Part 11

You could see Carolyn almost any fair afternoon on the Avenue with Eloise or Helen or Mary Louise, stopping in at one little shop for a bit of lingerie, at another for flowers. They spent money with no thought of its value. Most of them could not remember poverty. Those who could found spending the best method of forgetting. Occasionally they met several of “the boys” for tea. When they didn’t they bought tea for themselves at Maillard’s, usually, or the Plaza. There was always a car waiting and they wore low pumps or slippers and the thinnest of stockings even when the snow was on the ground.

Carolyn “went with” Jack Morton, Eloise’s brother. She had met Eloise at the Riverside Drive School. Jack was at Harvard, then, but he was graduated a year later and was “catching on” nicely in his father’s box factory. The Mortons thought the Rosses a step below them socially, for the Mortons were a little farther removed from “the old country.” Outside of that, they liked Carolyn. So no one was surprised, when, in 1914, when Carolyn was twenty-three, she announced her engagement to Jack. The Rosses thought Carolyn had “done well,” as indeed she had, for Jack Morton was a likeable fellow, full of practical jokes and fond of poker playing, but on the whole quite a desirable husband.

Ross gave his daughter a diamond lavalliere for an engagement present, and as Carolyn picked it out herself it was quite glittering. He promised her the furniture for her new apartment as a wedding present. The Mortons gave Carolyn a small car, green, with cushions to match, which she pronounced “a young wonder.” They had an engagement “at home” and were married a few months later at one of the newer hotels. Carolyn hoped that it was quite evident to the friends of both families that they were both very wealthy.

The young couple took a three weeks’ trip to Florida—Jack couldn’t stay away from the business longer than that. Then they went to the Astor, but Carolyn wanted to entertain her friends and a hotel does keep you cooped up so. She and Jack finally decided on a small apartment in a high-priced new building in Park Avenue. They had only one maid to start with for they both preferred eating at restaurants. With the car you could eat at a different place and go to a show or some place every night.

Without Carolyn the Riverside Drive apartment seemed quiet. Manning went to Harvard for a year, dissatisfied with the unexclusiveness of Columbia.

Dorothea liked school, too, and was now taking a few harmless courses which gave her something to do, though they didn’t satisfy her. Nothing quite pleased Dorothea. She hadn’t been satisfied with Carolyn’s school—girls of only one creed went there, so narrow. Dorothea said that school was a joke. She had chosen a more expensive school, patronized by daughters of rich men generally. Her new study courses were at Columbia and with private teachers. Mr. Ross didn’t like them.

“It isn’t as if she had to be a teacher,” he said. “A girl can have too much book-learning.”

But Dorothea went. She had always been different. Her clothes, for one thing. Couldn’t she have had anything she wanted? Look at Carolyn—always dressed like a picture—the family had to admit that, themselves. Even Yvette, though she liked bright colours, was a good dresser. It wasn’t as if Dorothea was economical. She spent as much as Carolyn did. Carolyn wore things that “looked expensive,” rich broadcloth, elaborate furs—Dorothea preferred rough tweeds. She paid extraordinary sums for little suits that Mrs. Ross thought looked as if she’d got them for twenty dollars in Third Avenue. They were of mixed weaves, in grey or tan, and she wore big tailored collars over her coats, not mannish looking or freakish, just plain. She paid fifty dollars for her little round velour hats. She wore heavy gloves and shoes, even when she went out with Carolyn, sleek in white gloves, thin pumps and furs. Dorothea paid huge prices for plain little evening frocks which she bought at exclusive little places. Even then she was not satisfied.

Dorothea wore a perpetual little pout—something had always just gone wrong. She spent her time wondering what to do, dipping in “courses” on a variety of subjects, at settlement work, “going with people she didn’t have to associate with,” her mother thought. Clad in a trim-fitting habit she rode whole mornings in Central Park. She exhibited funny little Belgian Griffins at shows. She went to benefits and tournaments. Yet she was always a trifle “put out,” a bit bored. Things weren’t ever good enough, or quite what she had expected.

For her twentieth birthday Dorothea asked for and received a new car, a good-looking foreign-made roadster. About time the family had more than one car! She didn’t want a chauffeur. Hadn’t she been driving as long as she could remember, learning on the old red one? She liked driving the car best of all.

The family, the family’s friends, what any one said or did—all displeased Dorothea. She made sport of Irwin’s pet affectations to his face, to her mother’s horror. She called Yvette’s things “impossible” and made fun of Carolyn’s diamonds. She treated her mother as a person of no consequence, never asking her opinion about things. Although she had nothing in common with her father, she made a great fuss over him and he grew to like her better than any other member of his family. She took him out in her car, though he didn’t quite enjoy the rides, expecting to be tipped over at every corner. Dorothea drove perfectly, with the recklessness of a racer.

Dorothea went with “outsiders.” She seemed as much at home with members of other races as with her own. She’d bring in unexpected guests, making the family feel ill at ease. While guests were there she’d bring up bits of family history the rest were trying their hardest to keep out of sight.

“Dad,” she’d say, “here’s some one that wants to meet you. He’s heard a lot about you.... Can you believe that less than twenty-five years ago Dad came to America with no money at all?” then, with a little gesture and a smile, “and now look at him.” She’d throw an arm around her father, who, ill at ease, would greet the stranger.

If Mr. Ross had been unsuccessful, he would have looked like any of a thousand of his race whom you can see leaving the shops any evening at the closing hour. But his wealth haloed him. It was impossible to separate him from his money. Thin, stoop-shouldered, solemn, quiet and accented of speech, he stood for success. To Dorothea her father was immensely important. She was the first who had ever made much of him. It embarrassed him—he was a simple old fellow in many ways—but he liked it.

Mrs. Ross thought Dorothea didn’t appreciate her.

“It’s always her Dad, her Dad,” she’d say, “never a word about how I worked when she was small or all I do for her—just Dad this, Dad that—and Irwin don’t like it—that you’re always bringing up old times, about Papa being a cutter. The other night when that fine Miss Tannenheim was here, you said it, when you was talking to that big blond fellow you brought in....”

“You’re a dear, Mother,” Dorothea would give her mother the tiniest touch of a kiss on her broad cheek, “but Irv’s a mess and he knows it. The Tannenheim person is a cheap old thing with a mean eye and she’ll marry him some day, if he isn’t watching.”

“Dad,” said Dorothea, one day, “let’s move. You can’t guess how sick I am of Riverside Drive.”

“What’s the matter? Haven’t you got things nice here?”

“Nice—on the Drive?”

“We’re always moving, it seems. Only four years ago....”

“I know, Dad. That’s just it. A man of your position ought to have a home. Apartments are nothing. This one is simply awful. Riverside Drive is fearfully ordinary, vulgar—don’t you think so? Such a cheap collection of the newly rich. Dad, you ought to have your own home in town, anyhow, and something permanent in the country.”

XIII

The idea of a home appealed to Mr. Ross. He felt, now, that he had always wanted a real home. Dorothea called for him in the car and they explored the streets east of Fifth Avenue. Finally, without consulting the rest of the family, Ross bought a five-story house in East Sixty-fifth Street, just off Fifth Avenue.

“Mother will think this is terrible,” Dorothea said as she kissed him, “but you and I like it, don’t we? I know it cost an awful lot, Dad, but you can see it’s really an investment. After it’s made over a bit inside it will do for a family home for years. Imagine you—after all you’ve done—not having a family home.”

Ross really liked the house. It seemed almost—home-like. The rest of the family were not pleased. The married daughters—of course it was not their affair—but, they wondered if it was just the right thing. Of course nice people lived in houses, but none of their friends.

“That’s why we bought it,” said Dorothea.

Irwin “guessed it was all right.” Manning was indifferent.

Mrs. Ross held up bejewelled hands and wailed.

“Oh, Dorothea, just as I’m beginning to get into things and can ask people here to a fine apartment on the Drive—an address I can be proud of—and here you buy an old house—I thought a young girl like you would want things swell—here we’ve got servants and all—”

“Don’t you worry,” said Dorothea, “it will be ‘swell’ enough—awful word. And as for servants—”

The family moved to the East Sixty-fifth Street house a few months later. Dorothea didn’t run around after furniture as those of her family who had chosen furniture before her had done. She turned the whole house over to Miss Lessing, in Madison Avenue. Miss Lessing’s corps of exquisitely minded young men came in, looked around, made sketches, brought drapery material and wood finishes, all of which Dorothea examined critically.

“At last we’ll have some place we can ask our friends,” she said.

The house in East Sixty-fifth Street was rather nice. It was done in English things, mostly, painted walls and rather soft taffetas. There were some big easy chairs that could be pulled around, comfortably, in front of the fireplace. Perhaps because of its seeming simplicity and the plainness of the walls and carpets Mr. Ross liked it more than any home he had ever had. He felt it belonged to him. Mrs. Ross never liked it.

“It’s too plain,” she said, “nothing to it. No one would believe how much it cost you, Papa. Mrs. Sinsheimer has got an apartment on Park Avenue, just a block from Carolyn. Fourteen rooms. She had a decorator, too, but he got different things than this—gold furniture. It looks like something. We had a fine place on Riverside Drive and Dorothea drags us here, where there ain’t even lights enough to see by, at night.”

Still, Mrs. Ross found out, from what people said, that there must be something desirable about the new home. She even acquired a bit of the patter Dorothea used, pointing, with something like pride, to “a real Chippendale escritoire, one of the nicest examples in America,” and “some Wedgewood plaques, three, from an original set of four, you know,” and “of course, we are getting old and it’s nice we can have a home where we can gather the sort of things we like, as a background.”

Irwin didn’t “think much of the place, myself,” but it was a good idea, the old folks having a home ... he was glad he didn’t have to be ashamed of it, though, for his part ... now, that country place Dorothea was talking about....

Yes, Dorothea had been talking about a country place. After they were settled in the new home, she continued to talk. They had five servants now—they wouldn’t even need two sets—Dad could see how it took that many to run any kind of a house—and they could just shut up the town house in Spring and open it in Fall. All the family could be there, too, Yvette and the new baby, and Carolyn and their husbands ... “a real family together. Dad, a permanent family like ours ought to have a decent country place.”

The country place was on Long Island, finally. Dorothea picked it out and put the decorations in the hands of the same firm of decorators, who did rather startling things with coloured wicker, chintz and tiled floors.

It was near a famous country club and Dorothea knew, as did the rest of them, that none of the men of her family could ever be admitted. It didn’t seem fair to her, of course, and yet ... Dad was a great one—there oughtn’t to be any place Dad couldn’t get into. But Dad didn’t care. Though, from things he said, Dorothea knew he had felt things ... expected them. He hadn’t even hoped this much of life. Irwin didn’t like being left out of things ... and yet, Dorothea, looking at Irwin, hearing him argue in his rather nasal tone, gesturing with his long amber cigarette holder, couldn’t blame members of the club, exactly.... It wasn’t because of Irwin’s race ... maybe the members, themselves, weren’t so wonderful ... and yet there were her two brothers-in-law, one rather fat, both slow-minded, card-playing, a bit loud and blatant, always bringing money into the conversation ... Yvette, loud, laughing, so heavy, mentally, Carolyn, with her cheap talk of money and spending ... her mother ... it wasn’t fair to criticize her, her mother’d had a hard time of it when she was young, and yet....

Dorothea knew that, somehow, the men she liked didn’t belong to her race. Hamilton Fournier, now ... of course, if she’d marry him, there would be an awful talk, lots of crying and going on about religion ... that sort of thing. She could hear her mother ... she remembered when Freda Moss married,—“He’ll throw it up to you.” Yet, if you are proud of your race ... doesn’t that ... can you have a thing “thrown up to you” that you are proud of? It was a big problem, too big for Dorothea. She felt that she’d always had everything she wanted ... she could keep on having....

The family settled down comfortably in the new home, Manning with them. He was going to school in town, now.

Mrs. Ross was getting to like the new home better ... it wasn’t Riverside Drive, of course, but people didn’t look down on her here. She was even getting in with Mrs. Rosenblatt—now that she lived near her. That crowd—she didn’t have their education, but what of it, she was richer than most of them. Who were they, to be so exclusive? Maybe, by next year, if she donated to their Orphans’ Nursery Fund....

Mr. Ross’s indigestion seemed a little worse. The doctor came to see him several times each week and he had to be more careful with his diet. There seemed to be less to do at the office. He could retire, of course, but that would take away the only interesting thing he had—the few hours at the office. He even tried outdoor exercise, but after one attempt, he gave up golf as impossible. He gave to organized charities rather liberally and was even appointed on a committee which he never attended—he knew it was his money they wanted. He would sit, as he had always sat in the evening, falling asleep over his paper, or, bundled up beyond the necessity of the weather, he would climb into the car and spend a few hours with an old friend, or some one would come to see him, playing cards, as always. But a few of the old friends had died, another had moved away ... there had never been many of them. He was just an old man, and lonesome, with nothing interesting to do or think about....

XIV

Manning stopped school the year after the family moved into their new home. He had had a year at Harvard and a year or so at art school. Now, at twenty-two, he felt that he was a sculptor. His father was disappointed—Manning had started out a nice boy—it did seem that one of the boys....

But Manning shrugged sensitive shoulders at anything as crude as the clothing business, even wholesale. His soul was not in such things. And Mr. Ross had to admit that the position of model was about the only one in the establishment that Manning could have filled. Manning went in, rather heavily, for the arts that the rest of the family had neglected. Of course Dorothea read, but Manning thought she skimmed too lightly over real literature. And Irwin—an impossible, material fellow.

Manning wore his hair a trifle long. He talked knowingly of Byzantine enamels and the School of Troyes. He knew Della Robbia and the Della-Cruscans. There was nothing he didn’t know about French ivories. He knew how champlevé enamelling differed from other methods ... there were few mysteries for Manning. His personal contributions to Wanty consisted of fantastic heads, influenced slightly by the French of the Fourteenth Century, in bas-relief—very flat relief, of course.

Manning’s friends felt they formed a real part of New York’s “new serious Bohemia.” They ate in “unexploited” Greenwich Village restaurants, never complaining about the poorly cooked food, sitting for hours at the bare, painted tables, talking eagerly in the dim candle or lamp light. They expressed disgust when “uptowners” discovered their retreats and sometimes moved elsewhere. You could find them every Saturday and Sunday night in parties of from four to ten, at the Brevoort, sometimes with pretty girls who didn’t listen to what they were saying, sometimes with homely little “artistic” ones, hung with soiled embroidered smocks, who listened too eagerly, talking of life and art, revolution and undiscovered genius.

There was no question that Manning’s father should continue his allowance—there is no money in sincere art these days. Manning knew that even his father must recognize that. Manning spent his summer with the family on Long Island—it was hot in town. But, when one’s family is of the bourgeoisie, it does draw one’s energy so. In the autumn Manning decided he must have a real studio, some place he could work and expand, going to “the town house” for week-ends. Having one’s family uptown was quite all right, of course—but you couldn’t expect an artist to live with them.

Mr. Ross agreed to the studio. He was getting accustomed to Dorothea’s friends, unbelievers though they were. He found he could not accept the artistic friends that Manning thought so delightful.

Manning found his studio, finally. The rent was terrific, of course, but the building had been rebuilt at great expense and was absolutely desirable in location, construction, everything. He furnished it himself in Italian and Spanish Renaissance things. Rather nice! When it was furnished—though they probably couldn’t “get it” he’d let the family see it.

One Sunday, after a family reunion dinner, Manning announced that his studio was done. If the family liked they might all run down that way—a sort of informal reception ... of course, they probably couldn’t understand it all....

It was in the Village, of course, but not “of” it. Did they think the Village was slumming? Uptown people did. But that’s where you’d find real thought, people who accomplished things....

“Why, my new studio has real atmosphere”—Manning ran his fingers through his hair as he spoke. “It’s in a wonderful old building, magnificent lines and the architect left them all—it’s just inside he’s remodelled. I’ve the third floor front, two magnificent rooms, a huge fireplace, some lovely Italian things ... and the view from the window is so quaint and artistic ... of course you may not understand it ... this family ... it’s just a block from Washington Square.”

“Why, that’s where....” began Mrs. Ross.

Irwin silenced her.

“Don’t begin old times, Mamma. Most of us haven’t as long memories as you,” he said.

“Come on, now that we’re all here, let’s go down,” Manning went on, “I want you to see something really artistic. A friend of mine, DuBroil—I think you’ve met him—did me a stunning name plate in copper, just my name, Manning Cuyler Ross. I’m so glad I took Cuyler for a middle name last year. And there is just the single word, ‘masks.’ I thought it was—rather good. And I’ve a stunning bit of tapestry on the south wall. Come on—you’ve got your cars here, we’d better get started—”

It was a pleasant drive. The three cars drew up, almost at once, in front of Manning’s studio, as he, in the front car, pointed it out to them.

They made quite a party as they turned out in front of the building—a prosperous American family—Mr. and Mrs. Lincoln Ross, well-dressed, commanding, in their fifties, which isn’t old, these days; MacDougal Adams, plump, pompous; Yvette Ross Adams, in handsome furs and silks; Jack Morton, sleek, black-haired; his always exquisitely gowned wife, Carolyn Ross Morton; Irwin Ross, in a well-fitting cutaway, eyebrows raised inquiringly, chatting alertly; Dorothea Ross, attractive and girlish in rough tan homespun, and Manning Cuyler Ross, their host, pleasantly artistic.

“Here’s the place,” said Manning. “No elevator, real Bohemia, three flights up, uncarpeted stairs. Come on, Mother.”

Mrs. Ross was strangely pale, and on the faces of Yvette and Irwin and MacDougal Adams there were curious shadows. The rest, save for Mr. Ross, were too young to remember. As for him he broke, for the first time in years, into a broad smile. Manning went rattling on.

“This,” he proclaimed, “is the way to live! None of your middle-class fripperies. Plain living, high thinking—this is the life!”

They came to the studio at last, and all stood about in silence while Manning explained its charms—the clear light, the plain old woodwork, the lovely view of the square, the remote, old-world atmosphere. In the midst of his oratory Mr. Ross sidled up to Mamma Ross and reached stealthily for her hand.

“Do you remember, Minnie,” he whispered, “this room—this old place—those old days—”

“Hush,” said Mamma Ross, “the children will hear you.”

AMY’S STORY

I

When Amy Martin was thirteen years old she read, in a book she had borrowed from the Fortnightly Library, something that interested her a great deal. She liked the thought so much that she accepted it quite thoroughly and kept it with her as a delightful secret. It was to the effect that each person’s life is an interesting plot and that, if written out, it would make a fascinating story.

To Amy the idea opened up infinite avenues of adventure. Until then she had taken for granted her life in Belleville. Now, other things seemed just about to happen to her.

Amy was one of two children. Her brother Clarence was two years younger, a slow, shy, blond boy. Her father was a fat, soft fellow, with bushy reddish hair which stood up in a stiff halo from an always slightly red forehead. He had no chin at all, but he did have rather a thick neck, so that below his mouth his chin and throat formed a sagging, uneven line. He carried his head a bit high, and his prominent nostrils seemed as peering as his eyes.

Mrs. Martin was a neat, dark-haired woman, a trifle sleek and oily as to complexion and hair. She liked to spend her time mixing not particularly good cakes or talking with her neighbours, taking hours to elaborate over trifles. She liked to give the impression of being always busy, though she kept one servant and did not do much of anything.

Mr. Martin was in the retail hardware business. On the front of his store and on his letterheads he used the picture of an ax, in red, with the irrelevant motto: “It Pays to Trade at Martin’s.” There was only one other hardware store in Belleville, so he had quite a good trade.

The Martins lived in Myrtle Street, one of the nicest streets in Belleville. The house was of clapboards, painted a cheerful yellow with white trimmings, and had a wide porch with a scroll-work railing. The yard had several nice fruit trees and a variety of bushes placed without regard to landscaping. The house was cut up into small and not particularly attractive rooms.