The Bacillus of Beauty
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Harriet Stark >> The Bacillus of Beauty
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From the ferry I presently reached a vast, forbidding cemetery, and as I
went among the crowded graves there came floating out from a little chapel
the sound of prayers intoned for the dead. I almost envied them; almost
wished that I, too, might be laid to rest in the little churchyard at
home.
Then I lay down flat upon the turf in a lonely place, and tried to think
of myself as dead. Never had the pulse beat stronger in my veins then at
that moment. There were little living things all around me, joying in the
warm sun; tiny insects that crawled, unrebuked, over my gown, so busy, so
happy in their way, with their petty affairs all prospering, that I
wondered why I should be so out of tune with the world. And then a rain of
tears gushed from my eyes. I do not think that any one who should have
seen me there could have guessed that the prone and weeping woman was the
most beautiful of created things; I do not think I have an enemy so bitter
that she would not have pitied me.
I tried to think, but I was too tired. I had a vision of myself returning
to the narrow round of farm life, to Ma's reproaches, to dreary, grinding
toil that I might win back dollar by dollar the money I had squandered--my
back bent, my face seamed, my hands marred, like Aunt Emily's; and I
shuddered and wept and grovelled before fate.
Then I saw myself remaining in the city, seeking work and finding nothing.
Teach I could not; every door was barred except--I saw myself before the
footlights, coarsened, swallowing greedily the applause of a music hall
audience, taking a husband from that audience perhaps--a brute like
Bellmer! Better die!
But as the vision passed, a great desire of life grew upon me. It seemed
monstrous, hideous, that I should ever die or be unhappy; the fighting
instinct sent the blood galloping. I sat erect.
Then I noticed that the sun was gone, and the evening cool was rapidly
falling. The little people of the grass whose affairs I had idly watched I
could no longer see--gone to their homes maybe; and I turned to mine,
desolate as it was, hungry and chilled and alone.
And that evening John Burke brought the sunshine.
CHAPTER X.
PLIGHTED TROTH.
"Helen, you seem tired," John said as I met him at the door--at first I
peeped out from behind it, I remember, as if I feared the bogey-man--"Have
you been too hard at work?"
"I've been out all the afternoon," I said, "and I suppose I am rather
tired, but it was pleasant and warm; and I wore a veil."
There was a little awkward pause after I had ushered him to the reception
room, and then, guiding the talk through channels he thought safe, he
spoke about his law work, the amusing things that happen at the office,
his gratifying progress in his profession.
"Oh," I said, "talking of the law reminds me--some stupid paper was left
here to-day."
I found with some difficulty and handed to him the stiff folded legal cap
the man had brought.
He glanced through it with apprehensive surprise, skipping the long
sentences to the end.
"Why, this is returnable to-morrow," he said; "Nelly, I had no idea you
were in such urgent money troubles; why didn't you send for me at once;
this morning?"
"Oh, if that's all--I've had so many duns that I'm tired of them: tired to
death of them."
"But this isn't a dun," he began in the unnaturally quiet tone of a man
who is trying to keep his temper and isn't going to succeed. "It is a
court order; and people don't ignore court orders unless they want to get
into trouble. This paper calls you to court to-morrow morning in
supplementary proceedings."
"I don't know what they are."
"You don't want to know what they are. You mustn't know. It's an ordeal so
terrible that most creditors employ it only as a last resort, especially
against a woman. This plaintiff, being herself a woman, is less merciful."
"Why is it so terrible? I have no money; they can't make me pay what I
haven't got, can they? Is it the Inquisition?"
"Yes, of a sort; it's an inquiry into your ability to pay, and almost no
question that could throw light upon that is barred. You'll be asked about
your business in New York, your income and expenses, your family and your
father's means. It will be a turning inside out of your most intimate
affairs."
"Why, I should expect all that," I said.
"But, Nelly--" he hesitated. "You're alone here?"
He had not before alluded to Mrs. Whitney, though I suppose he understood
that she had gone; I appreciated his delicacy.
"I'm afraid you'll be asked about that," he went on; "asked, I mean, how a
young woman without money maintains a fine apartment. They'll inquire
about your servants, the daily expenses of your table, your wine bills, if
you ever have any; then they'll question you about your visitors, their
character and number, and try to wring admissions from you, and to give
sinister shades to innocent relations. The reporters will all be there, a
swarm of them. You're a semi-public character, more's the pity, and some
lawyers like to be known for their severity to debtors. What a field day
for the press! The beautiful Miss Winship in supplementary proceedings--
columns of testimony, pages of pictures--! Ugh! In a word, the experience
is so severe that you cannot undergo it."
"I don't see how it's to be helped; is it a crime to live alone?" I said.
"I won't ask Uncle Timothy for money--and have Aunt Frank know about it."
Again he hesitated, then he said more slowly, but plumping out the last
words in a kind of desperation: "I've heard a woman--once--asked if she
had a lover--to pay the money, you know."
I didn't understand at first; then a flush deepened upon my face.
"They wouldn't dare! This woman knows all about me; why, she's Meg Van
Dam's dressmaker; Mrs. Whitney's too--" I said.
"I've heard it done," John repeated patiently. "You must pardon me. I
didn't want to go into this phase of it, but it may explain what, with
your permission, I am about to do. Now, before I go--for I must go at once
to find this attorney, at his house, the Democratic Club, anywhere--I must
be frank with you."
He was already at the door, where he turned and faced me, looking almost
handsome in his sturdy manliness, his colour heightened by excitement.
"I must tell you one thing," he went on very slowly. "I haven't in all the
world a fraction of the money called for by this one bill; but in a way I
have made some success. I am beginning to be known. If I myself offer
terms, so much cash down, so much a month, pledging my word for the
payment, the woman's lawyer will agree. She'll be glad to get the money in
that way, or in any way. But I must guard your reputation. I shall tell
plaintiff's counsel that you are my affianced wife, that I didn't know how
badly you were in debt--both statements are true--and that I assume
payment. I wish to assure you that, in thus asserting our old relation, I
shall not presume upon the liberty I am obliged to take."
I think I have treated John badly; yet he brought me help. And he had no
thought of recompense. Since he has seen how useless it was, he has ceased
to pester me with love making, but has been simply, kindly helpful. And I
have been so lonely, so harassed and tormented.
It was far enough from my thoughts to do such a thing, but as I stood
dumbly looking at him, it flashed upon me that here, after all, was the
man who had always loved me, always helped me, always respected me. I
almost loved him in return. Why not try to reward his devotion, and throw
my distracted self upon his protection?
"I would not have you tell a lie for me, John," said I uncertainly,
holding out my hands and smiling softly into his eyes.
"I don't understand--" he stood irresolute, yet moved, I could see, by my
beauty. "Do you mean--" and he slowly approached, peering from under his
contracted brows as if trying to read my eyes.
"I mean that I have treated you very badly; and that I am sorry," I
whispered, hiding my head with a little sigh upon his shoulder; and after
a time he put his arms about me gently as if half afraid, and was silent.
I felt how good he was, how strong and patient, and was at peace. I knew I
could trust him.
So we stood for a little while at the dividing line between the future and
the past. I do not know what were his thoughts, but I had not been so much
at rest for a long, long time-not since I came from home to New York.
Then with a sigh of quiet content, he said in a low and gentle voice:--
"It's a strange thing to hurry away now, Nelly; but you know I have so
much to do before I can rest tonight. I must speak of this: Now--now that
we are to belong to each other always--I must know exactly about all your
affairs, so that I can arrange them. There are other debts?"
The word grated upon my nerves, I had been so glad to forget.
"Yes, I'm afraid I owe a lot of money, but must we--just to-night?" I
asked.
"I'm afraid it's safest. It is not alone that you will be able to forget
the matter sooner if you confide in me now, but how can we know that these
proceedings will not be repeated if I don't attend promptly to everything?
Some one else may bring suit tomorrow, and another the next day, giving
you no peace. I'm sorry, but it is the best way. Tell me everything now,
and I will arrange with them all, and need never mention the subject
again. Then you can be at peace."
"Well, if I must--"
It seemed impossible to go on. Even the thought of how good he was and how
he had taken up my burden when it was too heavy for my own strength made
it harder to face the horrible business.
"--I owe ten dollars to Kitty Reid, and about twenty-five to Cadge," I
admitted. "I didn't mean to borrow of them, but I had to do it, just
lately--"
"Poor child!" said John, stroking my hand with his big, warm paw, as he
would a baby's. "Poor child!"
"I've bills somewhere for everything else--"
It was like digging among the ruins of my past greatness to pull out the
crumpled papers from my writing desk, reminding me of the gay scenes that
for me were no more; but John quietly took them from me, and began
smoothing them and laying them in methodical piles and making notes of
amounts and names.
"I've refused all these to Uncle Timothy; he's been worrying me with
questions--" I said desperately.
"Three florists, two confectioners," he enumerated, as if he had not heard
me.
"--Women eat sweets by the ton, but lately there have been few of 'em in
this house. Then here are the accounts for newspaper clippings, you know;
Shanks and Romeike; but they're trifles."
"You must have been a good customer," John said, glancing about the
dishevelled flat--I hadn't had the heart to rearrange it since Mrs.
Whitney left. "From the look of the place, I believe you would have bought
a mummy or a heathen god, if anybody had suggested it to you."
"I have a little heathen god--Gautama; alabaster--and a mummied cat."
"And you're very fond of that? But no matter. Shoemaker and milliner and
furniture man; that makes eleven."
He lengthened his list on the margin of a newspaper.
"Well, I never paid Van Nostrand for that painting, and I've even
forgotten how much he said it would be. And there's a photograph bill--a
perfectly scandalous one--and another dressmaker; Mrs. Edgar; I went back
to her after Meg's woman got crusty, but she never'll sue me. And the
Japanese furniture shop and--another photographer--and here's the bill for
bric-a-brac--that's sixteen. The wine account--there is one, but it ought
to be Mrs. Whitney's; for entertaining. I suppose Pa and Ma would say that
was a very wicked bill, now wouldn't they, Schoolmaster?"
"They would indeed, Helen 'Lizy; I'm not sure that I don't agree with
them. By the way, does your father know about all this?"
"Yes, a little. I've begged him for money, but he won't mortgage the farm.
And Judge Baker knows. He wants me to come back to his house, but of
course I won't do it. I guess he's sent for Father; Pa's coming East soon,
on a cattle train pass."
"A cattle train!"
John stabbed the paper viciously, then he said more gently:--
"A cattle train is cold comfort for a substantial farmer at his time of
life; and I don't think we will let him mortgage."
That young man will need discipline; but I imagine he was thinking less
about my poor old father than about--well, I needn't have mentioned the
Baker house, but what does he really know of how I came to leave it?
Perhaps suspicion and bitter memories made my retort more spirited than it
need have been.
"We won't discuss that, please," I said with hauteur; "and we won't be too
emphatic about what is past. It _is_ past. I'll find out what is a
proper scale of expenditure for a young lawyer's wife in New York, and I
shall not exceed it. I've been living very economically for the sphere
that seemed open to me. Perhaps I ought not to have tried it; but I think
you should blame those who lured me into extravagance and then deserted
me. I've had a terrible, terrible experience! Do you know that? And I was
within an ace of becoming an ornament of the British peerage. Did you know
that?"
"Yes; I don't blame you for refusing, either; some girls don't seem to
have the necessary strength of mind. No; I'm not blaming anybody for
anything. Nelly, next week it will be a year since our first betrothal; do
you remember? Haven't you, after all, loved me a little, all the time?"
He looked at me wistfully.
"At least," I said, "I didn't love Lord Strathay."
I didn't think it necessary to correct him as to my refusal of the Earl.
"We'll see if Kitty won't take you in again until we can be married," he
said, jabbing the paper again and changing the subject almost brusquely.
"If you don't want to go back to your aunt, that'll be better than a
boarding house, won't it? You pay the girls out of this, and I'll look
after the other bills. There's a good fellow. Now, then what's No. 18?"
I fingered with an odd reluctance the little roll of bills he handed me,
though it was like a life buoy to a drowning sailor.
"You'd better," he said, with quiet decision, cutting short my hesitation.
"The girls won't need to know where it comes from, or that I know anything
about it. It's ever so much nicer that way, don't you think?"
I put the money with my pride into my pocket, and continued sorting out
bills from the rubbish. In all we scheduled over forty before we gave it
up. Besides the Van Nostrand painting and one or two accounts that
probably escaped us, I found that I owed between $4,000 and $5,000.
"That is the whole of my dowry, John," I said.
"I would as willingly accept you as a portionless bride," he declaimed in
theatrical fashion; and then we both broke into hysterical laughter.
"Never mind," he said, at last, wiping his eyes. "I never dreamed that all
this rubbish about you could cost so much; I ought to have had my eyes
open. But now we aren't going to worry one little worry, are we? I'll
straighten it all out in time. And now I really must go."
And so he went away with a parting kiss, leaving me very happy. I don't
know that I love him; or rather I know that I don't--but I shall be good
to him and make him so happy that he'll forget all the trouble I have cost
him. Dear old unselfish, patient John!
And I am more content and less torn by anxiety than I have been for many a
long day. It is such a relief!
And so I'm thinking it over. Even from the selfish standpoint I have not
done so badly. John is developing wonderfully. He is not so destitute of
social finesse as when he came, his language is better, his bearing more
confident. He makes a good figure in evening dress. He will be a famous
success in the law, and, with a beautiful wife to help him, he should go
far. He may be President some day, or Minister to the Court of St. James,
or a Justice of the Supreme Court.
Whatever his career, I shall help him. I have the power to do things in
the world as well as he. And once married, I may almost choose my friends
and his associates. The women will no longer fear me so much. He shall not
regret this night's work.
So that is settled. I am so relieved, and more tired than I have ever
guessed a woman could be. Tired, tired, tired!
I'm sure it is the best thing I could do, now; but--Judge Baker is right!
What was it he said? "A loveless marriage,"--Oh, well, since I broke Ned
Hynes's heart by setting a silly little girl to drive him away, and broke
my own by breaking his, I haven't much cared what becomes of me; only to
be at peace.
It will be a relief to move out of this accursed flat, where I have spent
the gloomiest hours of my life.
BOOK V.
THE END OF THE BEGINNING.
(From the Shorthand Notes of John Burke.)
CHAPTER I.
THE DEEDS OF THE FARM.
Sunday, June 13.
In three days it will be a year since Helen promised to marry me, and on
that anniversary she will be my wife.
It is strange how exactly according to my plan things have come about--and
how differently from all that I have dreamed.
She is the most beautiful woman in the world; she is to be my wife sooner
than I dared to hope--and--I must be good to her. I must love her.
Did I ever doubt my love until she claimed it five days ago with such
confidence in my loyalty? In that moment, as I went to her, as I took her
in my arms, as I felt that she needed me and trusted me, with the
suddenness of a revelation I knew--
It was hard to meet Ethel--and Milly and Mrs. Baker afterwards.
To-day, in preparing to move to our new home, I came across the rough
notes I wrote last December, when the marvel of Helen's beauty was fresh
to me. As I read the disjointed and half incredulous words I had set to
paper, I found myself living over again those days of Faery and
enchantment.
Custom has somewhat dulled the shock of her beauty; I have grown quickly
used to her as the most radiantly lovely of created beings; my mind has
been drawn to dwell upon moral problems and to sorrow at seeing her
gradually become the victim of her beauty--her nature, once as fine as the
outward form that clothes it, warped by constant adulation, envy and
strife; until--
But it is a miracle! As unbelievable, as unthinkable as it was on the very
first day when that glowing dream of loveliness made manifest floated
toward me in the little room overlooking Union Square, and I was near
swooning with pure delight of vision.
Beautiful; wonderful! She didn't love me then and she doesn't now; but the
most marvellous woman in the world needs me--and I will not fail her.
I wish I could take her out of the city for a change of mental atmosphere.
She shrinks from her father's suggestion of a summer on the farm. But in
time her wholesome nature must reassert itself; she must become, if not
again the fresh, light-hearted girl I knew a year ago, a sweet and
gracious woman whose sufferings will have added pathos to her charm.
And even now she's not to be judged like other women; before the shining
of her beauty, reproach falls powerless. It is my sacred task to guard
her--to soothe her awakening from all that nightmare of inflated hopes and
vain imaginings. Kitty Reid and---yes, and little Ethel--will help me.
Kitty is a good fellow.
"Why, cert.," she said when I begged her last Wednesday to take care of
Helen. "Married! Did you say married? Oh, Cadge, quit pegging shoes!"
Jumping up from the drawing table, Kitty left streams of India ink making
her beastesses all tigers while she called to Miss Bryant, who was
pounding viciously upon a typewriter:--
"Cadge, did you hear? Cadge! The Princess is going to be married. 'Course
you remember, Mr. Burke, Cadge is going to be married herself Saturday."
"Don't be too sure of it," returned Miss Bryant, "and do let me finish
this sentence. Ten to one Pros. or I'll be grabbed off for an assignment
Saturday evening 'fore we can be married. But the Princess is different;
she has leisure. Burke, shake!"
She sprang up to take my hand, her eyes shining with excitement.
Kitty hurried with me to the Nicaragua, where she pounced upon Helen, her
red curls madly bobbing.
"What a bride you'll make!" she cried fondly. "Going to be married from
the den, aren't you? Oh, I'm up to my eyes in weddings; Cadge simply won't
attend to anything. But what have you been doing to yourself? Come here,
Helen."
She pushed the proud, pale beauty into a chair, smothering her with kisses
and the piles of cushions that seem to add bliss to women's joys and
soften all their griefs.
"Tired, aren't you?" she purred. "Needed me. Now just you sit and talk
with Mr. Burke and I'll pack up your brittle-brae in three no-times.
Clesta,--where's that imp?"
She called to the little combination maid and model who had accompanied
us.
"Clesta's afraid of you, Helen. 'Why'd ye fetch me 'long?' she whimpers.
'Miss Kitty, why'd ye fetch me 'long?' Huh, I 'member how you used to have
his picture with yours in a white and gold frame!"
Helen scarcely replied to Kitty's raptures. She laid her head back half-
protestingly among her cushions, showing her long, exquisite throat. For
an instant she let her shadowy lashes droop over the everchanging lustre
of her eyes. I couldn't help thinking of a great, glorious bird of heaven
resting with broken wing.
"Poor little Princess!" said Kitty, who hardly comes to Helen's shoulder.
Then we all laughed.
Kitty stayed at the Nicaragua that night, and when I came Thursday
afternoon she stopped me outside the door, to say:--
"I wouldn't let Helen talk too much; she's nervous."
"Can you tell me what is the matter with her?" I asked. "I don't think
she's well."
"Oh, nothing. You know--she's been worrying." Then loyal Kitty spoke
purposely of commonplaces. "General must have danced her off her feet.
Darmstetter's death upset her terribly, too. She never will speak of it.
But she'll be as right as right with me. Bring her 'round as soon as the
man comes for the trunks. You've only to head up a barrel of dishes,
quick, 'fore Clesta gets in any fine work smashing 'em."
As I passed through the hall, littered with trunks and packing cases, to
the dismantled parlour, Helen looked up from a mass of old letters and
dance cards.
"I'm sorting my--souvenirs," she said.
The face she lifted was white, only the lips richly red, with a shade of
fatigue under the haunting eyes. The graceful figure in its close-fitting
dress looked a trifle less round than it had done earlier in the winter,
and one fair arm, as it escaped from its flowing sleeve, was almost thin.
"Dear," I said wistfully, for something in her drooping attitude smote me
to remorse and inspired me with tenderness; "will you really trust your
life to me?"
She leaned towards me, and beauty breathed about her as a spell. I bent
till my lips caressed her perfumed hair; and then--I saw among the rubbish
on her desk something that made me interrupt the words we might have
spoken.
"What's that?" I asked. "Not--pawn tickets?"
"For a necklace," she said; "and this--this must be my diamond--"
"Pawned and not paid for!"
She offered me the tickets, only half understanding, her great eyes as
innocent as they were lovely.
"I had forgotten," she said. "I only found them when I came to--"
She brushed the rubbish of her winter's triumphs and disappointments to
the floor, and turned from it with a little, disdainful movement.
"I had to pay the maids," she said simply.
"Nelly, why--why didn't you come to me sooner?"
With a bump against the door, Clesta sidled into the room awestruck and
smutched, bearing a tray.
"Miss Kitty said," she stammered, "as how I should make tea." And as soon
as she had found a resting place for her burden, the frightened girl made
a dash for the door.
Before Helen had finished drinking, there was a stir in the hall, and then
the sound of a familiar voice startled us.
"Wa-al, Helen 'Lizy," it said. "How ye do, John? Don't git up; I can set
till ye're through."
And Mr. Winship himself stood before us, stoop-shouldered, roughly dressed
from the cattle cars, his kindly old eyes twinkling, his good face all
glorified by the honest love and pride shining through its plainness.
"Why, Father!" cried Helen with a start.
She looked at him with a nervous repugnance to his appearance, which she
tried to subdue. He did not seem to notice it.
"Wa'n't lookin' for me yit-a-while, was ye?" he asked. "Kind o' thought
I'd s'prise ye. Did s'prise the man down in the hall. Didn't want to let
me in till I told him who I was. Little gal in the entry says ye're
movin'; ye do look all tore up, for a fac'."
Mr. Winship has grown old within the year. His hair has whitened and his
bushy eyebrows; but the grip of his hand, the sound of his homely speech,
seemed to wake me from some ugly dream. Here we were together again in the
wholesome daylight, Father Winship, little Helen 'Lizy and the
Schoolmaster, and all must yet be well.
Mr. Winship sighed with deep content as he sank into a chair, his eyes
scarcely leaving Helen. He owned himself beat out and glad of a dish of
tea; but when Clesta had served him in her scuttling crab fashion, he
would stop in the middle of a sentence, with saucer half lifted, to gaze
with perplexed, wistful tenderness at his stately daughter.
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