A THOUSAND WOMEN IN ONE
Philip Morley’s imagination was not in the habit of being appealed to
by individuals, so often as his mind and heart. But that he had plenty
of imagination, waiting for the human touch, was proved by its response
to all that was beautiful in literature, music, and the other arts.
Perhaps the fault lay in an absence of the kindred quality in most of
the people of his intimate acquaintance, for his particular circle
was Bostonian in the narrowest limitations, as well as the broadest
boundaries, of that indefinable term, and imagination was not the
salient quality possessed by the inhabitants of his world.
During his first glimpse of Edith Dudley, she had warmed his
imagination, and after his second and third interviews she had fairly
set it on fire. Her beauty changed but never decreased, and her
sympathetic nature, with its wonderful responsiveness to each mood
of her companion, was rendered the more fascinating to Philip by an
inexplicable drawing back of her real self into its shell, when he
probed for a deeper knowledge.
He had formed the habit of dropping in for a frequent cup of tea at
the Eltons’, and though Mary at first made a congenial third in the
conversations with her two friends, she gradually made excuses either
for coming home late or going upstairs to rest.
Repose had not, until recently, figured on Mary Elton’s daily
programme, but she had looked ill all through the autumn, and though
she resented any inquiries, and snubbed all attempts to discover her
malady, it was evident that physically she was not herself. She begged
Philip to take her place in showing her guest the sights of Boston,
and thus it happened that he became the envy of all his friends, by
his constant attendance at the side of the beautiful girl who not only
trod with him the conventional paths of the Back Bay, but explored the
remoter ways of more unfashionable quarters.
There were soon plenty of other men who talked with her and walked with
her, who danced with her and flirted with her. She began to identify
herself with the life of the people around her, and to interest herself
in whatever most absorbed her new friends.
She took an active part in various church clubs and organizations,
under the guidance of her clerical conquest; she delighted her
collegiate admirers by going with them to theatres and variety
shows,--displaying all the unsophisticated enthusiasm of a child,--and
she converted Miss Milton to a belief in the sincerity of butterflies
by keeping a weekly appointment with five poor families in the North
End. But in spite of these side-tracks for her interests and energies,
it soon became evident to all that Philip Morley had appropriated the
largest share of her time and thoughts for himself.
Between the girl and Philip, Mary Elton was a frequent and absorbing
subject of conversation, and whenever she was mentioned, Philip
received the same impression of repressed feeling in his companion’s
voice and manner.
“I have never felt about any one as I feel about her,” Edith said
to him one day. “You can’t understand what I mean. She knows me
thoroughly, and when one’s character is very weak, and yet one is loved
by a person of strength,--of one’s own sex,--it somehow gives one hope
to keep up the fight.”
This interesting stage of unformulated sentiments between Edith Dudley
and Philip Morley was broken in upon by the unexpected arrival in
Boston of an old friend of Edith’s from Baltimore,--a man whose manners
soon made it evident to shrewd observers that he was a rejected lover,
as well as an accepted friend. His appearance suggested the villain
in a modern melodrama, and one almost expected to hear gallery hisses
arise from protesting Philistines when he appeared. He was dark,
handsome, scrupulously polite, suspiciously unvillainous.
But from the moment Grant Lorimer appeared on the scene, Edith Dudley
seemed to lose her poise and happy ease of manner. It was as if he
exerted an influence which she could not resist, yet to which she did
not wish to yield herself. Mary at once christened him Dr. Fell, for
obvious reasons, and he seemed to justify the title if not the name,
for he had seen her only once for a few moments, when he said to Edith,
“Your friend Miss Elton is a very sick woman. I don’t mean nervous
prostration and that sort of thing, but something really vital. I’ve
been in hospitals. I know the signs.” Edith gave a cry of real pain.
“Oh, don’t say so! You don’t know what it would mean to me,” was her
first selfish word. “It would be like taking a crutch away from a
feeble old woman, to snatch Mary out of my life. You know what I am,
Grant; you and she alone in the world understand my weakness.”
“Yes, and we both love you,” he stated firmly.
“Please don’t say so,” she shuddered.
A few days after this the two girls were in Mary’s room one morning,
engaged in various jobs of leisurely domesticity, such as mending
stockings, polishing finger nails, and running ribbons into sundry
lace-trimmed garments. The conditions seemed to invite confidence,
and Mary accepted the invitation by saying suddenly, “Edith, forgive
my impertinence, put it down to my being physically upset, if you
wish--but which do you mean to marry, Grant Lorimer or Philip Morley?”
The girl flushed. “And must I marry one?” she asked.
“I think you will have to. You see I know you.”
“Then why do you care for me?” Edith asked impulsively. “Why do you,
who are all strength and conviction, care for a blank like me?”
“I don’t know,” Mary confessed. “I suppose it’s because you’re so
extraordinarily pretty; and then you’re clever, too, and most
good-looking women are fools.”
“I’m not a fool,” Edith acknowledged, “but then I’m not anything.”
“I know it, and it’s really refreshing in these over-strenuous days to
find some one with no character at all. Excuse my frankness,--I love
you just the same, Edith; that’s the funny part of it,--but it has only
lately begun to dawn on me that you really might be said not to exist
at all, unless there is some one with you to bring out some response,
and then you are vivid as a rainbow. You are like that hero in Henry
James’s story,--do you remember? They suddenly found that he simply
melted into thin air, unless there was some other intelligence in the
room to play upon his.”
Edith’s eyes grew blank and expressionless. “Yes, I am like that,” she
said in a dull monotone. “I have been brought up from the cradle to
produce an effect. My mother and my father bent all their efforts to
make me into what they wished me to become. All my natural passions
were curbed, all my impulses checked. I was not created by God, like
other people,--I was manufactured by my parents. I am like one of those
toys labeled ‘made in Germany.’”
“But it takes a long time to find you out,” Mary protested. “You’re
a wonderfully good imitation of a human being. You don’t seem a bit
mechanical.”
“Oh, I have been well educated,” Edith acknowledged, dispassionately.
“When I am with people, I do not merely reflect their ideas, I can
furnish others in the same line, only not in opposition. I have some
intelligence, but I have no character, no beliefs, no convictions.”
“It is very strange,” Mary mused. “Are you happy?”
“Happy? No, I don’t think so, nor unhappy. I like to be with you.
You have so much character and force that it is almost infectious.
But I like any one I am with. If a strong will is brought to bear on
mine, it can control me utterly. I am not bad by nature, any more
than I am good. I am simply what the other person wants me to be.
It is my misfortune, Mary; not my fault, but my curse--the curse of
my inheritance, my bringing up. I am not deliberately a turncoat, a
caterer, as you called me once to Mr. Morley. I am simply a cipher,
waiting for a definite figure to stand in front of me, and give me
meaning.” The girl was pathetic in her unavailing self-knowledge.
“You would interest the psychologists,” Mary said. “You are a living
example of the power of suggestion.”
“Yes,” Edith continued earnestly, “I seem to have no Ego. There are
hundreds of different individualities shut up inside me, waiting to
pop out as they are wanted, yet none of them is _me_,--there is no real
_me_. If I am suddenly asked, by a person I have never seen, what I
think on a certain subject, I can’t answer till I feel what the other
person’s point of view is, and then I express it as well as I can.”
“You’re like a prism, waiting for the sun of outside personality to
shine on you and scatter your colors. Well, I go back to my first
question,” Mary insisted; “which of them do you intend to marry?”
“How can you ask? I suppose whichever has the stronger will,--unless
some outside influence or event is stronger than either,” the girl
confessed hopelessly. “Mary, I tried--I mean I tried to try--not
to let Philip Morley fall in love with me. But I couldn’t make the
effort. I hoped that you would. You and he should have belonged to
each other,--but you threw us together. I was utterly powerless and
weak,--he is attracted by a pretty face and by a character that he can
mould and influence. Mary, why did you not keep him for yourself? It
would have been better for all.”
Mary rose to her feet and stamped. “_Me?_ What are you thinking of,
Edith Dudley? Any man--even the most sensible man--would rather marry
a pretty fool than an ugly and embittered jade like me. Not that you
are a fool, you poor dear lovely nonentity, you! You are as clever and
intelligent as you are fascinating; and I truly believe that you--a
non-existent being almost--will bring more happiness to a self-reliant
man like Philip than any of the strong-minded women he might marry. The
whole question comes down to one of love. He loves you; he does not
love--us.”
“Oh, why doesn’t he _feel_ what you are, Mary!” her friend exclaimed.
But this was not a subject on which Mary cared to expand, although
she always rose to the bait of her own character as a subject for
discussion.
“I am likable, but not at all lovable,” she explained, with her
relentless self-analysis. “There is no charm or illusion about me.
Besides, look at my face!”
Edith Dudley did look at her friend’s small green eyes, indefinite
hair and complexion, and too definite nose and mouth; but, with her
never-failing desire to say the kindly thing, replied, “Some day some
one will care tremendously for you. All men don’t fall in love with wax
dolls. Besides, you are”--
“Now, my dear Edith, don’t tell me that I am interesting-looking,
or have a sweet face! That is always the final insult of beauty to
ugliness. I know perfectly well that I am extremely plain. I am not in
the least self-deceived.”
“But there are so many more attractive qualities than mere flesh and
blood good looks,” the beauty tritely suggested.
“Are there? Well, I would give every virtue I possess in exchange for
that mere physical beauty you carry so lightly,” Mary exclaimed, with a
bitter little laugh. “People who are good-looking and charming ought to
find it easy to be amiable and sweet. They are born in harmony with the
world. Every one is predisposed in their favor from the start, while we
ugly people can hope to call forth no more flattering sentiment than a
half-contemptuous pity.”
“What extreme statements you do make, Mary!” interposed Edith Dudley.
“I don’t know any one who has more friends than you. What do they care
whether you have a Grecian nose or not?”
“They don’t care,--that’s the pity of it,--and they think I don’t care
either. By some strange system of reasoning they imagine that because
my hair is straight and thin I must find it easy to tell the truth;
and they fondly believe that because my mouth is large, I must enjoy
visiting in the slums. People associate certain physical attributes
with certain mental qualities; but all I can say is, that in my own
case my character and my features are in constant warfare.”
Edith, having no comforting rejoinder ready, merely looked distressed,
and Mary continued:--
“Of course I know that Charity, with a very big C, is the generally
accepted refuge of the plain,--and I am expected to enjoy philanthropy
more than frivolity, and to prefer committee meetings to dancing
parties,--but the truth is, my soul or spirit or whatever you choose to
call the thing that makes me _me_, and not somebody else, is not ugly
at all. It enjoys the pleasant and prosperous side of life; it would
like to have admiration and love affairs and all the agreeable things
that you attractive people are born to as your natural inheritance.
But fortunately I have a saving leaven of common sense and humor,
which prevent my reaching out my skinny arms to grasp at blessings
that are not meant for me. Sooner or later, I suppose, I must accept
my inevitable destiny of philanthropist, but incidentally I shall
turn into an embittered, caustic old maid, unless an early death cuts
me down in my prime. Then, my dear, you would find that I had given
promise of being ‘a noble woman.’ Premature death is the only artistic
end for souls and faces that are uncongenially yoked together.”
Mary had worked herself into the state of rebellion that always
followed any reference to her personal appearance.
“Do let’s change the subject,” she said, abruptly. “Let’s talk about
you again. One thing I don’t understand is why you haven’t succumbed
before this, and married some of the men who must have been crazy to
get you. If you are a mere pipe for fortune’s finger to touch what stop
she pleases, why haven’t you yielded to the persuasions of some of your
suitors?”
“Because,” Edith explained with simple straightforwardness, “there
has always been a stronger will brought to bear on me, before I could
yield. My father was very ambitious for me, and he was a man of intense
feelings. He always took me away before things reached a climax,
and then some other man would come along, and he would feel more
strongly than the last; and so it went, my father’s will controlling
me more completely than that of any lover. Besides,” she explained
ingenuously, “Grant Lorimer is the only one that knows I have no
character. The others all thought me very strong; but they were mostly
foreigners, and abroad, you know, the parents have so much more control
over a girl. Mary,” she cried suddenly, “I am really afraid of Grant!
Sooner or later he vows I must be his, and if that is to be, it’s
better sooner than later, for later I may be married to some one else.”
“Have you no will at all?” exclaimed Mary, passionately and with a
touch of scorn.
“Absolutely none,” Edith acknowledged sadly; “only the will to
acquiesce in the strongest influence that touches me. My one safety
from Grant Lorimer is to have Philip Morley show more strength of will,
and make me marry him, yet I know I shouldn’t make him happy long. I
can’t love any one, Mary. I feel everything a little, but nothing
much. I can’t even cry, though I can shed tears. I would give all my
good looks, that you admire so unduly, to be capable of feeling as
strongly about _anything_ as you do about--your nose, for instance.”
“Well, there seems to be no satisfying us, does there?” Mary commented
with a short, cynical laugh. “My only hope is that I shan’t live to see
the people I care most for--myself among them, of course--made unhappy.
I can’t help feeling that if you married Philip Morley, the strength
of his love would create a soul and heart in you, and if you once had
the spirit of life and feeling breathed into you, you would be the most
perfect wife a man could dream of possessing.”
Mary closed her eyes a moment, and a spasm of pain passed over her
face. “Heaven keep me from ever witnessing that happiness!” she
groaned, too indistinctly for Edith to hear the words. Suddenly her
tone changed abruptly, and she straightened herself up. “Edith, I may
as well tell you that I’ve got something pretty serious the matter with
me. I’ve suspected it for some time, but I only found out yesterday.”
Edith gave a sharp “Oh!” of sympathy. “Tell me, dear,” she said softly.
“No, that’s just what I don’t mean to do,--at any rate not yet. I do
hate this modern fashion of having one’s insides the subject of general
conversation. It positively makes me blush, when I stop to think how
much I know about the organs of people with whom I am scarcely on
bowing terms. I did hope I could escape this fad of being operated on;
it’s worse than bridge whist.”
That Mary was not in a mood for sympathy was very evident, and her
friend’s genius for tact led her to do the right thing in replying,
“You may trust me, Mary, to say nothing about your illness to any one
till you wish me to, and you’ll please me immensely by letting me do
anything I can to make the next few weeks easier.” This unemotional
little speech was followed by a matter-of-fact kiss deposited on Mary’s
sallow cheek, after which Edith obeyed her friend’s unspoken wish, and
left her alone.
During the week that followed this conversation, Grant Lorimer’s
attentions to Edith redoubled in violence. It was unfortunate that
Philip Morley should have selected this period of emotional storm
and stress to declare his love and humbly ask for its reward. Edith
Dudley’s will was temporarily dominated and controlled by that of her
Southern lover, and to Philip’s pleadings she could only dumbly shake
her head, and whisper painfully, “I can’t, I can’t.”
What she would have liked to say was, “Wait a week till Grant Lorimer
goes away, as he has to do for a time, and then try again;” but instead
of that her refusal had the sound of finality to Philip’s inexperienced
ears.
The combination of Philip’s strong and genuine love, and Mary’s strong
and genuine hate of Grant Lorimer, availed to keep the girl from
actually yielding to the persuasions of the man who knew her weakness;
but though the combined pressure of wills was sufficient to prevent her
accepting one lover, it was not sufficient to keep her from refusing
the other. Thus an equal balance was temporarily maintained.
At this crisis in her love affairs Edith was invited to go with a party
to the White Mountains for a week, and though she regretted leaving
Mary in her poor state of health, the will of the invalid was so much
stronger than hers, that she found herself constrained to accept.
Mary had grasped the situation pretty correctly, and she rightly
guessed that the best thing for all was her guest’s absence for a
time. Fortunately Grant Lorimer’s mother was ill enough to demand his
presence in Baltimore, and home he was obliged to go, with his campaign
of conquest unaccomplished.
Left to herself, Mary breathed a sigh of stoicism rather than
resignation, gave up her fight with appearances, and acknowledged
herself to be really ill.