Tales of the City Room/Ruth Herrick's Assignment
RUTH HERRICK'S
ASSIGNMENT
Tales
of the City Room
RUTH HERRICK'S ASSIGNMENT
MISS RUTH HERRICK, of the "New York Searchlight," had been summoned into the presence of the managing editor. It was without special alacrity that she obeyed the call. Even as she dropped her pen and rose from her desk in the City Room, she seemed to hear the slow drawl of the great man's voice, uttering the words which so often greeted her appearance in his office,—
"Ah, Miss Herrick, I have a big story for you—a very big story."
Usually she felt herself responding to this with a pleasant thrill of expectancy. There was keen satisfaction to her in the working up of a "big story"; she enjoyed the journeys and experiences it frequently included, and the strange characters among whom it often led her. Neither the experiences nor the characters were always wholly agreeable, but she never complained. Even the managing editor acknowledged this. He had been heard to remark, in an expansive moment, that Ruth Herrick was a very superior woman, with no nerves or nonsense about her. The gracious opinion was promptly repeated to the girl, and the memory of it had cheered her during several assignments in which nerves and a woman were equally out of place.
But to-night she almost rebelled. Strangely enough, she was not ready for the work before her. Her thoughts flew from the bent heads and hurrying pens around her to a dining-room up-town, even now alight and flower-trimmed for the little supper which had been planned to celebrate one of her greatest "beats." "The Searchlight" of that morning had contained her story; the chief and her fellow-reporters had complimented her; there were pleasant rumors that a more substantial evidence of appreciation would be forthcoming. All day she had idled, enjoying the relaxation from the strain of the past week, and looking forward to that dinner for various and personal reasons. The society editor, who had been invited, was just about to leave the office. She saw him wave the last page of his copy triumphantly in the air, as he reached for his hat with the other hand. He was to make the speech of the evening, and he had promised his hostess that he would explain to the non-professional guests what a "beat" really means to the newspaper and reporter that secure it. Earlier in the day he had submitted his definition to Miss Herrick for her approval.
"A big beat," he had read solemnly, "is an important exclusive story. If it appears in your newspaper, it is the greatest journalistic feat of the year, implying the possession of superior skill, brains, and journalistic enterprise by the members of your staff. If it appears in the other fellow's newspaper, it means that some idiot has accidentally stumbled across a piece of news which does n't amount to much anyway, and which he has garbled painfully in the telling. Your newspaper gives 'the correct facts' the second day, and calls attention to the 'fake story' published by your rival. Then you privately censure your city editor and reporters for letting the other newspaper 'throw them down.' Meantime, the other fellow, who published the story first, is patting himself and his reporters on the back, 'jollying' his city and managing editors, and crowing over his achievement on his editorial page. The reporter who brought in the story, or the 'tip,' gets some praise, and possibly a check. His position on the newspaper is secure—until he makes his next mistake. Tersely expressed, a 'beat' is a story which only one newspaper gets, and which all the other newspapers wanted. A reporter with the right spirit will move heaven and earth to get it for the journal he represents."
"I 've just prepared a graceful tribute to you," he called out as he caught her eye. "The chief says you 're one of the most reliable members of the staff, can always be depended upon, and all that. They 've been talking about you this afternoon in the editorial council."
Miss Herrick's face flushed a little as she returned his sunny smile. She was still blushing slightly as she entered the managing editor's office.
That gentleman sat at his desk, barricaded by waste-paper baskets and bundles of proofs. Small and grimy boys trailed in at intervals, adding to the interesting collection before him, telegrams and cards and notes. A habitual furrow between his eyes was deepened,—for the occasion, his visitor told herself in the bitterness of the moment,—but the effect was softened by a really charming smile. It was said that "The Searchlight's" presiding genius always wore that smile when he was giving a difficult assignment to one of his staff. It spoke of hope and confidence, and, incidentally, of the futility of excuse and objection. The young reporter had seen it before, and now found herself fixing a fascinated but hopeless gaze upon it. Her apprehensions were strengthened by the efforts of a young man with weak eyes and a corrugated brow, who sat in one corner diligently playing on a typewriter. He stopped long enough to recognize the young woman, and to run through a brief but expressive pantomime descriptive of the work before her. This habit had endeared him to the members of the staff.
The managing editor cleared a chair by an energetic sweep of one arm, and, still smiling, looked keenly at the girl through his half-closed lids. Then he asked abruptly: "How much do you know about the Brandow case?"
Ruth Herrick's heart leaped suddenly. Was he going to give her that famous case after all? She had hinted last week that she wanted it, but he had sent Marlowe instead. Marlowe, she had noticed, had made an ignominious failure of it. She smiled inwardly as she recalled the column of vague conjecture and suggestions sent in the day before by that unhappy young man.
"I know that Helen Brandow is accused of having poisoned her husband," she replied quietly, "and that the evidence against her is purely circumstantial. I am familiar with all the theories that have been advanced, including Mr. Marlowe's surmises in 'The Searchlight' this morning."
The young man at the typewriter looked up quickly at this, but the managing editor's face was impassive.
"She has refused to see reporters or friends," continued the girl. "So far as can be learned, she has not spoken a word since her arrest. Her trial will begin Monday, and she is awaiting it in the prison at Fairview. She is young and handsome, and her family is one of the best in the State. Public sympathy is wholly with her, and everybody says that she will be acquitted."
The managing editor's smile reappeared.
"Good," he said briskly. "I want you to take the first train to Fairview and interview that woman to-morrow morning."
"I'm almost positive she won't talk," murmured Miss Herrick, doubtfully; but even as she spoke the last spark of rebellion died out, and she was planning ways and means.
"It is your business to make her talk," was the encouraging response. "Interview her and write the best story you ever wrote in your life. Every one else has failed. If you are ambitious, here is your chance to distinguish yourself. I will have a boy at the station with letters which may help you. Good-night."
Eighteen hours later she sat in the Fairview prison. It was easy enough to get there. The warden unbent marvellously under the influence of a strong personal letter and Miss Herrick's face. The girl felt quite like a distinguished guest as the stern old fellow spoke of stories of hers which he had read, and newspaper cuts of her which he had seen, "which," he added kindly, "don't look much like you." Then he was led to speak of Mrs. Brandow, to whom he and his wife had become much attached during the long months of her imprisonment. She had been restless and sleepless of late, and had n't eaten much. He mentioned this last circumstance with a feeling he had not shown before. Evidently the sufferings of one who could not eat came keenly home to him. When his wife entered the room, it was with the keys in her hand, and the gratifying announcement that Mrs. Brandow would receive the caller for a few moments. For this Miss Herrick mentally thanked the prisoner's lawyer, whose faith in the ability of his client to rebuff reporters had been artlessly displayed during her call on him two hours before.
When the newspaper woman passed through the door of the cell, her eyes, unaccustomed to the semi-gloom, saw but dimly the outline of a slender, black-robed figure, sitting at a small, plain table. The cell was larger than those in city prisons, and some effort had been made to render it habitable. There was a thick rug before the small iron bed, virginal in its white coverings. A heavy cashmere shawl opposite it concealed the whitewashed walls. The hand which put it there had sought to cover all trace of stone and iron by friendly draperies, but Mrs. Brandow would not have it so. A small dressing-table held a number of silver-backed toilet articles, looking strangely out of place amid their grim surroundings. The light in the cell came through a small window and the barred door leading from the corridor, which was clean and damp, and glaringly white.
The reporter hesitated an instant, and then went quickly forward. The face which turned toward her was not the kind of face she expected to see. Newspaper men had been gushing in their descriptions of the famous prisoner, possibly because their imaginations were stimulated by the fact that many of them had never seen her. Helen Brandow was not really beautiful; Miss Herrick was quick to recognize that as the other woman advanced to meet her. She made a hasty mental note of the healthily pale complexion, the dark, wavy hair, parted in the centre, the heavy eyebrows, the too firmly closed lips, and the regal carriage of head and body. But it was the prisoner's eyes at which she looked longest, and into which she found herself looking again and again during the interview that followed. They were brown,—a tawny brown with yellow lights, but wholly expressionless. They looked into Ruth Herrick's now, coldly, and with no reflection of the half-smile which rested on the prisoner's lips as she motioned toward the chair she had just left, and seated herself on the bed.
"I feel like an intruder, as I always do when I am making these unsolicited visits," said the reporter. "I wish I could tell you how I appreciate your kindness in receiving me at all." She was leaning back a little in her chair, and her strong, young face and fair hair were in relief against the rich background of the drapery on the wall. In one quick glance her gray eyes had taken in every detail of the prisoner's surroundings. She looked at the prisoner again, with something very frank and womanly in the look.
"I was not moved by a purely philanthropic spirit," responded Mrs. Brandow.
She contemplated her visitor with something akin to interest, but there was a suggestion of irony in her contralto voice. "Mr. Van Dyke assures me that you will not misrepresent me if I have anything to say," she continued; "but I have nothing to say. I asked you in to tell you so, and to thank you for the roses, and for your note, both of which pleased me. The letter of introduction you bring convinces me that I am safe in doing this, and that you will not go away and picture me as tearing my hair and deluging my pillow with tears. You will observe that my hair is in good order, and that the pillow is quite dry."
"I cannot fancy you less than composed in any circumstances," said her visitor, who found her own composure returning to her, accompanied by a strong sense of surprise and interest in the personality of the woman before her. This was not the Helen Brandow of the press, but an infinitely more interesting character, who should be given to the public, through "The Searchlight," in a pen-picture to be long remembered. Miss Herrick's spirits mounted high at the thought.
"I am glad you like the roses," she added. "I did not send them to win a welcome, but because a nice old woman in the village gave them to me as I was coming here this morning. She was working among them, and the sight was so pretty I could n't help stopping. It made me think of my own home, down South. The roses are the common or garden variety, you see, but they have the delicious, spicy fragrance which seems to belong only to the roses in old-fashioned gardens. The owner of these succumbed to my youthful charms, and I brought away her best. I felt guilty, but not guilty enough to refuse them. It eased my conscience to leave them here for you."
Mrs. Brandow regarded her with a faint smile. "It had not occurred to me that the old women in this village spend their time in the peaceful pursuit of rose-growing," she remarked. "When I have been escorted back and forth they have been suspended over picket-fences watching me go by. I never saw any roses or any redeeming traits in the inhabitants."
"Perhaps you were too preoccupied to notice them. Are n't you becoming a little morbid under this trouble?"
The newspaper woman was acutely conscious of her daring as she spoke, but the woman before her was plainly not to be approached by ordinary methods. She showed this still more clearly in her reply.
"Perhaps. I have had no desire for self-analysis of late. I used to tear myself up by the roots to watch my own growth, but the process was not pleasant. I am now trying to confine my attention to the things outside of me. It is less interesting; occasionally it wearies me. And I always abuse people and institutions when I am weary."
If there was a personal application in this, Miss Herrick passed it by with the smiling calmness of the trained reporter. "You are quite right," she said cheerfully. "But it would be infinitely more interesting to talk about you than about anything else. I should think you would be forced to turn your eyes inward occasionally, as a refreshing change from the things which weary you."
"The inner view is no longer pleasant."
Mrs. Brandow's smile, as she spoke, was not particularly pleasant, either. The reporter's thoughts flew suddenly to a certain Mary Bird, who had lost her reason under peculiarly depressing circumstances, which Miss Herrick had been unfortunate enough to witness. Mary had smiled on the newspaper woman once or twice, and the latter, though not imaginative, remembered the smiles too vividly for her own comfort. When the prisoner spoke again, however, the resemblance, if there had been one, vanished.
"I have often felt that I should go mad in this place," she said suddenly, and with a complete change of tone. There was almost an apology in her voice and manner. "But I am quite sane," she added, "and it is a pleasure to me to have you here, and to talk to you. I had not realized, until you came, how much I needed something to break in upon this hideous routine, and change the current of my thoughts. For one year my mind has fed upon itself. I have spoken at the rarest intervals, and then only to the warden and his wife. Now I suddenly find myself struggling with a desire to become garrulous, to pour out my soul to you, as it were. I could almost tell you the story of my life. All this would be an admirable illustration of the limitations of a woman's capacity for silence,—but it is n't amusing. It shows me that I am not quite myself; I am nervous and not wholly under my own control."
"I wish you would talk to me," said the reporter, earnestly. "Use me as a safety-valve. Tell me the story of your life, as you say. It would interest me, and might help you. Or try to imagine that I am an old friend, who wants to know of your life here."
"If you were, I think you would be pained by the recital. And, besides, if you were, you would not be here. Even my wildest fancies never take the form of yearnings for old friends; their society would be too depressing in the circumstances. No, I am glad you are a stranger, with a certain magnetism about you which interests me, and fills me with a silly desire to know what you think of me, and whether you fear me or believe in me."
"I am sure I could not bear trouble with more philosophy than that you show," said the girl, evasively. She felt a strange reluctance to analyze her own impressions, but she watched the development of the other's peculiar mood with an odd mingling of womanly sympathy and professional interest.
"I am not so philosophic as I may seem. I have given myself up to the horror of this place, until, as I said, it has almost unnerved me. If I were myself, I should not be sitting here, talking almost confidentially to you—a stranger. Why should the presence and sympathy of another human being affect me, after what I have suffered and endured?"
"You have never been a happy woman?"
The reporter looked thoughtfully at the rose she held in her hand as she spoke, and pulled off its petals, one by one.
"For five years I have been the most miserable woman on earth."
The expression of the prisoner's face had changed. The smile was gone; the brown eyes looked at the fallen petals in the other's lap, with the dreaminess of retrospection in their glance.
"Five years ago I married," she went on, almost to herself. "Since then I have known the depths of human misery and degradation. Within a week of my marriage I knew exactly what I had done,—I had tied myself for life to the most consummate scoundrel in existence. He spent his time devising ways of persecuting and humiliating me, and his efforts were eminently successful. He made me what I am."
"You should have separated from him."
"Yes, but that was impossible. My mother, who is dependent on me, and whom I love as I never loved any one else, lived with us. He was sending my little sister to school. It pleased him to make a parade of what he was doing for my people. And his mother begged me to bear with him, to give him another chance, as he would go headlong to destruction if cast off entirely. I did bear with him,—I gave him every chance, and he—he—"
The woman's voice broke. The listener had felt her face flush as the other's words came to her, and now, on a sudden impulse, she took the prisoner's hand. The white fingers closed suddenly upon her own with such force that the stone in a ring she wore sank into the flesh. But the act was involuntary, for the hand was dropped again with no indication on Mrs. Brandow's face that it had been offered and accepted.
"He was like an insane man," continued the prisoner, her low voice gathering strength and force as she went on. "He brought persons to the house whom no respectable house should shelter. He forced me to receive them and humiliated me before them. I bear to-day the marks of his violence. I rose in the morning wondering what new and devilish torture awaited me, and I lay quaking in my bed at night knowing that I would soon hear him kicking at my door. I think I was hardly myself during that time, but I endured all while it was I alone who had to suffer. But one night he raised his hand to my old mother, when she was trying to protect me from his brutality, and struck her down. That night I killed him."
For an instant Ruth Herrick's heart stopped beating, but she sat motionless, watching the woman opposite her. There was no change in her calm face. Mrs. Brandow raised her eyes to it for a moment and dropped them again.
"I killed him," she repeated dully. "I have said it over to myself a good many times in the awful days and nights I have spent in this place. I have even said it it aloud to hear how it would sound, but it did n't relieve me as it does now. And you—you look as if I were talking about an insect. I felt that way at first. It did n't seem to me that he was a human being, and I killed him as I would have killed a poisonous thing that attacked me. I gave him poison which I had had for years and which was said to leave no trace. I had intended to take it myself if the worst came to the worst; I had never dreamed of giving it to him. But I did. It was all done in a minute, and then—my God!" she broke out suddenly. "Can you realize what my life has been since? Can you imagine the horrors of my nights here, filled with thoughts of him mouldering in his grave, and put there by me? When I have fancied my reason leaving me I have almost hoped it would go. But I am sane yet, that I may realize what and where I am, and suffer as I had never dreamed a human creature could suffer and live. Can't you say something? Or have I gone mad at last, and am I sitting here gibbering to the walls? Is it so common a thing for you to have murderesses—?"
"Does your mother know?" asked the reporter, quietly. They were the first words she had spoken, and she realized fully their possible effect.
The other woman's form relaxed. She fell on her knees, with her head buried in the white covering of the little iron bed. The first tears she had shed gushed from her eyes. Her figure rocked as she sobbed and moaned.
"No, no!" she said brokenly. "She believes in me—she does not suspect."
The newspaper woman dropped her elbows on the table before her, buried her chin in her hands, and thought it over. How it had all come about she could hardly realize. She glanced again at the crouching figure on the floor and wondered vaguely why it had been given to her to watch the awful travail of this woman's soul. Something of the story the public understood. It had furnished the motive for the crime. It was whispered that the death of Jack Brandow had much improved that part of the country where he had lived and moved. He had goaded this woman to madness. The revolt, the temptation, and the opportunity had presented themselves simultaneously, and she had fallen as stronger women might have fallen, Miss Herrick thought, had they been so tempted. And then had come the awakening, the desolation, the despair.
Ruth Herrick was usually a cool, unemotional young person, but she was profoundly moved now. Many thoughts crowded into her mind. She recalled what she had read of Helen Brandow's past life,—the good she had done as a girl at school, her adoration of her mother, the hundreds of noble men and women who were her friends, and whose faith in her innocence was so steadfast. They were moving heaven and earth to save her now, and when their success had seemed assured she had ruined all by this hour's talk which was just ended.
Ruth Herrick almost groaned as the situation unrolled itself before her. It was something she had to face. She knew now that she had suspected almost from the first what the climax might be, and had resolutely put the thought from her. And now she had the "biggest beat" of the year! Already she could see the commotion in the managing editor's office when the news came in. He would be startled out of his usual calm. He had spoken of her chance to distinguish herself, but even he had asked but an interview. In his wildest imaginings he had not dreamed of a confession. She knew that. But she had it. If anything but the life of a human being had been at stake, how proudly and gladly she would have gone to him, and how hard she would have tried to write the best story of her life, as he had ordered. But—this other woman at her feet. Something within the reporter asserted itself as counsel for her and pleaded and would not down. Ruth Herrick's voice seemed to her to come from a long distance when she at last spoke.
"Do you realize what all this means to you? Had you forgotten that you were talking to a reporter?"
The woman on the floor sat up and raised her face to the speaker's. It was deathly pale, but calm, and the mouth was firm. "I know," she half whispered. "I forgot. But it is just as well. I could not have endured it any longer. It was a great relief, and I am ready for—the end."
"But if you had not spoken you would probably be acquitted. Do you know that?"
"It does n't matter," repeated the other, wearily. "If I had not told you, I should probably have told the warden. My nerves were at the highest tension, and you were present when they snapped. That's all. I am quite willing to bear the consequences of what I have done."
For a moment there was silence in the cell. The reporter looked through the barred door, out into the whitewashed corridor where a narrow shaft of sunlight fell. To her excited imagination there was something prophetic in the sight. Far down at the end of the hall, a scrub-woman hummed a street air as she worked. Near her loitered the only guard the little prison afforded. The whole life of Helen Brandow—if, indeed, she were allowed to live at all—would be passed in some such place as this if "The Searchlight" published that story. If it did not— Ruth Herrick set her teeth, and stared unseeingly at the opposite wall. If it did not, it would be because she withheld the news, to which, by every claim of loyalty, her newspaper was entitled. She withhold it!—she, "one of the most reliable members of the staff!" Was it not only last night the chief had said so? Something hot and wet filled her eyes. She, the practical; she, the loyal; she was going to allow her paper to be "thrown down" on the biggest story of the year! For, above it all, a little refrain sang in her ears, and it was "One—more—chance,—one—more—chance,—one—more—chance." The scrub-woman seemed to be singing it, too, and it kept time with the clang of an anvil in a shop near by. Ruth Herrick dashed the tears from her eyes, and swallowed a lump that rose in her throat. When she spoke again there was no trace in voice or manner of the mental struggle through which she had passed.
"I am going to forget this interview," she said. "I am going to let you have the chance which a fair trial will give you. You could not talk to a jury as you have talked to me, but it will not be necessary. You will probably be acquitted. Everybody says so, and a great many people believe in you. And then you will begin life again. No one shall know that I have talked to you, and you must promise me that you will talk to no one else. Do not see another reporter."
She smiled ironically at this stipulation of her own. "He might be more loyal than I," she thought.
"I will do just as you say," said the other woman. She did not understand the sacrifice, but she knew what the decision meant to her. She dipped a towel in water and bathed her face and eyes. Then she took the newspaper woman's hands in her own and kissed them almost shyly.
"Thank you," she said. "Thank you very much."
The guard, who had been pacing the corridor, turned the key noisily in the lock, and the reporter passed out. She went back to whisper one more warning. "Do not let them put you on the stand."
She heard the door clang, and the key turn again, as she walked toward the warden's office.
"That's good," she murmured, in grim self-abasement. "In another moment I should probably have been helping her through the window."
"So Mrs. Brandow has been acquitted," said the managing editor of "The Searchlight" to his secretary, as the news came in two weeks later. "And the whole country is shedding tears of joy over her, and they 're having bonfires to-night up in Fairview. I believe she's guilty; but a pretty woman who can hold her tongue will escape the consequences of almost any crime. Strange how Miss Herrick failed on that case; she felt it, too. Has been working day and night ever since, and all that sort of thing. But, after all, you can't depend on a woman in this business."
The managing editor was more nearly right than he knew.