CHAPTER 2. Spires and Gargoyles 10 page

sent to Congress, fat-paunched bundles of corruption, devoid of "both

ideas and ideals" as the debaters used to say. Even forty years ago we

had good men in politics, but we, we are brought up to pile up a million

and "show what we are made of." Sometimes I wish I'd been an Englishman;

American life is so damned dumb and stupid and healthy.

Since poor Beatrice died I'll probably have a little money, but very

darn little. I can forgive mother almost everything except the fact that

in a sudden burst of religiosity toward the end, she left half of what

remained to be spent in stained-glass windows and seminary endowments.

Mr. Barton, my lawyer, writes me that my thousands are mostly in street

railways and that the said Street R.R. s are losing money because of the

five-cent fares. Imagine a salary list that gives $350 a month to a man

that can't read and write!--yet I believe in it, even though I've

seen what was once a sizable fortune melt away between speculation,

extravagance, the democratic administration, and the income tax--modern,

that's me all over, Mabel.

At any rate we'll have really knock-out rooms--you can get a job on some

fashion magazine, and Alec can go into the Zinc Company or whatever it

is that his people own--he's looking over my shoulder and he says it's

a brass company, but I don't think it matters much, do you? There's

probably as much corruption in zinc-made money as brass-made money. As

for the well-known Amory, he would write immortal literature if he were

sure enough about anything to risk telling any one else about it.

There is no more dangerous gift to posterity than a few cleverly turned

platitudes.

Tom, why don't you become a Catholic? Of course to be a good one you'd

have to give up those violent intrigues you used to tell me about,

but you'd write better poetry if you were linked up to tall golden

candlesticks and long, even chants, and even if the American priests are

rather burgeois, as Beatrice used to say, still you need only go to the

sporty churches, and I'll introduce you to Monsignor Darcy who really is

a wonder.

Kerry's death was a blow, so was Jesse's to a certain extent. And I have

a great curiosity to know what queer corner of the world has swallowed

Burne. Do you suppose he's in prison under some false name? I confess

that the war instead of making me orthodox, which is the correct

reaction, has made me a passionate agnostic. The Catholic Church has had

its wings clipped so often lately that its part was timidly negligible,

and they haven't any good writers any more. I'm sick of Chesterton.

I've only discovered one soldier who passed through the much-advertised

spiritual crisis, like this fellow, Donald Hankey, and the one I knew

was already studying for the ministry, so he was ripe for it. I honestly

think that's all pretty much rot, though it seemed to give sentimental

comfort to those at home; and may make fathers and mothers appreciate

their children. This crisis-inspired religion is rather valueless and

fleeting at best. I think four men have discovered Paris to one that

discovered God.

But us--you and me and Alec--oh, we'll get a Jap butler and dress for

dinner and have wine on the table and lead a contemplative, emotionless

life until we decide to use machine-guns with the property owners--or

throw bombs with the Bolshevik God! Tom, I hope something happens. I'm

restless as the devil and have a horror of getting fat or falling in

love and growing domestic.

The place at Lake Geneva is now for rent but when I land I'm going West

to see Mr. Barton and get some details. Write me care of the Blackstone,

Chicago.

S'ever, dear Boswell,

SAMUEL JOHNSON.

BOOK TWO--The Education of a Personage

CHAPTER 1. The Debutante

The time is February. The place is a large, dainty bedroom in the

Connage house on Sixty-eighth Street, New York. A girl's room: pink

walls and curtains and a pink bedspread on a cream-colored bed. Pink and

cream are the motifs of the room, but the only article of furniture

in full view is a luxurious dressing-table with a glass top and a

three-sided mirror. On the walls there is an expensive print of "Cherry

Ripe," a few polite dogs by Landseer, and the "King of the Black Isles,"

by Maxfield Parrish.

Great disorder consisting of the following items: (1) seven or eight

empty cardboard boxes, with tissue-paper tongues hanging panting from

their mouths; (2) an assortment of street dresses mingled with their

sisters of the evening, all upon the table, all evidently new; (3) a

roll of tulle, which has lost its dignity and wound itself tortuously

around everything in sight, and (4) upon the two small chairs, a

collection of lingerie that beggars description. One would enjoy seeing

the bill called forth by the finery displayed and one is possessed by

a desire to see the princess for whose benefit--Look! There's some one!

Disappointment! This is only a maid hunting for something--she lifts

a heap from a chair--Not there; another heap, the dressing-table, the

chiffonier drawers. She brings to light several beautiful chemises and

an amazing pajama but this does not satisfy her--she goes out.

An indistinguishable mumble from the next room.

Now, we are getting warm. This is Alec's mother, Mrs. Connage, ample,

dignified, rouged to the dowager point and quite worn out. Her lips move

significantly as she looks for IT. Her search is less thorough than the

maid's but there is a touch of fury in it, that quite makes up for its

sketchiness. She stumbles on the tulle and her "damn" is quite audible.

She retires, empty-handed.

More chatter outside and a girl's voice, a very spoiled voice, says: "Of

all the stupid people--"

After a pause a third seeker enters, not she of the spoiled voice, but

a younger edition. This is Cecelia Connage, sixteen, pretty, shrewd, and

constitutionally good-humored. She is dressed for the evening in a gown

the obvious simplicity of which probably bores her. She goes to the

nearest pile, selects a small pink garment and holds it up appraisingly.

CECELIA: Pink?

ROSALIND: (Outside) Yes!

CECELIA: _Very_ snappy?

ROSALIND: Yes!

CECELIA: I've got it!

(She sees herself in the mirror of the dressing-table and commences to

shimmy enthusiastically.)

ROSALIND: (Outside) What are you doing--trying it on?

(CECELIA ceases and goes out carrying the garment at the right shoulder.

From the other door, enters ALEC CONNAGE. He looks around quickly and in

a huge voice shouts: Mama! There is a chorus of protest from next door

and encouraged he starts toward it, but is repelled by another chorus.)

ALEC: So _that's_ where you all are! Amory Blaine is here.

CECELIA: (Quickly) Take him down-stairs.

ALEC: Oh, he _is_ down-stairs.

MRS. CONNAGE: Well, you can show him where his room is. Tell him I'm

sorry that I can't meet him now.

ALEC: He's heard a lot about you all. I wish you'd hurry. Father's

telling him all about the war and he's restless. He's sort of

temperamental.

(This last suffices to draw CECELIA into the room.)

CECELIA: (Seating herself high upon lingerie) How do you

mean--temperamental? You used to say that about him in letters.

ALEC: Oh, he writes stuff.

CECELIA: Does he play the piano?

ALEC: Don't think so.

CECELIA: (Speculatively) Drink?

ALEC: Yes--nothing queer about him.

CECELIA: Money?

ALEC: Good Lord--ask him, he used to have a lot, and he's got some

income now.

(MRS. CONNAGE appears.)

MRS. CONNAGE: Alec, of course we're glad to have any friend of yours--

ALEC: You certainly ought to meet Amory.

MRS. CONNAGE: Of course, I want to. But I think it's so childish of you

to leave a perfectly good home to go and live with two other boys in

some impossible apartment. I hope it isn't in order that you can all

drink as much as you want. (She pauses.) He'll be a little neglected

to-night. This is Rosalind's week, you see. When a girl comes out, she

needs _all_ the attention.

ROSALIND: (Outside) Well, then, prove it by coming here and hooking me.

(MRS. CONNAGE goes.)

ALEC: Rosalind hasn't changed a bit.

CECELIA: (In a lower tone) She's awfully spoiled.

ALEC: She'll meet her match to-night.

CECELIA: Who--Mr. Amory Blaine?

(ALEC nods.)

CECELIA: Well, Rosalind has still to meet the man she can't outdistance.

Honestly, Alec, she treats men terribly. She abuses them and cuts them

and breaks dates with them and yawns in their faces--and they come back

for more.

ALEC: They love it.

CECELIA: They hate it. She's a--she's a sort of vampire, I think--and

she can make girls do what she wants usually--only she hates girls.

ALEC: Personality runs in our family.

CECELIA: (Resignedly) I guess it ran out before it got to me.

ALEC: Does Rosalind behave herself?

CECELIA: Not particularly well. Oh, she's average--smokes sometimes,

drinks punch, frequently kissed--Oh, yes--common knowledge--one of the

effects of the war, you know.

(Emerges MRS. CONNAGE.)

MRS. CONNAGE: Rosalind's almost finished so I can go down and meet your

friend.

(ALEC and his mother go out.)

ROSALIND: (Outside) Oh, mother--

CECELIA: Mother's gone down.

(And now ROSALIND enters. ROSALIND is--utterly ROSALIND. She is one of

those girls who need never make the slightest effort to have men fall in

love with them. Two types of men seldom do: dull men are usually afraid

of her cleverness and intellectual men are usually afraid of her beauty.

All others are hers by natural prerogative.

If ROSALIND could be spoiled the process would have been complete by

this time, and as a matter of fact, her disposition is not all it should

be; she wants what she wants when she wants it and she is prone to make

every one around her pretty miserable when she doesn't get it--but in

the true sense she is not spoiled. Her fresh enthusiasm, her will to

grow and learn, her endless faith in the inexhaustibility of romance,

her courage and fundamental honesty--these things are not spoiled.

There are long periods when she cordially loathes her whole family.

She is quite unprincipled; her philosophy is carpe diem for herself

and laissez faire for others. She loves shocking stories: she has that

coarse streak that usually goes with natures that are both fine and big.

She wants people to like her, but if they do not it never worries her or

changes her. She is by no means a model character.

The education of all beautiful women is the knowledge of men. ROSALIND

had been disappointed in man after man as individuals, but she had great

faith in man as a sex. Women she detested. They represented qualities

that she felt and despised in herself--incipient meanness, conceit,

cowardice, and petty dishonesty. She once told a roomful of her

mother's friends that the only excuse for women was the necessity for

a disturbing element among men. She danced exceptionally well, drew

cleverly but hastily, and had a startling facility with words, which she

used only in love-letters.

But all criticism of ROSALIND ends in her beauty. There was that shade

of glorious yellow hair, the desire to imitate which supports the dye

industry. There was the eternal kissable mouth, small, slightly sensual,

and utterly disturbing. There were gray eyes and an unimpeachable skin

with two spots of vanishing color. She was slender and athletic, without

underdevelopment, and it was a delight to watch her move about a room,

walk along a street, swing a golf club, or turn a "cartwheel."

A last qualification--her vivid, instant personality escaped that

conscious, theatrical quality that AMORY had found in ISABELLE.

MONSIGNOR DARCY would have been quite up a tree whether to call her

a personality or a personage. She was perhaps the delicious,

inexpressible, once-in-a-century blend.

On the night of her debut she is, for all her strange, stray wisdom,

quite like a happy little girl. Her mother's maid has just done her

hair, but she has decided impatiently that she can do a better job

herself. She is too nervous just now to stay in one place. To that

we owe her presence in this littered room. She is going to speak.

ISABELLE'S alto tones had been like a violin, but if you could hear

ROSALIND, you would say her voice was musical as a waterfall.)

ROSALIND: Honestly, there are only two costumes in the world that I

really enjoy being in--(Combing her hair at the dressing-table.) One's

a hoop skirt with pantaloons; the other's a one-piece bathing-suit. I'm

quite charming in both of them.

CECELIA: Glad you're coming out?

ROSALIND: Yes; aren't you?

CECELIA: (Cynically) You're glad so you can get married and live on Long

Island with the _fast younger married set_. You want life to be a chain

of flirtation with a man for every link.

ROSALIND: _Want_ it to be one! You mean I've _found_ it one.

CECELIA: Ha!

ROSALIND: Cecelia, darling, you don't know what a trial it is to

be--like me. I've got to keep my face like steel in the street to keep

men from winking at me. If I laugh hard from a front row in the theatre,

the comedian plays to me for the rest of the evening. If I drop my

voice, my eyes, my handkerchief at a dance, my partner calls me up on

the 'phone every day for a week.

CECELIA: It must be an awful strain.

ROSALIND: The unfortunate part is that the only men who interest me at

all are the totally ineligible ones. Now--if I were poor I'd go on the

stage.

CECELIA: Yes, you might as well get paid for the amount of acting you

do.

ROSALIND: Sometimes when I've felt particularly radiant I've thought,

why should this be wasted on one man?

CECELIA: Often when you're particularly sulky, I've wondered why it

should all be wasted on just one family. (Getting up.) I think I'll go

down and meet Mr. Amory Blaine. I like temperamental men.

ROSALIND: There aren't any. Men don't know how to be really angry or

really happy--and the ones that do, go to pieces.

CECELIA: Well, I'm glad I don't have all your worries. I'm engaged.

ROSALIND: (With a scornful smile) Engaged? Why, you little lunatic!

If mother heard you talking like that she'd send you off to

boarding-school, where you belong.

CECELIA: You won't tell her, though, because I know things I could

tell--and you're too selfish!

ROSALIND: (A little annoyed) Run along, little girl! Who are you engaged

to, the iceman? the man that keeps the candy-store?

CECELIA: Cheap wit--good-by, darling, I'll see you later.

ROSALIND: Oh, be _sure_ and do that--you're such a help.

(Exit CECELIA. ROSALIND finished her hair and rises, humming. She goes

up to the mirror and starts to dance in front of it on the soft carpet.

She watches not her feet, but her eyes--never casually but always

intently, even when she smiles. The door suddenly opens and then slams

behind AMORY, very cool and handsome as usual. He melts into instant

confusion.)

HE: Oh, I'm sorry. I thought--

SHE: (Smiling radiantly) Oh, you're Amory Blaine, aren't you?

HE: (Regarding her closely) And you're Rosalind?

SHE: I'm going to call you Amory--oh, come in--it's all right--mother'll

be right in--(under her breath) unfortunately.

HE: (Gazing around) This is sort of a new wrinkle for me.

SHE: This is No Man's Land.

HE: This is where you--you--(pause)

SHE: Yes--all those things. (She crosses to the bureau.) See, here's my

rouge--eye pencils.

HE: I didn't know you were that way.

SHE: What did you expect?

HE: I thought you'd be sort of--sort of--sexless, you know, swim and

play golf.

SHE: Oh, I do--but not in business hours.

HE: Business?

SHE: Six to two--strictly.

HE: I'd like to have some stock in the corporation.

SHE: Oh, it's not a corporation--it's just "Rosalind, Unlimited."

Fifty-one shares, name, good-will, and everything goes at $25,000 a

year.

HE: (Disapprovingly) Sort of a chilly proposition.

SHE: Well, Amory, you don't mind--do you? When I meet a man that doesn't

bore me to death after two weeks, perhaps it'll be different.

HE: Odd, you have the same point of view on men that I have on women.

SHE: I'm not really feminine, you know--in my mind.

HE: (Interested) Go on.

SHE: No, you--you go on--you've made me talk about myself. That's

against the rules.

HE: Rules?

SHE: My own rules--but you--Oh, Amory, I hear you're brilliant. The

family expects _so_ much of you.

HE: How encouraging!

SHE: Alec said you'd taught him to think. Did you? I didn't believe any

one could.

HE: No. I'm really quite dull.

(He evidently doesn't intend this to be taken seriously.)

SHE: Liar.

HE: I'm--I'm religious--I'm literary. I've--I've even written poems.

SHE: Vers libre--splendid! (She declaims.)

"The trees are green,

The birds are singing in the trees,

The girl sips her poison

The bird flies away the girl dies."

HE: (Laughing) No, not that kind.

SHE: (Suddenly) I like you.

HE: Don't.

SHE: Modest too--

HE: I'm afraid of you. I'm always afraid of a girl--until I've kissed

her.

SHE: (Emphatically) My dear boy, the war is over.

HE: So I'll always be afraid of you.

SHE: (Rather sadly) I suppose you will.

(A slight hesitation on both their parts.)

HE: (After due consideration) Listen. This is a frightful thing to ask.

SHE: (Knowing what's coming) After five minutes.

HE: But will you--kiss me? Or are you afraid?

SHE: I'm never afraid--but your reasons are so poor.

HE: Rosalind, I really _want_ to kiss you.

SHE: So do I.

(They kiss--definitely and thoroughly.)

HE: (After a breathless second) Well, is your curiosity satisfied?

SHE: Is yours?

HE: No, it's only aroused.

(He looks it.)

SHE: (Dreamily) I've kissed dozens of men. I suppose I'll kiss dozens

more.

HE: (Abstractedly) Yes, I suppose you could--like that.

SHE: Most people like the way I kiss.

HE: (Remembering himself) Good Lord, yes. Kiss me once more, Rosalind.

SHE: No--my curiosity is generally satisfied at one.

HE: (Discouraged) Is that a rule?

SHE: I make rules to fit the cases.

HE: You and I are somewhat alike--except that I'm years older in

experience.

SHE: How old are you?

HE: Almost twenty-three. You?

SHE: Nineteen--just.

HE: I suppose you're the product of a fashionable school.

SHE: No--I'm fairly raw material. I was expelled from Spence--I've

forgotten why.

HE: What's your general trend?

SHE: Oh, I'm bright, quite selfish, emotional when aroused, fond of

admiration--

HE: (Suddenly) I don't want to fall in love with you--

SHE: (Raising her eyebrows) Nobody asked you to.

HE: (Continuing coldly) But I probably will. I love your mouth.

SHE: Hush! Please don't fall in love with my mouth--hair, eyes,

shoulders, slippers--but _not_ my mouth. Everybody falls in love with my

mouth.

HE: It's quite beautiful.

SHE: It's too small.

HE: No it isn't--let's see.

(He kisses her again with the same thoroughness.)

SHE: (Rather moved) Say something sweet.

HE: (Frightened) Lord help me.

SHE: (Drawing away) Well, don't--if it's so hard.

HE: Shall we pretend? So soon?

SHE: We haven't the same standards of time as other people.

HE: Already it's--other people.

SHE: Let's pretend.

HE: No--I can't--it's sentiment.

SHE: You're not sentimental?

HE: No, I'm romantic--a sentimental person thinks things will last--a

romantic person hopes against hope that they won't. Sentiment is

emotional.

SHE: And you're not? (With her eyes half-closed.) You probably flatter

yourself that that's a superior attitude.

HE: Well--Rosalind, Rosalind, don't argue--kiss me again.

SHE: (Quite chilly now) No--I have no desire to kiss you.

HE: (Openly taken aback) You wanted to kiss me a minute ago.

SHE: This is now.

HE: I'd better go.

SHE: I suppose so.

(He goes toward the door.)

SHE: Oh!

(He turns.)

SHE: (Laughing) Score--Home Team: One hundred--Opponents: Zero.

(He starts back.)

SHE: (Quickly) Rain--no game.

(He goes out.)

(She goes quietly to the chiffonier, takes out a cigarette-case and

hides it in the side drawer of a desk. Her mother enters, note-book in

hand.)

MRS. CONNAGE: Good--I've been wanting to speak to you alone before we go

down-stairs.

ROSALIND: Heavens! you frighten me!

MRS. CONNAGE: Rosalind, you've been a very expensive proposition.

ROSALIND: (Resignedly) Yes.

MRS. CONNAGE: And you know your father hasn't what he once had.

ROSALIND: (Making a wry face) Oh, please don't talk about money.

MRS. CONNAGE: You can't do anything without it. This is our last year in

this house--and unless things change Cecelia won't have the advantages

you've had.

ROSALIND: (Impatiently) Well--what is it?

MRS. CONNAGE: So I ask you to please mind me in several things I've put

down in my note-book. The first one is: don't disappear with young men.

There may be a time when it's valuable, but at present I want you on the

dance-floor where I can find you. There are certain men I want to have

you meet and I don't like finding you in some corner of the conservatory

exchanging silliness with any one--or listening to it.

ROSALIND: (Sarcastically) Yes, listening to it _is_ better.

MRS. CONNAGE: And don't waste a lot of time with the college set--little

boys nineteen and twenty years old. I don't mind a prom or a football

game, but staying away from advantageous parties to eat in little cafes

down-town with Tom, Dick, and Harry--

ROSALIND: (Offering her code, which is, in its way, quite as high as her

mother's) Mother, it's done--you can't run everything now the way you

did in the early nineties.

MRS. CONNAGE: (Paying no attention) There are several bachelor friends

of your father's that I want you to meet to-night--youngish men.

ROSALIND: (Nodding wisely) About forty-five?

MRS. CONNAGE: (Sharply) Why not?

ROSALIND: Oh, _quite_ all right--they know life and are so adorably

tired looking (shakes her head)--but they _will_ dance.

MRS. CONNAGE: I haven't met Mr. Blaine--but I don't think you'll care

for him. He doesn't sound like a money-maker.

ROSALIND: Mother, I never _think_ about money.

MRS. CONNAGE: You never keep it long enough to think about it.

ROSALIND: (Sighs) Yes, I suppose some day I'll marry a ton of it--out of

sheer boredom.

MRS. CONNAGE: (Referring to note-book) I had a wire from Hartford.

Dawson Ryder is coming up. Now there's a young man I like, and he's

floating in money. It seems to me that since you seem tired of Howard

Gillespie you might give Mr. Ryder some encouragement. This is the third

time he's been up in a month.

ROSALIND: How did you know I was tired of Howard Gillespie?

MRS. CONNAGE: The poor boy looks so miserable every time he comes.

ROSALIND: That was one of those romantic, pre-battle affairs. They're

all wrong.

MRS. CONNAGE: (Her say said) At any rate, make us proud of you to-night.

ROSALIND: Don't you think I'm beautiful?

MRS. CONNAGE: You know you are.

(From down-stairs is heard the moan of a violin being tuned, the roll of

a drum. MRS. CONNAGE turns quickly to her daughter.)

MRS. CONNAGE: Come!

ROSALIND: One minute!

(Her mother leaves. ROSALIND goes to the glass where she gazes at

herself with great satisfaction. She kisses her hand and touches her

mirrored mouth with it. Then she turns out the lights and leaves the

room. Silence for a moment. A few chords from the piano, the discreet

patter of faint drums, the rustle of new silk, all blend on the

staircase outside and drift in through the partly opened door. Bundled

figures pass in the lighted hall. The laughter heard below becomes

doubled and multiplied. Then some one comes in, closes the door, and

Date: 2015-02-16; view: 536