_In which Mr. Mudison in His Memoirs Gives Us Some Insight into Mrs.
Radigan's Shattered Romance_
My own story lies unfolded in my fragmentary record. As I glance back
over my pages so leisurely scribbled it seems as though the great
events of my life had been squeezed into two years. A man's romance
ends when he is married--generally. After that he may be happy, but
existence is humdrum. I am floating on placid waters, flowing gently,
carrying me easily along, sometimes into the shadow of rugged,
threatening shores, but always out again into the delicious calm and
sunshine. Some day, weary even of the little paddling, I shall sink.
That will complete my history, but others must record it. For myself
and of myself I shall write no more.
Into my pages, however, there have come others whose lives I should
like to follow. Pearl says that, written, they would make dull reading.
Possibly. Still it would seem that were Marian Speechless to disclose
the inwardness of her intrigue to capture Williegilt Bumpschus and
his millions we should have a narrative full of humor and pathos. We
shall never know that story, even if it reaches a happy conclusion, for
it will be told to the world in a notice of an engagement and a few
newspaper paragraphs concerning the wedding. Gay Cecil Hash is an ideal
hero, and his affair with the lovely Sunday-school teacher, his reform,
his marriage, and withdrawal from worldly gayety would delight the most
romantic reader. That book is closed. So with scores of others. But in
one thing I feel that I have been fortunate--Mr. Mudison's memoirs have
been rescued from oblivion. Aside from their interest as the story of
a famous man and their historical value, I find that they round out my
own pages, clearing up many points left obscure by my limited range of
observation. His name occurs frequently in the notes made during the
summer following my wedding, most conspicuously in August, when Mrs.
Radigan, in a letter to Pearl, tells how she has refused him positively
for the sixth and last time, for the simple reason that she still loves
John devotedly. Then Mr. Mudison for a while disappears from our life,
and though through the fall and winter I heard many rumors concerning
him, I did not get at the truth until I undertook for him the task of
editing his memoirs.
A glance at the _Social Register_ gives at once an idea of the
importance of my friend. After his name we find these extremely smart
hieroglyphics: T., C., Cm., P., Wh., B., H., Ex., Sr., Sm., H. '90.
This, of course, as everyone knows, means that his clubs are the
Ticktock, the Cholmondeley, the Cosmopolitan, the Ping-pong, the
Westbury Hunt, the Boxing, the Horseback, and the Exudo. Besides,
he is a member of the Sons of the Rebellion and the Society of the
Mexican War, while the last abbreviation stamps him a man of Harvard
education. So Mudison is worth knowing. The greatest figures in the
financial world, the political powers of the country, the artistic
and literary celebrities, deem it a matter of pride to be seen in his
company, for he is what so many millions strive to be and only a few
hundred are--he is tremendously smart. I do not use the word in its
vulgar sense. Mudison does not know a Greek root from an X-ray, but
his family has been prominent in New York for fifty years, and its
founder, the sheriff of the name, left a fortune that, though divided
and subdivided, suffices to keep my friend in clothes and clubs.
The memoirs of such a man are of immense value, as they give to
posterity an intimate picture of the life of his day, which, after all,
is vastly more important than accounts of battles and Presidential
elections. But I do not for an instant suppose that Mr. Mudison, in
those hours between his morning coffee and his breakfast at the
Ping-pong Club, when he scribbled his fragmentary accounts of his
adventures, had any idea that he was rendering a service to future
generations. He was simply killing time. In truth, there is much in his
notes that is trivial, even much that might be called worthless. But
there is a great deal that will be of immense interest, dealing as it
does with some of the most important social events of the day. A part
of this it has been my good fortune to gather together in more lasting
form than his scattered pages, and with a few corrections in spelling
and grammar it has been prepared for future study.
* * * * *
I am just back from a most charming week-end at R. Timpleton Duff's
in Westchester, and, upon my word, I do not know whether I am glad or
sorry that I went. My appetite this morning was completely satiated
with half a roll and a cup of coffee, so I think that instead of going
to the club I shall take a stroll in the park and ponder it all over.
Confound women, anyway! A man should never let himself be caught
straying from within call of the avenue. There only is he safe. You
meet women in town, but you never get to know them. It is on these
infernal house-parties that they depend. There it is that they get
you off in a corner and talk to you about your hopes and ambitions,
discover that they agree with you exactly on the latest plays and
novels, reveal to you their own unhappiness and their belief in the
hollowness of life as it is at present. It always takes me a week to
recover my appetite after a house-party, and I vow that each one will
be my last. But Mrs. Duff is artful. She knows me of old. She never
writes, lest she give me an opportunity to think up an excuse. She
calls me on the 'phone, and asks if I have anything to do to-morrow,
and being taken by surprise and fearing to betray myself by a quaver in
my voice, I stupidly say no. There I am caught! A few hours later down
she comes in a car, and I am whirled away at a forty-mile-an-hour clip
to Restabit-- I think that is the name of their place.
As is usual when you go by car and your luggage by rail, my bag did
not arrive in time for dinner, and I had to array myself in one of
Timpleton's old suits, which fit so abominably that Mrs. Underbunk,
evidently thinking me a servant, swept proudly by when we met in the
hall. This, of course, made a huge joke when I followed her into the
drawing-room and was formally presented.
A charming woman! She might be twenty-five; she might be fifty. Yet
there is no evidence of art about her. She is a simple little thing,
with bright eyes, and a figure that she sets off very well in a black
gown all shimmery with spangles, and a snappy little waist with narrow
ribbons for sleeves. She let me drape over her shoulders a gauzy
network shawl to keep off the cold, and then tucked her arm snugly
under mine and was led in to dinner. My hostess was at my left, and she
whispered to me that Gladys, as she called her, had been the wife of
Joshua Underbunk, who has since married Amy Lightly, the prima donna
of the "Whoop-de-doodle" company. Mrs. Duff said it was awfully sad,
but, glancing at my companion, I confess I could not see but that she
was bearing up well. She was talking gayly to the literary fellow on
her right. The Duffs, you see, have a penchant for queer people. The
Tommy Tattlers, of course, are nice, as are Harry Pumley and Sally
Bilberry, but where they ever raked up that Miss Sapper, the artist,
and Julius Hogginson Fairfield, is beyond me. Mrs. Duff told me over
oysters that Fairfield was awfully clever, and had written "The Smash,"
the heaviest-selling novel of the day. He had been taken up by the
Twitters, who rather pride themselves on not being exclusive. I have
no personal objection to literary people and their kind, but it is
so seldom that they know anything. Fairfield, for instance, did not
understand that he was to talk half the time to Mrs. Tommy Tattler, and
give me a chance with Mrs. Underbunk. Instead, he took up her entire
dinner, telling her how he happened to write "The Smash," and what a
poor book it really was, and how the public had greatly over-estimated
its literary worth. Once I began to give her my famous story of the
Irishman in the diving-bell, and he had to break in and engage her
eyes, her smile, and all her attention, leaving me to discuss stocks
with Harry Pumley, across Mrs. Duff.
My revenge and my chance came later in the evening, when we sat down
to bridge, and Fairfield by a strange fate cut Mrs. Underbunk for a
partner, against myself and Sally Bilberry, who depends on cards for
her clothes. Mrs. Underbunk announced that she never played for money,
which I admire immensely in her, for I don't think that women who are
living on alimony should gamble. Julius Hogginson Fairfield gallantly
said that he would carry her, and asked how she discarded. She did
not know. I saw him flush, and his hand trembled as he led. But to me
his partner was tremendously pretty and ingenuous in her game. It
was delightful the way she protested after she had revoked and Miss
Bilberry sternly claimed three tricks. Her apologies were charming
after we had doubled Fairfield's no-trump make and she had doubled
back, allowing us to run up a score of 288 points. At the end of two
rubbers the author looked very warm. His collar and shirt-front had
wilted completely. Having shared with Sally Bilberry a considerable
part of the royalties from "The Smash," I was lucky enough to cut out
with Mrs. Underbunk to let in Mrs. Duff and Pumley.
When, an hour later, they called to us in our secluded corner of the
library that it was our turn to take a hand, the dear woman replied
that she had a headache and really did not care to play, and I, for my
part, vowed that bridge bored me to death. So we talked on. I must say
that I was at my best. She was tremendously interested in everything,
and seemed to enjoy having me explain how we bought stock on margins,
and hearing about the time I was arrested for over-speeding my
car, and of the coup I made at the Brooklyn Handicap last year. We
got on tremendously. At first we thought it strange that we had not
met before, as her former husband and I belong to the same clubs,
but then she has been living abroad and has but lately returned.
Curiously enough, we found that we had the same tastes in everything.
She is devoted to riding and motoring and yachting. She is fond of
the theatre, and abhors German opera. She loves literature, and was
delighted when I promised to send her a batch of new detective-stories
I recently picked up at my bookseller's. Then she is very strict in
her religious views, a quality which I greatly admire in her sex, and
I must confess that, as I peeped out of the window in the morning and
saw her alone climbing into the trap and driving off to church at White
Plains, I roundly cursed myself for sleeping so late and promising to
ride with Mrs. Tommy Tattler before luncheon.
But we go through fire to victory. In the afternoon a drive down to
the Country Club for tea gave me an opportunity on the quiet to propose
to her a little theatre-party next week, with supper at Flurry's, and
at bridge in the evening I actually insisted on carrying her, thereby
in three rubbers losing to Tommy Tattler and Sally Bilberry all I had
taken from Julius Hogginson Fairfield, with quite a sum more. But I
have a good tip on Kalabash, second preferred, and can afford to be
reckless. Love does make us reckless, and I suppose this is love. Of
course these attacks never amount to anything as long as a man keeps
his head when he loses his heart. I have ever managed to hold on to
my head. The trouble with most men is that they think that death or
matrimony is the only cure for heart-trouble. They succumb at the first
attack.
A little experience would teach them better, but they never gather it.
I know how it has always been with me. For example, now as always,
there will be a loss of appetite, a few books and flowers, the
theatre-party, and perhaps another week-end down on Long Island or at
Exudo.
Then I shall, as of old, run over my accounts and see that to marry I
should have to resign from half my clubs, for, of course, I could not
live on alimony. Then some day I'll smoke it all off. A headache, and
love's old dream will have vanished.
Still, I agree with Mrs. Timpleton Duff. Some of us came down to town
in her car to-day, and when we had left Mrs. Underbunk at the Holland
House and were heading uptown, my hostess said to me, "Isn't Gladys a
dear?"
"Thoroughly charming," said I. "Tremendously jolly."
"I wanted you so to meet her," said she. "I knew you would find each
other so congenial. Gladys has brains."
So I am off for a stroll alone in the park.