Susan Lenox Her Fall and Rise Part 32

"That's been the cry ever since we started," snapped Violet.

"For G.o.d's sake, shut up, Vi," groaned Eshwell. "You're always kicking."

The cabin was not quite the full width of the broad house boat.

Along the outside, between each wall and the edge, there was room for one person to pa.s.s from forward deck to rear. From the cabin roof, over the rear deck, into the water extended a big rudder oar. When Susan, following Burlingham, reached the rear deck, she saw the man at this oar--a fat, amiable-looking rascal, in linsey woolsey and a blue checked s.h.i.+rt open over his chest and revealing a mat of curly gray hair. Burlingham hailed him as Pat--his only known name. But Susan had only a glance for him and no ear at all for the chaffing between him and the actor-manager. She was gazing at the Indiana sh.o.r.e, at a tiny village snuggled among trees and ripened fields close to the water's edge. She knew it was Brooksburg. She remembered the long covered bridge which they had crossed--Spenser and she, on the horse. To the north of the town, on a knoll, stood a large red brick house trimmed with white veranda and balconies--far and away the most pretentious house in the landscape. Before the door was a horse and buggy. She could make out that there were several people on the front veranda, one of them a man in black--the doctor, no doubt. Sobs choked up into her throat. She turned quickly away that Burlingham might not see. And under her breath she said,

"Good-by, dear. Forgive me--forgive me."

CHAPTER XIII

WOMAN'S worktable, a rocking chair and another with a swayback that made it fairly comfortable for lounging gave the rear deck the air of an outdoor sitting-room, which indeed it was.

Burlingham, after a comprehensive glance at the panorama of summer and fruitfulness through which they were drifting, sprawled himself in the swayback chair, indicating to Susan that she was to face him in the rocker. "Sit down, my dear," said he.

"And tell me you are at least eighteen and are not running away from home. You heard what Miss Connemora said."

"I'm not running away from home," replied Susan, blus.h.i.+ng violently because she was evading as to the more important fact.

"I don't know anything about you, and I don't want to know,"

pursued Burlingham, alarmed by the evidences of a dangerous tendency to candor. "I've no desire to have my own past dug into, and turn about's fair play. You came to me to get an engagement. I took you. Understand?"

Susan nodded.

"You said you could sing--that is, a little."

"A very little," said the girl.

"Enough, no doubt. That has been our weak point--lack of a ballad singer. Know any ballads?--Not fancy ones. Nothing fancy!

We cater to the plain people, and the plain people only like the best--that is, the simplest--the things that reach for the heartstrings with ten strong fingers. You don't happen to know 'I Stood on the Bridge at Midnight'?"

"No--Ruth sings that," replied Susan, and colored violently.

Burlingham ignored the slip. "'Blue Alsatian Mountains'?"

"Yes. But that's very old."

"Exactly. Nothing is of any use to the stage until it's very old. Audiences at theaters don't want to _hear_ anything they don't already know by heart. They've come to _see_, not to hear.

So it annoys them to have to try to hear. Do you understand that?"

"No," confessed Susan. "I'm sorry. But I'll think about it, and try to understand it." She thought she was showing her inability to do what was expected of her in paying back the two dollars.

"Don't bother," said Burlingham. "Pat!"

"Yes, boss," said the man at the oar, without looking or removing his pipe.

"Get your fiddle."

Pat tied the oar fast and went forward along the roof of the cabin. While he was gone Burlingham explained, "A frightful souse, Pat--almost equal to Eshwell and far the superior of Tempest or Vi--that is, of Tempest. But he's steady enough for our purposes, as a rule. He's the pilot, the orchestra, the man-of-all-work, the bill distributor. Oh, he's a wonder. Graduate of Trinity College, Dublin--yeggman--panhandler--barrel-house b.u.m--genius, nearly. Has drunk as much booze as there is water in this river----"

Pat was back beside the handle of the oar, with a violin.

Burlingham suggested to Susan that she'd better stand while she sang, "and if you've any tendency to stage fright, remember it's your bread and b.u.t.ter to get through well. You'll not bother about your audience."

Susan found this thought a potent strengthener--then and afterward. With surprisingly little embarra.s.sment she stood before her good-natured, sympathetic employer, and while Pat sc.r.a.ped out an accompaniment sang the pathetic story of the "maiden young and fair" and the "stranger in the spring" who "lingered near the fountains just to hear the maiden sing," and how he departed after winning her love, and how "she will never see the stranger where the fountains fall again--ade, ade, ade."

Her voice was deliciously young and had the pathetic quality that is never absent from anything which has enduring charm for us. Tears were in Burlingham's voice--tears for the fate of the maiden, tears of response to the haunting pathos of Susan's sweet contralto, tears of joy at the acquisition of such a "number"

for his program. As her voice died away he beat his plump hands together enthusiastically.

"She'll do--eh, Pat? She'll set the hay-t.o.s.s.e.rs crazy!"

Susan's heart was beating fast from nervousness. She sat down.

Burlingham sprang up and put his hands on her shoulders and kissed her. He laughed at her shrinking.

"Don't mind, my dear," he cried. "It's one of our ways. Now, what others do you know?"

She tried to recall, and with his a.s.sistance finally did discover that she possessed a repertoire of "good old stale ones," consisting of "Coming Thro' the Rye," "Suwanee River,"

"Annie Laurie" and "Kathleen Mavourneen." She knew many other songs, but either Pat could not play them or Burlingham declared them "above the head of Reub the rotter."

"Those five are quite enough," said Burlingham. "Two regulars, two encores, with a third in case of emergency. After dinner Miss Anstruther and I'll fit you out with a costume. You'll make a hit at Sutherland tonight."

"Sutherland!" exclaimed Susan, suddenly pale. "I can't sing there--really, I can't."

Burlingham made a significant gesture toward Pat at the oar above them, and winked at her. "You'll not have stage fright, my dear. You'll pull through."

Susan understood that nothing more was to be said before Pat.

Soon Burlingham told him to tie the oar again and retire to the cabin. "I'll stand watch," said he. "I want to talk business with Miss Sackville."

When Pat had gone, Burlingham gave her a sympathetic look. "No confidences, mind you, my dear," he warned. "All I want to know is that it isn't stage fright that's keeping you off the program at Sutherland."

"No," replied the girl. "It isn't stage fright. I'm--I'm sorry I can't begin right away to earn the money to pay you back.

But--I can't."

"Not even in a velvet and spangle costume--Low neck, short sleeves, with blond wig and paint and powder? You'll not know yourself, my dear--really."

"I couldn't," said Susan. "I'd not be able to open my lips."

"Very well. That's settled." It was evident that Burlingham was deeply disappointed. "We were going to try to make a killing at Sutherland." He sighed. "However, let that pa.s.s. If you can't, you can't."

"I'm afraid you're angry with me," cried she.

"I--angry!" He laughed. "I've not been angry in ten years. I'm such a _d.a.m.n_, d.a.m.n fool that with all the knocks life's given me I haven't learned much. But at least I've learned not to get angry. No, I understand, my dear--and will save you for the next town below." He leaned forward and gave her hands a fatherly pat as they lay in her lap. "Don't give it a second thought," he said. "We've got the whole length of the river before us."

Susan showed her grat.i.tude in her face better far than she could have expressed it in words. The two sat silent. When she saw his eyes upon her with that look of smiling wonder in them, she said, "You mustn't think I've done anything dreadful. I haven't--really, I haven't."

He laughed heartily. "And if you had, you'd not need to hang your head in this company, my dear. We're all people who have _lived_--and life isn't exactly a cla.s.s meeting with the elders taking turns at praying and the organ wheezing out gospel hymns.

No, we've all been up against it most of our lives--which means we've done the best we could oftener than we've had the chance to do what we ought." He gave her one of his keen looks, nodded: "I like you. . . . What do they tell oftenest when they're talking about how you were as a baby?"

Susan did not puzzle over the queerness of this abrupt question.