by Frank Norris
But nevertheless Laura did not move, and another five minutes went by.
Page took advantage of the interval to tell Laura about Jadwin. He was very rich, but a bachelor, and had made his money in Chicago real estate. Some of his holdings in the business quarter of the city were enormous; Landry Court had told her about him. Jadwin, unlike Mr. Cressler, was not opposed to speculation. Though not a member of the Board of Trade, he nevertheless at very long intervals took part in a “deal” in wheat, or corn, or provisions. He believed that all corners were doomed to failure, however, and had predicted Helmick’s collapse six months ago. He had influence, was well known to all Chicago people, what he said carried weight, financiers consulted him, promoters sought his friendship, his name on the board of directors of a company was an all-sufficing endorsement; in a word, a “strong” man.
“I can’t understand,” exclaimed Laura distrait, referring to the delay on the part of the Cresslers. “This was the night, and this was the place, and it is long past the time. We could telephone to the house, you know,” she said, struck with an idea, “and see if they’ve started, or what has happened.”
“I don’t know — I don’t know,” murmured Mrs. Wessels vaguely. No one seemed ready to act upon Laura’s suggestion, and again the minutes passed.
“I’m going,” declared Laura again, looking at the other two, as if to demand what they had to say against the idea.
“I just couldn’t,” declared Page flatly.
“Well,” continued Laura, “I’ll wait just three minutes more, and then if the Cresslers are not here I will speak to him. It seems to me to be perfectly natural, and not at all bold.”
She waited three minutes, and the Cresslers still failing to appear, temporised yet further, for the twentieth time repeating:
“I don’t see — I can’t understand.”
Then, abruptly drawing her cape about her, she crossed the vestibule and came up to Jadwin.
As she approached she saw him catch her eye. Then, as he appeared to understand that this young woman was about to speak to him, she noticed an expression of suspicion, almost of distrust, come into his face. No doubt he knew nothing of this other party who were to join the Cresslers in the vestibule. Why should this girl speak to him? Something had gone wrong, and the instinct of the man, no longer very young, to keep out of strange young women’s troubles betrayed itself in the uneasy glance that he shot at her from under his heavy eyebrows. But the look faded as quickly as it had come. Laura guessed that he had decided that in such a place as this he need have no suspicions. He took the cigar from his mouth, and she, immensely relieved, realised that she had to do with a man who was a gentleman. Full of trepidation as she had been in crossing the vestibule, she was quite mistress of herself when the instant came for her to speak, and it was in a steady voice and without embarrassment that she said:
“I beg your pardon, but I believe this is Mr. Jadwin.”
He took off his hat, evidently a little nonplussed that she should know his name, and by now she was ready even to browbeat him a little should it be necessary.
“Yes, yes,” he answered, now much more confused than she, “my name is Jadwin.”
“I believe,” continued Laura steadily, “we were all to be in the same party to-night with the Cresslers. But they don’t seem to come, and we — my sister and my aunt and I — don’t know what to do.”
She saw that he was embarrassed, convinced, and the knowledge that she controlled the little situation, that she could command him, restored her all her equanimity.
“My name is Miss Dearborn,” she continued. “I believe you know my sister Page.”
By some trick of manner she managed to convey to him the impression that if he did not know her sister Page, that if for one instant he should deem her to be bold, he would offer a mortal affront. She had not yet forgiven him that stare of suspicion when first their eyes had met; he should pay her for that yet.
“Miss Page, — your sister, — Miss Page Dearborn? Certainly I know her,” he answered. “And you have been waiting, too? What a pity!” And he permitted himself the awkwardness of adding: “I did not know that you were to be of our party.”
“No,” returned Laura upon the instant, “I did not know you were to be one of us to-night — until Page told me.” She accented the pronouns a little, but it was enough for him to know that he had been rebuked. How, he could not just say; and for what it was impossible for him at the moment to determine; and she could see that he began to experience a certain distress, was beating a retreat, was ceding place to her. Who was she, then, this tall and pretty young woman, with the serious, unsmiling face, who was so perfectly at ease, and who hustled him about and made him feel as though he were to blame for the Cresslers’ non-appearance; as though it was his fault that she must wait in the draughty vestibule. She had a great air with her; how had he offended her? If he had introduced himself to her, had forced himself upon her, she could not be more lofty, more reserved.
“I thought perhaps you might telephone,” she observed.
“They haven’t a telephone, unfortunately,” he answered.
“Oh!”
This was quite the last slight, the Cresslers had not a telephone! He was to blame for that, too, it seemed. At his wits’ end, he entertained for an instant the notion of dashing out into the street in a search for a messenger boy, who would take a note to Cressler and set him right again; and his agitation was not allayed when Laura, in frigid tones, declared:
“It seems to me that something might be done.”
“I don’t know,” he replied helplessly. “I guess there’s nothing to be done but just wait. They are sure to be along.”
In the background, Page and Mrs. Wessels had watched the interview, and had guessed that Laura was none too gracious. Always anxious that her sister should make a good impression, the little girl was now in great distress.
“Laura is putting on her ‘grand manner,’” she lamented. “I just know how she’s talking. The man will hate the very sound of her name all the rest of his life.” Then all at once she uttered a joyful exclamation: “At last, at last,” she cried, “and about time, too!”
The Cresslers and the rest of the party — two young men — had appeared, and Page and her aunt came up just in time to hear Mrs. Cressler — a fine old lady, in a wonderful ermine-trimmed cape, whose hair was powdered — exclaim at the top of her voice, as if the mere declaration of fact was final, absolutely the last word upon the subject, “The bridge was turned!”
The Cresslers lived on the North Side. The incident seemed to be closed with the abruptness of a slammed door.
Page and Aunt Wess’ were introduced to Jadwin, who was particular to announce that he remembered the young girl perfectly. The two young men were already acquainted with the Dearborn sisters and Mrs. Wessels. Page and Laura knew one of them well enough to address him familiarly by his Christian name.
This was Landry Court, a young fellow just turned twenty-three, who was “connected with” the staff of the great brokerage firm of Gretry, Converse and Co. He was astonishingly good-looking, small-made, wiry, alert, nervous, debonair, with blond hair and dark eyes that snapped like a terrier’s. He made friends almost at first sight, and was one of those fortunate few who were favoured equally of men and women. The healthiness of his eye and skin persuaded to a belief in the healthiness of his mind; and, in fact, Landry was as clean without as within. He was frank, open-hearted, full of fine sentiments and exaltations and enthusiasms. Until he was eighteen he had cherished an ambition to become the President of the United States.
“Yes, yes,” he said to Laura, “the bridge was turned. It was an imposition. We had to wait while they let three tows through. I think two at a time is as much as is legal. And we had to wait for three. Yes, sir; three, think of that! I shall look into that to-morrow. Yes, sir; don’t you be afraid of that. I’ll look into it.” He nodded his head with profound seriousness.
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bsp; “Well,” announced Mr. Cressler, marshalling the party, “shall we go in? I’m afraid, Laura, we’ve missed the overture.”
Smiling, she shrugged her shoulders, while they moved to the wicket, as if to say that it could not be helped now.
Cressler, tall, lean, bearded, and stoop-shouldered, belonging to the same physical type that includes Lincoln — the type of the Middle West — was almost a second father to the parentless Dearborn girls. In Massachusetts, thirty years before this time, he had been a farmer, and the miller Dearborn used to grind his grain regularly. The two had been boys together, and had always remained fast friends, almost brothers. Then, in the years just before the War, had come the great movement westward, and Cressler had been one of those to leave an “abandoned” New England farm behind him, and with his family emigrate toward the Mississippi. He had come to Sangamon County in Illinois. For a time he tried wheat-raising, until the War, which skied the prices of all food-stuffs, had made him — for those days — a rich man. Giving up farming, he came to live in Chicago, bought a seat on the Board of Trade, and in a few years was a millionaire. At the time of the Turco-Russian War he and two Milwaukee men had succeeded in cornering all the visible supply of spring wheat. At the end of the thirtieth day of the corner the clique figured out its profits at close upon a million; a week later it looked like a million and a half. Then the three lost their heads; they held the corner just a fraction of a month too long, and when the time came that the three were forced to take profits, they found that they were unable to close out their immense holdings without breaking the price. In two days wheat that they had held at a dollar and ten cents collapsed to sixty. The two Milwaukee men were ruined, and two-thirds of Cressler’s immense fortune vanished like a whiff of smoke.
But he had learned his lesson. Never since then had he speculated. Though keeping his seat on the Board, he had confined himself to commission trading, uninfluenced by fluctuations in the market. And he was never wearied of protesting against the evil and the danger of trading in margins. Speculation he abhorred as the small-pox, believing it to be impossible to corner grain by any means or under any circumstances. He was accustomed to say: “It can’t be done; first, for the reason that there is a great harvest of wheat somewhere in the world for every month in the year; and, second, because the smart man who runs the corner has every other smart man in the world against him. And, besides, it’s wrong; the world’s food should not be at the mercy of the Chicago wheat pit.”
As the party filed in through the wicket, the other young man who had come with Landry Court managed to place himself next to Laura. Meeting her eyes, he murmured:
“Ah, you did not wear them after all. My poor little flowers.”
But she showed him a single American Beauty, pinned to the shoulder of her gown beneath her cape.
“Yes, Mr. Corthell,” she answered, “one. I tried to select the prettiest, and I think I succeeded — don’t you? It was hard to choose.”
“Since you have worn it, it is the prettiest,” he answered.
He was a slightly built man of about twenty-eight or thirty; dark, wearing a small, pointed beard, and a mustache that he brushed away from his lips like a Frenchman. By profession he was an artist, devoting himself more especially to the designing of stained windows. In this, his talent was indisputable. But he was by no means dependent upon his profession for a living, his parents — long since dead — having left him to the enjoyment of a very considerable fortune. He had a beautiful studio in the Fine Arts Building, where he held receptions once every two months, or whenever he had a fine piece of glass to expose. He had travelled, read, studied, occasionally written, and in matters pertaining to the colouring and fusing of glass was cited as an authority. He was one of the directors of the new Art Gallery that had taken the place of the old Exposition Building on the Lake Front.
Laura had known him for some little time. On the occasion of her two previous visits to Page he had found means to see her two or three times each week. Once, even, he had asked her to marry him, but she, deep in her studies at the time, consumed with vague ambitions to be a great actress of Shakespearian roles, had told him she could care for nothing but her art. He had smiled and said that he could wait, and, strangely enough, their relations had resumed again upon the former footing. Even after she had gone away they had corresponded regularly, and he had made and sent her a tiny window — a veritable jewel — illustrative of a scene from “Twelfth Night.”
In the foyer, as the gentlemen were checking their coats, Laura overheard Jadwin say to Mr. Cressler:
“Well, how about Helmick?”
The other made an impatient movement of his shoulders.
“Ask me, what was the fool thinking of — a corner! Pshaw!”
There were one or two other men about, making their overcoats and opera hats into neat bundles preparatory to checking them; and instantly there was a flash of a half-dozen eyes in the direction of the two men. Evidently the collapse of the Helmick deal was in the air. All the city seemed interested.
But from behind the heavy curtains that draped the entrance to the theatre proper, came a muffled burst of music, followed by a long salvo of applause. Laura’s cheeks flamed with impatience, she hurried after Mrs. Cressler; Corthell drew the curtains for her to pass, and she entered.
Inside it was dark, and a prolonged puff of hot air, thick with the mingled odours of flowers, perfume, upholstery, and gas, enveloped her upon the instant. It was the unmistakable, unforgettable, entrancing aroma of the theatre, that she had known only too seldom, but that in a second set her heart galloping.
Every available space seemed to be occupied. Men, even women, were standing up, compacted into a suffocating pressure, and for the moment everybody was applauding vigorously. On all sides Laura heard:
“Bravo!”
“Good, good!”
“Very well done!”
“Encore! Encore!”
Between the peoples’ heads and below the low dip of the overhanging balcony — a brilliant glare in the surrounding darkness — she caught a glimpse of the stage. It was set for a garden; at the back and in the distance a chateau; on the left a bower, and on the right a pavilion. Before the footlights, a famous contralto, dressed as a boy, was bowing to the audience, her arms full of flowers.
“Too bad,” whispered Corthell to Laura, as they followed the others down the side-aisle to the box. “Too bad, this is the second act already; you’ve missed the whole first act — and this song. She’ll sing it over again, though, just for you, if I have to lead the applause myself. I particularly wanted you to hear that.”
Once in the box, the party found itself a little crowded, and Jadwin and Cressler were obliged to stand, in order to see the stage. Although they all spoke in whispers, their arrival was the signal for certain murmurs of “Sh! Sh!” Mrs. Cressler made Laura occupy the front seat. Jadwin took her cloak from her, and she settled herself in her chair and looked about her. She could see but little of the house or audience. All the lights were lowered; only through the gloom the swaying of a multitude of fans, pale coloured, like night-moths balancing in the twilight, defined itself.
But soon she turned towards the stage. The applause died away, and the contralto once more sang the aria. The melody was simple, the tempo easily followed; it was not a very high order of music. But to Laura it was nothing short of a revelation.
She sat spell-bound, her hands clasped tight, her every faculty of attention at its highest pitch. It was wonderful, such music as that; wonderful, such a voice; wonderful, such orchestration; wonderful, such exaltation inspired by mere beauty of sound. Never, never was this night to be forgotten, this her first night of Grand Opera. All this excitement, this world of perfume, of flowers, of exquisite costumes, of beautiful women, of fine, brave men. She looked back with immense pity to the narrow little life of her native town she had just left forever, the restricted horizon, the petty round of petty duties, the rare and barren ple
asures — the library, the festival, the few concerts, the trivial plays. How easy it was to be good and noble when music such as this had become a part of one’s life; how desirable was wealth when it could make possible such exquisite happiness as hers of the moment. Nobility, purity, courage, sacrifice seemed much more worth while now than a few moments ago. All things not positively unworthy became heroic, all things and all men. Landry Court was a young chevalier, pure as Galahad. Corthell was a beautiful artist-priest of the early Renaissance. Even Jadwin was a merchant prince, a great financial captain. And she herself — ah, she did not know; she dreamed of another Laura, a better, gentler, more beautiful Laura, whom everybody, everybody loved dearly and tenderly, and who loved everybody, and who should die beautifully, gently, in some garden far away — die because of a great love — beautifully, gently in the midst of flowers, die of a broken heart, and all the world should be sorry for her, and would weep over her when they found her dead and beautiful in her garden, amid the flowers and the birds, in some far-off place, where it was always early morning and where there was soft music. And she was so sorry for herself, and so hurt with the sheer strength of her longing to be good and true, and noble and womanly, that as she sat in the front of the Cresslers’ box on that marvellous evening, the tears ran down her cheeks again and again, and dropped upon her tight-shut, white-gloved fingers.
But the contralto had disappeared, and in her place the tenor held the stage — a stout, short young man in red plush doublet and grey silk tights. His chin advanced, an arm extended, one hand pressed to his breast, he apostrophised the pavilion, that now and then swayed a little in the draught from the wings.
The aria was received with furor; thrice he was obliged to repeat it. Even Corthell, who was critical to extremes, approved, nodding his head. Laura and Page clapped their hands till the very last. But Landry Court, to create an impression, assumed a certain disaffection.
“He’s not in voice to-night. Too bad. You should have heard him Friday in ‘Aida.’”