A proud dishonor. A novel

Front matter

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA.

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Chapter I. About Myself And My Family

T PUT MY MUSIC down in the hall, and go into J- the sitting-room to say good-by to mother.

The moment I open the door I see something is wrong. Mother has arisen from her work-table by the window, and, nervously twisting her watchchain through her fingers, is listening to the low, business-like tones of a man who stands before her.

His back is toward me, but I instinctively recognize it as a back that wants money. The straight, firm attitude, the unflinching shoulders, say, as plainly as if they were speaking, “ Our man has come for money, and our man won’t go without it.” “ Bills,” is my inward comment, and I advance to the rescue.

“ I am very sorry to press you, Madam,” he is saying, with that polite suavity which is worse than a slap in the face, “ but my positive orders were to bring back a substantial check or respectfully inform you that further steps will be taken immediately.”

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“ What is it, Mother?” I ask, coming forward.

“ From Smith’s, dear,” she says, and her voice sounds so weary.

“ Yes, Miss,” the man says, turning to me. “ You see it is a large amount, and has been standing some time ; and as there have been no orders, lately, Mr. Smith thinks it best to close the account.”

Mother looks frightened. She is not strong enough to bear these petty worries, so I interpose.

“ I suppose, in reality, Mr. Smith wishes to know when the account will be settled, and why there have been no orders lately ?”

The man shuffles his feet and does not feel so sure of fingering his commission as before I entered.

“Well, Miss, if I could take back a satisfactory answer it might make a difference.”

u Just so ; perhaps you would be so kind as to tell him that our family has been smaller lately and our wants fewer, and that we would like to pay weekly, for the future, settling the standing bill little by little, as we can.”

Mother looks at me in surprise, but the man appears satisfied, though sulky.

“ I am sure Mr. Smith could not desire a better arrangement. When shall I tell him the first installment will be paid ?”

I am nonplussed, but mother comes bravely to the fore.

“My dividend will be due on the 4th of next month. Tell Mr. Smith he shall have a check on the 6th.”

“ I will do so, Ma’am and with a clumsy bow

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the man retires with the same promptitude as his visions of what he would do with his commission have done.

As the hall door bangs after him, mother turns to me.

“ Winnie, darling, how are we going to pay weekly ?”

“ Lottie and I have been talking things over, dearie, and we find we can manage nicely to pay for everything as we get it, and save running up those horrid bills that trouble you so; and then, Mother, by and by we will get on better, and not owe anyone a cent, and have a balance at our bankers, and you shall go into the country and have a lovely time with the ”

“ The butcher, Miss ”

“ All right, Mary, I’ll come. Never mind, Mother;” I say, laughing at the interpolation, “ I could even contemplate .with calmness your having a lovely time with the butcher if we did not owe him anything.”

Mother laughs the bright laugh that she keeps through all her worries, and I go down-stairs to settle with the butcher; and as the baker is also there, I send them both away with the assurance of weekly payments and a prospective slice of the dividend.

Then I return to mother.

“ I am afraid I must be off now, or I shall lose my lesson,” I sav, “ but I don’t want to leave you until Lottie comes home ;” and I look out over the flowerfilled window-sill, which it is our pride to keep so bright, because mother likes it so, and since she became an invalid it is all she can see of God’s beautiful earth.

I keep one eye up the street for Lottie and the other on the clock, for I have quite a walk across to the Elevated road and don’t want to be late for my lesson.

“ I have plenty of time ; the trains run every seven minutes. Ah, here is Lottie. Good-by, darling and I kiss my pretty mother and start off, admitting Lottie as I go out.

All the way down the street, and some time after I am in the car, I can see in fancy my dear mother as she sits in the sun-lighted room, with the yellow blinds half-drawn, throwing a golden gleam over everything, the windows wide open, and the sweet spring air bringing in soft scents from the mignonette, fuchsias and geraniums that crowd the sill.

It is a pretty room, our sitting-room, for mother can’t move about ; so it has also to be our livingroom. It is perhaps overcrowded with knickknacks and work-baskets, but it is essentially a woman’s room and a home-room.

By the big square window are mother’s table, chair and footstool ; and here she is always to be found, her fingers busy with some exquisite piece of fancy work, her little white hands looking so pretty it is hard to keep from kissing them. She is still a very handsome woman, though pain and care have touched her with heavy hands. As she sits in her black dress, her dainty cap, falling lace collar, and the soft shawl round her shoulders, she is very fair to see. She has such a sweet, kind face, so full of

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refinement, with its clear-cut features, delicate complexion, gentle hazel eyes, and dark, smoothtybraided hair.

I think of mother, and from her my thoughts wander to ourselves ; and as the car jolts along it occurs to me that I have been distributing the dividend in a most lavish manner, and that unless it is of a more elastic nature than usual it cannot possibly do all it purports to do. I turn hot and cold at the thought, and review our position from the earliest time.

We are the widow and daughters of one of the most intensely Knickerbocker Knickerbockers of all Manhattan Island. It may be a very fine thing to be born into the most exclusive society of New York, but experience teaches me that it is much pleasanter to be born of a thriving business parent who is not unlikely to leave something behind him for his family.

My father, being too much of a gentleman to look after his own affairs, left them in the hands of a person who was eccentric enough to prefer a tarnished honor, a Canadian climate, and my father’s wealth, to his distinguished acquaintance, poverty, and the sultry summers of New York. My father was too overcome with astonishment at this exhibition of bad taste to care to live longer, and accordingly lay down the burden of his own life and made way for his invalid wife and youthful daughters to take up theirs. There are but two of us, and girls, of course ; ’twould not have been our luck to have had a boy among us to help keep the home together and

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share the family burden, which is by no means a light one for girlish shoulders to bear. The total wreck of our fortunes occurred when I was eleven, Lottie fourteen. We were cast high and dry on a barren shore, penniless.

Since then we have been struggling on, somehow, for ten years, and to-day finds us in the same state of insolvent hopefulness that this day five years ago did. We are living in Harlem, doing our best to make both ends meet by the aid of a sentimental incumbrance on our first floor, or, as the advertisements put it, “ receiving two or three eligible people into our refined family circle.”

Lottie, ever practical and earnest, graduated as early as possible and has been a regular teacher for three years, now. I, alas ! am a dunce. After the happy times at Miss Bovee’s on Fifth Avenue I hated the High School, where I had to sit among all the odd and-end girls of the neighborhood. So mother kept me at home with her and educated me herself.

I am at once the pet and black sheep. At the present time I am studying for a singer, and hope ultimately, with concert engagements and pupils, to realize some of the wealth of which I am always dreaming.

I wonder sometimes how we have managed to bear all the troubles that have come to our share, and when I think of what our lives have been I say to myself, “ Nothing shall ever induce me to marry.” I suppose every woman has the natural longing for baby voices lisping “ Mamma,” for baby arms clasped

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about her neck, and fresh, innocent cheeks pressed to hers; but with me the practical soon overcomes the romantic, and I thank God heartily that I have no hungry mouths clamoring for the food it is so hard to get, no little restless bodies to clothe out of nothing, and in after years no responsibility of launching girls on the world.

Girls are so helpless, they can do so little for themselves; and if they are gifted with that sound common sense which the scoffers term strong-mindedness they are supposed to lose their greatest charm (womanliness), and their more fortunate sisters born with the silver spoon in their mouths make merry over this absence of helplessness.

Strong-mindedness is nothing but the form into which the buffets of the world have molded the plastic clay of a woman’s nature.

In the abstract I hate boys, but as a wife I would pray unceasingly for men-children; there is so much more room for them in this world.

How one runs on when one is astride a pet hobby ! 1 was forgetting everything in the desire to spread before the world my not very unique ideas.

I am going to Fifth Avenue and Ninth Street to take my lesson, and I have been so busy with my thoughts that before I have begun to realize that I am on my way, here I am at Jefferson Market. I hurry over to Ninth Street, and in a few moments am at the Signor’s door.

“ Good-morning, young lady,” says the Signor gayly, as I enter. “ You are just in ze good time. Mr. Mertens, Miss Ten Eyck.”

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I bow to a little, fair man, who seems to rise suddenly out of the earth, but who in reality was only hidden by the piano, which it is the Signor’s caprice to run all over the room, as the whim seizes him.

“ Mr. Mertens is my neighbor,” the little old Signor says, settling his skull-cap more closely to his head; “he is looking for some one to launch ; Miss Ten Eyck is my pupil ; she looks for some one to launch her ; I introduce ; that is all.”

I stand nervously waiting developments ; the Signor puts on his glasses and eyes me sarcastically.

“ What you think of her ?” he asks Mr. Mertens.

The little gentleman rises to the occasion gallantly.

“ If Miss Ten Eyck’s voice is as charming as herself you have done me a great service,” he says.

“She all right,” says the Signor. “She all right, or I not make the introduction. She need a little lead here,” patting the top of his head, “ but she all right. She want to soar too high, but she soon get cured.”

“ Opera — eh ?” says Mr. Mertens.

“ Si,” says the Signor. “ She think Miss Ten Eyck one day prima donna Grand Italian Opera; set Europe afire ; but she have not studied enough. She have much that Nature gave her. See the breadth of chest ! What lungs ! What physique ! Ah ! She have physique. Mees will move ze piano to ze window ?”

I obey without any hesitation— it is such a frequent request that I have learned to think nothing

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of it— and push the piano toward the window. The Signor seats himself quickly at it.

“ Sing ze scale,” he says.

I obey.

“Zere!” he says proudly, as I give no sign of breathlessness. “ Physique! Wonderful! Yergood!”

“Now let me hear her sing,” says Mr. Mertens.

“ No !” the Signor objects, “ zat is not fair ; she take her lesson now, but I give my concert next week. Ze little girl zat sing ze first song have sore troat. Zis little girl can sing instead. You come hear her.”

Mr. Mertens withdraws, and I turn and grasp the Signor’s hand gratefully.

“ How can I thank you ? How good of you,” I say.

“ Bah !” he says furiously, “ you waste ze moments in such folly. If you was not useful to me I would not use you.”

“ But,” I say.

“Push zat piano back,” he cries. “ You dare say one ozer word and I teach you no more. Sing !”

As usual I obey without a word ; but whether it is my excitement that makes me sing badly, or whether the Signor is a little captious, I don’t know, but never in my life have I had such a ferocious scolding as I get at this lesson.

I am awfully impatient until I can get home, and I fancy the old Signor guesses as much, for he keeps me long after my time, peering at me maliciously through his bushy eyebrows as he catches me looking at the clock.

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At last I am free. At last I speed home, breathless, triumphant and happy. I tell them — mother and Lottie— that I am going to sing at my first concert next week ; and soon we have become absorbed in the serious question of what I shall wear.

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Chapter II. My First Appearance

T BETAKE MYSELF to the den to practice my J- scales for one of the three twenty minutes which are my daily allotted task.

Singers studying in a city labor under great disadvantages, which balance pretty evenly with the benefits attained by living within easy reach of the best masters, the best music, and the best concerts. To begin with, the eye of the public is always on them, the ear of the public ever in wait for some harsh tone or false note — and this, too, the gallery public, who are never too delicate to bring the faults of students forcibly to their notice. The discriminating audiences I allude to are the street boys and corner loafers.

Ours is a corner house, and against the lamp-post in front of it half the idle backs in the neighborhood are wont to lean. Toward evening this becomes overcrowded, and the stoop is requisitioned. In return for our support, our friends give such suggestions as may seem good to them.

Scales and exercises they object to in toto , sternly refusing to allow them in the evening, or, if I persist, giving me such vigorous assistance that I am bound to stop, When his work is over at night, and

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he is free to do us the honor of swarming on our lamp-post, the “ Agricultural Irishman ” thinks that if folks will annoy him by singing they shall at least sing something amusing. Anything, therefore, that does not meet with the approval of the aforesaid A. I. is soon smothered.

My trials are, however, not alone confined to the evening. I have an implacable enemy in a me&- senger boy who seems never to be out of our street. Do I start an ascending scale, he immediately begins a descending one. N or is he too particular as to key — his genius is too great to be prisoned by rules of harmony. He is an infant Wagner, an unconscious disciple of the new school, and whenever he appears on the scene I bow before his superior judgment and close my piano.

I am not alone in my misery ; we are living apparently in an artistic neighborhood. In the apartment-houses round the corner dwell a shrill soprano and a deep bass, both studying professionally ; immediately opposite is a pianist, a young lady amateur who aspires to be something out of the common, but who never plays studies of any description, merely hammering away at a difficult piece until she knows it. Add to these another soprano and a violinist who board next door and the list is complete, unless mention should be made of a young man who tortures us nightly with an ocarina which he is trying to learn after office hours.

To-day I close my window and practice with care, for to-night I am to sing at the Signor’s concert, and I am anxious to do well.

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There has been no end of trouble to get me a dress. It is, of course, imperative that I appear with some approach to style, but the wherewithal to provide a stylish dress is not forthcoming. After many consultations, however, woman’s ingenuity overcomes all difficulties and a satisfactory result is attained.

Later on I sweep into the sitting-room feeling quite bridal in my pure white gown, handsomely trimmed with mother’s Mechlin lace. Lottie follows me as the admiring crowd, and mother surveys the little procession with much pride. My neck and arms are bare of ornament, and I look very nice, I fancy ; but mother, without saying a word, goes to the case that contains the few lingering remains of her handsome jewelry and brings me some bracelets and a string of pearls for my neck, then my cloak is folded round me, and away we go, Lottie as chaperone.

I should dearly like a coupe, my cab rides are so few and far between ; but practical Lottie reminds me of the cost of the white dress and I collapse into the car, feeling selfish for suggesting such a thing. ¥e go over in the Madison Avenue cars, to save the drabbling my dress is likely to get on the stairs of the Elevated station, and it seems an age before we reach Eighteenth Street and Chickering Hall. My song is early in the programme, and I am so nervous lest I shall be late that I can hardly wait to enter the hall.

We are only just in time ; and when, after hastily throwing off my wraps, I ascend the platform, the

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memory of the countless great artists I have sat and listened to in this very hall strikes me with a crushing blow at my own impudence in daring to sing where they have sung, and I would give worlds to run back into the artists’ room and hide my head? What if I fail?

The Signor is behind me, so I dare not go back, and tremblingly I walk down and face my audience.

I am to sing that sweet old song, “ Home They Brought Her Warrior Dead.” I am going to sing without notes, as it always increases my nervousness to see the music shivering in my trembling and ice-cold hands.

I make a shy bow, and passing my handkerchief across my lips try to remember the first words of my song. They have gone from me utterly !

The accompanist — Heaven be praised ! — is indulging in a few preliminary flourishes ; but even as my thanksgiving arises he strikes into the symphony, which is only of some few bars’ duration, and the words are still miles from me.

1 gaze hopelessly, helplessly at my audience. They are waiting patiently now ; in one more minute they will be hissing me. As my eyes wander among them I catch sight of a pair of grave eyes fixed on my face. They are those of a man in the orchestra right before me. He sits with folded arms, gazing at me from under his brows, and though his eyes are grave, there is a look of amusement lurking round his mouth which tells me he has read my inward struggles and anticipates a failure, as I do. He seems bored, throws his head back in.

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a half-contemptuous way, fidgets, looks at the programme to see who sings after me, then glances round to see if there is any chance of escape, and finding himself hemmed in resigns himself to his fate. With yet another look at me, which, interpreted, means that he wishes me at Jericho, he folds his arms, and dropping his head, wonders how to kill time till I am hissed off.

The spirit of contrariness rises up within me. This man thinks I shall fail, and the horrid, cowardly creature is anticipating enjoyment out of my distress. I brace myself up, the words come crowding back to my mind, I sing with all the power and passion at my command, and I realize that I am doing well. At last I come to the words

Yet she neither moved nor wept.

There is a stir through the audience as I sing them ; they even thrill me strangely ; and now they rouse the enemy. Slowty he raises his head; his eyes meet mine and rest upon me. I have caught his attention; now I will keep it. So I sing on, feeling the pathos of every word I utter; and, watching him, I see he feels it, too. His eyes never leave my face, but rest there until the last note dies away. Then, as I bow, I meet them again, and in them read a mute expression of pleasure, and I leave the platform amid deafening applause.

How proud and happy I feel as I return and bow ; how overjoyed when an encore is insisted on. My very soul stirs at the tempest that greets me when I appear in answer to the call, and at the deathlike

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stillness that reigns the moment the first chords are struck.

I sing the same song again. The Signor in advising me for a crisis like the present had said, in his sarcastic way :

“ While you are a youngster, alwa}^s give the same song for an encore. Don’t let the public think you take the credit to yourself, but give it to the composer ; they will regard it as becoming modesty, and like you all the better for it.”

I find he is right. The audience evidently did want the sweet old ballad again, and show their approval of it and me in a most flattering manner.

I return to the artists’ room in a whirl of delight, and in and out among the other visions come flashing a pair of quiet eyes. I am only too eager for my turn to come again, and when I return to the platform look instantly for my mascot. lie is still there, and watches me so intently that a sudden fear seizes me lest he has seen me staring at him. This time my song does not give so much pleasure ; I am only recalled, not encored, but I leave the platform as happy as a bird.

I know how foolish it is, but when Lottie and I are jogging away homeward, above and beyond the pleasure I feel at my success is the still more pleasurable remembrance of a quiet face and an approving smile.

Over the hot cocoa that has been brewed for us on our return we tell mother the whole story of the evening’s triumph, and she is so proud and happy, already seeing me the rival of Kellogg.

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At last we go to bed. Mother is too tired to keep up any longer, and having given her her sleeping draught, I light the night-light and creep into my own little bed in the corner.

I can’t sleep. In every nook where the shadows are darkest I see again the concert-room, the sea of upturned faces, and that one face that haunts me so strangely. I see again the outlines of a perfectlyshaped head, covered with closely-cropped hair that falls into little brown waves at the temples; a bronzed face that belongs to a man accustomed to an open-air life, keen gray eyes, clearly -cut profile, and the line of a straight, firm mouth shaded by a golden-brown mustache. This man has strangely fascinated me. I fall to wondering who he is, what his name is, and keep on forming conjectures about him, until with a start I pull myself up. What has he to do with me or I with him ? — a strange man who heard me sing and was evidently bored. Perhaps, after all, he did not notice me ; but now I remember that earnest, intent gaze, and I know only too w r ell that he did notice me a great deal. Perhaps he only looked at me in surprise at the rude way in which I was staring at him.

The thought makes me angry. After all, what is this man to me or I to him, that I should let him worry me and deprive me of my rest ? Nothing, absolutely nothing. In ,all probability I shall never see him again.

This idea unfortunately brings no consolation with it. I positively have the audacity to think what a dull affair the next concert will be when I go on the

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platform and don’t find him among the audience. This is altogether too much ; and angrily scolding myself, I drop off to sleep, vowing to sing penitential scales every time I find my mind dwelling on this tiresome man.

Life goes on in the same old way after the concert, and for the next few days there is nothing to disturb its even tenor. Then comes a break, and a glorious one. I get a letter from Mr. Mertens, w r ho, having heard me at the concert, wants to engage me for three of a series he is going to give. Honor and cab-fares are all that will fall to my share ; but Mr. Mertens is a well-known man, and the hint he gives about getting me other engagements through these concerts is not to be despised, so I accept with delight.

Mr. Mertens is as good as his word, in a few days I get two more engagements — paying ones, these — and I begin to think I am going to make fame and fortune this very season.

The first concert comes on, and though I scold myself for my folly, I cannot help wondering if the stranger will be there.

I dress myself with the greatest care, and when I ascend the platform I know I am looking my best. Involuntarily I glance round to see if my mascot is on hand. He is not there. I feel disappointed for a moment; then right before me I see an empty seat. I cannot help wishing he w T ere filling it ; but before the thought is half-formed, down the aisle he saunters, and in another moment has taken the vacant seat, and with arms folded is again subjecting me to that peculiar gaze.

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When my duties are done, and Lottie and I start out on our homeward way, who should be waiting outside but the mysterious stranger. My heart stands still. I feel that he is there just to see me pass, but I say nothing to Lottie, and go home with my head in a whirl.

I look forward to my next appearance with feverish anxiety. I cannot help confessing to myself that I am fascinated by this man, whom I have seen but twice. I fully expect to see him, nor am I disappointed. He is there, and this time there is a faint sign of welcome in his eyes as they meet mine. I feel honestly glad to see. him, for I have quite come to the belief that his presence brings me luck.

I have two solos and a part in a trio at this concert, and feel as though I were going to distinguish myself, for I never felt happier in my life ; but what is my horror, on going out to sing in the trio, which closely follows my song, to find that “ he ” has gone. He evidently does not come to hear me, or he would not go out just as I am going to sing. I return to the artists’ room feeling cross and humiliated, and see Lottie holding in her hands a magnificent bouquet of white flowers, which she is somewhat angrily contemplating.

“ An attendant brought this for you,” she says.

“ For me ?” I say, taking it eagerly. I know it is from him, and I bury my face in the fragrant blossoms to hide the blush of pleasure that will rise. I notice a card attached to the ribbons, and read “ Miss Ten Eyck,” written in a clear, manly hand, and in the corner the initials “ J. M.”

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“ J. M., Jim,” says Lottie, reading it over my shoulder. “Well, for my part, I would like to return this to ‘ J. M.’ with my own comments on his impudence.”