The Price She Paid Part 40

"What a silly fool I am!" thought she. "Why did I do this in the worst, the hardest possible way? I should have held on to Stanley until I had a position. No, I'm such a poor creature that I could never have done it in that way. I'd simply have kept on bluffing, fooling myself, putting off and putting of. I had to jump into the water with n.o.body near to help me, or I'd never have begun to learn to swim. I haven't begun yet. I may never learn to swim. I may drown. Yes, I probably shall drown."

She wandered aimlessly on--around the upper reservoir where the strong breeze freshened her through and through and made her feel less forlorn in spite of her chicken heart. She crossed the bridge at the lower end and came down toward the East Drive. A taxicab rushed by, not so fast, however, that she failed to recognize Donald Keith and Cyrilla Brindley. They were talking so earnestly--Keith was talking, for a wonder, and Mrs. Brindley listening--that they did not see her. She went straight home. But as she was afoot, the journey took about half an hour. Cyrilla was already there, in a negligee, looking as if she had not been out of the little library for hours. She was writing a letter. Mildred strolled in and seated herself. Cyrilla went on writing. Mildred watched her impatiently. She wished to talk, to be talked to, to be consoled and cheered, to hear about Donald Keith.

Would that letter never be finished? At last it was, and Cyrilla took a book and settled herself to reading. There was a vague something in her manner--a change, an att.i.tude toward Mildred--that disturbed Mildred. Or, was that notion of a change merely the offspring of her own somber mood? Seeing that Mrs. Brindley would not begin, she broke the silence herself. Said she awkwardly:

"I've decided to move. In fact, I've got to move."

Cyrilla laid down the book and regarded her tranquilly. "Of course,"

said she. "I've already begun to arrange for someone else."

Mildred choked, and the tears welled into her eyes. She had not been mistaken; Cyrilla had changed toward her. Now that she had no prospects for a brilliant career, now that her money was gone, Cyrilla had begun to--to be human. No doubt, in the course of that drive, Cyrilla had discovered that Keith had no interest in her either.

Mildred beat down her emotion and was soon able to say in a voice as unconcerned as Cyrilla's:

"I'll find a place to-morrow or next day, and go at once."

"I'll be sorry to lose you," said Mrs. Brindley, "but I agree with you that you can't get settled any too soon."

"You don't happen to know of any cheap, good place?" said Mildred.

"If it's cheap, I don't think it's likely to be good--in New York,"

replied Cyrilla. "You'll have to put up with inconveniences--and worse. I'd offer to help you find a place, but I think everything self-reliant one does helps one to learn. Don't you?"

"Yes, indeed," a.s.sented Mildred. The thing was self-evidently true; still she began to hate Cyrilla. This cold-hearted New York! How she would grind down her heel when she got it on the neck of New York!

Friends.h.i.+p, love, helpfulness--what did New York and New-Yorkers know of these things? "Or Hanging Rock, either," reflected she. What a cold and lonely world!

"Have you been to see about a position?" inquired Cyrilla.

Mildred was thrown into confusion. "I can't go--for a--day or so," she stammered. "The changeable weather has rather upset my throat. Nothing serious, but I want to be at my best."

"Certainly," said Mrs. Brindley. Her direct gaze made Mildred uncomfortable. She went on: "You're sure it's the weather?"

"What else could it be?" demanded Mildred with a latent resentment whose interesting origin she did not pause to inquire into.

"Well, salad, or sauces, or desserts, or cafe au lait in the morning, or candy, or tea," said Cyrilla. "Or it might be cigarettes, or all those things--and thin stockings and low shoes--mightn't it?"

Never before had she known Cyrilla to say anything meddlesome or cattish. Said Mildred with a faint sneer, "That sounds like Mr.

Keith's crankiness."

"It is," replied Cyrilla. "I used to think he was a crank on the subject of singing and stomachs, and singing and ankles. But I've been convinced, partly by him, mostly by what I've observed."

Mildred maintained an icy silence.

"I see you are resenting what I said," observed Cyrilla.

"Not at all," said Mildred. "No doubt you meant well."

"You will please remember that you asked me a question."

So she had. But the discovery that she was clearly in the wrong, that she had invited the disguised lecture, only aggravated her sense of resentment against Mrs. Brindley. She spent the rest of the afternoon in sorting and packing her belongings--and in crying. She came upon the paper Donald Keith had left. She read it through carefully, thoughtfully, read it to the last direction as to exercise with the machine, the last arrangement for a daily routine of life, the last suggestion as to diet.

"Fortunately all that isn't necessary," said she to herself, when she had finished. "If it were, I could never make a career. I'm not stupid enough to be able to lead that kind of life. Why, I'd not care to make a career, at that price. Slavery--plain slavery."

When she went in to dinner, she saw instantly that Cyrilla too had been crying. Cyrilla did not look old, anything but that, indeed was not old and would not begin to be for many a year. Still, after thirty-five or forty a woman cannot indulge a good cry without its leaving serious traces that will show hours afterward. At sight of the evidences of Cyrilla's grief Mildred straightway forgot her resentment.

There must have been some other cause for Cyrilla's peculiar conduct.

No matter what, since it was not hardness of heart.

It was a sad, even a gloomy dinner. But the two women were once more in perfect sympathy. And afterward Mildred brought the Keith paper and asked Cyrilla's opinion. Cyrilla read slowly and without comment. At last she said:

"He got this from his mother, Lucia Rivi. Have you read her life?"

"No. I've heard almost nothing about her, except that she was famous."

"She was more than that," said Mrs. Brindley. "She was great, a great personality. She was an almost sickly child and girl. Her first attempts on the stage were humiliating failures. She had no health, no endurance, nothing but a small voice of rare quality." Cyrilla held up the paper. "This tells how she became one of the surest and most powerful dramatic sopranos that ever lived."

"She must have been a dull person to have been able to lead the kind of life that's described there," said Mildred.

"Only two kinds of persons could do it," replied Cyrilla--"a dull person--a plodder--and a genius. Middling people--they're the kind that fill the world, they're you and I, my dear--middling people have to fuss with the trifles that must be sacrificed if one is to do anything big. You call those trifles your freedom, but they're your slavery.

And by sacrificing them the Lucia Rivis buy their freedom." Cyrilla looked at the paper with a heavy sigh. "Ah, I wish I had seen this when I was your age. Now, it's too late."

Said Mildred: "Would you seriously advise me to try that?"

Cyrilla came and sat beside her and put an arm around her. "Mildred,"

she said, "I've never thrust advice on you. I only dare do it now because you ask me, and because I love you. You must try it. It's your one chance. If you do not, you will fail. You don't believe me?"

In a tone that was admission, Mildred said: "I don't know."

"Keith has given you there the secret of a successful career. You'll never read it in any book, or get it from any teacher, or from any singer or manager or doctor. You must live like that, you must do those things or you will fail even in musical comedy. You would fail even as an actress, if you tried that, when you found out that the singing was out of the question."

Mildred was impressed. Perhaps she would have been more impressed had she not seen Keith and Mrs. Brindley in the taxi, Keith talking earnestly and Mrs. Brindley listening as if to an oracle. Said she: "Perhaps I'll adopt some of the suggestions."

Cyrilla shook her head. "It's a route to success. You must go the whole route or not at all."

"Don't forget that there have been other singers besides Rivi."

"Not any that I recall who weren't naturally powerful in every way. And how many of them break down? Mildred, please do put the silly nonsense about nerves and temperament and inspiration and overwork and weather and climate--put all that out of your head. Build your temple of a career as high and graceful and delicate as you like, but build it on the coa.r.s.e, hard, solid rock, dear!"

Mildred tried to laugh lightly. "How Mr. Keith does hypnotize people!"

cried she.

Mrs. Brindley's cheeks burned, and her eyes lowered in acute embarra.s.sment. "He has a way of being splendidly and sensibly right,"

said she. "And the truth is wonderfully convincing--once one sees it."

She changed the subject, and it did not come up--or, perhaps, come OUT again--before they went to bed. The next day Mildred began the depressing, hopeless search for a place to live that would be clean, comfortable, and cheap. Those three adjectives describe the ideal lodging; but it will be noted that all these are relative. In fact, none of the three means exactly the same thing to any two members of the human family. Mildred's notion of clean--like her notion of comfortable--on account of her bringing up implied a large element of luxury. As for the word "cheap," it really meant nothing at all to her. From one standpoint everything seemed cheap; from another, everything seemed dear; that is, too dear for a young woman with less than five hundred dollars in the world and no substantial prospect of getting a single dollar more--unless by hook and crook, both of which means she was resolved not to employ.

Never having earned so much as a single penny, the idea of anyone's giving her anything for what she might be able to do was disturbingly vague and unreal. On the other hand, looking about her, she saw scores of men and women, personally known to her to be dull of conversation, and not well mannered or well dressed or well anything, who were making livings without overwhelming difficulty. Why not Mildred Gower? In this view the outlook was not discouraging. "I'll no doubt go through some discomfort, getting myself placed. But somewhere and somehow I shall be placed--and how I shall revenge myself on Donald Keith!" His fascination for her had not been destroyed by his humiliating lack of belief in her, nor by his cold-hearted desertion at just the critical moment. But his conduct had given her the incentive of rage, of stung vanity--or wounded pride, if you prefer. She would get him back; she would force him to admit; she would win him, if she could--and that ought not to be difficult when she should be successful. Having won him, then-- What then? Something superb in the way of revenge; she would decide what, when the hour of triumph came. Meanwhile she must search for lodgings.

In her journeyings under the guidance of attractive advertis.e.m.e.nts and "carefully selected" agents' lists, she found herself in front of her first lodgings in New York--the house of Mrs. Belloc. She had often thought of the New England school-teacher, arrived by such strange paths at such a strange position in New York. She had started to call on her many times, but each time had been turned aside; New York makes it more than difficult to find time to do anything that does not have to be done at a definite time and for a definite reason. She was worn out with her futile trampings up and down streets, up and down stairs.

Up the stone steps she went and rang the bell.

Yes, Mrs. Belloc was in, and would be glad to see her, if Miss Stevens would wait in the drawing-room a few minutes. She had not seated herself when down the stairs came the fresh, pleasantly countrified voice of Mrs. Belloc, inviting her to ascend. As Mildred started up, she saw at the head of the stairs the frank and cheerful face of the lady herself. She was holding together at the neck a thin silk wrapper whose lines strongly suggested that it was the only garment she had on.