Susan Lenox: Her Fall and Rise

D >> David Graham Phillips >> Susan Lenox: Her Fall and Rise


"Hey, Nell! I'm coming!"

She sprang to her feet, faced about; and Crusoe was not more
agitated when he saw the print of the naked foot on his island's
strand. The straw hat with the flapping brim was just lifting
above the edge of the rock at the opposite side, where the path
was. She could not escape; the shelf offered no hiding place.
Now the young man was stepping to the level, panting loudly.

"Gee, what a climb for a hot day!" he cried. "Where are you?"

With that he was looking at Susan, less than twenty yards away
and drawn up defiantly. He stared, took off his hat. He had
close-cropped wavy hair and eyes as gray as Susan's own, but it
was a blue-gray instead of violet. His skin was fair, too, and
his expression intelligent and sympathetic. In spite of his hat,
and his blue cotton shirt, and trousers rolled high on bare
sunburned legs, there was nothing of the yokel about him.

"I beg your pardon," he exclaimed half humorously. "I thought it
was my cousin Nell."

"No," said Susan, disarmed by his courtesy and by the frank
engaging manner of it.

"I didn't mean to intrude." He showed white teeth in a broad
smile. "I see from your face that this is your private domain."

"Oh, no--not at all," stammered Susan.

"Yes, I insist," replied he. "Will you let me stay and rest a
minute? I ran round the rock and climbed pretty fast."

"Yes--do," said Susan.

The young man sat on the grass near where he had appeared, and
crossed his long legs. The girl, much embarrassed, looked
uneasily about. "Perhaps you'd sit, too?" suggested he, after
eyeing her in a friendly way that could not cause offense and
somehow did not cause any great uneasiness.

Susan hesitated, went to the shadow of a little tree not far
from him. He was fanning his flushed face with his hat. The
collar of his shirt was open; below, where the tan ended
abruptly, his skin was beautifully white. Now that she had been
discovered, it was as well to be pleasant, she reasoned. "It's
a fine day," she observed with a grown-up gravity that much
amused him.

"Not for fishing," said he. "I caught nothing. You are a
stranger in these parts?"

Susan colored and a look of terror flitted into her eyes. "Yes,"
she admitted. "I'm--I'm passing through."

The young man had all he could do to conceal his amusement.
Susan flushed deeply again, not because she saw his expression,
for she was not looking at him, but because her remark seemed to
her absurd and likely to rouse suspicion.

"I suppose you came up here to see the view," said the man. He
glanced round. "It _is_ pretty good. You're not visiting down
Brooksburg way, by any chance?"

"No," replied Susan, rather composedly and determined to change
the subject. "What was that song I heard you singing?"

"Oh--you heard, did you?" laughed he. "It's the Duke's song from
'Rigoletto.'"

"That's an opera, isn't it--like 'Trovatore'?"

"Yes--an Italian opera. Same author."

"It's a beautiful song." It was evident that she longed to ask
him to sing it. She felt at ease with him; he was so unaffected
and simple, was one of those people who seem to be at home
wherever they are.

"Do you sing?" he inquired.

"Not really," replied she.

"Neither do I. So if you'll sing to me, I'll sing to you."

Susan looked round in alarm. "Oh, dear, no--please don't," she cried.

"Why not?" he asked curiously. "There isn't a soul about."

"I know--but--really, you mustn't."

"Very well," said he, seeing that her nervousness was not at all
from being asked to sing. They sat quietly, she gazing off at
the horizon, he fanning himself and studying her lovely young
face. He was somewhere in the neighborhood of twenty-five and a
close observer would have suspected him of an unusual amount of
experience, even for a good-looking, expansive youth of that age.

He broke the long silence. "I'm a newspaper man from Cincinnati.
I'm on the _Commercial_ there. My name's Roderick Spenser. My
father's Clayton Spenser, down at Brooksburg"--he pointed to the
southeast--"beyond that hill there, on the river. I'm here on my
vacation." And he halted, looking at her expectantly.

It seemed to her that there was in courtesy no escape without a
return biographical sketch. She hung her head, twisted her
tapering fingers in her lap, and looked childishly embarrassed
and unhappy. Another long silence; again he broke it. "You'll
pardon my saying so, but--you're very young, aren't you?"

"Not so--so _terribly_ young. I'm almost seventeen," replied she,
glancing this way and that, as if thinking of flight.

"You look like a child, yet you don't," he went on, and his
frank, honest voice calmed her. "You've had some painful
experience, I'd say."

She nodded, her eyes down.

A pause, then he: "Honest, now--aren't you--running away?"

She lifted her eyes to his piteously. "Please don't ask me," she said.

"I shouldn't think of it," replied he, with a gentleness in his
persistence that made her feel still more like trusting him, "if
it wasn't that----

"Well, this world isn't the easiest sort of a place. Lots of
rough stretches in the road. I've struck several and I've always
been glad when somebody has given me a lift. And I want to pass
it on--if you'll let me. It's something we owe each other--don't
you think?"

The words were fine enough; but it was the voice in which he
said them that went to her heart. She covered her face with her
hands and released her pent emotions. He took a package of
tobacco and a sheaf of papers from his trousers pocket, rolled
and lighted a cigarette. After a while she dried her eyes,
looked at him shamefacedly. But he was all understanding and
sympathy.

"Now you feel better, don't you?"

"Much," said she. And she laughed. "I guess I'm more upset than
I let myself realize."

"Sorry you left home?"

"I haven't any home," answered she simply. "And I wouldn't go
back alive to the place I came from."

There was a quality in the energy she put into her words that
made him thoughtful. He counseled with the end of his cigarette.
Finally he inquired:

"Where are you bound for?"

"I don't know exactly," confessed she, as if it were a small matter.

He shook his head. "I see you haven't the faintest notion what
you're up against."

"Oh, I'll get along. I'm strong, and I can learn."

He looked at her critically and rather sadly.

"Yes--you are strong," said he. "But I wonder if you're strong enough."

"I never was sick in my life."

"I don't mean that. . . . I'm not sure I know just what I do mean."

"Is it very hard to get to Chicago?" inquired she.

"It's easier to get to Cincinnati."

She shook her head positively. "It wouldn't do for me to go there."

"Oh, you come from Cincinnati?"

"No--but I--I've been there."

"Oh, they caught you and brought you back?"

She nodded. This young man must be very smart to understand so quickly.

"How much money have you got?" he asked abruptly.

But his fear that she would think him impertinent came of an
underestimate of her innocence. "I haven't got any," replied
she. "I forgot my purse. It had thirty dollars in it."

At once he recognized the absolute child; only utter
inexperience of the world could speak of so small a sum so
respectfully. "I don't understand at all," said he. "How long
have you been here?"

"All day. I got here early this morning."

"And you haven't had anything to eat!"

"Oh, yes! I found some eggs. I've got two left."

Two eggs--and no money and no friends--and a woman. Yet she was
facing the future hopefully! He smiled, with tears in his eyes.

"You mustn't tell anybody you saw me," she went on. "No matter
what they say, don't think you ought to tell on me."

He looked at her, she at him. When he had satisfied himself he
smiled most reassuringly. "I'll not," was his answer, and now
she _knew_ she could trust him.

She drew a breath of relief, and went on as if talking with an
old friend. "I've got to get a long ways from here. As soon as
it's dark I'm going."

"Where?"

"Toward the river." And her eyes lit.

"The river? What's there?"

"I don't know," said she triumphantly.

But he understood. He had the spirit of adventure himself--one
could see it at a glance--the spirit that instinctively shuns
yesterday and all its works and wings eagerly into tomorrow,
unknown, different, new--therefore better. But this girl, this
child-woman--or was she rather woman-child?--penniless, with
nothing but two eggs between her and starvation, alone, without
plans, without experience--

What would become of her?. . . "Aren't you--afraid?" he asked.

"Of what?" she inquired calmly.

It was the mere unconscious audacity of ignorance, yet he saw in
her now--not fancied he saw, but saw--a certain strength of
soul, both courage and tenacity. No, she might suffer, sink--but
she would die fighting, and she would not be afraid. And he
admired and envied her.

"Oh, I'll get along somehow," she assured him in the same
self-reliant tone. Suddenly she felt it would no longer give her
the horrors to speak of what she had been through. "I'm not very
old," said she, and hers was the face of a woman now. "But I've
learned a great deal."

"You are sure you are not making a mistake in--in--running away?"

"I couldn't do anything else," replied she. "I'm all alone in
the world. There's no one--except----

"I hadn't done anything, and they said I had disgraced them--and
they----" Her voice faltered, her eyes sank, the color flooded
into her face. "They gave me to a man--and he--I had hardly seen
him before--he----" She tried but could not pronounce the
dreadful word.

"Married, you mean?" said the young man gently.

The girl shuddered. "Yes," she answered. "And I ran away."

So strange, so startling, so moving was the expression of her
face that he could not speak for a moment. A chill crept over
him as he watched her wide eyes gazing into vacancy. What vision
of horror was she seeing, he wondered. To rouse her he spoke the
first words he could assemble:

"When was this?"

The vision seemed slowly to fade and she looked at him in
astonishment. "Why, it was last night!" she said, as if dazed by
the discovery. "Only last night!"

"Last night! Then you haven't got far."

"No. But I must. I will. And I'm not afraid of anything except
of being taken back."

"But you don't realize what may be--probably is--waiting for
you--at the river--and beyond."

"Nothing could be so bad," said she. The words were nothing, but
the tone and the expression that accompanied them somehow
convinced him beyond a doubt.

"You'll let me help you?"

She debated. "You might bring me something to eat--mightn't you?
The eggs'll do for supper. But there's tomorrow. I don't want to
be seen till I get a long ways off."

He rose at once. "Yes, I'll bring you something to eat." He took
a knockabout watch from the breast pocket of his shirt. "It's
now four o'clock. I've got three miles to walk. I'll ride back
and hitch the horse down the creek--a little ways down, so it
won't attract attention to your place up here. I'll be back in
about an hour and a half. . . . Maybe I'll think of something
that'll help. Can I bring you anything else?

"No. That is--I'd like a little piece of soap."

"And a towel?" he suggested.

"I could take care of a towel," agreed she. "I'll send it back
to you when I get settled."

"Good heavens!" He laughed at her simplicity. "What an honest
child you are!" He put out his hand, and she took it with
charming friendliness. "Good-by. I'll hurry."

"I'm so glad you caught me," said she. Then, apologetically, "I
don't want to be any trouble. I hate to be troublesome. I've
never let anybody wait on me."

"I don't know when I've had as much pleasure as this is giving
me." And he made a bow that hid its seriousness behind a smile
of good-humored raillery.

She watched him descend with a sinking heart. The rock--the
world--her life, seemed empty now. He had reminded her that
there were human beings with good hearts. But--perhaps if he
knew, his kindness would turn also. . . . No, she decided not.
Men like him, women like Aunt Sallie--they did not believe
those dreadful, wicked ideas that people said God had ordained.
Still--if he knew about her birth--branded outcast--he might
change. She must not really hope for anything much until she was
far, far away in a wholly new world where there would be a
wholly new sort of people, of a kind she had never met. But she
was sure they would welcome her, and give her a chance.

She returned to the tree against which she had been sitting, for
there she could look at the place his big frame had pressed down
in the tall grass, and could see him in it, and could recall his
friendly eyes and voice, and could keep herself assured she had
not been dreaming. He was a citified man, like Sam--but how
different! A man with a heart like his would never marry a
woman--no, never! He couldn't be a brute like that. Still,
perhaps nice men married because it was supposed to be the
right thing to do, and was the only way to have children without
people thinking you a disgrace and slighting the children--and
then marrying made brutes of them. No wonder her uncles could
treat her so. They were men who had married.

Afar off she heard the manly voice singing the song from
"Rigoletto." She sprang up and listened, with eyes softly
shining and head a little on one side. The song ended; her heart
beat fast. It was not many minutes before she, watching at the
end of the path, saw him appear at the bottom of the huge cleft.
And the look in his eyes, the merry smile about his expressive
mouth, delighted her. "I'm so glad to see you!" she cried.

Over his shoulder was flung his fishing bag, and it bulged.
"Don't be scared by the size of my pack," he called up, as he
climbed. "We're going to have supper together--if you'll let me
stay. Then you can take as much or as little as you like of
what's left."

Arrived at the top, he halted for a long breath. They stood
facing each other. "My, what a tall girl you are for your age!"
said he admiringly.

She laughed up at him. "I'll be as tall as you when I get my growth."

She was so lovely that he could scarcely refrain from telling
her so. It seemed to him, however, it would be taking an unfair
advantage to say that sort of thing when she was in a way at his
mercy. "Where shall we spread the table?" said he. "I'm hungry
as the horseleech's daughter. And you--why, you must be starved.
I'm afraid I didn't bring what you like. But I did the best I
could. I raided the pantry, took everything that was portable."

He had set down the bag and had loosened its strings. First he
took out a tablecloth. She laughed. "Gracious! How stylish we
shall be!"

"I didn't bring napkins. We can use the corners of the cloth."
He had two knives, two forks, and a big spoon rolled up in the
cloth, and a saltcellar. "Now, here's my triumph!" he cried,
drawing from the bag a pair of roasted chickens. Next came a jar
of quince jelly; next, a paper bag with cold potatoes and cold
string beans in it. Then he fished out a huge square of
cornbread and a loaf of salt-rising bread, a pound of butter--

"What will your folks say?" exclaimed she, in dismay.

He laughed. "They always have thought I was crazy, ever since I
went to college and then to the city instead of farming." And
out of the bag came a big glass jar of milk. "I forgot to bring
a glass!" he apologized. Then he suspended unpacking to open the
jar. "Why, you must be half-dead with thirst, up here all day
with not a drop of water." And he held out the jar to her.
"Drink hearty!" he cried.

The milk was rich and cold; she drank nearly a fourth of it
before she could wrest the jar away from her lips. "My, but that
was good!" she remarked. He had enjoyed watching her drink.
"Surely you haven't got anything else in that bag?"

"Not much," replied he. "Here's a towel, wrapped round the soap.
And here are three cakes of chocolate. You could live four or
five days on them, if you were put to it. So whatever else you
leave, don't leave them. And--Oh, yes, here's a calico slip and
a sunbonnet, and a paper of pins. And that's all."

"What are they for?"

"I thought you might put them on--the slip over your dress--and
you wouldn't look quite so--so out of place--if anybody should
see you."

"What a fine idea!" cried Susan, shaking out the slip delightedly.

He was spreading the supper on the tablecloth. He carved one of
the chickens, opened the jelly, placed the bread and vegetables
and butter. "Now!" he cried. "Let's get busy."

And he set her an example she was not slow to follow. The sun
had slipped down behind the hills of the northwest horizon. The
birds were tuning for their evening song. A breeze sprang up and
coquetted with the strays of her wavy dark hair. And they sat
cross-legged on the grass on opposite sides of the tablecloth
and joked and laughed and ate, and ate and laughed and joked
until the stars began to appear in the vast paling opal of the
sky. They had chosen the center of the grassy platform for their
banquet; thus, from where they sat only the tops of trees and
the sky were to be seen. And after they had finished she leaned
on her elbow and listened while he, smoking his cigarette, told
her of his life as a newspaper man in Cincinnati. The twilight
faded into dusk, the dusk into a scarlet darkness.

"When the moon comes up we'll start," said he. "You can ride
behind me on the horse part of the way, anyhow."

The shadow of the parting, the ending of this happiness, fell
upon her. How lonely it would be when he was gone! "I haven't
told you my name," she said.

"I've told you mine Roderick Spenser--with an _s_, not a _c_."

"I remember," said she. "I'll never forget. . . . Mine's Susan Lenox."

"What was it--before----" He halted.

"Before what?" His silence set her to thinking. "Oh!" she
exclaimed, in a tone that made him curse his stupidity in
reminding her. "My name's Susan Lenox--and always will be. It
was my mother's name." She hesitated, decided for frankness at
any cost, for his kindness forbade her to deceive him in any
way. Proudly, "My mother never let any man marry her. They say
she was disgraced, but I understand now. _She_ wouldn't stoop to
let any man marry her."

Spenser puzzled over this, but could make nothing of it. He felt
that he ought not to inquire further. He saw her anxious eyes,
her expression of one keyed up and waiting for a verdict. "I'd
have only to look at you to know your mother was a fine woman,"
said he. Then, to escape from the neighborhood of the dangerous
riddle, "Now, about your--your going," he began. "I've been
thinking what to do."

"You'll help me?" said she, to dispel her last doubt--a very
faint doubt, for his words and his way of uttering them had
dispelled her real anxiety.

"Help you?" cried he heartily. "All I can. I've got a scheme to
propose to you. You say you can't take the mail boat?"

"They know me. I--I'm from Sutherland."

"You trust me--don't you?"

"Indeed I do."

"Now listen to me--as if I were your brother. Will you?"

"Yes."

"I'm going to take you to Cincinnati with me. I'm going to put
you in my boarding house as my sister. And I'm going to get you
a position. Then--you can start in for yourself."

"But that'll be a great lot of trouble, won't it?"

"Not any more than friends of mine took for me when I was
starting out." Then, as she continued silent, "What are you
thinking? I can't see your face in this starlight."

"I was thinking how good you are," she said simply.

He laughed uneasily. "I'm not often accused of that," he
replied. "I'm like most people--a mixture of good and bad--and
not very strong either way. I'm afraid I'm mostly impulse that
winks out. But--the question is, how to get you to Cincinnati.
It's simply impossible for me to go tonight. I can't take you
home for the night. I don't trust my people. They'd not think I
was good--or you, either. And while usually they'd be
right--both ways--this is an exception." This idea of an
exception seemed to amuse him. He went on, "I don't dare leave you
at any farmhouse in the neighborhood. If I did, you could be traced."

"No--no," she cried, alarmed at the very suggestion. "I mustn't
be seen by anybody."

"We'll go straight to the river, and I'll get a boat and row you
across to Kentucky--over to Carrollton. There's a little hotel.
I can leave you----"

"No--not Carrollton," she interrupted. "My uncle sells goods
there, and they know him. And if anything is in the Sutherland
papers about me, why, they'd know."

"Not with you in that slip and sunbonnet. I'll make up a
story--about our wagon breaking down and that I've got to walk
back into the hills to get another before we can go on.
And--it's the only plan that's at all possible."

Obviously he was right; but she would not consent. By adroit
questioning he found that her objection was dislike of being so
much trouble to him. "That's too ridiculous," cried he. "Why, I
wouldn't have missed this adventure for anything in the world."

His manner was convincing enough, but she did not give in until
moonrise came without her having thought of any other plan. He
was to be Bob Peters, she his sister Kate, and they were to hail
from a farm in the Kentucky hills back of Milton. They practiced
the dialect of the region and found that they could talk it well
enough to pass the test of a few sentences They packed the
fishing bag; she wrapped the two eggs in paper and put them in
the empty milk bottle. They descended by the path--a slow
journey in the darkness of that side of the rock, as there were
many dangers, including the danger of making a noise that might
be heard by some restless person at the house. After half an
hour they were safely at the base of the rock; they skirted it,
went down to the creek, found the horse tied where he had left
it. With her seated sideways behind him and holding on by an arm
half round his waist, they made a merry but not very speedy
advance toward the river, keeping as nearly due south as the
breaks in the hills permitted. After a while he asked: "Do you
ever think of the stage?"

"I've never seen a real stage play," said she. "But I want
to--and I will, the first chance I get."

"I meant, did you ever think of going on the stage?"

"No." So daring a flight would have been impossible for a baby
imagination in the cage of the respectable-family-in-a-small-town.

"It's one of my dreams to write plays," he went on. "Wouldn't it
be queer if some day I wrote plays for you to act in?"

When one's fancy is as free as was Susan's then, it takes any
direction chance may suggest. Susan's fancy instantly winged
along this fascinating route. "I've given recitations at school,
and in the plays we used to have they let me take the best
parts--that is--until--until a year or so ago."

He noted the hesitation, had an instinct against asking why
there had come a time when she no longer got good parts. "I'm
sure you could learn to act," declared he. "And you'll be sure
of it, too, after you've seen the people who do it."

"Oh, I don't believe I could," said she, in rebuke to her own
mounting self-confidence. Then, suddenly remembering her
birth-brand of shame and overwhelmed by it, "No, I can't hope to
be to be anything much. They wouldn't have--_me_."

"I know how you feel," replied he, all unaware of the real
reason for this deep humility. "When I first struck town I felt
that way. It seemed to me I couldn't hope ever to line up with
the clever people they had there. But I soon saw there was
nothing in that idea. The fact is, everywhere in the world
there's a lot more things to do than people who can do them.
Most of those who get to the top--where did they start? Where
we're starting."

She was immensely flattered by that "we" and grateful for it.
But she held to her original opinion. "There wouldn't be a
chance for me," said she. "They wouldn't have me."

"Oh, I understand," said he and he fancied he did. He laughed
gayly at the idea that in the theater anyone would care who she
was--what kind of past she had had--or present either, for that
matter. Said he, "You needn't worry. On the stage they don't ask
any questions--any questions except 'Can you act? Can you get it
over? Can you get the hand?'"

Then this stage, it was the world she had dreamed of--the world
where there lived a wholly new kind of people--people who could
make room for her. She thrilled, and her heart beat wildly. In
a strangely quiet, intense voice, she said:

"I want to try. I'm sure I'll get along there. I'll work--Oh, so
hard. I'll do _anything!_"

"That's the talk," cried he. "You've got the stuff in you."

She said little the rest of the journey. Her mind was busy with
the idea he had by merest accident given her. If he could have
looked in upon her thoughts, he would have been amazed and not
a little alarmed by the ferment he had set up.