CHAPTER VI.
LOVE IS NOTHING!
Monday, Jan. 20.
Dear me! Beauty is a responsibility! Such troubles, such trials aboutnothing! It's photographs this time!
Last Wednesday--the day after the papers published so much about me--astrange man called in Mrs. Baker's absence and begged me to let himtake my photograph--as a service to Art. If Aunt had been at home Iwouldn't have been permitted to see him. But the man was pleasant andgentlemanly, and so sincere in his admiration that he won the way to myheart. I'm afraid devotion is still so new to me that it's the surestroad to my good graces. He hesitated and stammered, blinking before myshining loveliness as if blinded, as he offered to take the picturesfor nothing, if he might exhibit them afterwards; and at last I went tohis studio, though I said that his work must be for me only, and that Imust pay for it.
I wonder at myself for yielding, for I didn't mean to have anyphotographs until the experiment was quite finished--to mortify me infuture with their record of imperfection; but I'm so nearly perfect nowthat, really, it's time I had something to tell me how I do look. Ofcourse, as fast as I can lay hands on them, I'm destroying everylikeness of the old Nelly. At the studio it was such a revelation--thecare and intelligence the man displayed, the skill of the posing--thatwhen I got home full of the subject and found Cadge waiting, I had totell her all about it.
"H'm!" she said after I had finished; "what sort of looking chap?"
When I had described him, she sat silent at least a third of a minute,establishing for herself a new record. Then she said:--
"Princess, I'll have to take back every word I said yesterday aboutletting you off from being interviewed. I agreed to wait, but it's upto you. Every rag in town'll have some kind of feature about you nextSunday, and you wouldn't ask me to see the _Star_ beaten? You'd bettercome right now to the _Star_ photographer, or--see last night'spapers?--you'll wish you'd never been born. I tell you the situation'sout of my control."
"Well, come on then, before Aunt Frank gets back."
So we started out again. The sun and air made me so drunken with purejoy of living that I didn't mind the scolding sure to follow--though itcertainly has proved an annoyance ever since to have Aunt's fidgettyoversight of me redoubled, and to be shut up, as I have been, closerthan ever, like a Princess in a fairy book, just as my splendidtriumphs were beginning.
Worst of all, almost, Mrs. Baker told the tale of my misdeeds to John.
"Why, Helen," he said at once, "no photographer of standing goes aboutsoliciting patronage; the man who came here wants pictures of you tosell."
"Like the great ladies' photographs in England?" I asked flippantly,though I was really a little disturbed.
"Just what I told her!" groaned Aunt Frank. "Bake must see the man;or--Mr. Burke, why can't you find out about him? Perhaps it's allright," she added weakly; "from her accounts he didn't flatter Nellyone bit; simply raved over her."
"Yes, I'll run in and converse with the art lover," John grimly agreed;but just then in came Milly with the General, and the subject waschanged.
Indeed, though I don't know just how she managed it, from the momentthe brilliant woman of the world entered the room, poor clumsy John wasmade to seem clumsier than ever, and before long, without quite knowingwhy, he went away. I'm pretty sure that Mrs. Van Dam dislikes to see ustogether.
John was wrong and yet not wrong about the photographer; his threatenedinterposition came to nothing, for the very next morning--onlyyesterday, long ago as it seems--I was enlightened as to the cheap andsilly trick that had been played upon me.
"Thee, Cothin Nelly; pwetty, pwetty!" cried Joy, running towards me andholding up a huge poster picture from the Sunday _Echo_.
"Isn't it--why--give it to me!" I almost snatched the sheet from herbaby hands.
My portrait! I knew it in spite of crude colour and cheap paper. It wasmy portrait, and it was labelled: "HELEN WINSHIP, MOST BEAUTIFUL WOMANIN THE WORLD. POSED BY MISS WINSHIP ESPECIALLY FOR--"
And then--the insolence of the man!--there followed the name of thebashful stranger whose devotion to Art had drawn him to my door! Thefellow had practised upon my credulity to obtain my likeness forpublication.
I threw down the sheet, quivering with anger. I felt that I shouldnever again dare look at a paper; but half an hour later I sent Boy outto buy them all, and, locked into my room, I shook all about me asnowstorm of bulky supplements and magazines.
Having posed for Cadge, I knew, of course, that the _Star_ would printmy picture, perhaps several of them. But at any other time I shouldhave been overcome to find a "special section" of four pages filledwith half-tone likenesses of me, cemented together by an essay on"Beauty," signed by a novelist of repute, and by articles frompainters, sculptors, dressmakers and gymnasts, all from theirrespective standpoints extolling my perfections. Cadge had written aninterview headed "How It Feels to be Beautiful."
But the _Echo!_ Besides the poster which Joy had shown me, it publishedtwo pages of portraits framed in medallion miniatures of celebratedbeauties with whom it compared me, making me surpass the loveliestwomen of history and legend, from Helen of Troy to the reigning musichall performer. And, with a shock of surprise, I not only saw in thepictures the dress I had worn and the theatrical things the deferentialartist had loaned me to pose in, but in the article appeared every wordI had said to him; and the skill with which fact, fiction, cleverconjecture and picturesque description had been stirred into thesweetened batter that Cadge calls a "first-rate delirious yellow style"was maddening.
This is the beginning of the stuff:--
CHAPTER I.
A PRAIRIE BUD.
So fair that, had you Beauty's picture took, It must like her or not like Beauty look. --ALEYN'S HENRY VII.
A Western Wild Rose!
As sweet! As perfect!
By all who have seen her, Helen Winship is pronounced the mostbeautiful of women.
Last Monday night, at the Opera House, a great audience paid her suchspontaneous tribute as never before was offered human being.
At the sight of a young girl, trembling and blushing, staid citizenswere lifted to their feet by an irresistible wave of enthusiasm.
Not for anything this girl has done, though Science will hear from her;not for her voice, though no nightingale sings so melodiously; but fora face more glorious than that other Helen's, "Whose beauty summonedGreece to arms and drew a thousand ships to Tenedos."
This modern Helen is a niece of Judge Timothy Baker, at whoseresidence, No. -- East Seventy-second Street, she is staying.
The Judge and his family are reticent concerning their lovely guest, ofwhom the _Echo_ presents the first authentic picture.
Miss Winship cannot be described.
Artists say that by their stern canons she is a perfect woman. Herbeauty is that of flawless health and a hitherto unknown physicalperfection.
She is cast in Goddess mould. The loose, flowing robe of her daily wearis of classic grace and dignity.
Tall as the Venus of Milo, she incarnates that noble figure with alightness and a purity virginal and modern.
She is neither blonde nor brunette; of a type essentially American, shehas glorious eyes and for her smile a man would lose his head.
It is a fact for students of heredity and environment to consider thatMiss Winship is not a product of the cities. Jasper M. Winship, herfather, is a bonanza farmer. Mrs. Winship was in her youth the belle ofprairie dances, and still has remarkable beauty.
Born of pioneer stock, baby Helen was reared to a life of freedom;learning what she knew of grandeur from the sky and of luxury from thelap of Mother Earth. Child of the sunshine and sweet air, she dancedwith the butterflies, as innocent as they of cramping clothing thatwould distort her body, or of city conventionalities that might warpher mind.
Year by year she grew, a brown-faced cherub, strong-limbed and supple.Springtime after springtime her marvellous beauty budded, unnoted saveby the passing traveller,
who put aside the bright, wind-blown hair togaze long into her fathomless eyes.
Roystering farm-hands checked their drunken songs at the little maid'sapproach, but no wild thing feared her. Birds and squirrels came at hercall and fed from her hand.
And so it went. Chapters II and III described with brilliant inaccuracymy University life and made me a piquant mixture of devotee of scienceand favourite of fashion. Ah, well, it was all as accurate as Pa's nameor Mother's beauty or her love of dancing--she thinks it's as wicked asplaying cards.
Before I had read half the papers, between dread of Father and John andthe absurdity of it all, I was in a gale of tears and laughter. Morethan once Milly crept to the door, or I heard in the hall the unevenstep of lame little Ethel. But I wouldn't open. I was swept by apassion of----
Not grief, not anger, not concern, not fear of anything on earth;but--Joy!
Joy in my beauty, about which a million men and women had that morningread for the first time! Joy in the fame of my beauty which should lastforever! Joy in my full and rapturous life!
What did I care for the spelling of a name or the bald prose about mycollege course? What concern was it of mine how my photographs had beenobtained? Trifles; trifles all! Here were the essential facts setbroadly forth, speeding to every part of the country--why, to everypart of the world! Cadge or Pros. Reid now--any one who knows how suchthings are done--might note the hours as they passed, and say: "Now twomillions have seen her beauty, have read of her; now three; now five;now ten millions."
And the story would spread! In ever widening circles, men warned bytelegraph of the new wonder would tear open the damp sheets; and penand pencil and printing press would hurry to reproduce those marvellouslines--to-morrow in Philadelphia, Boston, Baltimore, Montreal; next dayin Chicago, St. Louis, Atlanta; and so on to Denver, Galveston and theGolden Gate.
The picture--_mine_;--_my picture_!--would be spread on tables in thelow cabins of pilot boats and fishing smacks; it would be nailed to thelog walls of Klondike mining huts; soldiers in the steaming trenchesaround Manila would pass the torn sheets from hand to hand, and for amoment forget their sweethearts while they read of me.
And the ships! The swiftest of them all would carry these pages toLondon, Paris, Vienna, there to be multiplied a thousand fold and sentout again in many tongues. Blue-eyed Gretchen, Giuseppina, with herbare locks and rainbow-barred apron, slant-eyed O Mimosa San, all ingood time would dream over the fair face on the heralding page; womenshut in the zenanas of the unchanging East would gossip from housetopto housetop of the wonderful Feringhe beauty; whipped slaves in midmostAfrica would carry my picture in their packs into regions where whitemen have never trod, and dying whalers in the far North would look atmy face and forget for a little while their dooming ice floes.
The wealth of all the earth was at my command. Railroad train and oceangrayhound, stage and pony cart, spurring horseman and naked brownrunner sweating through jungle paths under his mail bags, would bearthe news of me East and West, until they met in the antipodes and put agirdle of my loveliness right round the world!
Never before had I realised what a great thing a newspaper is!
My heart was beating with a terrible joy. And so--prosaic detail--Ithrew the papers down in a heap on the floor, combed my hair in a greatloose knot, put a rose at my belt, and went down to smile at my Aunt'sanxieties. I even went with my cousins to supper with Aunt Marcia. Andin the early evening Mr. Hynes came to walk with us home. I knew hisstep, and my heart jumped with fright. What would he, so fastidious ashe was, think of that poster?
But his look leaped to mine as he entered, and I--oh, it seemed as ifthere had never been such a night; never the snow, the delight of thecold and dark and the far, wise stars! I couldn't tell what joy elfpossessed me as we walked homeward. I wanted to run like a child. Yet Icouldn't bear to reach the house.
"Why, Helen," said Ethel; "you're not wearing your veil."
"Will the reporters git me ef I don't--watch--out?" I laughed. Howcould I muffle myself like a grandmother?
"We'll keep away the goblins," he said; and--it's a little thing towrite down--he walked beside me instead of Milly. We would pass throughthe shadows of the trees, and then under the glare of an electric lamp,and then again into blackness; and I felt in his quickened breath aninstant response to my mood; as if newspapers had never existed, and wewere playing at goblins.
I hope he didn't think me childish.
Of course John had come before we reached home, and of course he hadbeen all day fuming over the papers, as if that would do any good; butI had drunk too deep of the intoxicating air to be disturbed by hissurprised look when Mr. Hynes and I entered the library; can't I gowithout his guarding even to Aunt Marcia's?
I like the library--bookshelves, not too high, all about it, and theglow of the open fire and the smiling faces. Sometimes I grow impatientof Aunt's fussy kindness, and of the slavish worship of limp andcharacterless Milly and Ethel; but last night I was glad to be walledabout with cousins, barricaded from the big, curious world. I couldhave hugged Boy, who lay curled on the hearth, deep in the adventuresof Mowgli and the Wolf Brethren. I did hug little Joy, who climbed intomy lap, lisping, as she does every night: "Thing, Cothin Nelly."
I looked shyly at Mr. Hynes, who had stooped to pat the cat that purredagainst his leg, muttering something about a "fine animal." I knew--Ibegin to understand him so well--just how he felt the charm ofeverything.
"Thing," Joy insisted, putting up a baby hand until it touched my cheekand twined itself in my hair, "Thing, Cothin Nelly." And I croonedwhile breathlessly all in the room listened:--
"Sweet and low, sweet and low, Wind of the Western sea--
"He'll be a bad man, won't he, Joy," I broke off, as John came to mycorner, "if he scolds a poor girl who has had to stand on the floor allday for the scholars to look at, and get no good mark on her deportmentcard?"
"I am no longer a schoolmaster, Nelly," said John so icily that Auntlooked up at him, surprised. "Come, Joy," she said, "Cousin Nelly can'tbe troubled with a great big girl. Why, Mr. Burke, she's cried herselfill, fairly, over those dreadful newspapers. I do so hope they'll leaveher in peace now. But of course we tell her it's all meant as atribute."
"Over the rolling waters go, Come from the dying moon and blow-- Blowhim again to me, While my little Joy, while my pretty Joy sleeps."
"Thing more about your little Joy! More about me."
The sleepy child cuddled closer and, as I continued to sing, I knewthat at least one person in the room understood that a creature soblessed as I could never cry herself ill.
"Father will come to his babe in the nest, Silver sails all out of theWest--"
"Milly and I have tributes, too," laughed Ethel. "The _Trumpet_ sayswe're just as charming girls as our wonderful cousin. And the _Record_prints snapshots at Joy and her nursemaid. Aren't newspapers funny?"
"Some one of us should be running for office," said Uncle Timothy. "Itseems gratuitous to subject an unambitious private family to thetreatment expected by a candidate or a multi-millionaire. Yet I haveseldom had occasion to complain of the press. In its own perhapsheadlong manner, it pursues such matters as are of greatest publicimportance. A household, to avoid its attentions, should be providedwith good, plain, durable countenances. The difficulty with this familyis its excess of attraction."
He patted Aunt's hand affectionately, while I sang:--
"--Under the silver moon Sleep, my little Joy, sleep, my pretty Joy,sleep--"
"--but, Uncle, what shall I do?"
"Nothing. In a shorter time than now seems possible, another topic willsupersede you. Then, as one of our Presidents has aptly said, you willsink into 'innocuous desuetude.'"
But of course I sha'n't!
As I rose to carry Joy to her bed, I felt from all in the room a lookthat said I was like a great, glorious Madonna, and I bent lower overthe sleeping child's still face; it is good to have everybody admire me.
Oh, I
do wish John were more reasonable. Not satisfied with seeing meSaturday and yesterday, he came again to-day and asked me to marry himat once. He's so ridiculous!
"Perhaps I'm selfish to wish to mould your brilliant life to myplodding one," he said wistfully, as if he were reading my thoughts."But I don't mean to be selfish. I love you--and--you're drifting awayfrom me."
"What a goose you are, John!" I said, laughing impatiently. "I'm justthe same that I always was; the trouble is, I'm not a bit sentimental."
John _is_ selfish. He'd hide me somewhere outside the city, he'd buryalive the most lovely of women. He prosed to me about a "home"; as if Icould now endure a Darby and Joan existence!
To-night his ring distracts--torments me. I pull it off and put it backand it galls my finger, as if it rubbed a wound. I used to go to sleepwith it against my lips--I love the opal, gem of the beautiful women. Iwonder if it's really unlucky.
I suppose John's talk to-day annoyed me because I'm in such a restlessmood--waiting for the barriers to fall, for the glorious life ahead ofme to open. How could he expect me to feel as in the days when we wereboy and girl, when we dreamed foolish dreams about each other, and wereromantic, and young? I have changed since then, I have a thousandthings to think about in which he doesn't sympathize; if I answered hiswords at random it was because I couldn't fix my mind upon them. I drewa long breath when he left me--when I escaped the tender, perplexedquestion of his eyes.
It's true; I'm not a bit sentimental. I used to think I was, but now Ifeel sure that I could never love any one as John loves me.
But I mustn't drift away from him. I remember so many things that tieus together, here in this strange, stormy city. What happy times weused to have! He'll understand better by and by, and be less exacting.
But I can't marry; I must be free to enjoy the victories of my beauty;I told him at Christmas that I can't marry for a long, long time.