A Pasteboard Crown: A Story of the New York Stage

by Clara Morris

So, acting at once upon that idea, he fell back upon the perennial "business telegram" excuse, tore himself away from his jovial companions, and returned to the oven-like city, from which wild horses could not have dragged Mrs. Van Camp until August, when she left with a heavy heart and "wholly in the interest of appearances," she said. He arranged with the old lady for a business chat with her god-daughter next day but one and spent the intervening time superintending the movements of a brigade of cleaners, painters, and paper-hangers whom he had sent charging through the closed theatre—the cleaners routing out dust and dirt from stairs and floors and long-dimmed windows, the painters following and covering up head-marks, finger-marks, scratches, or bruises appearing on the white woodwork and retouching the gilding where it had darkened or worn thin; while the paper-hangers made the boxes not only fresh but most attractive to women, through hanging them with the dull, lustreless velvet paper that makes such a perfect background for a careful toilette and its lovely wearer.

It was a dreary job, for surely one can find no more desolate and melancholy place in a great city than a theatre seen by daylight. From the front of the house one receives an impression of loss. The sight of an empty chair is saddening—here are a thousand of them. This dimness and vastness, this gilding and crystal and metal that does not glisten nor glitter. The depressing silence of checked music, of vanished laughter—even an actor shivers at sight of the auditorium of a closed theatre; it is like looking on the face of a dead pleasure. But to turn about and look at the stage is even worse, so distressingly complete is the betrayal of its shabby deceptions. It is as though an admired, brilliant, and successful liar stood there who had been found out and suddenly reduced to telling the bare, bald truth. No, a day in a closed theatre during the house-cleaning period is not an enlivening experience, and Thrall told himself that that was why he looked forward so eagerly to his late afternoon call at Mrs. Van Camp's, where he was to have his business chat with Sybil.

And then when he had arrived and was being effusively greeted by Mrs. Van Camp, a gracious young figure in a white linen gown came slowly out from the shadows of the darkened room, a red damask rose drowsing on her breast, and, smiling, waited to offer him greeting; and in that moment he knew his plan had failed—the second impression would not efface the first, because the real, the living face was fairer than his mental portrait of it.

So it happened that Mr. Thrall's manner toward this young would-be actress was one of dignity and reserve that was in sharp contrast to the gay freedom and almost boyish liberty of his conduct toward his ancient hostess, who did her fair share toward spoiling him. And not knowing the true cause of the swift change and difference, she could but consider him a very properly correct young man in his attitude as the manager of her namesake, Sybil Lawton; and therefore she withdrew into the far extension breakfast-room and conversed with a mumbling old parrot, who for thirty years had implored the people of his world to "scratch Polly's head," and had invariably rewarded the good Samaritan who heeded his appeal by biting viciously the hand that scratched.

Only an occasional artificial laugh from Polly reached to the dim parlor, whose white-matted floor, flowery chintz furniture covering, great Chinese screens, strange sea-shells, old portraits, and mighty china jars made a quaint eighteenth century sort of background for the white-gowned maiden with the dark, eager face, whom her father had lovingly likened to a June rose. And the ever-alert dramatic instinct of the actor-manager, working in seeming independence of the preoccupied mere man and naissant lover, took note of the room as a possible charming stage-setting for some new comedy. That instinct, keen, never sleeping, is one of the unpleasant traits in the make-up of a great actor; for there is no situation in life too sacred, no emotion even of his own heart too tender not to be "used" if it seems dramatic.

And so now, through the bald, forced questions with which he began his interview, like his dignified reserve of manner, were the result of a violent restraint, he was putting upon a sudden passionate longing—an idiotic impulse that had seized him at sight of Sybil, to take her head between his hands and bury his face in the warm darkness of her cloudy hair—even that struggle with impulse did not prevent the dramatic instinct of the stage-manager from taking note of surroundings.

Presently the calm and earnest answers of the girl and his own effort at self-control restored his poise, and his more gracious manner returned to him. He found that she was faithfully devoting herself to the small parts first; and in discussing the Shaksperian characters she put questions to him anent the meaning of certain passages that more than once "gave him pause" ere he could answer them. She even so far forgot her awe of him as manager as boldly to differ with the view he took of Desdemona's character, she declaring that a greater tragedy than mere physical murder would have come about had the fair Venetian lived longer.

"No! no!" cried Sybil, "she was not the doll you think her! High-born, high-bred, musician, artist, student, over-accomplished, over-cultivated—the intellect rebelled! Over-guarded, over-restrained, repressed—nature revolted. Othello, the splendid perfection of the animal-man looming in black majesty against a background of flame and smoke, glittering in harness, blazing with honors and orders, armed with barbaric weapons—his very power to destroy fascinated! Contrariety attracted and a great wave of passion swept the petted daughter of the Venetian senator into the arms of the Moorish warrior. But had she lived to regain her normal vision—to see her husband as the world saw him, merely a rough but very honest soldier, without tastes or even memories in common—she would have wearied of him and of their wandering life. She would have longed for the ease and luxury and refinement of old days. She would have sighed for the companionship of the learned and accomplished—and the beautiful "misunderstood," being no longer blind with passion, would probably have gone, girl fashion, to the other extreme and have loathed the blackness of her lord, while adoring, possibly, the whiteness of—y-e-s, there might be a worse tragedy than the dreadful murder of innocent Desdemona!"

"Oh!" exclaimed Sybil, in trepidation, for Thrall had broken into sudden, hearty laughter, "oh, are my ideas so bad as that? It's—it's horrid to be laughed at, but I suppose I have not expressed myself very clearly; only if Desdemona inherited the characteristics of her people, duplicity was as strong in her as love of luxury and appreciation of art—and a dead passion is a thing to conceal; and when concealment begins, duplicity may follow, may it not?"

She stopped suddenly; she had spoken rapidly, in impetuous self-defence. Now angry tears rushed to her eyes. "Oh," she cried, "I don't make you understand one bit! No wonder you laugh! Only I feel somehow that Desdemona's was not a love that would have lasted. But I'm punished for going out beyond my depth in argument. I won't do it again!"