"That's polite. Well, I've cleared 'em out. Not that I minded their
unconventionality; I liked it. It was so different from the
straight-jackets and the hypocrisy I'd been living among and hating.
But I soon found out that--well, Miss Stevens, the average human being
ought to be pretty conventional in his morals of a certain kind. If
he--or SHE--isn't, they begin to get unconventional in every way--about
paying their bills, for instance, and about drinking. I got sick and
tired of those people. So, I put 'em all out--made a sweep. And now
I've become quite as respectable as I care to be--or as is necessary.
The couples in the house are married, and they're nice people of good
families. It was Mrs. Dyckman--she's got the whole second floor front,
she and her husband and the daughter--it was Mrs. Dyckman who
interested me in the suffrage movement. You must hear her speak. And
the daughter does well at it, too--and keeps a fashionable
millinery-shop--and she's only twenty-four. Then there's Nora Blond."
"The actress?"
"The actress. She's the quietest, hardest-working person here. She's
got the whole first floor front. Nobody ever comes to see her, except
on Sunday afternoon. She leads the queerest life."
"Tell me about that," said Mildred.
"I don't know much about it," confessed Mrs. Belloc. "She's regular as
a clock--does everything on time, and at the same time. Two meals a
day--one of them a dry little breakfast she gets herself. Walks,
fencing, athletics, study."
"What slavery!"
"She's the happiest person I ever saw," retorted Mrs. Belloc. "Why,
she's got her work, her career. You don't look at it right, Miss
Stevens. You don't look happy. What's the matter? Isn't it because
you haven't been working right--because you've been doing these alleged
pleasant things that leave a bad taste in your mouth and weaken you?
I'll bet, if you had been working hard, you'd not be unhappy now.
Better come here to live."
"Will you let me tell you about myself?"
"Go right ahead. May I ask questions, where I want to know more? I do
hate to get things halfway."
Mildred freely gave her leave, then proceeded to tell her whole story,
omitting nothing that was essential to an understanding. In conclusion
she said: "I'd like to come. You see, I've very little money. When
it's gone, I'll go, unless I make some more."
"Yes, you must come. That Mrs. Brindley seems to be a nice woman, a
mighty nice woman. But her house, and the people that come there--they
aren't the right sort for a girl that's making a start. I can give you
a room on the top floor--in front. The young lady next to you is a
clerk in an architect's office, and a fine girl she is."
"How much does she pay?" said Mildred.
"Your room won't be quite as nice as hers. I put you at the top
because you can sing up there, part of the mornings and part of the
afternoons, without disturbing anybody. I don't have a general table
any more. You can take your meals in your room or at the restaurant in
the apartment-house next door. It's good and quite reasonable."
"How much for the room?" persisted Mildred, laughing.
"Seven dollars a week, and the use of the bath."
Mildred finally wrung from her that the right price was twelve dollars
a week, and insisted on paying that--"until my money gets low."
"Don't worry about that," said Mrs. Belloc.
"You mustn't weaken me," cried Mildred. "You mustn't encourage me to
be a coward and to shirk. That's why I'm coming here."
"I understand," said Mrs. Belloc. "I've got the New England streak of
hardness in me, though I believe that masseuse has almost ironed it out
of my face. Do I look like a New England schoolmarm?"
Mildred could truthfully answer that there wasn't a trace of it.
When she returned to Mrs. Brindley's--already she had ceased to think
of it as home--she announced her new plans. Mrs. Brindley said
nothing, but Mildred understood the quick tightening of the lines round
her mouth and the shifting of the eyes. She hastened to explain that
Mrs. Belloc was no longer the sort of woman or the sort of landlady she
had been a few months before. Mrs. Brindley of the older New York,
could neither understand nor believe in the people of the new and real
New York whom it molds for better or for worse so rapidly--and even
remolds again and again. But Mildred was able to satisfy her that the
house was at least not suspicious.
"It doesn't matter where you're going," said Mrs. Brindley. "It's that
you are going. I can't bear giving you up. I had hoped that our lives
would flow on and on together." She was with difficulty controlling
her emotions. "It's these separations that age one, that take one's
life. I almost wish I hadn't met you."
Mildred was moved, herself. Not so much as Mrs. Brindley because she
had the necessities of her career gripping her and claiming the
strongest feelings there were in her. Also, she was much the younger,
not merely in years but in experience. And separations have no real
poignancy in them for youth.
"Yes, I know you love me," said Cyrilla, "but love doesn't mean to you
what it means to me. I'm in that middle period of life where
everything has its fullest meaning. In youth we're easily consoled and
distracted because life seems so full of possibilities, and we can't
believe friendship and love are rare, and still more rarely worth
while. In old age, when the arteries harden and the blood flows slow
and cold, we become indifferent. But between thirty-five and fifty-five
how the heart can ache!" She smiled, with trembling lips. "And how it
can rejoice!" she cried bravely. "I must not forget to mention that.
Ah, my dear, you must learn to live intensely. If I had had your
chance!"
"Ridiculous!" laughed Mildred. "You talk like an old woman. And I
never think of you as older than myself."
"I AM an old woman," said Cyrilla. And, with a tightening at the heart
Mildred saw, deep in the depths of her eyes, the look of old age. "I've
found that I'm too old for love--for man-and-woman love--and that means
I'm an old woman."
Mildred felt that there was only a thin barrier of reserve between her
and some sad secret of this strange, shy, loving woman's--a barrier so
thin that she could almost hear the stifled moan of a broken heart. But
the barrier remained; it would have been impossible for Cyrilla
Brindley to talk frankly about herself.
When Mildred came out of her room the next morning, Cyrilla had gone,
leaving a note:
I can't bear good-bys. Besides, we'll see each other very soon.
Forgive me for shrinking, but really I can't.
Before night Mildred was settled in the new place and the new room,
with no sense of strangeness. She was reproaching herself for
hardness, for not caring about Cyrilla, the best and truest friend she
had ever had. But the truth lay in quite a different direction. The
house, the surroundings, where she had lived luxuriously, dreaming her
foolish and fatuous dreams, was not the place for such a struggle as
was now upon her. And for that struggle she preferred, to sensitive,
sober, refined, impractical Cyrilla Brindley, the companionship and the
sympathy, the practical sympathy, of Agnes Belloc. No one need be
ashamed or nervous before Agnes Belloc about being poor or unsuccessful
or having to resort to shabby makeshifts or having to endure coarse
contacts. Cyrilla represented refinement, appreciation of the finished
work--luxurious and sterile appreciation and enjoyment. Agnes
represented the workshop--where all the doers of all that is done live
and work. Mildred was descending from the heights where live those who
have graduated from the lot of the human race and have lost all that
superficial or casual resemblance to that race. She was going down to
live with the race, to share in its lot. She was glad Agnes Belloc was
to be there.
Generalizing about such a haphazard conglomerate as human nature is
highly unsatisfactory, but it may be cautiously ventured that in New
England, as in old England, there is a curiously contradictory way of
dealing with conventionality. Nowhere is conventionality more in
reverence; yet when a New-Englander, man or woman, happens to elect to
break with it, nowhere is the break so utter and so defiant. If Agnes
Belloc, cut loose from the conventions that had bound her from
childhood to well into middle life, had remained at home, no doubt she
would have spent a large part of her nights in thinking out ways of
employing her days in outraging the conventionalities before her
horrified and infuriated neighbors. But of what use in New York to
cuff and spit upon deities revered by only an insignificant class--and
only officially revered by that class? Agnes had soon seen that there
was no amusement or interest whatever in an enterprise which in her New
England home would have filled her life to the brim with excitement.
Also, she saw that she was well into that time of life where the
absence of reputation in a woman endangers her comfort, makes her
liable to be left alone--not despised and denounced, but simply avoided
and ignored. So she was telling Mildred the exact truth. She had laid
down the arms she had taken up against the social system, and had come
in--and was fighting it from the safer and wiser inside. She still
insisted that a woman had the same rights as a man; but she took care
to make it clear that she claimed those rights only for others, that
she neither exercised them nor cared for them for herself. And to make
her propaganda the more effective, she was not only circumspect
herself, but was exceedingly careful to be surrounded by circumspect
people. No one could cite her case as proof that woman would expand
liberty into license. In theory there was nothing lively that she did
not look upon at least with tolerance; in practice, more and more she
disliked seeing one of her sex do anything that might cause the world
to say "woman would abuse liberty if she had it." "Sensible people,"
she now said, "do as they like. But they don't give fools a chance to
titter and chatter."
Agnes Belloc was typical--certainly of a large and growing class in
this day--of the decay of ancient temples and the decline of the
old-fashioned idealism that made men fancy they lived nobly because
they professed and believed nobly. She had no ethical standards. She
simply met each situation as it arose and dealt with it as common sense
seemed in that particular instance to dictate. For a thousand years
genius has been striving with the human race to induce it to abandon
its superstitions and hypocrisies and to defy common sense, so
adaptable, so tolerant, so conducive to long and healthy and happy
life. Grossly materialistic, but alluringly comfortable. Whether for
good or for evil or for both good and evil, the geniuses seem in a fair
way at last to prevail over the idealists, religious and political. And
Mrs. Belloc, without in the least realizing it, was a most significant
sign of the times.
"Your throat seems to be better to-day," said she to Mildred at
breakfast. "Those simple house-remedies I tried on you last night seem
to have done some good. Nothing like heat--hot water--and no eating.
The main thing was doing without dinner last night."
"My nerves are quieter," advanced Mildred as the likelier explanation
of the return of the soul of music to its seat. "And my mind's at
rest."
"Yes, that's good," said plain Agnes Belloc. "But getting the stomach
straight and keeping it straight's the main thing. My old grandmother
could eat anything and do anything. I've seen her put in a glass of
milk or a saucer of ice-cream on top of a tomato-salad. The way she
kept well was, whenever she began to feel the least bit off, she
stopped eating. Not a bite would she touch till she felt well again."
Mildred, moved by an impulse stronger than her inclination, produced
the Keith paper. "I wish you'd read this, and tell me what you think
of it. You've got so much common sense."
Agnes read it through to the end, began at the beginning and read it
through again. "That sounds good to me," said she. "I want to think
it over. If you don't mind I'd like to show it to Miss Blond. She
knows a lot about those things. I suppose you're going to see Mr.
Crossley to-day?--that's the musical manager's name, isn't it?"
"I'm going at eleven. That isn't too early, is it?"
"If I were you, I'd go as soon as I was dressed for the street. And if
you don't get to see him, wait till you do. Don't talk to
under-staffers. Always go straight for the head man. You've got
something that's worth his while. How did he get to be head man?
Because he knows a good thing the minute he sees it. The under fellows
are usually under because they are so taken up with themselves and with
impressing people how grand they are that they don't see anything else.
So, when you talk to them, you wear yourself out and waste your time."
"There's only one thing that makes me nervous," said Mildred. "Everyone
I've ever talked with about going on the stage--everyone who has talked
candidly--has said--"
"Yes, I know," said Mrs. Belloc, as Mildred paused to search for
smooth-sounding words in which to dress, without disguising, a
distinctly ugly idea. "I've heard that, too. I don't know whether
there's anything in it or not." She looked admiringly at Mildred, who
that morning was certainly lovely enough to tempt any man. "If there is
anything in it, why, I reckon YOU'D be up against it. That's the worst
of having men at the top in any trade and profession. A woman's got to
get her chance through some man, and if he don't choose to let her have
it, she's likely to fail."
Mildred showed how this depressed her.
"But don't you fret about that till you have to," advised Mrs. Belloc.
"I've a notion that, even if it's true, it may not apply to you. Where
a woman offers for a place that she can fill about as well as a hundred
other women, she's at the man's mercy; but if she knows that she's far
and away the best for the place, I don't think a man's going to stand
in his own light. Let him see that he can make money through YOU,
money he won't make if he don't get you. Then, I don't think you'll
have any trouble."
But Mildred's depression did not decrease. "If my voice could only be
relied on!" she exclaimed. "Isn't it exasperating that I've got a
delicate throat!"
"It's always something," said Mrs. Belloc. "One thing's about as bad
as another, and anything can be overcome."
"No, not in my case," said Mildred. "The peculiar quality of my
voice--what makes it unusual--is due to the delicateness of my throat."
"Maybe so," said Mrs. Belloc.
"Of course, I can always sing--after a fashion," continued Mildred.
"But to be really valuable on the stage you've got to be able always to
sing at your best. So I'm afraid I'm in the class of those who'll suit,
one about as well as another."
"You've got to get out of that class," said Mrs. Belloc. "The men in
that class, and the women, have to do any dirty work the boss sees fit
to give 'em--and not much pay, either. Let me tell you one thing, Miss
Stevens. If you can't get among the few at the top in the singing
game, you must look round for some game where you can hope to be among
the few. No matter WHAT it is. By using your brains and working hard,
there's something you can do better than pretty nearly anybody else can
or will do it. You find that."
The words sank in, sank deep. Mildred, sense of her surroundings lost,
was gazing straight ahead with an expression that gave Mrs. Belloc hope
and even a certain amount of confidence. There was a distinct advance;
for, after she reflected upon all that Mildred had told her, little of
her former opinion of Mildred's chances for success had remained but a
hope detained not without difficulty. Mrs. Belloc knew the human race
unusually well for a woman--unusually well for a human being of
whatever sex or experience. She had discovered how rare is the
temperament, the combination of intelligence and tenacity, that makes
for success. She had learned that most people, judged by any standard,
were almost total failures, that most of the more or less successful
were so merely because the world had an enormous amount of important
work to be done, even though half-way, and had no one but those
half-competents to do it. As incompetence in a man would be tolerated
where it would not be in a woman, obviously a woman, to get on, must
have the real temperament of success.
She now knew enough about Mildred to be able to "place" her in the
"lady" class--those brought up not only knowing how to do nothing with
a money value (except lawful or unlawful man-trapping), but also
trained to a sensitiveness and refinement and false shame about work
that made it exceedingly difficult if not impossible for them to learn
usefulness. She knew all Mildred's handicaps, both those the girl was
conscious of and those far heavier ones which she fatuously regarded as
advantages. How was Mildred ever to learn to dismiss and disregard
herself as the pretty woman of good social position, an object of
admiration and consideration? Mildred, in the bottom of her heart, was
regarding herself as already successful--successful at the highest a
woman can achieve or ought to aspire to achieve--was regarding her
career, however she might talk or might fancy she believed, as a mere
livelihood, a side issue. She would be perhaps more than a little
ashamed of her stage connections, should she make any, until she should
be at the very top--and how get to the top when one is working under
the handicap of shame? Above all, how was this indulgently and
shelteredly reared lady to become a working woman, living a routine
life, toiling away day in and day out, with no let up, permitting no
one and nothing to break her routine? "Really," thought Agnes Belloc,
"she ought to have married that Baird man--or stayed on with the nasty
general. I wonder why she didn't! That's the only thing that gives me
hope. There must be something in her--something that don't
appear--something she doesn't know about, herself. What is it? Maybe
it was only vanity and vacillation. Again, I don't know."
The difficulty Mrs. Belloc labored under in her attempt to explore and
map Mildred Gower was a difficulty we all labor under in those same
enterprises. We cannot convince ourselves--in spite of experience
after experience--that a human character is never consistent and
homogeneous, is always conglomerate, that there are no two traits,
however naturally exclusive, which cannot coexist in the same
personality, that circumstance is the dominating factor in human action
and brings forward as dominant characteristics now one trait or set of
traits, consistent or inconsistent, and now another. The Alexander who
was Aristotle's model pupil was the same Alexander as the drunken
debaucher. Indeed, may it not be that the characters which play the
large parts in the comedy of life are naturally those that offer to the
shifting winds of circumstances the greatest variety of strongly
developed and contradictory qualities? For example, if it was
Mildred's latent courage rescued her from Siddall, was it not her
strong tendency to vacillation that saved her from a loveless and
mercenary marriage to Stanley Baird? Perhaps the deep underlying truth
is that all unusual people have in common the character that centers a
powerful aversion to stagnation; thus, now by their strong qualities,
now by their weaknesses, they are swept inevitably on and on and ever
on. Good to-day, bad to-morrow, good again the day after, weak in this
instance, strong in that, now brave and now cowardly, soft at one time,
hard at another, generous and the reverse by turns, they are consistent
only in that they are never at rest, but incessantly and inevitably go.
Mildred reluctantly rose, moved toward the door with lingering step. "I
guess I'd better make a start," said she.
"That's the talk," said Mrs. Belloc heartily. But the affectionate
glance she sent after the girl was dubious--even pitying.