AN EARTHQUAKE IN MARIAVILLE!THE GOOD PEOPLE ARE OUTRAGED!A SENSATION BY THE BEAUTIFUL AND BRILLIANTMRS. BEVERLY PEELE!
AN EARTHQUAKE IN MARIAVILLE!
THE GOOD PEOPLE ARE OUTRAGED!
A SENSATION BY THE BEAUTIFUL AND BRILLIANT
MRS. BEVERLY PEELE!
The story covered two thirds of a column. Patience read it three times in succession without stopping to comment. It was graphically told, much exaggerated, and as carefully climaxed as dramatic fiction. And it was interesting reading. Patience decided that if it had not been about herself she should have given it more than passing attention. Her beauty and grace and elegance, her grand air, were described with enthusiasm. Every possible point of contrast was made to the serious and unfashionable Y’s.
At first Patience was horrified. She wondered what Mr. and Mrs. Peele would say. Beverly’s comments were not within the limitations of doubt.
“I’m in for it,” she thought. Then she smiled. She felt the same thrill she had experienced when the men looked askance at her after her assault upon her mother. The Ego ever lifts its head at the first caress, and quickly becomes as insatiable as a child for sweets. Patience glanced at the article to note how many times her name—in small capitals—sprang forth to meet her eyes. She imagined Bourke reading it, and Mrs. Gallatin, and Mrs. Lafarge, and many others, and wondered if strangers would find it interesting; then, suddenly, she threw back her head and laughed aloud.
“What fools we mortals be!” she thought. “And the President of the United States has dozens of paragraphs written about him every day. And actors and writers are paragraphedad nauseam. If a woman is run over in the street she has a column, and if she goes to a hotel and commits suicide, she has two, and is a raving beauty. Rosita is persecuted for stories. The Ego ought to have its ears boxed every morning, as some old-fashioned people switch their children. Well, here comes Beverly.”
Her husband entered, and for the first time in many months she sprang to her feet and gave him a little peck on his cheek. He was so surprised that he forgot to pick up the newspaper, and followed her at once into the dining-room. During the meal she talked of his horses and his farm, and even offered to take a drive with him. He was going to White Plains to look at some blooded stock which was to be sold at auction, and promptly invited her to accompany him; but her diplomacy had its limits, and she declined. However, he went from the table in high good humour. When she left him in the library, a few moments later, he was arranging the scattered sheets of the “Day,” without his accustomed comments upon “the infernal manner in which a woman always left a newspaper.”
Patience went up to her room and wrote a note of apology to Miss Beale. She was half way through a long letter to Hal when she heard Beverly bounding up the stair three steps at a time.
“The cyclone struck Peele Manor at 10.25,” she said, looking at the clock. “Sections of the fair—”
Beverly burst in without ceremony.
“What the hell does this mean?” he cried, brandishing the newspaper. His dilating nostrils were livid. The rest of his face was almost black.
“Beverly, you will certainly have apoplexy or burst a blood vessel,” said his wife, solicitously. “Think of those that love you and preserve yourself—”
“Those that love me be damned! The idea of my wife—my wife—being the heroine of a vulgar newspaper story! Her name out in a headline! Mrs. Beverly Peele! My God!”
“God was the cause of the whole trouble,” said Patience, flippantly. “I thought the young women were entirely too intimate with him. The spectacle conjured of The Almighty with his sleeves rolled up grinding out copy at five dollars per column was too much for me. I have the most profound admiration and respect for the Deity, and felt called upon to defend him—the others seemed so unconscious of insult—”
“This is no subject for a joke,” cried Beverly, who had sworn steadily through these remarks. “I don’t care a hang if you had a reason or not for making a public speech—Christ!—it’s enough that you made it, that your name’s in the paper—my wife’s name! What will my father and mother say?”
“They will not swear. A few of the Peeles are decently well bred.”
“No one ever gave them cause to swear before. You’ve turned this family upside down since you came into it. You’ve been the ruin of my life. I wish to God I’d never seen you.”
“I sincerely wish you hadn’t. What had you intended to make of your life that I have interfered with?”
“If I’d married a woman who loved me I’d have been a better man.”
“I wonder how many weak men have said that since the world began! You were twenty-six when I married you, and I cannot see that there has been any change in kind since, although there certainly is in degree. If you had married the ordinary little domestic woman, you would have been happier, but you would not have been better, for you possess neither soul nor intelligence. But I am perfectly willing to give you a chance for happiness. Give me my freedom, and look about you for a doll—”
“Do you mean to say that you want a divorce?”
“I think you know just how much I do.”
“Well, you won’t get it—by God! Do you understand that? You’ve no cause, and you’ll not get any.”
“There should be a law made for women who—who—well, like myself.”
Her husband was incapable of understanding her. “Well, you just remember that,” he said. “You don’t get a divorce, and you keep out of the newspapers, or you’ll be sorry,” and he slammed the door and strode away.
A quarter of an hour after Patience heard the wheels of his cart. At the same time the train stopped below the slope. A few moments later she saw Miss Merrien come up the walk. The maid brought up the visitor’s card, and with it a note from Mr. Field.
Dear Mrs. Beverly[it read],—Forgive me—but you are a woman of destiny, or I haven’t studied people sixty years for nothing. I chose to be the first—the scent of the old war-horse for news, you know. Peele will be furious, but I can’t bother about a trifle like that. Just give this young woman an interview, and oblige your old friendJ. E. F.
Dear Mrs. Beverly[it read],—Forgive me—but you are a woman of destiny, or I haven’t studied people sixty years for nothing. I chose to be the first—the scent of the old war-horse for news, you know. Peele will be furious, but I can’t bother about a trifle like that. Just give this young woman an interview, and oblige your old friend
J. E. F.
Patience started to go downstairs, then turned to the mirror and regarded herself attentively. She looked very pretty, remarkably so, as she always did when the pink was in her cheeks; but her morning gown was plain and not particularly becoming. She changed it, after some deliberation, for a house-robe of pearl grey silk with a front of pale pink chiffon hanging straight from a collar of cut steel. The maid had brought her some pink roses from the greenhouse; she fastened one in the coil of her soft pale hair. Then she smiled at her reflection, shook out her train, and rustled softly down the stair.
Miss Merrien exclaimed with feminine enthusiasm as she entered the library.
“Oh, you are the loveliest woman to write about,” she said. “I do a lot of society work; and I am so tired of describing the conventional beauty. And that gown! I’m going to describe every bit of it. Did it come from Paris?”
“Yes,” said Patience, amused at her immediate success. “My mother-in-law brought it to me last summer—but perhaps you had better not mention Mrs. Peele in your story.”
“Well, I won’t, of course, if you don’t want me to. I have written the story about La Rosita for the Sunday ‘Day,’ and I did not hint at your identity. It made a good story, but not as good as the one about you. Mr. Field wrote me a note this morning, complimenting me, and told me to come up here and interview you. I hope you don’t mind very much.”
“I haven’t the faintest idea whether I do or not. How do you do it?”
“Well, you see, I’ll just ask you questions and you answer them, and I’ll put it all down in shorthand, and then when I go to the office I’ll thresh it into shape. You can be sure that I won’t say anything that isn’t pleasant, for I really never admired any one half so much.”
“Very well, you interview me, and then I’ll interview you. I have some questions to ask also.”
“I’ll tell you anything you like. This story, by the way, is to be in the Sunday issue on the Woman’s Page. Now we’ll begin. Were you always an unbeliever? Tell me exactly what are your religious opinions.”
“Oh, dear me! You are not going to write a serious analysis of me?”
“Yes, but I’ll give it the light touch so that it won’t bore anybody. It is to be called ‘A Society Woman Who Thinks,’ and will be read with interest all over America.”
“But I am not a society woman.”
“Well, you’re a swell, and that’s the same thing, for this purpose anyhow. The Gardiner Peeles are out of sight, and I have heard lots of times how beautifully you entertain in summer and how charmingly you gown yourself. Tell me first—what do you think of this everlasting woman question? I hate the very echo of the thing, but we’ll have to touch on it.”
“Oh, I haven’t given much thought to it, except as a phase of current history. One thing is positive, I think: we must adjust our individual lives without reference to any of the problems of the moment,—Womanism, Socialism, the Ethical Question, the Marriage Question, and all the others that are everlasting raging. He that would be happy must deal with the great primal facts of life—and these facts will endure until human nature is no more. Moreover, however much she may reason, nothing can eradicate the strongest instinct in woman—that she can find happiness only through some man.”
“Good,” said Miss Merrien. “I’d have thought the same thing if I’d ever had time. Now tell me if you have any religion at all.”
“I suppose I should be called an anarchist. Don’t be alarmed: I mean the philosophical or spiritual anarchist, not these poor maniarchists that are merely an objectionable variety of lunatics. The religious situation is this, I think: Jesus Christ does not satisfy the intellectual needs of the Nineteenth Century. And yet, indisputably, the religionists are happier than the multiplying scores that could no more continue in the old delusion than they could worship idols or torture the flesh. Civilisation needs a new prophet, and he must be an anarchist,—one who will teach the government of self by self, the government of man’s nature by will, which in its turn is subservient to the far seeing brain. Human nature is anarchic in its essence. The child never was born that was brought to bend to authority without effort. We are still children, or we should not need laws and governments.”
“Wait till I get that down.”
“Of course these are only individual opinions. I don’t claim any value for them, and should never have thought of airing them if you hadn’t asked me. For my part I’m glad I live in this imperfect chaotic age. When we can all do exactly as we please and won’t even remember how to want to do anything wrong—Awful!”
“But you said the advanced thinkers needed this new religion to make them happy.”
“Their happiness will consist in the tremendous effort to reach the difficult goal. That will take centuries, just as the spiritualised socialism of Jesus Christ has taken twenty centuries, and only imperfectly possessed one third of the globe. When anarchy is a cold hard fact—well, I suspect the anarchists will suddenly discover thatennuiis in their vitals, and will gently yawn each other to death. Then the tadpoles will begin over again; or perhaps there will then be mental and moral developments that we in our present limitations cannot conceive. Haven’t you had enough?”
“No, no. I’ve a dozen questions more.”
Miss Merrien, like all good newspaper reporters, was an amateur lawyer and a harmless hypnotist. In an hour she had extracted Patience’s views of society, books, dress, public questions, and the actors in the great national theatre, the Capitol at Washington.
“Oh, this is magnificent,” she announced, when the pages had been folded. “Now can I look at the house?”
“We will have luncheon first. No, don’t protest. I am delighted. Mr. Peele is away for the day, otherwise I fear you would not have had this interview.”
“Oh, you don’t believe in the submission of wives, then?”
“I’ve never thought much about it,” said Patience, indifferently. “There is too much fuss made about it all. When a man commands his wife to do a thing she does not care to do, and when a woman does what she knows will displease her husband, it is time for them to separate.”
“Oh, that is too simple. It wouldn’t do to reduce the woman question to a rule of three. What would all the reformers do? And the poor polemical novelists! Oh, these are the famous portraits, I suppose?”
“You can look at them if the luncheon is bad,” said Patience, as they took their seats at table. “I’m not a very good housekeeper, although I actually did take some lessons of Miss Mairs. And sometimes I forget to order luncheon. I did to-day.”
But the luncheon proved to be a very good one, and Miss Merrien did it justice, while Patience explained the portraits. Afterward she showed her guest over the lower part of the house. Then they went back to the library, and Patience had her interview.
“Tell me exactly how does a woman begin on a newspaper?” she asked.
“Oh, different ones have different experiences,” said Miss Merrien, vaguely. “Sometimes you have letters, and are put on as a fashion or society reporter, or to get interviews with famous women, or to go and ask prominent people their opinion on a certain subject—for a symposium, you know; like ‘What Would You do if You Knew that the World was to End in Three Days?’ or, ‘Is Society Society?’ I have written dozens of symposiums. Sometimes you do free-lance work, just pick up what you can and trust to luck to catch on. But of course you must have the nose for news. I was at a matinée one day and sat in front of two society women. Between the acts they talked about a prominent woman of their set who was getting a divorce from her husband so quietly that no newspaper had suspected it. They also joked about the fact that her lawyer was an old lover. I knew this was a tip, and a big one. I wrote all the names on my cuff, and before the matinée was over I was down at the ‘Day’ and had turned in my tip to the City editor. He sent a reporter to the lawyer to bluff him into admitting the truth. The next day we had a big story, and after that the editor gave me work regularly.”
“How much do you make a week?”
“Sometimes forty, sometimes not twenty; but I average pretty well and get along. Still, when you have to lay by for sickness and vacations, and put about one half on your back it doesn’t amount to much. You see, a newspaper woman must dress well, must make a big bluff. If she doesn’t look successful she won’t be, to say nothing of the fact that she couldn’t get inside a smart house if she looked shabby. And then she’s got to eat good nourishing food, or she never could stand the work. Of course there’s got to be economy somewhere, so I live in a hall bedroom and make my own coffee in the morning. Still, I don’t complain, for I do like the work. If I had to go back home I’d ruin the happiness of the entire family.”
“What do you look forward to?—I mean what ultimate? You don’t want to be a reporter always, I suppose. Everybody is striving for some top notch.”
“Oh, maybe I’ll become Sunday editor, or I might fall in with somebody that wanted to start a woman’s newspaper, or magazine—you never can tell. There aren’t many good berths for women. Of course there are a good many very bright newspaper women, and it’s a toss up who goes to the top.”
“You don’t seem to take matrimony into consideration.”
“Oh, I don’t deny I get so tired sometimes that I’d be only too glad to have a man take care of me. I guess we all look forward to that, more or less. I think I’d always work, but not so hard. It would make all the difference in the world if you knew some one else was paying the bills. And then, you see, we go to pieces in eight or ten years. A man is good for hard newspaper work until he’s forty, but we women are made to be taken care of, and that’s a fact. We take turns having nervous prostration. I haven’t had it yet, but I’m looking cheerfully forward to it.”
“Now I want to tell you,” said Patience, “that I am going to be a newspaper woman.”
“Oh, nonsense, Mrs. Peele! Excuse me, but you belong here. Your rôle is that of the châtelaine in exquisite French gowns and an air half of languor, half of pride. You were not made for work.”
“That is very pretty, but I suspect you don’t want to lose me for copy.”
“Well, I don’t deny it. I wish you’d keep the ball rolling, and give me a story a month.”
“I’m afraid I’ve given you my last. In a week or two I shall be a châtelaine in a pink and grey gown no longer, but a humble applicant for work in Mr. Field’s office.”
“Is it possible that you mean it?”
“Do I look as if I were joking?”
“You don’t look unhappy—Pardon me—but—but—does he beat you?”
“Oh, no,” said Patience, laughing outright, “he doesn’t beat me. I have better grounds for desertion than that. Do you think you would do me a favour? I shall have to slip away. He would never let me go with a trunk. I am going to ask you to let me send you a box of things every few days. That will excite no comment among the servants, as we are always sending clothes to the poor. May I?”
“Of course you may. I’ll do everything I can to help you. But—I can’t imagine you out of this environment. Don’t you hate to give it up,—all this luxury, this ease, this atmosphere?”
“Yes, I like it all. I’m a sybarite, fast enough. But I’ve weighed it all in the balance, and Peele Manor stays up. I have a hundred dollars or so, and that will last me for a time. I’ll give it to you to take care of for me. I never was wealthy, but I have no idea of economy. I don’t think I should like a hall room though. Are the others so very expensive?”
“They are if you have a good address, and that’s very important. And you want to be in a house with a handsome parlour.”
“I have no friends,—none that will come to see me.”
“Oh, you’ll make friends. You’re an awfully sweet woman. I can’t bear to think—Well, there’s no use saying any more about it. I expect you’re the sort that knows your own mind. I should like to keep on seeing you a great lady, but if you can’t be a happy one I suppose you are right. Well, I’ll stand by you through thick and thin, and I’ll show you the ropes. Now I must get back to the office and work up my story. Here’s my address. There’s a spare room on the floor above mine. If you’re in dead earnest I’d better take it right away; then I can unpack your things and hang them up. But—but—do you really mean it?”
“Of course I do.”
“You know Mr. Field personally, don’t you?”
“Very well, indeed; and he told me when I was sixteen that he should make a newspaper woman of me.”
“Oh, well, then, you’ll have a lot of push, and your road won’t be as hard as some—not by a longshot. About six out of every ten newspaper women either go to the wall or to the bad. It is a mixture of knack and pluck as much as brains that carries the favoured minority through. You have brains and pluck, and you’ll have push, so you ought to get there. About the knack of course I can’t tell. Good-bye.”
The evening mail brought from Mrs. Peele to her son a note which he read with a rumbling accompaniment, then tossed to Patience.
“Do you intend to permit your wife to disgrace your family?” it read. “If I had my way that abominable paper, the ‘Day,’ should never enter this house—nor any other paper that dealt in personalities. I literally writhe every time I see my name—your father’s honoured name—in the society columns. You may, then, perhaps, imagine my feelings when your father handed me the ‘Day’ this morning with his finger on that outrageous column. He was speechless with wrath, and will personally call Mr. Field to account. I am in bed with a violent headache, in consequence, and dictating this letter to Honora. But although I deeply feel for you, my beloved son, I mustinsistthat you assert your authority with your wrong-headed wife and command her to refrain from disgracing this family. I don’t wish to reproach you, but I cannot help saying that it isalwaysa dangerous experiment to marry beneath one. This girl is not one of us, she never can be; for, not to mention that we know nothing whatever of her family, she comes from that dreadful savagenewWestern country. In spite of the fact that she has been clever enough to superficially adapt herself to our ways, I always knew that she would break out somewhere—I always said so to Honora. But I don’t wish to add to your own sorrow. I know how you, with all your proud Peele reserve, must feel. Only, my son, use your authority in the future.”
“Do you intend to permit your wife to disgrace your family?” it read. “If I had my way that abominable paper, the ‘Day,’ should never enter this house—nor any other paper that dealt in personalities. I literally writhe every time I see my name—your father’s honoured name—in the society columns. You may, then, perhaps, imagine my feelings when your father handed me the ‘Day’ this morning with his finger on that outrageous column. He was speechless with wrath, and will personally call Mr. Field to account. I am in bed with a violent headache, in consequence, and dictating this letter to Honora. But although I deeply feel for you, my beloved son, I mustinsistthat you assert your authority with your wrong-headed wife and command her to refrain from disgracing this family. I don’t wish to reproach you, but I cannot help saying that it isalwaysa dangerous experiment to marry beneath one. This girl is not one of us, she never can be; for, not to mention that we know nothing whatever of her family, she comes from that dreadful savagenewWestern country. In spite of the fact that she has been clever enough to superficially adapt herself to our ways, I always knew that she would break out somewhere—I always said so to Honora. But I don’t wish to add to your own sorrow. I know how you, with all your proud Peele reserve, must feel. Only, my son, use your authority in the future.”
Patience finished this letter with a disagreeable lowering of the brows. She made no comment, however, but opened a book and refused to converse with her husband.
On Sunday morning she found three columns on the Woman’s Page of the “Day” devoted to her beauty, her intellect, her gowns, and her opinions. It was embellished with a photograph of Peele Manor and a sketch of herself, which Miss Merrien had evidently made from memory. When Beverly came down she handed the newspaper to him at once, to read the story with the raw temper of early morning. She hoped that Mrs. Peele would read it in similar conditions.
After he had gone through the headlines he let the newspaper fall to the floor, and stared at her with a face so livid that for a moment she felt as if looking upon the risen dead. Then gradually it blackened, only the nostrils remaining white.
“So you deliberately defy me?” he articulated.
“Yes,” she said, watching him narrowly. She thought that he might strike her.
“You did it on purpose to drive me crazy?”
“I had no object whatever, except that it pleased me to be interviewed. Understand at once that I shall do exactly as I please in all things. This is not the country for petty household tyrants. I don’t doubt there are many men in this world whom I should be glad to treat with deference and respect if I happened to be married to one of them; but with men like you there is only one course to take. I have asked you to let me live abroad. If you consent to this, it may save you a great deal of trouble in the future; for, I repeat, I shall in all things do exactly as I choose.”
“We’ll see whether you will or not,” he roared. “You’ll do as I say, or I’ll lock you up.”
“Oh, you will not lock me up. You are way behind your times, Beverly. There is no law in the United States to compel me to obey you.”
“I’ll stop your allowance. You’ll never get another cent from me.”
“That has nothing whatever to do with it. Now, I ask you for the last time, Will you let me travel?”
“No!” he shouted, and he rushed from the room.
BOOK IV
Miss Merrien lived in West Forty-fourth Street, near Broadway. Ten days after her visit to Peele Manor Patience rang the door-bell of the house that was to be her new home, one of a long impersonal row.
The maid that answered her ring handed her a note from Miss Merrien, and conducted her up to a hall room on the third floor. Patience closed the door, and looked about her with the sensation of the shipwrecked. For a moment she was strongly tempted to flee back to Peele Manor. The room was about eight feet square, and furnished with a folding-bed, which was likewise a bureau, and with a washstand, a table, and two chairs. The furniture and carpet were new, and there were pretty blue and white curtains on the window. Nevertheless the tiny room with its modern contrivances was the symbol of poverty and struggle and an entirely new existence. Her second impulse was to sit down on a chair and cry; but she set her teeth, and read Miss Merrien’s note instead.
I am so sorry not to be able to meet you [it read]; but I am a slave, you know. Before I was out of bed this morning I received an assignment to go to a woman’s club meeting at eleven. But I’ll get back in time to go down to the shop with you. Don’t get blue—if you can help it. Remember that every woman feels the same way when she first makes the break for self-support; and that your chances are better than those of most. There’s a little restaurant round the corner—the maid will show you—where you can get your luncheon.Au revoir.I’m so glad the sun is out.Anna Chetwynde Merrien.P. S. Your clothes are in the closet in the hall. The key is in the washstand drawer.
I am so sorry not to be able to meet you [it read]; but I am a slave, you know. Before I was out of bed this morning I received an assignment to go to a woman’s club meeting at eleven. But I’ll get back in time to go down to the shop with you. Don’t get blue—if you can help it. Remember that every woman feels the same way when she first makes the break for self-support; and that your chances are better than those of most. There’s a little restaurant round the corner—the maid will show you—where you can get your luncheon.Au revoir.I’m so glad the sun is out.
Anna Chetwynde Merrien.
P. S. Your clothes are in the closet in the hall. The key is in the washstand drawer.
Patience felt in better cheer after reading Miss Merrien’s kindly greeting, but the day dragged along very heavily. She went out and bought all the newspapers, and studied them attentively for hints; but they did not tell her inexperience anything, and after a time she let them fall to the floor and sat staring at the blank windows opposite. For the first time doubts assailed her. She had been so full of young confidence, and pride in her brains and health and courage, that she had not regarded the issue of her struggle with the world in the light of a problem; but face to face with the practical details, she felt short of breath and weak in the knees.
At two o’clock Miss Merrien came in, looking very tired. There were black scoops under her eyes, and the lines about her mouth were strongly accentuated. But she smiled brightly as Patience rose to greet her.
“Well, you are here,” she said. “I changed my mind fifty times about your coming, but on the whole I thought you would. Fortunately I have nothing on hand for this afternoon. I’ll rest, and then go down with you to the shop. Oh, I am so tired, my dear. Can I lie down on your bed awhile?”
“I shall be delighted to learn how to open it,” said Patience, who was wondering if her fair face was to become scooped and lined.
Miss Merrien deftly manipulated the bed, loosened her frock, and flung herself full length.
“I spent all day yesterday and half the night tramping over Brooklyn hunting up facts in the case of that girl who was found dead in a tenement-house bed in a grand ball gown. A great story that, but it has done me up. Tell me—how do you feel?”
“Oh, I’m glad I’m here, but I wish it was six months from now.”
“Of course you do. That’s the way we all feel. But you’ll soon swing into place, and be too busy to think. I do wish you could get work in the office, so that you could keep regular hours and meals, and not lose your good looks; but there’s no berth of that sort. I tell you it is a sad day when a girl under twenty-five sees the lines coming. The Revolting Sisterhood say that the next century is to be ours; but I doubt it. Men lighten our burdens a little now, but I’m afraid they’ll hate us if we worry and supplant them any further. Well, I’m going to take a nap. Wake me promptly at 3.10.”
She closed her eyes and fell asleep immediately. The lines grew fainter as she slept, and the hair fell softly about her face. Patience reflected gratefully that three months of absolute leisure and peace of mind would give back to the girl all her freshness and rounded contours. At ten minutes past three she awakened her. Miss Merrien sat up with a sigh.
“I feel better, though. Cultivate those cat-naps. They refresh you wonderfully. Now, we’ll go.”
They went down town on the Elevated, leaving it at Park Row. Patience was so much interested in the great irregular mass of buildings surrounding City Hall Square, at the dense throngs packing the crooked side streets, at the fakirs with their nonsensical wares, at the bewildering array of gilt newspaper names on the rows and stories of polished windows, that she forgot her errand for the moment, and was nearly run over.
“Yes, this is the heart of New York, sure enough,” assented Miss Merrien. “All those big buildings over there are on the famous Newspaper Row. Brooklyn Bridge is just behind. This is the Post Office on the right, and that flat building in the square is the City Hall. I tell you when you get down here, the rest of New York, including all the smart folk, seems pretty insignificant.”
“Oh,” exclaimed Patience, with a sudden sinking of the heart, “there is the ‘Day’ building.”
“That is our shop. Now, brace up.”
Patience needed the admonition. She forgot City Hall Park. All her doubts returned, with others in their wake. She knew something of the snobbery of the world. As Mrs. Beverly Peele she had been an object of respectful interest to Mr. Field. What would she be as an applicant for work? True, he had been kind to her when she was a small nobody, but that might have been merely a caprice.
They climbed up two narrow stairs in an ugly old building, and entered a large gas-lit room full of desks. Many young men were writing or moving about; several were in their shirt sleeves.
“This is the City room,” said Miss Merrien, “and these are the reporters. Those men in that little room there are the editors and editorial writers. Mr. Field’s room is just beyond. Now send your card in by this boy. The Chief’s harder to see than the President of the United States, but I guess he’ll see you.”
Patience gave the boy her card, and at the end of half an hour, during which she was much stared at by some of the men and totally ignored by others, the boy returned and conducted her to Mr. Field’s office.
It was a typical editor’s den of the old-fashioned type. A big desk covered with papers, a revolving chair, and one other chair completed the furniture. A large cat was walking about, switching its tail. The floor was bare. The light straggled down between the tall buildings surrounding, and entered through small windows. It was Mr. Field’s pride to have the greatest newspaper and the most unpretentious “shop” in the United States.
He rose as Patience entered, his eyes twinkling.
“Well,” he said, as he handed her the extra chair, “there’s a mighty row on, isn’t there? Peele has been here, and now we do not speak as we pass by. But we hadn’t had a good woman sensation for a month. I tried to explain that to Peele, but it didn’t seem to impress him. I suppose you’ve come to beg for mercy.”
“No—I haven’t come for that.”
“Why, what is the matter? I never saw you look the least bit rattled before. You are always the young queen with a court of us old fellows at your feet. But tell me; you know there’s nothing I wouldn’t do for you.”
Patience drew a long breath of relief.
“Oh, you make it easier—I’ve been horribly frightened. But I’ll get to the point—I suppose you’re very busy down here. Can I have ten minutes?”
He laughed. “We are usually what you might call busy in this office, but you may have twenty minutes. Take your time.”
“Well, it’s this: I’ve left Peele Manor for good and all, and I want to be a newspaper woman.”
Mr. Field’s shaggy white brows rushed up his forehead. His black eyes expanded.
“My God! What did you make such a break as that for?”
“There are many reasons. I can’t give them all. But all the same I’ve left, and I’m not going back.”
“Well, your reasons must be good, for you had a delightful position, and you became it. Are you sure you are not acting rashly?”
“I’ve thought and thought and thought about it. I can’t understand why I didn’t leave before. I suppose my ideas and intentions didn’t crystallise until I met Miss Merrien. She has been very kind. I sent my clothes to her by degrees; she engaged a room for me in her house; we are going to cook together; and I have given her what money I have to take care of.”
“Well, well, you have acted deliberately. I don’t know that I am so much surprised, after all, and I’ll say nothing to persuade you to go back. I respect your courage and independence, and I’ll do all I can. I haven’t the slightest idea what you can do, but we’ll find out.” He leaned forward and patted her hand. Patience had one moment of painful misgiving, but again she had misjudged him. “If you get discouraged, just remember that the old man at the helm is your friend and won’t let you go under.”
“I’m sure you’re awfully good,” said Patience, tears of contrition and gratitude in her eyes. “I knew you would.”
Mr. Field touched a bell. A boy entered.
“If Mr. Steele is still in the office ask him to step here,” said the chief.
“Steele is the editor of the Evening ‘Day,’” he explained, “and has a remarkable faculty for discovering other people’s abilities.”
Patience expected to see a man of middle years and business-like demeanour. She stared in amazement as a young man under thirty entered and was presented. He was closely built, but held himself carelessly. His smooth rather square face was very pale, and despite the irregularity of feature, bore an odd resemblance to the Greek fauns. The mouth was large and full, the eyes large, dark blue, and very cold. His fashionable attire accentuated the antiquity of his face and head.
“Mr. Steele,” said Mr. Field, “this is Mrs. Beverly Peele, of whom you have heard so much lately. She has made up her mind to support herself. When she was a little girl I told her that I should one day make a newspaper woman of her, and she has come to hold me to my word—much to my satisfaction. I put her in your hands, and feel confident you will make a success of her.”
Patience expected to see a look of blank surprise cross the young editor’s face, but she did not know the modern newspaper youth. Mr. Steele could not have displayed less emotion had the new-comer been a young woman with letters from Posy County, Illinois. He merely bowed to her, then to his chief. Patience rose at once.
“I won’t keep you,” she said to Mr. Field. “I’ll only thank you again, and promise to work as hard as Miss Merrien.”
“I haven’t the slightest doubt of your success. Always remember that,” said Mr. Field. Patience saw Mr. Steele’s eyebrow give a slight involuntary jerk; but it was immediately controlled, and he bowed her through the door.
“We had better go upstairs to the evening room,” he said. “There is no one there at present.”
Patience followed him up a precipitous stairway into a walled-off section of the composing-room.
“Sit down,” he said politely, but Patience for the first time in her life felt terrified and humble. This young man, of whom she had never heard before, had the air of a superior being, omnipotent in her destiny. His manner conveyed that he was not one whit impressed by the fact that she had stepped down from the Sacred Reservation, took not the faintest interest in her as a pretty woman. She was merely a young person particularly recommended by his chief, and as such it was his duty to give her consideration.
He took a chair opposite her own, and she felt as if those classic guileless eyes were exploring her innermost brain.
“What can you do?” he asked coldly.
“Oh, nothing,” she said desperately, “absolutely nothing. I suppose you feel like remarking that the ‘Day’ is not a kindergarten.”
“Well, it certainly is not. Nevertheless, as Mr. Field thinks that you have ability, and wishes you to write for his paper, I, of course, shall do all I can to abet him. I shall begin by giving you a few words of advice. Have you a good memory; or should you prefer to write them down?”
He spoke very slowly, as if he had a deep respect for the value of words.
“I have read a great deal,” said Patience, proudly, “and my memory is very good indeed.”
There was a faint twitching of one corner of Mr. Steele’s mouth, but he continued in the same business-like tone:—
“Read the ‘Day’ through carefully, morning and evening. Observe the style in which facts are presented, and the general tone and atmosphere of the paper. Cultivate that general style, not your own. Remember that you are not on this newspaper to make an individual reputation, but to become, if possible, a unit of a harmonious whole, and to give the public the best news in the style to which this newspaper has accustomed it. When you are sent on an assignment remember that you are to gather facts—facts. Keep your eyes open, and cultivate the faculty of observation for all it is worth. When you have gathered these facts put them into as picturesque a shape as you choose—or as you can. But no rhetoric, no rhapsodies, no flights, no theories. If the facts admit of being treated humorously, treat them in that way, by all means,—that is, if you can imitate a man’s humour, not a woman’s flippancy. A good many women can. And never forget that it must not be your humour but the inherent humour of the subject. Be concise. When you feel disposed to say a thing in ten words say it in five. That is all I can think of at present. Be here at eight o’clock to-morrow, and I will give you an assignment.”
He rose, and Patience felt herself dismissed. She sat for a minute looking at him with angry eyes. Not even in the early days of her married life had she been so patronised as by this unknown young man. She felt as if he had plucked her individuality out with his thumb and finger and contemptuously tossed it aside.
“Is anything the matter?” he asked indifferently, although one corner of his mouth twitched again.
“No!” Patience sprang to her feet and ran down the stair, at the imminent risk of breaking her neck. Miss Merrien was waiting for her.
“Why, what on earth is the matter?” she exclaimed.
“Oh, let us get out into the air! Come, and then I’ll tell you.”
But they were not able to converse until seated in the Elevated Train. Then Patience exclaimed with an accent of cutting sarcasm,—
“Who,whois Mr. Steele?”
Miss Merrien smiled broadly. “Oh, I see. Did he patronise you? You must get used to editors. Remember they are monarchs in a small way, and love their power—the more because their dominion is confined within four walls. But Morgan Steele is one of the kindest men in the office. I’d rather work for him than for any one. He puts on an extra amount of side on account of his youth, but the reporters all adore him. He won’t keep an incompetent man two days, and during those two days the man’s life is a burden; but he is always doing good turns to the boys he likes. When you know him you’ll like him.”
“I think him an insolent young cub, and if I didn’t hate to bother Mr. Field I’d refuses to write for him. What on earth is a youngster like that in such a responsible position for?”
“Oh, my dear, this is the young man’s epoch. Just cast your eyes over the United States and even England, and think of the men under thirty that are editors and authors and special writers and famous artists and leaders of enterprises. They are burnt out at forty, but they begin to play a brilliant part in their early twenties. I heard a man say the other day of another man who is only twenty-six and supposed to be ambitious: ‘Well, he’d better hump himself. He’s no chicken.’ A man feels a failure nowadays if he hasn’t distinguished himself before thirty.”
“They are certainly distinguished for conceit.”
“Oh, when you get used to newspaper men you’ll like them better than any men you’ve known. What is objectionable is counteracted by their brains and their intimate and wonderfully varied knowledge of life. A newspaper man who is at the same time a gentleman, is charming. It is true they have no respect for anybody nor anything. They believe in no woman’s virtue and no man’s honesty—under stress. Their kindness—like Morgan Steele’s—is half cynical, and they look upon life as a thing to be lived out in twenty years—and then dry rot or suicide. But no men know so well how to enjoy life, know so thoroughly its resources, or have all their senses so keenly developed, particularly the sense of humour, which keeps them from making fools of themselves. No man can feel so strongly for a day, and that after all is the philosophy of life. All this makes them very interesting, although, I must confess, I should hate to marry one. It seems to be a point of honour among them to be unfaithful to their wives; however, I imagine, the real reason is that no one woman has sufficient variety in her to satisfy a man who sees life from so many points of view daily that he becomes a creature of seven heads and seven hearts and seven ideals. Now, tell me all about your interviews with Mr. Field and Morgan Steele.”
Patience told the tale, and Miss Merrien raised her eyebrows at its conclusion. “Well, you need not lie awake nights trembling for the future. You are in for push and no mistake. If the Chief has taken you under his wing in that fashion you can be sure that Morgan Steele will work you for all that is in you, whether he wants to or not.” Suddenly she laughed, and leaning over looked quizzically at Patience. “You vain girl,” she said, “you are piqued because Morgan Steele did not succumb as other men—including Mr. Field—have done to your beauty and charm. But I’ll tell you this, by way of consolation: it is a point of etiquette—or prudence—among editors never to pay the most commonplace attentions to, or manifest the slightest interest in the women of the office. It would not only lead to endless complications, but would impair the lordlings’ dignity: in other words, they would be guyed. So cheer up. You haven’t gone off since this morning. I see three men staring at you in true Elevated style.”
Patience laughed. “Well, I will admit that I have no respect whatever for a man that is unappreciative of the charms of woman. I’d like to give Mr. Steele a lesson, but I won’t. I wouldn’t condescend. I’ll be as business-like as he is. He knew why I was angry to-day, I am afraid, but he won’t see me angry again. Why is Mr. Field so much nicer?”
“Oh, he owns the paper.”
Patience’s indignation had worn itself out by bedtime. When Miss Merrien left her for the night she locked her door and spread her arms out with an exultant sense of freedom. She seemed to feel the ugly weight of the past two years fall from her, and to hear it go clattering down the quiet streets. Her sense of humour and the liveliness of her mind had saved her from morbidity at any time, although she had not escaped cynicism. She now felt that she could turn her back squarely on the past, that she was not a woman whose mistakes and dark experiences would corrode the brain and spirit, ruining present and future. She could not make the same mistake again; and it was better to have made it in early youth when the etchery of experience eats the copper of the ego more lightly. The future seemed to her to be full of infinite possibilities. She could be her own fastidious dreaming idealising self again. New friends dotted the dusk like stars. She felt ten years away from the man to whom she had nodded a careless good-bye that morning. A vague pleasurable loneliness assailed her, the instinct of plurality. Then she laughed suddenly and went to bed.
The next morning, at eight o’clock, after a cup of black coffee to stiffen her nerves, she presented herself in the evening room of the “Day.” Two men and a woman were writing at little tables. Mr. Steele in his shirt sleeves was at his desk, reading copy. She sat down, priding herself that her face was as impassive as his own. In a few moments he called her to his desk.
“You have read in the newspapers, I suppose, of this crusade of Dr. Broadhead, the fashionable Presbyterian clergyman, against the voting of Immigrants?” he asked.
“Of course.”
“Well, he is doing his best to get the women of New York to help him, and is holding his first meeting this morning in Cooper Union—eleven-thirty. One of our best men will go to report the addresses, but I want you to go and sit in the audience, and observe how many fashionable women are there, what they wear, and what degree of interest they appear to take in the proceedings. Above all, I want you to keep your eyes and ears open for any significant fact which may or may not appear. It usually does. That is all.—Well, what do you want?” This to the office boy.
Patience went slowly downstairs, feeling as if she had been sent out to discover the North Pole with a chart and a row-boat. When she reached Cooper Union, two hours later, and found herself for the moment an integer of one of the many phases of current history, she forgot the agonising travail of the “news sense,” and became so deeply interested that she observed the many familiar faces abstractedly, and, later, “faked” their costumes.
She hurried to her room before the meeting was over and wrote her “story.” It concluded thus:—