Chambers Robert William
Iole
V
THE double wedding at the Church of Sainte Cicindella was pretty and sufficiently fashionable to inconvenience traffic on Fifth Avenue. Partly from loyalty, partly from curiosity, the clans of Wayne and Briggs, with their offshoots and social adherents, attended; and they saw Briggs and Wayne on their best behavior, attended by Sudbury Grey and Winsted Forest; and they saw two bridal visions of loveliness, attended by six additional sister visions as bridesmaids; and they saw the poet, agitated with the holy emotions of a father, now almost unmanned, now rallying, spraying the hushed air with sweetness. They saw clergymen and a bishop, and the splendor of stained glass through which ushers tiptoed. And they heard the subdued rustling of skirts and the silken stir, and the great organ breathing over Eden, and a single artistically-modulated sob from the poet. A good many other things they heard and saw, especially those of the two clans who were bidden to the breakfast at Wayne’s big and splendid house on the southwest corner of Seventy-ninth Street and Madison Avenue.
For here they were piped to breakfast by the boatswain of Wayne’s big seagoing yacht, the Thendara—on which brides and grooms were presently to embark for Cairo via the Azores—and speeches were said and tears shed into goblets glimmering with vintages worth prayerful consideration.
And in due time two broughams, drawn by dancing horses, with the azure ribbons aflutter from the head-stalls, bore away two very beautiful and excited brides and two determined, but entirely rattled, grooms. And after that several relays of parents fraternized with the poet and six daughters, and the clans of Briggs and of Wayne said a number of agreeable things to anybody who cared to listen; and as everybody did listen, there was a great deal of talk—more talk in a minute than the sisters of Iole had heard in all their several limited and innocently natural existences. So it confused them, not with its quality, but its profusion; and the champagne made their cheeks feel as though the soft peachy skin fitted too tight, and a number of persistent musical instruments were being tuned in their little ears; and, not yet thoroughly habituated to any garments except pink sunbonnets and pajamas, their straight fronts felt too tight, and the tops of their stockings pulled, and they balanced badly on their high heels, and Aphrodite and Cybele, being too snugly laced, retired to rid themselves of their first corsets.
The remaining four, Lissa, now eighteen; Dione, fifteen; Philodice, fourteen, and Chlorippe, thirteen, found the missing Pleiads in the great library, joyously donning their rose-silk lounging pajamas, while two parlor maids brought ices from the wrecked feast below.
So they, too, flung from them crinkling silk and diaphanous lace, high-heel shoon and the delicate body-harness never fashioned for free-limbed dryads of the Rose-Cross wilds; and they kept the electric signals going for ices and fruits and pitchers brimming with clear cold water; and they sat there in a circle like a thicket of fluttering pale-pink roses, until below the last guest had sped out into the unknown wastes of Gotham, and the poet’s heavy step was on the stair.
The poet was agitated—and like a humble bicolored quadruped of the Rose-Cross wilds, which, when agitated, sprays the air—so the poet, laboring obesely under his emotion, smiled with a sweetness so intolerable that the air seemed to be squirted full of saccharinity to the point of plethoric saturation.
“My lambs,” he murmured, fat hands clasped and dropped before him as straight as his rounded abdomen would permit; “my babes!”
“Do you think,” suggested Aphrodite, busy with her ice, “that we are going to enjoy this winter in Mr. Wayne’s house?”
“Enjoyment,” breathed the poet in an overwhelming gush of sweetness, “is not in houses; it is in one’s soul. What is wealth? Everything! Therefore it is of no value. What is poverty? Nothing! And, as it is the little things that are the most precious, so nothing, which is less than the very least, is precious beyond price. Thank you for listening; thank you for understanding. Bless you.”
And he wandered away, almost asphyxiated with his emotions.
“I mean to have a gay winter—if I can ever get used to being laced in and pulled over by those dreadful garters,” observed Aphrodite, stretching her smooth young limbs in comfort.
“I suppose there would be trouble if we wore our country clothes on Broadway, wouldn’t there?” asked Lissa wistfully.
Chlorippe, aged thirteen, kicked off her sandals and stretched her pretty snowy feet: “They were never in the world made to fit into high-heeled shoes,” she declared pensively, widening her little rosy toes.
“But we might as well get used to all these things,” sighed Philodice, rolling over among the cushions, a bunch of hothouse grapes suspended above her pink mouth. She ate one, looked at Dione, and yawned.
“I’m going to practise wearing ’em an hour a day,” said Aphrodite, “because I mean to go to the theater. It’s worth the effort. Besides, if we just sit here in the house all day asking each other Greek riddles, we will never see anybody until Iole and Vanessa come back from their honeymoon and give teas and dinners for all sorts of interesting young men.”
“Oh, the attractive young men I have seen in these few days in New York!” exclaimed Lissa. “Would you believe it, the first day I walked out with George Wayne and Iole, I was perfectly bewildered and enchanted to see so many delightful-looking men. And by and by Iole missed me, and George came back and found me standing entranced on the corner of Fifth Avenue; and I said, “Please don’t disturb me, George, because I am only standing here to enjoy the sight of so many agreeable-looking men.” But he acted so queerly about it.” She ended with a little sigh. “However, I love George, of course, even if he does bore me. I wonder where they are now—the bridal pairs?”
“I wonder,” mused Philodice, “whether they have any children by this time?”
“Not yet,” explained Aphrodite. “But they’ll probably have some when they return. I understand it takes a good many weeks—to–”
“To find new children,” nodded Chlorippe confidently. “I suppose they’ve hidden the cunning little things somewhere on the yacht, and it’s like hunt the thimble and lots and lots of fun.” And she distributed six oranges.
Lissa was not so certain of that, but, discussing the idea with Cybele, and arriving at no conclusion, devoted herself to the large juicy orange with more satisfaction, conscious that the winter’s outlook was bright for them all and full of the charming mystery of anticipations so glittering yet so general that she could form not even the haziest ideas of their wonderful promise. And so, sucking the sunlit pulp of their oranges, they were content to live, dream, and await fulfilment under the full favor of a Heaven which had never yet sent them aught but happiness beneath the sun.
VI
NEITHER Lethbridge nor Harrow—lately exceedingly important undergraduates at Harvard and now twin nobodies in the employment of the great Occidental Fidelity and Trust Company—neither of these young men, I say, had any particular business at the New Arts Theater that afternoon.
For the play was Barnard Haw’s Attitudes, the performance was private and intensely intellectual, the admission by invitation only, and between the acts there was supposed to be a general causerie among the gifted individuals of the audience.
Why Stanley West, president of the Occidental Trust, should have presented to his two young kinsmen the tickets inscribed with his own name was a problem, unless everybody else, including the elevator boys, had politely declined the offer.
“That’s probably the case,” observed Lethbridge. “Do we go?”
“Art,” said Harrow, “will be on the loose among that audience. And if anybody can speak to anybody there, we’ll get spoken to just as if we were sitting for company, and first we know somebody will ask us what Art really is.”
“I’d like to see a place full of atmosphere,” suggested Lethbridge. “I’ve seen almost everything—the Café Jaune, and Chinatown, and—you remember that joint at Tangier? But I’ve never seen atmosphere. I don’t care how thin it is; I just want to say that I’ve seen it when the next girl throws it all over me.” And as Harrow remained timid, he added: “We won’t have to climb across the footlights and steal a curl from the author, because he’s already being sheared in England. There’s nothing to scare you.”
Normally, however, they were intensely afraid of Art except at their barbers’, and they had heard, in various ways as vague as Broad Street rumors, something concerning these gatherings of the elect at the New Arts Theater on Saturday afternoons, where unselfish reformers produced plays for Art’s sake as a rebuke to managers who declined to produce that sort of play for anybody’s sake.
“I’ll bet,” said Harrow, “that some thrifty genius sent Stanley West those tickets in a desperate endeavor to amalgamate the aristocracies of wealth and intellect!—as though you could shake ’em up as you shake a cocktail! As though you’d catch your Uncle Stanley wearing his richest Burgundy flush, sitting in the orchestra and talking Arr Noovo to a young thing with cheek-bones who’d pinch him into a cocked hat for a contribution between the acts!”
“Still,” said Lethbridge, “even Art requires a wad to pay its license. Isn’t West the foxy Freddie! Do you suppose, if we go, they’ll sting us for ten?”
“They’ll probably take up a collection for the professor,” said Harrow gloomily. “Better come to the club and give the tickets to the janitor.”
“Oh, that’s putting it all over Art! If anybody with earnest eyes tries to speak to us we can call a policeman.”
“Well,” said Harrow, “on your promise to keep your mouth shut I’ll go with you. If you open it they’ll discover you’re an appraiser and I’m a broker, and then they’ll think we’re wealthy, because there’d be no other reason for our being there, and they’ll touch us both for a brace of come-ons, and–”
“Perhaps,” interrupted the other, “we’ll be fortunate enough to sit next to a peach! And as it’s the proper thing there to talk to your neighbor, the prospect—er—needn’t jar you.”
There was a silence as they walked up-town, which lasted until they entered their lodgings. And by that time they had concluded to go.
VII
SO they went, having nothing better on hand, and at two o’clock they sidled into the squatty little theater, shyly sought their reserved seats and sat very still, abashed in the presence of the massed intellects of Manhattan.
When Clarence Guilford, the Poet of Simplicity, followed by six healthy, vigorous young daughters, entered the middle aisle of the New Arts Theater, a number of people whispered in reverent recognition: “Guilford, the poet! Those are his daughters. They wear nothing but pink pajamas at home. Sh-sh-h-h!”
Perhaps the poet heard, for he heard a great deal when absent-minded. He paused; his six tall and blooming daughters, two and two behind him, very naturally paused also, because the poet was bulky and the aisle narrow.
Those of the elect who had recognized him had now an opportunity to view him at close range; young women with expressive eyes leaned forward, quivering; several earnest young men put up lorgnettes.
It was as it should have been; and the poet stood motionless in dreamy abstraction, until an usher took his coupons and turned down seven seats. Then the six daughters filed in, and the poet, slowly turning to survey the house, started slightly, as though surprised to find himself under public scrutiny, passed a large, plump hand over his forehead, and slowly subsided into the aisle-seat with a smile of whimsical acquiescence in the knowledge of his own greatness.
“Who,” inquired young Harrow, turning toward Lethbridge—“who is that duck?”
“You can search me,” replied Lethbridge in a low voice, “but for Heaven’s sake look at those girls! Is it right to bunch such beauty and turn down Senators from Utah?”
Harrow’s dazzled eyes wandered over the six golden heads and snowy necks, lovely as six wholesome young goddesses fresh from a bath in the Hellespont.
“The—the one next to the one beside you,” whispered Lethbridge, edging around. “I want to run away with her. Would you mind getting me a hansom?”
“The one next to me has them all pinched to death,” breathed Harrow unsteadily. “Look!—when she isn’t looking. Did you ever see such eyes and mouth—such a superb free poise–”
“Sh-sh-h-h!” muttered Lethbridge, “the bell-mule is talking to them.”
“Art,” said the poet, leaning over to look along the line of fragrant, fresh young beauty, “Art is an art.” With which epigram he slowly closed his eyes.
His daughters looked at him; a young woman expensively but not smartly gowned bent forward from the row behind. Her attitude was almost prayerful; her eyes burned.
“Art,” continued the poet, opening his heavy lids with a large, sweet smile, “Art is above Art, but Art is never below Art. Art, to be Art, must be artless. That is a very precious thought—very, very precious. Thank you for understanding me—thank you.” And he included in his large smile young Harrow, who had been unconsciously bending forward, hypnotized by the monotonous resonance of the poet’s deep, rich voice.
Now that the spell was broken, he sank back in his chair, looking at Lethbridge a little wildly.
“Let me sit next—after the first act,” began Lethbridge, coaxing; “they’ll be watching the stage all the first act and you can look at ’em without being rude, and they’ll do the same next act, and I can look at ’em, and perhaps they’ll ask us what Art really is–”
“Did you hear what that man said?” interrupted Harrow, recovering his voice. “Did you?”
“No; what?”
“Well, listen next time. And all I have to say is, if that firing-line, with its battery of innocent blue eyes, understands him, you and I had better apply to the nearest night-school for the rudiments of an education.”
“Well, what did he say?” began the other uneasily, when again the poet bent forward to address the firing-line; and the lovely blue battery turned silently upon the author of their being.
“Art is the result of a complex mental attitude capable of producing concrete simplicity.”
“Help!” whispered Harrow, but the poet had caught his eye, and was fixing the young man with a smile that held him as sirup holds a fly.
“You ask me what is Art, young sir? Why should I not heed you? Why should I not answer you? What artificial barriers, falsely called convention, shall force me to ignore the mute eloquence of your questioning eyes? You ask me what is Art. I will tell you; it is this!” And the poet, inverting his thumb, pressed it into the air. Then, carefully inspecting the dent he had made in the atmosphere, he erased it with a gesture and folded his arms, looking gravely at Harrow, whose fascinated eyes protruded.
Behind him Lethbridge whispered hoarsely, “I told you how it would be in the New Arts Theater. I told you a young man alone was likely to get spoken to. Now those six girls know you’re a broker!”
“Don’t say it so loud,” muttered Harrow savagely. “I’m all right so far, for I haven’t said a word.”
“You’d better not,” returned the other. “I wish that curtain would go up and stay up. It will be my turn to sit next them after this act, you know.”
Harrow ventured to glance at the superb young creature sitting beside him, and at the same instant she looked up and, catching his eye, smiled in the most innocently friendly fashion—the direct, clear-eyed advance of a child utterly unconscious of self.
“I have never before been in a theater,” she said; “have you?”
“I—I beg your pardon,” stammered Harrow when he found his voice, “but were you good enough to speak to me?”
“Why, yes!” she said, surprised but amiable; “shouldn’t I have spoken to you?”
“Indeed—oh, indeed you should!” said Harrow hastily, with a quick glance at the poet. The poet, however, appeared to be immersed in thought, lids partially closed, a benignant smile imprinted on his heavy features.
“What are you doing?” breathed Lethbridge in his ear. Harrow calmly turned his back on his closest friend and gazed rapturously at his goddess. And again her bewildering smile broke out and he fairly blinked in its glory.
“This is my first play,” she said; “I’m a little excited. I hope I shall care for it.”
“Haven’t you ever seen a play?” asked Harrow, tenderly amazed.
“Never. You see, we always lived in the country, and we have always been poor until my sister Iole married. And now our father has come to live with his new son-in-law. So that is how we came to be here in New York.”
“I am so glad you did come,” said Harrow fervently.
“So are we. We have never before seen anything like a large city. We have never had enough money to see one. But now that Iole is married, everything is possible. It is all so interesting for us—particularly the clothing. Do you like my gown?”
“It is a dream!” stammered the infatuated youth.
“Do you think so? I think it is wonderful—but not very comfortable.”
“Doesn’t it fit?” he inquired.
“Perfectly; that’s the trouble. It is not comfortable. We never before were permitted to wear skirts and all sorts of pretty fluffy frills under them, and such high heels, and such long stockings, and such tight lacing—” She hesitated, then calmly: “But I believe father told us that we are not to mention our pretty underwear, though it’s hard not to, as it’s the first we ever had.”
Harrow was past all speech.
“I wish I had my lounging-suit on,” she said with a sigh and a hitch of her perfectly modeled shoulders.
“W—what sort of things do you usually dress in?” he ventured.
“Why, in dress-reform clothes!” she said, laughing. “We never have worn anything else.”
“Bloomers!”
“I don’t know; we had trousers and blouses and sandals—something like the pink pajamas we have for night-wear now. Formerly we wore nothing at night. I am beginning to wonder, from the way people look at us when we speak of this, whether we were odd. But all our lives we have never thought about clothing. However, I am glad you like my new gown, and I fancy I’ll get used to this tight lacing in time.... What is your name?”
“James Harrow,” he managed to say, aware of an innocence and directness of thought and speech which were awaking in him faintest responsive echoes. They were the blessed echoes from the dim, fair land of childhood, but he did not know it.
“James Harrow,” she repeated with a friendly nod. “My name is Lissa—my first name; the other is Guilford. My father is the famous poet, Clarence Guilford. He named us all after butterflies—all my sisters”—counting them on her white fingers while her eyes rested on him—“Chlorippe, twelve years old, that pretty one next to my father; then Philodice, thirteen; Dione, fourteen; Aphrodite, fifteen; Cybele, the one next to me, sixteen, and almost seventeen; and myself, seventeen, almost eighteen. Besides, there is Iole, who married Mr. Wayne, and Vanessa, married to Mr. Briggs. They have been off on Mr. Wayne’s yacht, the Thendara, on their wedding trip. Now you know all about us. Do you think you would like to know us?”
“Like to! I’d simply love to! I–”
“That is very nice,” she said unembarrassed.
“I thought I should like you when I saw you leaning over and listening so reverently to father’s epigrams. Then, besides, I had nobody but my sisters to talk to. Oh, you can’t imagine how many attractive men I see every day in New York—and I should like to know them all—and many do look at me as though they would like it, too; but Mr. Wayne is so queer, and so are father and Mr. Briggs—about my speaking to people in public places. They have told me not to, but I—I—thought I would,” she ended, smiling. “What harm can it do for me to talk to you?”
“It’s perfectly heavenly of you–”
“Oh, do you think so? I wonder what father thinks”—turning to look; then, resuming: “He generally makes us stop, but I am quite sure he expected me to talk to you.”
The lone note of a piano broke the thread of the sweetest, maddest discourse Harrow had ever listened to; the girl’s cheeks flushed and she turned expectantly toward the curtained stage. Again the lone note, thumped vigorously, sounded a staccato monotone.
“Precious—very precious,” breathed the poet, closing his eyes in a sort of fatty ecstasy.
