In Search of Victory
In the mean time the social affairs of Aileen had been prospering in a
small way, for while it was plain that they were not to be taken up at
once--that was not to be expected--it was also plain that they were not
to be ignored entirely. One thing that helped in providing a nice
harmonious working atmosphere was the obvious warm affection of
Cowperwood for his wife. While many might consider Aileen a little
brash or crude, still in the hands of so strong and capable a man as
Cowperwood she might prove available. So thought Mrs. Addison, for
instance, and Mrs. Rambaud. McKibben and Lord felt the same way. If
Cowperwood loved her, as he seemed to do, he would probably "put her
through" successfully. And he really did love her, after his fashion.
He could never forget how splendid she had been to him in those old
days when, knowing full well the circumstances of his home, his wife,
his children, the probable opposition of her own family, she had thrown
over convention and sought his love. How freely she had given of hers!
No petty, squeamish bickering and dickering here. He had been "her
Frank" from the start, and he still felt keenly that longing in her to
be with him, to be his, which had produced those first wonderful,
almost terrible days. She might quarrel, fret, fuss, argue, suspect,
and accuse him of flirtation with other women; but slight variations
from the norm in his case did not trouble her--at least she argued that
they wouldn't. She had never had any evidence. She was ready to
forgive him anything, she said, and she was, too, if only he would love
her.
"You devil," she used to say to him, playfully. "I know you. I can
see you looking around. That's a nice stenographer you have in the
office. I suppose it's her."
"Don't be silly, Aileen," he would reply. "Don't be coarse. You know
I wouldn't take up with a stenographer. An office isn't the place for
that sort of thing."
"Oh, isn't it? Don't silly me. I know you. Any old place is good
enough for you."
He laughed, and so did she. She could not help it. She loved him so.
There was no particular bitterness in her assaults. She loved him, and
very often he would take her in his arms, kiss her tenderly, and coo:
"Are you my fine big baby? Are you my red-headed doll? Do you really
love me so much? Kiss me, then." Frankly, pagan passion in these two
ran high. So long as they were not alienated by extraneous things he
could never hope for more delicious human contact. There was no
reaction either, to speak of, no gloomy disgust. She was physically
acceptable to him. He could always talk to her in a genial, teasing
way, even tender, for she did not offend his intellectuality with
prudish or conventional notions. Loving and foolish as she was in some
ways, she would stand blunt reproof or correction. She could suggest
in a nebulous, blundering way things that would be good for them to do.
Most of all at present their thoughts centered upon Chicago society,
the new house, which by now had been contracted for, and what it would
do to facilitate their introduction and standing. Never did a woman's
life look more rosy, Aileen thought. It was almost too good to be
true. Her Frank was so handsome, so loving, so generous. There was
not a small idea about him. What if he did stray from her at times? He
remained faithful to her spiritually, and she knew as yet of no single
instance in which he had failed her. She little knew, as much as she
knew, how blandly he could lie and protest in these matters. But he
was fond of her just the same, and he really had not strayed to any
extent.
By now also, Cowperwood had invested about one hundred thousand dollars
in his gas-company speculations, and he was jubilant over his
prospects; the franchises were good for twenty years. By that time he
would be nearly sixty, and he would probably have bought, combined
with, or sold out to the older companies at a great profit. The future
of Chicago was all in his favor. He decided to invest as much as
thirty thousand dollars in pictures, if he could find the right ones,
and to have Aileen's portrait painted while she was still so beautiful.
This matter of art was again beginning to interest him immensely.
Addison had four or five good pictures--a Rousseau, a Greuze, a
Wouverman, and one Lawrence--picked up Heaven knows where. A hotel-man
by the name of Collard, a dry-goods and real-estate merchant, was said
to have a very striking collection. Addison had told him of one Davis
Trask, a hardware prince, who was now collecting. There were many
homes, he knew where art was beginning to be assembled. He must begin,
too.
Cowperwood, once the franchises had been secured, had installed Sippens
in his own office, giving him charge for the time being. Small rented
offices and clerks were maintained in the region where practical
plant-building was going on. All sorts of suits to enjoin, annul, and
restrain had been begun by the various old companies, but McKibben,
Stimson, and old General Van Sickle were fighting these with Trojan
vigor and complacency. It was a pleasant scene. Still no one knew
very much of Cowperwood's entrance into Chicago as yet. He was a very
minor figure. His name had not even appeared in connection with this
work. Other men were being celebrated daily, a little to his envy.
When would he begin to shine? Soon, now, surely. So off they went in
June, comfortable, rich, gay, in the best of health and spirits, intent
upon enjoying to the full their first holiday abroad.
It was a wonderful trip. Addison was good enough to telegraph flowers
to New York for Mrs. Cowperwood to be delivered on shipboard. McKibben
sent books of travel. Cowperwood, uncertain whether anybody would send
flowers, ordered them himself--two amazing baskets, which with
Addison's made three--and these, with attached cards, awaited them in
the lobby of the main deck. Several at the captain's table took pains
to seek out the Cowperwoods. They were invited to join several
card-parties and to attend informal concerts. It was a rough passage,
however, and Aileen was sick. It was hard to make herself look just
nice enough, and so she kept to her room. She was very haughty, distant
to all but a few, and to these careful of her conversation. She felt
herself coming to be a very important person.
Before leaving she had almost exhausted the resources of the Donovan
establishment in Chicago. Lingerie, boudoir costumes,
walking-costumes, riding-costumes, evening-costumes she possessed in
plenty. She had a jewel-bag hidden away about her person containing
all of thirty thousand dollars' worth of jewels. Her shoes, stockings,
hats, and accessories in general were innumerable. Because of all this
Cowperwood was rather proud of her. She had such a capacity for life.
His first wife had been pale and rather anemic, while Aileen was fairly
bursting with sheer physical vitality. She hummed and jested and
primped and posed. There are some souls that just are, without
previous revision or introspection. The earth with all its long past
was a mere suggestion to Aileen, dimly visualized if at all. She may
have heard that there were once dinosaurs and flying reptiles, but if
so it made no deep impression on her. Somebody had said, or was saying,
that we were descended from monkeys, which was quite absurd, though it
might be true enough. On the sea the thrashing hills of green water
suggested a kind of immensity and terror, but not the immensity of the
poet's heart. The ship was safe, the captain at table in brass buttons
and blue uniform, eager to be nice to her--told her so. Her faith
really, was in the captain. And there with her, always, was
Cowperwood, looking at this whole, moving spectacle of life with a
suspicious, not apprehensive, but wary eye, and saying nothing about it.
In London letters given them by Addison brought several invitations to
the opera, to dinner, to Goodwood for a weekend, and so on. Carriages,
tallyhoes, cabs for riding were invoked. A week-end invitation to a
houseboat on the Thames was secured. Their English hosts, looking on
all this as a financial adventure, good financial wisdom, were
courteous and civil, nothing more. Aileen was intensely curious. She
noted servants, manners, forms. Immediately she began to think that
America was not good enough, perhaps; it wanted so many things.
"Now, Aileen, you and I have to live in Chicago for years and years,"
commented Cowperwood. "Don't get wild. These people don't care for
Americans, can't you see that? They wouldn't accept us if we were over
here--not yet, anyhow. We're merely passing strangers, being
courteously entertained." Cowperwood saw it all.
Aileen was being spoiled in a way, but there was no help. She dressed
and dressed. The Englishmen used to look at her in Hyde Park, where
she rode and drove; at Claridges' where they stayed; in Bond Street,
where she shopped. The Englishwomen, the majority of them remote,
ultra-conservative, simple in their tastes, lifted their eyes.
Cowperwood sensed the situation, but said nothing. He loved Aileen, and
she was satisfactory to him, at least for the present, anyhow,
beautiful. If he could adjust her station in Chicago, that would be
sufficient for a beginning. After three weeks of very active life,
during which Aileen patronized the ancient and honorable glories of
England, they went on to Paris.
Here she was quickened to a child-like enthusiasm. "You know," she
said to Cowperwood, quite solemnly, the second morning, "the English
don't know how to dress. I thought they did, but the smartest of them
copy the French. Take those men we saw last night in the Cafe
d'Anglais. There wasn't an Englishman I saw that compared with them."
"My dear, your tastes are exotic," replied Cowperwood, who was watching
her with pleased interest while he adjusted his tie. "The French smart
crowd are almost too smart, dandified. I think some of those young
fellows had on corsets."
"What of it?" replied Aileen. "I like it. If you're going to be
smart, why not be very smart?"
"I know that's your theory, my dear," he said, "but it can be overdone.
There is such a thing as going too far. You have to compromise even if
you don't look as well as you might. You can't be too very
conspicuously different from your neighbors, even in the right
direction."
"You know," she said, stopping and looking at him, "I believe you're
going to get very conservative some day--like my brothers."
She came over and touched his tie and smoothed his hair.
"Well, one of us ought to be, for the good of the family," he
commented, half smiling.
"I'm not so sure, though, that it will be you, either."
"It's a charming day. See how nice those white-marble statues look.
Shall we go to the Cluny or Versailles or Fontainbleau? To-night we
ought to see Bernhardt at the Francaise."
Aileen was so gay. It was so splendid to be traveling with her true
husband at last.
It was on this trip that Cowperwood's taste for art and life and his
determination to possess them revived to the fullest. He made the
acquaintance in London, Paris, and Brussels of the important art
dealers. His conception of great masters and the older schools of art
shaped themselves. By one of the dealers in London, who at once
recognized in him a possible future patron, he was invited with Aileen
to view certain private collections, and here and there was an artist,
such as Lord Leighton, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, or Whistler, to whom he
was introduced casually, an interested stranger. These men only saw a
strong, polite, remote, conservative man. He realized the emotional,
egotistic, and artistic soul. He felt on the instant that there could
be little in common between such men and himself in so far as personal
contact was concerned, yet there was mutual ground on which they could
meet. He could not be a slavish admirer of anything, only a princely
patron. So he walked and saw, wondering how soon his dreams of
grandeur were to be realized.
In London he bought a portrait by Raeburn; in Paris a plowing scene by
Millet, a small Jan Steen, a battle piece by Meissonier, and a romantic
courtyard scene by Isabey. Thus began the revival of his former
interest in art; the nucleus of that future collection which was to
mean so much to him in later years.
On their return, the building of the new Chicago mansion created the
next interesting diversion in the lives of Aileen and Cowperwood.
Because of some chateaux they saw in France that form, or rather a
modification of it as suggested by Taylor Lord, was adopted. Mr. Lord
figured that it would take all of a year, perhaps a year and a half, to
deliver it in perfect order, but time was of no great importance in
this connection. In the mean while they could strengthen their social
connections and prepare for that interesting day when they should be of
the Chicago elite.
There were, at this time, several elements in Chicago--those who,
having grown suddenly rich from dull poverty, could not so easily
forget the village church and the village social standards; those who,
having inherited wealth, or migrated from the East where wealth was
old, understood more of the savoir faire of the game; and those who,
being newly born into wealth and seeing the drift toward a smarter
American life, were beginning to wish they might shine in it--these
last the very young people. The latter were just beginning to dream of
dances at Kinsley's, a stated Kirmess, and summer diversions of the
European kind, but they had not arrived as yet. The first class,
although by far the dullest and most bovine, was still the most
powerful because they were the richest, money as yet providing the
highest standard. The functions which these people provided were
stupid to the verge of distraction; really they were only the week-day
receptions and Sunday-afternoon calls of Squeedunk and Hohokus raised
to the Nth power. The purpose of the whole matter was to see and be
seen. Novelty in either thought or action was decidedly eschewed. It
was, as a matter of fact, customariness of thought and action and the
quintessence of convention that was desired. The idea of introducing a
"play actress," for instance, as was done occasionally in the East or
in London--never; even a singer or an artist was eyed askance. One
could easily go too far! But if a European prince should have strayed
to Chicago (which he never did) or if an Eastern social magnate chanced
to stay over a train or two, then the topmost circle of local wealth
was prepared to strain itself to the breaking-point. Cowperwood had
sensed all this on his arrival, but he fancied that if he became rich
and powerful enough he and Aileen, with their fine house to help them,
might well be the leaven which would lighten the whole lump.
Unfortunately, Aileen was too obviously on the qui vive for those
opportunities which might lead to social recognition and equality, if
not supremacy. Like the savage, unorganized for protection and at the
mercy of the horrific caprice of nature, she was almost tremulous at
times with thoughts of possible failure. Almost at once she had
recognized herself as unsuited temperamentally for association with
certain types of society women. The wife of Anson Merrill, the great
dry-goods prince, whom she saw in one of the down-town stores one day,
impressed her as much too cold and remote. Mrs. Merrill was a woman of
superior mood and education who found herself, in her own estimation,
hard put to it for suitable companionship in Chicago. She was
Eastern-bred-Boston--and familiar in an offhand way with the superior
world of London, which she had visited several times. Chicago at its
best was to her a sordid commercial mess. She preferred New York or
Washington, but she had to live here. Thus she patronized nearly all of
those with whom she condescended to associate, using an upward tilt of
the head, a tired droop of the eyelids, and a fine upward arching of
the brows to indicate how trite it all was.
It was a Mrs. Henry Huddlestone who had pointed out Mrs. Merrill to
Aileen. Mrs. Huddlestone was the wife of a soap manufacturer living
very close to the Cowperwoods' temporary home, and she and her husband
were on the outer fringe of society. She had heard that the
Cowperwoods were people of wealth, that they were friendly with the
Addisons, and that they were going to build a
two-hundred-thousand-dollar mansion. (The value of houses always grows
in the telling.) That was enough. She had called, being three doors
away, to leave her card; and Aileen, willing to curry favor here and
there, had responded. Mrs. Huddlestone was a little woman, not very
attractive in appearance, clever in a social way, and eminently
practical.
"Speaking of Mrs. Merrill," commented Mrs. Huddlestone, on this
particular day, "there she is--near the dress-goods counter. She
always carries that lorgnette in just that way."
Aileen turned and examined critically a tall, dark, slender woman of
the high world of the West, very remote, disdainful, superior.
"You don't know her?" questioned Aileen, curiously, surveying her at
leisure.
"No," replied Mrs. Huddlestone, defensively. "They live on the North
Side, and the different sets don't mingle so much."
As a matter of fact, it was just the glory of the principal families
that they were above this arbitrary division of "sides," and could pick
their associates from all three divisions.
"Oh!" observed Aileen, nonchalantly. She was secretly irritated to
think that Mrs. Huddlestone should find it necessary to point out Mrs.
Merrill to her as a superior person.
"You know, she darkens her eyebrows a little, I think," suggested Mrs.
Huddlestone, studying her enviously. "Her husband, they say, isn't the
most faithful person in the world. There's another woman, a Mrs.
Gladdens, that lives very close to them that he's very much interested
in."
"Oh!" said Aileen, cautiously. After her own Philadelphia experience
she had decided to be on her guard and not indulge in too much gossip.
Arrows of this particular kind could so readily fly in her direction.
"But her set is really much the smartest," complimented Aileen's
companion.
Thereafter it was Aileen's ambition to associate with Mrs. Anson
Merrill, to be fully and freely accepted by her. She did not know,
although she might have feared, that that ambition was never to be
realized.
But there were others who had called at the first Cowperwood home, or
with whom the Cowperwoods managed to form an acquaintance. There were
the Sunderland Sledds, Mr. Sledd being general traffic manager of one
of the southwestern railways entering the city, and a gentleman of
taste and culture and some wealth; his wife an ambitious nobody. There
were the Walter Rysam Cottons, Cotton being a wholesale coffee-broker,
but more especially a local social litterateur; his wife a graduate of
Vassar. There were the Norrie Simmses, Simms being secretary and
treasurer of the Douglas Trust and Savings Company, and a power in
another group of financial people, a group entirely distinct from that
represented by Addison and Rambaud.
Others included the Stanislau Hoecksemas, wealthy furriers; the Duane
Kingslands, wholesale flour; the Webster Israelses, packers; the
Bradford Candas, jewelers. All these people amounted to something
socially. They all had substantial homes and substantial incomes, so
that they were worthy of consideration. The difference between Aileen
and most of the women involved a difference between naturalism and
illusion. But this calls for some explanation.
To really know the state of the feminine mind at this time, one would
have to go back to that period in the Middle Ages when the Church
flourished and the industrious poet, half schooled in the facts of
life, surrounded women with a mystical halo. Since that day the maiden
and the matron as well has been schooled to believe that she is of a
finer clay than man, that she was born to uplift him, and that her
favors are priceless. This rose-tinted mist of romance, having nothing
to do with personal morality, has brought about, nevertheless, a
holier-than-thou attitude of women toward men, and even of women toward
women. Now the Chicago atmosphere in which Aileen found herself was
composed in part of this very illusion. The ladies to whom she had
been introduced were of this high world of fancy. They conceived
themselves to be perfect, even as they were represented in religious
art and in fiction. Their husbands must be models, worthy of their high
ideals, and other women must have no blemish of any kind. Aileen,
urgent, elemental, would have laughed at all this if she could have
understood. Not understanding, she felt diffident and uncertain of
herself in certain presences.
Instance in this connection Mrs. Norrie Simms, who was a satellite of
Mrs. Anson Merrill. To be invited to the Anson Merrills' for tea,
dinner, luncheon, or to be driven down-town by Mrs. Merrill, was
paradise to Mrs. Simms. She loved to recite the bon mots of her idol,
to discourse upon her astonishing degree of culture, to narrate how
people refused on occasion to believe that she was the wife of Anson
Merrill, even though she herself declared it--those old chestnuts of
the social world which must have had their origin in Egypt and Chaldea.
Mrs. Simms herself was of a nondescript type, not a real personage,
clever, good-looking, tasteful, a social climber. The two Simms
children (little girls) had been taught all the social graces of the
day--to pose, smirk, genuflect, and the like, to the immense delight of
their elders. The nurse in charge was in uniform, the governess was a
much put-upon person. Mrs. Simms had a high manner, eyes for those
above her only, a serene contempt for the commonplace world in which
she had to dwell.
During the first dinner at which she entertained the Cowperwoods Mrs.
Simms attempted to dig into Aileen's Philadelphia history, asking if
she knew the Arthur Leighs, the Trevor Drakes, Roberta Willing, or the
Martyn Walkers. Mrs. Simms did not know them herself, but she had
heard Mrs. Merrill speak of them, and that was enough of a handle
whereby to swing them. Aileen, quick on the defense, ready to lie
manfully on her own behalf, assured her that she had known them, as
indeed she had--very casually--and before the rumor which connected her
with Cowperwood had been voiced abroad. This pleased Mrs. Simms.
"I must tell Nellie," she said, referring thus familiarly to Mrs.
Merrill.
Aileen feared that if this sort of thing continued it would soon be all
over town that she had been a mistress before she had been a wife, that
she had been the unmentioned corespondent in the divorce suit, and that
Cowperwood had been in prison. Only his wealth and her beauty could
save her; and would they?
One night they had been to dinner at the Duane Kingslands', and Mrs.
Bradford Canda had asked her, in what seemed a very significant way,
whether she had ever met her friend Mrs. Schuyler Evans, of
Philadelphia. This frightened Aileen.
"Don't you suppose they must know, some of them, about us?" she asked
Cowperwood, on the way home.
"I suppose so," he replied, thoughtfully. "I'm sure I don't know. I
wouldn't worry about that if I were you. If you worry about it you'll
suggest it to them. I haven't made any secret of my term in prison in
Philadelphia, and I don't intend to. It wasn't a square deal, and they
had no right to put me there."
"I know, dear," replied Aileen, "it might not make so much difference
if they did know. I don't see why it should. We are not the only ones
that have had marriage troubles, I'm sure.
"There's just one thing about this; either they accept us or they
don't. If they don't, well and good; we can't help it. We'll go on
and finish the house, and give them a chance to be decent. If they
won't be, there are other cities. Money will arrange matters in New
York--that I know. We can build a real place there, and go in on equal
terms if we have money enough--and I will have money enough," he added,
after a moment's pondering. "Never fear. I'll make millions here,
whether they want me to or not, and after that--well, after that, we'll
see what we'll see. Don't worry. I haven't seen many troubles in this
world that money wouldn't cure."
His teeth had that even set that they always assumed when he was
dangerously in earnest. He took Aileen's hand, however, and pressed it
gently.
"Don't worry," he repeated. "Chicago isn't the only city, and we won't
be the poorest people in America, either, in ten years. Just keep up
your courage. It will all come out right. It's certain to."
Aileen looked out on the lamp-lit length of Michigan Avenue, down which
they were rolling past many silent mansions. The tops of all the lamps
were white, and gleamed through the shadows, receding to a thin point.
It was dark, but fresh and pleasant. Oh, if only Frank's money could
buy them position and friendship in this interesting world; if it only
would! She did not quite realize how much on her own personality, or
the lack of it, this struggle depended.