A Wrecked Life

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XLVII, Issue 26, 26 June 1912, Page 42

A Wrecked Life

By

STEPHEN FRENCH WHITMAN.

FOLLOW INC the example of niy friend while walking with him on Fifth Avenue, I saluted two ladies—one more than middleaged, the other considerably younger, both small and fair who were pissing from an automobile to a shop. When we ha<l left them well behind my friend inquired: “Did you notice that girl?”This designation surprised mo. From my glimpse of her I bad judged her to be at once too attractive, too well provided for, and too mature to have maintained so long a single state. 1 asked her name. He uttered one of those surnames prefixed by “-Miss’* that suggest nothing, that recall nothing, ami that are continually going in one car and out the other. Then he added: “ißut to myself I call her ‘Danae’!” “Why ?” “Because Danae** father. A'.-rioius o we are told -shut her up in a tower.’’ “A romance?” “Inevitably-.” “And this one. perhaps, more interesting than the general run?” “All lives, even the mn.st humdrum, contain romance interesting enough if properly observed. I )o you want to write the story of a wrecked life, not, of on ; girl, but of a thousand well -bred, ‘welb olT’ girls in this city?” “Ot course. lie related to m<» those particulars: Danae's first home had been in the Middle West. Illyria was a dingy little town bristling with factory chimneys, clattering with machinery, hidden six days in the week beneath a pall of bituminous coal smoke. On its outskirts, however, lay broad residential streets, macadamised, shaded with chestnut trees of intermingling branches, the asphalt Kidewalkis raised, like ’..nintry by-paths, high above the roadyl ed, th • lawns—un centimd by boundary fences, embellished here and there with a cast-iron stag or maslilf sloping backward ami up ward to ample dwelling-houses. These, -banked round with hydrangea and rhododendron bashes, showed broad porches, walls of stained shingles, and massive exterior chimneys built of various coloured boulders. Birds sang, a pianofort' tinkled, the calls of children echoed wilii a 'Siimlay clarity. Down Ihe street r.inie a pedestrian, his figure, beneath th > leaves, a dicker in the installtaneousiyehangihg dapp’.e of shade ami sunshine. At windows, behind hue curtains, ap•peared vague faves. In the deep porches old ladies, who «sat rocking, slowly turned their silver heads. Still one heard only the clean sound of the pedestrian’s fdioe-solos striking upon the pavement; all was so still and peaceful that the xinitrH and bows of neighbours seemed to float to thryj* meeting from a great distil nee. Ih such surromnling* Danae.” as an only child, had grown tn jnaidenJnmd. The juvenile coterie of which she was a part derived from its environment ant its traditions social ide is preeminently healthy. The lit r long alh-cm-e of formality. the pre-ence of a general ro-qwet almost as old. resulted in a bilance ot Hiehaviour excellent a* a preparation for tin' gol l< n mean in wedlock. Danae, for the mo*t part, gazing round her, exsported that her ♦, ateer was ,going to bo Fik« all the rest. N’ae looked forward having a husband from among the pla\ mates of her childhood, to a new lionn all her own. to chijdroii. maybe to gran I. h’dsli<m. to man> years that resembled one another even in happincH-*. But when >he was twenty this pro'sJaeH was obscured. Iler father, a manufacturer, born poor, now finally grown wealthy, derided tint Illyria was a field too small for his performances. New York al tracted him. Hir- mind*-, eye .-aw. perhaps, not only those tall turre's risingabove the «<itadcl of wealth, but al-o that radiance which, trembling in the midnight. a»kv, pro 4 lainicd the furnari* where, tn a myriad >*int ill.it ions, wa- melted by night the treasure by day. For him. no doubt, a prestige immeasurable and yet in definite, rvalletl from boyhood and yet ever enveloped the me( ropofis like SHHt. t Jlly ria was left behind.

Danae and her mother were spared, by virtue of their anticipations, considerable regret. If it was a sad moment when they turned to bid farewell to the familiar shingle walls behind the rhododendrons, it was a moment, of exultation when they saw, from the bow of a. ferry-boat, the masked skyscrapers of the city which they were henceforth to call home. So much lay there awaiting their unlimited leisure, that they had never more than glimpsed! Possibly their hearts, too, had all the while contained a secret desire now at last to be appeased. They went straightway to live in a

hotel on Fifth Avenue, half a block square and fifteen stories high, with a lobby pillared and lloore I in marble, with a restaurant where one found all the foods on the earth disguised beneath French sauces, with lounging rooms where strains of music seldom < ea red to

sound, while a babble of voeees, the ripple of footfalls, the subtle agitation from

countless personalities at erosc purposes, were more agitating ami enervating than a material stimulant. Far beneath their windows the traffic rattled; from lower roofs clouds of white smoke continually whirled up to blur the dizzy panorama; when they descended in the swift elevators, as it were, to terra lirm.i, among the crowds the sing-song utterance ot unknown names by servants always fell suddenly ami sharply on their ears. ToIraceo smoke curled round their heads, amid )m!:u leaves, woman wearing gorgeous dresses so lightly laced that the wearers were scarcely able to breathe, turmd theatrical-looking eyes askance in hostile scrutiny. They thought, sometimes, of the deep porch and the broad la.wn. of the sileiic • and tranquility ot dusk, of the shut door, the shaded lamp, and the glowing lire place.

Rut they had become “New Yorkers.” They had joined the great army of provincial which populates the city’s ■hotels, which makes haste to call itself metropolitan, and which in the end pays high for that assertion. •Said my friend: "This has lasted twelve years.” "Twelve years!”

“Does that surprise you?” “Very much, if they never Jong to 1 ? home.” “Ah!”

“Why don't they go back?” He smiled, like one who begins to find explanation difficult. “Or Danae, at 'least, marry someone?”

Aly friend responded in a hesitating way:

"Suppose you get the rest yourself?”

Next evening he took me to dine with Danae ami her mother, at their invitation.

We were Ushered into a salon high above the neighbouring housetops—into one of those salons of stereotyped appearance which are attached to expensive suites of rooms in great hotels. The walls were •covered with silk in that übiquitous shade called rc.se du Barry; the pictures were all small, wan, and trivial looking: the ‘ chandeliers were composed of a hundred pressed-glass pendants; lhe gilded furniture was afflicted

with all the ailments of the period of Donis XV. Nothing less homelike could have been conceived; and the closest relative of this room in which we waited

would have been a stage-setting for the coquette in a Palais Royal farce. Danae and her mother, appearing in the doorway, at once accentuated the frivolity of their surroundings.

I saw a daughter and a mother strongly similar despite their diverse ages, save in respect of that evasive savoir faire, repose, the air of cultivation wherewith Hie children of Americans often unconsciously depris-iate their parents. But in the mother one was already able, to perceive what Danae would become some day. For the girl, while still pretty in a diminutive, blonde fashion, showed here ami there an infinitesimal sign of changing, presently, into the little, fad-

ed, “nice” old woman that her motheT was. -< The resemblance between them did notj however, extend at all to their attire. The mother, in black silk and jet, revealed herself as that bugbear of modish dressmakers, the woman who must always look provincial. Danae, on thd other hand, wore, with exceedingly fashionable effect, a low-neck dress of blue.

All the same, in this dress, amid the walls of rose du Barry, she found herself unhappy. We went quickly downstairs in the public elevator. .Midway in the corridor, v/ere spectators had ranged themselves on settees along the walls, we were overtaken by. Danae’s father. He was a tall, rugged-looking man of sixty-odd, his eyes slanting upward at the outer corners, his nose long, his grizzled moustache clipped short above a hard-set mouth, a toupee, parted in the middle, finishing him with an almost foppish touch, lie wore an evening coat, and an embroidered waistcoat, more suitable for a young man. But it was not with us that he was going to dine. Putting on an expression ot regret, he said that a “directors' dinner” claimed his evening. Immediately after this declaration, he departed, leaving an impression of strength, ruthlessness and insincerity. The two ladies, with the demeanour of women accustomed to acting for themselves, moved toward the restaurant.

We dined in a room of eighty tables, where Greek waiters quarrelled liehind marble columns, where the air was redolent of rich food, Howers and perfumes, where the string band played selections from “I Pagliaeei,” “The Candy Kid,’ and “Aladame Butterfly.” The dinner menu was the eternal hotel menu, capable of an infinitude of variations, yet ever the same. The mushrooms sous cloche, the guinea hen, the coupe Griselidis, all vaguely smacked of that mysterious limbo oil' behind the screen where stew perpetually a myriad conglomerate of hotel meals. Danae ate little; nothing was served that she regarded with expectancy. And 1 knew, as if she had told me, that she and her mother, when alone, lamented the lost “home cooking’ of Illyria.

I began to talk to Danae about that town.

Immediately she fixed me with her eyes, pale blue, large and soft, at once retieent and eager. .. “You know my home?”

"J have been, there. 1 have even walked on Rose Street. No doubt I have seen your house. Tell me if it had rhododendrons round it, and plots of nasturtiums close to the walk?”

In an hour’s acquaintance she had, perhaps, intuitively discerned in me a sympathetic feeling. For. lowering her eyes, she uttered in a troubled voice, as if to a friend: — - “That is cruel.” “You are homesick!” With pale eyelids still lowered, she nodded in assent.

“Then why not go back?!’ “We can’t do it. Father has developed such large interests here, he's become so important a figure. J say th it without conceit, you understand. I'm not glad of it.”

I perceived that this was true. “At least, why hot go back now and then, just for a while?” She sighed: “It’s not the same. .Young girls that I played with are mothers of families. Tho Boys that I knew are fathers. It’s become a sad sort of place. A return to Illyria is like .peering at night through lighted windows into a house where everyone else’s dreams have come true.”

She added, with a smile meant to mollify that speech, though in a trembling Voice:

“That is, if dreams ever do come true precisely.” “In the Middle West, isn’t it a general belief that the future depends on the individual’s efforts?” Danae shrugged her shoulders.

“The future isn’t in our hands.” she said presently, in a tired, well-nigh lifeless tone. “We have no rights that aren’t liable to be denied us by fatality.” “And what form does this fatality most often take?” But Danae was . not to be. inveigled into further indiscretions.

“I suppose that depends on the indh «lual,” she replied, while preparing to escape into the conversation of her mother and my friend. They, too, it appeared, worn talking of Illyria. The mother, with that bird-like spryness not uncommon in little old ladies

of semi-rural antecedents, was dilating on the change in her former home: “A .public building group that'll be a credit to Cleveland. Some sky-scrapers! A four-mile boulevard! And on Rosestreet—the new . residences, the new homes. Those would belong to my daughter’s old playmates. Not a lad of ’em"that’s not a father! All married off!" “Practically all, mamma.’’ corrected Danae.. “Practically? Yes, yes, _ child—practically all.’’ , The eyes of the two women met; the mother lost her . look of liveliness. Thought* bound them suddenly to silence. Aly friend and 1 sustained the conversation. That night, as I walked home, I thought• “What is he like? Why doesn’t she marry him?” , A week later, as I was passing an art-dealer’s shop. I saw Danae, in a black hat and a long coak of Persian lamb-skin, entering the doorway. She had then —for one who had been at. pains to study her—that appearance of repressed haste, of smothered eagerness, of tenacity and self-abandonment. mingled, which often distinguishes a woman on her way to a surreptitious rendezvous. J made for the art dealer’s shop.

In a room, behind th? l picture gallery, hung with purple velvet and furnished with half-a-dozen table-shaped showcases, a collection of Egyptian scarabs was on view'. Danae had entered the one public place where people were least likely to intrude.on her.

An old man with white whiskers like Ibsen's, a note-book in his hand, breathling asthmatically, leaned over the showcases. A slender, homely woman in a •loose blue frock, her hair dishevelled, her bare, brown neck like the surface •of a withered apple, stood thumbing a catalogue industriously. Danae, the .third occupant of the room, drooping l>y the window, gazed out at some blank walls of brick. ■As I entered, she looked round, wide-eyed, startled. Then her face fell. “’You!” she ejaculated. “J, of course—but you! This .is an unsuspected side of your disposition; do I discover, the blue-stocking}' 1

And io nlhiy Huspivioii, I mumbled, Wuile peering into the imm rest showcase :

‘ Jhilmstes dynasty . . . very rare . . . how many Ptideirty cartouehoM . . . royal daughter, royal sister, royal wife, lady of the two lands* . . . Isn’t this one a Cleopatra the .Seventh?”

Danae looked 'way. ‘I m not part irularly interested in JK-arab**,” #|iv replied. “Ahhuuglt heaven known a woman might interest, herself ©yen in scarab.*, to enrapu the cmuii of New York.”

“Of New York!" ‘'.Certainly. Of the New York that we strangers, wc foreign women, have to live in, so long as we stick it out." . “You are blue to-day." “I ought to feel remorseful. I’ve just told my mother a lie. and given her tlio slip,” Turning her large blue eyes almost defiantly to mine, sire repeated, with a laugh not noticeably gay: “Would you believe that for the sake of an hour, only an hour. 1 told her a lie and gave her the slip?” “Not on account of scarabs, liow“Hardly." “Then I’ll be going." .She held out her hand with an expression of relief. “You don’t think me rude?" she asked. “On the contrary, I think myself abominably so. Good-bye.” But at the door 1 met him coming in. 1 knew by his quick glance past my head, by the apparent enlargement of his eyes, by the unconscious virility with which Ive shouldered me aside in passing, that it was, indeed; the one. that he had come from a distance, that they were met after a considerable lime. Besides, I considered it a more than even bet that he was a native of the old town.

For he was a stocky young man, strong-looking (and she was frail), energetic (and she was rather languid), swarthy (and she was fair), with thick eyebrows, blue checks, a prominent nose, a broad -mouth, in such combination as to recall immediately a swarm of masculine physiognomies, honest and healthy, peculiar fo the Middle West. Such is the sectional individuality of our soil and climate, that one sees every day in the-city, n-n of whom one can announce, after scrutinizing their faces, “He is from the plains," “He is a .Southerner," “lie is from near the Great Lakes.”

That evening, however, on meeting my friend, I made sure by inquiring: “Isn’t Danae’s young man an lllyriiu ?’’• ■ i “Bravo!." he exclaimed, laughing. “And they have known •' each oilier siwe ehildbs'od?” “Of course.” “He is a bustling young business man, a money-maker, a ■ liachelor, a fellow of good reputation.” ' - . “You seem to have discovered every thing.” “On the contrary, everything is a puzzle ts me.” .'Sts ~ “How so?” -- J “Why doesn’t she marry, him?" lie was silent. '■Here." I continued, “are two young persons who will not la- young much longer, who have loved eaeli other, presumably for a long time, but. who meet as it were clandestinely, yet in public places, at long intervals, and then only for a moment. He. losing her, must lead a gloomy life in a town where all his friends have’ families of their own and eheerljul homes. She, as we know, leads a gloomy life in a Now York hotel, with all her instincts lay ing out for a cottage in Illyria and nursery. Yet they don’t marry!" “Yet they donT marry," my friend repeated. x “Is there a feud Ind ween the- two families’” “Not at all.” “Can it be that her parents object to this young man?" “I’m sure that neither of her parents could, or would, object to him in any way|.” you know very well, fof you mentioned the fact, that it was the father who shut the first Danae up in a tower!” “Wliat do you say,” he suggested, in an absent-minded manner, "if we go out. round eleven o’clock, and get some supper?” Evidently he still required me to collect my own material. Round eleven o’clock we entered one of those Broadway restaurants famous throughout the country, the facades of which,’shabby enough in daylight, blaze by night with a counterfeit of splendour inexpressibly alluring to the ingenuous. It was a place where immense plumed hats and Imre backs everywhere reflected in long mirrors, where champagne glasses crashed occasionally upon the floor, where the head waiter bowed too familiarly to handsoijie women in diamond necklaces. Violin music of the most emotional variety soblssl and whispered as if in one’s ear; and, at the passage of newcomers; a sudden agitation of the scented air was like an amor-

ous breath upon the cheek. “ Show girts," from musical extravaganzas just concluded, tall, slender, leisurely, with impudent eyes, appeared in the doorways against a background of white shirt-bosoms; college boys, made restless bv stimulants, proud of their intoxication, navigated with feeble mien front one table to another in search of friends; women of middle age, notorious in Europe and America, uttered sonorous laughter to advertise their presence:

in the corridor, before the elevator that conducted patrons to private supper rooms above, appeared suddenly, and as suddenly passed out of sight, the long nose, the close-set mouth, and the toupee of Danae’s father. The mdn of his party were no younger than he. the women no older than his slaughter. “ A directors' meeting?" I inquired of mv friend. He replied: “You are getting warm at last." “ But,” I protested, “ this will never answer my question." “ There you are," he retorted. “Go call on her again,” Next afternoon I did so. Danae sent word downstairs that sh< would join me presently in the Trojan loom. 'So, in that apartment —a vivid specimen of the “interior decorators” art gone mad—l watched, from a divan full of musty velvet cushions the flirting of stock-jobbers and adventurous-look-ing women with painted lips, the quarrelling of a married couple exhausted by sight-seeing, the shy meeting of freshfaced school-girls and callow youths all collars, pompadours and silken anklebones. But Danae was standing befsri: me. Iler eyes were red. When she sat down, I perceived that she was on the verge of a hysterical reaction. At onco she remarked, defiantly, in a quivering voice: “ As you can see, I’ve been crying.” “Why do you tell me that?” “ I don’t know. It rushed out of my mouth. 1 must- say something to some one, sometimes! tine can’t keep mum for ever! People die of such things!” I asked: “rias it to do with scarabs?” Evidently ,slill without finding anything incongruous in talking so to me, she answered, with unsteady, vibrant accents: “ Yes. He's gone’away, further than Illyria this tijp.e. lle.says lie’s asked me for the last time.” ) “He didn’t mean that. lie’ll be back again sooner than you think.” “Oil," she cried excitedly. laying her hands against her bosom and looking upward, “ what would be the use?’ “Gome, now,” said I. "when we lose control of our feelings we suffer twice as much. It is necessary, to be calm.”Lowering her 'blonde head, she pressed a handkerchief against her lips. Through the French windows of the tea-room burst the uproar of the band. I asked Danae: “Will you tell me what it is that keeps yon here?” •She answered, without hesitation: “ Mamma.” “ Your mother?" “Can't you see that if I left her she’d be entire!v alone?" “But your father?” “ Aly father! He’s never with us. We seldom sec him for more than a few moments. He's—too busy. “In spite of twelve years’ residence, mamma and I are still strangers in New' York. •'Mamma, at least, is too old, now, to learn it. She'll always retain the simplicity of Illyria. 1 must lie greatly ilka her; I wasn't unpopular at hdme, but. here I never ‘caught on.' So it happens that, after all this time, we've only each other. “We go together to the matinees and the concerts, to the opera and tin' picture shows, wherever decent people gather for public: amusement, pay their way, and enter without the need of introduction. Then wo come back to the hotel and dine together, we two, and g" to bed. “And I’ve seen working girls, who have holidays and beaux, who count their friends by the score, who can marry at any moment and have children, look at me. as 1 pass them by. with bitter envy. If they knew how tight 1 am in prison! “But you'll say the door stands open — that others would run out. If 1 did rto, night and day I would never cease thinking, ‘She’s there alone ... No one is 'with her now. .. . She’s at dinner, a waiter behind her chair for Company. .. a ,She’s all alone’!”

Danae covered her eyes with her handkerchief. Those round vs scarcely noticed her emotion. “But she must know all this!” “Only half of it. Nile thinks lie has never asked me."

After a while, I ventured: “Perhaps your father, if be wefo aware of—" “You know belter.” Indeed, I did. When 1 left her, the sun was selling;. At Thirty-fifth Street I entered a jewellery shop. ( bailee had decided to furnish me with a 1 finale; at the diamond counter I discovered Danae’s fathei 1 . He had before him, spread out on a square of blue velvet, a variety of hand some diamond necklaces. When, at my hove, he recognized me. in his keen eyes appeared a curious effect of shallowness, as if at an access of reticence. However, designating the jewels in a manner entirely genial, lie remarked: “Wedding presents are a puzzle, aren't they?” “Yes; and the worst of it is, fhaf everyone seems to be getting married,” His face, despite his long practice in inscrutability, clouded. I knew what lie was thinking of. He. was thinking '.bat, in respect to matrimony, his girl was a failure.