And so, little by little, the character of Willie grew, till it ceased to be the Willie of the magazine story, and became Winfield Knight himself, with improvements. The task began to fascinate Rutherford. It was like planning a pleasant surprise for a child. "He"ll like that,"
he would say to himself, as he wrote in some speech enabling Willie to display one of the accomplishments, real or imagined, of the absent actor. Peggy read it, and approved. It was she who suggested the big speech in the second act where Willie described the progress of his love affair in terms of the golf-links. From her, too, came information as to little traits in the man"s character which the stranger would not have suspected.
As the play progressed Rutherford was amazed at the completeness of the character he had built. It lived. Willie in the magazine story might have been anyone. He fitted into the story, but you could not see him.
He had no real individuality. But Willie in the play! He felt that he would recognize him in the street. There was all the difference between the two that there is between a nameless figure in some cheap picture and a portrait by Sargent. There were times when the story of the play seemed thin to him, and the other characters wooden, but in his blackest moods he was sure of Willie. All the contradictions in the character rang true: the humour, the pathos, the surface vanity covering a real diffidence, the strength and weakness fighting one another.
"You"re alive, my son," said Rutherford, admiringly, as he read the sheets. "But you don"t belong to me."
At last there came the day when the play was finished, when the last line was written, and the last possible alteration made; and later, the day when Rutherford, bearing the brown-paper-covered package under his arm, called at the Players" Club to keep an appointment with Winfield Knight.
Almost from the first Rutherford had a feeling that he had met the man before, that he knew him. As their acquaintance progressed--the actor was in an expansive mood, and talked much before coming to business--the feeling grew. Then he understood. This was Willie, and no other. The likeness was extraordinary. Little turns of thought, little expressions--they were all in the play.
The actor paused in a description of how he had almost beaten a champion at golf, and looked at the parcel.
"Is that the play?" he said.
"Yes," said Rutherford. "Shall I read it?"
"Guess I"ll just look through it myself. Where"s Act I? Here we are!
Have a cigar while you"re waiting?"
Rutherford settled himself in his chair, and watched the other"s face.
For the first few pages, which contained some tame dialogue between minor characters, it was blank.
""Enter Willie,"" he said. "Am I Willie?"
"I hope so," said Rutherford, with a smile. "It"s the star part."
"H"m."
He went on reading. Rutherford watched him with furtive keenness. There was a line coming at the bottom of the page which he was then reading which ought to hit him, an epigram on golf, a whimsical thought put almost exactly as he had put it himself five minutes back when telling his golf story.
The shot did not miss fire. The chuckle from the actor and the sigh of relief from Rutherford were almost simultaneous. Winfield Knight turned to him.
"That"s a dandy line about golf," said he.
Rutherford puffed complacently at his cigar.
"There"s lots more of them in the piece," he said.
"Bully for you," said the actor. And went on reading.
Three-quarters of an hour pa.s.sed before he spoke again. Then he looked up.
"It"s me," he said; "it"s me all the time. I wish I"d seen this before I put on the punk I"m doing now. This is me from the drive off the tee.
It"s great! Say, what"ll you have?"
Rutherford leaned back in his chair, his mind in a whirl. He had arrived at last. His struggles were over. He would not admit of the possibility of the play being a failure. He was a made man. He could go where he pleased, and do as he pleased.
It gave him something of a shock to find how persistently his thoughts refused to remain in England. Try as he might to keep them there, they kept flitting back to Alcala.
6
_Willie in the Wilderness_ was not a failure. It was a triumph.
Princ.i.p.ally, it is true, a personal triumph for Winfield Knight.
Everyone was agreed that he had never had a part that suited him so well. Critics forgave the blunders of the piece for the sake of its princ.i.p.al character. The play was a curiously amateurish thing. It was only later that Rutherford learned craft and caution. When he wrote _Willie_ he was a colt, rambling unchecked through the field of play-writing, ignorant of its pitfalls. But, with all its faults, _Willie in the Wilderness_ was a success. It might, as one critic pointed out, be more of a monologue act for Winfield Knight than a play, but that did not affect Rutherford.
It was late on the opening night when he returned to Alcala. He had tried to get away earlier. He wanted to see Peggy. But Winfield Knight, flushed with success, was in his most expansive mood. He seized upon Rutherford and would not let him go. There was supper, a gay, uproarious supper, at which everybody seemed to be congratulating everybody else. Men he had never met before shook him warmly by the hand. Somebody made a speech, despite the efforts of the rest of the company to prevent him. Rutherford sat there, dazed, out of touch with the mood of the party. He wanted Peggy. He was tired of all this excitement and noise. He had had enough of it. All he asked was to be allowed to slip away quietly and go home. He wanted to think, to try and realize what all this meant to him.
At length the party broke up in one last explosion of handshaking and congratulations; and, eluding Winfield Knight, who proposed to take him off to his club, he started to walk up Broadway.
It was late when he reached Alcala. There was a light in his room.
Peggy had waited up to hear the news.
She jumped off the table as he came in.
"Well?" she cried.
Rutherford sat down and stretched out his legs.
"It"s a success," he said. "A tremendous success!"
Peggy clapped her hands.
"Bully for you, George! I knew it would be. Tell me all about it. Was Winfield good?"
"He was the whole piece. There was nothing in it but him." He rose and placed his hands on her shoulders. "Peggy, old girl, I don"t know what to say. You know as well as I do that it"s all owing to you that the piece has been a success. If I hadn"t had your help--"
Peggy laughed.
"Oh, beat it, George!" she said. "Don"t you come jollying me. I look like a high-brow playwright, don"t I! No; I"m real glad you"ve made a hit, George, but don"t start handing out any story about it"s not being your own. I didn"t do a thing."
"You did. You did everything."
"I didn"t. But, say, don"t let"s start quarrelling. Tell me more about it. How many calls did you take."
He told her all that had happened. When he had finished, there was a silence.
"I guess you"ll be quitting soon, George?" said Peggy, at last. "Now that you"ve made a home-run. You"ll be going back to that rube joint, with the cows and hens--isn"t that it?"
Rutherford did not reply. He was staring thoughtfully at the floor. He did not seem to have heard.
"I guess that girl"ll be glad to see you," she went on. "Shall you cable tomorrow, George? And then you"ll get married and go and live in the rube house, and become a regular hayseed and--" She broke off suddenly, with a catch in her voice. "Gee," she whispered, halt to herself, "I"ll be sorry when you go, George."
He sprang up.