Blue-grass and Broadway
urged with an inward chuckle at the thought of the trick on the great
poet, which froze in his heart as he observed two tears balanced on the
black lashes of the lovely sea-gray eyes lowered away from his.
"What's the matter?" he gasped, in desperate fear that the Moody Indian
story had penetrated to the wilds of Adairville, Kentucky. "You'd only
be gone a few days, and everything could wait until you came back. I
wouldn't turn a wheel without you, and--" he committed himself deeper
and deeper at every step.
"I've had the dresses all made over, and this is one. I've hurt my play
just because I wanted to look pretty in New York! I'm humiliated with
myself. As if anybody cared how I look; and the play--" The soft little
slurs stopped and the beautiful old-blue-silk-clad shoulder trembled
slightly against his shoulder as a little ghost of a sob came to the
surface and was suppressed while the home-made color faded from beneath
two tears that fell from the black lashes.
"Oh, please forgive me, child! It doesn't matter at all, and--"
"You oughtn't to forgive me," the voice trembled on. "Miss Hawtry would
have been wonderful in that dinner dress my grandmother wore, and
I--I've had two made out of it! I can give them to her and tell her how
to put them together again with--"
"You'll do nothing of the kind!" fairly snapped Mr. Vandeford. Then he
broke the record in his own thinking processes and decided for the
second time to tell the whole truth to this country girl with her
mixture of hay-seeds and patrician airs. He directed Valentine to
Central Park and made a clean breast of it. It is a pleasure to record
that at the Moody Indian story Patricia laughed until two other tears
ran down her cheeks, but this time they did not wring Mr. Vandeford's
heart, for they coursed over the accustomed roses and were a great
pleasure to him.
"I'll go home if you want me to," the talented author of "The Purple
Slipper" offered, with a small snap in her eyes, mingled with the
accustomed veneration of Mr. Vandeford, her producer. "I don't want to
be in anybody's way. I thought I had to come and spend all my money. I
want to see the Metropolitan and the Aquarium and Brooklyn Bridge and
Trinity Church, ... and ... a Midnight Frolic, because Mamie Lou
Whitson, at home, is expecting me to go to one even if Miss Elvira said
I ought not to. Can I see just one Frolic before I go home?"
"If you go home now the whole 'Purple Slipper' will go into cold storage
until you come back," Mr. Vandeford growled at her, and the effort it
took not to hold on to her with bodily fingers was a great strain. "I
told you the usual situation because I felt that you were clever enough
to make the best of it and help the play a lot. No author ever has seen
a play produced as he wrote it, and he has to stand seeing everybody
take a whack at it, from the producer to the man who takes the tickets
at the front door. I've got a good playwright shut up until Friday
rewriting 'The Purple Slipper'; then I'm going to work at it myself and
let Miss Hawtry write in all the things she wants to say, and cut out
all the things she doesn't. After that, I'm going to turn it over to
Bill Rooney, who was born in a barrel down on the wharf and educated in
the gutter, but who is the best and highest-priced stage director in New
York. He'll do innumerable things to it while he's 'setting it,' as he
calls getting it ready for rehearsals. All the actors and actresses will
be allowed at times to butcher and scalp their parts and everybody will
stab. And if you are a plucky girl you'll sit still and see it done.
There will come lots of times that everything you suggest, even very
timidly, will be thrust down your throat; but if they are vital they
will get under the hide of Bill and opening night you'll see that your
pluck has put a lot into the whole thing and that the mutilated and
dressed-up play is still your child. Will you trust me and sit in with
me and help me make 'The Purple Slipper' go?"
"I do! I will!" answered Miss Adair, with her head in the air and the
Adairville roses flaunting themselves in her face. And as she spoke she
offered him her slim, long-fingered, white little hand that his
completely engulfed as, answering a signal, Valentine turned the car
back toward Forty-second Street. "If I've got to have thorns stuck in me
and then cut out I'm mighty glad you'll be there."
"Yes, I'll be there," he answered her softly, as he released her hand at
least two seconds sooner than he was really obliged to, though he
himself could not have said why he did it. He felt like a grown person
who frightens a child with a bear tale to make it cuddle to his own
strength in the firelight.
Then followed a day in the offices of Mr. Godfrey Vandeford, Theatrical
Producer, which, up to that time, could not have been duplicated on
Broadway and perhaps never will be, though the results may have the
effect of--but that was all in the future of the theatrical business at
that time.
"Mr. Meyers," said Mr. Vandeford, as he ushered the author of "The
Purple Slipper" into the outer offices, where he found Pops soothing and
controlling about seven enraged experts in different lines of dramatic
production, "Miss Adair will have the small office from now on to work
in when she is not in consultation with me. Please take her in and see
that she is made at home while I run through my mail. Yes, Mr. Corbett,
I will be ready for you in a few minutes. Sorry to detain you, all of
you," with which apology to the body of assembled experts Mr. Vandeford
bowed, went into his sanctum, and firmly closed the door, just as Mr.
Adolph Meyers bowed the author into her sanctum and as firmly closed her
door. Mr. Gerald Height, who had been sitting looking indifferently out
of Mr. Meyers' window, looked after the disappearing author as if a
perfumed breeze had suddenly blown across his brow, and whistled softly.
"Say, Pops, who, by thunder is--," he was questioning Mr. Meyers with
extreme interest, when Mr. Vandeford's buzzer sounded and Mr. Meyers was
forced to answer it before he could attend to Mr. Height's question.
Mr. Meyers found Mr. Vandeford pale, but determined.
"Pops," he said, and Mr. Meyers could have sworn that the voice of his
beloved chief trembled, "I'm in the devil of a fix, and you have got to
throw me a line to pull out; in fact, you'll have to cast in a drag-net
if you want to land me."
"If it was a submarine I would make a rescue of you, Mr. Vandeford,
sir," the faithful henchman assured the panic-stricken producer.
"She's worse than any submarine ever floated, and I'm rammed--in a
corner, Pops. To make a story that is going to be long in acting, short
in telling, I've had to put Miss Adair on to what is usually handed out
to the authors of plays, and then to stop her wails, offered to let her
sit in and watch her play baby hacked up. Her office-hours here and at
rehearsals will be from ten mornings to midnight, and what are you going
to do about it?" Mr. Vandeford questioned Mr. Meyers with a kind of
forlorn hope in his eyes, for Mr. Meyers had often seen him through the
crooks of his trade.
"I advise to make it straight to her, Mr. Vandeford, sir, and she will
come out all right or otherwise go home. That young lady has the look of
a horse on which I won seven hundred at the last Gravesend. Besides, we
have not time for play-acting about that 'Purple Slipper.' It is a cold
bird and we must be in a hurry about putting pep into it for a success."
"Right-o, Pops! I'll ask her in here, and when I buzz send in Corbett.
The poor kiddie!" With which lamentation over the fate he was about to
mete out to Miss Adair, Mr. Vandeford dismissed Mr. Meyers and opened
the door which led from his sanctum into that which had been so recently
assigned to the author of "The Purple Slipper."
That eminent playwright was discovered in the height of fascination,
looking down upon the uproar of Broadway.
"I saw a taxicab run over a man and not kill him," she exclaimed with
both horror and joy. "I started to call you, but it was all over in a
second."
"That's all right. I've seen that hundreds of times, even when they were
killed." He reassured her about neglecting to share the excitement with
him. "Are you ready to take up the matter of costumes with Corbett?"
"Shall I have to tell him--about my making over--"
"No; just listen to me handle him, and I'll tell you when to break in.
I'll give you a lead. Please come into my office." And with coolness of
manner, but trepidation of heart, he led her into his office and seated
her in a chair beside his at the far side of the desk,--the very chair
in which had sat Mr. Dennis Farraday on the day previous, when he had
received his initiation into the world of theatricals. Then he buzzed
his signal to Mr. Meyers.
Immediately Mr. Corbett entered.
"Morning, Corbett.--Miss Adair, the author of the play I want to talk
to you about.--Want to take on a costume play of early Kentucky?" Mr.
Vandeford made no pause in which to allow Mr. Corbett to acknowledge his
introduction to the author, and Mr. Corbett seemed to bear no resentment
for the omission. His astonishment at meeting an author when the
costuming of a play was being discussed was profound.
"What date?" he inquired, looking carefully away from Miss Adair.
"What date, Miss Adair?" asked Mr. Vandeford in exactly the same crisp
tone in which he was conducting the negotiations with Mr. Corbett.
"1806, I think. It was just before they began to wear--" Miss Adair was
beginning to say with a delighted smile that entirely failed to make an
impression on Mr. Corbett.
"Good date for costuming," the artist interrupted the author to say,
with the easy assurance of a person fully informed. "Styles were
distinctive. I dressed 'Lovers' Ends' for E. and K. in 1789, and the
costumes kept the piffling play alive for two months. How many dolls and
how many boots?"
"How many men and how many ladies in the play, Miss Adair?" Mr.
Vandeford questioned her with delight at getting a question to fling to
her and also translating for her Mr. Corbett's query.
"Twenty in all," answered Miss Adair. "There are eleven ladies with
the--"
"Split even," Mr. Corbett took the words out of her mouth. "Want sole
leather or tissue paper, Mr. Vandeford?" Miss Adair caught by psychic
sympathy the fact that he was asking if the play was to be costumed as
one intended to survive. Consequently her very soul hung on the answer
Mr. Vandeford must make to Mr. Corbett's question.
"To play about thirty, I should say," answered Mr. Vandeford after a two
minutes' calculating.
"Only a month?" gasped Miss Adair, then colored home-made pink in the
height of embarrassment.
"Weeks." Mr. Vandeford answered her gasp without looking at her, but
taking the vow gallantly, considering that he felt Mazie Villines to be
his sole dependence for a winning manuscript version of "The Purple
Slipper."
During this question and answer Mr. Corbett was also calculating.
"About seven thousand if Adelaide makes the Hawtry layout," he finally
announced.
"Five hundred advance for the sketches, and a week's option," Mr.
Vandeford offered calmly.
"A thousand advance for models of costumes made up," answered Mr.
Corbett, just as calmly and firmly. "Have to hunt in museum for
materials to go by. Takes experts on fabrics."
"I can give you pieces of silk and things that are cut from the costumes
of that period." Miss Adair had learned, and she cut her remark into
the conference with precision and decision.
"Genuine?" questioned Mr. Corbett.
"Worn by the characters about whom the play is written."
"Then seven hundred and fifty for made-up models, Mr. Vandeford," Mr.
Corbett offered.