McClure's Magazine/Volume 35/Number 5/The Kingdom of Joy

by Mary Stewart Cutting

 

THE KINGDOM OF JOY

BY MARY STEWART CUTTING

AUTHOR OF "LITTLE STORIES OF COURTSHIP," "LITTLE STORIES OF MARRIED LIFE," ETC.

YES, Cousin Mary, now that Dorothy has gone, both Adelma and I have made a vow never to get married. We are going to take a flat together (if our parents will allow it), and be bachelor girls, and improve our minds, and write, and take our manuscripts—"stuff," they call it—to the magazines. I think "stuff" sounds so dear and interesting, so like the real thing, don't you? Dorothy met the loveliest man once when she was waiting in a magazine office; he was young, and very tanned, and had brown hair, and those nice twinkly brown eyes that are kind behind the twinkle. He gave her such fine advice, too, just as if he were really interested in her. Dorothy is so pretty, with her curly hair and her lovely complexion and her gray eyes, and she had on her gray spring suit (though it was September) and a perfectly darling straw hat with a pink wreath. Dorothy always has a sort of surprised look in her eyes that just gets every man at once—a sort of surprise that he's being kind to her. And she actually feels that way; she was always saying about Mr. Jasper or Mr. Hotchkiss or Mr. Grant, "He was so nice to me," as if she expected he'd beat her instead."

She met the Author in the reception room of Trumpington's Magazine. It was a circular sort of place with ground glass around it, and no air, and a table and two chairs and a leather-covered sofa. There was a man sitting on each chair—just ordinary men, you know, Cousin Mary. the kind that don't look at you, and have a waiting expression, as if they were used to it. The Author was on one end of the sofa, reading a magazine. and there was no place for Dorothy but the other end. The minute her eyes fell on him she knew that he was different; he was so alert and noticing, yet quite secretly, as if he didn't in the least expect her to see it, though, of course, you always do. She knew at once that he was an author, and that he must he a successful one, for he had on such extremely good clothes; his brown suit and his striped shirt and his green tie and his tan shoes and stockings, and the brown hat beside him on the floor, were all so right, and they seemed on him the way such clothes do seem on a man after he has been away for a vacation in the woods or on the water, wearing only old flannel shirts and things, and no hat—as if he were so strong and sinewy and alive that he had forgotten for a while to sit or walk as if he were tired and civilized.

"THE AUTHOR WAS AT ONE END OF THE SOFA, AND THERE WAS NO PLACE FOR DOROTHY BUT THE OTHER END."

The men on the chairs each had a very large flat package, as if there were a drawing-board inside, but the Author had nothing. He sat there, pretending to read a magazine, until Dorothy's silver chain-bag slipped out of her lap on to the floor, and he jumped at once to pick it up for her; and then he said. very respectfully:

"I beg your pardon, but did you send a message to the person you wanted to see?"—as if he had been wondering that any one would keep her waiting.

She said yes, the boy had taken her message when she came in, but that she really didn't expect to see any one; she only wanted to know whether her manuscript had been accepted. She had written that she would call for it, as she didn't want to give her address, for nobody at home knew that she was writing. And then he asked, Had they had the article long? And she said, Three days and a half, and that it seemed very long to her.

Then he told her that it sometimes took weeks to decide. especially if the article was a very good one, for then they might keep it and talk it over; and Dorothy said, rather timidly, that it wasn't an article at all, but just a little poem about spring, because spring always seemed such a beautiful season. And while she was saying this the boy came into the room with an envelop and handed it to her. The poem was in it, and a little slip of paper saying that it wasn't available. Dorothy turned as white as a sheet, and the next thing she knew the Author was talking to her in the kindest voice; and when she managed to say that it wasn't only the disgrace, but that she felt so disappointed because her father was having reverses, and she had set her heart on taking him some money that she had earned herself, the Author was even more encouraging.

He told her that most of the greatest authors and poets had their work refused at first, and that all you could do was to try your best and keep "pegging away." And he went on to say a lot more in the same strain that she didn't take in at the time, because she only heard that tone in his voice that was so comforting. She couldn't look up, for fear the tears would fall from her eyelashes if she did. And then the boy came back again and said to the Author, "If you want to see Mr. Hargraves, will you come into his room now, sir?" And he said, "In a moment," and told Dorothy he would put her on the elevator, if she would allow him to.

So they walked along the corridor together,—the two men were still waiting with their drawing-boards,—and he rang the bell for her, after he'd made her promise not to be discouraged. And he was so much a gentleman that he never even glanced at the name on the envelop she carried—though it was a fictitious one and wouldn't have done him any good. He looked down at her and she looked up at him as the elevator was going slowly down, and he disappeared by inches until she could only see his feet in the shining brown ties, and then he was gone entirely out of sight, and for a moment she felt quite desolate and queer.

Well, then there were months and months. Cousin Mary, I think it's so disappointing that the very nicest men you meet you hardly ever see again—Adelma and I were talking about it the other day. Even if you do happen to run across each other at somebody's house a year or two after that first meeting, and both remember and speak of how much you'd enjoyed your little talk, or dance, that other time, that is the end of it; it never happens again! The men of whom you just have flying glimpses are so much more out of the common, so much more like the man you might possibly marry some day, than the men you have always known, or see often nice enough fellows, but not a bit thrilling!

Well, whenever Dorothy saw any other man after this, she couldn't help comparing him to the Author, and, though the interview had been so slight, it seemed to mean more to her than she could explain. She felt so grateful to him, and whenever she went to a party she used to think, "Maybe he will be there!" and always took pains to fix her hair more becomingly. She thought from something he said that he lived in the West, but if he had come on once, he might again. She made up romances to herself in which he took the greatest pains to find out who she was, and, of course, she always turned out to be the dearest friend of his dearest friend—which wouldn't have been really surprising, for most nice people really do know of the people you know. And on Valentine's Day she received an anonymous box of roses—there weren't a great many, to be sure, and they hadn't very long stems; hut she was so pleased and laughing and excited over them, and questioning every one. She felt perfectly positive that the Author had sent them—and, after all, it was only her married sister who was home on a visit. Of course, it is a let-down, when you think it's some one interesting, to find it's only the family; but Dorothy is really soft over her family! She was tremendously touched because Sally had wanted to do it. You'd think Dorothy might be the most unattractive and unpopular girl that ever lived, she's so overcome at anything that's done for her, and always wants to do something in return. She couldn't rest until she'd taken a piece of old lace that she'd always treasured, and made a fichu out of it for Sally to take back with her.

I don't know any one but Dorothy who wouldn't have moaned over the way things were that winter. Her father kept on having reverses, and she couldn't buy any new clothes at all, and they had to move out of their big house into a flat, and Dorothy's mother got terribly nervous and run down, and one of the boys had the measles and the house was quarantined for at month just when the nicest things were going on. You know, Cousin Mary, how perfectly horrid and loathsome you feel to be quarantined, as if you were a leper; whenever any one of us had a contagious disease, the rest always felt like murdering her, we had to give up so many good times. And then Alec, the brother who was going to graduate from college that spring, got sent home instead, simply because he couldn't keep from playing little jokes on the faculty—of course, I know, as he said, that the faculty have no sense of humor, but it did seem rather a pity that he should have played the jokes just then.

Dorothy's eyes were red for the first time that week, but she held her head very high, and told us how proud she was that Alec had done nothing dishonorable. He got some sort Of it position after a while, but it was one that made it necessary to have his breakfast at six o'clock, and of course Dorothy had to get up and cook it for him every morning. She got as thin as a rail, so that her cheek~bones showed, and there was a little droop around the corners of her mouth, when she was quiet, that made you long to kiss it away; but she was dearer and sweeter than ever, for that surprised look in her eyes when any one did anything for her seemed to just melt over you. If Adelma or I gave her anything, she would make fudge for us—with all she had to do! She was the cheerfulest thing you ever knew, and everybody at home seemed to hang on her, and, if she went out, just wait for her to come in. Adelma and I used to make her walk out with us in the afternoons, and insisted on her going to dances in her old party frock; and she always had more partners than any one. Harry Stillwell was terribly gone on her, of course, though she never cared for him and tried her best to keep him from proposing to her; but he would, and she had to refuse him, and it cut her up dreadfully.

And then, of course, the measles happened, and she just dropped out of everything—had to be a trained nurse as well as cook and housekeeper. And all the time she was trying to write, too, after every one was in bed. She remembered every word the Author had said, and she printed a little card with "Peg Away" on it, and hung it over her desk. She had stopped writing poetry and was trying stories instead, and she worked and worked over them, trying to make them sound right. And she kept sending and sending them all the while, and calling for them, just as before, and always getting them back again. It was the one secret that she kept from the family; she said she could stand her own disappointment, but she couldn't stand having her mother and father feel it for her.

Whenever she went to Trumpington's Magazine, and sat on the sofa in the circular ground-glass room, it always gave her a sort of wistful feeling,—because she would have liked to have seen the Author again so much,—and yet a nice sort of a feeling, too, because it had happened, and he had been so comfortingly real in his green tie and his nice tan shoes and his twinkling brown eyes; and she was as sure and confident as if she had known him for years that he would be pleased that she still "pegged away." If she hoped that she might sometime meet him again there,—and, of course, she would hope it,—she never did.

We had all wondered so much what kind of things he had written. I forgot to tell you, Cousin Mary, that we looked at all the pictures we could find of successful authors, but Dorothy said the right one was never among them. Adelma and l made up fairy stories to ourselves about him. We imagined him fabulously rich, coming in a grand red automobile to rescue Dorthy from the monster Poverty, and giving the family enough to live on all their days, and carrying Dorothy herself to the Kingdom of Joy.

But after a while Dorothy began to get notes with her returned manuscripts, saying that, though they wouldn't suit, the editors would like to see more of her work; and that kept her trying harder than ever. She used to read the stories to Adelma and me. They were always sad, but awfully good, of course, and, as we always told her, just like lots of the things you do read in the magazines.

She helped her father a great deal in the evenings, going over all sorts of accounts in big books, and figuring and figuring—his poor, discouraged brain seemed so worn out, and Dorothy was always good at mathematics. She was of great assistance to him, he told us, but I think he just liked to have her sitting beside him, being interested, and petting him up as well as using her mind. One night she discovered that he had a thousand dollars coming to him that he didn't know he had, and they were all so happy, and he looked years younger the next morning, and thought of ever so many schemes to get on his feet again, and, although they found the next night that it was her mistake, yet the mistake really seemed to have done him good—for a few hours, anyway.

Of course, Dorothy couldn't buy any new spring clothes, but she cleaned up the gray suit, though it was rather faded, and embroidered a white linen collar and cuffs to put on it, and painted over the pink roses in her old hat, and she looked dearer and lovelier than ever—though she had grown older in this dreadful winter, older than either Adelma or me. It seemed as if she had some comfort of her own that she didn't tell us; we noticed, whenever we were in her room with her, that her eyes kept seeking the little "Peg Away" sign, as if she were taking orders from it. We fancied—and it was very mysterious, but terribly exciting—that the thought of him meant more and more to her, in some strange way that she could have explained.

And then—it was the first day that she went out in the old gray suit and the pink hat. She was riding on the top of a Fifth Avenue motor stage, and just as one came rattling along the other way, she caught a glimpse of a figure on the side toward her. There was something in the bend of the arm that looked familiar in some way—and then, like a flash, she knew! She had always thought of him in brown, and this time he was in gray, but she caught a clear view of his profile.

"SHE LOOKED BACK, AND THE OTHER STAGE SEEMED TO BE STOPPING." You know how it is when you look at a person very hard. He turned suddenly and looked straight at her, as both stages went shooting off very fast in opposite directions, and in an instant he was gone. She looked back, and the stage seemed to he stopping at the corner below, and she hoped he was trying to come back to the one where she was; but he didn't, and after three blocks she had to get out to go home.

And, though it was such a beautiful spring day, the wind blew up cold and raw, so that she found herself shivering; and when she reached home everything seemed to be unusually gloomy and depressing. The boy who had been recovering from the measles was having trouble with his eyes; and Alec had taken part of his salary to buy a dog, just when they needed the money so much—and her mother was terribly afraid of dogs, especially when she was having nervous indigestion, and a Russian boar-hound is too large for a flat, even if he was beautiful! And her father came in, saying that it was quite evident that there was no place in any business line for a man of his years—though his hair is hardly gray at all, and people always think he is Dorothy's brother when they are out together. Dorothy had to keep the dog in her room all night, because Alec was going out, and he wouldn't be quiet with any one but Dorothy. He was so homesick that she had to let him put his head on the pillow beside her,—he was about seven feet high, but young,—and then she had to pat him every few minutes to keep him from howling.

It was a dreadful night. It seemed the last straw to lie there in the dim light and see the dog's mournful, reproachful eyes fixed on hers, and have to struggle to keep herself awake to pat him so as to stop the howl that she saw was coming. Well, she was so worn out the next morning, and everything seemed so desperate when she was washing up the breakfast dishes, that all of a sudden it struck her as funny, and when she thought of the dog she got to shrieking with laughter. $he said she just had to swing the other way, because if she broke down and cried she would just go all to pieces, and then what good would that do anybody? And after she'd cleared up the rooms, and done the marketing, and trimmed a hat for her mother,—who was going to a tea that afternoon,—and got the lunch, and cleared that away, she sat down at her table, and began to write about Alec and the dog; and before she knew it she was imagining all sort of things in connection with it, so that it was true, and yet it wasn't at all. and perfectly ridiculous. She laughed to herself all the time she was writing. She wrote all that afternoon; and when Adelma and I came in the next day, she read it to us. It was quite different from anything she had ever written before, and not a bit like any magazine story we had ever read; but we couldn't stop to think whether it was good or not, for we simply sat there and screamed with laughter, so that Dorothy could hardly go on reading, and had to stop every few minutes until we got quiet again.

Isn't it strange, Cousin Mary, how all the little bits of pieces of life fit together! It fairly makes Adelma and me shiver sometimes, when things that seem most unimportant and commonplace can turn out to be so mysterious!

Dorothy copied the story on her typewriter and sent it to Trumpington's Magazine. And a couple of weeks afterward, as she sat waiting for her "stuff," one of the editors himself came out and spoke to her. He was quite an ordinary, tired-looking man, with sandy hair and a thin face, not in the least like the Author, and she could hardly realize at first that he was accepting her story, and saying nice things about it, and smiling as if the remembrance of it still pleased him. He said that they would pay her forty dollars for it, and Dorothy's heart jumped so that she could only look at him for a moment, and then she thanked him in a whisper, and asked if she might have it then. And he laughed and said very kindly that he thought she might, and he would get her a check.

Then she thanked him again, but she was a little disappointed; and he asked her, just as-if he had known her always, what was the matter now? And she said that she didn't know where to get the check cashed, and might she have the money instead? And he said that he thought it could be managed. So he got her four ten-dollar bills, and Dorothy said he was so kind, and he walked with her to the elevator, just as the Author had, only it was all different.

So, you see, Cousin Mary, Dorothy started up the Avenue with the money in her pocket—it seemed too wonderful and good to be true; she was counting over all the things that could be done with it, and thinking how her father would look that night when she handed it to him. And here is one of the queer little pieces. that fit into the whole thing. As she crossed over the street, who should she meet at the corner but Adelma. Adelma was just going up in Westchester for overnight, and she made Dorothy walk up to the Grand Central Station with her, and wait with her until it was time for her train; for, no matter how often either Adelma or I see Dorothy, it always seems a special sort of treat to meet the dear again—she always makes you feel as if you were so much nicer than you know you are. And after Adelma had left, Dorothy stepped up to the news~stand to buy a paper, and there, by the ticket-office, stood the Author!

He was in gray, so she knew it was he she had seen on the Fifth Avenue stage, His bag was on the floor, and he was searching hurriedly in his pockets with both hands. He looked so haggard and wild that for a minute she could hardly believe that it was he; but it was, and just as tall and strong and fine as she had imagined him.

He did not see her at all, though she was quite near, and it came over Dorothy suddenly how strange and stern life was, and how many people pass you every day that you might like to know, and cannot, and how many little happinesses there are that a girl can never stretch out her hand for unless somebody's hand offers them first. It came over her in that flash that she might have been as near to the Author as that, many times, without either of them knowing it, and that, though she saw him now, she couldn't go up to him and speak, even if she knew the chance might never come again. And then she saw him searching still more frantically in his pockets. It was plain to be seen that he had lost his money. He looked up at the clock, and his eyes grew wilder, and then he dashed out of the line and stood by one of the benches, bending forward to scan the faces of the people who came in, as if trying desperately to find somebody he knew, and glancing at the clock swiftly between-times. There was something so tense and strange about his whole attitude and expression that Dorothy felt as excited as he did, and, with that knowledge of her own money in her pocket, she went nearer to him, and she heard him say under his breath:

"My God! Isn't there any one I know?"

Then she forgot all about being a girl, or anything. She faced him and she said quite simply:

"Perhaps you don't remember me, hut I remember you. Are you in trouble? Can I do anything to help you?"

And he said, "You, at last!"

For a minute his eyes lost their wildness, and seemed to look her all over, her pink-flower hat, and her old gray suit, and everything, with a light on his face and in his kind, twinkling eyes, as if from some immense satisfaction that he could hardly believe. There were crowds of people all around them, and yet there was nobody but just the Author and Dorothy. And then he grew tense again, as he said, in a tone as if he'd always known her:

"I had a telegram fifteen minutes ago. My mother's ill—she's all I have. l got here just in time, but my pocketbook's lost or stolen. I haven't a penny, and I don't carry a watch; there's nothing in this suit-case I could raise money on here, and there isn't time to send or on to go to any one and get some."

He looked at the clock as he spoke,—it wanted only a minute to half past three—and he groaned: "The Twentieth Century Limited leaves for Chicago at three-thirty—and I'll have to wait, and lose nearly a day!"

He seemed to forget her as he was speaking.

Then Dorothy knew why she was there. She took out her forty dollars, those precious four ten-dollar bills, and thrust them into his hands.

"Quick, quick, buy your ticket," she cried. "This money's mine—I earned it! Oh, quick, quick!" And again, as he looked at her, "Hurry!"

Then he rushed over to the ticket-office, and his hand was grasping hers next, and he said in his turn:

"Your address—quick!" And she told him, and he was out of the gates just before they closed, looking back at her as he ran.

Dorothy sat down on one of the seats. She was so dizzy and so glad! She found that her cheeks were all wet, and when she went, at last, the sun was shining so bright that the streets looked paved with gold. And she was so thankful that she had had that money, and that it was really her very own, to do just what she pleased with, so that she didn't need to tell about it, or give account to any one.

We all noticed that Dorothy had more of that beautiful inner look than ever—as if she were living in a lovely country that other people couldn't see; but neither Adelma nor I ever imagined that our fairy story was actually coming true, and so soon!

For it was less than two weeks after that Mr. Jerome Percival—that was his name—came to see Dorothy, though he'd written, of course, before that. His mother was getting well, and the doctor said he had reached home just in time, and that it had probably saved her life, so you can imagine how he felt.

And what do you think, Cousin Mary? He wasn't an author at all! He had a friend at Trumpington's who was an editor, but he had never written a line himself. He was a Successful Business Man, instead, with mines he'd found and worked himself—"pegging away," he said; and he was as nice and good as he was successful. And the next day he brought a little red automobile and took all the family out, and he found that Dorothy's father was just the man he had been looking for to manage one end of the business at a delightfully large salary; and her father looked so young, he seemed more like Dorothy's brother than ever!

As for Mr. Percival, I don't know how it was, but, delightful as he seemed,—and he was the kind that got nicer every moment that you knew him,—Adelma and I always felt just a little in awe of his twinkling eyes, though he was sweet to us, and gave us each a beautiful pearl necklace when we were bridesmaids at the wedding—which was in six weeks. It seemed a terribly short engagement, but he said he fell in love with Dorothy the first moment that he saw her on that sofa in the Trumpington's Magazine office; and in some way—I don't know how, because, you see, Cousin Mary, neither Adelma nor I have been in love yet—they felt as if they had been knowing each other all the time they hadn't, and been really engaged from the first. They had a way of walking together as if they were stepping with matched paces to music which was quite plain to them, though nobody else could hear it, and they seemed to be always answering each other without speaking, as if in that lovely country where they were all things were plain to them. That surprised look in Dorothy's eyes deepened into something so beautiful, it was no wonder he couldn't take his away from them.

And when you think that if Dorothy hadn't gone for her story to Trumpington's, where she met him, nothing of this would have happened at all— But neither she nor Mr. Percival likes to hear Adelma and me say this. They say it would have had to have happened as long as they two were in this world together—some way or another, they would have come into their Kingdom of Joy.

"SHE WORKED AND WORKED OVER HER STORIES AFTER EVERY ONE WAS IN BED."