XXII
For two more balmy days they lingered, ecstatic children, by the sea; but on the third the air freshened. Laura Lou began to cough, and Vance, frightened, packed up their possessions and carried her back to civilization. He had made up his mind to give her twenty-four hours at a New York hotel, with a good evening at the movies or a cabaret show (should her imagination soar so high), after which—though he had not confessed it—he knew no more than she where they were going.
He had no pressing anxiety about money. His mind was teeming with visions, and in his state of overwrought bliss every dream seemed easy to capture and interpret. His preference would have been to sit down by the sea and write an immensely long poem; but he knew that Laura Lou, the inspirer of this desire, was also the insuperable obstacle to its fulfilment. He would write stories instead; after the acceptance of “Unclaimed” he felt no doubt that he could sell as many as he chose. And he had promised, as soon as possible after his marriage, to call on Tarrant, and talk over the plan of becoming a regular contributor to The Hour. Still, to live in New York with Laura Lou would be a costly if not impossible undertaking. She was as much of a luxury as an exotic bird or flower: that she might help him in wage earning or housekeeping had never entered his mind. He had simply wanted her past endurance, and now he had her; and exquisite as the possession was, he was abruptly faced with the cost of it.
He found a hotel showy enough to dazzle her without being too exorbitantly dear; and they had dinner in a sham marble restaurant where every masculine eye was turned to them, and she glowed in innocent enjoyment of the warmth and light, and the glory of sitting with him, as his wife, at a pink-candle-shaded table. Afterward, with a charming assumption of superiority, she decided on a theatre rather than the pictures. It was a good deal more expensive—but, hang it, he’d write another story: it was wonderful, how the unwritten stories were accumulating on the shelves of his mental library. It was he who selected the play: Romeo and Juliet, with a young actress, tragically lovely, as Juliet; and presently they were seated in the fashionable audience, Vance with mind and eye riveted on the stage, Laura Lou obviously puzzled by the queer words the actors used and the length of their speeches, and stealing covert glances (when what was going on became too incomprehensible) at the fashionable clothes and exquisitely waved heads all about them. Between the acts she sat silent, brimming with a happy excitement, her hand close in her husband’s, as if that contact were the only clue to life. As at the restaurant, many glances were drawn to her small head with its silvery-blonde ripples and the tender moulding of brow and cheek; but Vance saw that she was wholly unaware of attracting attention, and enclosed in his nearness as in a crystal world of her own.
Gradually this barrier was penetrated by what was happening on the stage: the beauty of the young actress, the compelling music of the words, seemed to stir in Laura Lou some confused sense of doom, and Vance felt her anguished clutch on his arm. “Oh, Vanny, I’m sure it’s going to end bad,” she whispered, and a tear formed on her lashes and trembled down.
“You darling—” he breathed back, wondering why on earth he had chosen Romeo and Juliet for a honeymoon outing; but when the tragedy rose and broke on them he saw that even her tears, now flowing in a silver stream, were part of the happiness in which she was steeped to the weeping lashes. “It’s too dreadful … it’s too lovely …” she moaned alternately as the play moved deathward, and with a furtive movement she dried her wet cheek against his sleeve. And brooding on those beautiful dead lovers they went home to another night of love.
The next morning Vance presented himself at the office of The Hour. As he sprang up the stairs he almost ran into Frenside, who was coming slowly down. The older man stopped and looked at him curiously.
“Going up to settle about your job?”
“Well, I hope so, sir.”
“All right. Good luck.” Frenside nodded and passed on. From a lower step he turned to call back: “I wouldn’t tie yourself up too far ahead—especially your fiction.”
Vance, new at such transactions, stared a moment, not quite understanding.
“Keep free—keep free as long as you can,” Frenside repeated, hobbling down with a heavy rap of his stick on each step. And Vance turned in to the office.
He found a cordial welcome from Tarrant. Everybody on the staff had read “Unclaimed,” and great hopes were founded on its appearance in the coming number. Tarrant produced cigarettes and cocktails, and introduced Eric Rauch, the assistant editor. Eric Rauch was a glib young Jew with beautiful eyes and a responsive smile, who had published an obscure volume of poetry: Voodoo, and a much talked-of collection of social studies: Say When. For the first time Vance found himself talking with an author, and treated by him as one of the tribe. When Rauch said: “You’ve struck out on a new line,” the praise rushed through Vance like fire, and he longed to hurry back to the hotel and tell Laura Lou. But what would it have meant to her?
After these agreeable preliminaries Tarrant looked at his watch, said: “Half-past one, by Jove—and I’m due at the Century, to lunch with old Willsdon.” Willsdon, the historian, had promised The Hour an article on “A New Aspect of Benjamin Franklin,” and Tarrant hurried off, saying: “You and Eric’ll be able to fix up details. Come round again soon, won’t you?”
Eric Rauch proposed that Vance should lunch with him at the Coconut Tree, a nearby lunchroom, and they walked there, Vance’s steps dancing down the street as if the dull pavement were the seashore. Talking to a fellow like Rauch was something as new to him as his first sight of the ocean, and almost as exciting. …
At the Coconut Tree they met other fellows who were writing or painting, or doing something with the arts. To Vance, whose horizon had greatly widened in the interval since his first visit to New York, the names of two or three of the older men were familiar; but the ones Rauch took most seriously—vanguard fellows, he explained—who looked as youthful as Vance himself, the latter had never heard of. They all greeted him good-humouredly, and one, a critic named Redman, said: “See here, when are you going to give us a novel?”
“The Hour’s going to see to that,” Rauch rejoined briskly; and another young man, with bruised eyelids in a sallow illumined face, and a many-syllabled name ending in “ovsky,” adjured Vance with ardent Slav gestures: “For God’s sake tackle something big—colossal—cosmic—get away from the village pump …” while a shabbily dressed girl with a greasy mop of black hair and bold gay eyes pushed up to the table, exclaiming: “Eric, why don’t you introduce me? I’m the sculptress Rebecca Stram, and I want to do your head one of these days,” she explained to Vance.
“Well, I guess you will, if you want to,” said Rauch humorously; “only let the poor devil have something to eat before you begin to feel his bumps.”
It all sent a novel glow through Vance, and he thought how wonderful life would be, spent among these fellows who talked of art as freely and familiarly as his father did of real estate deals. Eric Rauch explained who they were, what they had written or painted or carved (“That Stram girl—she’s a regular headhunter; bright idea, doing all the newcomers …”), and which ones were likely to “get there.” For the first time Vance was inducted into the world of literary competitions and rewards. Eric Rauch said there was a big campaign on already for this year’s Pulsifer Prize; hadn’t Vance heard of it? Best short story of the year … Two thousand dollars; and of course The Hour was going to try for it for “Unclaimed.” “And, by the way, what have you got on the stocks now?” And then the business talk began.
Rauch said he had been charged by Tarrant to come to an understanding with Weston. They believed in him at The Hour—their policy was forward-looking; they wanted to make their own discoveries, not to butt in where somebody else had already staked out a claim. Weston, now—he wouldn’t mind Rauch’s saying frankly that as a writer he was utterly unknown? Because, unluckily, owing to muddleheaded mismanagement, his first story, “One Day,” had been allowed to fall flat, drop out of sight as completely as if it had never been written. And they would have to build up his reputation all over again with “Unclaimed,” which, they thought, was quite as remarkable as the other; though of course they couldn’t guarantee the public’s taking to it, with the silly prejudice there was against war stories. Anyhow, it was a good gamble, and they were glad to risk it. And to prove their faith in Weston, they were willing to go farther; willing to take an option on his whole output, articles, short stories and novels, for the next three years. Rauch didn’t know if Weston realized what a chance that was for a beginner, who—well, wasn’t in a position, let’s say, to order himself an eight-cylinder Cadillac … for the present, anyhow. …
But Tarrant wanted to do more. He understood that Weston was just married, and he knew that when a man takes on domestic responsibilities there’s nothing like a steady job, even a small one, for making his mind easy. The Hour therefore proposed to let Vance try his hand at a monthly article on current literary events. They’d find a racy title, and let him have full swing—no editorial interference if the first articles took. A fresh eye and personal views were what they were after—none of the old mummified traditions. And for those twelve articles they would guarantee him a salary of fifteen hundred a year for three years, without prejudice to what he earned by his fiction: say a hundred and fifty for the next two stories after “Unclaimed,” and double that for the following year, if he would guarantee three stories a year, or possibly four. Only, of course, he was to pledge himself not to write for any other paper or publisher—no other publisher, because The Hour’s solicitude included an arrangement for book publication with their own publishers, Dreck and Saltzer. Tarrant had gone into all that so that Weston should be able to get to work at once, free from business worries. He’d had some difficulty in getting a publisher to look at it that way and sign for three years, but he’d fought it out with them, and as Dreck and Saltzer were great believers in The Hour they’d finally agreed, and had the contract ready. “So now all you’ll have to do is to lie back and turn out masterpieces,” Rauch cheerfully concluded, lighting a final cigarette. “Say though, it’s pretty near time to get back to the office,” he added, with a glance at his watch. “Shall we go now and settle things on the spot?”
Vance sat flushed and brooding, his brows drawn together in the effort to calculate his yearly income on the basis suggested. Figures always puzzled him, and a fortnight earlier he would have acquiesced at once, to get rid of troublesome preliminaries. But with Laura Lou in the background it was different. … He tried writing out the figures mentally on the tablecloth, but when it came to adding them up they became blurred and vanished. …
“Well, I guess that wouldn’t total up to much over two thousand dollars a year, would it?” he ventured, trying to give his voice a businesslike sound.
Erich Rauch arched his eyebrows in a way that signified: “Well—for a beginner? For a gamble?” Then, as Vance was silent, he threw off: “There’s nothing to prevent your writing a novel, you know.”
“What would you give me for a novel?” Vance asked.
Eric Rauch’s eyebrows flattened themselves out meditatively. “What sort of a novel would you give us?” Then, with a laugh: “See here, I don’t see that we need look as far ahead just yet. … A novel takes time; but meanwhile there’s the Pulsifer Prize, don’t forget. We’re going to put up a big fight to get that for you.”
Vance looked at him, perplexed. The Pulsifer Prize—two thousand dollars for the best short story of the year! He could pay off Bunty Hayes at a stroke, and live on Easy Street with the balance … buy Laura Lou some pretty clothes, and have time to think over subjects, and look round. … His heart beat excitedly. … But what could The Hour do about it? he asked.
“Why, boom you for all we’re worth. You can get even a short story into the limelight nowadays with money. And we mean to spend money on ‘Unclaimed.’ ”
“But I don’t understand. Who gives this Pulsifer Prize anyhow?”
“Oh, a rich society woman: widow of old Pulsifer, the railroad man. It’s the event of her life—”
“Why, does she award the prize herself?”
“Bless you, no: it’s done the usual way. Bunch of highbrows as judges.” Rauch paused, and added with his exquisite smile: “Even judges are human. …” He let the rest of the smile drift away through his cigarette spirals.
Vance understood and winced. The use of the business vocabulary was what he recoiled from. That there should be “deals,” transactions, compromises in business was a matter of course to him. That was business, as he understood it; his father’s life was a labyrinth of such underground arrangements. But Vance had never taken any interest in business, or heard applied to it the standards of loyalty which are supposed to regulate men’s private lives, and which he had always thought of as prevailing in the republic of letters. To him an artist’s work was essentially a part of the private life, something closer than the marrow to the bone. Anything that touched the sanctity, the incorruptibility, of the creative art was too contemptible to be seriously considered. As well go back to doing write-ups for the Free Speaker. … Vance looked at the clever youth behind the smoke wreaths, and thought: “Queer that a fellow who writes poetry can care for that sort of success …” for the poets seemed to him hardly lower than the angels.
He said curtly that he didn’t care a darn for prizes, and Eric rejoined: “Not for two-thousand-dollar ones?”
Vance, a little dizzy, nevertheless echoed: “Not a darn—”
“Well, The Hour does, then. It’s something you owe us if we take you on—see? A beginner … Everything’s a question of give and take … fair play. Not that I mean … of course little O’Fallery may pull off the prize anyhow, with ‘Limp Collars.’ Shouldn’t wonder if he did. His publisher’s hustling round for him—I know that. And we don’t guarantee anything … See?”
The last phrase brought a vague reassurance to Vance. Of course they couldn’t guarantee anything … of course little O’Fallery might get the prize. Vance had read “Limp Collars,” and thought it well-named … pretty poor stuff. … Seemed a pity. … Anyhow, he saw with relief that he must have misunderstood Rauch. Of course The Hour wasn’t going to try to corrupt the judges—what an absurdity! They were simply going to direct public opinion: that was what “limelight” meant. Any fellow’s publisher had a right to commend his goods. …
Laura Lou had been captivated by a girl who sat near them at the theatre in a peach-coloured silk … or lace, or something … not a patch on Laura Lou, the girl wasn’t, but even Vance could see there was a look about the dress. … His Laura Lou! There wouldn’t be one of ’em could touch her if only he could give her togs like that. …
“When she moves, you see
Like water from a crystal overflowed,
Fresh beauty tremble out of her, and lave
Her fair sides to the ground …”
He shut his eyes on the vision and thought: “And yet even the ones that look like that want finery!”
“Of course I’d like that prize first-rate,” he mumbled.
“Well, I guess it’s yours—on the merit of the story alone. Only, our job is to get that merit known,” Eric Rauch explained patiently, as they rose to get their hats and coats. They walked back together to the office, and before Vance left he had signed the two contracts which lay ready for him on Tarrant’s desk: one surrendering to The Hour all his serial rights for three years, the other pledging him for the same period of time to Dreck and Saltzer for book publication.
On the way downstairs, late in the afternoon, he remembered meeting Frenside coming down the same stairs in the morning, and recalled his warning: “Keep free.”
“Oh, well,” Vance said to himself, “what’s he made of his life, anyway?” For Frenside already seemed to him as remote as old age and failure. His head was brimming with ideas for his article, and for others to follow, and it was agreed (at his suggestion) that the series should appear under the caption of “The Coconut Tree,” in memory of the spot where the bargain had been struck. “I want a tree to climb, to get a bird’s-eye view from,” Vance had said, laughing; and Rauch replied that he was sure the title would take Tarrant’s fancy. He pressed a copy of his poems on Vance, and the latter set off, his heart beating high at the thought of announcing to Laura Lou that he was a member of the editorial staff of The Hour, had signed a three years’ contract with a big publisher. “She won’t understand what it’s all about, but it’ll sound good to her,” he thought. And so it did to him.
Laura Lou showed the radiant incomprehension he had foreseen. “Oh, Vance, isn’t it great?” She clung to him and worshipped; then, loosening her arms, drew back and lifted ineffable eyes to his. “Oh, Vanny—”
He laughed and recaptured her. “Guess you’re thinking already what show we’ll pick for tonight, aren’t you?” He grew reckless. “And, say, darling, if there’s anything particular you want to buy …” He knew there would be no pay till the end of the coming month, but time seemed as negligible as age while she lifted her trembling smile to him.
“Oh, Vanny … I wonder, could we go out and buy something to take back to Mother?”
“Sure.” He laughed with relief. Mrs. Tracy’s wants could be more inexpensively supplied than her daughter’s; and besides, he liked Laura Lou’s not instantly asking for something for herself. Then he looked again and noticed a shadow of anxiety on her radiance. He saw that she was asking for something for herself, but inwardly, because she dared not speak it. “What is it, sweet? Anything bothering you?”
Yes, something was: her mother. They’d been gone four days now, she reminded Vance, and Mrs. Tracy didn’t even know where they were, and must have been fretting dreadfully over that letter her daughter had left; and what Laura Lou wanted, oh, beyond anything, was to start right off for Paul’s Landing—oh, Vance, truly, couldn’t they?—and surprise her mother with the splendid news, and make everything all right that very day. Oh, wouldn’t Vance help her to pack up at once, and maybe they could catch the five o’clock express, and pop in on Mrs. Tracy just as she was clearing away supper?
Their hotel was close to the train, their packing was soon done. Secretly, Vance was relieved by his wife’s suggestion. The rush of his happiness had swept away all resentment against Mrs. Tracy, and he felt obscurely in the wrong in having persuaded Laura Lou to marry without her mother’s knowledge. Only the certainty of Mrs. Tracy’s opposition had made him do so; but he could not shake off his compunction, for he knew her life had been full of disappointments, and that Laura Lou’s flight would be the bitterest. Now it was all different; with his two contracts in his pocket he could face his mother-in-law with head erect. She would surely rather see Laura Lou married to the assistant editor of The Hour than to the barker of a sightseeing car; and if Vance should capture the Pulsifer Prize the Hayes debt would be cancelled at once. They paid in haste and hurried to the station, finding time on the way to select for Mrs. Tracy a black silk bag mounted in imitation amber. “She never has anything pretty,” Laura Lou explained, as if excusing so frivolous a choice; and Vance, remembering the basket of sweet peas with the stuffed dove, mused once more on the mysterious utility of the useless.