THE CONFESSIONAL CLUB
In setting forth the happenings at Roberta Vallis' party (with their
startling psychic consequences to Penelope Wells) it is necessary to say
a word about the Greenwich Village poet Kendall Brown, since he
originated the Confessional Club. This remarkable organization grew out
of a tirade against American hypocrisy made by Kendall one night in a
little Italian restaurant on Bleecker Street.
What was most needed in this country and in all countries, the one thing
that alone could redeem mankind, declared Brown, soaring away on red
wine enthusiasm, was truth. "Let us be honest and outspoken about things
as they are, about men and women as they are," he ran on in his
charmingly plausible way. "We are none of us very important, there isn't
much difference between saints and sinners--I'll argue that point with
any man--_but_ there is one immensely valuable contribution that we can
all make to the general store of life-knowledge, we can speak the exact
truth about ourselves and our experiences, instead of hiding it. That
would be a real service to humanity, for this composite truth, assembled
and studied, must lead to wisdom; but men and women are such pitiful
cowards, such cringing toadies to convention. It makes me sick!"
He refilled his glass slowly and continued: "Why is our talk stupid--all
talk, so stupid that we have to get drunk in order to endure life? Why
are we bores--all of us? Because we are afraid to say the essential
things--what we know. We talk about what we don't know, like monkeys,
and call it civilized. By God, I'd like to start a society for the
dissemination of the truth that everybody knows and nobody tells!"
This phrase caught the fancy of Roberta Vallis whose fluttering,
frivolous soul was appealed to by any line of reasoning that tended to
put saints and sinners on the same level. She made Kendall repeat his
idea and then and there proposed that they adopt it. _A society for the
dissemination of the truth that everybody knows and nobody tells!_
Splendid! They must found this society--immediately. When should they
have the first meeting?
In this casual way the Confessional Club came into being, with no fixed
membership, no dues or constitution, no regular place or time of
meeting, and added one more to those amusing (sometimes inspiring)
little groups that have flourished in Greenwich Village. It certainly
had a real idea behind it. "We are loaded with human dynamite. We tell
the truth that is never told," became the watchword of the society.
All of which bears upon the present narrative because Roberta Vallis had
arranged to have one of these self-revealing séances as a feature of her
party; and she insisted that Penelope contribute an emotional
experience.
"You _must_ confess something, Pen, my sweet one, in order to be in the
spirit of the evening," she explained with bubbling exuberance, "any
little thing. We all do it. Only be careful you don't make that
architect of yours jealous," she teased. "Think up a classy confession,
something weird--understand? Don't look so darned serious. It's only for
fun. You can fake up something, dearie, if you're afraid to tell the
truth. Why, what's the matter?"
Penelope's face had changed startlingly, and was now overcast by sombre
memories--by fears. Why had those lightly spoken words moved her so
strangely? Afraid to tell the truth! Was she afraid? With sinking heart
she recalled that message of Seraphine's exalted spirit--_Penelope must
cleanse her soul of evil!_
But--had she not cleansed her soul already? Had she not confessed the
truth about her longing for a child? And written it down in her diary
and prayed God to forgive her? Was not that enough? Why should this
pressure to confess more be put upon her? Could it be that frivolous,
selfish Roberta Vallis was the unconscious agent of some fateful power
urging Penelope Wells to look into her soul again?
Suddenly, in a flash of new understanding, Mrs. Wells decided. This was
no longer a trifling incident, but a happening of deep spiritual import.
She was struggling desperately for health--for happiness. Perhaps this
was her way of salvation, if she could only bring herself to say the
one thing that--that ought to be said. After all, the opinion of these
careless Bohemians mattered little--it was God's opinion that mattered.
"Do you mind if I bring Seraphine to the party?" Penelope asked with a
far-away look in her eyes.
"Of course not--we'll be glad to have her."
"All right, Bobby. I will make a confession. There is something I want
to confess. I don't know just the details, but--yes I do, too, it's
about--" she hesitated, but went on with strengthening resolve, "it's
about a trip I made once on a Fall River steamboat."
Roberta's eyes danced at this prospect.
"Splendid, Pen! We'll have yours last--just before the supper."
And so it came about that it was Penelope herself who set into action
forces of the mind or the soul, memories and fears that were to change
her whole future.
We need take no account of the other confessions (except one), tinsel or
tawdry fragments from the drift-wood of life, that were offered blithely
by three or four members of the gay company. We are concerned with
Penelope's confession, and with this only as it leads up to subsequent
developments of the evening. There was an ominous significance in the
fact that Mrs. Wells made this confession before the man she loved. Why
did she do that? Why?
Penelope sat beside a Japanese screen of black and gold on which a
red-tongued dragon coiled its embroidered length and, by the light of a
yellow lantern just above (there was also a tiny blue lantern that
flung down a caressing ray upon her smooth dark hair and adorable
shoulders) she glanced at some loose leaves taken from an old diary.
Then, nerving herself for the effort, she began in a low, appealing
tone, but rather unsteadily:
"I am going to tell you something that--it's very hard for me to speak
of this, but--I want to tell it. I have a feeling that if I tell it I
may save myself and someone who is dear to me," she looked down in
embarrassment, "from--from a terrible danger. I feel more deeply about
this because--some of you remember a strange thing that happened four
years ago when I was present at a meeting of this club."
There were murmurs and nods of understanding from several of the guests
who settled themselves into positions of expectant attention.
"Are we to have a second prophecy, Mrs. Walters?" inquired Kendall Brown
briskly of Seraphine, whose haunting eyes kept Penelope in loving
watchfulness; but the medium made no reply.
"The second prophecy has already been made, Kendall," Mrs. Wells
answered gravely. "I have come here tonight knowing that a disaster may
result from my presence. Seraphine says that a disaster will result,
but--I don't believe it. I can't believe it. What harm is there in my
coming to this party?"
She spoke vehemently with increasing agitation and the guests watched
her with fascinated interest.
"A disaster? Tonight? Extraordinary! What kind of a disaster?"
Such were the questions and exclamations called forth by this startling
announcement, and incredulous glances were addressed to the psychic; but
Seraphine offered no enlightenment. She merely rocked placidly in her
chair.
"Go on, dear," she said.
And Penelope continued:
"You know I have been ill since I came back from France. There are
symptoms in my illness that are--peculiar--distressing. I have horrible
fears that I have to fight all the time. Horrible dreams, one dream in
particular lately of a thing that happened on a Fall River steamboat."
"A thing that really happened?" questioned a little gray-haired woman.
"Yes, it really happened to me during a trip that I made on this boat;
and now, years later, it continues to happen in my dreams. It terrifies
me, tortures me, for the thing was--it was something wrong that I did.
I--I suppose it was a sin."
A sin!
There was a tremor in her voice, a pathetic catch in her breath, almost
a sob, as she forced herself to speak these words; then bravely,
pleadingly, she lifted her eyes to her beloved.
Over the gay company there came a surprised and sympathetic hush.
Herrick straightened awkwardly, but never flinched in his loyalty or
fondness--what an ordeal for a lover!--while Penelope paused as if
gathering strength to go on.
"May I ask if this was before you were married?" queried the poet.
"No."
"After you were married?"
"Yes. My husband was with me."
Penelope's voice sank almost to a whisper, and the unconscious twining
together of her fingers bore witness to her increasing distress.
Everyone in the room felt the poignancy of the moment. If the operation
of soul cleansing involved such stress as this, then even these heedless
members of the Confessional Club drew back disapprovingly.
"Hold on, Pen!" interposed Roberta Vallis good-naturedly, wishing to
relieve this embarrassment. "You're getting all fussed up. I guess you'd
better cut out this story. I don't believe it's much good anyway. If you
think there are any sentimental variations on a Fall River steamboat
theme that we are not fully conversant with, why you've got another
guess coming."
Penelope wavered and again her dark eyes yearned towards Christopher. It
was cruelly hard to go on with her story, yet it was almost impossible
now not to tell it.
"I _want_ to make this confession," she insisted, strong in her purpose,
yet breaking under womanly weakness. "I must cleanse my soul of--of
evil--mustn't I?" her anguished eyes begged comfort of Seraphine.
"You are right, dear child," the medium answered gently, "but wait a
little. Sit over here by me. We have plenty of time. She took her
friend's icy hand in hers and drew her protectingly to a place beside
her on the sofa.
"To cheer you up, Pen," laughed Bobby, "and create a general diversion,
I'll tell a story myself--you'll see the kind of confession stuff we
generally put over in our little group of unconventional thinkers.
Attention, folks! Harken to the Tale of Dora the Dressmaker! Which
proves that the way of the transgressor, as observed on Manhattan
Island, is not always so darned hard."
Then she told her story in the most approved Greenwich Village style,
with slangy and cynical comments, all of which were received with
chortles of satisfaction by the men and with no very severe disapproval
by the ladies--except Seraphine.
"Dora was a pretty, frail looking girl--but really as strong as a
horse," began Bobby gleefully, "one of those tall blondes who can pass
off for aristocrats without being the real thing. She came from a small
Southern town and had married a man who was no good. He drank and chased
after women; and, in one of his drunken fits, he was run over on a dark
night at the railroad crossing--fortunately."
Penelope stirred uneasily at the memories in her own life conjured up by
this picture.
"Dora had the usual small town collection of wedding cut glass and
doilies, which she put away in the attic, after husband's decease; and,
with them, she also put away all respect and desire for the married
state. She was through with domesticity and all that it represented, and
made up her mind to devote the rest of her life to earning as big a
salary as she could and having the best time possible."
The rest of the story was a sordid account of this girl's effort to
combine business with pleasure, as men do, and of her startled discovery
one day, just at the moment of her greatest success--she had been
offered the position of head designer in a wholesale dress house with
coveted trips to Europe--that she was about to become a mother.
Penelope sighed wearily as she listened. Could she _never_ escape from
this eternal sex theme?
"You see," Bobby rattled on, "Dora knew she couldn't go to roof gardens
and supper parties alone, and she couldn't keep a chap on a string
without paying--so she paid. Of course she camouflaged this part of her
life very daintily, as she did everything else, but going out evenings
was as important to her as her business ambition was."
Mrs. Wells smiled faintly at the word camouflaged, for she knew better
than anyone else that this supposed story of a dressmaker was really the
story of Roberta Vallis herself, thinly disguised.
"The point is that after years of living exactly like a man," Miss
Vallis became a shade more serious here and a note of defiance crept
into her discourse, "with work and pleasure travelling along side by
side, Dora was called upon to face a situation that would have brought
her gay and prosperous career to a sad and shameful end in any
well-constructed Sunday School book; but please notice that it did
nothing of the sort in real life. Did she lose her job? She did not. Or
her health or reputation? Nothing like that. After she got over the
first shock of surprise Dora decided to go through with the thing, and,
being tall and thin, got away with it successfully. No one suspected
that the illness which kept her away from her work was anything but
influenza, and--well, the child didn't live," she concluded abruptly as
she caught Seraphine's disapproving glance. "The point is that Dora is
today one of the most successful business women in Boston."
A challenge to outraged virtue was in her tone, and all eyes turned
instinctively to the psychic who was still rocking placidly.
"Poor woman!" Seraphine said simply, which seemed to annoy Miss Vallis.
"Why do you say that? Why is she a poor woman? She has everything she
wants."
"No! No indeed," was the grave reply. "She has nothing that she really
wants. She has cut herself off from the operation of God's love. She is
surrounded by forces that--Oh!" the medium's eyes closed for a moment
and she drew a long breath, "my control tells me these forces of
evil--they will destroy this girl."
Roberta essayed to answer mockingly, but the words died on her lips, and
there fell a moment of shivery silence until Kendall Brown broke the
spell.
"That story of Dora is a precious human document," was the poet's
ponderous pronouncement. "It is unpleasant, painful, but--what is the
lesson? The lesson is that infinite trouble grows out of our rotten
squeamishness about sex facts. This girl craved a reasonable amount of
pleasure after her work, and she got it. She refused to spend her
evenings alone in her room reading a book. She wanted to dance, to enjoy
the society of men--their intimate society. That brings us to the oldest
and most resistless force in the world, a blessed force, a God-given
force upon which all life depends--you know what I mean. And how do we
deal with this most formidable of forces? Are we grateful for it? Do we
acknowledge its irresistible supremacy? No! We deal with it by
pretending that it doesn't exist. We say to Friend Dora that, being
unmarried, she has nothing whatever to do with sex attraction, except to
forget it. Does she forget it? She does not. Do the men allow her to
forget it? They do not. And one fine day Friend Dora has a baby and
everybody says horrible, disgraceful! Rubbish! I maintain that the state
should provide homes and proper care for the children we call
illegitimate! What a word! I say _all_ children are legitimate, all
mothers should be honored, yes, and financially protected. A woman who
gives a child to the nation, regardless of who the father is, renders a
distinguished service. She is a public benefactor."
"Hear, hear!" approved several, but the little grey-haired woman
objected that this meant free love, whereupon Kendall was off again on
his hobby.
"Love _is_ free, it always has been and always will be free. If you
chain love down under smug rules you only kill it or distort it. I am
not arguing against marriage, but against hypocrisy. We may as well
recognize that sex desire is so strong a force in the world--that--"
To all of this Penelope had listened with ill-concealed aversion, now
she could no longer restrain her impatience. "Ridiculous!" she
interrupted. "You exasperate me with your talk about the compelling
claims of oversexed individuals. Let them learn to behave themselves and
control themselves."
"Mrs. Wells is absolutely right," agreed Captain Herrick quietly, his
eyes challenging Brown. "If certain men insist on behaving like
orang-outangs in the jungle, then society should treat them as
orang-outangs."
This incisive statement somewhat jarred the poet's self-sufficiency and
he subsided for the moment, but jealousy is a cunning adversary and the
rival awaited his opportunity for counter-attack.
As the discussion proceeded Kendall noticed that one of the loose pages
from Penelope's diary had fluttered to the floor and, recovering this,
he glanced at it carelessly, then smiled as he plucked at his yellow
beard.
"Excuse me, Mrs. Wells," he said. "I could not help reading a few words.
Won't you go on with your confession--please do. It sounds so
wonderfully interesting. See--there--at the bottom!" He pointed to the
lines.
"Oh!" she murmured as she saw the writing, and two spots of color burned
in her cheeks. "Let me have it--I insist!"
"Certainly. But do read it to us. This is a real human interest story.
_'Let me bow my head in shame and humble my spirit in the dust'_--wasn't
that it?" laughed Kendall maliciously.
At this, seeing the frightened look in Penelope's eyes, Captain Herrick
stormed in: "You had no right to read those words or repeat them."
"I am sorry, Mrs. Wells. I meant no offense," apologized the poet,
realizing that he had gone too far, but the harm was done. Something
unaccountably serious had happened to Penelope Wells. Her face had gone
deathly white, and Roberta, suddenly sympathetic, hastened to her.
"It's a shame to tease you, dearie. No more confession stuff. Now,
folks, we'll have supper--down in the restaurant. Then we'll dance. Come
on! Feeling better, Pen? What you need is a cocktail and some
champagne."
But Penelope lay like a stricken creature, her beautiful head limp
against the pillow of her chair, her eyes filled with pain.
"I--I'll be all right in a minute, Bobby," she whispered. "Please go
down now--all of you except Captain Herrick. We'll join you--a little
later. You don't mind?" she turned to Herrick who was bending over her
anxiously. Then she said softly: "Don't leave me, Chris. I don't feel
quite like myself. I'm a little frightened."