Jack and Susan in 1913 (22 page)

Jack fretted in his seat before the train departed Pennsylvania Station. He steamed in the dark tunnel beneath the Hudson River. He stewed through Newark and Elizabeth. Life, he concluded with bitterness, was one damn thing after another.

He could have stayed in New York and tried to find the thief who'd purloined those drawings, but Susan would be ever farther away. Her distrust of him would deepen with time. Or worse, she'd forget him. He had to find her again as soon as possible. He couldn't afford precious days tracking down a robber, of whose identity he had no idea whatever.

It probably was another of the Trust thugs. Thomas Alva Edison, that revered white-haired old man, had somehow heard of Jack's invention—spies in the Cosmic studios, perhaps—and had hired some graduate of Blackwell's Island to get into Jack's apartment. The inventor of the light bulb now sat in a comfortable chair in Fort Lee, studying Jack's drawings, and chuckling to himself—as frantic, distracted Jack rode in a cheap compartment on the train headed for Washington, D.C.

Jack questioned the conductor as to whether any film company troupe had recently ridden the train, but the man said no. Of course, the Cosmic Film Company could have taken any number of different trains, or even a different line, for that matter—or had made no impression as a group of travelers. When the train stopped at Trenton, Jack got off and put the same question to several station employees, and again received a negative reply. But in turning away from the ticket seller's cage, Jack caught sight of a familiar face, in a tinted postcard tacked to a board. It was Ida Conquest, in her costume as the Aeroplane Girl, and the card was
signed
.

“That postcard,” Jack demanded of the ticket agent. “That girl—”

“Oh yes, she
did
come through here. Could tell that one was an actress, all right. A fine figure of a young woman. Selling the cards out of her pocketbook, and only charged a dime—including the autograph.”

“When did she come through?”

“Today's Wednesday. Not Tuesday. Not Sunday, 'cause I wasn't on. Must have been Monday.”

That was all the ticket seller could tell Jack but he knew that he was on the right track. He imagined them all traveling together—Ida Conquest and Junius Fane, Manfred Mixon and Miss Songar, the cameramen and the chemists, Hosmer and Susan. All on their way to that town in California, too small and insignificant to have its name on the map.

He was two days behind them, but if he managed to catch every possible connection, and maybe if the company decided to rest a day somewhere, then he might very well catch up with them before they reached California. But even if they stayed the same distance ahead of him, he could not imagine that he would have any difficulty in finding them once they'd reached their destination.

Train journeys were usually boring, but Jack, even in the midst of his anxiety, felt that he was on an adventure. On that night back in January, when he'd so innocently sat in the third row of the orchestra of the New Columbia Theatre, he was just John Austin Beaumont, managing director of the prestigious and long-established firm of Beaumont, Beaumont, and Beaumont. He had admired a young actress, as many rich young men admired pretty young actresses, and as such young men do, he'd sent a note around to her dressing room. After that, not a thing in the world had gone as he could have predicted.

And now only a few short months later, Jack was without a job, without an income, was engaged to a woman who had skipped out in the company of another man, and he was sitting in a railway car at the beginning of a journey that was going to take him all the way across the American continent.

The train arrived at Union Station in Washington, D.C., and Jack got off. He was now forced to make an important decision. He could take the northern route to California, that is, by way of Chicago. Or else he could take the more southern route, from Washington to St. Louis, and from there across the prairie and the desert. This was supposed to be a tedious and dreary ride, though it was cheaper.

Jack, having known Junius Fane and being acquainted with his methods of doing business, judged that he was a man to choose tedious, dreary, and cheap above anything else, so Jack purchased a ticket for an express train to St. Louis. Perhaps, if the Cosmic Film Company had been forced by circumstance to take a train that made frequent stops, Jack would gain a day on Susan.

The train was scheduled to leave in another hour, at eight o'clock in the evening. It would arrive in St. Louis fifteen hours later—a prodigious speed—stopping only in Louisville, Kentucky. He went into the railway station saloon and downed a brandy and soda in honor of Susan Bright. He downed another to the eternal damnation of Hosmer Collamore.

Jack devoured a ham sandwich, drank another brandy and soda, and made his way to platform 12, where his train waited, steam hissing from under it on to the platform. The train originated here at Union Station, so he was able to climb on without delay. His reserved seat was in a quiet, out-of-the-way spot next to a window. He looked for a few minutes at the Tauchnitz Edition he'd picked up in a bookstall in the station, but it couldn't hold his interest. The brandy made him sleepy, and he watched his fellow passengers saying their good-byes to relatives and friends and then boarding the train. Jack couldn't keep his eyelids open, and he nodded off for a few minutes, under the genial effects of the brandy. He was jolted awake by the simultaneous blast of the train whistle and the shrill laughter of a child.

Jack opened his eyes.

In the seat just opposite him was a little boy, about seven years old Jack guessed, wearing a velvet suit with pearl buttons, in imitation of the child hero of some dreadful touring company production of
Little Lord Fauntleroy
. The boy was standing on the seat, pointing out the window and giggling in a near hysterical fashion. The boy's mother, seated across the aisle, and evidently believing her maternal responsibility ended with the velvet suit, made no attempt to quiet the child.

Jack turned and looked out to see what had so excited the child. Another train was situated on the other side of the platform, and it too was filling with passengers, as could plainly be seen through the lighted windows.

One of those passengers was a great fat man, who was now struggling with two enormous suitcases—trying to get both himself and the suitcases down the narrow aisle. He was bumping heads and knocking hats askew, and one of the cases had just spilled open, scattering clothing everywhere.

Jack laughed too, and was still laughing as his train gave another whistle, then a lurch and began slowly moving on its way to St. Louis.

Then suddenly the laugh froze on Jack's face, for he realized that the fat man causing all the trouble in the other train was Manfred Mixon, the Fabulous Funny Fellow of Cosmic Features.

The entire Cosmic group probably was in that train not twenty feet away on the other side of the platform.

Jack stared frantically out at the lighted windows as the express for St. Louis picked up speed. Then, there in a car toward the front, Jack saw Susan. She sat with her chin on her hand, staring at Hosmer Collamore, who was leaning toward her, holding up something small and sparkling.

Was it a ring?

Jack jumped up from his seat, pushed Little Ford Fauntleroy out of the way, and clawed at the window.

“Susan! Susan!” he shouted.

She couldn't have heard him, of course, over the clattering of the train, and through the barriers of windows, but Tripod was there. Tripod heard Jack's anguished cry, or caught sight of Jack's anguished face, or intuited Jack's anguished presence. Tripod leapt up onto the seat beside Susan, and began barking furiously out the window.

Susan turned, and at the last possible moment, she caught sight of Jack.

The image remained frozen in Jack's mind; Susan's eyes wide in surprise and disbelief, her black hair glistening beneath the yellow light of the train compartment, her mouth open in astonishment.

The St. Louis Express pulled out of Union Station and hurtled Jack Beaumont through the Maryland countryside and on across America.

A
LL THROUGH THAT dark night, Jack stared at Little Lord Fauntleroy—who snored in a way Jack couldn't remember that seven-year-old children snored—and thought of Susan Bright.

Susan Bright in the railway carriage, sitting across from Hosmer Collamore, and Hosmer holding up something small and bright and shiny—doubtless an engagement ring.

The train that bore Susan and Hosmer, Jack had learned from the conductor, was also headed for St. Louis, but by a different, slower route. Susan's train would meander along to the north, halting at every milk-stop hamlet across Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois. The Cosmic Film Company would arrive approximately six hours after Jack. Not only had Jack caught up with Mr. Junius Fane and company, he had leapt over them!

During the half-hour stop in Louisville, Jack stayed on the train and munched hot corn brought through by a boy in a jacket that was too short in the arms and trousers that were too long in the legs. He leaned out of the window and guzzled down a tin of coffee that scalded his throat. Whenever he'd traveled by train before, he'd gone first-class, and he'd dined on linen and silverware in the dining car. His West Sixtieth Street playacting quickly had become real indeed, and this “being without” was not a pleasant sensation. Once every couple of minutes he surreptitiously touched the wad of bills in his pocket—all his money in the world—to make certain it was still there.

Not long after the train left Louisville, it began to get light outside, and as he stared out the window at alternating patches of forest and field, and the occasional small town, Jack laid plots.

Susan had seen him.

Susan had recognized him.

Susan would be expecting him in St. Louis.

She might even find a way to keep him off the train to Los Angeles.

She might herself linger behind and take a different train out. There were all kinds of possibilities.

If Jack could somehow get on the same train as Susan he knew that in the two and a half days that the journey to California required he could convince her that she still loved him and that she ought still to marry him—despite former deceptions, despite Hosmer Collamore's protestations, despite Tripod's innate distrust of him. Jack had somehow to forestall Susan's efforts—efforts she was sure to make—in avoiding him.

By the time the train pulled into St. Louis, Jack thought he had found a workable plan, but he had only six hours to implement it.

When the train arrived in St. Louis, Jack hurried off, checked his luggage, asked a few directions, and then went out into the city. Fortunately, the station was centrally located, and in less than four hours he had visited a used-clothing store, a pharmacist's, a barber's, a store catering to the wants of the theatrical profession, and a veterinarian's office.

He returned to the station, found a quiet bench in the corner, and prepared to wait for the train that was carrying the Cosmic Film Company—and, he hoped, Susan—toward St. Louis.

His own mother would not have known him. He wore a three-piece checked suit—large, square checks in blue and green, in fact—a dented plug hat, discolored spats over muddy shoes, and thick round eyeglasses that magnified and distorted the contours of his face. Above his upper lip he had pasted a heavy yellow mustache that matched the color of his hair as the barber had dyed it. He smoked a long, thick, cheap cigar, and was now a personification of that well-known American figure, the drummer. He was disguised as a traveling salesman.

The train from Washington arrived, and Jack had the electrifying satisfaction of seeing Ida Conquest—on the arm of Junius Fane—emerge through the doors from the platforms.

Then came the less exalted members of the company, other passengers, and—finally—Susan Bright and Hosmer Collamore. They were the last, Jack reckoned, by certain needs of Tripod, who trotted along—
pad pad pad tap
—at Susan's heel.

Jack sank back against the bench and peered at the couple over the top of his spectacles.

Neither of them noticed him, but Tripod stopped dead in his tracks in the middle of the marble flooring of the station, sniffed the air, growled, and turned his canine head slowly in Jack's direction.

Susan turned and called, “Tripod, come.”

Tripod would not. He continued to growl.

Susan put down her bags and reached down to scoop up the dog in her arms. Tripod evaded her grasp and headed straight for Jack.

Jack was prepared. “Here, boy,” he cried in a loud, fluting voice that was nothing like his own—and which he had practiced in the streets of St. Louis for several hours, to the astonishment of the natives.

Ready in his hand was a soggy biscuit, and he tossed it toward the dog.

Pad pad pad tap. Pad pad
—

Tripod sniffed at the biscuit. Tripod looked up at Jack. Tripod looked down at the biscuit again, and gobbled it up. Then he lunged at Jack.

Just then Hosmer arrived on the scene and grabbed up the dog, muttering a brief apology, just as Tripod's jaws opened with malicious intent focused on Jack's checkered trousers. He carried Tripod back across the waiting room to Susan.

Susan took the dog, and glanced across to Jack. Jack grinned a wide grin at her beneath his thick mustache. He'd blacked out two of his teeth.

Susan smiled tentatively back. She obviously hadn't recognized him.

Tripod was already looking a bit drowsy in her arms, and after what Jack had put in the biscuit, he'd sleep for almost ten hours.

Susan stared at the suddenly oddly laconic dog in her arms, and then she and Hosmer joined the others lined up in a corner of the station to receive tickets from Mr. Fane's assistant.

A few minutes later, Jack went to the ticket window, and said quite straightforwardly, “Give me a ticket on the same train as that group over there, please.”