak! Why not a waltz or two, or some other song rhythm?"

Surdam lit a fresh cigarette and blew the smoke at the ceiling. "Oh, that's their idea," he said. "They say waltzes are dead. They believe that every song must be one you can twist into a fox-trot. I suppose in the end we 'll have to play safe just as they do."

But a certain vigor had come into Bellsmith during the last few minutes, as it had into Barnes.

"Look here," he commanded, borrowing what was apparently the company's password. "This music was made deliberately rotten to draw the public, and it failed to draw them. The show can't fail very much worse if we make it good."

"That same idea," drawled Surdam, "was just creeping over me. But you are the one who is risking the money. Heaven knows I don't put out stupid shows just for the fun of it."

"Well," said Bellsmith, "one might as well be hanged for a sheep as a lamb. Go ahead. We 'll do as we jolly well please, then see what happens."