Susan Lenox: Her Fall and Rise

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


It was hardly a quarter of an hour after the vanishing of that
last ray when Sam, standing now with heart beating fast and a
lump of expectancy, perhaps of trepidation, too, in his throat,
saw a figure issue from the front door and move round to the
side veranda. He made a detour on the lawn, so as to keep out of
view both from house and street, came up to the veranda, called
to her softly.

"Can you get over the rail?" asked she in the same low tone.

"Let's go back to the summer house," urged he.

"No. Come up here," she insisted. "Be careful. The windows above
are open."

He climbed the rail noiselessly and made an impetuous move for
her hand. She drew back. "No, Sam dear," she said. "I know it's
foolish. But I've an instinct against it--and we mustn't."

She spoke so gently that he persisted and pleaded. It was some
time before he realized how much firmness there was under her
gentleness. She was so afraid of making him cross; yet he also
saw that she would withstand at any cost. He placed himself
beside her on the wicker lounge, sitting close, his cheek almost
against hers, that they might hear each other without speaking
above a whisper. After one of those silences which are the
peculiar delight of lovers, she drew a long breath and said:
"I've got to go away, Sam. I shan't see you again for a long time."

"They heard about this morning? They're sending you away?"

"No--I'm going. They feel that I'm a disgrace and a drag. So I
can't stay."

"But--you've _got_ to stay!" protested Sam. In wild alarm he
suspected she was preparing to make him elope with her--and he
did not know to what length of folly his infatuation might whirl
him. "You've no place to go," he urged.

"I'll find a place," said she.

"You mustn't--you mustn't, Susie! Why, you're only
seventeen--and have no experience."

"I'll _get_ experience," said she. "Nothing could be so bad as
staying here. Can't you see that?"

He could not. Like so many of the children of the rich, he had
no trace of over-nice sense of self-respect, having been lying
and toadying all his life to a father who used the power of his
wealth at home no less, rather more, than abroad. But he vaguely
realized what delicacy of feeling lay behind her statement of
her position; and he did not dare express his real opinion. He
returned to the main point. "You've simply got to put up with it
for the present, Susie," he insisted. "But, then, of course,
you're not serious."

"Yes. I am going."

"You'll think it over, and see I'm right, dear."

"I'm going tonight."

"Tonight!" he cried.

"Sh-h!"

Sam looked apprehensively around. Both breathed softly and
listened with straining ears. His exclamation had not been loud,
but the silence was profound. "I guess nobody heard," he finally
whispered. "You mustn't go, Susie." He caught her hand and held
it. "I love you, and I forbid it."

"I _must_ go, dear," answered she. "I've decided to take the
midnight boat for Cincinnati."

In the half darkness he gazed in stupefaction at her--this girl
of only seventeen calmly resolving upon and planning an
adventure so daring, so impossible. As he had been born and bred
in that western country where the very children have more
independence than the carefully tamed grown people of the East,
he ought to have been prepared for almost anything. But his
father had undermined his courage and independence; also his
year in the East had given him somewhat different ideas of
women. Susan's announcement seemed incredible. He was gathering
himself for pouring out a fresh protest when it flashed through
his mind--Why not? She would go to Cincinnati. He could follow
in a few days or a week--and then--

Well, at least they would be free and could have many happy days
together.

"Why, how could you get to Cincinnati?" he said. "You haven't
any money."

"I've a twenty-dollar gold piece Uncle gave me as a keepsake.
And I've got seventeen dollars in other money, and several
dollars in change," explained she. "I've got two hundred and
forty-three dollars and fifty cents in the bank, but I can't get
that--not now. They'll send it to me when I find a place and am
settled and let them know."

"You can't do it, Susie! You can't and you mustn't."

"If you knew what they said to me! Oh, I _couldn't_ stay, Sam.
I've got some of my clothes--a little bundle behind the front
door. As soon as I'm settled I'll let you know."

A silence, then he, hesitatingly, "Don't you--do you--hadn't I
better go with you?"

She thrilled at this generosity, this new proof of love. But she
said: "No, I wouldn't let you do that. They'd blame you. And I
want them to know it's all my own doing."

"You're right, Susie," said the young man, relieved and
emphatic. "If I went with you, it'd only get both of us into
deeper trouble." Again silence, with Sam feeling a kind of awe
as he studied the resolute, mysterious profile of the girl,
which he could now see clearly. At last he said: "And after you
get there, Susie--what will you do?"

"Find a boarding house, and then look for a place."

"What kind of a place?"

"In a store--or making dresses--or any kind of sewing. Or I
could do housework."

The sex impulse is prolific of generous impulses. He, sitting so
close to her and breathing in through his skin the emanations of
her young magnetism, was moved to the depths by the picture her
words conjured. This beautiful girl, a mere child, born and bred
in the lady class, wandering away penniless and alone, to be a
prey to the world's buffetings which, severe enough in reality,
seem savage beyond endurance to the children of wealth.

As he pictured it his heart impulsively expanded. It was at his
lips to offer to marry her. But his real self--and one's real
self is vastly different from one's impulses--his real self
forbade the words passage. Not even the sex impulse,
intoxicating him as it then was, could dethrone snobbish
calculation. He was young; so while he did not speak, he felt
ashamed of himself for not speaking. He felt that she must be
expecting him to speak, that she had the right to expect it. He
drew a little away from her, and kept silent.

"The time will soon pass," said she absently.

"The time? Then you intend to come back?"

"I mean the time until you're through college and we can be together."

She spoke as one speaks of a dream as to which one has never a
doubt but that it will come true. It was so preposterous, this
idea that he would marry her, especially after she had been a
servant or God knows what for several years--it was so absurd
that he burst into a sweat of nervous terror. And he hastily
drew further away.

She felt the change, for she was of those who are born
sensitive. But she was far too young and inexperienced to have
learned to interpret aright the subtle warning of the nerves.
"You are displeased with me?" she asked timidly.

"No--Oh, no, Susie," he stammered. "I--I was thinking. Do put
off going for a day or two. There's no need of hurrying."

But she felt that by disobeying her aunt and coming down to see
him she had forfeited the right to shelter under that roof. "I
can't go back," said she. "There's a reason." She would not tell
him the reason; it would make him feel as if he were to blame.
"When I get a place in Cincinnati," she went on, "I'll write to you."

"Not here," he objected. "That wouldn't do at all. No, send me a
line to the Gibson House in Cincinnati, giving me your address."

"The Gibson House," she repeated. "I'll not forget that name.
Gibson House."

"Send it as soon as you get a place. I may be in Cincinnati
soon. But this is all nonsense. You're not going. You'd be afraid."

She laughed softly. "You don't know me. Now that I've got to go,
I'm glad."

And he realized that she was not talking to give herself
courage, that her words were literally true. This made him
admire her, and fear her, too. There must be something wild and
unwomanly in her nature. "I guess she inherits it from her
mother--and perhaps her father, whoever he was." Probably she
was simply doing a little early what she'd have been sure to do
sooner or later, no matter what had happened. On the whole, it
was just as well that she was going. "I can take her on East in
the fall. As soon as she has a little knowledge of the world
she'll not expect me to marry her. She can get something to do.
I'll help her." And now he felt in conceit with himself
again--felt that he was going to be a good, generous friend to her.

"Perhaps you'll be better off--once you get started," said he.

"I don't see how I could be worse off. What is there here for _me_?"

He wondered at the good sense of this from a mere child. It was
most unlikely that any man of the class she had been brought up
in would marry her; and how could she endure marriage with a man
of the class in which she might possibly find a husband? As for
reputation--

She, an illegitimate child, never could have a reputation, at
least not so long as she had her looks. After supper, to kill
time, he had dropped in at Willett's drug store, where the young
fellows loafed and gossiped in the evenings; all the time he was
there the conversation had been made up of sly digs and hints
about graveyard trysts, each thrust causing the kind of laughter
that is the wake of the prurient and the obscene. Yes, she was
right. There could be "nothing in it" for her in Sutherland. He
was filled with pity for her. "Poor child! What a shame!" There
must be something wrong with a world that permitted such iniquities.

The clock struck twelve. "You must go," she said. "Sometimes
the boat comes as early as half-past." And she stood up.

As he faced her the generous impulse surged again. He caught her
in his arms, she not resisting. He kissed her again and again,
murmuring disconnected words of endearment and fighting back the
offer to marry her. "I mustn't! I mustn't!" he said to himself.
"What'd become of us?" If his passions had been as virgin, as
inexperienced, as hers, no power could have held him from going
with her and marrying her. But experience had taught him the
abysmal difference between before and after; and he found
strength to be sensible, even in the height of his passionate
longing for her.

She clasped her arms about his neck. "Oh, my dear love!" she
murmured. "I'd do anything for you. I feel that you love me as
I love you."

"Yes--yes." And he pressed his lips to hers. An instant and she
drew away, shaking and panting. He tried to clasp her again, but
she would not have it. "I can't stand it!" he murmured. "I must
go with you--I must!"

"No!" she replied. "It wouldn't do unless we were really
married." Wistfully, "And we can't be that yet--can we? There
isn't any way?"

His passion cooled instantly.

"There isn't any way," he said regretfully. "I'd not dare tell
my father."

"Yes, we must wait till you're of age, and have your education,
and are free. Then----" She drew a long breath, looked at him
with a brave smile. The large moon was shining upon them. "We'll
think of that, and not let ourselves be unhappy--won't we?"

"Yes," he said. "But I must go."

"I forgot for the minute. Good-by, dearest." She put up her
lips. He kissed her, but without passion now.

"You might go with me as far as the wharf," she suggested.

"No--someone might see--and that would ruin everything. I'd like
to--I'd----"

"It wouldn't do," she interrupted. "I wouldn't let you come."

With sudden agitation she kissed him--he felt that her lips were
cold. He pressed her hands--they, too, were cold. "Good-by, my
darling," he murmured, vaulted lightly over the rail and
disappeared in the deep shadows of the shrubbery. When he was
clear of the grounds he paused to light a cigarette. His hand
was shaking so that the match almost dropped from his fingers.
"I've been making a damn fool of myself," he said half aloud. "A
double damn fool! I've got to stop that talk about marrying,
somehow--or keep away from her. But I can't keep away. I _must_
have her! Why in the devil can't she realize that a man in my
position couldn't marry her? If it wasn't for this marrying
talk, I'd make her happy. I've simply got to stop this marrying
talk. It gets worse and worse."


Her calmness deceived her into thinking herself perfectly sane
and sober, perfectly aware of what she was about. She had left
her hat and her bundle behind the door. She put on the hat in
the darkness of the hall with steady fingers, took up the
well-filled shawl strap and went forth, closing the door behind
her. In the morning they would find the door unlocked but that
would not cause much talk, as Sutherland people were all rather
careless about locking up. They would not knock at the door of
her room until noon, perhaps. Then they would find on the
pincushion the letter she had written to her uncle, saying
good-by and explaining that she had decided to remove forever
the taint of her mother and herself from their house and their
lives--a somewhat theatrical letter, modeled upon Ouida, whom
she thought the greatest writer that had ever lived, Victor Hugo
and two or three poets perhaps excepted.

Her bundle was not light, but she hardly felt it as she moved
swiftly through the deserted, moonlit streets toward the river.
The wharf boat for the Cincinnati and Louisville mail steamers
was anchored at the foot of Pine Street. On the levee before it
were piled the boxes, bags, cases, crates, barrels to be loaded
upon the "up boat." She was descending the gentle slope toward
this mass of freight when her blood tingled at a deep, hoarse,
mournful whistle from far away; she knew it was the up boat,
rounding the bend and sighting the town. The sound echoed
musically back and forth between the Kentucky and the Indiana
bluffs, died lingeringly away. Again the whistle boomed, again
the dark forest-clad steeps sent the echoes to and fro across the
broad silver river. And now she could see the steamer, at the
bend--a dark mass picked out with brilliant dots of light; the
big funnels, the two thick pennants of black smoke. And she
could hear the faint pleasant stroke of the paddles of the big
side wheels upon the water.

At the wharf boat there had not been a sign of life. But with
the dying away of the second whistle lights--the lights of
lanterns--appeared on the levee close to the water's edge and on
the wharf boat itself. And, behind her, the doors of the
Sutherland Hotel opened and its office lit up, in preparation
for any chance arrivals. She turned abruptly out of the beaten
path down the gravel levee, made for the lower and darker end of
the wharf boat. There would be Sutherland people going up the
river. But they would be more than prompt; everyone came early
to boats and trains to begin the sweet draught of the excitement
of journeying. So she would wait in the darkness and go aboard
when the steamer was about to draw in its planks. At the upper
end of the wharf boat there was the broad gangway to the levee
for passengers and freight; at the lower and dark and deserted
end a narrow beam extended from boat to shore, to hold the boat
steady. Susan, balancing herself with her bundle, went up to the
beam, sat down upon a low stanchion in the darkness where she
could see the river.

Louder and louder grew the regular musical beat of engine and
paddle. The searchlight on the forward deck of the _General
Lytle_, after peering uncertainly, suspiciously, at the entire
levee, and at the river, and at the Kentucky shore, abruptly
focused upon the wharf boat. The _General Lytle_ now seemed a
blaze of lights--from lower deck, from saloon deck, from pilot
house deck, and forward and astern. A hundred interesting sounds
came from her--tinkling of bells, calls from deck to deck,
whistling, creaking of pulleys, lowing of cattle, grunting of
swine, plaint of agitated sheep, the resigned cluckings of many
chickens. Along the rail of the middle or saloon deck were
seated a few passengers who had not yet gone to bed. On the
lower deck was a swarm of black roustabouts, their sooty animal
faces, their uncannily contrasting white teeth and eyeballs,
their strange and varied rags lit up by the torches blazing
where a gangplank lay ready for running out. And high and clear
in the lovely June night sailed the moon, spreading a faint
benign light upon hills and shores and glistening river, upon
the graceful, stately mail steamer, now advancing majestically
upon the wharf boat. Susan watched all, saw all, with quick
beating heart and quivering interest. It was the first time that
her life had been visited by the fascinating sense of event,
real event. The tall, proud, impetuous child-woman, standing in
the semi-darkness beside her bundle, was about to cast her stake
upon the table in a bold game with Destiny. Her eyes shone with
the wonderful expression that is seen only when courage gazes
into the bright face of danger.

The steamer touched the edge of the wharf-boat with gentle care;
the wharf-boat swayed and groaned. Even as the gangplanks were
pushing out, the ragged, fantastic roustabouts, with wild,
savage, hilarious cries, ran and jumped and scrambled to the
wharf-boat like a band of escaping lunatics and darted down its
shore planks to pounce upon the piles of freight. The mate, at
the steamer edge to superintend the loading, and the wharf
master on the levee beside the freight released each a hoarse
torrent of profanity to spur on the yelling, laughing
roustabouts, more brute than man. Torches flared; cow and sheep,
pig and chicken, uttered each its own cry of dissatisfaction or
dismay; the mate and wharf master cursed because it was the
custom to curse; the roustabouts rushed ashore empty-handed,
came filing back, stooping under their burdens. It was a scene
of animation, of excitement, savage, grotesque, fascinating.

Susan, trembling a little, so tense were her nerves, waited
until the last struggling roustabouts were staggering on the
boat, until the deep whistle sounded, warning of approaching
departure. Then she took up her bundle and put herself in the
line of roustabouts, between a half-naked negro, black as coal
and bearing a small barrel of beer, and a half-naked mulatto
bearing a bundle of loud-smelling untanned skins. "Get out of
the way, lady!" yelled the mate, eagerly seizing upon a new text
for his denunciations. "Get out of the way, you black hellions!
Let the lady pass! Look out, lady! You damned sons of hell,
what're you about! I'll rip out your bowels----"

Susan fled across the deck and darted up the stairs to the
saloon. The steamer was all white without except the black metal
work. Within--that is, in the long saloon out of which the
cabins opened to right and left and in which the meals were
served at extension tables--there was the palatial splendor of
white and gilt. At the forward end near the main entrance was
the office. Susan, peering in from the darkness of the deck, saw
that the way was clear. The Sutherland passengers had been
accommodated. She entered, put her bundle down, faced the clerk
behind the desk.

"Why, howdy, Miss Lenox," said he genially, beginning to twist
his narrow, carefully attended blond mustache. "Any of the folks
with you?"

She remembered his face but not his name. She remembered him as
one of the "river characters" regarded as outcast by the
Christian respectability of Sutherland. But she who could not
but be polite to everybody smiled pleasantly, though she did not
like his expression as he looked at her. "No, I'm alone," said she.

"Oh--your friends are going to meet you at the wharf in the
morning," said he, content with his own explanation. "Just sign
here, please." And, as she wrote, he went on: "I've got one room
left. Ain't that lucky? It's a nice one, too. You'll be very
comfortable. Everybody at home well? I ain't been in Sutherland
for nigh ten years. Every week or so I think I will, and then
somehow I don't. Here's your key--number 34 right-hand side,
well down toward the far end, yonder. Two dollars, please. Thank
you--exactly right. Hope you sleep well."

"Thank you," said Susan.

She turned away with the key which was thrust through one end of
a stick about a foot long, to make it too bulky for
absent-minded passengers to pocket. She took up her bundle,
walked down the long saloon with its gilt decorations, its
crystal chandeliers, its double array of small doors, each
numbered. The clerk looked after her, admiration of the fine
curve of her shoulders, back, and hips written plain upon his
insignificant features. And it was a free admiration he would
not have dared show had she not been a daughter of
illegitimacy--a girl whose mother's "looseness" raised pleasing
if scandalous suggestions and even possibilities in the mind of
every man with a carnal eye. And not unnaturally. To think of
her was to think of the circumstances surrounding her coming
into the world; and to think of those circumstances was to think
of immorality.

Susan, all unconscious of that polluted and impudent gaze, was
soon standing before the narrow door numbered 34, as she barely
made out, for the lamps in the saloon chandeliers were turned
low. She unlocked it, entered the small clean stateroom and
deposited her bundle on the floor. With just a glance at her
quarters she hurried to the opposite door--the one giving upon
the promenade. She opened it, stepped out, crossed the deserted
deck and stood at the rail.

The _General Lytle_ was drawing slowly away from the wharf-boat.
As that part of the promenade happened to be sheltered from the
steamer's lights, she was seeing the panorama of Sutherland--its
long stretch of shaded waterfront, its cupolas and steeples, the
wide leafy streets leading straight from the river by a gentle
slope to the base of the dark towering bluffs behind the
town--all sleeping in peace and beauty in the soft light of the
moon. That farthest cupola to the left--it was the Number Two
engine house, and the third place from it was her uncle's house.
Slowly the steamer, now in mid-stream, drew away from the town.
One by one the familiar landmarks--the packing house, the soap
factory, the Geiss brewery, the tall chimney of the pumping
station, the shorn top of Reservoir Hill--slipped ghostlily away
to the southwest. The sobs choked up into her throat and the
tears rained from her eyes. They all pitied and looked down on
her there; still, it had been home the only home she ever had
known or ever would know. And until these last few frightful
days, how happy she had been there! For the first time she felt
desolate, weak, afraid. But not daunted. It is strange to see in
strong human character the strength and the weakness, two flat
contradictions, existing side by side and making weak what seems
so strong and making strong what seems so weak. However, human
character is a tangle of inconsistencies, as disorderly and
inchoate as the tangible and visible parts of nature. Susan felt
weak, but not the kind of weakness that skulks. And there lay
the difference, the abysmal difference, between courage and
cowardice. Courage has full as much fear as cowardice, often
more; but it has a something else that cowardice has not. It
trembles and shivers but goes forward.

Wiping her eyes she went back to her own cabin. She had
neglected closing its other door, the one from the saloon. The
clerk was standing smirking in the doorway.

"You must be going away for quite some time," said he. And he
fixed upon her as greedy and impudent eyes as ever looked from
a common face. It was his battle glance. Guileful women, bent on
trimming him for anything from a piece of plated jewelry to a
saucer of ice cream, had led him to believe that before it walls
of virtue tottered and fell like Jericho's before the trumpets
of Joshua.

"It makes me a little homesick to see the old town disappear,"
hastily explained Susan, recovering herself. The instant anyone
was watching, her emotions always hid.

"Wouldn't you like to sit out on deck a while?" pursued the
clerk, bringing up a winning smile to reinforce the fetching stare.

The idea was attractive, for she did not feel like sleep. It
would be fine to sit out in the open, watch the moon and the
stars, the mysterious banks gliding swiftly by, and new vistas
always widening out ahead. But not with this puny, sandy little
"river character," not with anybody that night. "No," replied
she. "I think I'll go to bed."

She had hesitated--and that was enough to give him
encouragement. "Now, do come," he urged. "You don't know how
nice it is. And they say I'm mighty good company."

"No, thanks." Susan nodded a pleasant dismissal.

The clerk lingered. "Can't I help you in some way? Wouldn't you
like me to get you something?"

"No--nothing."

"Going to visit in Cincinnati? I know the town from A to Izzard.
It's a lot of fun over the Rhine. I've had mighty good times
there--the kind a pretty, lively girl like you would take to."