The Chippendales

Chapter I

Blaisdell had come to Boston to seek his fortune. Not precisely without a penny in his pocket, as tradition expects, but with only two thousand dollars in the bank and knowing no one in the Athens of America. He had been bom and his boyhood had been spent in a large town in the State of Maine. His father had fallen in the Civil War, and Hugh's education — Hugh McDowell Blaisdell was his full name — had been obtained by sacrifices on his mother's part. Although eager to go to work in order to provide comforts for her old age, he had yielded to her prayer that he should pass four years at one of the smaller New England colleges, from which he had lately been graduated. Six weeks after his Commencement Day his mother had died. When he roused himself from his grief to face the world he had chosen Boston rather than New York, mainly because a friend offered to give him a letter of introduction to General Horatio Langdon, the banker. General Langdon, who was the commanding officer of the brigade to which his father had belonged, had not only found him a business opening, but had recommended him to apply for lodgings to Mrs. Avery. Her abode was on Dartmouth Street, but on that part of it slightly to the south of Copley Square — just beyond the pale of fashion, yet within breathing distance of an aesthetic atmosphere. Were not the Museum of Fine Arts and Trinity Church close at hand?

Though only forty-eight hours had elapsed since his coming, Blaisdell believed that he had made a favorable impression on the inmates of the house. He desired people to like him ; people always had Hked him — as a lad and at school and at college. In the beginning he had never thought of the effect he produced; indeed, he did not now think about it at the time, for he was not self-conscious; but he had examined his own winning way and intended to persevere in it. Did this consist in his wide-awake and sociable address? Or his incisive power of stating what he had to say? Or his cheerful, optimistic point of view? Listlessness and indifference were repugnant to him. Ever since he could remember, it had been natural to him to be pleasant to those with whom he was brought in contact, and the sound of his own Aoice had had no terrors for him. How many people were listened to grudgingly because they were ineffective in their delivery! No one hesitated to interrupt them, and they were thrust into the background. He liked to keep his listeners silent until he had finished. Every-day humor appealed to him, and he not only enjoyed an enter taining anecdote but could tell one engagingly, a faculty which was also characteristic of Abraham Lincoln, most illustrious of self-made men.

In the light of his perception of these qualities, certain historic careers beckoned to him, and he believed that he recognized in himself some of the hall-marks requisite for success. He intended to succeed; he had always so intended; with which goal in view he had studied hard at school and had proved to be one of the leading scholars in his class at college. His first idea had been to become a lawyer — one who would convince courts and juries by his clear, fluent logic. The desire to earn money more rapidly so as to recompense his mother for her devotion while she was still capable of enjoying the luxuries of modern life — concerning which he had read in the newspapers — had turned his mind toward business, and his mind had remained fascinated by the prospect. If others had been able to accumulate large fortunes by persevering industry and the shrewd exercise of their wits, might he not do the same? The vast industrial resources of the country were just beginning to reveal themselves. Why should he not take part in their discovery and exploitation ?

The thought had become a fixed purpose by the beginning of his Senior year. There were some family precedents for his decision. His paternal grandfather had been a local judge and his maternal grandfather a physician, but when the war broke out his father had been payingteller of the town bank, and his mother's only brother, who was drowned in the prime of life on one of the Maine rivers, had been a lumber merchant and the owner of sawmills. His mother's death had crushed his spirit for the time, so that he took no joy and found no stimulus in anything. When, at the spur of necessity, he opened his eyes and faced reality, he saw himself at the bottom of the ladder, lacking resources and influential friends. He could have remained at college as a tutor, but his imagination had been fired and his mind was made up. Yet in his daydreams he had avoided fixing on the particular business he wished to follow; indeed, he did not possess the knowledge necessary for apt discrimination as to which offered the surest opportunity to an ambitious youth. He was eager for a foothold, and in that spirit he had grasped the first hand held out to him. "We have no vacancy at the present time," said Horatio Langdon, "but I happen to know of a firm w^hich is on the lookout for an enterprising young man — one not afraid of work. The junior partner has died recently and they are short-handed." This conversation had taken place a week before, and now he was a clerk in the employ of Delano and Hurd, brokers and dealers in stocks and bonds.

He had come home from the office this afternoon only just in time to get ready for dinner. As he looked in the glass while shaving he beheld a smiling countenance. He was thinking of the two girls, his landlady's daughter, Lora Burroughs, and her step-daughter, Priscilla Avery, and was reflecting on his good fortune in finding himself under the same roof with them both. jNIr. Langdon had done him another good turn in this. And how dissimilar they were ! Blaisdell was not sure which of the two he admired the most. Hearing their voices as he ascended the stairs to his chamber he had asked himself again this question, which he was still pondering. Possessing the happy faculty of summoning the absent before his mind's eye, he proceeded to make a mental photograph of them for his edification. In Lora he saw a trig, compact httle girl of medium height, with an erect carriage and alert movements. She was becomingly plump. These evidences of elasticity served to neutralize the somewhat doll-like effect of her blue eyes, golden hair, dimples, and slight lisp. The thought— though stricdy impersonal — had already occurred to him that here was a desirable combination — a woman whom it would be a constant joy to caress and who would neglect neither her husband's dinner nor his stockings.

Priscilla, on the contrary, was tall and spirited-looking, with wavy dark-brown hair, a nose just aquiline enough to denote strength of will without being obtrusive, and what he defined to himself as a swan-like neck. Her movements were graceful but swift, suggesting a spirit of unrest, as though she were pursuing something which constantly eluded her. His experience of womankind was limited, but he believed that he preferred what he called comfortable girls — and Priscilla, with all her beauty, was obviously of the high-strung order. She interested him, yet she reminded him of a tense young Amazon; whereas Lora's musical laugh was soothing and would be a menace to care. The first time he had heard it was on the day of his arrival. On the way up-stairs to show him his room, Mrs. Avery had introduced him to her t\vo daughters, who were descending. In depositing his bag in order to shake hands, he had managed to knock it with his foot so that it toppled over and went bumping down three or four steps until caught by the wainscoting. Thereupon Priscilla's soulful eyes had danced, but Lora had exploded gleefully.

Like the good-humored fellow he was, Blaisdell was susceptible to mirth at his ov^ti expense. On the other hand, he was not fond of making slips, however unimportant. To be sure-footed and clear-cut in whatever he undertook was a leading article in his code of life. He had echoed Lora's merriment, but he had looked at her with an expression which announced definitely, though playfully, that he intended to be even with her some day. And her blue eyes had drooped under his gaze. Was it on this account that a vision of convulsed loveliness set in a frame of golden hair rose before him as he thought of her ?

Now that he had brought his mind to bear upon the question, he was conscious of this shght preference. Yet it merged itself again in his sense of general satisfaction at his surroundings, for he was encouraged to believe that he had become a member of a family circle rather than an occupant of a boarding-house. His landlord, Gideon Avery, a student of science and an inventor, visionary but scholarly and refined — a sort of Ralph Waldo Emerson looking man with dreamy eyes and a slight stoop— gave an air of gentle dignity to the establishment which harmonized with his prepossessions regarding Boston. He had wedded recently — so General Langdon had informed Blaisdell — a second wife, Mrs, Olive Burroughs, widow of the late Colonel Leander J. Burroughs, of Ohio. She had come east to complete the training of her daughter Lora's voice, and the marriage had been the result of a summer's propinquity at one of the beaches where their small cottages had stood side by side. The second Mrs. Avery was buxom, ingratiating and capable. She, as well as Lora, could sing and play attractively, and they both had at the tips of their fingers all the melodies of the day. On the library table lay the latest books and the current magazines. Lora was taking the course at the Conservatory of Music and Priscilla Avery was studying art for the time being at the neighboring Museum. It appeared that his landlady had induced her husband, who had lived for years under the shadow of the Harvard elms, to set up his new household gods in Boston in order that the girls might be nearer to their work. There was another boarder besides himself, named Morgan Drake, a young man with large eyes and a thin, wan face, who was connected with a magazine and had literary aspirations.

Thus complacent at his good fortune in having fallen on his feet, Blaisdell went down-stairs. It was Saturday and he recalled that Mrs, Avery had informed him at breakfast that she kept open house on Saturday evenings for the homeless and the clever young men of her acquaintance — most of them interested in one or another of the arts. She gave him to understand, that during the year since her marriage, they had acquired the habit of dropping in for a welsh rabbit after the recently established symphony concerts; and that she was apt to invite to meet them two or more of her daughters' girl friends and some of the junior instructors from the neighboring University across the Charles,

While Blaisdell was finishing his toilet the rest of the family, including Mr. Drake, had been listening to the animadversions of a guest who had been asked to dine — Mr. Paton, assistant professor of Greek at Harvard. He was a rather short and rather stout, yet dapper man of thirty, with a dome-like forehead and a heavy, brown mustache which curved deeply and rose in bristling points, giving him a somewhat piratical look in spite of his glasses. He was fond of airing his grievances, chief among which were the encroachments of science on the sacred classical curriculum— the time with which we are concerned was the early eighties — and the growth of the elective system of studies. He was known by the Averys to be engaged in the preparation of a work on the Greek dramatists, designed to emphasize their Hterary significance, and it happened that the first words said to him by his hostess as she greeted him had been the sympathetic inquiry, "How goes the magnum opus?^^

She uttered this in an undertone, but he chose to answer it aloud, as though he desired the widest audience, standing with his back against the mantel-piece. "What time has a man in my position for original work ? There was a time when a professor at Harvard College was a personahty — a moral and aesthetic force — not a mere intellectual machine run at high pressure,"

Mrs. Avery's parlor was pseudo pre-Raphaelite in tone. The predominant colors of its upholsteries were chromatic greens and yellows. The medium-sized room had a cosy but somewhat crowded efifect. At opposite corners stood two tall lamps with large Japanese shades. There were sundry low chairs, a piano, and a. divan piled with soft cushions sheltered by a screen decorated with real fans. Lora was sitting among the cushions, a banjo in her lap. Priscilla leaning forward from a basket-work chair observed the speaker, with whose opinions she generally disagreed, although she knew him to be a scholarly person. To her he represented a censorious attitude of mind and hostility to progress, whereas she had sympathy with enthusiasm and welcomed new ideas.

"But you get three months' vacation every year, don't you?" It was Lora who spoke, never antagonistic, but invariably practical.

Mr. Paton shrugged his shoulders as a Frenchman might have done. "We're fagged — done up by Commencement Day," he exclaimed trenchantly. "But the real point. Miss Lora, is that there's no longer any real reverence for learning out there. Everything is sacrificed to the plan of rushing men through as fast as possible in order that they may get a job. A scholar — a trainer of scholars ought to have time to ponder. Then we'd develop into something besides academic automatons. As it is "

"But my idea of some of the old professors — the kind you revere — was that they were — er — almost lazy," broke in Priscilla. "They colored their pipes, they pottered in their gardens, and now and then they deHvered a lecture."

"Exactly. Yet they had atmosphere; and they published masterpieces, not pamphlets."

"But one was required to study subjects one didn't care for at the feet of men who might be drowsy or behind the times. Now a student need go in only for the courses he is interested in; and isn't it fair that his instructors should devote their best energies to teaching him what there is to know ? That's the modem view."

"The modern view! The dollars and cents point of view," he retorted. "We must earn our salaries to the last nickel."

At this point in the conversation Blaisdell entered the room.

"Professor Paton, let me make you acquainted with our new boarder, Mr. Blaisdell. Mr. Paton is a professor of Greek at Harvard," said Mrs. Avery in her cheerful, resonant voice. "He would have us believe that the elective system is all wrong because some of the students will have none of his pet Latin and Greek. You never get much solid comfort in this house, do you, Mr. Paton?"

Alert and gracious, Mrs. Avery, in her silk dress cut square in front with flowing lace sleeves, looked, as she glanced from one to the other, a little hke a pouter pigeon. She was about her daughter Lora's height and comely still in spite of her full cheeks. She, too, had dimples, and her silky light bro\^Ti hair, arching itself becomingly in its profusion, gave to her expression a certain coquetry which tempered her whole-souled laugh and executive ways. "This is his hobby and the girls lose no opportunity to tease him," she added in an audible whisper, turning to Blaisdell.

"The tide is running their way now, but wait — wait for twenty years and see what people will say then." The professor gave a nervous twist to his mustache by way of emphasis.

"Twenty years! We may all be in our graves by that time," cried Mrs. Avery. But dismissing this mortuary train of thought, she added, "Long before the end of twenty years you will have finished your magnum opus, Mr. Drake will be famous as a poet or a noveHst, and my husband will have perfected his invention." As she concluded she beamed on Mr. Avery, who was patiently waiting for his dinner, a silent yet attentive listener.

Blaisdell perceived that his landlady was an optimist, and his heart warmed toward her. That she should manifest faith in the entire company revealed an agreeable outlook on hfe. It was obvious that she was the executive spirit of the establishment, and at the same time level headed. Presumably she was not blind to her husband's visionary proclivities, and yet chose to humor them. Simultaneously Blaisdell had observed a shade of restraint come over Priscilla's countenance as though she did not approve of the encouragement vouchsafed to her father. He noticed how like to her father's was the high bred, delicate cast of her features, but that there the resemblance ceased. At least she displayed none of his deprecating forebearance, but, on the contrary, was evidently disposed to challenge what did not please her.

Blaisdell, too, was ready for his dinner, yet content to bask for a moment in the sunshine of his own good fortune. What a pretty room it was — much the most inviting and ornamental he had ever seen outside of an hotel. He had as yet no social standards, for up to this point there had been few opportunities in his life for discrimination, and it had never occurred to him to question the substantial truth of the euphemistic maxim, early imparted to him, that all Americans are created equal. There were criminals, of course, and the lowest grade of foreigners, but everybody else was practically the peer of his neighbor. Such apparent grades as existed marked merely the possession of a little more or less money, a distinction which signified nothing socially. At the same time, he was aware that Americans as a rising nation were constantly making progress, and it elated him to find himself in surroundings compared to which those of his early days seemed plain and even dingy. As he took in once more the enlivening effect of the Japanese lamp shades and the screen decorated with real fans, he silently applauded the domestic enterprise of his new friends. Was not the girl who had laughed at him, sitting in her pretty frock among the cushions toying with her banjo, a real and enchanting improvement on the heroines of Eastern love tales? While he thus reflected their eyes met, and at the same moment he heard her remark with a solicitude which struck him as mock —

"But, mama, you left out Mr, Blaisdell from your prophecy."

All eyes were promptly turned on the new boarder, which was doubtless what the young woman had intended.

"It wasn't because I overlooked him, you may be sure of that, dear," said Mrs. Avery blithely, "but forty-eight hours is a short time in which to fathom the secret ambition of a young man's soul unless one is a mind reader. Mr. Blaisdell is in business," she explained for the benefit of Professor Paton. "He has just started, and, without any disrespect to Greek, we may fairly assume that he hopes in twenty years to be very rich and able to live on the water side of Beacon Street, or the sunny side of Commonwealth Avenue. There! Mr. Blaisdell, will that do? But speaking of mind readers, we have the next best thing in our midst — an astrologist. If I am in error, Priscilla will read your horoscope."

It was never disconcerting to Blaisdell to be made the focus of attention, and as he stood unabashed and good-humored seeking his cue, he observed that Miss Avery, unlike many girls in similar circumstances, neither simpered nor protested.

"I hope to succeed, certainly; and in business that must mean making money, I suppose. But as to the rest, the water side of Beacon Street and the sunny side of Commonwealth Avenue, I scarcely know where they are and much less what they signify. So will you try?" he eisked, bowing toward Priscilla. He was not averse to knowing what this interesting looking girl would discover in him. Had it been Lora, she might have chosen to be tormenting, but he divined that her step-sister was sure to be frank.

Nor was Priscilla diffident where her interest was aroused. Semi-humorous on her step-mother's part as she knew the suggestion to be, she acceded to it with an alacrity born of her sudden willingness to make a more thorough scrutiny of this newcomer's countenance than she had yet allowed herself. Many of her evenings at the seaside during the summer of her father's courtship had been spent in studying the starry heavens, a pursuit which had led her to dip into astrology sufficiently to become conversant with the lingo of lucky and malign influences. Yet she did not now invoke this as she arose and, shading her brows, studied the features of the stalwart young man who had invited her to provide the assembled company with a clue to his inmost character. She was prepared to risk a prophecy by the hght of her intuitions, and desired merely to make sure that the definite impression which she had aheady formed was correct. Blaisdell had appeared on the horizon just at the moment when she felt the need of some one to whom she could point as an illuminating contrast — some one whose personality appealed to her as the antipodes in the flesh of the man with whom her family was trying to persuade her that she was in love, and whom it hoped that she would marry. Henry Sumner had come into her life in a romantic guise — but was he not the embodiment of qualities with which she had no patience ?

The figure of her prototype was erect and thick set, but of manly height. His air was reliant and cheerful. Obviously he was a victim neither to dyspepsia nor to selfdistrust. His round face was full and not too mobile; indicating that he would not go off at a tangent contrary to the dictates of common sense. His eyes were a trifle small, but keen and alive with energy. There was a correlation between them and his shrewd, humorous mouth, the expression of which was guarded but not concealed by a brown mustache inclined to be stiff. Smooth-shaven, he might have resembled a friendly priest or wise cherub. As it was, his effect w^as sturdily secular. In the state of mind Priscilla was in, he impressed her as being one of the sanest and most pleasant looking young men she had ever beheld. Though he lacked some of the graces, his personality seemed to her to overshadow that of every one else in the room, radiating enterprise and determination. Who could doubt that here was a spirit which, when it had an end in view, would not perpetually be beating about the bush or questioning the accuracy of its aim ? And best of all, the dominant note of his character appeared to be enthusiasm. She felt sure that he would never feel that it was his mission to pour cold water on everything hke some people she could mention.

"I do not pretend to be able to disclose Mr. Blaisdell's secret ambition, but I can see that, whatever it may be, he will do something practical — do it thoroughly without doubt or misgivings. And I venture to predict that he will never let his New England conscience — if he has one — interfere with his usefulness."

Priscilla's tone was a little like that of a dauntless believer uttering a creed in the teeth of opposition. It was apparent to Blaisdell that he was merely the pretext for a confession of faith. At the same time her words tallied with his own inner purposes so completely that he marvelled. He heard Lora clap her hands by way of tribute to the appositeness of the divination, and Mrs. Avery exclaim gayly :

"There's a character to live up to, Mr. Blaisdell. Mark my words, Priscilla knows what she is talking about."

"I shall try. It's the sort of man I should like to be." Blaisdell's hearty response left no room for doubt both that he was ready to set his feet in the path which had been blazed for him, and was undismayed at the prospect. "As to my conscience. Miss Avery, it's New England, but I shall hope to justify your confidence in my common-sense."

"Neatly put. Shall we go in to dinner?" said Mrs. Avery, for the maid stood at the door.

"Is not all life a struggle to reconcile common-sense with conscience?" asked Professor Paton sententiously. "But do any two agree precisely as to what is common-sense?"

"No two, perhaps, except Miss Avery and I."

The music of Lora's explosive laugh was Blaisdell's reward for this rejoinder. In his ignorance he imagined that Priscilla had been shooting over his head at the professor, yet he could not quite account for the sudden intensity with which she had spoken. Now that he measured swords with him for a moment, he noticed that she smiled, but not as though she took a strong personal interest in their exchange of pleasantries. He divined that she had something on her mind the inwardness of which her speech had not revealed to him. He noticed, too, that, as she walked into dinner at her father's side, the mild-mannered inventor stroked the back of his daughter's head after the manner of one who, by a coaxing touch, seeks to soothe and restrain a beautiful but unbroken steed.

Chapter II

It had not occurred to Priscilla Avery that her father would marry again. She had taken for granted that his habit of worship at the shrine of her mother's memory would be proof against middle-aged masculine sprighthness or the blandishments of coquetry. From all she had been able to gather her mother had been exactly suited to him — a sweet, highly sensitive woman of his own social circle, with corresponding spiritual and intellectual sympathies. Yet when Priscilla reahzed that Mrs, Olive Burroughs had captured him in his fifty-second year, while she experienced a slight sense of shock, she admitted to herself that on the whole it was the best thing for him which could have happened.

It had been a clear case of propinquity. Mrs. Burroughs and Lora had been their next door neighbors at one of those beaches where people of modest means, escaping from heat and humidity, camp out in tiny frame cottages nearly as close to one another as the bathing houses in the foreground of their landscape. The cheery, buxom widow, who sang snatches of light opera and Salvation Army hymns while attending to her household duties, and who boasted that she had no nerves, had begged them from the first evening to be sociable.

Her cottage, the exterior of which was draped with "Old Glory," and from the front eaves of which hung Chinese lanthorns, revealed to the visitor who crossed the threshold a nest of gay silk cushions fortified by all the magazines and latest mechanical puzzles like "Pigs in Clover." The dexterity with which his hostess compelled each of the marbles or disks to seek its appointed place was a constant source of amused surprise to Gideon Avery who, in spite of his erudition concerning the principles controlling such matters, was awkward in his manipulation of these slippery nothings of science. He would sit by the hour fascinated by his inability to master the toy on his lap, while the widow strummed with spirit at the piano and sang the airs which every one was humming, or read to him some progressive paper on a timely topic. They had family bathing parties, after the gaiety of which they sat on the sand while the ladies dried their hair. The indiff"erence of Mrs. Burroughs at such times to considerations of vanity became a feather in her spiritual cap. It was as though she said, "You see I disguise nothing. Perpetual prinking is a foe to informality, and informality is the spice of life."

It was a surprise to Priscilla that one who, in her ways and point of view was so unlike most Cambridge women, should be able to captivate her father, for IVIrs. Burroughs

THE CHIPPEXD.\LES 17

had won him by her bhthe and somewhat showy versatihty — the handiness and gusto with which she could turn from the preparation of griddle cakes to the discussion of current world problems. These were the widow's summer manners to be sure — for they were living a "camping out" Hfe; nevertheless, Priscilla could not but be conscious that their genial, bustling neighbor was of a less delicate clay than her transcendental and sensitive parent. Yet when he told her in a shy, half-apologetic way that he was enamoured of the charms of informality, the announcement caused her no repugnance. On the contrary, she argued that association with this energetic helpmate, who was of a suitable age for him, had a small property of her own which would be serviceable, and was a thrifty yet agreeable housekeeper, would enliven the rest of his days and make the final disappointment in regard to his scientific experiments, which she believed to be in store for him, more easy to bear. To a girl of eighteen his fifty-two years marked the beginning of an end, and she rejoiced to think that when she should leave his house for a home of her own, or to strike out for herself, there would be some one at his side to make him comfortable and happy.