Rose of Dutcher's Coolly

CHAPTER XIX

ROSE SITS IN THE BLAZE OF A THOUSAND EYES

Life quickened for the coulé girl. She accommodated herself to the pace of the daily papers with instant facility. She studied the amusement columns, and read the book reviews, and frequented the beautiful reading room of the Newberry library. She went to all the matinees, taking gallery tickets, of course, ever mindful of her slender resources – studying as truly, as intently, as if she were still at college.

She had told her father that three hundred dollars would carry her through till June, and she was determined it should do so. She had not begun to think of any work to do beyond her writing. Her mind was still in unrest – here life's problem was seemingly more difficult of solution than ever.

She took hold upon the city with the power of a fresh mind capable of enormous feeling and digesting. She seemed to be in the world at last, plunged in it, enveloped by it, and she came to delight in the roar and tumult of it all, as if it were the sound of winds and waters; and each day she entered upon a little wider circle of adventure. Once the first confusion was past, the movement and faces of the crowds were of endless interest to her. She walked down into the city every day, returning to her little nook in the noisy flat building, as the young eagle to its eerie above the lashing tree-tops. She was sitting above the tumult, as Mr. Mason had advised her to do.

She came soon to know that the west side of State street was tabooed by wealthy shoppers, who bought only on the east side; that Wabash avenue was yet more select, and that no one who owned a carriage ever traded in the bargain stores. She did all her shopping there because it was cheaper, but deep in her heart she felt no kinship with the cross, hurrying, pushing, perspiring crowds in the bargain stores. Her place was among the graceful, leisurely, beautifully attired groups of people on the east side of State street. She was not troubled at this stage of her development by any idea of being faithful to the people of her own material condition and origin. She had always loved the graces and cleanlinesses of life, and her father, she knew to be a man of innate refinement. The idea of caste, of arbitrary classes of people, had only come to her newly or obscurely through newspapers or novels. She did not like dirty people, nor surly people, nor boorish people. In fact, she did not class people at all; they were individuals with her yet. She was allured by the conditions of life on the Lake Shore Drive because the people lived such quiet, clean and joyous lives apparently, with time to think and be kind.

She met few people outside of the little circle at the boarding house, and an occasional visiting friend of Miss Fletcher or Mr. Taylor. Owen she saw much of, and he pleased her greatly. He was a man she could have married under some circumstances. He had means a plenty; he was an unusual character, clean-souled, almost elemental in his simple sincerity, but she considered him committed to Mary, and, besides, Mason had become a deterring cause, though she hardly realized that.

Through all the days which followed that evening at Dr. Herrick's she saw his face with growing distinctness. It was not a genial face, but it was one to remember, a face of power. The line of the lips, the half-averted chin, marked Mason's attitude to be one of disgust or weariness. He was the most powerful man she had ever known, a man of critical insight, and for that reason especially she had sought in her last reading to please him. She had failed, and so she was afraid to see him again. When Isabel said to her:

"Mason is a man you should know. He can do a great deal for you in the city," Rose replied in her blunt fashion:

"I don't want him to do anything for me."

"O yes, you do! He's really a kind-hearted man. He puts on a manner which scares people sometimes, but he's a man of the highest character. He's the greatest thinker I ever met – O I'm not disloyal to Dr. Sanborn, he's the best man I ever met." There was a story in that tender inflection. "So you must let me send in something to Warren, and let him advise you."

Rose finally consented, but it seemed to her like laying an only child upon the rack. She had come almost to fear, certainly to dread, that strange, imperturbable man. His abiding-place and his office were alike so far removed from any manner of living she had knowledge of. He concealed his own likes and dislikes so effectually that not even Isabel (as she confessed) could learn them.

A few days after putting her packet of poems into Isabel's hands Rose received a note from her asking her to come over and see her – that she had an invitation for her.

"We are invited, you and Dr. Sanborn and I, to sit in a box at the symphony concert Saturday night, with Mr. and Mrs. Harvey. Mrs. Harvey is one of my dearest friends, and I've talked about you so much she is eager to see you."

Rose took the matter very quietly. She was mightily pleased, but she was not accustomed to gushing her thanks; besides, she had recovered her equilibrium.

Isabel was a little surprised at her coolness, but was keen enough to see that she did not mean to be ungrateful.

"I thought perhaps you'd like to advise about dress," she said. "The boxes are very brilliant, but you'll look well in anything. You won't need a bonnet, your hair is so pretty, and that little grey dress will do, with a little change."

"You know I'm a farmer's daughter," Rose explained; "I can't afford new dresses in order to go to the opera."

"I understand, my dear. I have my own limitations in that way. I keep one or two nice gowns and the rest of the time I wear a uniform. I told Mrs. Harvey you were poor like myself, and that we'd need to be the background for her, and she said she'd trust me."

What Mrs. Harvey had said was this: "My dear Isabel, you've got judgment, and if you say the girl's worth knowing I want to know her. And if you say the girl will be presentable I'd like to have her come. The boys are both in New York, anyway, and we've got three unoccupied seats."

"Now you come over to dinner with me Saturday; come at five. I want you to help me dress. Doctor will be over, and we'll have a nice time before the carriage comes."

Rose was much more elated than she cared to show. Once as she sat in the gallery of the theatre and looked at the boxes she had shut her teeth in a vow: "I'll sit there where you do, one of these days!" and now it had come in a few weeks instead of years – like a fairy gift. She told Mary nothing about her invitation for several days. She dreaded her outcry, which was inescapable.

"Oh! isn't that fine! How you do get ahead – what will you wear?"

"I haven't a bewildering choice," Rose said. "I thought I'd wear my grey dress."

"Oh, this is a wonderful chance for you! Can't you afford a new dress?"

"No, I'm afraid not. There isn't time now, anyway. I'll keep close to the wall. Fortunately I have a new cloak that will do."

"Well, that grey dress is lovely – when it's on you."

Rose hated the bother about the dress.

"I wish I could wear a dress suit like a man," she said to Isabel when they were in the midst of the final stress of it.

"So do I, but we can't. There's a law against it, I believe. Now I'm going to dress your hair for you. That is, I'm going to superintend it and Etta's deft little fingers shall do the work."

After dinner, Isabel ordered things cleared and said to Sanborn:

"Doctor, you go and smoke while we put on our frills."

Sanborn acquiesced readily enough.

"Very well – if you find me gone when you come forth, don't worry. I've gone ahead with my friend Yerkes. Your carriage will be full anyhow."

"All right." She went over and gave him a hug. "You're a good, obedient boy – that's what you are!"

He spoke (with his chin over her wrist) addressing Rose:

"The study of chemicals and nerve tissues has not left us utterly desolate, you perceive."

When they were in their dressing room, Rose asked what the Doctor meant by that speech.

Isabel laughed and colored a little:

"Oh, he meant that a study of bones and muscles and diseased bodies had not made us prosaic and – and old. I think it has made me still more in love with healthy human flesh – but never mind that now; we must hurry."

Rose looked at Isabel in silent worship as she stood before her ready for the carriage. Her, ordinarily, cold little face glowed with color, and her eyes were full of mirthful gleams like a child's. It seemed impossible that she had written a treatise on "Nervous Diseases," and was ranked among the best alienists in the city.

Etta made no secret of her adoration. She fairly bowed down before her sister and before Rose also. She was so little and so commonplace before these beings of light.

Down at the carriage it was too dark to see any one distinctly, but Rose liked the cordial, hearty voice of Mrs. Harvey. Mr. Harvey's hand was small and firm, Mrs. Harvey's plump and warm. Mr. Harvey spoke only once or twice during the ride.

As the carriage rumbled and rolled southward at a swift pace, Rose kept watch out of the window. The street had not lost a particle of its power over her.

As they plunged deeper into the city, and the roll of other carriages thickened around them, the importance of this event grew upon Rose. She was bewildered when they alighted, but concealed it by impassivity, as usual. The carriages stood in long rows waiting to unload. Others were rolling swiftly away; doors slammed; voices called, "All right!" A mighty stream of people was entering the vast arched entrance, with rustle of garments and low murmur of laughing comment. Rose caught the flash of beautiful eyes and the elusive gleam of jewels on every side, as the ladies bowed to their acquaintances.

Everything was massive, and spacious and enduring. The entrance way was magnificent, and Rose followed Mr. Harvey as if in a dream. They took a mysterious short cut somewhere, and came out into a narrow balcony, which was divided into stalls. Through arched openings Rose caught glimpses of the mighty hall, immense as a mountain cave, and radiant as a flower.

As they moved along, Mrs. Harvey turned to Isabel.

"She'll do; don't worry!"

At their box Mr. Harvey paused and said, with a pleasant smile:

"Here we are."

Dr. Sanborn met them, and there was a bustle getting wraps laid away.

"You sit here, my dear," said Mrs. Harvey. She was a plump, plain, pleasant-voiced person, and put Rose at ease at once. She gave Rose the outside seat, and before she realized it the coulé girl was seated in plain view of a thousand people, under a soft but penetrating light.

She shrank like some nocturnal insect suddenly brought into sunlight. She turned white, and then the blood flamed to her face and neck. She sprang up.

"O, Mrs. Harvey, I can't sit here," she gasped out.

"You must! – that is the place for you," said Mrs. Harvey. "Do you suppose an old housewife like me would occupy a front seat with such a beauty in the background? Not a bit of it! The public welfare demands that you sit there." She smiled into the scared girl's face with kindly humor.

Isabel leaned over and said; "Sit there; you're magnificent."

Rose sank back into her seat, and stared straight ahead. She felt as if something hot and withering were blowing on that side of her face which was exposed to the audience. She wished she had not allowed the neck of her dress to be widened an inch. She vowed never again to get into such a trap.

Mr. Harvey talked to her from behind her chair. He was very kindly and thoughtful, and said just enough to let her feel his presence, and not enough to weary her.

Gradually the beauty and grandeur of the scene robbed her of her absurd self-consciousness. She did not need to be told that this was the heart and brain of Chicago. This was the Chicago she had dreamed about. A perfumed rustling rose from below her. Around her the boxes filled with women in gowns of pink and rose and blue, and faint green. Human flowers they were, dewed with diamonds. All about was the movement of orderly, leisurely, happy-toned and dignified men and women. All was health, pleasure, sanity, kindliness. Wealth here displayed its wondrous charm, its peace, its poetry.

Her romantic conception of these people had done them an injustice. She had clothed them with the attributes of the men and women of English society novels and New York imitations of these novels. This Mr. Harvey did not know, but he helped her to rectify her mistaken estimate of the people around her by saying:

"We business men can't get out to the Friday rehearsals, but Saturday night finds us ready to enjoy an evening of art."

He looked very handsome in his dress suit, and his face was very pleasant to see, yet Isabel had told her that not only was he a hard-working business man, but a man of wide interests, a great railway director, in fact.

"I suppose you know many of the people here," she said at last.

"Oh, yes," he replied, "I know most of them. Chicago is large, but some way we still keep track of people here."

As he talked, she got courage to raise her eyes to the roof, soaring far up above, glowing with color. Balcony after balcony circled at the back, and Rose thought with a little flush that perhaps Owen and Mary were sitting up in one of those balconies and could see her in the box.

The hall was buff and light-blue to her eyes, and the procession of figures over the arch, the immense stage, the ceiling, the lights, all were of great beauty and interest.

But the people! the beautiful dresses! the dainty bonnets! the flow of perfumed drapery! the movement of strong, clean, supple limbs! – these were the most glorious sights of all. She had no room for envy in her heart. She was very happy, for she seemed to have reached a share in ultimate magnificence.

She longed for gowns and bonnets like these, but there was no bitterness in her longing.

She herself was a beautiful picture as she sat there. From her bust, proud and maternal, rose her strong smooth neck, and young, graceful reflective head. If the head had been thrown back she would have seemed arrogant; with that reflective, forward droop, she produced upon the gazer an effect both sweet and sad. In the proud bust was prophecy of matronly beauty, and also of the freshness of youth.

Mason, seated below among a group of musical critics, looked at her with brooding eyes. At that moment she seemed to be the woman he had long sought. Certainly the glamour was around her then. She sat above him and her brown hair and rich coloring stood out from the drapery like a painting. A chill came over him as he thought of the letter he had sent to her that very morning. It was brutal; he could see it now. He might have put the criticism in softer phrases.

Isabel leaned over and spoke to Rose and then Rose began searching for him. He was amazed to feel a thrill of excitement as he saw that strong, dark face turned toward him; and when his eyes met her's he started a little, as if a ray of light had fallen suddenly upon him. She colored a little, he thought, and bowed. Where did the girl acquire that regal, indifferent inclination of the head? It was like a princess dropping a favor to a faithful subject, but it pleased him. "The girl has imagination!" he said. "She claims her own."

Then he meditated: "What an absurdity! Why should I fix upon that girl, when here, all about me are other women more beautiful, and rich and accomplished, besides. That confounded farmer's girl has a raft of stupid and vulgar relatives, no doubt, and her refinement is a mere appearance."

He solaced himself with a general reflection.

"Furthermore, why should any man select any woman, when they are all dots and dashes in a web of human life, anyhow? Their differences are about like the imperceptible differences of a flock of wrens. Why not go out and marry the first one that offers, and so end it all?"

The mystery of human genius came also to Rose as Mr. Harvey pointed out to her the city's most noted men and women. They were mere dabs of color – sober color, for the most part – upon this flood of humankind. She was to Mason, probably, only a neutral spot in the glorious band of color, which swept in a graceful curve back from the footlights. It was wonderful, also, to think that these smiling men were the millionaire directors of vast interests – they seemed without a care in the world.

At last the stage chairs were all filled by a crowd of twanging, booming, sawing, squeaking instrumentalists. Then the leader, a large man of military erectness, came down to the leader's desk and bowed, amidst thunderous applause. Then rapping sharply on his desk he brought orderly silence out of the tumult, and the concert began.