A DINNER AND A PLAY
Lucius seemed to know the city very well, and to have a list of its
principal citizens in his memory. He knew the best places to shop and
the selectest places to eat, and Bertha soon came to ask his advice
about other and more intimate affairs. She showed him Mrs. Brent's card,
and explained that they were going out there to dinner.
"I know the locality," he said, much impressed, "and I think I know the
house. It's likely to be quietly swell, and you'd better wear your best
gown."
"The black dress," said Haney, who was a deeply concerned witness. "I
like that."
Lucius was respectful, but firm. "You are very well in that, Mrs. Haney.
But if I were you I'd have a new gown; you'll need it. I know just the
saleslady to fit you out."
"But I've only worn the black dress once!" she exclaimed, in dismay.
Lucius explained that people who went out much in the city made a point
of not wearing the same gown in the same circle a second time. "And as
you only have two presentable evening gowns, you certainly need
another."
Haney joined in, emphatically. "Sure thing! What's the good of money if
you don't use it to buy things?"
Tremulous with the excitement of it, she went with the Captain to
several of the largest and most sumptuous establishments on State
Street. And Lucius, who accompanied them, ostensibly to be of service to
his master, was of the greatest service to his mistress, he was so
quiet, so unobtrusive, so thoroughly the footman in appearance, so
helpful, and so masterful, in fact; a faint shake of his head, a nod, a
gesture decided momentous questions.
The girl, sitting there surrounded by scurrying clerks and saleswomen,
had a return of her bewilderment and doubt. "Can it be true that I can
buy any of these cloaks and hats?" she asked herself. What was the magic
that had made her lightest wish realizable? When a splendid cloak fell
round her shoulders, and she looked in the glass at the tall figure
there, she glowed with pride.
"Madam carries a cloak beautifully," the saleswoman said, with
sincerity. "This is our smartest model--perfectly exclusive and new.
Only such a figure as the madam's properly sets it off."
While the women were making measurements for some slight alterations,
Lucius said: "It would be nice if you decided on that automobile, and
took Mrs. Haney to the dinner in it."
Haney's face lighted up. "I will! Sh! not a word. We'll surprise her."
"If you don't mind I'll hustle up a footman's livery."
"So do. Anything goes--for her, Lucius."
Bertha thought she had already rubbed the side of her wonderful lamp to
a polish. But under the almost hypnotic spell of her West-Indian
attendant she bought shoes, hats, hosiery, and toilet articles till her
room looked "like Christmas morning," as Haney said, and yet there was
little that could be called foolish or tawdry. She wore little jewelry,
having resisted Haney's attempt to load her with rings and necklaces.
Miss Franklin had impressed upon her the need of being "simple." When
she put on her dinner-dress and faced him, Mart Haney was humbled to
earth. "Sure, ye're beautiful as an angel!" he exulted, as if addressing
a saint. And as she swept before the tall glass and saw her radiant self
therein, she thought of Ben, and her face flamed with lovely color. "I
wish he could see me now!" she inwardly exclaimed.
Miss Franklin, in writing to her friend, Mrs. Brent, had said: "In a
sense, the Haneys are 'impossible'--he is an ex-gambler, and she is the
daughter of a woman who kept a miner's boarding-house in the mountains.
But this sounds worse than it really is. I like the Captain. Whatever he
was in the days before his accident I don't know--they say he was a
terror. But when I entered the family he was as he is now--a pathetic
figure. He isn't really old; but he's horribly crippled, and takes it
very hard. He is kindness itself to his wife and to every one round him,
and will be grateful for anything you do for him. Bertha is young but
maturing very rapidly, and there's no telling where she will stop. She's
been studying with me, and I've told her you will advise her while she's
in Chicago. You needn't go far with her if you don't want to. The
Hallidays and Voughts won't mind the back pages of the Haney history,
and you needn't say anything about the Captain's career if you don't
want to. He's a big mine-owner now, and is out of the gambling and
saloon business altogether. Bertha is perfectly eligible in herself. And
as many of us started on farms or poor little villages, we can't afford
to take on any airs over her. She's of good parentage, and as true as
steel. She likes the Captain, and is devoted to him."
Dr. Brent was not connected with the university, but his wife's brother
had been a student there, and was now an instructor in one of the
scientific departments. And Mrs. Brent's charm of manner and the
Doctor's easy-going hospitality made their fine little Kenwood home the
centre of a certain intellectual Bohemia on the borders of the
institution, and the "artistic gang" occasionally met and genially
interfused with the professors round the big Brent fireplace. Being rich
in his own right, Brent took his practice in such moderation as to be of
the highest effectiveness when he consented to operate, and was in
demand for difficult surgical cases. He was slender, blond, and languid
of movement--not in the least suggestive of the Western hustle of
Chicago, and yet he was born within twenty miles of the court-house.
Indeed, it was the spread of the city which had enriched his father's
estate, and which now permitted him to work when he felt like it, and to
assemble round his hearthstone--an actual stone, by the way--the people
he liked best. The amount of hickory wood he burned was stupendous.
Mrs. Brent was known as "the audacious hostess," because she was not
afraid to invite anybody who interested her. "You take your reputation
in your hand," her friends often said to those about to make their first
call. "You may meet an actor from New York or a stone-mason from the
West Side--one never knows." Their house was an adaptation of the
"mission style" of California and possessed one big room on the first
floor which their friends called Congress Hall.
Miss Franklin was certain that this circle would enjoy the Captain once
he became at ease, and she really hoped Mrs. Brent would "advise the
girl," and, as she put it, "Help her to get at the pleasant side of
Chicago. She's very rich and she's intelligent, but she is very raw!
She's very like a boy, but she's worth while. She wanted me to come with
her, but I could have done so only by giving up here and going as her
companion, and that I'm not ready to do--at present."
After carefully considering all these points, Mrs. Brent 'phoned her
friends, being careful to explain that Dorothy Franklin had sent her
"some fleecy specimens of Colorado society," and that she was asking a
few of "the bold and fearless" among her set to meet them.
"Who are the guests of honor?" she was asked by each favored one.
Each received the same reply: "Marshall Haney, the gambler prince of
Cripple Creek, and his bride, Dead-shot Nell, biscuit-shooter, from
Honey Gulch."
"Honest?"
"Hope to die!"
"It's too good to be true! Of course I'll come. Do we have a quiet game
after dinner?"
"Ah, no, that would be too cruel--to Captain Haney. No; we go to the
theatre. So be on hand at 7 P.M., sharp."
In this way she had prepared her friends to be surprised by Bertha's
good looks and the Captain's tame and courteous manner, but was herself
soundly jarred when her "wild-West people" came up to the door in an
auto-car that must have cost five or six thousand dollars, and when a
colored footman, in bottle-green uniform, leaped out to open the door
for them (it was Lucius in his new suit--he was playing all the parts).
Brent, with a comical look at his wife, remarked: "I suppose this is in
lieu of broncos?"
"They _are_ branching out!" she gasped. "And see her clothes!"
She might well exclaim, for Bertha, in her long cloak, her head bare,
and her pretty dress showing, did not in the least resemble the picture
Miss Franklin had drawn; neither did she resemble the demure, almost
sullen girl Mrs. Brent had met in the hotel. The Captain, too, for the
second time in his life, wore evening dress, but citing to his sombrero;
so that he resembled a Tennessee congressman at the Inaugural Ball as he
came slowly up the short walk, and Mrs. Brent deeply regretted that no
one was present to take the shock with herself and the doctor.
The maid at the door, who knew nothing of the wild reputation of the
Haneys, guided them up-stairs to their respective dressing-rooms, and
helped to remove their wraps so expeditiously that they were on their
way back to the first floor before any other guests arrived. Bertha was
delighted but not awed by the fine room into which they were ushered,
for was not her own house larger and more splendid? She had grown
accustomed to big things--it was the tasteful beauty of the room that
moved her.
In the side of the room a big plain brick fireplace was filled with a
crackling fire, and in the light of it stood her host and hostess.
Bertha was glad to find them alone--she had expected to face a room full
of people. She was not specially attracted to Dr. Brent, and remained so
coldly restrained that he was quite baffled and turned away to the
Captain, who sought the fire, saying: "This looks good. I feel the cold
now--I don't know why I should."
This opened the way to a very confidential talk on wounds and diet.
Bertha's new gown of pale blue made her look very young and very sweet,
and the eager guests were sadly disappointed in her--that is to say, the
ladies were; the men seemed quite content with her as she was. They took
the "biscuit-shooter" description to be a piece of fooling on Mrs.
Brent's part, and as they had no time after dinner to get the Captain
started they remained quite convinced that he, too, had been maligned in
their hostess's description.
As a result, Mrs. Brent and her other guests were forced to do the
talking, for Bertha had not only warned Mart against reminiscence, but
had determined to keep a tight hold on her own tongue; and though she
listened with the alertness of a bird, she answered only in curt phrase,
making "yes" and "no" do their full duty. She perceived that the people
round her were of intellectual companionship to the Crego and Congdon
circles, and these young men, so easy and graceful of manner, reminded
her of Ben. None of them were entirely strange to her now, and yet she
dimly apprehended something uncomplimentary veiled beneath their polite
regard. She did not entirely trust any of them--not even her host.
Indeed, she liked Mrs. Brent less than at their first meeting in the
hotel.
The dinner was rather hurried, and they would have been late had it not
been for Haney's new auto-car, which carried six, and made two trips to
the station unnecessary. It was fine to see the Captain put his machine
at the disposal of his hostess. "I told Lucius to wait," he boasted, "I
thought we might need him."
Dr. Brent succeeded at last in drawing his pretty guest into
conversation by remarking on the Captain's color. "He's feeding
improperly, if you don't mind my saying so. He's putting on weight, he
tells me, but feels cold and nerveless. Cut him down on starchy foods.
How long is it since he was hurt?"
"About eight months."
"Must have been a tearing beast of an accident to wing a man of his
frame."
"It was. Tore his whole side to pieces."
"Who put him together--Steele, of Denver?"
"No, a man in Cripple."
"Sure he was the right man?"
"He was the best I could get."
"You arouse my professional egotism. I'd like to examine the Captain if
you don't object--not for any fee, you understand. But a fellow of his
build and years--he tells me he's only forty-five--"
"Only forty-five," thought the girl. "What strange ideas these older
people have! And Ben was twenty-six." Just what the doctor said
afterwards she didn't hear, for she was thinking of the swift, wide arc
of change through which her mind had swung from the time when Marshall
Haney first came to Sibley--so grand of stride, so erect, so powerful.
He, too, seemed young then; now he was old--old and feeble--a man to be
advised, protected, humored. She dimly understood, too, that
corresponding change had come to her; that she was far away from the
girl who had stood behind the counter defending herself against the
love-making of the bummers and drummers among her patrons--and yet she
was the same, after all. "I've not changed as much as he has," was her
conclusion. And she enjoyed the gayety and beauty of her companions, but
she said little to express it.
The play that night appalled her by its fury of passion, its mockery of
woman, its cynical disbelief in man. With startling abruptness and in
most colloquial method it delineated the beginning of a young wife's
wrong-doing, and when the lover caught the innocent, ensnared woman to
his bosom a flaming sword seemed to have been plunged into Bertha's own
breast. She quivered and flushed. And when the actress displayed the
awakened conscience of the erring one, putting into words as well as
into facial expression her feeling of guilt and remorse, the girl-wife
in the box shrank and whitened, her big eyes fixed upon the sobbing,
suffering character before her, defending herself against the dramatist
as against an enemy. He was a liar! There was no wrong in Ben's kiss and
no remorse in her own heart as she remembered the caress. "Even if he
loves me, that doesn't make him horrible!"
The dramatist went remorselessly on. He showed the husband--old, coarse,
brutal. He put him in sharpest relief in order that the woman should be
tempted to her ruin, and in the end the lover--virile, handsome and
unscrupulous--wins the tortured woman's soul--and they flee, leaving the
usual note behind.
"What can you expect?" remarked the cynical friend of the injured
husband. "Given a young and lovely wife like Rose and an old limping
warrior like you, and an elopement follows as a matter of course, Q. E.
D." And so the curtain fell.
Relentless realist in the first act, the dramatist in the second act
began to hedge. He made the life of the erring woman conventionally
miserable. Her lover beat her, neglected her, and finally deserted her.
And in the last act she crawled back into her husband's home like a
starved cat to die, while he, scarred old beast, cried out: "The wages
of sin is death!" Whether the writer intended this scene to be ironical
or not, the effect was to awaken a murmur of laughter among the
ill-restrained of the auditors. But Bertha, hot with anger towards both
author and players, could not join in Mrs. Brent's smiling comment:
"Isn't that comical!"
The doctor coolly said: "A good conventional British ending. Why didn't
he clap a pair of wings on the old reprobate and run him up on a wire,
the way they used to do in translating little Eva in 'Uncle Tom's
Cabin'?"
Afterwards Mrs. Brent proposed that they go to a German restaurant and
have some beer and skittles; but this struck harshly on Bertha, who
still palpitated with the passion of the play. "I reckon we'd better
not. The Captain is pretty tired, and, if you don't mind, we'll quit
now."
Without saying "I've had a lovely time," she shook hands all round, and,
taking her husband's arm, moved off into the street, leaving her hostess
a little uneasy and wholly perplexed. Mrs. Brent's joke about the
Captain and his wife had, as the doctor expressed it, "queered the whole
affair."
"But how did she know?"
"She's a good deal sharper than you gave her credit for being," he
replied. "You Easterners never can learn to take diamonds in the rough."
Bertha's mind was in tumult, and she wished to be alone. Mart irritated
her. She refused to talk to him about the play or the dinner, and,
turning him over to Lucius, went at once to her own bed. Thus far she
had not attempted to closely analyze her relationship to Marshall Haney.
He had been to her a good friend rather than a husband, a companion who
needed her, and who had given her everything she asked for. Keenly
forward, almost precocious on the calculative side, she had remained
singularly untroubled on the emotional side. She knew that certain
problems of sex existed in the world, and she was only mentally aware of
temptations--she had never really felt them. Now all at once her whole
nature awoke. Her mind engaged a legion of vaguely defined enemies. Out
of the shadow stepped words of no weight, of no significance hitherto,
encircling her, panoplied with meaning. The half-heard comment of the
camp, the dimly perceived gossip of the Springs, the flattering looks of
the artists--all helped her to see herself as she was: a handsome young
girl, like that on the stage, married to a crippled middle-aged man of
evil history.
"But he is good to me," she argued against her new self. "I was poor,
and he has made me rich; and all I've done is to nurse him and keep
house for him." With this thought came a realization that she had never
been a full and complete wife to him. And with a flush of shame and
repulsion she added: "And now I never can be. No matter if he were to
become as straight, as strong, and as handsome as he was in those days,
I cannot love him as a wife should."
Once having admitted this feeling of repulsion, once having clearly
perceived the vast distance between herself and her husband, the
repulsion deepened, the separating space widened. He seemed ten years
older as they met next morning, and his face was heavy and his frame
lax. Her pity had not lessened, but it was mixed now with a qualifying
emotion which she had not yet acknowledged to be disgust. His skin was
waxy white and his jowls drooping. "I'm not at all up to the work," he
said, with a return of his humor. "'Tis a killing pace we've struck,
Bertie, and the old man must take the flag if you keep it up."
"I don't intend to keep it up," she answered, shortly. "I think we'd
better go home." At the word "home" a little thrill went through her. It
was so bright and big and desirable, that mansion under the purple
peaks.
"No; I must go trail up me old dad, and leave him provided for. Fan
doesn't even know his address (the more shame to her), but I'll find
him. If ye're tired and would rather go home, I'll go on alone."
"Oh no, you mustn't do that!" she exclaimed instantly, feeling the
sincerity of his desire to please her. "I'll go, but we mustn't stay
long." And she took up the direction of his life again. The mood of the
night had passed away, leaving only a clearer perception of his growing
age and helplessness.
"You must let Dr. Brent examine you," she said, a little later. "He
don't think your lameness is caused by your wound. He says you're out of
condition."
He looked at her with shadowed face and sorrowful eyes. "I'm only a poor
old skate, wind-broken and lazy. Ye have the right to cut me loose any
time."
"You mustn't talk like that," she said, sharply. "When I want to cut
loose I'll let you know."
"I hold ye to that," he answered, with intent look.