When Washington Was In Vogue

by Edward Christopher Williams

  Now during the months prior to this visit, Oliver Drew had come to Washington and set up his law office. Naturally, as Paul Thomas’s closest friend, he resumed friendly relations with Genevieve, who was only too glad to see him, if for no other reason than that he could, and did, talk much of Paul. So he was a frequent and welcome caller at the Rhodeses’ house, and such was the estimate of him that Paul had succeeded in passing on to Genevieve that, next to Paul himself, he was her closest and most trusted friend.

  During the time of Paul’s visit, he lodged with Oliver, and all the time not spent with Genevieve was devoted to his old friend. Never, apparently, had their relations been more cordial. Indeed, Paul had told his inamorata that she might trust Drew just as she would himself.

  Just before the close of Thomas’s visit, he and Genevieve had a quarrel, a misunderstanding about something or other—Tommie did not know what, though she assumed it was merely another case of temper—and two days later, Thomas left town, and from that day to the Monday of this week just past—a stretch of almost six years—Genevieve had received no word or message from him or about him. When, swallowing her pride, she questioned Drew, he merely shrugged his shoulders in silence, with an expression which seemed to Genevieve compounded of regret and surprise. Finally, when approached rather insistently by Mrs. Rhodes, who was alarmed at the reaction of Genevieve to the incident, though he professed absolute ignorance of his friend’s whereabouts, he showed the greatest concern, and begged Mrs. Rhodes to suspend judgment, as he was sure all would soon come out right. For weeks Genevieve faded visibly, until her family feared she was going into a decline. Then, by some curious revulsion, she seemed to get hold of herself—pride, I guess—but, though soon restored to her normal health and vigor physically, she seemed to have become a confirmed man hater, if, indeed, the word “hate” can be applied to the cold indifference which usually masked her gaze. So, she, who a few years before had been an acknowledged belle, devoted herself to her work, withdrew almost entirely from society, and spent her summers at Northern universities studying. In the interval America went into the war, sending her two millions across the seas.

  In September 1919, nearly two years and a half after Genevieve had last seen or heard from her lover, the first division of the great American overseas force, quartered temporarily at Camp Meade, was ordered to Washington with its complete war equipment, to take part in a monster parade in honor of General Pershing. The first division was composed of regulars, infantry, cavalry, artillery, engineer corps, with their forges, shops, and field kitchens, and last but by no means least in impressiveness, the tanks. There were about 25,000 men in all, and they were hours marching from the Peace Monument at the head of Pennsylvania Avenue, through cheering throngs, past the reviewing stand in front of the White House. Genevieve, Caroline, Tommie, Helen Clay, and a group of their friends, including among the men, Don Verney, were occupying a point of vantage not far from the head of the parade, when suddenly Helen Clay, with something very sharp, like a suppressed shriek, clutched Tommie’s shoulder, and in a low tone said, “Tommie, look where I am pointing! Isn’t that Paul Thomas?”

  Tommie was considerably startled, but managed to look as directed, and sure enough, in front of an engineering battalion, in the position of command, sat a big man, with a captain’s bars on his shoulders, who, allowing for dust and tan, was the very image of Paul Thomas. While she was looking, the battalion moved, and the officer’s face was lost to view.

  While the two girls were afraid to mention this startling phenomenon to Genevieve, it was whispered about in the crowd, and, after a few hasty questions put to Helen Clay and Tommie, Don Verney slipped quietly out of the crowd and cut through a side street, moving with the speed of a man who has a definite objective and is in haste to reach it. The parade moved on to its close, and the crowd dispersed. At seven o’clock that evening, Verney turned up at the Rhodeses’, and was ushered into the dining room, where Tommie, Caroline, and Genevieve were dawdling over their dessert, Mrs. Rhodes being absent for the week at her sister’s, in Baltimore. Tommie and Caroline had ventured to tell Genevieve of the exciting event of the afternoon, and, as the girls had a suspicion of the meaning of Don’s errand, they watched him anxiously as he ate the salad which had been set before him. From time to time each of the three stole furtive glances at Genevieve, who had become very pale, showing plainly the strain she was undergoing. Somehow she seemed to sense what was in their minds, for after a while she turned to Verney, and said:

  “The girls have been telling me that one of the officers in the parade today was the image of Paul Thomas, and I doubt not, from their manner of looking at you, that they feel that you left the crowd today to make sure. If I am right in that conjecture, I thank you most heartily for your friendly interest and any trouble you may have taken on my account. I know you well enough to be sure of the generous spirit in which any such quest was undertaken. But I think it only fair to myself to say that I was living in this very house when Mr. Thomas last saw me, and I have been here ever since. Had he desired to see me, or to communicate with me, he might easily have done so, provided he is still living. If he is living, and has not done so, it is because he did not elect so to do. I could not, therefore, welcome any act which might be construed as an attempt by me or any of my friends to get into touch with him. You must see that it would be subjecting me to an undesirable and undeserved humiliation.”

  As Genevieve spoke, she seemed to grow paler, if possible, and her face more drawn, and—to quote Tommie’s words—her eyes took on an unearthly bigness. The violence of her emotion seemed to be wracking her to pieces and her suffering was so evident that all three of her auditors were stirred to their depths.

  Caroline went to her and put her arms around her.

  “You are very right, sister dear,” she said, “and we are terribly sorry we mentioned the matter at all. It was probably a case of mistaken identity, anyway. Let us forget all about it!”

  After one look, Don never raised his eyes from his plate, but kept on eating, as if he had not heard, and as if he had no part in the scene. But to the onlookers, who knew very well his sensible nature, it was apparent that he was himself very much shaken, and was endeavoring to hide his emotion. It was a very trying few minutes, according to Tommie, and everyone felt the strain.

  It was some minutes later that Verney suddenly spoke, as if he had just come to a decision.

  “As Caroline says, it’s probably a case of mistaken identity, anyway, but we are all dreadfully sorry it had to occur, and so renew a forgotten unpleasantness.”

  Genevieve soon excused herself, and, when her steps had died away in the upper hall, the two girls gazed fixedly at Verney.

  “Don,” asked Tommie, “was it really Paul Thomas? Was it really? ”

  And both young women looked at him as if they would read his innermost thoughts.

  “Don Verney, I knew when you entered that door that you came to bring us news!” said Caroline.

  “How prone you women are to see a sensation where none exists! I came, dear ladies,” said Don, taking out his wallet, and fumbling about in it, “to ask you to honor me with your company at the theater tonight.”

  And, as he spoke, he spread four tickets out on the table.

  “But,” said Tommie to me as she concluded her story, “both Caroline and I feel that Don really did see Paul Thomas, and that he identified him, and strange as it may seem to you, we both believe that Genevieve thinks so, too, and that she spoke as she did to keep him from telling her. I never realized until that evening how much she must have cared for Paul, and how terribly she was hurt by his disappearance and his silence. I have asked Don more than once since that night to tell me the real results of his quest, but he always laughs and evades. He has never yet asserted explicitly that he found out nothing.”

  Such was the story as told to me by Tommie, and between September 1919, and last Monday evening there was nothing to add. Of course, as the res
ult of Tommie’s narrative, I observed Genevieve more closely, and felt a stronger liking for her, through sympathy for her trouble. Only a woman capable of the deepest, truest feeling could have been so affected. And somehow to my way of thinking, she was not at all bitter. She was simply a woman capable of one abiding love. When that was killed, or thwarted, there was nothing left. There was in her gaze cold serenity and supreme indifference. As I compared and contrasted her with her sister, Caroline, I sometimes felt that, if she had had the sparkle, the dash, that wonderful joie de vivre which is Caroline’s distinguishing characteristic, she would be a remarkably handsome woman. Mary Hale told me once that she did have that sparkle in a very high degree when she was a very young woman. I recall also that in Tommie’s memorabilia book there was a newspaper clipping telling about a big charity bazaar, at which Genevieve was designated by popular vote as the most beautiful woman present.

  “And,” said Tommie, “almost everyone was there, and some of the girls really campaigned for votes. Genevieve sat in a box with her mother, and, without lifting a finger, was chosen by a very large plurality over her nearest rival.”

  The night after Tommie had narrated this story to me, she smuggled into my room a photograph of Paul Thomas, which Caroline kept hidden in her personal keepsakes. He surely was a fine-looking chap, with clear, honest eyes. As I gazed at his photograph, I could not help thinking that it would not be hard to recognize him again if one had once seen him.

  I realize that I have been a long time working up to the climax, but the exposition is a very necessary part of a dramatic story.

  On Monday there was a club party at Mary Hale’s, at which an out-of-town visitor of Mrs. Morrow was the guest of honor. As at many of the affairs I have mentioned, the ladies played cards early in the evening and the men came in later to dine and dance. Genevieve has been a member of this club for many years, and it is the one social function in the month which she regularly attends.

  What happened at Mary Hale’s forms a very clear picture in my mind, and I shall never forget it. I had just come down from the upper room where we men left our wraps, and had gone into the back parlor. As luck would have it, there were only a few people there, for most of the men had either not arrived , or were stopping for a cigarette and a chat in the room upstairs, and practically all of the ladies were gathered around a table in the parlor where two or three tellers were casting up the points to determine who had won the prizes. Three or four men were grouped about the door opening from the parlor into the hallway. Genevieve was in front of the fireplace in the back parlor talking to Mr. Hale and Tommie Dawson, and Miss Billie Riddick and a New York chap whose name I cannot now recall were standing in the middle of the room. I had just greeted Mrs. Hale and turned to speak to Genevieve when I heard an exclamation from Dr. Dill, who was one of the group standing in the hallway by the parlor door.

  The doctor has a clear, high voice which carries over any ordinary hubbub, and I heard what he said very distinctly.

  “Well, by all that is holy, if it isn’t Paul Thomas!”

  This was followed by sounds of noisy greeting from the other men, and exclamations from some of the ladies in the front parlor. I turned quickly, and saw towering above the heads of the men about him a stalwart form attired in the uniform of the USA. One glance at his face showed me that it was indeed the original of the photograph Tommie had shown me. Then I thought of Genevieve. She had been standing facing the door, and must have seen him almost before anyone else. Never have I seen such a transformation. Her face, which but a moment before had looked at me with a serene smile, was now pale and drawn, and she was shaking all over. In a flash it came to me what it would mean to her to have to meet this man under the battery of a hundred curious eyes. I looked at Tommie inquiringly. She—oh, rare girl that she is—caught my meaning instantly and nodded. In the fraction of a second that it had taken all this to happen, Mary Hale had stepped close to Genevieve and had taken her arm, and with the same motion seemed to screen her from the gaze of those in the front parlor. These ladies, however, were so startled by the apparition of Paul Thomas that for the moment at least they forgot everything else. Unresistingly, and as if in a dream, Genevieve let Mrs. Hale and me pilot her out into the back hall. There our hostess quickly opened a closet door, motioning me to move on into the dining room. In a second she had overtaken us, bringing her fur coat, which she placed affectionately about Genevieve’s shoulders, at the same time giving her a kiss.

  “Captain Carr will be glad to see you home, dear!” she said. “You can go out the back door. I will wait here while you get your coat and hat,” she added, turning to me.

  Now I knew that every second spent under that roof would be an eternity of torture to Genevieve Rhodes, and I felt that it would be far easier for me to stand the little discomfort of the out-of-doors.

  “It isn’t cold,” I said, “and we haven’t far to go.”

  Mrs. Hale protested, but I would not listen. As for Genevieve, I don’t believe she heard a word we were saying. Except for her trembling, she seemed perfectly numb.

  So I led her out of the back door onto a porch, and thence through the alley gate to a side street. After the warm house, it was cold, and I shivered in spite of myself, but I was so glad that we had succeeded in escaping without observation that I minded the chill but little. It was only when we were actually in the hallway of her house that the poor girl noticed that I was bareheaded and without a topcoat.

  “You poor Davy,” she said, “you should not have done it! Come in by the fire at once.”

  As it somehow seemed to do her good to take some thought for me, I made no protest but followed unresistingly into the back parlor, where the cheerful open fire, a permanent fixture in the Rhodes household in the winter season, gave me a most cheerful welcome.

  There Genevieve fell into the corner of the big davenport as if exhausted, her sudden interest in my welfare having flickered out as quickly as it had flared up, and left her as numb as she had been when we left Mrs. Hale’s house. However, she let me remove her fur coat, and then, as if she were quite oblivious of my presence, she fell into a reverie, looking fixedly into the fire. As for me, I knew not what to do or say. As you well know, I am the very last person in the world to wish to intrude upon a private grief of any other mortal, but somehow in this instance it did not seem right to leave. I don’t know exactly why I felt so, but I did. Perhaps I felt that if she had wanted to be alone absolutely she would have sought her own room. The fact that she had not seemed to indicate that perhaps I might better remain.

  So I sat quietly beside her, taking her hand, which I held in mine. She made no effort to withdraw it. After a while she began to cry softly, and big tears coursed down her cheeks unrestrained. This was too much for me. So I released her hand, put my arm about her, and drew her head down on my shoulder, where she wept to her heart’s content. Now as I write these words of cold description, I marvel, first at my temerity in doing such a thing, and secondly, at her calm acceptance of it, and you, who know Genevieve Rhodes so well, will marvel with me, I know. But it is all true as I relate it, and, strange to say, at the time it happened it seemed absolutely natural.

  After a few minutes of quiet tears, and a few minutes of calm, she straightened up, and said, with her old calm smile:

  “You’re a real comfort, Davy! I cannot tell you how I appreciate what you and Mary Hale did tonight, I really can’t. I shall never forget that you were sympathetic enough to realize what I must feel, and generous enough to do what you thought I should want done, when I myself was too paralyzed to think or act. Sometimes we are inclined to believe that the present generation is going to the dogs, but whenever I get too pessimistic, I love to recall the fact that I have seen you under fire more than once, and I have never known you to fail to act as becomes a gentleman.”

  And Genevieve took my hand in both of hers, and held it fast. I have never had a compliment which pleased me more than that little speech. I
say this without reference to the question as to whether I deserved it or not!

  At this juncture there was a noise at the door, the rattling of the knob, and the sound of voices. Genevieve arose as if in a panic, and as I stood by her, looking inquiringly, she put her arm through mine, and clung close to me as if for protection. It is a queer thing how in moments of real emotional stress we slough off the purely conventional forms. So interested was I in Genevieve’s troubles that I quite overlooked anything else, and was brought to my usual senses by the startled glances of both Caroline and Don, who now entered the parlor. Caroline’s eyes when they fell upon us standing there had a look of real fright— I can think now of no other word which so aptly characterizes it, and Don’s expression was not far behind. After exchanging a puzzled look with one another, Don said:

  “I have had a talk with Paul and what he says convinces me that you have done him an injustice and owe him at the least a hearing. I say that with a full recollection of what you said in my presence the last time I heard you mention his name.”

  There was a moment’s silence. Genevieve’s look was unfathomable. Finally she said, and as she spoke she seemed to draw closer to me:

  “Tell us quickly what he said. If Davy thinks I ought to see him, I will.”

  Again Don and Caroline exchanged glances of some bewilderment. But Don is a cool one, and in a moment he was his usual calm self.

  “Surely!” he said. “To be brief, after Paul went away, angry, he sent you messages through his friend Oliver Drew. From you directly he never received any answer, but he did hear indirectly through Drew, and the message was most unfavorable. He sent another message through the same source, and the answer was still more unfavorable. Then he heard nothing more for some time, and then came a letter from Drew intimating that he (Drew) was very hopeful of bringing his own suit to a successful conclusion. Paul himself has been absent from the country since the summer of 1917, with the exception of a few weeks in 1919, and has never heard your name called until today. He convinced me of the truth of all these things, and I feel he can convince you. Since this version of the story did not seem to tally with the one which evidently sticks in your mind, I ventured to ask you to hear him. I hope Davy agrees with me.”