Part 12

At thirteen Amy was a freshman in High School and already a recognized member of Belleville’s “younger set,” with dancing school Saturday afternoons, parties on Friday nights and many Christmas-week activities. After she read that every life is an interesting story, Amy began to visualize herself as the heroine of a definite romance, still without a plot, but alluring and pleasant. The thought became personal, immediately. She forgot that every other life in Belleville contained a plot for a story, too. The thought seemed to belong only to her. Life stretched out, fragrant with possibilities of living.

Crossing the street on an errand—to borrow a cup of sugar from Mrs. Oglesthorn—Amy noticed the shadow of a tree on the dusty street. She made up sentences:

“As Amy crossed the street, the sunshine and shade cast contrasting shadows on her—”

“Amy ran across the street, enjoying the warm sunlight—”

She made up frequent sentences. Why not? Wasn’t she a person in a story? Wasn’t anything liable to happen to her at any time? Often, after that, she thought of herself in the third person.

Amy’s first year in High School was pleasant enough. She envied Luetta Corman when, in the Christmas cantata, Luetta was chosen Queen of the Good Fairies and wore white tarlatan and spangles, while Amy, as one of the Pleasant Dreams, had to be content with a silver-starred wand and pink cheesecloth. What did that matter? Later, she was going to live, to have important things happen to her. She could laugh at these little disappointments in Belleville.

The next year Amy had a real ambition. Because several people had praised her singing, she decided she had a good voice and should become a singer. The Martins had an upright and rather tinny piano, a symbol of small-town gentility, and Amy had had three years of piano lessons.

She had no talent or real love for music, and she hated to practise. She felt that learning to sing would be more pleasant than learning to play. She was rather a pretty girl, with light brown hair and indefinite blue-grey eyes. In her imagination she saw herself on the concert stage and in opera even, costumed in any of the rôles she could think of. On the stage she would find real romance.

Her vocal teacher came to her house for two half-hour lessons a week. She was not an inspired teacher, but Amy needed nothing better than Miss Patten could give. She hated scales and breathing exercises. But she sang, eagerly enough, sentimental songs. Those by Carrie Jacobs-Bond were her favourites. After six months of lessons she sang “Spring Rain” in a thin, uneven voice, noticeably weak in the lower register, at a pupils’ recital. Her parents were quite proud of her.

Two months later she sang at a concert given for a local charity. On the program was a fairly well-known visiting soprano. This woman listened to Amy’s singing, and when Amy eagerly asked her opinion about “keeping on with lessons,” told her truthfully, though brutally, that she could never learn to sing.

Amy gave up her singing quite willingly. She had really lost interest, anyhow. She was becoming interested in boys. She had a chum now, Lulu Brown, a dark-haired, bright-eyed girl with rather boisterous manners, and they were reaching the giggling stage. They put themselves in the way of masculine attentions, invitations to play tennis or go walking, with a soda at the Central Drug Store as an objective.

Lulu was more attractive and vivacious than Amy, but her family was not as high socially. Lulu’s father was a bookkeeper. In Belleville the “society set” was composed of the families of professional men and those who owned businesses. Lulu went with the same crowd as Amy, though her parents did not go into society. Amy was fond of her, but sometimes she was ashamed of her on the street, and she was always afraid that Lulu would do something unconventional. If it had not been that boys sought Lulu’s company and that Amy received many of her invitations through her chum, it is possible that she would have dropped her altogether.

The next summer Amy decided to be an artist. Three times a week, during vacation, she went to Miss Matson’s “studio,” the second-floor front room of the Matson home.

Miss Matson had had several years of study in New York. On the wall of her living-room there was a picture in oils that, it was said, had been done at the Art Students’ League. Amy did not know just what this was, but she was impressed because of the name and because her teacher had studied in New York.

Miss Matson’s students could do two kinds of work, copying pictures or still-life. If they chose copying, they made meticulous replicas of fancy heads, usually in water-colour, imitating every curve and shadow, putting on daubs of red where the originator had put daubs of red, unquestioning. The homes in Belleville were filled with these pictures in elaborate gold frames, the work of Miss Matson’s pupils. The “still-life” studies were groups of fruit or vegetables, a yellow mixing bowl, a red tomato and a green pepper, or, perhaps, a pitcher, two lemons and a slice of cake.

Amy copied pictures all summer. Then some one told her that this was not art, so she joined the still-life group.

So—she was going to be an artist. She tried to see colour in everything that year. She read the lives of the painters. She knew that years of hard work lay before her, but she felt she wouldn’t mind that. She knew she would do something remarkable. Life was seizing her—going to make an artist out of her—to think that her romance, her story—was coming out this way.

The next winter she went to High School and spent three afternoons a week, after school, with Miss Matson. At the end of the year she could do a “still-life study” of a couple of eggs, a mixing bowl and a bunch of radishes with fair skill. She went to parties and enjoyed them. She giggled with Lulu over the boys. But she felt that life stretched out beyond Belleville.

That summer she persuaded her father to let her go to a near-by city and take a summer course at an art school. She was only sixteen, but there were cousins with whom she could stay. Her mother and Clarence wanted to go to Benton Springs, near Belleville, where her father could go for week-ends.

Her father laughed condescendingly and told her that she could study, that he thought it would be very nice to have an artist as a daughter.

The art students were older than Amy and greatly in earnest. Amy lived near the school and worked hard. All summer she didn’t pay attention to anything else. She always felt embarrassed when she met a model from the life-classes, wrapped in a bathrobe, waiting to pose. Amy was not in the life-class, but knew that drawing from the nude was all right “for art’s sake.” She even peeked into a life-class and pretended that she didn’t mind, though she really felt that she was doing something wrong.

She attended a series of lectures and learned something about anatomy and the history of art. She even learned a little of colour and composition.

She found art a serious thing. She met men and women who had been working for five or six years—and still were doing charcoal drawings. She hated charcoal as a medium. Others spoke knowingly of schools of art and new interpretations, and these things annoyed and puzzled her.

At the end of the term she had done half a dozen drawings from casts, three compositions and a few outdoor sketches. She had thought of art as a way to produce pretty pictures quickly. She saw how inadequate she was for such a big subject and that she lacked ability and ambition. She was glad to be back in Belleville for the opening of High School. After all, life offered many things beside music and art.

II

Amy had a good time during her junior year in High School. She and Lulu were invited to all of the Friday night parties. She was not as good a dancer as Lulu, but she always had all of her dances taken. On Sunday she and Lulu and two of the boys would go for a walk, calling at the post-office for any possible mail and then stopping for sodas.

But that wasn’t life. Amy wanted something above Belleville and High School parties and a father with a hardware store with red axes on its windows. She read a great deal of fiction that year—everything in the Fortnightly Library that had large print and wide margins. While she read she remembered that, to her, too, romance would come, that her life would be an interesting story.

She fell in love with Reed Maddon when she was seventeen. He was a tall, black-haired boy. His father kept a leather and harness store. He played on the Belleville High School football team and was rather shy. He didn’t pay much attention to Amy, at first. It was pleasant, being in love with him. He sat back of her in the High School study hall, so she kept a little pocket-mirror in her desk and could find his face in it whenever she wanted to.

She tried to make Reed be nice to her. Lulu saw through her little tricks and laughed. Lulu, at seventeen, was already making eyes at grown-up men.

Amy dreamed of Reed, thought of him all day. Being in love seemed a beautiful prelude to living, to the story that was going to happen. She pursued Reed so patiently that finally he did pay a little attention to her. He took her to a couple of dances. One night, on the way home, he put his arm around her and, in the shadow of the climbing rose on the side porch, he kissed her.

His kiss lifted her into an ecstasy. She lay awake nearly all night thinking about it, about his hair, the curve of his cheek, the feel of his lips. She whispered “Reed, Reed, Reed,” over and over. Only once more did Reed make love to her. That was a week later, when he came to tell her that he was going to St. Louis to work for his uncle. He put his arm around her as they sat in the hammock on the porch. Amy trembled delightedly. She never remembered what they said.

She thought of Reed all summer. He wrote her a couple of letters with no particular charm and sent her a poorly-taken picture post-card of himself, which she cut to fit her locket.

Amy went to the state university when she was graduated from High School. Lulu Brown went, too. Because of Lulu’s inferior social position and a tendency to make amorous eyes at the boys, she was not asked to join a sorority. Amy was, and she gloried in her social supremacy, treating Lulu with great condescension, though they shared letters from home and frequently spent a night together. Lulu was more popular than Amy, but Amy thought some of the boys Lulu went with were “fast.” She no longer regarded her as a rival and did not feel as jealous of Lulu as she had in High School.

Amy watched, eagerly, for something to happen. At first, she was in love with Reed, but the activities of the university made her a bit dulled toward him. A letter from him, around Christmas of her first year away at school, gave her only the smallest thrill. She could think of his mouth and his eyes with great calm. She rather missed not thinking about him.

Amy did not fall in love at the university, and no one fell in love with her. She went to dances and the other entertainments, treated the boys with the usual half-comrade, half-coy attitude of the other girls, and was fairly popular.

But this was not life, really. It was just waiting for things to happen. Things _must_ happen. She felt that. She was going to have a real story happen to her—would probably have exciting adventures and meet a wonderful man and fall in love with him.

In the evenings, at dusk, she would sometimes get away from the other girls and take long walks by herself.

She would get so restless and eager for something to happen that she wanted to cry out for it. Every new face might bring romance. She almost trembled when she passed any one or when she made a new acquaintance. She often woke up early, and, after trying to read, would lie in bed, half-awake, and imagine things that might happen.

Life—what did it mean? Would she fall in love again? Being in love with Reed had just been puppy love, of course. Was the real man only a little way off? Was she destined for great happiness or great unhappiness? Even that—

She learned little things about men, was even humble enough to profit by Lulu’s wisdom, even while she disapproved of Lulu’s unconventionality. Lulu seemed to know, instinctively, things that she had to learn.

Two years at the university, a smattering of history and French and German and literature, and Amy was home, ready for “society.” She felt another ripple of triumph—Lulu’s social position would not warrant formal social entrance—the Martins planned to introduce Amy with a party at the Elks’ Club.

The party was quite a success. Mr. Martin, his chin and neck a bit more indistinguishable, Mrs. Martin, smooth and sleek, buttery almost, stood in the “receiving line,” together with several “socially prominent” friends. Amy wore a white organdie that came from Chicago. There was Robinson’s Orchestra and dancing. For supper, the local caterer had sent to the city for fresh lobster, a delicacy unobtainable in Belleville. The party was not surpassed by the other four débutante parties of the season.

Amy went to innumerable social affairs that winter. When a theatrical company came to Belleville she was always one of a box party, composed usually of the débutantes and four of Belleville’s most desirable young men, all in evening clothes, the girls in dresses bought at the New York Store or made by Madame Jackson, Belleville’s one modiste, the men in rather wrinkled suits, but unmistakably their own.

Something was missing, Amy felt that. Reed came back to Belleville, but he was not attractive any more. He went with Claudine Harper, and Amy did not care. Nothing thrilled her at all.

Sometimes, at a dance, an especially good dance with a good partner would awaken her just a little. A chapter from a popular novel could be mooned over half a day. A play sometimes had a moment which lifted her above things. She read poetry, and soothing rhythms pleased her. Sometimes she tried to write, but never achieved anything beyond a vague scribbling about longings and life and love. This was not living. She wanted to scream out, to batter down something which seemed to stand between her and the story that ought to be happening.

III

Amy went with her father and mother and Clarence on a trip to Niagara Falls, Buffalo and New York City. She pretended a great wonder over the falls, but in reality she did not care for the scenery.

In New York she felt something of the same emotion she had felt when, at the University, she had taken long walks by herself. She wanted to thrust herself into the city, yet, she remained apart, aloof, watching it. Her father, who had been to New York before, took the family on tours of inspection, pointing with his cane—to Amy’s embarrassment—the things of interest. Amy saw the tallest buildings, rode in the subway and busses and taxicabs, visited the museums and Chinatown. In Fifth Avenue she bought some frocks and hats for twice as much as she had ever paid in Belleville. In the lobby of their hotel, a commercial hotel of tremendous size, Amy glanced eagerly at the men who stood there, and thought she recognized famous faces, actors or writers or politicians. Once she even smiled at a man who seemed unusually handsome. He started to walk toward her and she became frightened and took the elevator to her room. On the street she wanted to know people, any of the busy, well-dressed crowd. There were men who looked as if they might be just the sort she liked to read about, clever, cultured. She did not meet any of them.

Back in Belleville, she took up her usual activities, telling of the theatres and show places she had seen in New York. Things seemed duller than ever. Men in Belleville were so definitely unattractive. She wished she lived in New York. But, even as she wished it, a fear of the city came over her. She realized how dreadfully lonely she would feel if she were there alone, how inadequate she was to fit into any of the groups she had seen.

That winter, by putting her mind to it, she became rather a good bridge player. She was made a member of the Hospital Board League and spent afternoons planning how to raise money for various hospital needs.

Lulu Brown married a man whom she had “picked up” in front of the Belleville House. It happened that he was a New York business man, in Belleville about the new cracker factory, and quite wealthy.

Amy went to the wedding in the small Brown cottage. She gave Lulu a small travelling set of imitation ivory. She envied Lulu in her blue going-away suit more than she had ever envied her before. The man Lulu married was named Fredericks and was a striking-looking fellow. Fredericks told about a New York apartment that he had taken for the winter. Lulu was married and going to live in New York. She—why she was richer and better-bred than Lulu and she had to stay in Belleville, and nothing happened to her.

Two months later Amy went to another wedding. Reed Maddon married Claudine Harper. Amy went with the crowd to the station to see them leave for Chicago on a wedding trip. She was surprised to find how little she cared. Outside of a breathless moment of jealousy she didn’t really feel it at all. Yet Reed was the only man she had ever cared about. But, of course, that had been when she was a little girl. She would fall in love soon and life would begin.

Amy spent the next two winters in Belleville. She and her mother went to Benton Springs for the summers, and her father and Clarence, who was now a partner with his father, came up for alternate week-ends. Her father was more condescending than ever now, because she had not married. He was fatter than ever, and Amy did not like to look at his profile.

At Benton Springs Amy flirted with the men at the hotel, colourless, small-town men who were trying hard to get pleasure out of an inexpensive holiday. She did not find them very entertaining. She attended the hotel dances on Saturday nights and went to another hotel for Wednesday evening festivities. She played tennis and golf.

She had a mild love affair with a young lawyer from Texas, and he kissed her one night as they were walking toward the hotel.

After she had gone to bed she thought about him. He was not the sort of man she had planned to marry at all. He did not attract her, but the masculine smell of his coat had been pleasant and he was not bad-looking. Amy decided that, if he asked her to marry him, she would accept him. He did not propose. He left the hotel three days later. With the exception of a picture post-card, she never heard from him again.

Something like a panic seized Amy the next winter. The girls in her set were getting married one after another and new débutantes were appearing each season. Great adventures did not come to her. Even little things did not happen. She felt almost trapped. What if she were wrong about life, about the story?

She visited, with new clothes as aids, her mother’s cousin in Harperton and her Aunt Ella in Demont. She had good times. Girls gave bridge parties for her. Men took her to parties. She did not have a love affair nor any other adventures. She felt she was just as attractive as other girls. They found beaux. Still, to others, she might seem popular, too. She got candy and flowers and invitations. It was just that nothing really came close enough, love or marriage or any sort of happening. She still felt as if she were not really living, as if life were waiting for her, outside of some gate. She was bound to find it, if she waited.

She returned to Belleville in January, and the next month Millard Kenton came to Belleville on business. His cousins lived there, so he was included in the town’s social affairs. Amy met him, as she always met visitors.

Kenton was attentive to her immediately. She disliked him at first. He was small and had brown hair which was getting thin at twenty-eight. There was nothing forceful or vital about him. His strongest opinions seemed to have no importance. Nothing he could do ever could have any significance, Amy felt.

Yet, because he liked her, Amy ignored Kenton’s colourlessness and made herself as attractive as she could. She was slender and had nice eyes and hair and wore pretty, small-town, fluffy dresses.

When Kenton called, they sat in the living-room and talked or played bridge with other couples or went to the theatre.

Sometimes, when she was alone with Kenton, Amy looked at his indefinite, uninteresting face and wondered how she could keep on talking with him. What a bore he was! She liked him a little better, but felt that he was more insignificant than a man ought to be.

Kenton’s home was in Minota, Oklahoma, where he was with an oil company. He went back to Minota and wrote to Amy on his business stationery in a small, slanting handwriting. His letters were colourless, too.

Kenton came back to Belleville in April and asked Amy to marry him. She had encouraged him in little ways, listening with flattering attention to his opinions, answering his letters with half-finished sentences that were meant to show that she liked him.

Amy had never had a real proposal of marriage. She felt that the great romance, as she had dreamed it, would never come to her. But all the other girls were marrying. Being married would open new avenues. Maybe, after marriage, she would have adventures. If things did happen—she could leave Kenton any time she wanted to—

IV

They had a church wedding. Amy wore a very elaborate wedding gown and veil, and six of her best friends were bridesmaids, in pale green. Amy showed her artistic training by designing huge fans for the girls to carry, instead of the usual flowers.

Amy and Kenton went to housekeeping in an apartment in Minota, Oklahoma, which they furnished with huge overstuffed chairs and mahogany furniture.

Amy did not like Minota. It was an oil town and the smell of the oil permeated everything. Minota was a little smaller than Belleville and definitely newer and flimsier. She knew several former Belleville people there, so, after a first loneliness, a feeling of not belonging to any place, she settled down comfortably enough. Soon she was one of the set of “younger matrons” and went to bridge games and parties quite as she had done at home.

She missed Belleville. After six months she went home on a visit. When she got there she was at once restless and dissatisfied and didn’t know what to do. After she had seen her parents and her friends and had walked down the familiar streets, she was quite willing to go back to Minota again.

She grew to like Kenton a great deal. Now that she could read while he was at home or ignore him altogether, he did not bore her. They had so many things in common—their home, their friends—that at times he seemed almost interesting.

A year after Amy married, Millard, junior, was born. Amy had read and thought that motherhood was a thing apart, almost an exalted state. She welcomed it, frightened but eager. It left her much the same, without the ecstasy she had anticipated.

Two years later Mary-Etta came. Amy was very fond of her children.

When Millard was four Arnold Thompson came to Minota. He was good-looking and had the reputation of being popular with women. Amy encouraged him to notice her. The Kentons were living in their own home, now, a white bungalow, and they had a coloured maid who took almost entire charge of the children.

Thompson telephoned and asked to call one afternoon.