The Dark Lady Read online

  Elesina was surprised at her own reaction to her mother's cooling toward Billy. There was not the least hint of sibling jealousy in it. She was simply shocked. Somehow it did not seem to matter which child their mother loved so long as she loved one. That Linda Dart should turn from Billy showed a hollow in the very core of a family love that Elesina had somehow regarded as basic to her environment even if it did not wholly include herself. It taught her to face the shabby fact that her indifference to little Ruth was something more than the "horror of babies" that she had, with a show of the charming actress' easily forgiven capriciousness, affected for the benefit of herself and others. Ted was more and more boring; he listened to her now only in discussions directed to some aspect of his own self-pity. He drank more, and Elesina began to drink with him.

  Theater life is conducive to love. Not only is romance the usual subject of the drama, with all the accompaniment of public strutting and public embraces, but a humid atmosphere of lubricity invades even its technical conversations. Everyone is "darling" or "sweetie"; hands are held; arms are stroked; even hostility is expressed erogenously. Elesina drifted into the habit of casual affairs, usually with other actors, vaguely hoping that a great passion would come her way, but never much surprised that it failed to. Ted, furnished with information and money by his father, who had remained Elesina's implacable opponent, sued her at last for divorce for adultery and claimed sole custody of their daughter. Elesina did not bother to defend the suit, and she found herself, with her thirtieth birthday already well retreating into a disordered past, in the midst of a world depression, childless, husbandless, homeless and penniless, except for the precarious income derived from her repertory company. Even this ceased when, drunk, she failed for a third time to appear for a rehearsal of Rosmersholm.

  Linda Dart was as kind as could be expected. She took Elesina into her apartment and kept her as long as either could stand it. Elesina found the order in her mother's life a daily reproach, and Linda in turn was disgusted by her daughter's carelessness as to hours and engagements. Eventually it was agreed that Elesina should live in a small hotel around the corner at her mother's expense and come home for certain meals. This was still their arrangement when Elesina announced her proposed move to Ivy Trask's.

  "I've inquired about Miss Trask," Linda told her daughter dryly. "She seems to come of a respectable upstate background. I believe there was even an uncle in TR's cabinet. But she's identified now with that slick, rather sleazy fashion world, and she's intimate with the Steins. I should think you could do better. Is she a lesbian?"

  "No. At least I don't think so. She says not."

  "Did you ask her? Anyway, I wouldn't be sure. But I don't expect my advice to be followed by my children. Isn't it funny? All my friends come to me for guidance."

  "You pick your friends. You didn't pick your children."

  "That's true enough. Speaking of which, what do you hear of little Ruth?"

  If Elesina had had any further doubts about the wisdom of her move, the tone of her mother's question would have convinced her. "Little Ruth is very well, I believe. I shall be glad to have a place where she can visit me without disturbing anyone."

  6

  Elesina had to admit that Irving Stein's attentions came at an opportune time. The author of her new comedy had withdrawn it from production under a charge of plagiarism, and she found herself without a prospect. It was an occupation in her idleness to study her new friend's procedure. Both she and Ivy were surprised at the Judge's conservatism. He took them to dine at a restaurant and then to hear Flagstad as Isolde. He took them to a private viewing of Leonardo drawings, to a Lunt-Fontanne matinee, to a lecture at the Bar Association by Justice Cardozo. On these occasions he devoted his attention exclusively to Elesina, treating Ivy with the perfunctory courtesy that is accorded by the tenor in Italian opera to the duenna contralto. But it was interesting to both women that he made no effort to drop the chaperone.

  "Maybe he's afraid to be alone with me," Elesina suggested. "Maybe he thinks I'm the schemer."

  "No, he has a plan. I've known Irving a long time. He's a very deliberating man."

  "What does the divine Clara think of our excursions? Surely, she must be back from Florida."

  "Oh, she's long back. She's just being her Sphinx-like self. You're not, after all, my dear, Irving's first illicit passion. Even if it does happen to be my theory that you'll be his last. Clara gives him a lot of rein."

  At last came the invitation for Elesina alone. It was formal, by letter, and entirely proper. Could she lunch with Irving at the 21 Club and discuss a business matter? When she arrived, strictly on the hour as became the nature of such an engagement, she found him, regal at a corner table, discussing wines with the proprietor. He had already ordered for her. They discussed no business over the soup or fish. Irving was in an expansive mood: he held forth on the economic inequities of the modern world and of the warnings to public figures that he had issued in vain. He had said this to Franklin Roosevelt, that to Alfred Landon. He was a bit pompous, to be sure, but there was a touch of majestic gravity, of senatorial dignity in his measured tones and gesticulating hands, in the great nodding head, the plump, rigid figure. Irving was at least the portrait of a statesman.

  When he turned at last to business, the change was marked by a pause, a muffled cough. "Have you ever read Les Corbeaux, or The Vultures, by Henry Becque?"

  "No."

  "Well, you must do so now. I am planning to underwrite its revival by the Columbus Circle Repertory. On condition that you play the part of Marie Vigneron."

  "Are you aware that I have blotted my copybook with that company?"

  "Oh, yes, we've discussed all that. They are quite ready to forget those missed rehearsals. I told them it had been a difficult period in your life."

  She might have been an erring student before an amiable, omnipotent headmaster, but there was sympathy and even humor in the reddish pupils of his solemn gray eyes.

  "Tell me about the play."

  "The scene is laid in Paris, in eighteen eighty-one. We are in the happy domestic interior of Monsieur and Madame Vigneron, prosperous burghers. They have three daughters and a little boy. All is love and good will. One daughter is engaged to a young noble, a big social step forward. But at the end of the first act the father suddenly collapses and dies. Instant ruin. His lawyer, his architect, his business partner, all combine to cheat and destroy the widow and children. These are the major vultures; the minor ones are tradesmen who dun the poor women for already paid bills. The young count withdraws from his engagement, and his fiancee goes mad. You see, there was no way for untrained women in that time to earn any effective income; they were perfectly helpless. At last Marie Vigneron decides to accept the offer of marriage of Teissier, her father's old business partner and the worst vulture of all."

  "And that's all?"

  "That's all. The family are saved. Teissier is strong enough to drive off the other vultures."

  "So Marie really likes him?"

  "Oh, no, not at all."

  "Not even a tiny bit?"

  "He absolutely repels her. That's the point. She does the only thing she can so. It's a terrific play."

  Elesina reflected. "Because it's true? Or because it was true back then? But is it true today? Would a girl like Marie have to marry a vulture?"

  "Hardly. Today a girl could support herself. You know that. But there are still such problems. And such remedies. Becque is not as far back as the Dark Ages. Besides, it's a wonderful part. Marie is cold, still, even a trifle grim."

  "Is that how you see me?"

  "Don't be coy, dear. That is how an actress of your stature would play her. And yet at the same time convey a sense of the ache and passion within."

  "Does Marie have a lover she gives up for the vulture?"

  "No, she has nothing. Nothing, that is, but a whole inner life throbbing with thwarted emotion. That is why it is such a rich part. I see Marie in mourning,
in simple black, very pale, businesslike, tense, allowing the family sympathy to be lavished on her giddy younger sister, not caring if people think she's giving up nothing because they find her cold, yet all the while feeling a burning pain at the senseless cruelty of the world, at the bleak smothering of her natural ardor..."

  "Why, Irving, you should have been an actor yourself!"

  "Oh, my dear, as a young man, I had many ambitions. I wanted to be an opera singer. A pianist. A poet. My father was a clever man as well as a humane one. He humored me in all my dreams. And when I began to realize the paucity of my histrionic and artistic talents, he eased me into the ancient compromise of law. I believe that all the while he knew that I would one day come back to his banking business."

  "But you don't regret that, do you? Aren't you happy, being rich and important, buying beautiful things and..."

  "Trying to buy beautiful people?" he interrupted with a chuckle. "Is that where you come out, Elesina?"

  "We'll get to that later. Answer my question first. Do you regret your banking career?"

  "Yes and no." Irving took a sip of white wine, almost as if it were a medicine. Certainly he was not a drinker. He coughed and fixed his eyes glassily at a point across the room. "I once told a young man in our office that the person whose career I most coveted was Judge Learned B. Hand, my old Harvard Law School classmate. He is now the great legal philosopher of the second federal circuit, and would have been, but for our New Deal president—you needn't rise—the greatest luminary of the Supreme Court today. Well, it so happened, unbeknownst to me, that this same young man was related to the judge, and the next time he dined there, he was careful to relay my compliment. "B" Hand pounded angrily on the table and roared out: 'Irving Stein envies me my career, does he? Did he tell you that, as he strutted before his Rembrandts? Or as he sank, knee-deep, in Persian carpet? Well, go back to Irving Stein and tell the old robber I'd give my career for a paltry one of his millions!'"

  Irving hit the table as he simulated the angry, self-dramatizing jurist. Elesina smiled. "I like that," she said. "I think I'd like Judge Hand."

  "Of course, he didn't mean it. At least not all of it. It goes to show that only a fool is satisfied that he's led just the life he should have led. How do we know? As you say, I've been able to buy beautiful things, and that is a solace. And now I can produce a beautiful play. That is another."

  "But you need solace?"

  "Who doesn't? I hate not having done so many things. And I hate growing old."

  "Oh, Irving, you're not really..."

  "Don't say it, dear." He put his hand over hers, and gave it a squeeze. But it was a friendly, almost fraternal squeeze. The acceptance of it committed her to nothing. "Let us think about the part. Does it attract you?"

  "I don't know." She paused. "Of course, I'm immensely flattered that you think I can do it. Obviously, it's a very difficult one."

  "It's a challenge. But you deserve a challenge."

  "Is it just a challenge?" She was a bit ashamed of the arch that she felt it was now time for her eyebrows to assume.

  "What do you mean?"

  "Well, isn't it taken for granted, in sophisticated circles, that wealthy bankers don't invest in plays for actresses without a certain recompense in mind?"

  Irving nodded, his lips pursed, grave. "I'm glad you made the point. Of course, what I'm doing would bear that look to the world. But I promise you, Elesina, that I shall never expect anything that is not accorded of your own free will and inclination. I make no secret of the fact that I am attracted to you. How could that not be? You are young and beautiful, and I am still a man. But what of it? I was never one to buy love, nor do I esteem you so little as to suppose that you would sell it. Let there be an end to such talk between us. You and I are friends. The best of friends. Why not? If our relationship should ever change, it would be only because you wished it to. And as that is hardly likely, you can put the matter out of your mind. Why should we care what other people say?"

  "Well, I don't, certainly, but then I'm free."

  "And so am I, where my friends are concerned. Mrs. Stein does not trouble herself with such matters."

  Elesina hardly believed this, but then she hardly cared what Clara Stein thought of her husband's friendships. She suspected that Irving's seeming candor might be part of a scheme to seduce her through her gratitude on some night when she had drunk too much. But what if it were? Could she not handle herself? And so long as she purported to take him at his word, how could he possibly complain?

  "Well, then, it's a bargain," she agreed with a sealing smile. "I'll read the play this afternoon."

  During the rehearsal and short run of The Vultures Elesina was happier than she had ever been before. The play was too bleak to be popular, but the notices were good, and her performance as Marie Vigneron established her, in the eyes of professionals, as at least a contender for high rank. As one critic said:

  Miss Dart puts one in mind of some abandoned princess on a reef about to be engulfed by a rising tide. There is nothing in the closing waters of which she has the least dread; they will simply free her from the scurrying, malignant crustacean life about her. She makes one feel that her real tragedy is not her abandonment, but her rescue.

  The role gave Elesina her first sense of creative accomplishment. Her Hedda Gabler she had modeled from Nazimova's, but she had never seen The Vultures performed. There she was, on the boards, Marie Vigneron, something independent of Elesina Dart, something that had not existed before, a tiny piece of reality, something "done." Oh, yes, she saw all the things of her own that she had put into it: her self-pity, her identification of her failures with Marie's plight, her half-bitter, half-amused dependence on Irving. And she never fooled herself that there was anything in common between the heroic Marie and the self-indulgent Elesina. But none of this made any difference. Was not everything grist to an artist's mill? King Lear could have been made up out of Shakespeare's vanity; Hamlet, out of his resentment. Art was a process of conversion, a machine that could turn even garbage into something clean and glistening. Had Irving seen this? Had he seen that Marie was the image of her own ego touched up?

  She lunched with him now twice a week. He was willing to leave his office at her least suggestion. Walking down the street to their rendezvous, she would enjoy a pleasant sense of power when she saw the big blue Isotta pull up beside the restaurant and Irving leaning forward to wave at her. She had learned to savor the sweep of his conversation and the breadth of his ideas. She was merely amused now by the persistent little vanity that provided a plaintive chorus to larger themes. She had become humbler with her own small success, humble enough, anyway, to recognize that the friendship of Irving Stein might turn out to be the most interesting thing that had ever happened to her.

  Sometimes they would spend an afternoon in galleries, for he maintained his relentless pursuit of beautiful objects. They would pass into the back chamber where the tactful proprietor would leave the great collector and his friend alone to contemplate a selected number of rarities. Irving would sit silent before a canvas or a statue for as many as fifteen minutes at a time, and Elesina loved the peace of such periods. It seemed to her that she was witnessing a kind of draining, as if whatever was finest in the masterpiece were somehow passing into the silent, crouching acquisitor. She began to see what Irving meant when he said that art was only communication, that if the recipient could take in the beauty in its totality, he might become the equal of the creator.

  On an afternoon of particular peace and pleasureableness Elesina sat with Irving in a mauve-curtained show room before five French eighteenth-century paintings: two Bouchers, a Fragonard, a Greuze and a Charpentier. The sexuality of the scenes was intense: alabaster nymphs with large exposed thighs and breasts clutched ineffectively at silken undergarments to excite or frustrate peeking gallants; a wife in nightdress sent a flying kiss to a departing husband as a lover concealed behind her bed clutched her free hand in anticipation
; a naked girl on a red couch contemplated her painted cheeks in a mirror held in one hand while the other fingered her crotch; a panting Leda submitted to the violent attentions of a huge lusting swan against the background of a riverbank which provided an audience of leering flowers.

  "The Frenchwoman of that era was your sex at its most superb," Irving commented placidly. "Woman was at her most feminine: every chateau, every piece of furniture or porcelain, every medallion, every bit of drapery, every fan, every loop and tassel bespoke the charming, the worshiped female. Not for those girls was the law degree, the medical career. Ah, no! They knew that the way to power was to be irresistible to men. And the century was theirs! Marie Antoinette, Sophie Arnould, the Du Barry, Catherine of Russia. It is hard to point to a statesman except Frederick of Prussia—and he liked the boys—who was not under petticoat influence."

  "Until we come to America."

  "Exactly. Martha Washington. What aridity! What puritanism! That was a man's world, of business and of politics. And in the nineteenth century men reduced it to business alone. What could the poor women do but strut around in diamonds and Irish lace and give balls? Compare the Mrs. Astor with Madame de Pompadour!"

  Elesina was filled with a sense of ease and laughter. Laughter at herself and laughter at him. How beautifully he had planned it all! The champagne that she had drunk at lunch made her pleasantly drowsy; the pink and white flesh tints in the sexy French scenes titillated her. There were no nude males in any of the canvases to offer an unlovely contrast to Irving's own plump figure or gray hairs. The lusting swan was all there was to suggest the copulating male. Nothing in Irving's words or his demeanor betrayed the amorous old man, the ludicrous Pantaloon of comedy. He preserved his dignity, nay, he preserved his superiority—the superiority of his greater years and experience and wealth, of his venerable old bull maleness—without the least remission. He was like some eminent doctor, the last authority in his field, whose diagnosis she had sought and for an appointment with whom she had waited anxious hours in a crowded anteroom. Now she was in his office, the holy of holies; she had stripped off her last stitch behind a scanty curtain at his gruff instruction and was about to step forth, shivering, to expose herself to his grave contemplation.