The Way to Mrs. Morpont’s

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XLIX, Issue 4, 22 January 1913, Page 52

The Way to Mrs. Morpont’s

By

Harrison Rhodes.

HEATOATLETTE- is manufacwfl I Cured, as intMt people know, 11 jL in an Oh o city, /t competes, not unsatisfactorily, with the great army of other American breakfast tfooda, and it placed the Fairchild family in a position, both financially and socially,, which that the most vaulting local could desire. It brought Johnnj x’airrhild on to th? Eastern office. IJh was glad to come. In New York VfUiv. as he well knew, tlie important m<*fr>y of our great country. There, too. «»s Broadway for the evenings. He talitol freely to h:<s father about the money <»nd the business opportunity. and ti 'Yu younger friends about the horse-sl.nw, the theatres, aud Martin’s restaurant. An t on his arrival ‘Johnny looked upon the town contentedly and found it good.

•It would not have been surprising if. Jeft to himself. he hanl continued to be satisfied with the simple pleasures and £hc comparative obscurity of the Western rich, and had never been roused to iv proper realisation of the fact that, .though Mrs. \\ illiam Fairchild led fashion in Akron, her son John was not even the shadow of a name to the highlife of New York. The towji is full of each young men. They are nice-looking and. well-manmered. They wear their clothes with an air of smartness. They have the shiniest top hat«s, in which they go nightly to the play, and they possess, many of them, evening waistcoats that are the latest cry of fuvshion in the most expensive shop windows in Fifth Avenue. They < oi:sort with one another, and they often make pleasant acquaintance- in the Went Seventies and Eighties. But so out of touch are they -svith the people in the society columns pf the Sunday supplements that they are not even embittered in their seclusion.

The best that can lie done for Mrs. Fairchild is to let her shine »omewhat an the glory refloated from her ih’ldren. jYet it is only j.vrsti.-c*- to her to say that lier rather commonplace and uninspiring ambitions in a way started Johnny. But 4<ar has mol her the boy might have -ibluslred iw-setMi along the Great White Way, »nd talents that -Irw later career S'.as pensitted us to admire might have withered upon their stalk. About the time blrat he came East, there were uneasy stirrings in the “Breakfafi't Food World.” •Wheatoattotte” ’hungry eye upon ‘’Cornino” Mnd ‘•Crispaniits.” and Mr. William Fairchild prepared in his small way to be-

a trust. Now. when Western mag nates dream of consolidationa, their wines’ eyes grow softer with thoughts of the metropolis. In Ilrrrntber. a month or twu after Johnny's arrival, Mra. Fairchild came on to spend twu

weeks with her son. The very first day they lunched at Sherry’s and passed the evening at the Metropolitan Opera House. At these phices Mrs. Farrehild, who had an excellent memory for faces, and who had read New York newspapers and illustrated magazines to some effect, was able to point out a great many fashionable people. Among them was Mrs. Morpont. hung above their heads as the loveliest gem in that splendid, inaccessible circlet of boxes. Johnny viewed her with complete approval, as indeed must any of his sex have done. The reader, if he is worth writing for. knows perfectly who Mrs. Morpont is; knows also what little chance most of us have of ever knowing her: knows, moreover, that she is in herself a beautiful and a satisfactory excuse and explanation for any social ambitions that Johnny Fairchild or anyone else may have. He will be able to appreciate Mrs. Fairchild's final talk with her son on the eve of her departure for Akron. She confided to him her most secret hopes: that the family might ultimately settle in New York, that his mother might come to know people, and that his sister Cornelia, when the moment arrived for her debut, might emerge from her seclusion hand in ’wiith air the young Vanderbilts and Astors.

To Johnny, who had a sense of humour, and who was never in his career the least bit of a snob, this seemed just funny. He laughed; but as he was fond of his mother he did not laugh too much. “ But I can't get your father to come yet. Johnny, and I can’t come without him,” Mrs. Fairchild went on. “Now you’re here, and can make friends, You know how much easier it is for a young man alone to get acquainted.’’ Johnny laughed .again a little, and said he knew no one to make a beginning With.

“ No one!” exclaimed his mother. “You know Mrs Morpont!”

To the startled reader some explanation of this speech must be quickly offered. There had been in West Thirtyseventh Street an opening of the Creche for Blind Children. It was not essentially a social function, but the ladies of the Board of Managers were to

“ receive.’’ and some friend of Mrs. Fairchild’s had sent her an invitation. She had dragged Johnny at her heels, with his ears laid back, as the expression is. When they arrived, he saw

a horrid crowd of women, and three aged mm with beards. The smiling nnd weary line of l.idy managers stood ready. For a moment even Mm. Fairchild mnei the tedkmsneaa of the occMion. But only for a ruoment.

Iler friend had not deceived her. In the centre stood Mrs Morpont. She may have been a>s bored mi a fish is out water, but she was there; and her eyes brightened .suddenly a.s our hero came into view. This is perhaps as good a place as another to state, for the benefit of those who do not already know it. that Mrs Morpont, though seme people do call her eccentric, is one of the liveliest and. most agreeable, as well as one of the most fashionable, women in the world.

“A young man!” she exclaimed in perfectly audible tones, and smiled in a wholly unembarrassed way as he approached.

“My eon,” explained Mrs Fairchild, in real agitation. “He lias come to New York to live.”

“I’m sure I’m glad,” said the lady, still smiling.

Johnny flushed a nice pink. “ I'm even glad I came here,” he ventured.

The speech was well received, but behind him a throng of tire charitable was gathering. He glanced over his shoulder.

“ I guess I’m caught in the rapids,” he said.

“M ell, if you find you c-an swim back against the current—” began Mrs. Morpont: then her attention was called to the next arriving lady. Later. Johnny “swam back.” but the close air had given Mrs Morpont a headache and she had gone. “ Yes. Johnny, you know her,” Mrs Fairchild repeated. “ I certainly think that you might go to call. That will be the beginning, and if you take any pains, you’ll soon know everybody.” This had been his mother’s final word. The next Sunday, beautifully dressed, but perhaps a trifle embarrassed, he had gone to the big hoi-.se in Ffth Avenue by tire park It was true that he bad been passing there, in any case. It was true that the lady who lived there had appeared to him, on his two inspections, exceptionally attractive. But it was true also—and this one must understand to appreciate Johnny mid his career—that it was the fantastic and ridiculous in this net that tempted him to it. Just “getting into aoeiety” would have seemed a dull. InboroiM. and rather unworthy job. Hut the moment that it appeared a joke, or a whimsical adventure, he was ready for it. However, more of this later: for the moment. Mrs Morpont wax not nt home. He left a card. Tla-n nothing happened, and thia gateway

ne.mea closed forever. Indeed, closed forever it would have remained, had not Johnny. as most people know now, been a genius.

It would be pleasant to be able to say that his genius was for the truth- Yet perhaps it is not too difficult to understand and to pardon the first deviation. Johnny sat with a twinkling eye writing home, and thought that nothing could make his mother in far-off Akron happier than to receive details of his social pro•rjess. The first step was so easy!

“Called again at Mrs Morpont’s, yesterday,” he wrote. “She seems a niee woman.”

This brought on affectionate and enthusiastic response, and even a generous cheque. Mrs. Fairchild remembered Johnny’s saying that lie needed a fur coat. “ Going out in thin evening dress' constantly as he will be, my boy must be warmly wrapped up.” she wrote. The second step was taken as lightly as the first, and then, almost before he realized, he had embarked on a lovely sen of lies.

It was so easy, and it was only necessary to rend the morning papers to do it. “With, the Reggie Giffords at the opera last night.” Or, “To-night I shall look in at Mrs Railing's. She Iras a dance on.” Or, “Saw Mrs Morpont at Mrs Jack Walter’s for a moment, yesterday.” Imagination stirred in our hero, as he mapped out for himself a fashionable and amusing life. Sometimes he almost believed in it himself. Yow had only to see some one and tak-e a fancy to her, to be in the twinkling of-an eye at her side, whispering fond and ean-ssing words. Mrs Morpont for example, on Monday nights, still hung, the loveliest gem in that inaccessible crown of opera boxes, and looked upon Johnny in the stalls with no apparent remembrance of that meeting at th- Creche reception. Yet in bis letters home he was often with her. and though Ned Morpont was very alive, there can have been no harm in Johnny's little flirtation with Ilia wife, for the young man’s mother herself seemed to’ take only pleasure in it. Everything conspired to hod the boy on to the crisis where danger threatened and his genius waked. There wns what be ]>erhap« ought io have recognized as a preliminary rumble of thunder when Mrs Fairchild propoaed coining on for a visit in the spring. So full of bright hopes was she Unit she was almost ready to migrate with the whole family to tin* metropolis and push' the unhappy Cornelia's debut alwad two years. Johnny wax forced to feign •

elight illness and to return to the more bracing air of Akron for a brief visit. At home he embroidered still more the tissue of his prevarications, though he sternly reminded his mother how she herself had told him how much easier it was for a young man alone to get acquainted, and convinced her that her own opportunity was not yet ripe. The. day of final reckoning being thus postponed till the following winter, Jol.rny, who was, as has been hinted, of a volatile and optimistic nature, returned to New York care-free, and was soon again, if his letters were to be trusted, at Mrs. Morpont’s side. A week or so later, quite casually, his mother wrote that in a way it seemed a pity (though of course she had herself always hated publicity) that, since Johnny went to all these smart parties, his name never got into the papers as "among those present.” The Topical Tattler, for instance, printed very full lists; it was queer in a way, etc., etc. At the time, Johnny felt not! ing sinister in the suggestion. A fortnight later, the desire to see her son’s name in print had become a kind of mania with' Mrs Fairchild.

It is probable that Satan had found some work for Mrs. James Calkin’s idle hands to do. Akron readers will rot need to be reminded that the two ladies have never been friends since the chapter of Colonial Dames wad organized, when Mrs. Calkins said, more or less publiey, that Mrs Fairchild's only colonial ancestor appeared to be a hostler at the inn at Weatherfield, who had given Washington’s horse "a hot mash” when the great man was on his way to Boston; whereas the Calkinses, as any one who knew Virginia families at all must realize, were, etc., etc. Mrs. Calkins is quite viperish enough to have suggested that our hero was not really in New York society so much as he pretended to be.

His mother’s letters grew almost pathetic on the advisability of some little newspaper notice. It was “ due his position,” she said, and he “must not shrink from it.” He thought almost for the first time to what lengths maternal pride must have led his mother in conversation in Akron, and realized what bitter humiliation for her the discovery of the truth might be. Before this the whole thing had been for him only a joke—exposure would, for him individually, have been only another and a better one. Now, in common decency to his mother and to himself, he saw he must be not only in the newspapers, but in society, too, and that with no delay It is in such fiery crises that men’s rouls are tested! Our agreeable and lighthearted hero formed a plan. 11. It is with regret that we have already presented a hero deviating from the truth. We must now picture him behav-

ing, against all his natural instincts (and ours), harshly to a woman. Miss Estelle Tompkins, the society and chit-chat editor of the Daily New Yorker sat in her office one afternoon about this time, somewhat frayed and worn by the cares of her exalted ea’ling, irritable, one might almost have said, when the office-boy brought a card to her announcing Mr. John Fairchild. Miss Tompkins, being from the East (Tompkins is one of those old Long Island names), could not be expected to know about Johnny, Akron, nor Wheatoatlette; still, she had him fetched up. He entered, dressed more carefully, almost more richly, than are princes of the blood, and with au air of languid ostentation that was quite different from his ordinary unaffected liveliness. He looked at Miss Estelle Tompkins with a vague air. "Oh, I say,” he began, “I hoped I should find the society editor was a man?

“Very few men could hold the job down,” retorted Miss Tompkins. "I’m sorry to disappoint you.” “Oh, you’re all right ” “Thanks,” she snapped.

"Only,” Johnny continued, "when I’ve come to make a sort of row, to complain about this rotten paper, I’d naturally just a little rather that— —” “I guess I can take any compliments that are coming. Are they in my department?” ••Yes.” “Well ?” "Well, I don’t see any reason why my name has got to be put in all these society notices.” “I don’t know—” began Miss Tompkins, but Johnny paid no attention to her. “Why can’t I go to dine at Jack Walters’s, or to the opera with Mrs. Reggie Gifford, or to a danee at the Mailings’, without its being supposed to be a fact of public interest?” “I should say—Miss Tompkin’s got no farther.

“Just because my father is prominent out West and is supposed to have become pretty rich over this new consolidation, doesn’t seem to me any reason why I can’t go to Mrs. Morpont’s to-night without having all sorts of things about Westerners in New York society put into the papers. Perhaps you think it odd that any one should protest, but really the whole thing is so distasteful to me that I feel I must take a stand.” Miss Tompkin’s face was set. “Will you allow me just one word?” she asked with sinister coldness. Johnny had paused for breath. “So far as I know your name has never appeared once in the society column of the New, Yorker.”

Astonishment then radiant joy seemed to sweep over our young man’s countenance. “Really?” he cried, and rushing forward, seized the astonished Miss Tomp-kins-by both hands. “Thanks. You see I’ve quite given up reading the rotten stuff myself, but my mother is always writing me to complain about my name being in the papers, and I supposed that if my movements were in this strange way considered news, the New Yorker would have had an account of them as soon as anybody.” "I don’t even know who your father is. Mie» Tompkins spoke with unnatural ealm. Johnny very gently explained to her, though with becoming modesty, how important his father had become through the consolidation of “Wheatoatlette ’ with “Cornino” and “Crispanuts.” There succeeded a pause which might have been thought ominous. Then the silence was broken by Johnny, who spoke in a voice almost tenderly sympathetic. “I’m sorry for you. Miss Tompkins—l hope you won’t be offended by my saying *o. I see that you are above your job. You’ll pardon me—but in the beginning, you are so obviously inconi petent. Of course. I'm personally glad that you are so, that you didn't know about my father or about my having friends in New York. But frankly, as man to man, you know, if you were worth your salt you would have known it, wouldn’t you?”

-Well; I know it now,” replied Miss Tompkins, grimly. "And I understand how diMaeteful to you such s vulgar occupation as that of society editor must be.” “I don’t know what yon are talking about.”

“Ob, yes, you do. I know how you must hats forcing people into publicity. .Well, to take the ease iu baud, you

know that I’m going to Mrs. Morpo.ut’s to-night and you know I don’t want my name in your society column to-morrow. Naturally, all your instincts are against putting it there. Yet I suppose it’s considered news and it’s your professional duty to do so.”

‘‘You seem to have a grain of sense at last! But I guess you’ve never had much to do with the newspaper business. Now listen to me. I’m as much of a lady as anybody and ” “I said so, 'Miss Tompkins. I said so,” interrupted her visitor. “But this talk about a good, husky, young fellow like you hating publicity just makes me sick. Does it occur to you that if Mrs. Morpont can stand it to have her name in the paper as giving the ball, you could stand it to have yours in as going to it?” “Well, yes, I suppose I see that,” conceded Johnny. "But of what interest to the public is it, anyhow? Why is it news?” He put the question with great mildness, turning upon the lady pleasant, innocent looking eyes. ■Miss Tompkins gave him a look in which one might have seen astonishment beginning to drive away anger. “You are a wonder!” she began. “How you ever got on so in this great big city without knowing anything about it, I don’t see. Don’t you know that the list for this ball to-night at Mrs. Morpont’s is supposed to fix who’s in society and who isn’t?”

“Why, I think I’ve heard people say something about it,” faltered Johnny. “You ought to be tickled to death to be going.”

“Oh, I’m pleased, of course, I’m aw fully pleased.”

“It isn't every day that young men from Akron, Ohio ” “Oh, I know, I know.”

“Most people who didn’t get mentioned among those present would come in and complain, instead of doing what you’re doing.” “Really?” in surprised tones. Yes, really. Why, Mr. Fairchild, there are people who would pay me to keep running their names in my column.” “They would?” Johnny’s astonishment grew, and the innoeent-looking eyes opened wider.

“But I’m not a grafter.” “I should think not,” cried our young man enthusiastically. “I should think anybody was a great fool who tried to play any tricks on you.” “Well. I guess,” assented Miss Tompkins. The atmosphere had grown warmer and more genial, and the pause that followed Miss Tompkin’s speech was not awkward. Johnny .broke it, emerging from an engaging, shy boyishness. “Do you know, Miss Tompkins, I’ve an enormous admiration for women who earn their own living, as you do. I'm sorry”—he hesitated, with a trace of embarrassment—‘Tm rather ashamed of having come in to make a row the way I did. I apologize. I think I see things more plainly now. Of course it’s your business to get up that social column, whether you like it or not. And after all, as you say, I suppose there’s no such awful harm in being in the papers, book here, Miss Tompkins,” he went on, in a. kind of burst of generosity, “1 don’t mind; if it’s any good to you you ean put me in. You can talk about Wheatoatlette and the old man, ana how I’ll be the only breakfast-food boy at Mrs. Morpont’s to-night. Run my photograph if you wknt to, though of course,” he added modestly, “that would be carrying it too far.” 'Miss Tompkins made a note on ’a pad of paper at her side. “Send me the photograph will you?” she asked in a businesslike way. “I’ve got a half page on ‘Eligible Bachelors’ in the Sunday paper. I can run you, I think.”

“‘Eligible Bachelors’!” exclaimed Johnny. “Great Scott, Miss Tompkins I don’t quite know —I didn’t mean to let myself in for all that.” Then he smiled; and, as has been hinted, Johnny’s smile is very pleasant. “Well, here goes. Only, Miss Tompkins, not one other paper in this town shall ever have ,my picture.” “All the better for the New Yorker.”

“All right. I’ll fire it down to you. But,” and here he started laughing, “this certainly makes me look pretty foolish. And it will stir up a warm time for me out in Akron when my mother sees the New Yorker. When I think what 1 came in for and——”

“Well, you can’t always expect in this world to get what you start out to gel,” commented Miss Tompkins philosophically.

“No,’" said Johnny reflectively, as he turned to go; and the air of innocence was again very noticeable. “I never get what 1 start out to get.”

As to this, one may leave the reader to judge.

Io complete the aneedote of . Johnny, it remains to copy down a letter that he sent the morning after Mrs. Morpont's ball:

Dear Mrs. Morpont: After having passed quite a dull evening by myself last night, I find to my astonishment, on reading the account of your ball in the morning’s New Yorker,' that I was there! I’m very puzzled, and what I’m writing for now is to ask you whether by any chance an invitation was sent to me that 1 have had the horrible bad luck to miss somehow. If that happened my name would be on your list, if you gave it to the newspapers, and the thing would be made dear. 1 did -call on you, and so you had my address and the thing is possible, though it seems to me too good to be true.

“For really, I thought you had utterly forgotten me, although you told me to ‘swim back against the current,’ if I could, that awful afternoon of the reception for the opening of the Creche. I didn't imagine that you eould remember.

“In any case, I want to apologise for whatever strange cause got my name in the New Yorker, if I wasn’t asked. If I was asked, of course, I'm in despair at having missed it. At any rate, I am, “Yours most sincerely, •■John Fairchild. In reply this came: “Dear Mr. Fairchild: It's all very mysterious, but at any rate, I do remember you perfectly now. The current isn’t so very strong in Fifth Avenue late, about six. Why not swim in to tea some day, say Tuesday next, perhaps? “Yours sincerely, “Eva Morpont. This is how Johnny opened the way. It is tile beginning of history.