ROSE SITS IN THE BLAZE OF A THOUSAND EYES
Life quickened for the coule girl. She accommodated herself to the pace
of the daily papers with instant facility. She studied the amusement
columns, and read the book reviews, and frequented the beautiful
reading room of the Newberry library. She went to all the matinees,
taking gallery tickets, of course, ever mindful of her slender
resources--studying as truly, as intently, as if she were still at
college.
She had told her father that three hundred dollars would carry her
through till June, and she was determined it should do so. She had not
begun to think of any work to do beyond her writing. Her mind was still
in unrest--here life's problem was seemingly more difficult of solution
than ever.
She took hold upon the city with the power of a fresh mind capable of
enormous feeling and digesting. She seemed to be in the world at last,
plunged in it, enveloped by it, and she came to delight in the roar and
tumult of it all, as if it were the sound of winds and waters; and each
day she entered upon a little wider circle of adventure. Once the first
confusion was past, the movement and faces of the crowds were of endless
interest to her. She walked down into the city every day, returning to
her little nook in the noisy flat building, as the young eagle to its
eerie above the lashing tree-tops. She was sitting above the tumult, as
Mr. Mason had advised her to do.
She came soon to know that the west side of State street was tabooed by
wealthy shoppers, who bought only on the east side; that Wabash avenue
was yet more select, and that no one who owned a carriage ever traded in
the bargain stores. She did all her shopping there because it was
cheaper, but deep in her heart she felt no kinship with the cross,
hurrying, pushing, perspiring crowds in the bargain stores. Her place
was among the graceful, leisurely, beautifully attired groups of people
on the east side of State street. She was not troubled at this stage of
her development by any idea of being faithful to the people of her own
material condition and origin. She had always loved the graces and
cleanlinesses of life, and her father, she knew to be a man of innate
refinement. The idea of caste, of arbitrary classes of people, had only
come to her newly or obscurely through newspapers or novels. She did not
like dirty people, nor surly people, nor boorish people. In fact, she
did not class people at all; they were individuals with her yet. She was
allured by the conditions of life on the Lake Shore Drive because the
people lived such quiet, clean and joyous lives apparently, with time to
think and be kind.
She met few people outside of the little circle at the boarding house,
and an occasional visiting friend of Miss Fletcher or Mr. Taylor. Owen
she saw much of, and he pleased her greatly. He was a man she could have
married under some circumstances. He had means a plenty; he was an
unusual character, clean-souled, almost elemental in his simple
sincerity, but she considered him committed to Mary, and, besides, Mason
had become a deterring cause, though she hardly realized that.
Through all the days which followed that evening at Dr. Herrick's she
saw his face with growing distinctness. It was not a genial face, but it
was one to remember, a face of power. The line of the lips, the
half-averted chin, marked Mason's attitude to be one of disgust or
weariness. He was the most powerful man she had ever known, a man of
critical insight, and for that reason especially she had sought in her
last reading to please him. She had failed, and so she was afraid to see
him again. When Isabel said to her:
"Mason is a man you should know. He can do a great deal for you in the
city," Rose replied in her blunt fashion:
"I don't want him to do anything for me."
"O yes, you do! He's really a kind-hearted man. He puts on a manner
which scares people sometimes, but he's a man of the highest character.
He's the greatest thinker I ever met--O I'm not disloyal to Dr. Sanborn,
he's the _best_ man I ever met." There was a story in that tender
inflection. "So you must let me send in something to Warren, and let him
advise you."
Rose finally consented, but it seemed to her like laying an only child
upon the rack. She had come almost to fear, certainly to dread, that
strange, imperturbable man. His abiding-place and his office were alike
so far removed from any manner of living she had knowledge of. He
concealed his own likes and dislikes so effectually that not even Isabel
(as she confessed) could learn them.
A few days after putting her packet of poems into Isabel's hands Rose
received a note from her asking her to come over and see her--that she
had an invitation for her.
"We are invited, you and Dr. Sanborn and I, to sit in a box at the
symphony concert Saturday night, with Mr. and Mrs. Harvey. Mrs. Harvey
is one of my dearest friends, and I've talked about you so much she is
eager to see you."
Rose took the matter very quietly. She was mightily pleased, but she was
not accustomed to gushing her thanks; besides, she had recovered her
equilibrium.
Isabel was a little surprised at her coolness, but was keen enough to
see that she did not mean to be ungrateful.
"I thought perhaps you'd like to advise about dress," she said. "The
boxes are very brilliant, but you'll look well in anything. You won't
need a bonnet, your hair is so pretty, and that little grey dress will
do, with a little change."
"You know I'm a farmer's daughter," Rose explained; "I can't afford new
dresses in order to go to the opera."
"I understand, my dear. I have my own limitations in that way. I keep
one or two nice gowns and the rest of the time I wear a uniform. I told
Mrs. Harvey you were poor like myself, and that we'd need to be the
background for her, and she said she'd trust me."
What Mrs. Harvey had said was this: "My dear Isabel, you've got
judgment, and if you say the girl's worth knowing I want to know her.
And if you say the girl will be presentable I'd like to have her come.
The boys are both in New York, anyway, and we've got three unoccupied
seats."
"Now you come over to dinner with me Saturday; come at five. I want you
to help me dress. Doctor will be over, and we'll have a nice time before
the carriage comes."
Rose was much more elated than she cared to show. Once as she sat in the
gallery of the theatre and looked at the boxes she had shut her teeth in
a vow: "I'll sit there where you do, one of these days!" and now it had
come in a few weeks instead of years--like a fairy gift. She told Mary
nothing about her invitation for several days. She dreaded her outcry,
which was inescapable.
"Oh! isn't that fine! How you _do_ get ahead--what will you wear?"
"I haven't a bewildering choice," Rose said. "I thought I'd wear my grey
dress."
"Oh, this is a wonderful chance for you! Can't you afford a new dress?"
"No, I'm afraid not. There isn't time now, anyway. I'll keep close to
the wall. Fortunately I have a new cloak that will do."
"Well, that grey dress is lovely--when it's on you."
Rose hated the bother about the dress.
"I wish I could wear a dress suit like a man," she said to Isabel when
they were in the midst of the final stress of it.
"So do I, but we can't. There's a law against it, I believe. Now I'm
going to dress your hair for you. That is, I'm going to superintend it
and Etta's deft little fingers shall do the work."
After dinner, Isabel ordered things cleared and said to Sanborn:
"Doctor, you go and smoke while we put on our frills."
Sanborn acquiesced readily enough.
"Very well--if you find me gone when you come forth, don't worry. I've
gone ahead with my friend Yerkes. Your carriage will be full anyhow."
"All right." She went over and gave him a hug. "You're a good, obedient
boy--that's what you are!"
He spoke (with his chin over her wrist) addressing Rose:
"The study of chemicals and nerve tissues has not left us utterly
desolate, you perceive."
When they were in their dressing room, Rose asked what the Doctor meant
by that speech.
Isabel laughed and colored a little:
"Oh, he meant that a study of bones and muscles and diseased bodies had
not made us prosaic and--and old. I think it has made me still more in
love with healthy human flesh--but never mind that now; we must hurry."
Rose looked at Isabel in silent worship as she stood before her ready
for the carriage. Her, ordinarily, cold little face glowed with color,
and her eyes were full of mirthful gleams like a child's. It seemed
impossible that she had written a treatise on "Nervous Diseases," and
was ranked among the best alienists in the city.
Etta made no secret of her adoration. She fairly bowed down before her
sister and before Rose also. She was so little and so commonplace before
these beings of light.
Down at the carriage it was too dark to see any one distinctly, but Rose
liked the cordial, hearty voice of Mrs. Harvey. Mr. Harvey's hand was
small and firm, Mrs. Harvey's plump and warm. Mr. Harvey spoke only once
or twice during the ride.
As the carriage rumbled and rolled southward at a swift pace, Rose kept
watch out of the window. The street had not lost a particle of its power
over her.
As they plunged deeper into the city, and the roll of other carriages
thickened around them, the importance of this event grew upon Rose. She
was bewildered when they alighted, but concealed it by impassivity, as
usual. The carriages stood in long rows waiting to unload. Others were
rolling swiftly away; doors slammed; voices called, "All right!" A
mighty stream of people was entering the vast arched entrance, with
rustle of garments and low murmur of laughing comment. Rose caught the
flash of beautiful eyes and the elusive gleam of jewels on every side,
as the ladies bowed to their acquaintances.
Everything was massive, and spacious and enduring. The entrance way was
magnificent, and Rose followed Mr. Harvey as if in a dream. They took a
mysterious short cut somewhere, and came out into a narrow balcony,
which was divided into stalls. Through arched openings Rose caught
glimpses of the mighty hall, immense as a mountain cave, and radiant as
a flower.
As they moved along, Mrs. Harvey turned to Isabel.
"She'll do; don't worry!"
At their box Mr. Harvey paused and said, with a pleasant smile:
"Here we are."
Dr. Sanborn met them, and there was a bustle getting wraps laid away.
"You sit here, my dear," said Mrs. Harvey. She was a plump, plain,
pleasant-voiced person, and put Rose at ease at once. She gave Rose the
outside seat, and before she realized it the coule girl was seated in
plain view of a thousand people, under a soft but penetrating light.
She shrank like some nocturnal insect suddenly brought into sunlight.
She turned white, and then the blood flamed to her face and neck. She
sprang up.
"O, Mrs. Harvey, I can't sit here," she gasped out.
"You must!--that is the place for you," said Mrs. Harvey. "Do you
suppose an old housewife like me would occupy a front seat with such a
beauty in the background? Not a bit of it! The public welfare demands
that you sit there." She smiled into the scared girl's face with kindly
humor.
Isabel leaned over and said; "Sit there; you're magnificent."
Rose sank back into her seat, and stared straight ahead. She felt as if
something hot and withering were blowing on that side of her face which
was exposed to the audience. She wished she had not allowed the neck of
her dress to be widened an inch. She vowed never again to get into such
a trap.
Mr. Harvey talked to her from behind her chair. He was very kindly and
thoughtful, and said just enough to let her feel his presence, and not
enough to weary her.
Gradually the beauty and grandeur of the scene robbed her of her absurd
self-consciousness. She did not need to be told that this was the heart
and brain of Chicago. This was the Chicago she had dreamed about. A
perfumed rustling rose from below her. Around her the boxes filled with
women in gowns of pink and rose and blue, and faint green. Human flowers
they were, dewed with diamonds. All about was the movement of orderly,
leisurely, happy-toned and dignified men and women. All was health,
pleasure, sanity, kindliness. Wealth here displayed its wondrous charm,
its peace, its poetry.
Her romantic conception of these people had done them an injustice. She
had clothed them with the attributes of the men and women of English
society novels and New York imitations of these novels. This Mr. Harvey
did not know, but he helped her to rectify her mistaken estimate of the
people around her by saying:
"We business men can't get out to the Friday rehearsals, but Saturday
night finds us ready to enjoy an evening of art."
He looked very handsome in his dress suit, and his face was very
pleasant to see, yet Isabel had told her that not only was he a
hard-working business man, but a man of wide interests, a great railway
director, in fact.
"I suppose you know many of the people here," she said at last.
"Oh, yes," he replied, "I know most of them. Chicago is large, but some
way we still keep track of people here."
As he talked, she got courage to raise her eyes to the roof, soaring far
up above, glowing with color. Balcony after balcony circled at the back,
and Rose thought with a little flush that perhaps Owen and Mary were
sitting up in one of those balconies and could see her in the box.
The hall was buff and light-blue to her eyes, and the procession of
figures over the arch, the immense stage, the ceiling, the lights, all
were of great beauty and interest.
But the people! the beautiful dresses! the dainty bonnets! the flow of
perfumed drapery! the movement of strong, clean, supple limbs!--these
were the most glorious sights of all. She had no room for envy in her
heart. She was very happy, for she seemed to have reached a share in
ultimate magnificence.
She longed for gowns and bonnets like these, but there was no bitterness
in her longing.
She herself was a beautiful picture as she sat there. From her bust,
proud and maternal, rose her strong smooth neck, and young, graceful
reflective head. If the head had been thrown back she would have seemed
arrogant; with that reflective, forward droop, she produced upon the
gazer an effect both sweet and sad. In the proud bust was prophecy of
matronly beauty, and also of the freshness of youth.
Mason, seated below among a group of musical critics, looked at her with
brooding eyes. At that moment she seemed to be the woman he had long
sought. Certainly the glamour was around her then. She sat above him and
her brown hair and rich coloring stood out from the drapery like a
painting. A chill came over him as he thought of the letter he had sent
to her that very morning. It was brutal; he could see it now. He might
have put the criticism in softer phrases.
Isabel leaned over and spoke to Rose and then Rose began searching for
him. He was amazed to feel a thrill of excitement as he saw that strong,
dark face turned toward him; and when his eyes met her's he started a
little, as if a ray of light had fallen suddenly upon him. She colored a
little, he thought, and bowed. Where did the girl acquire that regal,
indifferent inclination of the head? It was like a princess dropping a
favor to a faithful subject, but it pleased him. "The girl has
imagination!" he said. "She claims her own."
Then he meditated: "What an absurdity! Why should I fix upon that girl,
when here, all about me are other women more beautiful, and rich and
accomplished, besides. That confounded farmer's girl has a raft of
stupid and vulgar relatives, no doubt, and her refinement is a mere
appearance."
He solaced himself with a general reflection.
"Furthermore, why should any man select any woman, when they are all
dots and dashes in a web of human life, anyhow? Their differences are
about like the imperceptible differences of a flock of wrens. Why not go
out and marry the first one that offers, and so end it all?"
The mystery of human genius came also to Rose as Mr. Harvey pointed out
to her the city's most noted men and women. They were mere dabs of
color--sober color, for the most part--upon this flood of humankind. She
was to Mason, probably, only a neutral spot in the glorious band of
color, which swept in a graceful curve back from the footlights. It was
wonderful, also, to think that these smiling men were the millionaire
directors of vast interests--they seemed without a care in the world.
At last the stage chairs were all filled by a crowd of twanging,
booming, sawing, squeaking instrumentalists. Then the leader, a large
man of military erectness, came down to the leader's desk and bowed,
amidst thunderous applause. Then rapping sharply on his desk he brought
orderly silence out of the tumult, and the concert began.
The music did not mean much to Rose during the first half-hour, for the
splendor of the whole spectacle dominated the appeal of the instruments.
Such music and such audiences were possible only in the largest cities,
and that consideration moved her deeply. It seemed too good to be true
that she sat here securely, ready to enjoy all that came. It had come to
her, too, almost without effort, almost without deserving, she felt.
But there came at last a number on the programme which dimmed the
splendor of the spectacle. The voice of Wagner came to her for the first
time, and shook her and thrilled her and lifted her into wonderful
regions where the green trees dripped golden moss, and the grasses were
jeweled in very truth. Wistful young voices rose above the lazy lap of
waves, sad with love and burdened with beauty which destroyed. Like a
deep-purple cloud death came, slowly, resistlessly, closing down on
those who sang, clasped in each other's arms.
They lay dead at last, and up through the purple cloud their spirits
soared like gold and silver flame, woven together, and the harsh thunder
of the gray sea died to a sullen boom.
* * * * *
When she rose to her feet the girl from the coule staggered, and the
brilliant, moving, murmuring house blurred into fluid color like a wheel
of roses.
The real world was gone, the world of imagined things lay all about her.
She felt the power to reach out her hand to take fame and fortune.
In that one reeling instant the life of the little coule, the lonely,
gentle old father, and the days of her youth--all her past--were pushed
into immeasurable distance. The pulling of weeds in the corn, the
driving of cattle to pasture were as the doings of ants in a dirt-heap.
A vast pity for herself sprang up in her brain. She wanted to do some
gigantic thing which should enrich the human race. She felt the power to
do this, too, and there was a wonderful look on her face as she turned
to Isabel. She seemed to be listening to some inner sound throbbing away
into silence, and then her comprehension of things at hand came back to
her, and Isabel was speaking to her.
"Here's Mr. Mason coming to speak to us," interrupted Mr. Harvey.
She turned to watch him as he came along the aisle behind the boxes; her
head still throbbed with the dying pulsations of the music. Everybody
seemed to know and greet him with cordial readiness of hand. He came
along easily, his handsome blonde face showing little more expression at
meeting her than the others, yet when he saw her rapt and flushed face
he was touched.
"I came to see how Miss Dutcher was enjoying the evening."
Rose felt a sudden disgust with her name; it sounded vulgarly of the
world of weeds and cattle.
In some way she found herself a few moments later walking out through
the iron gate into the throng of promenaders back of the seats. It was
the most splendid moment of her life. She forgot her fear of Mason in
the excitement of the moment. She walked with hands clenched tightly and
head lifted. The look on her face, and the burning color in her face
made scores of people turn to look at her.
Mason perceived but misinterpreted her excitement. He mistook her entire
self-forgetfulness for a sort of vain personal exaltation or rapture of
social success.
She saw only dimly the mighty pillars, the massive arches, lit by stars
of flame. She felt the carpet under her feet only as a grateful thing
which hushed the sound of feet.
They made one circuit with the promenaders, Mason bowing right and left,
and talking disjointedly upon indifferent subjects. He felt the
tormenting interest of his friends in Rose, and drew her out of the
crowd.
"Let us stand here and see them go by," he said. "You liked the music,
did you?"
His commonplace question fell upon her like the scream of a peacock amid
songs of thrushes. It showed her in a flash of reasoning of which he
could not know, that it was possible to be ennuied with glorious
harmonies. Her mind asked, "Shall I, too, sometimes wish to talk
commonplaces in the midst of such glories?"
"O, it was beyond words!" she said. And then Mason was silent for a
little space. He divined her mood at last, but he had something to say
which should be said before she returned to her box.
He began at once:
"Let me say, Miss Dutcher, that while the main criticism of your work,
which I made in my note this morning, must hold, still I feel the
phraseology could be much more amiable. The fact is, I was irritated
over other matters, and that irritation undesignedly crept into my note
to you."
"I haven't received it," she said looking directly at him for the first
time.
"Well then, don't read it. I will tell you what I think you ought to
do."
"O, don't talk of it," she said, and her voice was tense with feeling.
"All I have written is tonight trash! I can see that. It was all
somebody else's thought. Don't let's talk of that now."
He looked down at her face, luminous, quivering with excitement--and
understood.
"I forgot," he said gently, "that this was your first concert at the
Auditorium. It is beautiful and splendid, even to an habitue like me. I
like to come here and forget that work or care exists in the world. I
shall enjoy it all the more deeply now by reason of your enthusiasm."
In the wide space back of the seats a great throng of young people were
promenading to the left, round and round the massive pillars, in
leisurely rustling swing, the men mainly in dress suits, the ladies in
soft luminous colors; the heavy carpet beneath their feet gave out no
sound, and only the throb of laughter, the murmur of speech and the soft
whisper of drapery was to be heard.
It was all glorious beyond words, to the imaginative girl. It flooded
her with color, beauty, youth, poetry, music. Every gleaming neck or
flashing eye, every lithe man's body, every lover's deferential droop of
head, every woman's worshipful upturned glance, came to her with power
to arouse and transform. The like of this she had not dreamed of seeing.
Nobody had told her of this Chicago. Nobody could tell her of it,
indeed, for no one else saw it as she did. When Mason spoke again his
voice was very low and gentle. He began to comprehend the soul of the
girl.
"I've no business to advise you. I've come to the conclusion that advice
well followed is ruinous. Genius seldom takes advice, and nobody else is
worth advising. I took advice and went into a newspaper office twenty
years ago. I've been trying ever since to rectify my mistake. I would be
a literary if I were not forced to be a newspaper man, just when my
powers are freshest. I want to write of today. I want to deal with the
city and its life, but I am forced to advise people upon the tariff. I
come home at night worn out and the work I do then is only a poor
starveling. Now, see this audience tonight! There are themes for you.
See these lovers walking before and behind us. He may be a clerk in a
bank; she the banker's daughter. That man Harvey, in whose box you sit
tonight, was a farmer's boy, and his wife the daughter of a Methodist
preacher in a cross-roads town. How did they get where they are, rich,
influential, kindly, polished in manner? What an epic!"
"Are you advising me now?" she asked with a smile.
Her penetration delighted him.
"Yes, I am saying now in another way the things I wrote. I hope, Miss
Dutcher, you will burn that packet without reading. I would not write it
at all now."
They were facing each other a little out of the stream of people. She
looked into his face with a bright smile, though her eyes were timorous.
"Do you mean manuscript and all?"
His face was kind, but he answered firmly:
"Yes, burn it all. Will you do it?"
"If you mean it."
"I mean it. You're too strong and young and creative to imitate anybody.
Burn it, and all like it. Start anew tonight."
His voice compelled her to a swift resolution.
"I will do it."
He held out his hand with a sudden gesture, and she took it. His eyes
and the clasp of his hand made her shudder and grow cold, with some
swift, ominous foreknowledge of distant toil and sorrow and joy.
The lights were dimmed mysteriously, and Mason said:
"They are ready to begin again; we had better return."
He led her back to the box, and Mrs. Harvey flashed a significant look
upon him, and said in a theatrical aside:
"Aha! at last."
Isabel said:
"Come and see us tomorrow at six--a 'pow-wow.'"
The music which came after could not hold Rose's attention. How could
it, in the face of the tremendous changes which were in progress in her
brain? What had she done? To an almost perfect stranger she had promised
to burn all the work of her pen thus far.
And an hour before she had almost hated, certainly she had feared, that
man. While the music throbbed and wailed and clashed, she sat with blood
throbbing in her ears and at her throat, longing to cry out, to sing and
to weep. She had said little of late to any one, but she had finally
settled upon one ambition--to write, to be a great poetess. After
vicissitudes and false enthusiasm she had come back to the first great
ambition which she had confessed to Thatcher years before, in the little
coule school-house. And now, at the bidding of a stranger, she had made
a promise to burn her work and start again.
But had not the music and the splendid spectacle before her almost
determined her before he had spoken?
Then she came back to the wondrous gentleness which was in his voice, to
the amazing change in his eyes. The man who had held her hand was not
the worn, cynical man she had feared. He was younger and handsomer, too.
She shuddered again, with some powerful emotion at the thought of his
calm, compelling, down-thrusting glance into her eyes. His mind appeared
to her to have a shoreless sweep.
The music rose to a pounding, blaring climax, and the audience,
applauding, began to rise to go home, breaking into streams and pools
and whirling masses of color.
"Well, my dear, how have you enjoyed the evening?" asked Mrs. Harvey,
cordially.
"Very much, indeed. I never can thank you enough."
"It has been a pleasure to feel your enthusiasm. It makes us all young
again. I've asked Dr. Herrick to bring you to see us; I hope you will
come."
The hearty clasp of her hand moved the motherless girl deeply, and her
voice trembled with emotion as she replied:
"It will be a great pleasure to me, Mrs. Harvey."
Mrs. Harvey clutched her in her arms and kissed her.
"You splendid girl! I wish you were mine," she said, and thereafter Rose
felt no fear in her presence.
"I don't care whether she's a genius or not," Mrs. Harvey said to
Isabel, as they walked out to the carriage. "She's a good girl, and I
like her, and I'll help her. You figure out anything I can properly do
and I'll do it. I don't know another girl who could have carried off
that cheap little dress the way she did. She made it look like a work of
art. She's a wonder! Think of her coming from a Wisconsin farm!"
Isabel rejoiced.
"I knew you'd like her." She leaned over and said in a low voice: "I'd
like Elbert to see her."
Mrs. Harvey turned a quick eye upon her.
"Well, if you aren't a matchmaker!"
As they came out in the throng it seemed as if everybody knew the
Harveys and Isabel. Out in the street the cabs had gathered, like huge
beetles, standing in patient rows in the gaslight.
The bellowing of numbers, the slam of carriage doors, the grind of
wheels, the shouts of drivers, made a pandemonium to Rose, but Mr.
Harvey, with the same gentle smile on his face, presented his ticket to
the gigantic negro, who roared enormously:
"Ninety-two! Ninety-two!"
"Here we are!" Mr. Harvey called finally, and handed the women in with
the same unhurried action, and the homeward ride began. There was little
chance for talk, though Mrs. Harvey did talk.
Rose sat in silence. This had been another great period of growth. She
could still feel the heat and turmoil in her brain. It was as if upon a
seed-bed of quick-shooting plants a bright, warm light had been turned,
resulting in instant, magical activity. At her door they put her down,
and once more she thanked them.
"It's nothing at all, my dear; we hope to do more for you," said Mrs.
Harvey. "I want you to come to dinner soon. You'll come?"
"With pleasure," Rose responded, quite as a man might have done.