Part 8

Miss Darling had told me about a boarding place opposite her house, where I could get good board for three dollars a week. I crossed over that evening and entered one of those basement dining-rooms that lined almost the whole avenue. I had a newspaper with me, and while I waited for my dinner I went over the advertisements.

I was interrupted by a stir and movement in the room. A girl had come in with a little dog, and everybody was looking at the dog. She came over to my table and took the seat directly in front of me. I stared at her. I could not believe my eyes. There, sitting right at my table, was my little sister, Nora! I had thought she was in Jamaica.

We both jumped to our feet and screamed our names, and then I began to cry, and Nora said hastily: “Sh! They are all looking at us!”

The dining-room was full of medical students and Harvard students. I had noticed them when I came in--one reason why I buried myself in the paper, because they all looked at me, and one, a boy named Jimmy Odell (I got to know Jimmy well later) tried to catch my eye, and when I did look at him once, he winked at me, which made me very angry, and I hadn’t looked up once again, till Nora came in.

You may be sure those students didn’t take their eyes off us all through that meal, and every one of them fed Nora’s dog. They had started to laugh and hurrah when Nora and I first grabbed at each other, but when I cried they all stopped and pretended to fuss with the dog.

I don’t know what I ate that day. Nora said I ate my meal mixed with salt tears, but she, too, was excited and we both talked together. Nora had changed. She seemed more sophisticated than when I saw her last, and she had her hair done up. She showed me this almost the first thing, and she said it made her look as old as I. She thought that fine. She assumed an older-sister way with me which was very funny, for I had always snubbed her at home as being a “kid” while I was a grown-up young lady.

When we went to her room, which, strange to say, was in the same block as mine, two of the students followed us, one of them that Odell. We didn’t pay any attention to them, though Odell had the insolence to run up the steps when Nora was turning the key in the lock, and ask if he couldn’t do it for her. We both regarded him haughtily, which made him ashamed, I suppose, for he lifted his hat and ran down the stairs again.

Nora’s room was just about the same as mine, only she had a narrow cot instead of a folding bed, and she had a box for her foolish little dog. He was a white fox terrier and was not very good, for if she left him a single moment you could hear his cries all over the neighborhood. Consequently she was obliged to take him with her whenever she went out. I was awfully provoked next day, because I wanted her to go with me to the studios, but that miserable little dog made such a fuss that she turned back before we had reached the corner. She said she’d bring him along. I told her she was crazy. No girl could go looking for work with a dog along. She seemed to prefer the dog to me, which made me much huffed with her, for she went back to her room.

Nora was expecting money by telegraph from some doctor in Richmond, for whom she was going to work. She had been doing the same sort of work as Ada, writing for a newspaper, and she had written “tons of poetry and stories and other things,” she said.

I wanted to talk over home things, and the work we were to do, etc., but Nora made me listen to all her stories. She would pile up the two pillows on her bed for a comfortable place for me, and then coax me to lie there while she read. She would say:

“Now, Marion, let me make you comfortable, and you rest yourself--you look awfully tired, and I’m sure you need a rest!--while I read you this.”

Then she would read one story after another, till I would get dead tired, but if I closed my eyes she would get offended; so I’d hold them open no matter how sleepy I got. Sometimes I couldn’t help laughing at the funny parts in her stories, which delighted her, and she would laugh more than I would, which would make her little dog yelp and jump about. Then when I cried in sad parts, she would get much excited, and say:

“Now I know it must be good. Some day huge audiences in big theatres all over the world will be crying just as you are now.”

Then her dog would jump up and lick her face, and I would say:

“Don’t you think that’s enough for to-night?”

Poor little Nora! She had hardly any money, but it didn’t seem to bother her a bit. Though I knew I would miss her, I advised her to take the steady position offered in Richmond, instead of starving here, and a few days later I saw her off for the South. She looked pathetic and awfully childish (in spite of her hair done up), and I felt more lonely than ever. I was crying when I got back to the lodging-house, and when I opened the door, Miss Darling was standing talking to some man in the hall. She called to me just as I was going up the stairs:

“Miss Ascough, here’s a nice young gentleman wants to meet you.”

I came back down the stairs, and there was that Harvard student, Odell. He had a wide smile on his face, and his hand held out. There was something so friendly and winning in that smile, and somehow the pressure of his big hand on mine felt so warm and comforting, and I was so lonely, that when he asked me to go out with him to dinner and after that to the theatre I said at once:

“Yes, I will.”

Thus began my acquaintance with a boy who devoted himself to me throughout his stay in Boston, and who, in his way, really loved me.

XXVII

I had been posing for various artists for nearly two months, and I not only was used to the work but beginning to like it. How else, except as a model, could I have seen all I did at close range, and, in a way, assisted in the making of many great paintings by the best artists in Boston? Also I learned much from them, for nearly every artist I posed for talked to me as he worked. Some would tell me their hopes and fears and stories about other artists. I have even been the confidante of their love affairs.

One well-known painter proposed to a girl upon my advice. He told me all about his acquaintance with her, and of the opposition of her family as if he were telling a story, and then he asked:

“What would you do if you were the man in the case?”

I replied:

“I’d go right over and ask her to-night.” Whereupon he picked up his hat and said:

“I’ll do better than that. I’ll go this minute.”

One artist, famous for his paintings of sunlight, used to talk all the time he worked, and I realized that he was not talking to me but at me, for when I answered him he didn’t hear at all.

I didn’t make, of course, more than a living posing in costume, but for a time I got about four hours’ work a day. It was not always regular, and sometimes I didn’t even get that much time. Then there were days when I had no work at all, so I barely made enough to pay for my room and board. I realized that I would have to do something to increase my earnings, and I tried to get work to do at night schools. Miss St. Denis had told me there would be little chance there unless I would pose in the nude, and that I was determined not to do, but as the summer approached my work grew less and less, for the artists began to go away just as Miss St. Denis had told me they would.

Though Mr. Sands had said I was an exceedingly pretty girl, I found that beauty was by no means an exceptional possession, and especially among the models. There were much prettier girls than I, to say nothing of the many girl friends and relatives of the artists who were often willing to pose for them. So my good looks did not prove as profitable as I had hoped. Moreover, I was new at the work, had an acquaintance to build up, and at first tired quicker than the older models.

However, I made a number of good friends among the artists. One of them, dear old Mr. Rintoul, who had a studio in that long row of studios near the art gallery. One day, I knocked at his door and applied for work as a model. He opened the door and peered out at me in the dark hall. At first he said he was sorry, but he couldn’t use me. He was a landscape-painter, and he said he guessed I had come to the wrong man, as there was another artist of his name on Tremont Street who painted figures. Then he said:

“But come in, come in!”

He was a little man of about fifty, and his face had the chubby look of a child. He wore the funniest old-fashioned clothes. He peered up at me through his glasses, and seemed to be examining my face. After a moment he said:

“Having a hard time, eh? Or are you extra busy now?”

I told him I was not extra busy, and he rubbed his chin in a funny way and said:

“I believe I can use you after all. Now I’ll tell you how we’ll arrange it. I’m a pretty busy man, so I can’t make any definite engagement, but you come here whenever you have nothing else to do, and I’ll use you if I can. If I’m too busy, I’ll pay you just the same. How will that do?”

I thanked him, and told him I was so glad, for work was getting scarcer every day.

He pointed to a big armchair and said:

“Now sit down there and rest yourself. Be placid! Be placid!” He waved his hand at me, and went to see who was knocking at the door. Then he came back and said:

“Too busy to use you to-day. Here’s the money,” and he handed me seventy cents, as if for two hours’ work.

“Oh, Mr. Rintoul,” I said, “I haven’t worked at all.”

“Now don’t argue,” he said. “That was our agreement, so be placid!”

One day when I went to pose, he said that all the people in the studios were giving a tea, and they had asked him to open the doors of his studio, so the visitors could see it. He remarked that he would take that day off. I said:

“There must be an awful lot of artists here.”

He chuckled, and making his hand into a claw, said:

“Not all artists, but folks hanging on to the edge of art, and cackling, _cackling_! Now run along, and keep placid!” and he handed me a dollar for my “time.”

I never really posed for him at all, for he always had something else to do, but he would make me sit in the big armchair and “be placid.”

He is now gone to the land where all is placid, and whenever I hear that word I think of him, and my faith in good men is strengthened.

But not all of my experiences with the artists of Boston were as pleasant as that with Mr. Rintoul and Mr. Sands and some others. I had one terrible experience from which I barely escaped with my life.

I had posed several times for a Mr. Parker, who did a rushing business for strictly commercial firms. He made advertisements such as are seen on street-cars, packages of breakfast food and things like that. I had posed for him in a number of positions, to show off a certain brand of stockings as a girl playing golf, to advertise a sweater, and other things too numerous to mention.

He was a large, powerfully built man, devoted to sports, and he used to tell me about his place at Cape Cod, and how he fished and rode. He discovered that I could paint, and he let me help him sometimes with his work. We got to be very friendly, and I really enjoyed working for him and liked him very much. His wife was a sweet-faced gentle little woman who occasionally came to the studio, and she would sometimes put an extra piece of cake in his lunch box for me. He said she was a saint.

Of all the artists I worked for my best hopes rested on Mr. Parker, for he had promised, if certain work he expected came, he might be able to employ me permanently--not merely as a model, but assisting him.

One day after I had been working for him all morning, and we had lunch together, I sat down on a couch to glance over a book of reproductions, when I felt him come up beside me. He stood there, without saying anything for a while, and then, stooping down, brushed my cheek with his beard. I was not quite sure whether he was leaning over to look at the pictures, but I did not like his face so close, and half-teasingly I put up my hand and pushed his face away, as I might a fly that was in my way. Suddenly I felt a stinging slap on my face. Surprised and angry, I leaped to my feet.

“Mr. Parker, you are a little too rough!” I said. “That really hurt me.”

I thought he was joking, but when I saw his face I realized that I was looking at a madman.

“I intended to hurt you,” he said in the strangest voice, and then he cursed me and struck me again on the cheek with the flat of his powerful hand. “Take that, and that, and that!” His voice rose with each blow. Then he took me by the shoulders and shook me till my breath was gone.

“Now I’m going to kill you!” he raved.

I fell down on my knees, and screamed that I had not meant to offend him, but he caught hold of my hands and dragged me along toward the window, shouting that he was going to throw me out. We were seven stories up and he had dragged me literally on to the window sill. I tried to brace myself for death, as all my resistance seemed as nothing to his awful strength; but even while we struggled at the window, the door of his studio opened and some one came in. Like a flash he turned, and dragging me across the room, he literally threw me into the hall and shut the door in my face. To this day I do not even know who had entered his studio, but I believe it was a woman, and sometimes I wonder if it could have been his wife.

In the hall I gathered myself up. My clothes were nearly torn off my back, and I was black and blue all over. My hair was down, and blood was running down my chin. I climbed upstairs to the studio of another artist I had posed for, and when he opened the door to my knock, he was so startled by my appearance that he called to his wife, a sculptress, to come quickly.

“What is the matter? Whatever is the matter?” she asked, drawing me in. “You poor girl, what has happened to you?”

I could not speak at first. I tried to, but my breath was coming in gasps, and I was sobbing. For the first time in my life hysterics seized me. They chafed my hands and brought me something to drink, and then she held my hands firmly in hers, and bade me tell her what had happened. Between sobs, I described the treatment I had received. I saw husband and wife exchange glances, and I ended:

“And now I’m going to have him arrested.”

“Listen to me,” said Mrs. Wilson. “I know you have suffered terribly, and that man ought to be killed; but take my advice, keep away from the police. Remember you have no witnesses. You could not prove the assault. It would be your word against his and you are only a model. Let it pass, and hereafter keep away from Mr. Parker.”

Her husband said:

“I’m surprised at Parker, the damned brute! I’ve heard of queer doings down there, and I knew he had beaten messenger boys, but, by Jove, I didn’t dream he’d beat a girl. You must have aroused his temper in some way. You know he’s unbalanced--of course you know that--every one does.”

No, I did not know that. He was worse than unbalanced, however. He was a madman.

I went home bruised and sore and, as they advised, let the matter drop. As Mrs. Wilson had said, I had no witnesses, and I was just a model!

XXVIII

It was the second week in May, but as warm as summer and the flowers were all blooming in the parks. The artists were leaving Boston early that year. There seemed only a handful of them left in town. I had scarcely any engagements. Mr. Sands had left, and so had four other artists for whom I had been posing. Mr. Rintoul, too, had gone away. I could no longer go to Mr. Parker, the man who had beaten me.

I sat in my little hall room, reading a letter from home.

“Dear Marion: (wrote Ada.)

We are all very glad to hear you are doing so well in Boston” (I had told them so) “and we hope you will come home this summer.

Papa is not at all well and mama awfully worried. There is not much money coming in. I am doing all I can to help, and I gave up a good position offered me by the C. P. R. to travel over their Western lines and write travel pamphlets, because I will not leave mama just now.

Charles would do more, but his wife won’t let him. I think you ought to help. Ellen has been sending money regularly, but now Wallace is ill. Even Nora sends something each week.

I must say, Marion, that you always were the one to think only of yourself, and you always managed to have a good time. Now as you are earning money in the States, and there are so many younger ones at home, you certainly ought to send home some money. It is wicked of you not to.

You will be sorry to hear that Daisy (the sister next to Nellie) went into the convent to be a nun last week. She simply was bent upon it and nothing we could say or do would stop her. You know she became a convert to the Catholic faith soon after Nellie married de Rochefort. She is with the Order of the Little Sisters of Jesus, and her name is now Sister Marie Anastasia. We all feel very badly about it, as she is so young to shut herself up for life.

Last Sunday I went for a walk as far as the Convent of Les Petites Sœurs de Jesus, and I looked over the garden fence, but I could see no sign of our Daisy. So I called: ‘Daisy! Daisy!’ and oh, Marion, I felt awful to think of her behind those stone walls, just like a prisoner, and I even imagined I saw her face looking out of one of the windows of the solemn, ghostly-looking convent building. It is a very hard Order. We did everything to dissuade her, but one night she took the pilgrimage to Ste. Anne de Beaupré on a sort of prayer ship, and she never got off her knees all night long. Do you remember what beautiful hair Daisy had--the only one in our family with golden hair--well, it is all shaved off, mama says, though that was unnecessary till her final vows. So we’ve lost Daisy. It’s just as if she were dead.

Have you broken off your engagement to that Reggie Bertie? You know I always said he was no good, and I never believed he really loved you. That kind of man only loves himself. Anyway there is no need to get married if you can earn your own living. I think most men are hateful.

I met that Lil Markey on the street and she asked for your address. She said she was going to New York. She’s pretty common, and if I were you I’d not associate with her. You should have some pride.

Write soon, and send some money when you do. Sooner the better. Love from all,

Your aff. sister,

Ada.”

I looked at my money. I counted all that I possessed. I had just six dollars and twenty cents. I was badly in need of clothes, and I was only eating one meal a day. For breakfast and lunch I had simply crackers. Still, I felt that those at home probably needed money more than I did. So I wrote to Ada:

“DEAR ADA:

I was so sorry to hear papa is ill, and that you were all having a hard time; so I enclose $4, all I can spare just now. I am not making as much as I thought I was going to when I last wrote you; but I’ll soon be doing fine, so don’t worry about me, and tell papa and mama everything is all right.

It’s awful about Daisy. She’s a poor little fool, and yet perhaps she is happier than any of us. Anyway I guess she feels peaceful. It must be sweet not to have to worry at all. Still I don’t believe in any stupid churches now.

You don’t understand about Reggie. He was and is in love with me, so there, and he writes to me every day begging me to return. I guess I know my own affairs better than you do. I have no more news, so will say good-bye, and with love to all,

Your aff. sister,

MARION.”

I posted my letter and then started out to keep an engagement to pose for an illustrator on Huntington Avenue. He had a charming studio apartment in a new building. I knew both Mr. Snow and his wife pretty well, for I had posed for most of his later work. They had only been married a little while. She was very pretty, and sweet, too. He was a tall, rather lanky man of about thirty, and his long teeth stuck out in front under his mustache. He made a great deal of money, as he said he had the knack of making pretty girls’ faces, and that was what the magazines wanted.

He told me one day that there was a time when he had not known where his next meal would come from. Then he had met his wife. He said: “Her family are the Reynolds of Cambridge,

and they had the dough all right.” She had really started him on the way to success.

He was in a very genial mood that afternoon, and chatted away while he drew my head. He was making a cover for a popular magazine. I had removed my waist, and arranged some drapery about my shoulders to give the effect of an evening gown.

When he was through, and I was buttoning up my waist in the back, he came behind me and said:

“Allow me,” and started to button my waist for me, but while he was doing it, he kissed me on the back of my neck.

“I think--” I began, when a sweet voice called from the doorway:

“I have brought Miss Ascough and you some tea, dear.”

Mrs. Snow had entered the room, carrying a tray in her hand. She was a frail, pretty little thing, with beautiful reddish hair piled on top of her head. Mr. Snow went forward and took the tray from her hands, and, bending down, he kissed the hands holding it.

“Thank you, darling,” he murmured. “What an angel you are!”

She looked at him with such love and trust in her eyes that I decided no tale of mine should hurt her. I made up my mind, however, not to pose for Mr. Snow again. So there was another of my artists gone! I left that house wondering if it were possible to believe in any man, and then I thought of Mr. Rintoul and I felt warmed and comforted.

XXIX

It was getting dark as I walked down Huntington Avenue and somebody was walking rapidly behind me, as if to catch up with me.

“Hallo, Marion!”

I turned, to see Jimmy Odell. He had been hanging around my lodging-house for days, and was always coaxing me to go to places with him and declaring that he was in love with me.

I liked Jimmy, though the people where I took my meals told me he was no good. They said his people had given him every advantage, but that Jimmy had played all his life and that his mother had spoiled him. However, I found him a most lovable boy, despite his slangy speech and pretended toughness of character. Jimmy liked to pretend that he was a pretty bold, bad man of the world. He was in his junior year at Harvard and about my own age.

Many a time when it seemed as if I could not stand my life, I was cheered by Jimmy with his happy, contagious laughter, and the little “treats” he would give me. Sometimes it was a ball game, sometimes a show and I had had many dinners and suppers with Jimmy. But Jimmy drank far too much. He didn’t get exactly drunk, but he carried a flask of whiskey with him, and he would say to whoever was about:

“Have a drink,” and if no one accepted he would say: “Well, here’s to you, anyway,” and drink himself.

It was no use my lecturing him about it, for he would just laugh at me and say:

“All right, grandma, I’ll be good,” and then go right ahead and do it again.

Once when he told me for the hundredth time that he loved me and begged:

“Come along. Let’s get married and fool ’em all.”

I said:

“If you do without whiskey for two weeks, and then come and tell me on your honor that you have not touched it, maybe I will.”

He said: