Susan Lenox: Her Fall and Rise

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


"When do we get to Cincinnati?"

"About eight--maybe half-past seven. Depends on the landings we
have to make, and the freight."

"Then I'll not have much time for sleep," said Susan. "Good
night." And no more realizing the coldness of her manner than
the reason for his hanging about, she faced him, hand on the
door to close it.

"You ain't a bit friendly," wheedled he.

"I'm sorry you think so. Good night--and thank you." And he
could not but withdraw his form from the door. She closed it and
forgot him. And she did not dream she had passed through one of
those perilous adventures incident to a female traveling
alone--adventures that even in the telling frighten ladies whose
nervousness for their safety seems to increase in direct
proportion to the degree of tranquillity their charms create in
the male bosom. She decided it would be unwise regularly to
undress; the boat might catch fire or blow up or something. She
took off skirt, hat and ties, loosened her waist, and lay upon
the lower of the two plain, hard little berths. The throb of the
engines, the beat of the huge paddles, made the whole boat
tremble and shiver. Faintly up from below came the sound of
quarrels over crap-shooting, of banjos and singing--from the
roustabouts amusing themselves between landings. She thought she
would not be able to sleep in these novel and exciting
surroundings. She had hardly composed herself before she lost
consciousness, to sleep on and on dreamlessly, without motion.




CHAPTER VII


SHE was awakened by a crash so uproarious that she sat bolt
upright before she had her eyes open. Her head struck stunningly
against the bottom of the upper berth. This further confused her
thoughts. She leaped from the bed, caught up her slippers,
reached for her opened-up bundle. The crash was still billowing
through the boat; she now recognized it as a great gong sounding
for breakfast. She sat down on the bed and rubbed her head and
laughed merrily. "I _am_ a greenhorn!" she said. "Another minute
and I'd have had the whole boat laughing at me."

She felt rested and hungry--ravenously hungry. She tucked in her
blouse, washed as well as she could in the tiny bowl on the
little washstand. Then before the cloudy watermarked mirror she
arranged her scarcely mussed hair. A charming vision of fresh
young loveliness, strong, erect, healthy, bright of eye and of
cheek, she made as, after a furtive look up and down the saloon,
she stepped from her door a very few minutes after the crash of
that gong. With much scuffling and bustling the passengers, most
of them country people, were hurrying into places at the tables
which now had their extension leaves and were covered with
coarse white tablecloths and with dishes of nicked stoneware,
white, indeed, but shabbily so. But Susan's young eyes were not
critical. To her it all seemed fine, with the rich flavor of
adventure. A more experienced traveler might have been filled
with gloomy foreboding by the quality of the odor from the
cooking. She found it delightful and sympathized with the
unrestrained eagerness of the homely country faces about her,
with the children beating their spoons on their empty plates.
The colored waiters presently began to stream in, each wearing
a soiled white jacket, each bearing aloft a huge tray on which
were stacked filled dishes and steaming cups.

Colored people have a keen instinct for class. One of the
waiters happened to note her, advanced bowing and smiling with
that good-humored, unservile courtesy which is the peculiar
possession of the Americanized colored race. He flourished her
into a chair with a "Good morning, miss. It's going to be a fine
day." And as soon as she was seated he began to form round her
plate a large inclosing arc of side dishes--fried fish, fried
steak, fried egg, fried potatoes, wheat cakes, canned peaches,
a cup of coffee. He drew toward her a can of syrup, a pitcher of
cream, and a bowl of granulated sugar.

"Anything else?" said he, with a show of teeth white and sound.

"No--nothing. Thank you so much."

Her smile stimulated him to further courtesies. "Some likes the
yeggs biled. Shall I change 'em?"

"No. I like them this way." She was so hungry that the idea of
taking away a certainty on the chance of getting something out
of sight and not yet cooked did not attract her.

"Perhaps--a little better piece of steak?"

"No--this looks fine." Her enthusiasm was not mere politeness.

"I clean forgot your hot biscuits." And away he darted.

When he came back with a heaping plate of hot biscuits, Sally
Lunn and cornbread, she was eating as heartily as any of her
neighbors. It seemed to her that never had she tasted such grand
food as this served in the white and gold saloon with
strangeness and interest all about her and the delightful sense
of motion--motion into the fascinating golden unknown. The men
at the table were eating with their knives; each had one
protecting forearm and hand cast round his arc of small dishes
as if to ward off probable attempt at seizure. And they
swallowed as if the boat were afire. The women ate more
daintily, as became members of the finer sex on public
exhibition. They were wearing fingerless net gloves, and their
little fingers stood straight out in that gesture which every
truly elegant woman deems necessary if the food is to be
daintily and artistically conveyed to her lips. The children
mussed and gormed themselves, their dishes, the tablecloth.
Susan loved it all. Her eyes sparkled. She ate everything, and
regretted that lack of capacity made it impossible for her to
yield to the entreaties of her waiter that she "have a little more."

She rose, went into the nearest passageway between saloon and
promenade, stealthily took a ten-cent piece from her pocketbook.
She called her waiter and gave it to him. She was blushing
deeply, frightened lest this the first tip she had ever given or
seen given be misunderstood and refused. "I'm so much obliged,"
she said. "You were very nice."

The waiter bowed like a prince, always with his simple, friendly
smile; the tip disappeared under his apron. "Nobody could help
being nice to you, lady."

She thanked him again and went to the promenade. It seemed to
her that they had almost arrived. Along shore stretched a
continuous line of houses--pretty houses with gardens. There
were electric cars. Nearer the river lay several parallel lines
of railway track along which train after train was speeding,
some of them short trains of ordinary day coaches, others long
trains made up in part of coaches grander and more beautiful
than any she had ever seen. She knew they must be the parlor and
dining and sleeping cars she had read about. And now they were
in the midst of a fleet of steamers and barges, and far ahead
loomed the first of Cincinnati's big suspension bridges,
pictures of which she had many a time gazed at in wonder. There
was a mingling of strange loud noises--whistles, engines, on the
water, on shore; there was a multitude of what seemed to her
feverish activities--she who had not been out of quiet
Sutherland since she was a baby too young to note things.

The river, the shores, grew more and more crowded. Susan's eyes
darted from one new object to another; and eagerly though she
looked she felt she was missing more than she saw.

"Why, Susan Lenox!" exclaimed a voice almost in her ear.

She closed her teeth upon a cry; suddenly she was back from
wonderland to herself. She turned to face dumpy, dressy Mrs.
Waterbury and her husband with the glossy kinky ringlets and the
long wavy mustache. "How do you do?" she stammered.

"We didn't know you were aboard," said Mrs. Waterbury, a silly,
duck-legged woman looking proudly uncomfortable in her
bead-trimmed black silk.

"Yes--I'm--I'm here," confessed Susan.

"Going to the city to visit?"

"Yes," said Susan. She hesitated, then repeated, "Yes."

"What elegant breakfasts they do serve on these boats! I suppose
your friends'll meet you. But Mort and I'll look after you till
they come."

"Oh, it isn't necessary," protested Susan. The steamer was
passing under the bridge. There were cities on both shores--huge
masses of dingy brick, streets filled with motion of every
kind--always motion, incessant motion, and change. "We're about
there, aren't we?" she asked.

"The wharf's up beyond the second bridge--the Covington Bridge,"
explained Waterbury with the air of the old experienced
globe-trotter. "There's a third one, further up, but you can't
see it for the smoke." And he went on and on, volubly airing his
intimate knowledge of the great city which he visited once a
year for two or three days to buy goods. He ended with a
scornful, "My, but Cincinnati's a dirty place!"

Dirty it might be, but Susan loved it, dirt and all. The smoke,
the grime somehow seemed part of it, one of its charms, one of
the things that made it different from, and superior to,
monotonous country and country town. She edged away from the
Waterburys, hid in her stateroom watching the panorama through
the curtained glass of her promenade deck door. She was
completely carried away. The city! So, this was the city! And
her dreams of travel, of new sights, new faces, were beginning
to come true. She forgot herself, forgot what she had left
behind, forgot what she was to face. All her power of thought
and feeling was used up in absorbing these unfolding wonders.
And when the June sun suddenly pierced the heavy clouds of fog and
smoke, she clasped her hands and gasped, "Lovely! Oh, how lovely!"

And now the steamer was at the huge wharf-boat, in shape like
the one at Sutherland, but in comparative size like the real
Noah's Ark beside a toy ark. And from the whole tremendous scene
rose an enormous clamor, the stentorian voice of the city. That
voice is discordant and terrifying to many. To Susan, on that
day, it was the most splendid burst of music. "Awake--awake!" it
cried. "Awake, and _live!_" She opened her door that she might
hear it better--rattle and rumble and roar, shriek of whistle,
clang of bell. And the people!--Thousands on thousands hurrying
hither and yon, like bees in a hive. "Awake awake, and live!"

The noises from the saloon reminded her that the journey was
ended, that she must leave the boat. And she did not know where
to go--she and her bundle. She waited until she saw the
Waterburys, along with the other passengers, moving up the
levee. Then she issued forth--by the promenade deck door so that
she would not pass the office. But at the head of the
companionway, in the forward part of the deck, there the clerk
stood, looking even pettier and more offensive by daylight. She
thought to slip by him. But he stopped stroking his mustache and
called out to her, "Haven't your friends come?"

She frowned, angry in her nervousness. "I shall get on very
well," she said curtly. Then she repented, smiled politely,
added, "Thank you."

"I'll put you in a carriage," he offered, hastening down the
stairs to join her.

She did not know what to say or do. She walked silently beside
him, he carrying her bundle. They crossed the wharf-boat. A line
of dilapidated looking carriages was drawn up near the end of
the gangplank. The sight of them, the remembrance of what she
had heard of the expensiveness of city carriages, nerved her to
desperation. "Give me my things, please," she said. "I think I'll
walk."

"Where do you want to go?"

The question took her breath away. With a quickness that amazed
her, her lips uttered, "The Gibson House."

"Oh! That's a right smart piece. But you can take a car. I'll walk
with you to the car. There's a line a couple of squares up that
goes almost by the door. You know it isn't far from Fourth Street."

She was now in a flutter of terror. She went stumbling along
beside him, not hearing a word of his voluble and flirtatious
talk. They were in the midst of the mad rush and confusion. The
noises, no longer mingled but individual, smote savagely upon
her ears, startling her, making her look dazedly round as if
expecting death to swoop upon her. At the corner of Fourth Street
the clerk halted. He was clear out of humor with her, so dumb,
so unappreciative. "There'll be a car along soon," said he sourly.

"You needn't wait," said she timidly. "Thank you again."

"You can't miss it. Good-by." And he lifted his hat--"tipped"
it, rather--for he would not have wasted a full lift upon such
a female. She gave a gasp of relief when he departed; then a
gasp of terror--for upon the opposite corner stood the
Waterburys. The globe-trotter and his wife were so dazed by the
city that they did not see her, though in their helpless
glancing round they looked straight at her. She hastily ran into
a drug store on the corner. A young man in shirt sleeves held up
by pink garters, and with oily black hair carefully parted and
plastered, put down a pestle and mortar and came forward. He had
kind brown eyes, but there was something wrong with the lower
part of his face. Susan did not dare look to see what it was,
lest he should think her unfeeling. He was behind the counter.
Susan saw the soda fountain. As if by inspiration, she said,
"Some chocolate soda, please."

"Ice cream?" asked the young man in a peculiar voice, like that
of one who has a harelip.

"Please," said Susan. And then she saw the sign, "Ice Cream, ten
cents," and wished she hadn't.

The young man mixed the soda, put in a liberal helping of ice
cream, set it before her with a spoon in it, rested the knuckles
of his brown hairy hands on the counter and said:

"It _is_ hot."

"Yes, indeed," assented Susan. "I wonder where I could leave my
bundle for a while. I'm a stranger and I want to look for a
boarding house."

"You might leave it here with me," said the young man. "That's
about our biggest line of trade--that and postage stamps and
telephone--_and_ the directory. "He laughed heartily. Susan did
not see why; she did not like the sound, either, for the young
man's deformity of lower jaw deformed his laughter as well as
his speech. However, she smiled politely and ate and drank her
soda slowly.

"I'll be glad to take care of your bundle," the young man said
presently. "Ever been here before?"

"No," said Susan. "That is, not since I was about four years old."

"I was four," said the young man, "when a horse stepped on my
mouth in the street."

"My, how dreadful!" exclaimed Susan.

"You can see some of the scar yet," the young man assured her,
and he pointed to his curiously sunken mouth. "The doctors said
it was the most remarkable case of the kind on record,"
continued he proudly. "That was what led me into the medical
line. You don't seem to have your boarding house picked."

"I was going to look in the papers."

"That's dangerous--especially for a young lady. Some of them
boarding houses--well, they're no better'n they ought to be."

"I don't suppose you know of any?"

"My aunt keeps one. And she's got a vacancy, it being summer."

"I'm afraid it'd be too expensive for me," said Susan, to feel her way.

The young man was much flattered. But he said, "Oh, it ain't so
toppy. I think you could make a deal with her for five per."

Susan looked inquiring.

"Five a week--room and board."

"I might stand that," said Susan reflectively. Then, deciding
for complete confidence, "I'm looking for work, too."

"What line?"

"Oh, I never tried anything. I thought maybe dressmaking or millinery."

"Mighty poor season for jobs. The times are bad, anyhow." He was
looking at her with kindly curiosity. "If I was you, I'd go back
home--and wait."

Susan shrank within herself. "I can't do that," she said.

The young man thought awhile, then said: "If you should go to my
aunt's, you can say Mr. Ellison sent you. No, that ain't me.
It's the boss. You see, a respectable boarding house asks for
references."

Susan colored deeply and her gaze slowly sank. "I didn't know
that," she murmured.

"Don't be afraid. Aunt Kate ain't so particular--leastways, not
in summer when things is slow. And I know you're quiet."

By the time the soda was finished, the young man--who said his
name was Robert Wylie--had written on the back of Ellison's
business card in a Spencerian hand: "Mrs. Kate Wylie, 347 West
Sixth Street." He explained that Susan was to walk up two
squares and take the car going west; the conductor would let her
off at the right place. "You'd better leave your things here,"
said Mr. Wylie, holding up the card so that they could admire
his penmanship together. "You may not hit it off with Aunt Kate.
Don't think you've got to stay there just because of me."

"I'm sure I'll like it," Susan declared confidently. Her spirits
were high; she felt that she was in a strong run of luck.

Wylie lifted her package over the counter and went to the door
with her to point out the direction. "This is Fourth. The next
up is Fifth. The next wide one is Sixth--and you can read it on
the lamp-post, too."

"Isn't that convenient!" exclaimed Susan. "What a lovely city this is!"

"There's worse," said Mr. Wylie, not to seem vain of his native town.

They shook hands most friendly and she set out in the direction
he had indicated. She was much upset by the many vehicles and
the confusion, but she did her best to seem at ease and at home.
She watched a girl walking ahead of her--a shopgirl who seemed
well-dressed and stylish, especially about the hat and hair.
Susan tried to walk like her. "I suppose I look and act greener
than I really am," thought she. "But I'll keep my eyes open and
catch on." And in this, as in all her thoughts and actions since
leaving, she showed confidence not because she was conceited,
but because she had not the remotest notion what she was
actually attempting. How many of us get credit for courage as we
walk unconcerned through perils, or essay and conquer great
obstacles, when in truth we are not courageous but simply
unaware! As a rule knowledge is power or, rather, a source of
power, but there are times when ignorance is a power and
knowledge a weakness. If Susan had known, she might perhaps have
stayed at home and submitted and, with crushed spirit, might
have sunk under the sense of shame and degradation. But she did
not know; so Columbus before his sailors or Caesar at the
Rubicon among his soldiers did not seem more tranquil than she
really was. Wylie, who suspected in the direction of the truth,
wondered at her. "She's game, she is," he muttered again and
again that morning. "What a nerve for a kid--and a lady, too!"

She found the right corner and the right car without further
adventure; and the conductor assured her that he would set her
down before the very door of the address on the card. It was an
open car with few passengers. She took the middle of the long
seat nearest the rear platform and looked about her like one in
a happy dream. On and on and yet on they went. With every square
they passed more people, so it seemed to her, than there were in
all Sutherland. And what huge stores! And what wonderful
displays of things to wear! Where would the people be found to
buy such quantities, and where would they get the money to pay?
How many restaurants and saloons! Why, everybody must be eating
and drinking all the time. And at each corner she looked up and
down the cross streets, and there were more and ever more
magnificent buildings, throngs upon throngs of people. Was there
no end to it? This was Sixth Street, still Sixth Street, as she
saw at the corner lamp-posts. Then there must be five more such
streets between this and the river; and she could see, up the
cross streets, that the city was even vaster in the direction of
the hills. And there were all these cross streets! It was
stupefying--overwhelming--incredible.

She began to be nervous, they were going so far. She glanced
anxiously at the conductor. He was watching her interestedly,
understood her glance, answered it with a reassuring nod. He
called out:

"I'm looking out for you, miss. I've got you on my mind. Don't
you fret."

She gave him a bright smile of relief. They were passing through
a double row of what seemed to her stately residences, and there
were few people on the sidewalks. The air, too, was clearer,
though the walls were grimy and also the grass in the occasional
tiny front yards. But the curtains at the windows looked clean
and fresh, and so did the better class of people among those on
the sidewalk. It delighted her to see so many well-dressed
women, wearing their clothes with an air which she told herself
she must acquire. She was startled by the conductor's calling out:

"Now, miss!"

She rose as he rang the bell and was ready to get off when the
car stopped, for she was eager to cause him as little trouble as
possible.

"The house is right straight before you," said the conductor.
"The number's in the transom."

She thanked him, descended, was on the sidewalk before Mrs.
Wylie's. She looked at the house and her heart sank. She thought
of the small sum in her purse; it was most unlikely that such a
house as this would harbor her. For here was a grand stone
stairway ascending to a deep stone portico, and within it great
doors, bigger than those of the Wright mansion, the palace of
Sutherland. However, she recalled the humble appearance and mode
of speech of her friend the drug clerk and plucked up the
courage to ascend and to ring.

A slattern, colored maid opened the door. At the first glance
within, at the first whiff of the interior air, Susan felt more
at ease. For she was seeing what even her bedazzled eyes
recognized as cheap dowdiness, and the smell that assailed her
nostrils was that of a house badly and poorly kept--the smell of
cheap food and bad butter cooking, of cats, of undusted rooms,
of various unrecognizable kinds of staleness. She stood in the
center of the big dingy parlor, gazing round at the grimed
chromos until Mrs. Wylie entered--a thin middle-aged woman with
small brown eyes set wide apart, a perpetual frown, and a chin
so long and so projected that she was almost jimber-jawed. While
Susan explained stammeringly what she had come for, Mrs. Wylie
eyed her with increasing disfavor. When Susan had finished, she
unlocked her lips for the first time to say:

"The room's took."

"Oh!" cried Susan in dismay.

The telephone rang in the back parlor. Mrs. Wylie excused
herself to answer. After a few words she closed the doors
between. She was gone fully five minutes; to Susan it seemed an
hour. She came back, saying:

"I've been talking to my nephew. He called up. Well, I reckon
you can have the room. It ain't my custom to take in ladies as
young as you. But you seem to be all right. Your parents allowed
you to come?"

"I haven't any," replied Susan. "I'm here to find a place and
support myself."

Mrs. Wylie continued to eye her dubiously. "Well, I have no wish
to pry into your affairs. 'Mind your own business,' that's my
rule." She spoke with defiance, as if the contrary were being
asserted by some invisible person who might appear and gain
hearing and belief. She went on: "If Mr. Ellison wants it, why I
suppose it's all right. But you can't stay out later'n ten o'clock."

"I shan't go out at all of nights," said Susan eagerly.

"You _look_ quiet," said Mrs. Wylie, with the air of adding that
appearances were rarely other than deceptive.

"Oh, I _am_ quiet," declared Susan. It puzzled her, this
recurrence of the suggestion of noisiness.

"I can't allow much company--none in your room."

"There won't be any company." She blushed deeply. "That is, a--a
young man from our town--he may call once. But he'll be off for
the East right away."

Mrs. Wylie reflected on this, Susan the while standing uneasily,
dreading lest decision would be against her. Finally Mrs. Wylie said:

"Robert says you want the five-dollar room. I'll show it to you."

They ascended two flights through increasing shabbiness. On the
third floor at the rear was a room--a mere continuation of the
narrow hall, partitioned off. It contained a small folding bed,
a small table, a tiny bureau, a washstand hardly as large as
that in the cabin on the boat, a row of hooks with a curtain of
flowered chintz before them, a kitchen chair, a chromo of "Awake
and Asleep," a torn and dirty rag carpet. The odor of the room,
stale, damp, verging on moldy, seemed the fitting exhalation
from such an assemblage of forbidding objects.

"It's a nice, comfortable room," said Mrs. Wylie aggressively.
"I couldn't afford to give it and two meals for five dollars
except till the first of September. After that it's eight."

"I'll be glad to stay, if you'll let me," said Susan. Mrs.
Wylie's suspicion, so plain in those repellent eyes, took all
the courage out of her. The great adventure seemed rapidly to be
losing its charms. She could not think of herself as content or
anything but sad and depressed in such surroundings as these.
How much better it would be if she could live out in the open,
out where it was attractive!