Centennial (113 page)

And yet Maude De Lisle had married him when she could have chosen others. She had carried him with her in the years when she enjoyed triumphs and had stayed with him when their life deteriorated to drab hotels. He treasured this loyalty, and if on the one hand he was a rather pathetic actor, he was on the other a faithful husband who adored his wife and let her know it. Once in a little town in South Dakota when they were offering the balcony scene from
Romeo and Juliet
, he had looked up at her and found her more radiant than Shakespeare’s lines. He had stood dumb at the foot of the balcony while Murphy threw him the cue: “But soft! what light through yonder window breaks? Instead of repeating it, as he should, he accepted it as if some disembodied voice had said it, and responded with the one that followed, “It is the east, and Juliet is the sun!” And the play had gone on.

“What’s the trouble?” Murphy now asked, always alert to the probability of disaster. Over Mervin’s protest, Maude thrust the telegram at the Irishman.

“Inform Chisholm,” Maude said acidly. “If you can find him.”

“Wait!” Mervin pleaded, but the decision had been made. This troupe had absorbed too many reverses. The bond required to hold the members together had been too eroded by sheriffs and hotel managers and railway conductors.

Now Maude announced her decision: “This, dear friends, is truly our closing night. I don’t know what you are going to do, but we are going to settle here, in this town, and”—she looked knowingly at her husband—“I feel sure something will turn up.”

Among those who heard this declaration, in addition to Sheriff Dumire and the actors, was young Philip Wendell. He had been standing in shadows, as he often did when he sensed that older people were in trouble, and he had heard the whole conversation from the moment that Dumire entered. He could guess what the telegram said, and he had a sure understanding of what it meant. He was precocious and knew that this time his mother intended what she said. This was the end of the tour.

And then he saw, with deep pride, his beleaguered father rally his forces. “Come, now!” the gallant actor cried. “If it is the last, let’s make it the best.” And the child watched as Mervin went to the Murphys, offering them encouragement, and to young Chisholm, to whom he said, “Play as if the kings were out there.” It was so like his father to say
kings
. One would not be enough.

Then Mervin saw his son and came to him and took his hands and asked, “You know?” The boy nodded, and Mervin hugged him and said, “Make it the performance you’ll never forget.” Philip got into his girl’s costume, and when the curtain was lowered after his mother’s performance as Lady Teazle, in a scene from
The School for Scandal
, he slipped into his place and sat with his harp between his knees and his eyes closed to indicate blindness. Running his fingers lightly over the strings, he began to sing Tom Moore’s heartbreaking song of old Ireland:

“
The harp that once through Tara
’s
halls

The soul of music shed,

Now hangs as mute as Tara
’s
walls

As if that soul were fled.
”

At this point it was customary for him to play passionately and address the harp as if it were a friend, but on this night Philip barely touched the strings. He stopped his singing, and looking at the harp with closed eyes, began to recite the familiar lines: “Why must I play an instrument I cannot see? I feel the strings and hear them echo ...”

The emotion of this night was too much for him, and the planned words died away. He played a few chords and forgot the sequence of his apostrophe. Instead, he started to sing the entire Moore ballad, and its effect upon the audience was profound. He was a blind girl. He was at the heart of a doomed Ireland singing at its wake:

“
Thus Freedom now so seld
om wakes,

The only throb she gives

Is wh
en some heart indignant breaks,

To show that she still lives.
”

When he finished, the audience cheered and whistled, and he stayed at his harp, his eyes closed, praying that this moment of acceptance might never end. Finally young Chisholm came onstage and led him off, and in the wings Chisholm started to cry and embraced the boy and told him, “You will never forget this night. You were a triumph,” and Philip’s mother came and took him away.

So the last number came, and Philip, in his costume as the Little Drummer Boy of Fredericksburg, beat the triple drums as if the entire Union army marched to his command, and Mr. Murphy was splendid as the dying sergeant, and Mrs. Murphy blew the bugle in her right hand while her left waved a flag; she represented the Spirit of the Eventual Triumph of Right over Wrong, meaning the north over the south, and young Chisholm was heroic as the lieutenant who led the charge, and through it all Mervin Wendell, unaided by any mechanical device, as the program promised, exploded shells, imitated Minié balls whining at the enemy, operated a Gatling gun and almost became the ammunition train.

At the final tableau, with Mrs. Murphy still blowing her bugle and waving her flag, the audience burst into cheers, and as the curtain fell, Mervin Wendell asked that question which haunts touring companies on their infrequent nights of triumph, “Why can’t it always be like this?”

Sheriff Dumire, having participated in many such closing nights, was as gentle as possible, but he was also firm. No, the Wendells could have nothing, absolutely nothing, not their costumes, nor their drums, nor even Philip’s harp. He surmised that in a dozen states like Iowa and Nebraska they had defrauded merchants, and the citizens of Colorado required protection. The tour was indeed ended.

So the six actors sat in the darkened theater, discussing what they would do next. Young Chisholm looked forward to a bright future; he was only twenty-two and looked sixteen. He could trade on his looks for years, and in the morning would be off to Denver. The Murphys had known an endless chain of disastrous nights, but they had always been able to find some traveling company that needed a good Irish comedian with a wife who could double on trumpet. They thought they’d head back to Chicago.

The Wendells would stay in Centennial. “But what can we do?” Mervin pleaded. Since the age of twelve the stage had been his home, and he knew nothing else. “What work can I do?” he repeated aimlessly.

Before she could respond, unexpected help arrived, in the form of a man they had not seen before. He came hesitantly through the back door of the theater, a place to which he was not accustomed, and made his way tentatively to where the family sat. He was a tall man, ungainly and shy. Since the stage was dark, the Wendells could not see his clerical collar or the Bible which he carried in his two hands.

“I wonder if I could help,” he asked gently, and at these words Mrs. Wendell’s shoulders slumped and she leaned back against a box and said, “We need a great deal of help.”

“I know,” he said. “The hotel has taken possession of your things.”

“They can’t do that!” Mervin cried. “I paid in advance.”

“For the room,” Maude said with much tiredness. “We ate like pigs.”

“Excuse me,” the man said, ‘my name’s Holly. Reverend Holly from the Union Church.” He went to each of the Wendells, extending his hand in greeting, and said to Philip, “You ought to be in bed, young man. Tonight you’ll sleep at our place.”

“Why are you doing this?” Maude asked.

“This town was deeply moved by the circus deaths. We were reminded that actors and jugglers and clowns ...” sensing that he had used an infelicitous grouping, he stopped. “Many of us would like to help.”

He boarded them for three days, then announced that he had found them a permanent place, a furnished house owned by a Mr. Delmar Gribben, a member of his congregation.

“How will we pay the rent?” Maude asked.

“For two months there will be no rent. After that you’ll have the money, for the railway station needs a part-time man to handle baggage, and the job is yours, Mr. Wendell.”

“Does it pay?”

“Of course it pays! Mr. Wendell, this community wants you and your family to reside with us. We need more people. We need you.”

So the Wendells deserted a theater which had long ago deserted them and gratefully moved into the Gribben place on First and Fifth, that is, at the far end of First Street just after it crossed Fifth Avenue. The rambling house faced the open space of North Bottoms and the eastward curve of Beaver Creek. That Sunday evening, at the informal worship services Reverend Holly enjoyed conducting, the three Wendells secured for themselves a place in the affections of Centennial.

It was the custom, at these night services, for musical members of the congregation to offer solos and duets. Hymns were preferred, such as “The Old Rugged Cross” and “Work, for the Night Is Coming,” but Mervin suggested to the pastor that he and Maude, assisted by their son, offer the group a moving song with which the family had had some success when worshipping in states like Ohio and Indiana. Reverend Holly was delighted and Mervin consulted briefly with the pianist. Yes indeed, she knew the proposed song. It was, in fact, one of her favorites.

So she struck those deep, rich chords which signal the opening of Septimus Winner’s outstanding triumph, “Whispering Hope.” This notable song had been published in 1868 under the pseudonym Alice Hawthorne, the author feeling, and rightly so, that its extraordinary sentiment would seem more appropriate if the composer was thought to be a lady. It had swept the nation, primarily because the legato notes sung by the soprano invited the bass or baritone to boom out a patter accompaniment, while the third voice, if there was one, could engrave delicate arabesques. It was a song predestined for Maude and Mervin Wendell, and they knew how to exploit it. In a clear, sweet treble Philip lined out the lush words:

“
Soft as the Voice of an Angel,

Breathing a Lesson unhe
ard,

Hope with a gentle Persuasion,

Whispers her comforting Word;

Wait till the Darkness is over,

Wait till the Tempest is done,

Hope for the Sunshine Tomorrow,

After the Shower is gone.
”

As the child sang the melody, his mother, in a strong contralto, sang a close harmony which moved alternately above and below the note her son was singing, uniting occasionally on a single note to produce an effect of such delicious accidentals that the audience sighed at its sheer loveliness.

Now came the good part, the chorus. While Philip and Maude continued as they were, singing their soprano and alto versions of the words
whispering hope
, Mervin broke in with a deep, rumbling baritone, singing three and four words while they sang one. He produced such a powerful effect that when the chorus ended, the audience started to applaud, even though it was in church.

“I think we have heard
sursum corda
,” Reverend Holly said. “As this gifted family sings our old favorite it sounds more like a hymn than the hymns we sing,” and with this benediction the Wendells became citizens of Centennial.

Henceforth, on any occasion when the citizenry gathered, they were asked to sing, and “Whispering Hope” was bound to be called for. How stable, how strongly bound they seemed when they united in this song, their voices separate yet blending. “They’re a lesson to us all,” Reverend Holly said many times. He actually preferred the other number by Septimus Winner, also published under the name of Alice Hawthorne, which the Wendells offered, “Listen to the Mockingbird.” The words of this song lacked the purity of “Whispering Hope,” and there was a certain repetitiousness about them. Mervin preferred singing it while sitting in a chair, his right hand pressed against his forehead, his eyes fixed on an imaginary fire:

“
I
’
m dreaming now of Hall
ie, sweet Hallie, sweet Hallie,

I
’
m dreaming now of Hallie.

For the thought
of her is one that never dies;

She
’
s sleeping in the
valley, the valley, the valley,

She
’
s sleeping in the valley,

And the mockingbird is singing where she lies.

At
t
his point the audience heard the mockingbird in the distance, for Philip in the wings gave a fine whistling imitation of the bird, but before he ended, his mother walked onstage, whistling as fine a series of bird calls as the west had ever heard. She was phenomenal, sliding up and down the scale, doing robins and nightingales and thrushes and even hawks, while her husband sang:

“Listen to the mockingbird,

Listen to the mockingbird

The mockingbird still singing o
’
er her grave
...
”

When the last chorus was reached, the Wendells really let go. Now Philip walked out from the wings, whistling his heart out as the mockingbird, while his mother shrilled a score of wild bird notes and her husband expressed his grief in deep, passionate notes.

One member of the audience was not impressed. Sheriff Dumire kept close watch on the Wendells and asked himself, What are they using for money? They were dressing well, eating regularly and moving from one party to the next. On Sunday mornings when the collection plate was passed, Mervin made a show of dropping a heavy coin, a quarter or perhaps even a half dollar, into the metal plate, where it echoed, and he had been seen at the livery stable looking at a type of horse which could only be used to pull a carriage. Something was wrong.