“I’ve been banished forever from her presence—because I sent no flowers,” he laughed. “However, she told me to get you and take you out for the day—she can’t keep her June day custom of visiting me at the lodge and you are appointed proxy. Come along, you look ready for a frolic.”
Thurley raced into her bedroom and tilted her hat over one eye. “My word, it will be good to go somewhere. Imagine coming back from the mountains bubbling with excitement and finding the trip delayed for days. If it had been hours I would not have minded—but days—”
“And you’ve never been across, have you?” he asked sympathetically.
“Oh, never,” she answered in despair. “You don’t think Ernestine will give up the trip, do you?”
“Not as bad as that, because she has persuaded Collin to wait the week as well. It might be worse. All set, are you? First, I’ve some errands and then we’ll shoot out to the lodge and I’ll feed you the best strawberries floating in the richest cream you ever tasted.”
Thurley found bromidic enjoyment in Caleb’s country place. It was refreshing in its air of order. She felt that to be a commercialized artist had compensations, at least it enabled one to acquire what one wished of true art and appreciate it all the more by contrast with one’s own attempts!
Returning to the hotel, she found a note from Ernestine saying she had “come out of it” sufficiently to engage passage for the following Tuesday and she hoped Thurley would never mention Silverheels to her nor invite tragedy herself by acquiring a pet.
Thurley lay awake that hot summer’s night—the nearness of the vacation did not delight her over-much. Instead, she was thinking of herself as contrasted with Bliss, Collin, Ernestine, Caleb—even Polly. For there was a difference of birthright between these persons and herself. With a burning sense of discontent yet enforced honesty, Thurley realized that she had in herself a strain of sturdy peasantry; these others were more gently born—there was a difference in the way they spoke, dressed—she felt too superlative and over-insisting in comparison. She wondered whether in time she would acquire the atmosphere of gentle breeding which these persons possessed. Lissa had somewhat the same strain as herself—and she prayed she would not become like Lissa.
The difference between the peasant and the patrician, Thurley concluded, after restless reflection, was that the peasant cannot endure pain, physical or mental, as well as he can stand hardships, lack of the niceties of existence, whereas the patrician can endure anguish but he cannot tolerate discomfort. A poorly fitting or coarse gown would prevent Ernestine from playing her best, whereas Thurley could sing in calico, standing on the steps of her old box-car wagon. Ernestine could “rescue” herself from suffering, a sort of diking away of any too engulfing emotion, whereas, if Thurley’s heart was aching or her mental state disturbed, she would not sing—she was like a wood beastie wanting to dart into deep forests and hide indefinitely.
Thurley had begun to long for ancestors, she admitted with a sigh; to possess portraits of spinsters with crumbling lace fichus and slim, white hands—Aunt so-and-so or Grandmother and Grandfather Precore! She wanted heirlooms, some tangible evidence of a family. Winter circus quarters with the pretended family recalled themselves to her with scant comfort. She was so young and promising and she was to spend her life singing for the world and not for any one loved person! There had been Dan who wanted her to sing for just himself. Had she loved Dan as Lorraine did, she would have been content to have it so. She would have married Dan by now, the new house would be glowing with rosy shaded lamps, passers-by would halt their teams to listen to Thurley singing to her husband ... but that was not the way it was to be. If only some kind spirit with the power to release vows and wave a wand to change things about could do so and create such a house as Dan planned for her and yet have Bliss Hobart be its master and Thurley its mistress—how very silly and stupid would New York and opera seem, all these over-smart and cynical persons with self-consciousness their dominating note and selfish egotism their guardian angel! She would sing for her husband and work to please him. And how simple was the big rule of life, Thurley thought, as she sat up among the pillows, sleep the furthest from her thoughts: Love some one and have some one love you and make everything else resultant and interdependent! She sank back slowly—for she had promised never to marry and in so doing it had come about that she should meet the person whom she would have married had he been a steam-riveter! Ernestine and Europe seemed phantoms—she was not interested. Nor was she interested in Dan and Lorraine and their future. She was unconscious of everything except that Bliss Hobart treated her for the most part impersonally, disappearing without explanation although the Buddha still stayed on his desk.