The Inner Sisterhood Part 2

Sometimes I am not so successful in this avoidance of exactly what I have skillfully brought out. Sometimes this policy leads to a proposal.

The tide grows too strong. The man breaks down the barrier, but what good does it do? I have maintained a high protective tariff; there is nothing tangible which he can produce against me; there is never any thing which he can _say_ against me; and if I have been ordinarily skillful and cautious there is absolutely nothing for him to _think_, but "How good she has been to me; how delicately, tenderly, she has tried to avoid giving me pain!"

At the start, my first season out, it was a hard policy to follow, and I would often spend a sleepless hour, after the man had said "good-night!"

But those foolish old days have gone, and with them the early freshness of my youth, although the _appearance_ remains. I have seen so many men promptly revive beneath the showers of another woman's glance and of another woman's tender--perhaps like mine--unmeant words, mere plat.i.tudes, plat.i.tudes effectual, intangible. They are not sufficient proof in any court of conscience, law, or public opinion. They are the glorious privileges of a woman who is a Private Corporation,

=Flirting for Revenue Only=.

Robert Fairfield! There is a magic something in the very name itself.

And the man! ah, after all, old things are best. My heart never knew a sensation--the quick, throbbing something which we call _love_--until I met him, when hardly more than a school-girl. It was my first winter!

He was young, attractive, somewhat wild, and quite the _fas.h.i.+on_ that year, and in fact ever since. He is a dainty love-maker. He is ready with a hundred delicate little attentions unknown to most men, and highly gratifying to most women. But after all their influence is limited--at least with me. His actual presence is necessary. Mamma opposed the match--for we were engaged (never announced) at one time.

She always disliked him, and on that one subject has always been unreasonable. But she has more influence over me than he has, or ever could have. She can generally eradicate the dangerous effects of his presence. This he resented--and rightly. I must renounce mother, home, every thing, and come to him, or--I must cling to him and let all other things go. He recognized no middle course; I constantly sought one. I put him off; I made him many promised, and meant them all--when with him. Finally he was forbidden the house, and now we barely more than speak. He is somewhat devoted to a half dozen or more of our best young women, and they are all more or less devoted to him. The world---our little world--once said we would marry; but the world has decided that it was, mistaken, and that we did not even love one another. And did we, or not? In short, do we?

There are times, moments of despondency, more frequent here of late, when something within whispers, "You are waiting too long! You are, indeed, far above par, but will it last?"

The credit of my Banking-House (social) is apparently without limit. My pretty face stands well the wear and tear of hard social work. My worst female enemy dares not call me _pa.s.se_ in the slightest degree, although I am a shade beyond the uncertain age of twenty-five. But surely these strange premonitions must come as a warning. They surely mean something. My womanly intuition--and it can be trusted--plainly prompts me to give up this dangerous, ruinous policy of

=Flirting for Revenue Only=.

I must abandon my little formulas of speech and manners. I must quit making eyes. I must grant myself a pause in this social farce. I must try to let myself love the man whom my _real honest self_ hath chosen years ago. The man I drove from my door for the sake of _general revenue_. The man against whom I closed my heart! But will he come back again? Will his proud spirit brook an uncertainty? But, after all, is it _well worth_, the while? Those are uncertain questions--I dismiss them. There is no immediate danger. My humor changes; I am no longer despondent. Away with Doubtful Uncertainty and all of his stale retinue, tricked out in danger-signals--each a false one. Sleep on, sweet Conscience, sleep on! To-night the wedding-reception--given to a woman married for her money! Another glorious opportunity for me!

=A.B.= _I may be found any time between the hours of nine and one, on the crowded stair, in a nook beneath, in the dancing-room, or--somewhere about the flower-decked house in my accustomed capacity of Private Corporation, skillfully, successfully_

=Flirting For Revenue Only.=

[Ill.u.s.tration: Miss Rose Clendennin, (of the Inner Sisterhood.)]

V

A Symphony in Pink With Philistine Traces.

=Mother and Daughter=

We are not on good terms, mamma and I, She is hard, exacting, unreasonable; she is proud, ambitious, worldly; she is deeply embittered against me because I am not a social success, because I am not brilliant, attractive. Her one thought, by day and by night, has been the promotion of my interests--from her own selfish standpoint. I am never consulted--always ignored, and my feelings trampled upon. My slightest objection fills her with indignant surprise, and is met with a prompt rebuke and a _dictum_, from which there is absolutely no appeal. Always unwilling, yet always obedient--pa.s.sively obedient.

This is my third winter out and, to quote mamma, no prospects, no prospects! Of course, I am nothing of a belle, nothing of a social queen among women. This is a source of endless mortification to mamma.

But there is no reason why it should be so, because a belle in this town is a lost art. Lost in the days of the brilliant Bettie V. and the beautiful Alice B. Nowadays belles.h.i.+p is like statesmans.h.i.+p, the honors are divided. We have plenty of real pretty women, but no startling beauties. There is not a girl in my set but who is fully up to the average in appearance, manners, mind. Compet.i.tion may do well enough for trade, but it does not produce any one reigning belle in social circles.

So I am not entirely to blame; the causes which work against me also work against others. I go to the utmost limit, and sometimes beyond.

I do every thing which my better nature will license--often a great deal besides. My opportunities are excellent. I am invited every where, because we belong to a highly respectable and somewhat ancient family (we have a beautiful family-tree, _arranged_ by mamma before I was grown); and I go every where, even when I am forced to go with papa, which, I am glad to say, is never more than twice in one season.

Papa is really a dear, good man. He has not only the love but also the pity of a devoted daughter, for he does have such a hard time with mamma. While he understands perfectly all about making money, and just lots of it, too, yet, _papa does not s.h.i.+ne_ in mamma's fas.h.i.+onable circle. He is a slave to her slightest whim--and she is full of them. He is ready, and always, to do her most capricious bidding. Yet they are not congenial; I am positive she never loved him. He was, even when they married, counted among the rich men of the community. And she--she was the youngest child in a large family, with high notions and small income. But he is devoted to her! She may not be lovable, but she is magnetic. She forces homage from all, devotion from many. But she is an evil magnet; and she is conscious of her power, which she wields in a high-handed and a most unscrupulous manner. Unlike most women of the fas.h.i.+onable world, she makes a decided point of poor papa's attendance. He must always go with her--and he does. Often he comes to his home tired out, worn down to the very quick--making money he calls it--and mamma, fresh and ready, eager for the social battle which, like a war-horse, she scents from afar, drags him out with her--somewhere--generally, when there is nothing more exciting on hand, across the way to that bric-a-brac-shop of a house, where the tawdry elegant, always weary Mrs. Babbington Brooks holds forth in an ultra-aesthetic style peculiarly her own. There they spend the entire evening in what mamma softly calls "a sweet communion of congenial souls," which, being translated according to methods of the earth, earthy, means simply a tiresome time over cards, the constant sipping of a pale pink stuff which foams--dissipated looking, but harmless. This they drink out of dainty little cups somewhat larger than a thimble. "Fragile art gems," to quote Mrs. Babbington Brooks, "which I was so wildly fortunate as to find in a curiously jolly shop somewhere about Venice, the last time I was over on the other side. Ah! how I do love Venice!"

Now, there is a fair sample of that woman's talk; it is a mystery to me how she keeps it up. Mamma says that she is "wierdly picturesque;" papa says (but only to me) that she is "a regular downright fool." But they are both wrong; she is a woman with a sufficient amount of brains to know just how easily and successfully so-called sensible people may be imposed upon; and how readily they can be made use of--stepping stones to the accomplishment of selfish desires. But she does not fool mamma.

They both use one another to advantage. There is always between them a tacit little arrangement. Mrs. Babbington Brooks never stops short of a positive sensation. Her methods are bold, startling, successful. Her husband, an insignificant looking man, invented something, an air-brake for railway trains, an improvement on the Westinghouse air-brake, "Brooks' Unbroken Circuit." This, after years of obscure struggling, brought them into immediate wealth, but not at once into social notice.

Their first efforts in that direction, or rather, _her_ first efforts, were complete failures. They nibbled about on the outer edge; finally, it dawned upon her to play some decided role. She determined to be an aesthete. She built a house accordingly; she dressed accordingly; and she acted, but above all, she talked accordingly. Thanks to her wandering brother, an ideal American adventurer, she obtained from London, far ahead of the general importation, a complete outfit of Lilies, Languors, Yearnings, Reachings-out, Poppies, Wasted Pa.s.sions, Platonics, Heart-throbs, and all the more lately approved instruments of aesthetic torture. Her establishment was ready. She wanted recognition.

She waited for an opportune moment. It came. Oscar Wilde, the apostle in chief of the aesthetic school, reached our sh.o.r.es. He brought a letter of introduction "To the one aesthete in all America, Mrs. Babbington Brooks." On his arrival he sent her this letter, and with it a note, written in a full, round hand, stating that he would be at her service after his lecture in her town, on the eighteenth of the coming February, and, being it was she, his terms were only three hundred dollars; usual price, five hundred. She wired an eager acceptance of his generous offer, and at once set her household in readiness. She invited the town--the fas.h.i.+onable, so-called desirable portion of it--and waited the issue. Her gilded net was well spread; her bait irresistible. She easily caught them all, large and small; her house was crowded; her effort a recognized masterpiece. Mamma says she could have readily made arrangements with Oscar Wilde for a season in London--a female aesthete, and from the crude land of America! Now, she is actually quite the rage!

Her triumph is now complete; her following large, composed of a batch of deluded fools, caught by the glamour and the blow of brazen trumpets, with just the _tincture_ of an artistic principle.

A large amount of money was spent on my educational training, both at home and abroad. A young woman who can play a little, sing in fairly good voice a few pretty songs, popular ballads, and paint an occasional plaque, or even rise to the dignity of a panel, can surely make claim to the free chromo distribution of that flattering term, "most highly accomplished."

I was systematically advertised--by mamma--for about four years prior to my _debut_. Every body was made to know that I was "growing up"

rapidly, "coming on," but still young, "oh, very young, and cares absolutely nothing about men." Fact: cared more then than I do now.

Young fellows--available matches--would be invited out "very informally indeed," to dinner or to tea, "would just drop in, you know," each occasion skillfully planned by mamma. She is an excellent manager--always manages to have her own way. On each one of these occasions it was so arranged that they would catch a glimpse of me--supposed to be entirely accidental. I was made to pose for the occasion over my books or fancy-work. I was "so studious!" or "so skillful with my needle!"--running comment by mamma during the _accidental_ glimpse of her darling daughter. These things are always effective, for mamma is really an artistic woman. Her social villainy fascinates me into a constant state of acquiescence. There is an irresistible glamour, there is a touch of his Satanic majesty which gains me, against my will, body and soul. She is a bad, dangerous woman.

What an awful idea to have of my own mother! but, fortunately, other people don't know her as we do--papa and I.

But after all the constant planning, the education with tr.i.m.m.i.n.gs, the high art dressing, the effective situations without number, in short, the whole broad system of skillful social advertising, I am not the one magnet-point; I am not the belle of the town. This has caused the breach between us; and it grows wider every day. Mamma used to be unkind, but now she is cruel. Those uncertain social honors can never be mine; therefore a reconciliation is out of the question. Men come to the house frequently and in fair numbers, but frequent and merely polite attentions do not satisfy mamma. I have never had a real lover. Men seem to like me well enough; they send me flowers, take me out, and do not let me suffer at b.a.l.l.s or parties for want of attention. But they do not make love or ask me the all--important question, "Will you be my wife?"

This confession would surprise most people. My name is constantly mentioned in a tender way with some one man of my acquaintance, but there is never any thing beyond the mention.

During the past winter mamma has been trying a new plan. She has determined to marry me off, having proved to be such worthless material for the make up of a reigning belle. She has made earnest, successful effort to induce a batch of clever young lawyers into a frequent and regular attendance at the house, under pretext of a quasi-ideal Literary a.s.sociation. A wise bait, which always ensnares the eager-nibbling lawyer. It _sounds well_ to have people say that he is a gifted young lawyer and a member of a most delightful and highly select literary a.s.sociation--and the average young lawyer acknowledges a fondness--inexpensive, of course--for all things which _sound well_; the legal mind bows down before the mighty shrine of "Euphony."

Any thing can be readily organized in this town, but to keep it going is a different matter and a desperate hard thing to do after the novelty wears off. But mamma seldom allows any of her organizations to die a natural death. Her present venture, of a literary nature, is thriving; it has grown to be the idle fas.h.i.+on of the social hour. Mamma alternates with her always coadjutor, Mrs. Babbington Brooks, in entertaining the motley, and somewhat cultured crowd. Mamma, First Director and Chief Manager; Mrs. Babbington Brooks, Second Director and Most Worthy a.s.sistant. This "Culture-Seeking Club" (its name) has been organized, mamma says, on my account. It is her last effort in my behalf. She has always opposed the idea of my forming an alliance with a poor, petty young lawyer; but she has grown desperate, and organized this club in order that I might, or rather she, angle for some rising young barrister with brains, and a promise of something better than the usual fulfillment--poverty. It is a positive tragedy, this being calculatingly thrown at the head of a so-called desirable young man!

Nominally I am a member of the "Culture-Seeking Club," but actually and at heart I am a Philistine out and out. This pernicious high-art and culture-seeking fever has never caught my practical soul in its relentless grasp. I love not the ways of the social aesthete. Gleams and shadows do not thrill me; sunflowers and daisies do not gratify my hungry soul--or self. Mamma says I am not sufficiently clever to tempt the brainy monster, _i.e._, Culture Fiend. She has taken me in hand; I am to play a role also. She has a strange power over me which I am unable to withstand. It is the fatal power which a strong mind gets over the more weak and readily yielding mind incapable of a successful resistance. She is a woman with a bad heart and a clear head. I am irresolute, full of most excellent intentions, and in effect as bad as she without the redeeming features of extraordinary cleverness. I am to play the role of a young maiden with an object in life. I am to be full of a new desire to grapple with the weighty problems of the moment. I am to be carefully coached for each club meeting; I am to be veneered with a thin skin of glittering knowledge. I am, indeed, bewildered, startled.

I am made to read all of the book notices worth the reading. I am made to pore over a half dozen reviews which people in this town know absolutely nothing about--although they do call mamma the "Pioneer introducer of good Periodicals." I am superficial, but she is not. She reads each good book itself, not the criticism only. She reads it carefully, thoroughly, as few other people ever do. Then she gives me a special line of thought to follow, and I am made to go through a little combination of what I have read and of that which she has told me in her direct, compact manner. Thus does she enable me to produce a written paper which never fails to start the "Culture-Seeking Club" into a little flutter of supposed intellectual excitement. For a moment, at least, I am forgotten, or, if remembered at all, they say to one another as they sip that everlasting pale pink foam out of the "dainty art gems from Venice, you know:" "Ah, Sophia Gilder is her more clever mamma's own daughter; but, alas! she will never be such a woman as her mother--the gifted Mrs. John Robert Gilder, the life and soul of our Culture-Seeking Club!" And I piously hope to heaven that I may be saved from such a fate, and never be the woman that I know mamma to be!

My last effort was said to be a wild, jagged thing--a reaching out, a groping after. It was called "Souls Antagonistic: A Symphony." I wore an especial costume--"suited to the subject," said mamma. "A sweet poem of a gown," echoed Mrs. Babbington Brooks. When I finished my task, for it was a task, and imposed by a hard task-master, Mrs. Brooks glided, like the serpent she is, over to my seat and looked down with a false longing into my flushed face. Then in a low, somewhat musical voice, full of a false tenderness and a borrowed pathos, "May I, sweet young girl, touch with mine the precious lips which to-night have made exceeding glad my sad, sad soul with those wise and honeyed words?" She kissed me. I fairly trembled with an intense loathing. That oily-tongued creature hates me with a deadly hatred. And she fears me, for she knows that I have found her out and know her to be what she is, a most _successful fas.h.i.+onable fraud_. But it is folly to run counter to the social current. It is best to hold my peace. It is hard to do, but it can be, and it must be done. I was nervous--rebellious. I quickly fled away from that false woman and her loathsome caress. I sought rest and quiet in a distant cus.h.i.+oned corner of the deserted hallway. I was angry--too angry for tears. I buried my throbbing head in my hands and tried to forget my miserable existence; it was such a failure. It was so unlike that which I wished it to be, and yet I did not have the will-power to make it so.

I was in one of my morbid moods. Resolutions I knew to be useless. On the morrow they would be broken. It was always, and I fear ever will be "Mother and Daughter;" never "Daughter and Mother." She always takes the lead, and I, always weak enough to follow. Was there no one to whom I could turn? No one to yield me a few kindly words to strengthen me for that constant, useless warfare against, yes, against my own mother?

As if in answer to my silent call, a footstep! My hands dropped into my lap. A man stood near. I did not look up; I knew who he was. We need hear but once the footfall of certain people and always after know instantly if they are near. A voice: "Miss Gilder, do I intrude?"

Robert Fairfield is not a man of many words. He stood by me in an att.i.tude of _sympathetic silence_. He made to me an unspoken appeal. In my heart there was a grateful answer. A sad, smileless face was uplifted, and then my lips also gave answer. It was a brief story.

It was my daily life of home oppression. But it was not briefly told. It ought not have been told at all; but I am human, so human. The time had reached me when somebody _must know_, and the time had brought with it into my sorrowful presence this same Robert Fairfield. I had barely known him. An accidental introduction, a few dances at a ball, and once--just once--a brief but serious talk at a summer-night concert. I was nothing to him; he was every thing to me; I loved him, I love him.

But custom, and rightly, too, keeps a woman silent. He may know the story of my miserable home life, but he does not know--and he must never know--of the magnetic power which drew me toward him, made me tell my story, and left me with a regret and a tenderness which has closed my heart to any other who may chance to come.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Miss Sophia Gilder, (of the Inner Sisterhood.)]

VI