Broken Necks/Caricature
I
The first thing that I remember noticing about him was that he was an elbow-steerer. This is nothing conclusive against a man. I have known elbow-steerers of excellent character, men who ripened with acquaintance into arresting and piquant companions. But always an elbow-steerer is to be accepted gingerly, with the eyes narrowed, with the lips pursed.
As I remember it, he appeared at the end of the marble hotel corridor, which in Chicago is still known, for all I can say, as Peacock Alley, an elbow- steerer in full action. His fingers were rigidly sunk into the lady's elbow. He guided her in a masterful manner down the deserted stretch to where I sat and waited. A pilot coming into port, a pathfinder, a mine-layer, the creature picked his way down the utterly vacant corridor, a corridor without obstruction, danger, or mystery, and I watched him with a sinking heart.
"So this," thought I with that spiritual laceration which the sight of this particular lady once upon a time invariably aroused in me, "so this is what she's fallen for!"
I had been prepared to loathe the fellow when I first heard of his marriage to Helen. Offhand, sight-unseen, I had set him down in my mind as one to be accepted with suspicion and slow, careful reconnoitering.
But as the days passed and the blow lessened I had begun to think kindly of the man. Even his name, Joshua Briggs, had begun to lose some of its melancholy significance. After all, there was probably some quality to a man Helen would marry. She was a woman of taste, refinement, aye, genius. She could sing like a lark. I remember her sitting at the piano, singing as if the world were hidden from her, bringing purple distances into the little balcony room, her face like a little pool of moonlight in the dark, her voice throbbing, enchanting, pouring from her parted lips.
"Some day," I used to tell her, "I shall write as you sing. There is no one who sings like you. Calvé and Melba will some day sit at your feet."
These things I remember now very clearly, but more clearly I remembered them as I sat and waited for her and her new husband.
The honeymoon over, Helen had written me. The name at the foot of the brief letter had plunged me into that opalescent state peculiar to discarded suitors about to meet again their lost ones. I shaved, I massaged, I donned a festive tunic, I selected a cane of black lacquer, I sought the most delicate of stimulants, a rare yellow wine, and I sat myself at the far end of the corridor, as had been appointed, and mapped out repartee and epigram.
Would she be wistful when she saw me? Ah, what would I not give for just one little shadow in her eyes, I who had once aspired to the fires of love! What would I not give for one intimate tremor as her hand came into mine, one touch of salve for an outraged heart. Actually I had determined to be magnanimous, to shine with a joyous, steady light, to seize upon the fellow, to slap his back and pump his hand and whisper something about liquor. I should precipitate no crises, I should not mar the inexplicable joys of her love for another man by any exhibition of meanness, I should accept him. I should accept her, them, it. I was above the messiness of emotions. And then the creature appeared.
As I watched his portentous air, his grim solicitation as he progressed down the corridor, as I noted the wrapt and scientific manner in which he manipulated the elbow of her whom I had loved and lost, I knew him at once for what he was, an elbow-steerer superb, a Grand Proprietor. Know you, there are degrees and varieties of elbow-steerers. There are the dubious cavaliers who learned their manners from a dancing teacher, the professional escorters, the knightly ice-cream-soda fans. There are the shifty, hesitating, inexpert species, and, too, the maudlin roués who batten upon surreptitious caressings of funnybones. But he was none of these.
Do I seem too tolerant, too superficial in my judgments? And do you set my foment down to a petulance unworthy, perhaps an old man's prejudice? If so I will confide to you that all my life I have been a judger by symbols. A wink, a chuckle, a bow leg, a casual grimace for me have always determined character. Show me a man who affects brown tunics and scratches his nose when he speaks and I will prove you he is a snuff-maker's eldest son and not to be trusted. Show me a woman who wears long earrings and walks pigeon-toed and I will demonstrate to you that she is a trapeze performer.
To revert, he, the man who appeared in the marble corridor with his fingers sunk in the elbow of the lady I had loved and lost, he with his all-protecting air, his all-combating manner, was a Grand Proprietor. I saw the symbol and I knew the man.
"So this," thought I again, "is her choice. This is the person who succeeded where I failed, this the Turk in whose Yildiz she shall henceforward sing."
To my horror, I remember it keenly, I noted further as they approached that he was also a spot- walker. Yes, by the Toothless Fates, a walker of spots, a creature who cunningly stepped upon precise and related points in the patterns of carpets, and corridors, who pounced upon cracks in the pavement.
I arose trembling.
"I have heard a great deal about you," said the man, eyeing me with a calm and measuring gaze, slipping one foot cleverly over one of the diamond squares which formed the pattern of the marble flooring. "How do you do, Mr. Cour."
"Mother," said Helen, "and sister are waiting in the lobby."
"Yes," said the man, "they are anxious to meet you."
I recovered my voice.
"As an old friend of the family," I began, "I wish first to offer my congratulations."
It was only the beginning of my speech. There were remarks of great weight and scintillation planned to follow. I do not remember saying them. In fact, the remainder of that entire evening is in a haze to me. There was a short fat woman whom Helen called mother. There was a tall acidulated thing she referred to as sister. And there was Josh Briggs. Ah, they were a family for you. Grim, joyless, shrewd, they seemed to me to be continually pouncing upon evils and wiping them out. Devastations surrounded them. And the most horrible thing was Helen in their midst.
II
A week I spent in the shadow of their presence. During that week I learned many things. It appeared that in marrying her, Josh had not only conferred upon Helen the joy of his love but that he had plucked her even as a brand from the burning. He had rescued her from godless ways. He had found her singing, laughing, thrilling at the touch of beauty, which is only one of the many masks of Satan, and he had enlightened her and saved her. She no longer sang. She no longer laughed. Nor did she thrill at the touch of beauty.
They had pointed out to her that song, except when uttered in the worship of the Lord, was a demoralizing power. It snared citizens into vice, it led its victims into theaters.
It is difficult to describe all the details of the change which had befallen Helen. The three of them, indecently stupid, had captured and stripped her. They forbade her the society of strangers. Josh was their hero. Around him the two women gravitated. When he smiled they smiled, when he frowned their indignation blazed forth upon a helpless world. And of all the unmitigated asses, of all the banal, insufferably pompous hand-rubbers, Joshua Briggs was the most complete, the most perfect that ever flourished under the protection of an indulgent Republic.
There was nothing to do. I went about during that week catching now and then a glimpse of Helen, unsmiling, calm. Now and then we spoke to each other. But always there was a faraway sound to her words as if she were speaking from other worlds.
Sometimes we met—as we were living at the same hotel this was not difficult—for unexpected moments— and remained silent awaiting the arrival of one of the Briggses. They were never long in arriving. They had appointed themselves the angels of the Lord and as such they hovered ever close to her whom they had saved. Evidently they deemed the process not complete. For one day I found her in tears. It was the seventh day.
At first I passed on. She was sitting on the mezzanine floor of our hotel almost hidden from view behind a Chinese screen. The floor was deserted.
As I moved away rage seized me.
At the stairs I paused and turned.
I walked back to her and sat down at her side.
In that moment the determination to save her, to rescue her had matured. My mind was made up.
We did not speak for a moment. I waited until she had dried her eyes.
Then I said to her,
"I want you to tell me about this thing youve got into. I think I can help you."
She shook her head and answered,
"You know what it is."
"I suspect," I admitted. "But why are you crying now?" Her eyes, still luminous with tears, became miserable.
"Oh," she said, "I can't see any way out of it. I married him and that's all."
"What has he been doing now?" I demanded. "Tell me, Helen."
As she made no reply, I placed my hand over hers and went on with an effort at optimism.
"Come, come, it's not so terribly awful. Matrimony requires adjustments, you know, and all sorts of delicate work, all sorts of..."
Her hand tightening stiffly about my fingers brought an end to my efforts. She shuddered and began to talk in a low miserable voice.
"He won't let me sing, even to myself," she said. "It doesn't seem possible. But his mother insists. She says it leads to Hell and perdition."
"Good God!" I interrupted.
"They've forbidden me to see you since they learned you wrote poetry. And ... and he's burned my books."
"Helen," I cried, "what are you talking about!"
"And there are other things, Billy," she wailed. "I can't stand it!"
"You don't have to!" I said savagely.
"It is like being a prisoner and worse. I've had two months of it now and I can't see any way out."
III
I remained silent. No doubt my brain was somewhat staggered under this vision of Helen as a serf, shorn, stripped, imprisoned. No doubt I remembered her as she had been, the Helen who sang and laughed and made merry a dull world by the mere light of her eyes. There was something inexpressibly tragic at the moment.
Gradually the rage passed from me and an impatience gave way to an emotion which choked and confused my words.
After several ineffectual starts I managed, I remember, to say, "I love you, Helen, more than in the old days," and to fall silent again and shiver.
She bade me hush and I hushed.
But her hand remained in mine and my remark seemed to have caused her to stop weeping.
"It was all a mistake, Briggs and the marriage, and we can forget it," I whispered.
Womanlike she inquired what I meant, and manlike I stuttered with my sinful thoughts running riot in the back of my head.
Finally I blurted out,
"You can come away with me. It will be an escape for you and Heaven for me. There's no use throwing any melodrama into it. Let's take it calmly and sanely."
"Hush, Billy," she said.
"Do you want to?" I whispered.
"It's not a matter of what I wish to do," she answered.
"You mean something about morality, fidelity, as in lodges?"
"Call it by any odious name you wish," she said.
"Marriage," quoth I, "is a social institution. It has about as much to do with God or the spirit as political elections."
"I didn't come to argue marriage with you, good Heavens. Please, Billy, spare me a debate. I'm not equal to it. I don't want to debate, I don't debate . . . anything."
"All right," I agreed amiably. "Let's not debate anything. Let's admit that marriage is whatever in Hell it is. I don't know. But we shan't debate it. Now to the facts. This witchburner of yours."
"Joshua is not a witchburner," she interrupted.
"Very well, this saint in caricature whose name you bear..."
"Billy," she said desperately, "there is no use in spending your time calling people names."
"Some people are best described, Helen, by cursing. Three great round oaths would give any one, any intelligent person, a fine analytical study of Joshua. Four snappy curses would reveal Joshua's mother, full length. As for his sister..."
"Oh, Billy, be serious, please."
"Serious," I said. "Do you suppose there is anything flippant in asking a married woman to elope with one . . . in seeing the woman you love butchered and murdered?"
"I won't elope."
"Never mind that at this moment. We haven't come to your answer yet."
"We have. And passed it."
"No, we haven't. I want to know first before we really begin whether you have any love for this creature?"
"No."
"Any respect or sneaking admiration?"
"No."
"Then from what you tell me, and from what I've seen, you're a sort of marital convict. You're a spiritual slave. They're a bunch of harpies feasting on your beautiful soul. How in the name of the hundred and seventy-five Gods of Intelligence did you ever happen to?"
"Billy!"
Her voice had a dangerous ring.
I subsided.
I pressed her hand.
"Forgive me," I lied. "I am not myself when I think of the fellow."
"Don't think of him, Billy. You've done me a lot of good, Billy, in letting me talk as I have. And now forget it. Let's go."
I clung to her hand.
"It's your only chance, Helen," I pleaded. "Come along with me. You know me well enough to trust me, whatever happens. You can't go on living in this hell."
"No, Billy."
"You don't love him and every day you'll love him less. You'll hate him. He'll steal everything lovely from your life."
"I can't," she said. "I don't know why."
"Yes, you can," I urged, "I'll love you forever."
"It's too late."
I could think of nothing else to say. My heart pounded within me. Rage and desire, love and hate swept me into a delirium.
I managed to repeat,
"You can't go back to that mess. You're young, Helen—twenty-five. Think of it. Throwing yourself out of the world like this! And what about your voice and your dreams. Good God!"
The tears streamed from her eyes and she continued to shake her head as I continued to plead.
Suddenly she leaned toward me and her arms encircled my neck. Her lips fastened themselves to mine and a panic of hope and joy shot through me.
"Good-bye," she said, "and thanks."
I sat in a daze and watched her rise.
She seemed to sway as she moved from me and at the other end of the floor I saw three figures.
They stood rigidly against the blazing lights of the hotel, three grim and merciless tyrants. Joshua was the first to see her and a prodigious frown swept his face. The mother was the second and her lips hardened into fearsome lines. The sister came forward. She reached out her hand and seized Helen by the arm and led her to Joshua's side.
I could not hear them talk. I sat and watched them surround her, hovering about her, worrying her as a pack of hounds worries some fair quarry. She did not look back, and the last I saw of her was the back of her slim straight figure moving slowly toward the stairs, the fingers of her husband rigidly sunk into her elbow and steering her, ominously, portentously.
IV
And that memory of Helen I carried with me for thirty years. All that I have written I gradually for- got, as one forgets things in growing old. Sometimes there would come to me in the years memories of Helen at the piano, singing with her face raised like a little pool of moonlight in the dark, singing an enchantment into life. At the opera, at the concert, I recalled her, and sometimes in the presence of many women I recalled the sweetness and the beauty, the lighted eyes and laughing mouth which they never seemed to equal.
But always after such recollections there would come to me this other, this memory of Helen moving from me with the fingers of a man sunk in her elbow, an elbow-steerer—a curse upon the tribe, a murrain on the host of them!
It so happened that during those thirty years I never saw or heard more of Helen. As time passed I grew glad of this. With age there comes that peculiar intelligence which the philosophers call resignation.
I am now a thin, grey-faced man with neither tears nor laughter for the world. Upon the shelves of my library are scattered a few volumes which bear my name and in them I have told my histories.
I am not, however, one of those who pass into hiding with the event of age. Rather do I caper about, cackling witticisms in odd corners, shaming the young with epigrams remembered from their fathers.
I still enjoy the savor of rage, the delicate lust of smiling. There are certain dignities which I insist upon, certain severe graces with which I ennoble sterile moments.
Thus I will omit these thirty years, merely waving the wand of assertion for you, and tell you how it came about that I remembered things forgotten for three decades, remembered them all minutely and savagely and with the zest of youth. It was at the home of Mrs. Lawson that the memory returned.
For some years, ever since I had come to London, in fact, I had pursued a habit of visiting the Lawsons the second evening of every month. George Lawson and his wife Harriet had grown into my life so as to become a part of the routine of my thoughts. The buxom regality of the lady invariably cheered and sustained me, the fine discrimination of the man al- ways managed to soothe and charm me.
On the second evening of this last June I was sitting in the cool drawing-room of the Lawsons' house in Half Moon Street. There were several persons scattered about, a little woman with black hair and shining eyes dressed in a weird gray, a tall, dignified creature who seemed to be folded up as she sat up- right in her chair. The others, a lemon-faced man, and a bulgy crony of mine host, occupied casual places. We talked about the war, about religion, and occasionally stopped to listen to a faint, irritating humming which came out of an inner room.
I looked at Lawson quizzically. It was unlike these evenings to have even the minor annoyance of some anxious amateur to contend with.
But the talk went on and Lawson, catching my gaze, nodded with a twinkle in his eye and remained silent. The persistent strumming of the piano, the out-of-tune chirpings which accompanied it finally startled my nerves out of calm.
I managed to whisper to Lawson,
"Good Lord, what have we there?"
As I spoke, Mrs. Lawson appeared and nodded toward the little group.
"We're going to have some music," she said, and beamed with an amiable belligerence in my direction.
I nodded.
"Oh," said Mrs. Lawson. "You haven't met her yet?"
"Who—m— ?" I inquired bluntly. I had an intimation that the strummer and chirper was intended.
"You were a bit late," said Mrs. Lawson; "if you please."
She beckoned me. I arose and followed.
In the inner room I perceived several women and a short, pompous man. But the woman who riveted my attention was the strummer, the chirper. She was a preposterously bulging creature, a caricature. She was dressed in green, a vicious shining green which smote the eyes as a blow. For the moment I could not remove my gaze from her dress. I stared at its loops, at its ribbons, at its laces and terrible confusion. Never had I seen so strange a dress in my life.
Then I encountered her face.
Her face was the face of an old woman, folded and wrinkled. But over it was smeared a layer of startling rouge and the eyes, heavy and flabby, were quickened with stencilings. Large earrings dangled from the tips of her ears. Hair red and flaming surmounted her head, and a litter of jeweled pins. When she came forward to meet me she cocked her remarkable head on one side in the manner of a parrot and extended a wizened, heavily ringed hand. Her voice greeted me with a horrible simper, a simulated girlishness. The whole figure was impossible. Never off the burlesque stage had I seen its equal.
"A woman of eighty, ninety," flashed through my mind, "in the hideous masquerade of youth. Good God!"
I stared longer than was polite. I gasped more than was kind. I could only shake the little wizened hand and marvel at this bizarre apparition. The name utterly escaped me. I heard Mrs. Lawson mention that the creature was to sing and, fascinated, I watched her trip daintily towards the piano bench.
"Mr. Cour, will you turn my music?" she inquired sweetly.
Her rolling eyes turned themselves toward me in some uncanny attempt at coquetry. This caricature, this burlesque, giggled, arched her preposterous eyebrows, and inclined her head. The short, pompous man waddled to her side before I could recover sufficiently to reply. As she searched among her music Mrs. Lawson drew me aside and whispered, "Don't you know her? Heavens! She's quite the talk of the town. Bags of money since her husband died . . . a man named Joshua Briggs . . . surely you've heard of him. Made millions in leather, died just last year . . . I knew her then in America. Don't stare so . . . I know she's ghastly . . . acts like a two-year-old . . . Heavens! She was perfectly splendid before Mr. Brigg's death . . . splendid . . . one of the most exquisite and refined women I have ever met . . . I remember her at her home. . . Oh, so sweet and charming . . . and now look at her . . . seems to have lost her reason utterly in just one short year . . . and the worst of it is she insists on singing . . . Heavens! . . . Why, she has never sung in her life before . . . I inquired . . . never . . . did you ever see such a fright, though, William, really, did you? She . . . she's going to start."
I had heard only fragments of Mrs. Lawson's talk.
It was Helen, Helen born again, liberated after thirty years, Helen renewing her youth.
I stared open-mouthed. I shuddered. A pain, the laceration of memory struck at my heart.
During the few moments which followed Mrs. Lawson's silence the truth swept in upon me. I saw her again moving toward the stairs, the fingers of her husband sunk rigidly into her elbow, swaying, vanishing . . . I saw again the grim, terrible trio hovering about her, guiding her out of sight. And I dreamed in an instant the thirty years of her life.
"He has forbidden me to sing . . . he has burned my books . . . he thinks it is Hell and perdition."
Out of the years the words floated back to me.
With a half anile gesture, the tragically ridiculous creature at the piano straightened out the green dress, the flounces, thrust a withered silken ankle forward to the pedals, grimaced under the layers of rouge and stencilings, and struck at the keys. Out of the years came to me a song long forgotten, a song which does not live in the world any more.
The caricature at the piano was singing it. With her face raised, a grotesque panel under the yellow lights of the room, this woman sat and sang, her voice breaking, her throat tightening hideously.
Now and then a full round note slipped startlingly into the grating discords. The suddenly familiar words awakened a fear in me. She at the piano became some grotesque ghost of one I had known. Her hollow shoulders mocked at me. I watched her for a moment as, with her face raised and oblivious to the sneers of the room, she sat and sent forth a quavering voice in search of youth, sat and gestured and grimaced and preened over the keys. I saw her eyes roll with a ghastly coquetry toward me . . . For that moment she became like some beribboned, berouged, and bespangled maniac.
I saw her as she was . . . Helen in quest of a youth buried and gone forever.
I rose and fled from the room.