INTERLUDE
On a bright afternoon in early December a number of carriages and motor
cars that usually entered Central Park via the Plaza promptly at four,
continued to the right instead, and in impromptu procession slowed down
before the entrance of a new house in the Park Lane section of the avenue.
The house belonged to Senator Parks, and on this day it was to be thrown
open to that portion of the public selected by the social sponsors of
his new wife. This wife, being a rather handsome California widow on
the agreeable side of thirty-five, had acquired enough knowledge of the
world during a three years’ residence abroad to bend the knee gracefully,
if not quite sincerely, to the powers that make or mar the fate of
newcomers, at the same time always, so to speak, carelessly twisting in
plain sight between her slender fingers the strings of a full purse.
The conventional “At Home from 4 to 7 o’clock,” therefore, had more
than the usual significance, for it was known to imply a concert in
the superbly appointed music hall, by singers from the opera, and an
exhibition of paintings in the new gallery, so spacious that it ran from
block to block, such a one as had never before been seen in any private
dwelling in Manhattan. Then, too, there had been whispers of a _chef_ of
Gallic renown who had served two emperors and a prince, and altogether
society, whose appetite is rather keen at the beginning of the season,
expecting novelty or at least to be amused, was beginning to sally forth.
It did not commit itself by so doing, and it assumed no responsibility
other than leaving a card, by footman or otherwise, at the door, in due
course; it merely gave itself the opportunity to pass judgment. But as
the new hostess understood this perfectly well, and only desired the
chance of playing her trump card to win the lead, it was a beautifully
frank arrangement on both sides, in which no one was deceived.
As the hour passed the stream of carriages became continuous, the
cavernous awning that swallowed the people as soon as they alighted being
the centre of that strange mob, usually composed of fairly well-dressed
women, who appear spontaneously wherever the carpet-covered steps and
striped awning tell of an entertainment to be. No buzzard hovering in air
drops to his prey more quickly than does the average idle woman catch
sight of this emblem of hospitality.
Two young women, walking with easy, rapid gait up the avenue, paused on
the outskirts of the throng, uncertain as to the best point for breaking
through. At least the shorter of the two hesitated, while the taller,
after a swift survey, put her white-gloved hands firmly on the shoulders
of a gaping dressmaker’s apprentice, turned her about, saying, as she did
so, “Let us pass, please,” and instantly a way was opened.
These young women were simply dressed for the street, with no obtrusive
fuss and feathers, yet each had an unmistakable air of individuality
and distinction. They were both of the same age, twenty-four, yet the
difference in colouring and poise made the taller appear fully two years
older. She had glossy black hair, tucked up under a three-cornered hat,
heavy eyebrows, from under which she looked one straight in the face with
a half-defiant look in the steel-gray eyes. Her nose was aquiline, and
her lips rather thin, but curled in a humorous way when she spoke. She
was broad of shoulder and small of waist and hips; and it was only a shy
curve of neck and bust that, judging from poise alone, prevented one from
thinking Lucy Dean a young athlete masquerading in his sister’s black
velvet fur-trimmed frock with its scarlet-slashed sleeves.
Brooke Lawton, her companion, looked little more than twenty, was formed
in a more feminine mould, and though half a head shorter, was still
of medium height. Her hair, of the peculiar shade of ash brown with
chestnut glints that artists love, was worn rather loose at the sides
and gathered into a curly knot at the back of the neck, under a wide
brown beaver hat that was tied below the chin with a large bow and ends
after the fashion of our grandmothers. Her eyes were dark brown, and yet
a shade lighter than the brows and lashes. Her nose was not of classic
proportions, being rather too broad at the base and inclined to be
tip-tilted, but her mouth had a generous fulness that softened a resolute
chin, albeit it was cleft by a dimple. Her long coat was of brown, so
that the only bright colour about her was the vivid glow that the crisp
air and walking had brought to her cheeks.
She also looked one straight in the eyes when she spoke, but with an
entire lack of self-consciousness wholly at variance with the attitude of
her friend. Brooke might be typified as a joyous yet shy thrush; Lucy, as
a splendid but vociferous red-winged blackbird!
“Is your mother coming?” asked Lucy, as they went up the steps together.
“Later, perhaps; she has not been feeling very festive these few days
past. In fact, she has been strangely spiritless of late; living in a
hotel disagrees with her ideas of home hospitality. Father seems worried
and has not been sleeping,—has a bit of a cough, and anything like that
always upsets dear little Mummy; she doesn’t realize that he is made of
steel springs just as I am. I’m sure she will try to come, if only for a
minute, for Mrs. Parks asked her to receive with her. She didn’t care to
do that because, though we met the Parkses very often in Paris, they were
never more than acquaintances, not real friends; but to stay away might
hurt her feelings, and of course that must not be.”
“Oh, no, a Brooke of Virginia would never do that; she would be
hospitable to a burglar, even while waiting for the police to come
for him, and when he left, handcuffed, regret that uncontrollable
circumstances prevented his spending the night!” said Lucy, mimicking the
tone and manner of an old great-aunt of Brooke’s so thoroughly that she
was forced to laugh.
“But thou, O most transparent of all the Brookes, even if you have Scotch
granite and American steel concealed in your depths, you very well know
that Madame Parks would have given many shekels of gold to have had your
mother standing on her right this afternoon. Do you realize that she even
asked me to sing to-day? Of course I wouldn’t.”
“That surely was a compliment to your voice that you can hardly find
fault with,” said Brooke, pausing on the threshold to gather together the
requisite number of cards.
“My voice! That had nothing whatever to do with it My voice might be
like a jay’s with its crop full of popcorn, for all she knows about it.
No, it was all on account of daddy; this affair has been well thought
out. She has been careful to have a representative bidden from every
department of the society trust,—clergy, laity, art, music, science.
Daddy represents up-to-date financiering,—there is no Mrs. Dean, hence
me! She wandered a bit, though, in asking me to sing on the same
afternoon with paid professionals. If it had been a very select and
spirituelle affair, with Maud Knowles at the harp and Dick Fenton with
his Boulevard imitations and songs, followed by bouquets of orchids
concealing bijouterie for the performers, I might have yielded.
“Yes,” Lucy chattered on, “let us go upstairs; we had better drop our
wraps, as we expect to make an afternoon of it. What an apartment!
Madame’s, of course. Look at that bed on the dais and a boudoir and
breakfast room beyond! Eight maids! Why didn’t she have four and twenty
to match the pie blackbirds? Look at the way in which their skirts stay
in place behind when they wiggle them. Never saw such a thing off the
stage; one straight line from belt to hem, just the stunning way Hilda
Spong wears hers in ‘Lady Huntworth’s Experiment’! What is the exhibit
in that room across the hall, with the walls draped with white over
sky-blue? Everybody is going that way; let us also flock!
“As I live, it’s the baby lying in state—no, holding a levée, I mean.
What an odd-shaped cradle! Isn’t he a fright, but look at his robe—Irish
point all made in one piece—and his gold toilet things on that tray!
Well, after all, there must be something novel to the Parkses about this.
Papa has been married three times and mamma twice, and this Chinese Joss
is all there is to show for it! I wonder if her craze for collecting
bric-a-brac can possibly account for his looks? If there isn’t the
Senator himself, hovering around to show off his little son. I wonder if
Madame knows papa is on the premises? Gracious, he’s taking the baby out
of the Easter egg! Hear the lace tear, and that monumental English head
nurse doesn’t move a muscle!
“Don’t look distressed and blush so, Brooke; facts are facts, and then
besides, nobody can hear me in this babel. Now, let’s agree where we
shall meet, for we shall be duly torn asunder directly we go downstairs.
Come in here a second, my head feathers are awry. What a mercy it is
to have hair like yours, that the more it is let alone, the better it
behaves!
“No, don’t touch the strings of your poke, and leave your bodice alone.
That creamy lace simply looks confidential and clinging, and not a bit
mussy like mine.”
“I think I will go to the picture gallery as soon as we have made our
bows to Mrs. Parks, and settle there,” said Brooke, “so that I can see
everything before the concert is over. Then you will know where to find
me. To-day I feel more like looking than listening,” she added, when Lucy
was silenced a moment by holding half a dozen jewelled stick pins between
her lips, as she rearranged the folds of an expensive draped lace bodice
that, in spite of the beauty of the fabric, seemed out of key and mussy,
the severe and tailor-made being better adapted to her.
For a few moments the two lingered in one of the alcoves of the dressing
room, looking for familiar faces among the arrivals.
“By the way, I suppose Mr. Fenton is coming in later with the other
down-town men?” said Brooke. “If so, you needn’t look me up at all.”
“Dick may be coming, though I doubt it, but it will not be to meet
me. See here, goosie,” said Lucy, half avoiding her friend’s eyes, “I
might as well tell you now as any other time. Dick and I have agreed to
disagree. It happened last Sunday, and I’d have told you before, only you
take all such things so seriously.”
“What is the matter; has he changed?”
“No, he has not, that is half the trouble. He has stayed quite too much
the same; I only wonder that I could have endured it for the eight months
it has lasted. You see, he was perfectly satisfied with himself as he
was, and that leaves no room for improvement. Of course everybody knows,
at the pace the world’s rolling along, if you don’t go ahead, you slide
back! I tend to balk and jump the traces enough myself when it comes to
hills, Heaven knows, and if my mate in harness can’t pull true on an up
grade, where shall we be at? Dick kept along on the level good naturedly,
I’ll say that for him, yet it was because I was my father’s daughter, not
because I’m myself. Being a young broker, he thought it a good thing to
have a father-in-law with unlimited ‘pointers’ in every wag of his chin
(poor chap, he hasn’t yet realized that these things mostly point both
ways), and he was serenely content! As for me, I felt as if I should go
wild,—no conversation except the eternal money market. I said so,—and
more besides!
“He was very nice about it,—daddy really seemed relieved,—and—well, it’s
all over, though his mother did glower at me at first when I met her on
the avenue yesterday, but she decided to bow.”
“Oh, Lucy, why are you so impetuous? When you told me of the engagement,
you said—”
“Now listen, Brooke Lawton, and hear me swear one thing: money in one’s
pocket is a blessing, but continually dinned into one’s ears it’s the
other thing. If ever I marry any one, he must not be in this sickening
money business; he must do something different, if it’s only drawing
pictures on the sidewalk with chalk held between his toes, like the
armless sailor in Union Square, though, come to think of it, I’d rather
he’d have arms!
“By the way, why don’t you ’phone your mother to come? It’s going to be
an awfully smart party. There’s a ’phone in the writing room or somewhere
near—there always is one now at swell functions for the use of guests,
and a young man (not a woman—too dangerous) from central to work it; they
say the society reporters fight and bribe to get the job, they hear so
much ‘inwardness.’ Your mother needn’t worry and stay at home. I don’t
think your father’s sick. I heard daddy say last night that he is in
another big deal, with trump cards enough to fill both hands, and he’s
holding them so close for fear of dropping any that he’s bound to be
preoccupied.”
“It’s time for us to go; I hear the music,” said Brooke, who had been set
thinking by her friend’s talk.
“Why not come into the music room for a few numbers and then escape if
you wish?” said Lucy, navigating the crowded stairs easily, and pausing
on a landing to continue her chatter and glance into the room below.
“What, all the chairs taken already? Just look at those orchids, by the
dozen, not single, the whole plant hung by gilt chains from the ceiling!
“You won’t come? Well, so be it, if you have the ‘picture hunger’
as badly as you did in Paris. Do you remember the big hybrid
French-English-Dutchman who gave that name to the moonstruck turns
you used to have over painted ‘masterpieces’ and unpainted landscapes
outdoors? Yes, I see you do. Well, I thought at one time he was painfully
smitten and would probably lay himself down humbly at your feet, like
an inconveniently thick bear rug that, failing to be able to step over,
one must tread on, though often to one’s downfall. Still, of course,
with artists the meaning of their looks and actions are usually either
exaggerated or vague, much like their talk of values and colour schemes
and atmosphere. I heard this same Marte Lorenz in a group of ravers
standing before a canvas one day at the Mirlitons’ when I called for you,
and I rubbered and peeped over their shoulders, expecting to see the
portrait of a delicious woman at the very least; and what was the whole
row about but an onion on a wooden plate, and they were saying that it
was genuine and showed insight!
“It would be such fun to tease you, Brooke, if only you were teasable.
Suppose, after all, there should be a real live man behind all this
‘picture hunger.’ I think that there must be from the way you have turned
slack and dropped your brush in seeming disdain at your work, even after
you won that Baumgarten prize, with the picture of your cousin Helen’s
Mellin’s food babies sitting on the ground _au naturel_, eating cherries
(pits and all), bless their poor fat tummies!
“However, there can’t be a man concealed in your mind, you are too
transparent,—I should have known it, and helped matters nicely to a
focus for you. Yet the copy-books used to say ‘still waters run deep’;
who knows, innocent-looking mountain Brooke, but there is a great, deep,
still swimming pool somewhere in your mind!”
“Bless me, she is teasable after all!” ejaculated Lucy, for, while she
was still gabbling, Brooke had left her, slipped through the portières,
held apart by two footmen, given her name to a third, shaken her hostess
cordially by the hand, and after carefully giving her mother’s message of
regret, melted away in the crowd.
“Charming girl, that Miss Lawton,” was Mrs. Parks’s mental comment. “I
guess, after all, there is something in having a well-bred-to-the-bone
mother. Three hundred people have squeezed my fingers already this
afternoon and murmured all sorts of things, while they either gazed over
my head or at my gown. She is the first one that looked at _me_ and as if
she meant what she said, or would really do me a good turn if she could.”
And the Senator’s ambitious wife gazed after Brooke rather wistfully.