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WHY JOAN?
BY ELEANOR MERCEIN KELLY
Author of "KILDARES OF STORM," etc.
NEW YORK
THE CENTURY CO.
1919
Copyright, 1919, by
THE CENTURY CO.
_Published, March, 1919_
TO
MRS. RICHARD W. KNOTT
friend and neighbor to many young
women such as JOAN, whom she
has helped to find the why of themselves;
and whose life principle may
be summed up in Virgil's phrase
_Paulo majora canamus_--
(Let us sing of higher things.)
Aime-moi, parce que j'ai besoin de ton amour pour mes chansons,
Va t'en, parce que j'ai besoin de pleurer pour mes chansons,
Meurs, parce que j'ai besoin de chanter la mort pour mes chansons,
Car je suis le Cobzar.
_Quoted by Pierre de Coulevain from source unknown._
Rough translation:
Love me, because I have need of love for my songs,
Leave me, because I have need of tears for my songs,
Die, for I have need to sing of death in my songs,
For I am the Cobzar.
[Illustration]
FOREWORD
Some time since, the author had the temerity innocently to publish a
book ("Kildares of Storm"), which, like this one, employed for
background the country with which she happens to be most familiar, the
State of her adoption and of her affections. And great was the scandal
thereof. Neighbors insisted upon recognising themselves in it, to their
horror--or to their complacency, as the case might be. They also
recognized the house described; although if one heard with impartial
ear, the house appeared to possess as many different identities as
localities, and despite the fact that the author, in order to guard
against this very contingency, had taken many liberties with geography,
even to the extent of moving mountains--imagination being on occasion
almost as powerful as faith.
That history may not repeat itself, the author now hastens to assert
that no self-respecting creative instinct, with the whole world of fancy
at command, would care to inhibit productivity by the limitations
imposed upon photography, invaluable as that science is in its
place--which is not fiction. Ours the happy privilege of, for the moment
at least, "shattering the world to bits and remolding it nearer to the
heart's desire."
There is also among the craft an unwritten law against the holding up
for public inspection those people with whom one has broken bread, so to
speak; and as one is apt, in Kentucky, to have broken bread with all
one's acquaintance, neighbors, friends and enemies may alike consider
themselves safe from the present pen. If any think to recognize
themselves in this book, let them recognize themselves quite as readily
in the living people about them. For we are, after all, of one
substance, varying only with circumstance and the different stages of
development. And it is with these things only--with circumstance and the
stages of development, with truths rather than facts, with men and women
rather than personalities--that this author at least chooses to concern
herself.
ELEANOR MERCEIN KELLY.
WHY JOAN?
CHAPTER I
Young Joan Darcy leaned back luxuriously upon a cushion offered by the
obsequious porter (servants were usually obsequious with Joan, though
she was not at all beautiful and rather too shabby to promise much in
the way of largesse), watching the world go by with a dreamy, detached,
yet oddly observant gaze that missed no detail of the landscape through
which she passed and registered it in her subconscious mind for future
reference. It was a convenient receptacle, her subconscious mind--a sort
of strongbox into which went many things valuable and valueless, to be
brought forth when occasion required, quite intact. She tucked away in
it now not only the rushing landscape but the various people about her
in the Pullman: a dapper person, probably a necktie drummer, who had for
some time been discreetly taking notice and whom it was her pleasure to
occasionally regard as if he were so much thin air; an elderly lady who
beamed wistfully whenever their eyes met, and who, Joan decided, would
presently summon up courage to inform her that a little daughter, had
she lived, would have been about Joan's age; also another girl, dressed
as Joan would have liked to be dressed herself, who cast occasional
glances of indifference in her direction, noting, it was to be hoped,
the affluent litter of magazines and papers that surrounded our heroine,
the fading bouquet tucked into her belt, and the expensive box of
chocolates which lay open upon her knee, exposing to the world at large
a masculine card on top.
Joan discovered within herself a certain impersonal, appreciative
antagonism toward strange young women, such as knights may have felt who
met for combat upon the jousting field. Envy was the one tribute which
most assuaged her vanity.
She would have liked to sample the box of candy--a parting tribute from
a family friend who had a most discriminating taste in chocolates--but
she feared that it would place her hopelessly in the class of
school-girls, from which she had just emerged, as world-wise, as
sophisticated, as completely finished a young person as ever a convent
turned loose upon the unsuspecting world. "Tess of the d'Urbervilles"
was her favorite novel; she had smoked her maiden cigarette--in fact,
two of them; and she no longer subscribed to the stork-and-baby myth,
which seemed to her puerile.
She was still able, however, to savor keenly in advance the moment when
the Pullman would empty itself into the dining-car and she would be free
to approach her chocolates in the manner favored by true _bon vivants_:
i.e., by nibbling off one end, extracting the contents bit by creamy bit
with the head of a pin (preferably a large white-topped pin), and
finally crushing the emptied shell deliciously upon the tongue.
Conserved in this manner, one chocolate might be made to do the duty of
many chocolates, an advantage not to be despised where pocket-money is
limited to twenty-five cents a week.
The moment was not yet, and reflecting sedately that self-control is
good exercise for the character, she gave herself over to the pleasures
of recollection.
What a beautiful parting it had been! What floods of tears and kisses
and promises! Seven--no, eight--girls weeping around her while they
exchanged dramatic farewells; firm Sister Mary Joseph, the out-sister
who conveyed pupils to shops and trains and so forth, leading her aside
at the last moment to press upon her, heretic though she was, a tiny
medal of St. Joseph, known to bring good husbands to his adherents; two
youths from the near-by college (mere brothers of friends, but still
masculine); and, for _piece de resistance_, Stefan Nikolai, famous
though elderly, who had run over from China or Egypt or somewhere to see
her graduate. This was an attention Joan took quite for granted--he had
been a friend of her mother's, and distance seemed nothing to his habit
of life. But its effect upon her schoolmates, and even upon Sister Mary
Joseph, was gratifying in the extreme. With his dark, fine features, and
his foreign-cut clothes, he had not looked particularly elderly that
day. His eyes, Joan recalled, had always been peculiarly expressive,
like the eyes of a setter dog, which probably has nothing to express at
all; and she chuckled to recall how the out-sister's gaze had wandered
inadvertently toward the unconscious gentleman as she tendered her medal
of St. Joseph.
Joan was fond of Mr. Nikolai, and grateful to him. She even read his
books, though she preferred his letters, which had a good deal in them
about herself. His presence at her graduation, his chocolates, the
little sea of papers with which he sought to beguile the tedium of her
journey, had all helped to comfort her for the absence of her father. He
was, she thought warmly, almost as good as a father anyway; and far more
generous! Everything nice she had was a gift from Stefan Nikolai. Her
lovely Chinese shawl, her carved jade ring (Joan wished secretly that
there had been a diamond in it somewhere), the odd piece of clear blue
aquamarine he had brought her for a graduation present, that just
matched her eyes; books too, in beautiful covers, and some old prints
that were anything but beautiful, and a white bear-skin for her room.
She would have liked to suggest to him that, in place of such costly
trifles, occasional dresses might be acceptable, of the sort that come
from Paris; also frilly things, hand-embroidered, which he would not
have to choose himself, of course--there being women clerks for the
purpose. She was a little surprised that he had not thought of it
himself, aware as he must be of the scarcity of such desirables in the
Darcy family.
Still, one must not look a gift-horse in the mouth; and had he not been
such a lifelong friend as to be almost a relation, Joan would have
chafed a little, as it was, under her sense of obligation to Mr.
Nikolai. Her mother's daughter did not take kindly to a sense of
obligation.
It was not he, however (ah, by no means he!) who had provided the
flowers which drooped at her belt. For one moment the absence of the
donor of these flowers had threatened to spoil the pleasure of her
parting; and then had arrived, breathless, a messenger and a note. Joan
was able philosophically to reflect that if the gentleman had come in
person she would never have had the note. And there is something
delightfully tangible and lasting about a love-letter--if, indeed, it
was a love-letter?
That was one of Eduard Desmond's great gifts: elusiveness.
She put her hand to her blouse and felt the responsive crackle therein;
and the words of the note danced before her eyes in the form of little
cupids, bearing garlands:
My flowers must tell you what I dare not, dearest little girl
of my heart. You will understand why I cannot say good-by.
Truly, "To part is to die a little." Forgive me! EDUARD.
Joan had done her thrilled best to understand, since it was expected of
her, but she felt rather puzzled. Was it that he feared his emotions at
parting might get beyond his control? Joan sighed. She could have borne
that. Or was it--here she frowned importantly--that his habits were
already resuming control of him, now that her hand was, so to speak, off
the rudder?
Eduard Desmond, as all the Convent knew, was a man of the world, with a
past. He was also in his lighter moments an artist. The Convent was
rather vague in its mind as to the form of art he pursued; but that it
included habits was unfortunately certain, and his young niece Betty had
vouched personally for the authenticity of his past. It had had to do
with a married woman. The Convent frequently prayed for him; though
unknown to the nuns.
Occasionally this distinguished-looking, fascinating, rather melancholy
young man came to take Betty and a few chosen friends to a matinee, out
of the kindness of his heart. Perhaps it was not pure kindness of heart
that had called to his special attention young Joan Darcy, with her
square chin, and straight black brows beneath which the eyes looked out
at you with an odd intensity; unless she smiled, when they danced like
blue water in the sun. She was not pretty, Joan, and boys rarely noticed
her, somewhat to her chagrin; but Eduard Desmond was no boy, and his
past perhaps had made him perceptive. The acquaintance between them
ripened to a degree unsuspected by the good sisters at the Convent, if
not by his family, who aided and abetted it, feeling that a young girl
might be rather good for Eduard. Doubtless she was. She entered into the
duty of "reforming" him with a conscientious thoroughness that might
have been trying to an artistic temperament, had he not got a good deal
of genuine interest out of the process himself; interest, and even more.
She had soft little confiding ways, like a friendly child's, combined
with the queerest flashes of cool understanding, anything but childlike,
which kept him rather in awe of her innocent vision. Indeed, that the
affair went no further than it did was due perhaps to Joan's perfectly
unconscious habit of withdrawing herself to see what was going on, of
being "not there when wanted," as Eduard put it to himself, annoyed. He
thought it deliberate, the reserve of the prude, or of the embryo
coquette; whereas it was really one of the crosses of Joan's life,
dreaded by her as the self-conscious dread attacks of shyness.
So far she had come out of what might have been an illuminating
experience bearing only two small trophies of the sort girls love to
whisper about together in bed after dances when the lights are out; one
rather lingering kiss upon her slim, brown paw (which did not startle
her at all, but made her want to giggle); and now this love-letter--if
it was a love-letter.
Again Joan sighed. She regretted with all her heart that queer aloofness
which came upon her in critical moments, making her notice that a man's
ears were put on wrong, or that her own finger-nails needed shining,
when she should have been surrendering her whole soul to emotion. Was it
always going to keep her from plumbing the depths of life?
"Oh, but it shan't!" she insisted to herself. "I _will not_ be an
innocent bystander! Things must happen to me; they must. All kinds of
things!"
It was the sort of challenge to which Fate is apt to give attentive ear.
Presently, out of facts and recollections she slipped, as was her wont,
into a game of Pretend, which had been a sort of accompaniment to Joan
from her cradle; growing as she grew, changing as life changed its
aspect to her eyes. She was no longer plain little Joan Darcy, returning
from school in a shabby suit which she had outgrown, to a shabby home
which she had also somewhat outgrown. She was a glorified young person
of the singer or actress variety, returning from a career of conquest in
foreign parts, with her maid Fifine traveling second class in the coach
behind, as they do in all the better novels. Her father, not much
altered from real life except that there were no spots on his clothes
(the Major's manner being grand enough for any circumstances), would be
at the station with the victoria and pair--or perhaps the limousine--and
would murmur to the second footman, "Home, James"; and at the door of
the family mansion, a pillared, fan-lighted door (Joan's mind lingered
lovingly over architectural details even in her haste to reach the
people in the doorway) would be Ellen Neal first, dropping respectful
curtsies--quite a stretch, this, even for Joan's imagination!--and
beyond her, in a lovely tea-gown, all silk and lace and newness, would
stand her mother with outstretched arms, waiting....
Here Joan became suddenly aware that she was dropping large, hot tears
upon her precious chocolates--she who had sworn never, never to cry any
more in all her life, because tears are only useless things that make
the nose red!
"But _why_ am I crying?" she demanded of herself, puzzled, still mazed
with her game of Pretend.
It was because her mother would not be in that doorway, waiting; nor
anywhere ever again--unless there really is a Heaven.
Joan sat there, too proud to bury her face in her hands or to search for
a handkerchief, intensely conscious that people were glancing her way,
praying wildly to all her gods to keep her from blubbering aloud; and
she looked so like a haughty infant in distress that the young man
opposite, he whom she had characterized as a necktie drummer, could not
long restrain active sympathy.
"Pardon _me_," he said awkwardly, leaning toward her. "Are you in some
sort of trouble? Anything I can do?"
Joan summoned all her scattered forces to meet this emergency in a
manner that would do credit to the precepts of Sister Mary Joseph. She
elevated her small red nose, and lifting her eyes to about the level of
his scarf-pin (a rather cheap scarf-pin) remarked: "You can go away. I
am telling myself sad stories of the death of kings."
The necktie drummer retired, permanently, to the smoking-car.
This victory cheered Joan into momentarily forgetting her mother.
Already an adventure to write to the girls! She wished that she had
looked a little farther up than the scarf-pin.
Shortly the old lady whose daughter might have been Joan's age if she
had lived, invited Joan to be her guest in the dining-car, and was
repulsed, coldly and firmly. One hears such tales of wicked old harpies
on trains leading trustful girls into the most frightful predicaments!
"No, thank you," said our heroine. "I never have much appetite on
trains."
Soon the car was quite empty, and Joan, mopping the last of the tears
from her eyes, selected the largest of the chocolates and drew from some
recess of her person a white-headed pin. There was also, to be discussed
later, a packet of sandwiches, typical Convent affairs--large slabs of
bread embracing pale and clammy ham. Joan thought of these with
resignation. The odor of broiling beefsteak came back from the car ahead
rather poignantly. Joan had lied to the old lady. At eighteen, with
every nerve and organ in healthy cooeperation, appetite is not likely to
fail, on trains or elsewhere. Nor was it as if she did not have the
necessary dollar in her pocket. Major Darcy always managed to rise to
the occasion somehow when the ladies of his family went traveling. He
had a horror of gentlewomen finding themselves among strangers
temporarily embarrassed for funds--quite a different affair from a
permanent condition of the sort when in the home circle.
She knew that it was expected of her to spend her dollar in riotous
living; but she could not forget (the Joans of the world never can
forget) that a dollar is the price of a pair of white gloves or a pair
of silk stockings. And so she munched her sacrificial sandwiches with a
considering eye on the future.