Book 2. The Struggle - Chapter 2

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_ BOOK II. THE STRUGGLE
CHAPTER II

Shortly before Selma Littleton took up her abode in New York, Miss Florence, or, as she was familiarly known, Miss Flossy Price, was an inhabitant of a New Jersey city. Her father was a second cousin of Morton Price, whose family at that time was socially conspicuous in fashionable New York society. Not aggressively conspicuous, as ultra fashionable people are to-day, by dint of frequent newspaper advertisement, but in consequence of elegant, conservative respectability, fortified by and cushioned on a huge income. In the early seventies to know the Morton Prices was a social passport, and by no means every one socially ambitious knew them. Morton Price's great-grandfather had been a peddler, his grandfather a tea merchant, his father a tea merchant and bank organizer, and he himself did nothing mercantile, but was a director in diverse institutions, representing trusts or philantrophy, and was regarded by many, including himself, as the embodiment of ornamental and admirable citizenship. He could talk by the hour on the degeneracy of state and city politics and the evil deeds of Congress, and was, generally speaking, a conservative, fastidious, well-dressed, well-fed man, who had a winning way with women and a happy faculty of looking wise and saying nothing rash in the presence of men. Some of the younger generation were apt, with the lack of reverence belonging to youth, to speak of him covertly as "a stuffed club," but no echo of this epithet had ever reached the ear of his cousin, David Price, in New Jersey. For him, as for most of the world within a radius of two hundred miles, he was above criticism and a monument of social power.

David Price, Miss Flossy's father, was the president of a small and unprogressive but eminently solid bank. Respectable routine was his motto, and he lived up to it, and, as a consequence, no more sound institution of the kind existed in his neighborhood. He and his directors were slow to adopt innovations of any kind; they put stumbling blocks in the path of business convenience whenever they could; in short, David Price in his humble way was a righteous, narrow, hide-bound retarder of progress and worshipper of established local custom. Therefore it was a constant source of surprise and worry to him that he should have a progressive daughter. There were four other children, patterns of quiet, plodding conservatism, but--such is the irony of fate--the youngest, prettiest, and his favorite, was an independent, opinionated young woman, who seemed to turn a deaf ear to paternal and maternal advice of safest New Jersey type. In her father's words, she had no reverence for any thing or any body, which was approximately true, for she did not hesitate to speak disrespectfully even of the head of the house in New York.

"Poppa," she said one day, "Cousin Morton doesn't care for any of us a little bit. I know what you're going to say," she added; "that he sends you two turkeys every Thanksgiving. The last were terribly tough. I'm sure he thinks that we never see turkeys here in New Jersey, and that he considers us poor relations and that we live in a hole. If one of us should call on him, I know it would distress him awfully. He's right in thinking that this is a hole. Nothing ever happens here, and when I marry I intend to live in New York."

This was when she was seventeen. Her father was greatly shocked, especially as he suspected in his secret soul that the tirade was true in substance. He had been the recipient of Thanksgiving turkeys for nearly twenty years on the plea that they had been grown on the donor's farm in Westchester county, and he had seen fit to invite his fellow-directors annually to dine off one of them as a modest notice that he was on friendly terms with his aristocratic New York cousin. But in all these twenty years turkeys had been the only medium of intercourse between them. David Price, on the few occasions when he had visited New York, had not found it convenient to call. Once he had walked by on the other side of Fifth avenue and looked at the house, but shyness and the thought that he had no evening clothes in his valise had restrained him from ringing the doorbell.

"You do your cousin Morton great injustice--great injustice, Florence," he answered. "He never forgets to send the turkeys, and as to the rest of your speech, I have only to say that it is very disrespectful and very foolish. The next time I go to New York I will take you to call on your cousins."

"And what would I say to them? No thank you, poppa." The young woman shook her head decisively, and then she added, "I'm not going to call on them, until I'm fit to. There!"

The ambiguity of this remark gave Mr. Price the opportunity to say that, in view of her immediate shortcomings, it was a wise conclusion, but he knew what she really meant and was distressed. His feeling toward his cousin, though mildly envious, did not extend to self-depreciation, nor had it served to undermine his faith in the innate dignity and worth of New Jersey family life. He could not only with a straight face, but with a kindling eye inveigh against the perils of New York fashionable life, and express gratification that no son or daughter of his had wandered so far from the fold. It distressed him to think that Florence should be casting sheep's eyes at the flesh-pots of Gotham, and so failing to appreciate the blessings and safety of a quiet American home.

Miss Flossy continued to entertain and to express opinions of her own, and as a result became socially interesting. At eighteen, by her beauty, her engaging frankness and lack of self-consciousness, she spread havoc among the young men of her native city, several of whom offered her marriage. But marriage was far from her thoughts. Life seemed too interesting and she wished to see the world. She was erect and alert looking, with a compact figure of medium height, large brown eyes and rich red hair, and a laughing mouth; also an innocent demeanor, which served to give her, by moonlight, the effect of an angel. She succeeded in visiting Bar Harbor, where she promptly became a bright particular star among the galaxy of young women who at that period were establishing the reputation of the summer girl. She continued to be a summer girl for four seasons without injury to her own peace of mind. At the end of the fourth summer she appeared on close scrutiny to be a little worn, and her innocent air seemed a trifle deliberate. She returned to her home in New Jersey in not quite her usual spirits. In fact she became pensive. She had seen the world, and lo! she found it stuffed with sawdust. She was ready to settle down, but the only man with whom she would have been willing to settle had never asked her. He was the brother of one of the girls who had been forbidden by her mother to stay out in canoes with young men after nine at night. The rumor had reached Flossy that this same mother had referred to her in "the fish pond" at Rodick's as "that dreadful girl." It would have pleased her after that to have wrung an offer of marriage from the son and heir, who knew her cousins, the Morton Prices, and to whom she would have been willing to engage herself temporarily at all events. He was very devoted; they stayed out in his canoe until past midnight; he wrote verses to her and told her his innermost thoughts; but he stopped there. He went away without committing himself, and she was left to chew the cud of reflection. It was bitter, not because she was in love with him, for she was not. In her heart she knew he bored her a little. But she was piqued. Evidently he had been afraid to marry "that dreadful girl." She was piqued and she was sad. She recognized that it was another case of not being fit. When would she be fit? What was she to do in order to become fit--fit like the girl who was not allowed to stay on the water after nine o'clock? She had ceased to think of the young man, but the image of his sister haunted her. How stylish she was, yet how simple and quiet! "I wonder," thought Flossy to herself, "if I could ever become like her." The reflection threw her into a brown study in which she remained for weeks, and during which she refused the hand of a staid and respectable townsman, who, in her father's words, was ready to take her with all her follies. David Price was disappointed. He loved this independent daughter, and he had hopes that her demure and reticent deportment signified that the effervescence of youth had evaporated. But it was only an effort on Flossy's part to imitate the young man's sister.

At this juncture and just when she was bored and dispirited by the process, Gregory Williams appeared on the scene. Flossy met him at a dancing party. He had a very tall collar, a very friendly, confident, and (toward her) devoted manner, and good looks. It was whispered among the girls that he was a banker from New York. He was obviously not over thirty, which was young for a banker, but so he presently described himself to Flossy with hints of impending prosperity. He spoke glibly and picturesquely. He had a convincing eloquence of gesture--a wave of the hand which suggested energy and compelled confidence. He had picked her out at once to be introduced to, and sympathy between them was speedily established. Her wearing, as a red-headed girl, a white horse in the form of a pin, in order to prevent the attention of the men to whom she talked from wandering, delighted him. He said to himself that here was a girl after his own heart. He had admired her looks at the outset, but he gazed at her now more critically. He danced every dance with her, and they sat together at supper, apart from everybody else. Flossy's resolutions were swept away. That is, she had become in an instant indifferent to the fact that the New York girl she had yearned to imitate would not have made herself so conspicuous. Her excuse was that she could not help herself. It was a case of genuine, violent attraction, which she made no effort to straggle against.

The attraction was violent on both sides. Gregory Williams was not seeking to be married. He had been, until within six months, a broker's clerk, and had become a banker on the strength of ten thousand dollars bequeathed to him by a grandmother. He and a clerk from another broker's office, J. Willett VanHorne, had recently formed a partnership as Williams & VanHorne, Bankers and Dealers in Stocks and Bonds. He was not seeking to be married, but he intended to be married some day, and it was no part of his scheme of life to deny himself anything he wished. Support a wife? Of course he could; and support her in the same grandiose fashion which he had adopted for himself since he had begun business on his own account. He had chosen as a philosophy of life the smart paradox, which he enjoyed uttering, that he spent what he needed first and supplied the means later; and at the same time he let it be understood that the system worked wonderfully. He possessed unlimited confidence in himself, and though he was dimly aware that a very small turn of the wheel of fortune in the wrong direction would ruin him financially, he chose to close his eyes to the possibilities of disaster and to assume a bold and important bearing before the world. He had implicit faith in his own special line of ability, and he appreciated the worth of his partner, VanHorne. He had joined forces with VanHorne because he knew that he was the opposite of himself--that he was a delving, thorough, shrewd, keen office man--and able too. How genuinely able Williams did not yet know. He himself was to be the showy partner, the originator of schemes and procurer of business, the brilliant man before the world. So there was some method in his madness. And with it all went a cheery, incisive, humorous point of view which was congenial and diverting to Flossy.

He went away, but he came back once--twice--thrice in quick succession. On business, so he said casually to Mr. and Mrs. Price, but his language to their daughter was a declaration of personal devotion. It remained for her to say whether she would marry him or no. Of one thing she was sure without need of reflection, that she loved him ardently. As a consequence she surrendered at once, though, curiously enough, she was conscious when she permitted him to kiss her with effusion that he was not the sort of man she had intended to marry--that he was not fit in her sense of the word. Yet she was determined to marry him, and from the moment their troth was plighted she found herself his eager and faithful ally, dreaming and scheming on their joint account. She would help him to succeed; they would conquer the world together; she would never doubt his ability to conquer it. And in time--yes, in time they would make even the Morton Prices notice them.

And so after some bewildered opposition on the part of Mr. Price, who was alternately appalled and fascinated by the magniloquent language of his would-be son-in-law, they were married. Flossy gave but a single sign to her husband that she understood him and recognized what they really represented. It was one evening a few months after they had set up housekeeping while they were walking home from the theatre. They had previously dined at Delmonico's, and the cost of the evening's entertainment, including a bottle of champagne at dinner, their tickets and a corsage bouquet of violets for Flossy, had been fifteen dollars. Flossy wore a resplendent theatre hat and fashionable cape--one of the several stylish costumes with which her husband had hastened to present her, and Gregory was convoying her along the Avenue with the air of a man not averse to have the world recognize that they were a well set up and prosperous couple. Flossy had put her arm well inside his and was doing her best to help him produce the effect which he desired, when she suddenly said:

"I wonder, Gregory, how long it will be before we're really anybody. Now, of course, we're only make believe swell."

Gregory gave an amused laugh. "What a clever little woman! That's just what we are. We'll keep it a secret, though, and won't advertise it to the world."

"Mum's the word," she replied, giving his arm a squeeze. "I only wished you to know that I was not being fooled; that I understood."

Fate ordained that the Williamses and the Littletons should take houses side by side in the same block. It was a new block, and at first they were the sole occupants. Williams bought his house, giving a mortgage back to the seller for all the man would accept, and obtaining a second mortgage from a money lender in consideration of a higher rate of interest, for practically the remaining value. He furnished his house ornately from top to bottom in the latest fashion, incurring bills for a portion of the effects, and arranging to pay on the instalment plan where he could not obtain full credit. His reasoning was convincing to himself and did not alarm Flossy, who was glad to feel that they were the owners of the house and attractive furniture. It was that the land was sure to improve in value before the mortgage became due, and as for the carpets and curtains and other outlays, a few points in the stock market would pay for them at any time.

Wilbur Littleton did not possess the ready money to buy; consequently he took a lease of his new house for three years, and paid promptly for the furniture he bought, the selection of which was gradual. Gregory Williams had a marvellous way of entering a shop and buying everything which pleased his eye at one fell swoop, but Wilbur, who desired to accomplish the best aesthetic effects possible consistent with his limited means, trotted Selma from one shop to another before choosing. This process of selecting slowly the things with which they were to pass their lives was a pleasure to him, and, as he supposed, to Selma. She did enjoy keenly at first beholding the enticing contents of the various stores which they entered in the process of procuring wall-papers, carpets, and the other essentials for house-keeping. It was a revelation to her that such beautiful things existed, and her inclination was to purchase the most showy and the most costly articles. In the adornment of her former home Babcock had given her a free hand. That is, his disposition had been to buy the finest things which the shopkeepers of Benham called to his attention. She understood now that his taste and the taste of Benham, and even her's, had been at fault, but she found herself hampered now by a new and annoying limitation, the smallness of their means. Almost every thing was very expensive, and she was obliged to pass by the patterns and materials she desired to possess, and accept articles of a more sober and less engaging character. Many of these, to be sure, were declared by Wilbur to be artistically charming and more suitable than many which she preferred, but it would have suited her better to fix on the rich upholstery and solid furniture, which were evidently the latest fashion in household decoration, rather than go mousing from place to place, only at last to pick up in the back corner of some store this or that object which was both reasonably pretty and reasonably cheap. When it was all over Selma was pleased with the effect of her establishment, but she had eaten of the tree of knowledge. She had visited the New York shops. These, in her capacity of a God-fearing American, she would have been ready to anathematize in a speech or in a newspaper article, but the memory of them haunted her imagination and left her domestic yearnings not wholly satisfied.

Wilbur Littleton's scheme of domestic life was essentially spiritual, and in the development of it he felt that he was consulting his wife's tastes and theories no less than his own. He knew that she understood that he was ambitious to make a name for himself as an architect; but to make it only by virtue of work of a high order; that he was unwilling to become a time-server or to lower his professional standards merely to make temporary progress, which in the end would mar a success worth having. He had no doubt that he had made this clear to her and that she sympathized with him. As a married man it was his desire and intention not to allow his interest in this ambition to interfere with the enjoyment of the new great happiness which had come into his life. He would be a professional recluse no longer. He would cast off his work when he left his office, and devote his evenings to the aesthetic delights of Selma's society. They would read aloud; he would tell her his plans and ask her advice; they would go now and then to the theatre; and, in justice to her, they would occasionally entertain their friends and accept invitations from them. With this outlook in mind he had made such an outlay as would render his home attractive and cosey--simple as became a couple just beginning life, yet the abode of a gentleman and a lover of inspiring and pretty things.

As has been mentioned, Littleton was a Unitarian, and one effect of his faith had been to make his point of view broad and straightforward. He detested hypocrisy and cant, subterfuge and self-delusion. He was content to let other people live according to their own lights without too much distress on their account, but he was too honest and too clear-headed to be able to deceive himself as to his own motives and his own conduct. He had no intention to be morbid, but he saw clearly that it was his privilege and his duty to be true to both his loves, his wife and his profession, and that if he neglected either, he would be so far false to his best needs and aspirations. Yet he felt that for the moment it was incumbent on him to err on the side of devotion to his wife until she should become accustomed to her new surroundings.

The problem of the proper arrangement and subdivision of life in a large city and in these seething, modern times is perplexing to all of us. There are so many things we would like to do which we cannot; so many things which we do against our wills. We are perpetually squinting at happiness, but just as we get a delightful vision before our eyes we are whisked off by duty or ambition or the force of social momentum to try a different view. Consequently our perennial regret is apt to be that we have seen our real interests and our real friends as in a panorama, for a fleeting moment, and then no more until the next time. For Littleton this was less true than for most. His life was deep and stable rather than many-sided. To be sure his brain experienced, now and then, the dazing effects of trying to confront all the problems of the universe and adapt his architectural endeavors to his interpretation of them; and he knew well the bewildering difficulties of the process of adjusting professional theories to the sterile conditions which workaday practice often presented. But this crowding of his mental canvas was all in the line of his life purpose. The days were too short, and sometimes left him perplexed and harassed by their rush; yet he was still pursuing the tenor of his way. The interest of marriage was not, therefore, in his case a fresh burden on a soul already laden with a variety of side pursuits. He was neither socially nor philanthropically active; he was not a club man, nor an athletic enthusiast; he was on no committees; he voted on election days, but he did not take an active part in politics. For Selma's sake all this must be changed; and he was glad to acknowledge that he owed it to himself as well as to her to widen his sympathies.

As a first step in reform he began to leave his office daily at five instead of six, and, on Saturdays, as soon after two as possible. For a few months these brands of time snatched from the furnace of his professional ardor were devoted to the shopping relative to house-furnishing. When that was over, to walking with Selma; sometimes as a sheer round of exercise in company, sometimes to visit a print-shop, exhibition of pictures, book-store, or other attraction of the hour. But the evening was for him the ideal portion of the day; when, after dinner was done, they made themselves comfortable in the new library, their living room, and it became his privilege to read aloud to her or to compare ideas with her regarding books and pictures and what was going on in the world. It had been a dream of Littleton's that some day he would re-read consecutively the British poets, and as soon as the furniture was all in place and the questions of choice of rugs and chairs and pictures had been settled by purchase, he proposed it as a definite occupation whenever they had nothing else in view. It delighted him that Selma received this suggestion with enthusiasm. Accordingly, they devoted their spare evenings to the undertaking, reading aloud in turn. Littleton's enunciation was clear and intelligent, and as a happy lover he was in a mood to fit poetic thoughts to his own experience, and to utter them ardently. While he read, Selma knew that she was ever the heroine of his imagination, which was agreeable, and she recognized besides that his performance in itself was aesthetically attractive. Yet in spite of the personal tribute, Selma preferred the evenings when she herself was the elocutionist. She enjoyed the sound of her own voice, and she enjoyed the emotions which her utterance of the rhythmic stanzas set coursing through her brain. It was obvious to her that Wilbur was captivated by her reading, and she delighted in giving herself up to the spirit of the text with the reservations appropriate to an enlightened but virtuous soul. For instance, in the case of Shelley, she gloried in his soaring, but did not let herself forget that fire-worship was not practical; in the case of Byron, though she yielded her senses to the spell of his passionate imagery, she reflected approvingly that she was a married woman.

But Littleton appreciated also that his wife should have the society of others beside himself. Pauline introduced her promptly to her own small but intelligent feminine circle, and pending Pauline's removal to a flat, the Saturday evening suppers were maintained at the old establishment. Here Selma made the acquaintance of her husband's and his sister's friends, both men and women, who dropped in often after the play and without ceremony for a weekly interchange of thought and comradeship. Selma looked forward to the first of these occasions with an eager curiosity. She expected a renewal of the Benham Institute, only in a more impressive form, as befitted a great literary centre; that papers would be read, original compositions recited, and many interesting people of both sexes perform according to their specialties. She confidently hoped to have the opportunity to declaim, "Oh, why should the spirit of mortal be proud?" "Curfew must not ring to-night," or some other of her literary pieces.

Therefore, it was almost a shock to her that the affair was so informal, and that the company seemed chiefly occupied in behaving gayly--in making sallies at each other's expense, which were greeted with merriment. They seemed to her like a lot of children let loose from school. There were no exercises, and no allusion was made to the attainments of the various guests beyond an occasional word of introduction by Pauline or Wilbur; and this word was apt to be of serio-comic import. Selma realized that among the fifteen people present there were representatives of various interesting crafts--writers, artists, a magazine editor, two critics of the stage, a prominent musician, and a college professor--but none of them seemed to her to act a part or to have their accomplishments in evidence, as she would have liked. Every one was very cordial to her, and appeared desirous to recognize her as a permanent member of their circle, but she could not help feeling disappointed at the absence of ceremony and formal events. There was no president or secretary, and presently the party went into the dining-room and sat around a table, at either end of which Pauline and Wilbur presided over a blazer. Interest centred on the preparation of a rabbit and creamed oysters, and pleasant badinage flew from tongue to tongue. Selma found herself between the magazine editor and a large, powerfully built man with a broad, rotund, strong face, who was introduced to her as Dr. Page, and who was called George by every one else. He had arrived late, just as they were going in to supper, and his appearance had been greeted with a murmur of satisfaction. He had placed himself between Pauline and her, and he showed himself, to Selma's thinking, one of the least dignified of the company.

"My dear Mrs. Littleton," he said, with a counterfeit of great gravity, "you are now witnessing an impressive example of the politeness of true friendship. There are cynics who assert that the American people are lacking in courtesy, and cast in our teeth the superiority of Japanese manners. I wish they were here to-night. There is not a single individual present, male or female, married or single, who does not secretly cherish the amiable belief that he or she can cook things on a blazer better than any one else. And yet we abstain from criticism; we offer no suggestions; we accept, without a murmur, the proportions of cheese and beer and butter inflicted upon us by our hostess and her brother, and are silent. We shall even become complimentary later. Can the Japanese vie with this?"

The contrast between his eager, grave gaze, and the levity of his words, puzzled Selma. He looked interesting, but his speech seemed to her trivial and unworthy of the occasion. Still she appreciated that she must not be a spoil-sport, and that it was incumbent on her to resign herself to the situation, so she smiled gayly, and said: "I am the only one then not suffering from self-restraint. I never made a Welsh rabbit, nor cooked on a blazer." Then, in her desire for more serious conversation, she added: "Do you really think that we, as a people, are less polite than the Japanese?"

The doctor regarded her with solemn interest for an instant, as though he were pondering the question. As a matter of fact, he was thinking that she was remarkably pretty. Then he put his finger on his lips, and in a hoarse whisper, said, "Sh! Be careful. If the editorial ear should catch your proposition the editorial man would appropriate it. There!" he added, as her left-hand neighbor bent toward them in response to the summons, "he has heard, and your opportunity to sell an idea to the magazine is lost. It is all very fine for him to protest that he has heard nothing. That is a trick of his trade. Let us see now if he will agree to buy. If he refuses, it will be a clear case that he has heard and purloined it. Come, Dennison, here's a chance for a ten thousand-word symposium debate, 'Are we, as a nation, less polite than the Japanese?' We offer it for a hundred and fifty cash, and cheap at the price."

Mr. Dennison, who was a keen-eyed, quiet man, with a brown, closely-cut beard, had paused in his occupation of buttering hot toast for the impending rabbit, and was smiling quizzically. "If you have literary secrets to dispose of, Mrs. Littleton, let me warn you against making a confidant of Dr. Page. Had you spoken to me first, there is no knowing what I might have--"

"What did I tell you?" broke in the doctor. "A one hundred and fifty-dollar idea ruthlessly appropriated. These editors, these editors!"

It was tantalizing to Selma to be skirting the edge of themes she would have enjoyed to hear treated seriously. She hoped that Mr. Dennison would inquire if she really wrote, and at least he would tell her something about his magazine and literary life in New York. But he took up again his task of buttering toast, and sought to interest her in that. Presently she was unable to resist the temptation of remarking that the editorship of a magazine must be one of the most interesting of all occupations; but he looked at her with his quizzical smile, and answered:

"Between you and me, Mrs. Littleton, I will confide to you that a considerable portion of the time it is a confounded bore. To tell the truth, I much prefer to sit next to you and butter toast."

This was depressing and puzzling to Selma; but after the consumption of the rabbit and the oysters there was some improvement in the general tone of the conversation. Yet, not so far as she was concerned. Mr. Dennison neglected to confide to her the secrets of his prison house, and Dr. Page ruthlessly refused to discuss medicine, philosophy, or the Japanese. But here and there allusion was made by one or another of the company to something which had been done in the world of letters, or art, or music, which possessed merit or deserved discouragement. What was said was uttered simply, often trenchantly and lightly, but never as a dogma, or with the solemnity which Mrs. Earle had been wont to impart to her opinions. Just as the party was about to break up, Dr. Page approached Selma and offered her his hand. "It is a great pleasure to me to have met you," he said, looking into her face with his honest eyes. "A good wife was just what Wilbur needed to insure him happiness and a fine career. His friends have great confidence in his ability, and we intrust him to you in the belief that the world will hear from him--and I, for one, shall be very grateful to you."

He spoke now with evident feeling, and his manner suggested the desire to be her friend. Selma admired his large physique and felt the attraction of his searching gaze.

"Perhaps he did need a wife," she answered with an attempt at the sprightliness which he had laid aside. "I shall try not to let him be too indifferent to practical considerations." _

Read next: Book 2. The Struggle: Chapter 3

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