Chapter Thirteenth
Mr. Roberts Refers to Me as “That Young Woman,” to My Great Joy—I Issue the “Clara Code”—I Receive my First Offer of Marriage.
My mother, moved at last by my highly colored accounts of the humiliations brought upon me by the shortness of my skirts, consented to their lengthening, and though I knew she had meant them to stop at my shoe-tops, I basely allowed a misunderstanding to arise with the dress-maker, through which my new dress came home the full length of the grown-ups, and though my conscience worried me a bit, I still snatched a fearful joy from my stolen dignity, and many a day I walked clear up to Superior Street that I might slowly pass the big show-windows and enjoy the reflection therein of my long dress-skirt. Of course I could not continue to wear my hair à la pigtail, and that went up in the then fashionable chignon.
Few circumstances in my life have given me such unalloyed satisfaction as did my first proposal of marriage. I should, however, be more exact if I spoke of an “attempted proposal,” for it was not merely interrupted, but was simply mangled out of all likeness to sentiment or romance. The party of the first part in this case was Mr. Frank Murdoch, who later on became the author of “Davy Crockett,” the play that did so much toward the making and the unmaking of the reputation of that brilliant actor, the late Frank Mayo. He was the adoring elder brother of that successful young Harry Murdoch who was to meet such an awful fate in the Brooklyn Theatre fire. Neither of them, by the way, were born to the name of Murdoch; they were the sons of James E.’s sister, and when, in spite of his advice and warning, they decided to become actors, they added insult to injury, as it were, by demanding of him the use of his name—their own being a particularly unattractive one for a play-bill. He let them plead long and hard before he yielded and allowed them to take for life the name of Murdoch—which as a trade-mark, and quite aside from sentiment, had a real commercial value to these young fellows who had yet to prove their individual personal worth.
Frank was very young—indeed, our united ages would have barely reached thirty-six. He had good height, a good figure, and an air of gentle breeding; otherwise he was unattractive, and yet he bore a striking resemblance to his uncle, James Murdoch, who had a fine head and most regular features. But through some caprice of nature in the nephew those same features received a touch of exaggeration here, or a slight twist there, with the odd result of keeping the resemblance to the uncle intact, while losing all his beauty. Frank had a quixotic sense of honor and a warm and generous heart, but being extremely sensitive as to his personal defects he was often led into bursts of temper, during which he frequently indulged in the most childish follies. These outbreaks were always brief, and ever followed by deep contrition, so that he was generally regarded as a very clever, spoiled child.
Poor boy! his life was as sad as it was short. There may be few who remember him now, but a woman never forgets the man who first pays a compliment to her eyes, nor can I forget the first man who handed me a chair and opened and closed doors for me, just as for any grown-up.
He joined the company in about the middle of that season in which I acted principally as utility man. He was to play singing parts and young lovers, and, to his amusement, I criticized his reading of one of Cassio’s speeches. Our wrangle over Shakespeare made friends of us at once. He had a veritable passion for poetry, and with me he felt free to bring out his beautiful hobby to mount and ride and ride, with some of the great poets up behind and me for applauding audience. When he wanted me to know some special poem he bought it for me if he could; but if he was short of money, he carefully copied out its every line, tied the manuscript neatly up with ribbon, and presented the poem in that form. I came across a copy of “Maud Muller” the other day in Frank’s clear, even handwriting. The paper was yellow, the ribbon faded. Frank is gone, Whittier is gone, but “Maud Muller” lives on in her immortal youth and pain.
But the morning when he first brought and offered me a chair was nothing less than an epoch in my life. At first I regarded the act as an aspersion on my strength—a doubt cast upon my ability to obtain a seat for myself. Then, as I glanced frowningly into his face, I suddenly realized that it was meant as a mark of consideration—the courtesy a man shows a woman. A glow of satisfaction spread through my being. I hated to rise, I was so afraid the thing might never happen to me again. I need not have worried, however, as I was soon to receive a more impressive proof of his consideration for my welfare.
One of the most unpleasant experiences in the life of a young actress is her frightened lonely rush through the city streets at twelve o’clock at night to reach her boarding-house and claim sanctuary. I doubt if even a Una and her lion could pass unmolested through those streets dotted with all-night “free and easys,” where, by the way, nothing is free but the poisonous air, and nothing easy but the language. At all events from my own varied and unpleasant experiences, and from the stories of others, I had first drawn certain deductions, then I had proceeded to establish certain rules for the guidance and direction of any girl who was so unfortunate as to be forced to walk abroad unattended at night. These rules became known as “Clara’s Code,” and were highly approved, especially by those girls who “couldn’t think,” as they declared, but stood stock-still, “too frightened to move,” when some wanderer of the night unceremoniously addressed them.
I cannot remember all those rules now, since for these many years God has granted me a protector, but from the few I can recall I am convinced that their principal object was to gain plenty of leeway for the persecuted girl’s escape. No. 3 sternly forbade her ever, ever to pass between two advancing men—at night, of course, be it understood—lest they might seize hold of and so frighten her to death. She was advised never to permit herself to take the inside of the walk when meeting a stranger, who might thus crowd her against the house and cut off her chance to run. Never to pass the opening to an alley-way without placing the entire width of the walk between her and it, and always to keep her eyes on it as she crossed. Never to let any man pass her from behind on the outside was insisted on, indeed she should take to the street itself first. She was not to answer a drunken man, no matter what might be the nature of his speech. She was not to scream—if she could help it—for fear of public humiliation, but if the worst came and some hideous prowler of the night passed from speech to actual attack, then she was to forget her ladyhood and remembering only the tenderness of the male shin and her right of self-defence, to kick like a colt till help came or she was released.
Other portions of the code I have forgotten, but I do distinctly remember that it wound up with the really Hoyle-like observation, “When in doubt, take to the centre of the street.”
We all know the magic power of the moonlight—have seen it transmute the commonest ugliness into perfect beauty and change a world-worn woman into the veriest lily-maid, but how few know the dread power exerted over man by the street gaslight after midnight. The kindest old drake of the farm-pond, the most pompously harmless gobbler of the buckwheat-field becomes a vulture beneath the midnight street-light. A man who would shoot for being called a blackguard between seven o’clock in the morning and twelve at night, often becomes one after midnight. It is frequently said that “words break no bones,” but let a young girl pass alone through the city streets a few nights and she will probably hear words that, drowning her in shamed blushes, will go far toward breaking her pride, if not her bones. Men seem to be creatures of very narrow margin—they so narrowly escape being gods, and they so much more narrowly escape being animals. Under the sunlight, man, made in the image of God, lifts his face heavenward and walks erect; under the street-lamps of midnight he is stealthy, he prowls, he is a visible destruction! You think I exaggerate the matter? Do not; I speak from experience. And, what is more, at that time I had not yet learned what the streets of New York could produce after midnight.
But on the night after the chair episode, Frank Murdoch heard one of the girls say she had used the Clara Code very successfully the night before, when two drunken men had reeled out of an alley, who would have collided with her had she not followed the rule and kept the whole sidewalk between them. He stood at the door as I came down-stairs, and as soon as I reached him he asked, sharply: “Do you go home alone of nights?”
“Yes,” I answered.
“Good God!” he muttered.
After a pause I looked up at him, and met his eyes shining wet and blue through two tears. “Oh,” I hastily added, “there’s nothing to be afraid of.”
“I wish I could agree with you,” he answered. “Tell me,” he went on, “have you ever been annoyed by anyone?”
My eyes fell, I knew I was growing red.
“Good God!” he said again, then, suddenly, he ordered: “Give me that bag—you’ll not go through these streets alone again while I am here! Never mind the distance. I don’t see why you can’t take my arm.”
And thus I found myself for the first time escorted by a gentleman, and after my hot embarrassment wore off a bit, I held my head very high and languidly allowed my skirt to trail in the dust, and said to myself: “This is like a real grown-up—surely they can’t call me ’child’ much longer now.”
The star playing with us just then was a tragedian, but he was a very little man, whose air of alertness, even of aggressiveness, had won for him the title of “Cocky” Roberts. He wore enormously high heels, he had thick cork soles on the outside and thick extra soles on the inside of all his boots and shoes. His wigs were slightly padded at their tops—everything possible was done for a gain in height, while all the time he was sputtering and swearing at what he called “this cursed cult of legs!”
“Look at ’em!” he snorted—for he did snort like a horse when he was angry, as he often was, at the theatre at least. “Look at ’em, Ellsler; there’s Murdoch, Proctor, Davenport, all gone to legs, damn ’em, and calling themselves actors! You don’t look for brains in a man’s legs, do you? No! no! it’s the cranium that tells! Yes, blast ’em! Let ’em come here and match craniums with me, that they think it smart to call ‘Cocky’! They’re a lot of theatrical tongs—all legs and no heads!”
And yet the poor, fuming little man, with his exaggerated strut, would have given anything short of his life, to have added even a few inches to his anatomy, the brevity of which was quite forgotten by the public when he gave his really brilliant and pathetic performance of “Belphegor,” one of the earliest of the so-called “emotional” plays.
I have a very kindly remembrance of that fretful little star, because when they were discussing the cast of a play, one of those tormenting parts turned up that are of great importance to the piece, but of no importance themselves. Capable actresses refuse to play them, and incapable ones create havoc in them. This one had already been refused, when Mr. Roberts suddenly exclaimed: “Who was it made those announcements last night? She spoke with beautiful distinctness; let that young woman have the part, she’ll do it all right.”
Oh, dear Mr. Roberts! never “Cocky” to me! Oh, wise little judge! how I did honor him for those precious words: “Let that young woman have the part.” That “young woman!” I could have embraced him for very gratitude—a part and the term “young woman,” and since, as my old washerwoman used to say, “it never rains but it pours,” while these two words were still making music in my ears, by some flash of intuition I realized that I was being courted by Frank. The discovery filled me with the utmost satisfaction. I gave no thought to him, in a sentimental way, either then or ever; quite selfishly I thought only of my own gain in dignity and importance, for I started out in life with the old-fashioned idea that a man honored a woman by his courtship, and I knew naught of the lover who “loves and rides away.” Yet in a few days the curious cat-like instinct of the unconscious coquette awakened in me, and I began very gently to try my claws.
I wished very much to know if he were jealous, as I had been told that real lovers were always so; and, naturally, I did not wish mine to fall short of any of the time-honored attributes of loverdom. Therefore I, one morning, selected for experimental use a man whose volume of speech was a terror to all. Had he been put to the sword, he would have talked to the swordsman till the final blow cut his speech. He was most unattractive, too, in appearance, being one of those actors who get shaved after rehearsal instead of before it, thus gaining a reputation for untidiness that facts may not always justify—but he served my purpose all the better for that.
I deliberately placed myself at his side; I was only a ballet-girl, but I had two good ears—I was welcome. Conversation, or rather the monologue, burst forth. Standing at the side of the stage, with rehearsal going on, he of course spoke low. I watched for Frank’s arrival. He came, I heard his cheery “Good-morning, ladies! good-morning, gentlemen!” and then he started toward me, but I heard nothing, saw nothing of him. My upraised eyes, as wide as I possibly could make them, were fixed upon the face of the talker. Yet, with a jump of the heart, I knew the brightness had gone from Frank’s face, the spring from his step. I smiled as sweetly as I knew how; I seemed to hang upon the words of the untidy one, and oh! if Frank could only have known what those words were; how I was being assured that he, the speaker, had that very morning succeeded in stopping a leaky hole in his shoe by melting a piece of india-rubber over and on it, and that not a drop of water had penetrated when he had walked through the rain-puddles; and right there, like music, there came to my listening ear a word of four letters—a forbidden word, but one full of consolation to the distressed male; a word beginning with “d,” and for fear that you may think it was “dear,” why, I will be explicit and say that it was “damn!” and that it was from the anger-whitened lips of Frank, who during the morning gave not only to me, but to all lookers-on, most convincing proof of his jealousy, and that was the beginning of my experiments.
I did this, to see if it would make him angry. I did that, to see if it would please him. Sometimes I scratched him with my investigating claws, then I was sorry—truly sorry, because I was grateful always for his gentle goodness to me, and never meant to hurt him. But he represented the entire sex to me, and I was learning all I could, thinking, as I once told him, that the knowledge might be useful on the stage some time, and I wondered at the very fury my words provoked in him.
We quarrelled sometimes like spiteful children, as when I, startled into laughter by hearing his voice break in a speech, unfortunately excused myself by saying: “It was just like a young rooster, you know!” and he, white with anger, cried: “You’re a solid mass of rudeness, to laugh at a misfortune; you have no breeding!”
This brought from me the rejoinder: “I know it, but you would have shown better breeding yourself had you not told me of it!”
And then he was on his knee in the entrance, begging forgiveness, and saying his “cursed, cracking voice made a madman of him!”
As it really did, for he often accused people of guying him if they did but clear their own throats. And so we went on till something in his manner—his increased efforts to find me alone at rehearsal, for as I was without a room-mate in Columbus, I could not receive him at home, and I truly think he would have kept silence forever rather than have urged me to break any conventional rule of propriety—this something gave me the idea that Frank was going to be—well—explicit, that—that—I was going to be proposed to according to established form.
Now, though a proposal of marriage is a thing to look forward to with desire, to look back upon with pride, it is also a thing to avoid when it is in the immediate future, and I so successfully evaded his efforts to find me alone, at the theatre or at some friend’s house, that he was forced at last to speak at night, while escorting me home.
I lodged in a quiet little street, opening out of the busier, more noisy Kinsman Street. In our front yard there lived a large, greedy old tree, which had planted its foot firmly in the very middle of the path, thus forcing everyone to chassé around it who wished to enter the house. Its newly donned summer greenery extended far over the gate, and as the moon shone full and fair the “set” was certainly appropriate.
We reached the gate, and I held out my hand for my bag—that small catch-all of a bag that, in the hand of the actress, is the outward and visible sign of her profession; but he let the bag slip to the walk and caught my hand in his. The street was deserted. Leaning against the gate beneath the sheltering boughs of the old tree, the midnight silence all about us, he began to speak earnestly.
I made a frantic search through my mind for something to say presently, when my turn would come to speak. I rejected instantly the ancient wail of “suddenness.” Frank’s temper did not encourage an offer of “sisterhood.” I was just catching joyously at the idea of hiding behind the purely imaginary opposition of my mother, when Frank’s words: “Then, too, dear heart! I could protect you, and—” were interrupted by a yowl, so long, so piercing, it seemed to rise like a rocket of anguish into the summer sky.
“Oh!” I thought, “that’s one-eared Jim from next door, and if our Simmons hears him—and he’d have to be dead not to hear—he will come out to fight him!” I clenched my teeth, I dropped my eyes that Frank might not see the threatening laughter there. I noted how much whiter his hand was than mine, as they were clasped in the moonlight. The pause had been long; then, very gently, he started again: “Mignonne!”
Distinctly I heard the thump of Simmons’s body dropping from the porch-roof. “Mignonne, look up! you big-eyed child, and tell me that I may go to your mother with your promise!”
“Mi-au! Mi-au! Wow! Spit! Spit! Wow!” Four balls of fire glowed for a moment beneath the tree, then two dark forms became one dark form, that whirled and bounded through space, emitting awful sounds. The cats were too much for me, I threw back my head and laughed.
My laugh was too much for Frank. His temper broke, he flung my hand away, crying out: “Laugh, you little idiot! You’re worse than the animals, for they at least know no better! Laugh till morning, if you like!” and then I’m sorry to say it, but he kicked my bag, the precious insignia of my profession, and rushed down the street, leaving me standing there amid the débris of the wrecked proposal.
Next night he frigidly presented himself to escort me home, and when I coldly declined his company, he turned silently and left me. Truth to tell, I did not enjoy my walk alone, through the market-place in particular, and I planned to unbend a little the next evening; but I was much piqued to find myself without an excuse for unbending, since on the next evening he did not offer his company. The third night there was a big lump in my throat, and the tears would have fallen had they not been suddenly dried in my eyes by the sight of a familiar light-gray suit slipping along close to the houses on the other side of the way. Petulant, irritable, loyal-hearted boy! he had safe-guarded me both those nights when I thought I was alone! My heart was warm with gratitude toward him, and when I reached my gate, and passed inside, I called across the street: “Thank you, Frank! Good-night!”
And he laughed and answered: “Good-night, Mignonne!”
And so it came about that Frank’s wooing, being of the strict and stately order, I gradually came to be Miss Morris to others beside himself. I saw my advance in dignity, and if I did not love him I gave him profound gratitude, and we were true friends his short and honorable life through.