Susan Lenox: Her Fall and Rise

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


Burlingham took such frank joy in her innocent vanity--so far as
he understood it and so far as she exhibited it--that the others
were good-humored about it too--all the others except Tempest,
whom conceit and defeat had long since soured through and
through. A tithe of Susan's success would have made him
unbearable, for like most human beings he had a vanity that was
Atlantosaurian on starvation rations and would have filled the
whole earth if it had been fed a few crumbs. Small wonder that
we are ever eagerly on the alert for signs of vanity in others;
we are seeking the curious comfort there is in the feeling that
others have our own weakness to a more ridiculous degree.
Tempest twitched to jeer openly at Susan, whose exhibition was
really timid and modest and not merely excusable but
justifiable. But he dared go no further than holding haughtily
aloof and casting vaguely into the air ever and anon a tragic
sneer. Susan would not have understood if she had seen, and did
not see. She was treading the heights, her eyes upon the sky.
She held grave consultation with Burlingham, with Violet, with
Mabel, about improving her part. She took it all very, very
seriously--and Burlingham was glad of that. "Yes, she does take
herself seriously," he admitted to Anstruther. "But that won't
do any harm as she's so young, and as she takes her work
seriously, too. The trouble about taking oneself seriously is it
stops growth. She hasn't got that form of it."

"Not yet," said Violet.

"She'll wake from her little dream, poor child, long before the
fatal stage." And he heaved a sigh for his own lost
illusions--those illusions that had cost him so dear.

Burlingham had intended to make at least one stop before
Jeffersonville, the first large town on the way down. But
Susan's capacities as a house-filler decided him for pushing
straight for it. "We'll go where there's a big population to be
drawn on," said he. But he did not say that in the back of his
head there was forming a plan to take a small theater at
Jeffersonville if the girl made a hit there.

Eshwell, to whom he was talking, looked glum. "She's going
pretty good with these greenies," observed he. "But I've my
doubts whether city people'll care for anything so milk-like."

Burlingham had his doubts, too; but he retorted warmly: "Don't
you believe it, Eshie. City's an outside. Underneath, there's
still the simple, honest, grassy-green heart of the country."

Eshwell laughed. "So you've stopped jeering at jays. You've
forgotten what a lot of tightwads and petty swindlers they are.
Well, I don't blame you. Now that they're giving down to us so
freely, I feel better about them myself. It's a pity we can't
lower the rest of the program to the level of their intellectuals."

Burlingham was not tactless enough to disturb Eshwell's
consoling notion that while Susan was appreciated by these
ignorant country-jakes, the rest of the company were too subtle
and refined in their art. "That's a good idea," replied he.
"I'll try to get together some simple slop. Perhaps a melodrama,
a good hot one, would go--eh?"

After ten days the receipts began to drop. On the fifteenth day
there was only a handful at the matinee, and in the evening half
the benches were empty. "About milked dry," said Burlingham at
the late supper. "We'll move on in the morning."

This pleased everyone. Susan saw visions of bigger triumphs; the
others felt that they were going where dramatic talent, not to
say genius, would be at least not entirely unappreciated. So the
company was at its liveliest next morning as the
mosquito-infested willows of the Bethlehem shore slowly dropped
away. They had made an unusually early start, for the river
would be more and more crowded as they neared the three
close-set cities--Louisville, Jeffersonville, and New Albany,
and the helpless little show boat must give the steamers no
excuse for not seeing her. All day--a long, dreamy, summer
day--they drifted lazily downstream, and, except Tempest, all
grew gayer and more gay. Burlingham had announced that there
were three hundred and seventy-eight dollars in the japanned tin
box he kept shut up in his bag.

At dusk a tug, for three dollars, nosed them into a wharf which
adjoined the thickly populated labor quarter of Jeffersonville.


Susan was awakened by a scream. Even as she opened her eyes a
dark cloud, a dull suffocating terrifying pain, descended upon
her. When she again became conscious, she was lying upon a mass
of canvas on the levee with three strange men bending over her.
She sat up, instinctively caught together the front of the
nightdress she had bought in Bethlehem the second day there.
Then she looked wildly from face to face.

"You're all right, ma'am," said one of the men. "Not a
scratch--only stunned."

"What was it?" said the girl. "Where are they?"

As she spoke, she saw Burlingham in his nightshirt propped
against a big blue oil barrel. He was staring stupidly at the
ground. And now she noted the others scattered about the levee,
each with a group around him or her. "What was it?" she repeated.

"A tug butted its tow of barges into you," said someone.
"Crushed your boat like an eggshell."

Burlingham staggered to his feet, stared round, saw her. "Thank
God!" he cried. "Anyone drowned? Anyone hurt?"

"All saved--no bones broken," someone responded.

"And the boat?"

"Gone down. Nothing left of her but splinters. The barges were
full of coal and building stone."

"The box!" suddenly shouted Burlingham. "The box!"

"What kind of a box?" asked a boy with lean, dirty, and much
scratched bare legs. "A little black tin box like they keep
money in?"

"That's it. Where is it?"

"It's all right," said the boy. "One of your people, a black
actor-looking fellow----"

"Tempest," interjected Burlingham. "Go on."

"He dressed on the wharf and he had the box."

"Where is he?"

"He said he was going for a doctor. Last I seed of him he was up
to the corner yonder. He was movin' fast."

Burlingham gave a kind of groan. Susan read in his face his
fear, his suspicion--the suspicion he was ashamed of himself for
having. She noted vaguely that he talked with the policeman
aside for a few minutes, after which the policeman went up the
levee. Burlingham rejoined his companions and took command. The
first thing was to get dressed as well as might be from such of
the trunks as had been knocked out of the cabin by the barge and
had been picked up. They were all dazed. Even Burlingham could
not realize just what had occurred. They called to one another
more or less humorous remarks while they were dressing behind
piles of boxes, crates, barrels and sacks in the wharf-boat. And
they laughed gayly when they assembled. Susan made the best
appearance, for her blue serge suit had been taken out dry when
she herself was lifted from the sinking wreck; the nightgown
served as a blouse. Mabel's trunk had been saved. Violet could
wear none of her things, as they were many sizes too small, so
she appeared in a property skirt of black paper muslin, a black
velvet property basque, a pair of shoes belonging to Tempest.
Burlingham and Eshwell made a fairly respectable showing in
clothing from Tempest's trunk. Their own trunks had gone down.

"Why, where's Tempest?" asked Eshwell.

"He'll be back in a few minutes," replied Burlingham. "In fact,
he ought to be back now." His glance happened to meet Susan's;
he hastily shifted his eyes.

"Where's the box?" asked Violet.

"Tempest's taking care of it," was the manager's answer.

"Tempest!" exclaimed Mabel. Her shrewd, dissipated eyes
contracted with suspicion.

"Anybody got any money?" inquired Eshwell, as he fished in his pockets.

No one had a cent. Eshwell searched Tempest's trunk, found a
two-dollar bill and a one wrapped round a silver dollar and
wadded in among some ragged underclothes. Susan heard Burlingham
mutter "Wonder how he happened to overlook that!" But no one
else heard.

"Well, we might have breakfast," suggested Mabel.

They went out on the water deck of the wharf-boat, looked down
at the splinters of the wreck lying in the deep yellow river.
"Come on," said Burlingham, and he led the way up the levee.
There was no attempt at jauntiness; they all realized now.

"How about Tempest?" said Eshwell, stopping short halfway up.

"Tempest--hell!" retorted Mabel. "Come on."

"What do you mean?" cried Violet, whose left eye was almost
closed by a bruise.

"We'll not see him again. Come on."

"Bob!" shrieked Violet at Burlingham. "Do you hear that?"

"Yes," said he. "Keep calm, and come on."

"Aren't you going to _do_ anything?" she screamed, seizing him by
the coat tail. "You must, damn it--you must!"

"I got the policeman to telephone headquarters," said
Burlingham. "What else can be done? Come on."

And a moment later the bedraggled and dejected company filed
into a cheap levee restaurant. "Bring some coffee," Burlingham
said to the waiter. Then to the others, "Does anybody want
anything else?" No one spoke. "Coffee's all," he said to the waiter.

It came, and they drank it in silence, each one's brain busy
with the disaster from the standpoint of his own resulting ruin.
Susan glanced furtively at each face in turn. She could not
think of her own fate, there was such despair in the faces of
these others. Mabel looked like an old woman. As for Violet,
every feature of her homeliness, her coarseness, her dissipated
premature old age stood forth in all its horror. Susan's heart
contracted and her flesh crept as she glanced quickly away. But
she still saw, and it was many a week before she ceased to see
whenever Violet's name came into her mind. Burlingham, too,
looked old and broken. Eshwell and Pat, neither of whom had ever
had the smallest taste of success, were stolid, like cornered
curs taking their beating and waiting in silence for the blows
to stop.

"Here, Eshie," said the manager, "take care of the three
dollars." And he handed him the bills. "I'll pay for the coffee
and keep the change. I'm going down to the owners of that tug
and see what I can do."

When he had paid they followed him out. At the curbstone he
said, "Keep together somewhere round the wharf-boat. So long."
He lifted the battered hat he was wearing, smiled at Susan.
"Cheer up, Miss Sackville. We'll down 'em yet!" And away he
went--a strange figure, his burly frame squeezed into a dingy
old frock suit from among Tempest's costumes.

A dreary two hours, the last half-hour in a drizzling rain from
which the narrow eaves of the now closed and locked wharf-boat
sheltered them only a little. "There he comes!" cried Susan; and
sure enough, Burlingham separated from the crowd streaming along
the street at the top of the levee, and began to descend the
slope toward them. They concentrated on his face, hoping to get
some indication of what to expect; but he never permitted his
face to betray his mind. He strode up the plank and joined them.

"Tempest come?" he asked.

"Tempest!" cried Mabel. "Haven't I told you he's jumped? Don't
you suppose _I_ know him?"

"And you brought him into the company," raged Violet.
"Burlingham didn't want to take him. He looked the fool and
jackass he is. Why didn't you warn us he was a rotten thief, too?"

"Wasn't it for shoplifting you served six months in Joliet?"
retorted Mabel.

"You lie--you streetwalker!" screamed Violet.

"Ladies! Ladies!" said Eshwell.

"That's what _I_ say," observed Pat.

"I'm no lady," replied Mabel. "I'm an actress."

"An actress--he-he!" jeered Violet. "An actress!"

"Shut up, all of you," commanded Burlingham. "I've got some
money. I settled for cash."

"How much?" cried Mabel and Violet in the same breath, their
quarrel not merely finished but forgotten.

"Three hundred dollars."

"For the boat and all?" demanded Eshwell. "Why, Bob----"

"They think it was for boat and all," interrupted Burlingham
with his cynical smile. "They set out to bully and cheat me.
They knew I couldn't get justice. So I let 'em believe I owned
the boat--and I've got fifty apiece for us."

"Sixty," said Violet.

"Fifty. There are six of us."

"You don't count in this little Jonah here, do you?" cried
Violet, scowling evilly at Susan.

"No--no--don't count me in," begged Susan. "I didn't lose anything."

Mabel pinched her arm. "You're right, Mr. Burlingham," said
she. "Miss Sackville ought to share. We're all in the same box."

"Miss Sackville will share," said Burlingham. "There's going to
be no skunking about this, as long as I'm in charge."

Eshwell and Pat sided with Violet. While the rain streamed, the
five, with Susan a horrified onlooker, fought on and on about
the division of the money. Their voices grew louder. They hurled
the most frightful epithets at one another. Violet seized Mabel
by the hair, and the men interfered, all but coming to blows
themselves in the melee. The wharfmaster rushed from his office,
drove them off to the levee. They continued to yell and curse,
even Burlingham losing control of himself and releasing all
there was of the tough and the blackguard in his nature. Two
policemen came, calmed them with threat of arrest. At last
Burlingham took from his pocket one at a time three small rolls
of bills. He flung one at each of the three who were opposing
his division. "Take that, you dirty curs," he said. "And be glad
I'm giving you anything at all. Most managers wouldn't have come
back. Come on, Miss Sackville. Come on, Mabel." And the two
followed him up the levee, leaving the others counting their shares.

At the street corner they went into a general store where
Burlingham bought two ninety-eight-cent umbrellas. He gave Mabel
one, held the other over Susan and himself as they walked along.
"Well, ladies," said he, "we begin life again. A clean slate, a
fresh start--as if nothing had ever happened."

Susan looked at him to try to give him a grateful and
sympathetic smile. She was surprised to see that, so far as she
could judge, he had really meant the words he had spoken.

"Yes, I mean it," said he. "Always look at life as it is--as a
game. With every deal, whether you win or lose, your stake
grows--for your stake's your wits, and you add to 'em by
learning something with each deal. What are you going to do, Mabel?"

"Get some clothes. The water wrecked mine and this rain has
finished my hat."

"We'll go together," said Burlingham.

They took a car for Louisville, descended before a department
store. Burlingham had to fit himself from the skin out; Mabel
had underclothes, needed a hat, a dress, summer shoes. Susan
needed underclothes, shoes, a hat, for she was bareheaded. They
arranged to meet at the first entrance down the side street;
Burlingham gave Susan and Mabel each their fifty dollars and
went his way. When they met again in an hour and a half, they
burst into smiles of delight. Burlingham had transformed himself
into a jaunty, fashionable young middle-aged man, with an air of
success achieved and prosperity assured. He had put the fine
finishing touch to his transformation by getting a haircut and
a shave. Mabel looked like a showy chorus girl, in a striped
blue and white linen suit, a big beflowered hat, and a fluffy
blouse of white chiffon. Susan had resisted Mabel's entreaties,
had got a plain, sensible linen blouse of a kind that on a pinch
might be washed out and worn without ironing. Her new hat was a
simple blue sailor with a dark blue band that matched her dress.

"I spent thirty-six dollars," said Burlingham.

"I only spent twenty-two," declared Mabel. "And this child here
only parted with seven of her dollars. I had no idea she was so
thrifty."

"And now--what?" said Burlingham.

"I'm going round to see a friend of mine," replied Mabel. "She's
on the stage, too. There's sure to be something doing at the
summer places. Maybe I can ring Miss Sackville in. There ought
to be a good living in those eyes of hers and those feet and
ankles. I'm sure I can put her next to something."

"Then you can give her your address," said Burlingham.

"Why, she's going with me," cried Mabel. "You don't suppose I'd
leave the child adrift?"

"No, she's going with me to a boarding house I'll find for her,"
said Burlingham.

Into Mabel's face flashed the expression of the suspicion such
a statement would at once arouse in a mind trained as hers had
been. Burlingham's look drove the expression out of her face,
and suspicion at least into the background. "She's not going
with your friend," said Burlingham, a hint of sternness in his
voice. "That's best--isn't it?"

Miss Connemora's eyes dropped. "Yes, I guess it is," replied
she. "Well--I turn down this way."

"We'll keep on and go out Chestnut Street," said Burlingham.
"You can write to her--or to me--care of the General Delivery."

"That's best. You may hear from Tempest. You can write me there,
too." Mabel was constrained and embarrassed. "Good-by, Miss
Sackville."

Susan embraced and kissed her. Mabel began to weep. "Oh, it's
all so sudden--and frightful," she said. "Do try to be good,
Lorna. You can trust Bob." She looked earnestly, appealingly, at
him. "Yes, I'm sure you can. And--he's right about me. Good-by."
She hurried away, not before Susan had seen the tears falling
from her kind, fast-fading eyes.

Susan stood looking after her. And for the first time the truth
about the catastrophe came to her. She turned to Burlingham.
"How brave you are!" she cried.

"Oh, what'd be the use in dropping down and howling like a dog?"
replied he. "That wouldn't bring the boat back. It wouldn't get
me a job."

"And you shared equally, when you lost the most of all."

They were walking on. "The boat was mine, too," said he in a dry
reflective tone. "I told 'em it wasn't when we started out
because I wanted to get a good share for rent and so on, without
any kicking from anybody."

The loss did not appeal to her; it was the lie he had told. She
felt her confidence shaking. "You didn't mean to--to----" she
faltered, stopped.

"To cheat them?" suggested he. "Yes, I did. So--to sort of
balance things up I divided equally all I got from the tug
people. What're you looking so unhappy about?"

"I wish you hadn't told me," she said miserably. "I don't see
why you did."

"Because I don't want you making me into a saint. I'm like the
rest you see about in pants, cheating and lying, with or without
pretending to themselves that they're honest. Don't trust
anybody, my dear. The sooner you get over the habit, the sooner
you'll cease to tempt people to be hypocrites. All the serious
trouble I've ever got into has come through trusting or being
trusted."

He looked gravely at her, burst out laughing at her perplexed,
alarmed expression. "Oh, Lord, it isn't as bad as all that,"
said he. "The rain's stopped. Let's have breakfast. Then--a new
deal--with everything to gain and nothing to lose. It's a great
advantage to be in a position where you've got nothing to lose!"




CHAPTER XVI


BURLINGHAM found for her a comfortable room in a flat in West
Chestnut Street--a respectable middle-class neighborhood with
three churches in full view and the spires of two others visible
over the housetops. Her landlady was Mrs. Redding, a
simple-hearted, deaf old widow with bright kind eyes beaming
guilelessness through steel-framed spectacles. Mrs. Redding had
only recently been reduced to the necessity of letting a room.
She stated her moderate price--seven dollars a week for room and
board--as if she expected to be arrested for attempted
extortion. "I give good meals," she hastened to add. "I do the
cooking myself--and buy the best. I'm no hand for canned stuff.
As for that there cold storage, it's no better'n slow poison,
and not so terrible slow at that. Anything your daughter wants
I'll give her."

"She's not my daughter," said Burlingham, and it was his turn to
be red and flustered. "I'm simply looking after her, as she's
alone in the world. I'm going to live somewhere else. But I'll
come here for meals, if you're willing, ma'am."

"I--I'd have to make that extry, I'm afraid," pleaded Mrs. Redding.

"Rather!" exclaimed Burlingham. "I eat like a pair of Percherons."

"How much did you calculate to pay?" inquired the widow. Her one
effort at price fixing, though entirely successful, had
exhausted her courage.

Burlingham was clear out of his class in those idyllic days of
protector of innocence. He proceeded to be more than honest.

"Oh, say five a week."

"Gracious! That's too much," protested she. "I hate to charge a
body for food, somehow. It don't seem to be accordin' to what
God tells us. But I don't see no way out."

"I'll come for five not a cent less," insisted Burlingham. "I
want to feel free to eat as much as I like." And it was so
arranged. Away he went to look up his acquaintances, while Susan
sat listening to the widow and trying to convince her that she
and Mr. Burlingham didn't want and couldn't possibly eat all
the things she suggested as suitable for a nice supper. Susan
had been learning rapidly since she joined the theatrical
profession. She saw why this fine old woman was getting poorer
steadily, was arranging to spend her last years in an almshouse.
What a queer world it was! What a strange way for a good God to
order things! The better you were, the worse off you were. No
doubt it was Burlingham's lifelong goodness of heart as shown in
his generosity to her, that had kept him down. It was the same
way with her dead mother--she had been loving and trusting, had
given generously without thought of self, with generous
confidence in the man she loved--and had paid with reputation
and life.

She compelled Burlingham to take what was left of her fifty
dollars. "You wouldn't like to make me feel mean," was the
argument she used. "I must put in what I've got--the same as you
do. Now, isn't that fair?" And as he was dead broke and had been
unable to borrow, he did not oppose vigorously.

She assumed that after a day or two spent in getting his
bearings he would take her with him as he went looking. When she
suggested it, he promptly vetoed it. "That isn't the way
business is done in the profession," said he. "The star--you're
the star--keeps in the background, and her manager--that's me
does the hustling."

She had every reason for believing this; but as the days passed
with no results, sitting about waiting began to get upon her
nerves. Mrs. Redding had the remnant of her dead husband's
library, and he had been a man of broad taste in literature. But
Susan, ardent reader though she was, could not often lose
herself in books now. She was too impatient for realities, too
anxious about them.

Burlingham remained equable, neither hopeful nor gloomy; he made
her feel that he was strong, and it gave her strength. Thus she
was not depressed when on the last day of their week he said: "I
think we'd better push on to Cincinnati tomorrow. There's
nothing here, and we've got to get placed before our cash gives
out. In Cincinnati there are a dozen places to one in this snide town."

The idea of going to Cincinnati gave her a qualm of fear; but
it passed away when she considered how she had dropped out of
the world. "They think I'm dead," she reflected. "Anyhow, I'd
never be looked for among the kind of people I'm in with now."
The past with which she had broken seemed so far away and so dim
to her that she could not but feel it must seem so to those who
knew her in her former life. She had such a sense of her own
insignificance, now that she knew something of the vastness and
business of the world, that she was without a suspicion of the
huge scandal and excitement her disappearance had caused in
Sutherland.

To Cincinnati they went next day by the L. and N. and took two
tiny rooms in the dingy old Walnut Street House, at a special
rate--five dollars a week for the two, as a concession to the
profession. "We'll eat in cheap restaurants and spread our
capital out," said Burlingham. "I want you to get placed _right_,
not just placed." He bought a box of blacking and a brush,
instructed her in the subtle art of making a front--an art
whereof he was past master, as Susan had long since learned.
"Never let yourself look poor or act poor, until you simply have
to throw up the sponge," said he. "The world judges by
appearances. Put your first money and your last into clothes.
And never--never--tell a hard-luck story. Always seem to be
doing well and comfortably looking out for a chance to do
better. The whole world runs from seedy people and whimperers."

"Am I--that way?" she asked nervously.

"Not a bit," declared he. "The day you came up to me in
Carrollton I knew you were playing in the hardest kind of hard
luck because of what I had happened to see and hear--and guess.
But you weren't looking for pity--and that was what I liked. And
it made me feel you had the stuff in you. I'd not waste breath
teaching a whiner or a cheap skate. You couldn't be cheap if you
tried. The reason I talk to you about these things is so you'll
learn to put the artistic touches by instinct into what you do."