The Bacillus of Beauty

H >> Harriet Stark >> The Bacillus of Beauty

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Quickly the sixth sense of a strange agitation went through the house. I
knew what they were all talking about, thinking about. Subtle waves of
thought seemed to catch up each new comer so that she felt, without being
told, that something extraordinary was happening. Women now approached not
unprepared; but for all their bracing against the shock, not one could be
quite nonchalant at the first sight of my superb, compelling beauty.

My eyes flashed, my pulse rioted as I felt the vibrant excitement of the
gathering, the tiptoe eagerness to reach our neighbourhood, the hush that
fell upon the circle immediately around me, the reaction of overgay laugh
and chatter in the far corners.

Oh, it was lovely, lovely! No girl could have been quite unmoved to feel
that all those soft lights were glowing in her honour, those masses of
flowers blooming, all that warmth and perfume of elegance and luxury
wafted as incense to her nostrils. And the undercurrent of suppressed
excitement, the sensation of Her!

At times I grew impatient of conventionality. How was it possible for
these people to look so quietly, eye to eye, upon the most vitally perfect
of living beings? How could they turn from me to orange frappe or salted
almonds?

Once or twice I caught some faint echo of the talk about us.

"Where is she?" asked one voice, made by curiosity more penetrating than
its owner realised.

"Julia's seen her; she's talked and talked till I had to come."

"And she's still studying?"--Another voice--"How can she? Great beauty and
great scientist--bizarre combination!"

How that would amuse Prof. Darmstetter!

By and by I saw John towering above the others while he bobbed about
helplessly in the sea of women's heads that filled the rooms and even rose
upon the "bleachers," as he calls the stairs. There were not really so
very many people, but he didn't know how to reach us, he is so awkward.
When he had steered his course among the women and had spoken to my Aunt,
his face was radiant as he turned to me.

"I knew _you_ wouldn't fail us, Mr. Burke," Aunt said hurriedly.
"Mrs. Marshall--so glad--this is--Nelly, dear--"

Behind John was a lady waiting to meet me.

"--So glad you've come," I said to him; and the words sounded curiously to
me because in my excitement I also had spoken in my "company voice."

But I had no time to say another word to him, as I turned to greet Mrs.
Marshall.

He mumbled something, flushing, while his eyes devoured my beauty in one
dumb, worshipping look. Then he dropped quickly out of our group. I was
sorry, but he'll understand that I was flurried. He ought to learn self-
control, though; he shouldn't look at me before so many people with all
his heart in his eyes.

And I was so vexed about his clothes, too! His old, long, black coat, such
as lawyers wear in the West, would have been pretty nearly right--
something like what the other men wore--but he seemed to think it was not
good enough, and had put on a brand new business suit. Of course there
wasn't another man there so clad, but he never seemed to notice how absurd
he was.

The Viewing of the Pack didn't last long. Before my cheeks had ceased
flaming, before I had grown used to standing there to be looked at, people
seemed to go, all at once, as suddenly as they had arrived.

Just as the last ones were leaving, some instinct told me that Mr. Hynes
had come. Before I saw him, I felt his gaze upon me, a wondering, glad
look, as if I were Eve, the first and only woman.

Milly brought him to me and left us together, but at first he was almost
curt in his effort to hide his sensibility to my beauty--as if that were a
weakness!--and I was furiously shy, and felt somehow that I must hold him
at still greater distance.

"Am I never again to hear you sing?" he asked. "Sweet sounds that have
given a new definition to music are still vibrating in my memory."

I knew he was thinking of Christmas!

"I don't often sing, except for Joy," I mumbled; "I've had so few
lessons."

"Joy doesn't know her joys; but--wouldn't she share them?"

"Sometime--perhaps--"

I couldn't answer him, for hot and cold waves of shyness and pleasure were
running over me. Oh, I hope, for Milly's sake, he doesn't dislike me. He
seems to feel so intensely, to be so alive!

When he had gone, I went to the dining-room with Aunt Marcia, and found
there Ethel and the General and Peggy Van Dam, the General's cousin, a
pale girl, all eyes and teeth. Kitty was with them, and she darted towards
me, but Mrs. Van Dam was before her.

"Sit down, both of you," she commanded.

She fairly put us into chairs, and brought us cups of something--I don't
know what.

Aunt Marcia breathed a little sigh of relief.

"Helen," she said, "you haven't been standing too long?"

"It wasn't an instant! I could stand all day!"

Mrs. Van Dam smiled, and I felt _gauche_, like a schoolgirl. I am so
impulsive!

"It was all delightful!" cried Kitty; "and yet--while you were my chum,
Helen, I _did_ think you rather good-looking!"

"You find yourself mistaken?" the General inquired.

"Oh, no-o-o; not exactly; a beautiful girl, certainly; but--oh, I could
have made pincushions of some of those pudgy women, nibbling wafers, and
delivering themselves of lukewarm appreciations! 'Too tall'--'too short'--
'too dark'--'too light'; 'I like your height bettah, my deah.' Helen, you
dairymaid, powder! Plaster over that 'essentially improbable' colour."

Mrs. Van Dam broke out laughing at Kitty's mimicry. I wish the child
wouldn't let her hair straggle in front of her ears and look so harum-
scarum.

"I doubt if we have had many harsh critics," said Miss Baker.

"Not a thing to criticise," cried Aunt Frank, entering just then and
catching the last word. "Everybody so interested in Nelly! Bake, if you'd
only come earlier, I'd have been perfectly satisfied."

They say that Uncle Timothy can never be coaxed home to one of his wife's
receptions, but he answered with great solemnity, as he loomed up behind
the little woman:--

"I am privileged to be here, even at the eleventh hour. I could not wholly
deny myself the sight of so much youth and bloom."

"Don't be hypocritical, Judge," said the General reprovingly. "You're too
big and honest to achieve graceful deceit. But before I go--I've seats for
the Opera Monday night in Mother's box. Miss Winship must come, and--" her
glance deliberated briefly--"and Milly."

Milly cried, "How delightful, Meg!" But my tongue tripped and my cheeks
flamed as I tried to say that I had never seen an opera and to thank my
new friend.

Little she heeded my lack of words. Gazing at me once again as she had
upon first seeing me, she exclaimed:--

"You great, glorious creature! They sha'n't hive you in a schoolroom; you
must come out and show yourself; why, you'll set New York in a furore!"

I think she's splendid.

No sooner was she gone than I was summoned to the reception-room, and
Cadge rushed to meet me. She looked much smarter than Kitty, with her
black hair curled and her keen eyes shining with excitement.

"All over but the shouting?" she asked. "Meant to get here in season to
see you knock 'em in the Old Kent Road, but woman proposes, Big Tom
disposes. Shall I turn in a paragraph? Just--did you have music? What's
your dress--in the Sunday society slush, of course, not the daily; 'fraid
the _Star_ won't take over a stick--. Greek a little bit? M-m-m--not
modistic exactly, but--but--."

Her abrupt sentences grew slower, paused, dropped to an awestruck whisper,
as she looked upon me. She added in her gravest manner: "Say, you're the
loveliest ever happened! The--very--limit!"

But awe and Cadge could not long live together. In a moment her mouth took
a comically benevolent quirk.

"And 'among those present'--" she asked; "who was that leaving just as I
got here?"

"Mrs. Robert Van Dam, schoolmate of my cousins. But you're not writing me
up, Cadge?"

Cadge whistled.

"Van Dam! How calmly the giddy child says it! Does your youngest cousin
make mud pies with duchesses? Say, she comes pretty near being one of the
'400.' But I'm off; a grist of copy to grind--talk of raving beauties,
you'll be the only one that won't rave!"

Of course Cadge wouldn't have talked just like that before the others, if
she had come earlier.

At bedtime Milly and Ethel ran to my room to talk things over, and my Aunt
came to shoo them off to bed, but she stayed and talked, too; and I've no
business to be writing at this shocking time of night, except, of course I
couldn't sleep and so I might as well.

"Everybody thinks you resemble your cousins," Aunt said; "and really there
_is_ a family likeness."

Poor Aunt! Ethel and Milly are washed out copies of me, in dress and hair,
if that constitutes resemblance; and they imitate even my mannerisms.

I should think Mr. Hynes would be too critical to admire Milly.

I had a partial engagement for Monday with John; but he'll let me off, to
go to the Opera.

CHAPTER IV.

IN THE INTERESTS OF MUSIC.

Tuesday morning, Jan. 14.

I am writing before breakfast. They told me to lie quietly in bed this
morning, but I'm not tired, not excited. Nothing more happened than I
might have expected. I couldn't have supposed that in my presence people
would be stocks and stones!

But oh, it was beautiful, terrible! How can I write it? If I could only
flash last night--every glorious minute of it--upon paper!

And I might have lost it--they didn't want to let me go! There was a full
family council beforehand. John had taken quietly enough the cancelling of
our half engagement for the evening, but he had strong objections to my
going to the Opera.

"If you prefer that--" he said; "but do you think it wise to appear in
such a public place with strangers?"

"But why not?"

I was impatient at so much discussion and discretion. My mind was made up.

"There's no reason why you shouldn't, I suppose." John drew a great sigh.
"But I shall feel easier if--I think I'll go too."

"We'll all go," cried Aunt Frank--it was so funny to have them sit there
debating in that way the problem of Her--"we'll enjoy it of all things--
the Judge and I, and especially Ethel."

And so, when the great night came, Milly and I left the others in the
midst of their preparations, and went off to dine with Mrs. Van Dam; we
were to go with her afterwards to see Mascagni's "Christofero Colombo."

It seems impossible now, but I was excited even about the dinner. I
thought it the beginning of recognition--and it was!--to be seized upon by
this splendid, masterful young General.

She lives not far from us--on Sixty-seventh Street near Fifth Avenue,
while we are on Seventy-second Street near Madison. The wall of her house
near the ground looks like that of a fortress; there are no high steps in
front, but Milly and I were shown into a hall, oak finished and English,
right on the street level; and then into a room off the hall that was
English, too--oak and red leather, with branching horns above the mantel
and on the floor a big fur rug; and, presently, into a little brocade-
lined elevator that took us to Mrs. Van Dam's sitting-room on the third
floor.

"You ought to see the whole house," Milly whispered, as we were slowly
ascending.

I had eyes just then for nothing but the General herself, who met us, a
figure that abashed me, swishing a gleaming evening dress, her neck and
hair a-glitter with jewels, more dominant and possessive and---yes, even
more interested in me than when I had first seen her.

When we went down to dinner, I did see the house; for at a word from
Milly, partly in good nature and partly in pride, Mrs. Van Dam led the way
through stately rooms that kept me alternating between confusion and
delight, until she paused in a gilded salon, with stuccoed ceiling and
softest of soft rose hangings, where I scarcely dared set foot upon the
shining floor.

Less in jest than wonder, I asked if Marie Antoinette didn't walk there o'
nights.

"It's _Diane_, isn't it, who walks here this night?" she said,
linking her arm in mine and leading me to a tall mirror. Then she changed
colour a little, took her arm away hastily and walked from the great
glass. Kind and friendly as she was, she couldn't quite like to see her
own image reflected there--beside mine!

"_Diane_ and the Queen of Sheba!" exclaimed Milly, for beside our
simple frocks the General was indeed magnificent.

Her brow cleared at this, and she laughed with satisfaction. When I
blurted out something about having once run off to a shop parlour, before
I came to Aunt, for a peep at a full-length glass, she laughed again at
the confession and called me "a buttercup, a perfect _Diane_."

At dinner we met Mr. Van Dam--a small man who doesn't talk much; and it
seemed so exciting to have wine at table, though of course I did not taste
it, or coffee.

And it was delightful to lean back in the carriage, as we drove to the
Opera House, and remember how Kitty and I used to pin up our skirts under
our ulsters and jog about in street cars. Mrs. Van Dam wore a wonderful
hooded cloak of lace and fur, and her gloves fastened all the way to her
elbows with silk loops that passed over silver balls.

I had been so impatient during dinner, because they didn't sit down until
eight o'clock, and then dawdled as if there were no Opera to follow; but I
needn't have worried, for although the performance had begun when we
arrived, there were still many vacant places in the great house. I drew
closer about my face the scarf that Ethel had lent me until we had passed
through the dazzling lobby, up the stairway and through the corridors, and
until the red curtains of the box had parted, and I had slipped into the
least conspicuous chair. Muffled as I was, I trembled at the first glance
at the great, brilliantly lighted house, from which rose the stir of a
gathering audience and a rustle of low voices.

"Why, you're not nervous, are you?" the General asked. "I've brought you
here early on purpose; you'll be comfortably settled before anybody
notices."

And she good-naturedly pushed me into a front place. The music was all the
while going on, but no one seemed to pay much attention.

"Who'll notice me in this big building?" I asked with a shaky little
laugh.

But just at first, as I looked out over the house, I clutched the lace
that was still around my throat. It was warm after the chill air without,
and my head swam. There was mystery in the swarming figures and the
murmur. The breath of the roses that lay over the box rails, the gleaming
of bared shoulders, the flash of jewels seemed to belong to some other
world--a world where I was native, and from which I had too long been
exiled. Surely in some other life I must have had my place among gaily-
dressed ladies who smiled and nodded, bending tiara-crowned heads above
gently waving fans. I felt kinship with them; I passionately longed to be
noticed by them, and feared it even more intensely.

Almost immediately after our arrival the curtain fell upon the first
scene. We had missed every word of it! Mrs. Van Dam left me for a few
minutes to myself, and as I became more composed, I put back my scarf and
looked about a little more boldly. The house was yet far from full, but
every moment people were coming in.

The boxes at each side of us were untenanted, but at no great distance I
saw Peggy Van Dam, seated beside a large woman--her mother, Mrs. Henry--
and chatting busily with a stout, good-natured-looking young man. Even
Peggy had not noticed our entrance and, quite reassured, I lifted my opera
glass and began studying the audience.

We were near the front of the house in the first tier on the left, and I
had in view almost the whole sweep of the great gold and crimson
horseshoe. Down in the orchestra some of the women were as gorgeous in
satins and brocades as those in the boxes, while others wore street
attire. Nearly all the men had donned evening dress, and I thought at
first--but soon saw how absurd that was--that I could pick out John by his
office suit. I could not repress a little glow of pride, as I looked down
upon those rows and rows of heads, to think that somewhere among them, or
above them, John was watching, rejoicing with me, fearing for me where for
himself he would never fear. He'd lift, if he could, every stone from my
path. Mr. Hynes, now, would carry you forward so fast that you'd never see
the stones.

I had no thought that Mr. Hynes was in the house, but, amusing myself with
the idea, I lifted my glass--dear little pearl trinket with which the
General had provided me--and looked for him, wondering how often a poor
young lawyer attends the Opera. Of course I couldn't see anybody I knew,
nor could I read my libretto, for the words danced before my eyes; and
Mrs. Van Dam, smiling at my interest, began chattering about the people
around us, speaking as if I would soon be as familiar with the brilliant
world of fashion and society as herself.

"I wonder," she said in her energetic way, "what it feels like to be at
one's first opera."

Excitement was flashing from my eyes and burning on my cheeks as I
answered:--

"It's--it's--oh, I can't tell you! But in the West," I added hastily, "we
had oratorio."

"What a buttercup you are!" she said again.

Soon the curtain rose upon the second act--or scene. Whichever it was,
that was all that I was fated to see or hear of the Opera. And for the
little while I could consider it, I must say I was disappointed. The
scenery was superb, but the voices--

"You've spoiled us, Nelly," Milly whispered.

"Colombo's not bad."

I squeezed her hand ecstatically.

I find that I don't criticise men so shrewdly; but oh, the thin, shrill
pipe of Isabella, compared with what a woman's voice may be! Yet I admired
her skill, and did not wonder that the house applauded.

The second scene was just closing, and I was lost in dreams of the fine
things that I shall do for art and music when I'm a great society leader,
when the box door opened, and there entered an elderly couple, much
alike--tall, thin, rather stately and withered. I knew that they must be
Mrs. Marmaduke Van Dam, the General's mother-in-law, and her husband.
Impulsively I sprang up to allow them to come to the front places.

And then--the catastrophe!

I was conscious at first only of an instant's confusion, of a hurried
introduction in undertones. Then I found myself again sitting, my arm
tingling to the clutch of Milly's fingers. In her pale, pretty face her
light eyes glowed with a fright that was not all painful.

The blood seemed to flow back to my heart as I realised what I had done.
The sudden stir in our box had called attention, and I had been standing
in the glare of electric lights overhead and at my feet, my white dress
outlined against the blood-red curtains.

"Take this fan," Milly whispered from behind me. "Will you have my seat?"

Shame dyed my face. After such a heedless act I couldn't look at the
General. I knew that, in his surprise at my appearance, Mr. Marmaduke Van
Dam had fumbled noisily with his chair, and that Mrs. Marmaduke had
dropped her shoulder wrap--she was in evening dress; how can elderly women
do it?--I knew that in spite of their rigid politeness they found it hard
to keep their eyes from me. I hoped the General had been too busy to
appreciate my folly, and I drew a quivering breath of relief that it had
had no more serious consequences.

Yet I was queerly dissatisfied. The Metropolitan Opera House is a big
building, and the part of the audience to which I could have been
conspicuous was small. Yet some people must have seen; had they taken no
notice?

For some space--minutes or seconds--it seemed so.

Then a confused murmur, a shifting, restless movement, began near us in
the orchestra. A good many people down there, as well as in the boxes at
each side, had noticed me earlier. Now they began whispering to their
neighbours. Heads were turned our way; people were asking, answering,
almost pointing. I could see the knowledge of me spread from seat to seat,
from row to row, as ripples spread from a stone thrown into still water.
Opera glasses were levelled. Comment grew, swelled to a stir of surprise.
The curtain had dropped for the interval between scenes; our box became
for the moment the centre of interest, and the lights were high. Even the
orchestra was resting.

Then it was given me to see how in a great audience Panic may leap without
cause from Opportunity.

The stir grew, spread. Fascinated, I gazed down at the disturbance. I knew
that a frightened smile still curved my lips. I felt my eyes glow,
luminous and dilated. My heart almost stopped beating, gripped by triumph
and horror. Afterwards I realised that I had not availed myself of the
screen Milly offered; I hadn't lifted the fan to shield my face; I had not
stirred to hide myself.

"Bob!" whispered the General. "Quick! Don't you see?"

Robert Van Dam sprang to his feet, offering, as I thought, to exchange
places with me. Once more I started up, and chairs were moved to give me
passage.

While again I stood under the glare of the lights, and while for the
second time the movement in the box drew attention thither, somebody below
half rose to look at me. Two or three--a dozen--followed. As I dropped
into my seat at the back of the box, and cast the scarf again about my
head, twenty, thirty people were struggling out of their chairs.

From my shelter I watched as, farther and farther away, the heads began to
turn. From places where I had not been visible I heard the murmur
swelling, the scuffle of people rising. I had disappeared from sight, the
first to rise had dropped back into their seats as if ashamed, but others
increased the uneasy tumult of low, tense sounds.

My brain worked quickly. I understood the shuddering thrill that passed
over the audience. It was as if all my life I had seen such vast
assemblies, and knew the laws that rule their souls. Even before it came I
guessed it was coming; a voice--it was a man's--crying out:--

"What is it? Is it--fire?"

And from away across the house came the answering call--not a question
this time, not hesitant, but quick and sharp:--"Fire!"

What should I do? Why was not John or Mr. Hynes there to tell me? Wild
thoughts darted through my mind. Should I stand once more? Show myself?
Should I cry: "It was I, only I! They were looking at me. There is no
fire!"

Crazy, crazy thought! For the thing was over as soon as it began.

Those who had started the confusion and who understood its cause, began
shouting:--

"Sit down! Sit down!"

From the topmost gallery a tremendous great voice came bellowing down:--

"What--_fool_--said--that?"

There was a little laugh, a hiss or two rebuked the disorder; then the
baton signalled the orchestra, and the music recommenced, smoothly and in
perfect time; the conductor had never turned his head. The curtain went
up; the incident was closed.

I drew a long, sighing breath of relief as one, then another, then all
together, as if by a single impulse, the people sat down in their places.
It had been but an instant. The painted stage, the glittering court
ladies, Isabella on her throne, the suppliant Colombo, were as if nothing
had happened.

"First-rate orchestra," muttered Robert Van Dam.

The General turned in her chair and looked at me. She did not speak, but I
could see that she was excited; it seems to me now that her eyes were very
bright, and that her strong, square-chinned face looked curiously
satisfied.

"Let's go," I gasped; "I want to go home."

Choking with sobs, though not unhappy, I felt as if I wished to run, to
fly; but, as I tottered out of the box, I could scarcely stand. Mr. Van
Dam helped me, the General and Milly following. In the corridor we were
joined by Peggy and the florid young man whom I had seen with her.

"Why--why, you're not going? You are not going?" Peggy cried. She breathed
quickly, and her teeth and eyes alike seemed to twinkle. "Can--can't Mr.
Bellmer or I--do something?"

"Nothing at all," said the General in brisk staccato, fastening my wraps
with an air of proprietorship; "nobody's in voice to-night, do you think?
Miss Winship doesn't care to stay."

Before we reached the lobby, John came from somewhere, hurrying towards
us. I was walking between Mr. Bellmer and Robert Van Dam, but with
scarcely a look at them he tucked my hand under his arm, just as he would
have done in the old days at the State University. At the door Mr. Van Dam
looked for a cab.

"I'll take her home," said John grimly.

"I'll go with you; I must see her safe with Mrs. Baker," the General
replied, understanding at once. "Mr. Bellmer, tell Mother, please, that
Bob and I have gone with Miss Winship. Or--Bob, you won't be needed; you
explain to Mother."

The two men hurried away upon their errand, though I fancied they went
reluctantly. Peggy had not come down.

All the way home John's brows were black, and he looked straight ahead of
him. As we passed under the glow of electric lamps, Milly smiled bravely
at me across the carriage, respect and awe mingling with her sympathy. The
General sat at my side erect; her eyes glittered, and she looked oddly
pleased--not like a woman who had been at the focus of a scene, and had
been dragged away from the Opera before it was over, but like a General
indeed, planning great campaigns.

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