Men of No Property (27 page)

“It was an elegant house,” she said, pulling her gown over her head. He was reading the players’ address when she looked at him again, the puzzled scowl returning to his face. “What part did you like best, Matt?”

“I’ll tell you the God’s truth, I had to go out and get a drink before it was over. My stomach was turnin’.”

“You should have come home a day early and rested,” she said.

“This ain’t home,” he said, “not to me it ain’t, but I should’ve come earlier all right. I should never’ve left you at all.”

“What’s bothering you, Matt? What is it at all?”

“Nothin’,” he said. “Nothin’. Get dressed and let’s go.”

“I can’t go right away, Matt. Mr. Foley’s giving a reception for the cast on stage. I must attend it. I want you to come with me. We needn’t stay long.”

“You want me to come with you. Like hell you do.”

“I wish you would say out what’s troubling you, Matt. I can’t read your mind. I’m sorry you haven’t found the gold you went looking for. Perhaps you will find it yet. But the truth is, I don’t care except that it is so important to you.”

“Maybe you can’t read my mind,” he said, “but I’m beginnin’ to think I can read yours. You don’t care about the gold, no, but you cared damn well to come to California. I’ll tell you what’s come sudden to my mind—you lied to me, Peg, makin’ out all this was for me, makin’ out you were goin’ to be my ever-lovin’ wife when all you wanted was to get shy of me and off on the stage again. I’m sayin’ you calculated this from New Orleans.”

“As God is my witness, Matt,” she said very slowly that anger might not blight her reason, “I should have preferred to go from New Orleans to your home in Alabama and settled there.”

“We couldn’t do it, I told you!” he cried. “Pa won’t give me till I prove myself!”

“Wherever you went, Matt, when we were married I was willing to go, too.”

He caught her arm and pulled her around to where the light shone up on her face. “Then you’ll come back to the diggin’s with me in the mornin’.”

“In the morning we’ll talk about it, Matt,” she said, meeting his eyes. “Now I must fix my hair.” He let her arm go as she leaned across him to reach the comb for her coiffure.

“No, Peg. Now. You can tell ’em goodbye when you go out there. You done real nice for them tonight.”

“Thank you,” she said with irony.

A voice called from beyond the partition. “Are you coming, Margaret?”

“Coming,” she called back.

“Who’s that?” said Matt.

“John Redmond,” she said, smiling quickly as she sometimes did in temper. “”Wouldn’t you like to meet him?”

“Not even in the outhouse,” Matt said.

Without a word she went to the doorway.

“Are you goin’ to tell ’em, Peg?”

“I shall be back in a few minutes, Matt. You can wash at the stand there while you’re waiting if you like.”

“If you don’t tell ’em, I’m comin’ out and do it myself.”

A table was spread on the stage with white linen, and when Peg made her way to it the whole company turned, glasses in hands, to toast her. She curtseyed to the toast and caught up a glass in which the tiny beads were dancing: “To long and prosperous days together.”

“I hear your husband’s returned,” Foley said to her apart.

“He’ll be on the stage any minute, God help us,” Peg said.

“He’s rousin’ drunk, is he? It’s the first thing they do coming back from the fields, or for some of them maybe the second.”

“It’s not amusing,” Peg said. “He wants me to go back with him tomorrow.”

“God’s teeth, he does!” cried Foley. “A pretty chance he has of that. Has he struck it rich?”

For all the success of the night, Peg thought, looking up at the man, the wild gleam came into Foley’s eye at the thought of a rich strike.

“I’m afraid he’s struck it poor,” she said. “That’s the gist of the trouble.”

“Is he jealous?”

“Not really,” Peg said, “although he’d like to think it. He knows I’ve given him no cause.”

“Shall I talk to him, Margaret?”

“He may well insult you. He’s spoiling for a muss, as they say at home.”

“I’ve been insulted by kings.” Foley took a cigar from his pocket case and bit off the tip. He watched her while he held a candle to it. “Does he smoke, this husband of yours?”

Peg sighed. After all the strain and exhilaration, she felt too empty, too weary to cope with the situation, and she knew that in her heart she wished Matt had not come. “He’s too young to smoke,” she said.

When they reached the dressing room Matt was not there.

“Like as not,” said Foley, “he’s loading up downstairs. He’ll not go back himself tomorrow, much less take you.”

Peg shivered. He’s maudlin when he’s sober, she thought, and drunk he’s a gibbering fool. When he was all there was to me I could abide it…“Oh, God,” she said, “I wish I were as drunk as he will be when we meet again.”

Foley shook his head. “My old mother used to say if you need to take a bottle to bed, you should sit up the night.” He took a flask from his pocket and poured her a jigger of brandy. Peg drank it down.

“That will warm the chill,” she said. “May I have another?”

“We’ve a long day tomorrow,” Foley said, but he gave it to her.

“Longer for me, starting it now,” she said, but she threw back her head and smiled. “Let’s go back and keep faith with our friends. He’ll come for me when he’s ready.”

Foley held aside the sheeting for her. “Does he beat you?”

Peg laughed. “I wish he would.”

Comradeship had mellowed into sentimentality amongst the players, and one lad after another must kiss the leading lady, chaste kisses mostly, and the one that wasn’t from an old trouper, his beard his own and as musty as ever one out of a trunk. Peg gave him a push that sprawled him amongst the empty champagne bottles, scattering them like ninepins. “Alley, alley!” the company cried. “Set ’em up and bowl ’em again, Kate!”

John Redmond rushed in then, having been gone a half hour or so. “Hear this! Hear this!” he cried, waving a piece of foolscap. “Here’s tomorrow’s review in the
Alto California.
”

“Where did you get it, John?”

“From the typesetter’s hand. He’s my friend.”

“For God’s sake let’s hear it,” Foley said.

Redmond leaped upon the table and struck himself a pose. He came down then and took the paper to a work light. “It’s a pity, they can’t afford us more light.”

“God’s teeth, man, stop the coquetry and spit it out.”

Redmond unrolled the paper. “‘Last night,’” he read, “‘something wonderful happened to the American theatre. The players upon the stage at the Rialto were mortal men and women. Blood ran in their veins and not the ink of ages. John Redmond deserves all credit for his exuberant production, and his Petruchio befit the style he set for all his players. But what shall we say of his Kate? Plain Kate and bonny Kate and sometimes Kate the curst, but Kate, the prettiest Kate in Christendom. Margaret Stuart was indeed all Kates. We cannot help but opine that she may set a new and welcome fashion for leading ladies throughout the land. Realist is the word for her…’ Shall I read on?”

“Oh,” cried Foley, “I’d rather hear it than scratch my belly. Read on!”

Not a disparaging word was there in the entire review and when Redmond was done with the reading, no one in the company had anything to say until finally the First Old Man remarked: “He oughtn’t to have said all that. We’ve got another performance to give tomorrow.”

“And we were right in our letter to you, Mrs. Stuart,” said the boy, Eddie, who was sitting at her feet. “That was my saying, ‘the applause of players’, I wrote that.”

She ruffled his hair. “A beautiful saying. Now you must write me a play to go with it.”

“I can,” the boy cried, leaping up. “I’ll set it here in San Francisco: the curse of gold!”

“Let’s get our share of it first and curse it after,” said Redmond. “Fetch me my cloak and gloves like a good lad, Eddie.”

Peg saw the boy’s face change in disappointment. “Pop the cork on one last bottle, Eddie,” she said. “I’ll get your cloak for you, John.”

“I’ll get it myself,” said Redmond, with as much of a smile as he ever yielded, and brushing Peg’s cheek with the back of his hand as he passed her. “I am scored upon.”

“Let me get it,” Peg said softly. “It will be my little way of tribute to you as well as reprimand. Stay a glass out with us, John. I’m almost fearful of the parting tonight.”

“Good Lord, why? We’re opening, not closing. After Kate, you’ll have Ophelia…” Peg made a face. “All right, Rosalind, and what a Rosalind! No bustles afore or aft for that, good Kate!”

Peg laughed and slipped from the edge of the table where she had been sitting. She was but a few steps on her way when a voice came thick and curdled from the dark house beyond the work light: “You don’t fetch any man’s coat for him, Mrs. Stuart, exceptin’ your husband’s.”

Peg turned, cold and sick at heart and stomach at the sound of his voice. “Are you there, Matt?” she called out, for she could see no more of him beyond the spectral light than a round whiteness that must be his face, which looked disembodied as he lurched forward amongst the benches in the darkness.

“Here and unaccounted, goddam these trees chopped down and lyin’.” He sprawled over the benches and then picked himself up.

Tom Foley caught up the candelabra from the table. “Come up, Mr. Stuart,” he cried out too heartily. “Your wife and I were looking for you.”

“Where were you lookin’,” Matt slurred, reaching the stage, “under Redmond’s bed?”

“Hush, man,” Foley said, leaning his hand down to pull Matt up to the dais. Their bodies teetered giddily, the weight of one sawing against the pull of the other.

“You’re scaldin’ me with tallow!” Matt screamed.

Peg took the candelabra from Foley’s hand, and then with the help of another man, he pulled Matt onto the stage. The actors giggled, mostly out of embarrassment.

Matt swayed like a willow in the wind. His eyes were bloodshot, his mouth sagging. Peg caught his hand and squeezed it fiercely. “Ladies and gentlemen,” she said, turning him to the table, “I should like to present my husband.”

They murmured a greeting but averted their eyes.

“We’re goin’ home and pack your clothes,” Matt said, trying to articulate each word. “We ain’t a-waitin’ till mornin’. I got a horse an’ wagon outside now. We’re goin’ to be in Sacramento by the dawn.”

The women of the cast let out their shock in long “ooohs.”

Matt turned and grinned at them foolishly. “Wanna come with us?”

“Sit down at the table here, Mr. Stuart,” Foley said, “and let’s talk this over like gentlemen.”

“Gold,” Matt said, looking down from his great height on the burly Foley, “that’s what makes gen’lemen. Did you strike it?”

“As you did, my good man,” said Foley. “But I know it and I doubt if you do. Mrs. Stuart is more than gold to either of us. Get hold of yourself and appreciate her, man, before you turn into a Midas.”

Matt cocked his head. “Into a what?”

“Midas.”

Matt grinned and put his hand on Foley’s shoulder. “Midas well sit down,” he said, and laughed. He made a sweeping gesture. “Midas well all sit down.” He stopped half way to the table. “What was it that thing said with all your names on it?”

“‘The applause of players,’ Mr. Stuart,” Eddie spoke up.

Matt nodded. “I applaud her, too.” He clapped his hands. “Before any of you ever even seen her, I applauded her.”

Oh, God almighty, Peg thought. He will account our lives now that he can make good his boast. “Sit down, Matt, and hold your tongue. We’ll have a glass together.”

Again he leaned heavily on Foley’s shoulder and grinned. “Ain’t she modest though? To hear her you’d never think she was on the stage before.” He looked around. “Come to think of it, I wasn’t.”

“You’re on now,” John Redmond said with ill-concealed contempt.

“And so are you!” Matt shouted as though it were a challenge.

Redmond shrugged and sipped his wine.

Matt turned again to Foley. “Did you ever see her do Gallus Mag?”

“No,” Foley said quietly, “I didn’t.”

But Redmond’s head shot up from where he had taken to contemplating his wine. His eyes darted to Peg’s. He had thought he remembered her on their first reading. He threw his head back and laughed soundlessly in the rush of recollection.

“Oh, by God, you should’ve seen that,” Matt said. “Why, man, she could bring a possum out of a treetop wi’ that slung-shot of hers. It’s just too bad she ain’t gonna be around to do that for you here. Do us a bit from Mag now, honey. Show the people.”

Peg stood where she was, her hand tight upon the candelabra.

“Oooh,” Matt said, “she’s frothin’ up. She don’t like Mag no more. I’ll tell you somethin’—I think she’s ashamed of Mag. And I’ll tell you somethin’ else—she’s ashamed of me.” He shook his finger in Foley’s face. “Don’t tell me no, ’cause I know yes. But I ain’t ashamed of her. Oh, no. I’m goin’ to take her back to camp and show her off till I bust wi’ pride. Am I talkin’ too much?”

A twitter of laughter came from the watchers. Matt permitted himself to be led to the table, but he reared back then and jerked his arm from Foley’s hand. “My mind’s made up,” he said. “And when a Stuart makes up his mind, a coon trap…” His mouth hung open while he groped for the words to finish the sentence.

“Well,” Peg cried, jarring the candelabra down on the table, “let’s drink to it—to Matt Stuart, a man who makes up his mind. Slop him out a glass here, Eddie, and one for all of us who’d rather be drunk than soulful.”

“I for one,” said the Walking Lady, gathering herself up in tipsy dignity, “would rather be dead than drunk. Good night, comrades.”

Peg looked after her and jerked her head around to look upon her husband while he settled at the bench and played a game with himself, working his hand to the glass, finger over finger on the tablecloth. She could feel a cruel urge rise in her. Oh, the pleasure she would feel to tear her nails across his face. She smiled. “Or would you like whiskey better, Matt? Of course you would. It’s your party. Name your choice.”

Matt nodded his approval. “Bourbon,” he said, “a man’s drink.”