Mae Madden

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MAE MADDEN

By Mary Murdoch Mason


With an introductory poem, by Joaquin Miller.

The wheel of fortune guide you,
The boy with the bow beside you
Run aye in the way, till the dawn of day
And a luckier lot betide you.

Ben Jonson.




A DREAM OF ITALY.

AN ALLEGORY INTRODUCING "MAE MADDEN."

I.

We two had been parted, God pity us, when
The stars were unnamed and when heaven was dim;
We two had been parted far back on the rim
And the outermost border of heaven's red bars:
We two had been parted ere the meeting of men
Or God had set compass on spaces as yet.
We two had been parted ere God had set
His finger to spinning the spaces with stars,--
And now, at the last in the gold and set
Of the sun of Venice, we two had met.

II.

Where the lion of Venice, with brows afrown,
With tossed mane tumbled, and teeth in air,
Looks out in his watch o'er the watery town,
With a paw half lifted, with his claws half bare,
By the blue Adriatic, in the edge of the sea,
I saw her. I knew her, but she knew not me.
I had found her at last! Why, I had sailed
The antipodes through, had sought, had hailed
All flags, had climbed where the storm clouds curled,
And called from the awful arched dome of the world.

III.

I saw her one moment, then fell back abashed
And filled full to the throat. . . . Then I turned me once more
So glad to the sea, while the level sun flashed
On the far, snowy Alps. . . . Her breast! Why, her breast
Was white as twin pillows that allure you to rest;
Her sloping limbs moved like to melodies, told
As she rose from the sea, and she threw back the gold
Of her glory of hair, and set face to the shore. . . .
I knew her! I knew her, though we had not met
Since the far stars sang to the sun's first set.

IV.

How long I had sought her! I had hungered, nor ate
Of any sweet fruits. I had tasted not one
Of all the fair glories grown under the sun.
I had sought only her. Yea, I knew that she
Had come upon earth and stood waiting for me
Somewhere by my way. But the path ways of fate
They had led otherwhere. The round world round,
The far North seas and the near profound
Had failed me for aye. Now I stood by that sea
While a ship drove by, and all dreamily.

V.

I had turned from the lion a time, and when
I looked tow'rd the tide and out on the lea
Of the town where the warm sea tumbled and teemed
With beauty, I saw her. I knew her then,
The tallest, the fairest fair daughter of men.
O, Venice stood full in her glory. She gleamed
In the splendor of sunset and sensuous sea;
Yet I saw but my bride, my affinity,
While the doves hurried home to the dome of Saint Mark
And the brass horses plunged their high manes in the dark,

VI.

Was it well with my love? Was she true? Was she brave
With virtue's own valor? Was she waiting for me?
O, how fared my love! Had she home? Had she bread?
Had she known but the touch of the warm-tempered wave?
Was she born upon earth with a crown on her head;
Or born like myself, but a dreamer, instead?
So long it had been! So long! Why the sea,
That wrinkled and surly old time-tempered slave,
Had been born, had his revels, grown wrinkled and hoar
Since I last saw my love on that uttermost shore.

VII.

O, how fared my love? Once I lifted my face
And I shook back my hair and looked out on the sea;
I pressed my hot palms as I stood in my place
And cried, "O, I come like a king to your side
Though all hell intervene." . . . "Hist! she may be a bride!
A mother at peace, with sweet babes on her knee!
A babe at her breast and a spouse at her side! . . .
Have I wandered too long, and has destiny
Set mortal between us?" I buried my face
In my hands, and I moaned as I stood in my place.

VIII.

'Twas her year to be young. She was tall, she was fair
Was she pure as the snow on the Alps over there?
'Twas her year to be young. She was fair, she was tall
And I knew she was true as I lifted my face
And saw her press down her rich robe to its place
With a hand white and small as a babe's with a doll,
And her feet--why, her feet, in the white shining sand,
Were so small they might nest in my one brawny hand.
Then she pushed back her hair with a round hand that shone
And flashed in the light with a white starry stone.

IX.

Then, my love she was rich. My love she was fair.
Was she pure as the snow on the Alps over there?
She was gorgeous with wealth, "Thank God, she has bread,"
I said to myself. Then I humbled my head
In gratitude. Then I questioned me where
Was her palace? her parents? What name did she bear?
What mortal on earth came nearest her heart?
Who touched the small hand till it thrilled to a smart?
'Twas her day to be young. She was proud, she was fair.
Was she pure as the snow on the Alps over there?

X.

Now she turned, reached a hand; then a tall gondolier
That had leaned on his oar, like a long lifted spear,
Shot sudden and swift and all silently
And drew to her side as she turned from the tide. . .
It was odd, such a thing, and I counted it queer
That a princess like this, whether virgin or bride,
Should abide thus apart, and should bathe in that sea;
And I shook back my hair, and so unsatisfied.
Then I fluttered the doves that were perched close about,
As I strode up and down in dismay and in doubt.

XI.

Then she stood in the boat on the borders of night
As a goddess might stand on that far wonder land
Of eternal sweet life, which men have named Death.
I turned to the sea and I caught at my breath,
As she drew from the boat through her white baby hand
Her vestment of purple imperial, and white.
Then the gondola shot! swift, sharp from the shore.
There was never the sound of a song or of oar
But the doves hurried home in white clouds to Saint Mark,
And the lion loomed high o'er the sea in the dark.

XII.

Then I cried, "Quick! Follow her. Follow her. Fast!
Come! Thrice double fare if you follow her true
To her own palace door." There was plashing of oar
And rattle of rowlock. . . . I sat leaning low
Looking far in the dark, looking out as we sped
With my soul all alert, bending down, leaning low.
But only the oaths of the men as we passed
When we jostled them sharp as we sudden shot thro'
The watery town. Then a deep, distant roar--
The rattle of rowlock, the rush of the oar.

XIII.

Then an oath. Then a prayer! Then a gust that made rents
Through the yellow sailed fishers. Then suddenly
Came sharp forked fire! Then far thunder fell
Like the great first gun! Ah, then there was route
Of ships like the breaking of regiments
And shouts as if hurled from an upper hell.
Then tempest! It lifted, it spun us about,
Then shot us ahead through the hills of the sea
As if a great arrow shot shoreward in wars--
Then heaven split open till we saw the blown stars.

XIV.

On! On! Through the foam, through the storm, through the town,
She was gone. She was lost in the wilderness
Of palaces lifting their marbles of snow.
I stood in my gondola. Up and all down
I pushed through the surge of the salt-flood street
Above me, below. . . Twas only the beat
Of the sea's sad heart. . . Then I heard below
The water-rat building, but nothing but that;
Not even the sea bird screaming distress,
As she lost her way in that wilderness.

XV.

I listened all night. I caught at each sound;
I clutched and I caught as a man that drown'd. . . .
Only the sullen low growl of the sea
Far out the flood street at the edge of the ships.
Only the billow slow licking his lips,
Like a dog that lay crouching there watching for me;
Growling and showing white teeth all the night,
Reaching his neck and as ready to bite--
Only the waves with their salt flood tears
Fawning white stones of a thousand years.

XVI.

Only the birds in the wilderness
Of column and dome and of glittering spire
That thrust to heaven and held the fire
Of the thunder still: The bird's distress
As he struck his wings in that wilderness,
On marbles that speak and thrill and inspire. . .
The night below and the night above;
The water-rat building, the startled white dove,
The wide-winged, dolorous sea bird's call
The water-rat building, but that was all.

XVII.

Lo! pushing the darkness from pillar to post,
The morning came silent and gray like a ghost
Slow up the canal. I leaned from the prow
And listened. Not even the bird in distress
Screaming above through the wilderness;
Not even the stealthy old water-rat now.
Only the bell in the fisherman's tower
Slow tolling a-sea and telling the hour
To kneel to their sweet Santa Barbara
For tawny fishers a-sea and pray.

* * * * * *

XVIII.

My dream it is ended, the curtain withdrawn.
The night that lay hard on the breast of earth,
Deep and heavy as a horrid nightmare,
Moves by, and I look to the rosy dawn. . . . .
I shall leave you here, with a leader fair;
One gentle, with faith and fear of her worth.
She shall lead you on through that Italy
That the gods have loved; and may it be
A light-hearted hour that, hand in hand,
You wander the warm and the careless love-land.

XIX.

By the windy waters of the Michigan
She invokes the gods. . . . Be it bright or dim,
Who does his endeavor as best he can
Does bravely, indeed. The rest is with Him.
Let a new star dance in the Occident
Till it shakes through the gossamer floors of God
And shines, o'er Chicago. . . The Orient
Is hoar with glories. Let Illini sod
Bear glory as well as the gleaming grain,
And engines smoking along her plain.


JOAQUIN MILLER.

CHICAGO, NOV., 1875.




MAE MADDEN.



CHAPTER I.

SCENE. Deck of an ocean steamer.

Characters:
Mrs. Jerrold, matron and chaperon in general.
Edith Jerrold, her daughter.
Albert Madden, a young man on study intent.
Eric, his brother, on pleasure bent.
Norman Mann, cousin of the Jerrolds, old classmate of the
Maddens.
Mae Madden, sister of the brothers and leading lady.

"It's something like dying, I do declare," said Mae, and as she spoke
a suspicious-looking drop slid softly across her cheek, down over the
deck-railing, to join its original briny fellows in the deep below.

"What is like dying?" asked Eric.

"Why, leaving the only world you know. There, you see, papa and mamma
are fast fading away, and here we are traveling off at the rate of ever
so many miles an hour."

"Knots, Mae; do be nautical at sea."

"Away from everything and everybody we know. I do really think it is
like dying,--don't you, Mr. Mann?" Mae turned abruptly and faced the
young man by her side.

"People aren't apt to die in batches or by the half-dozen," he replied,
coolly. "If you were all by yourself, it would be more like it, I
suppose, but you are taking quite a slice of your own world along with
you, and really--"

"And really pity is the very last article I have any use for. You are
right. I was only sorry for the moment. 'Eastward Ho' is a very happy
cry. How differently we shall all take Europe," she continued, in
a moment. "There is Albert, I honestly believe he will live in his
Baedeker just because he can see no further than the covers of a book.
You need not laugh, for it is a fact that people confined for years to
a room can't see beyond its limits when they are taken out into broader
space, and I don't see why it shouldn't be the same with a man who lives
in his books as Albert does."

"He sees the world in his books," said Mr. Mann, with a little spirit.

"He gets a microscopic view of it, yes," replied Mae, grandiloquently,
"and Edith--"

"Always sees just what he does," suggested Eric maliciously.

"Now, boys," said Miss Mae, assuming suddenly a mighty patronage, "I
will not have you hit at Albert and Edith in this way. It will be very
annoying to them. They have a right to act just as absurdly as they
choose. We none of us know how people who are falling in love would
act."

No, the boys agreed this was quite true.

"And I really do suppose they are falling in love, don't you?" queried
Mae.

Yes, they did both believe it.

Just here, up came the two subjects of conversation, looking, it must be
confessed, as much like one subject as any man and wife.

"What are you talking of?" asked Edith, "Madame Tussaud or a French
salad? No matter how trivial the topic, I am sure it has a foreign
flavor."

"There you are mistaken," replied the frank Eric, "we were discussing
you two people, in the most homelike kind of a way."

At this Edith blushed, Albert frowned, Mae scowled at Eric, who opened
his eyes amazedly, Norman Mann looked over the deck railing and laughed,
the wind blew, the sailors heave-ho-ed near by, and there was a grand
tableau vivant for a few seconds.

"O, come," cried Mae, "suppose we stop looking like a set of
illustrations for a phrenological journal, expressive of the various
emotions. I was only speculating on the different sights we should see
in the same places. Confess, now, Albert. Won't your eyes be forever
hunting out old musty, dusty volumes? Will not books be your first
pleasures in the sight-seeing line?"

"O, no, pictures," cried Edith.

"That is as you say," Mae demurely agreed. "Pictures and books for you
two at any rate."

"And churches."

"For your mother, yes, and beer-gardens for Eric, and amphitheatres and
battle fields for Mr. Mann."

"And for yourself?"

"The blue, blue bay of Naples, a grove of oranges, moonlight and a boat
if it please you."

"By the way," suggested Albert, "about our plans; we really should begin
to agitate the matter at once."

"Yes, to do our fighting on shipboard. Let us agree to hoist the white
flag the day we sight land, else we shall settle down into a regular War
of the Roses and never decide," laughed Norman.

"As there are six minds," continued Albert, "there will have to be some
giving up."

"Why do you look at me?" enquired Mae. "I am the very most unselfish
person in the world. I'll settle down anywhere for the winter, provided
only that it is not in Rome."

"But that is the very place," cried Edith, and Albert, and Mrs. Jerrold
from her camp-chair.

"O, how dreadful! The only way to prevent it will be for us to stand
firm, boys, and make it a tie."

"But Norman is especially eager to go to Rome," said Edith, "and that
makes us four strong at once in favor of that city."

"But is not Rome a fearful mixture of dead Caesar's bones and dirty
beggars? And mustn't one carry hundreds of dates at one's finger-tips to
appreciate this, and that, and the other? Is it not all tremendously and
overwhelmingly historical, and don't you have to keep exerting your mind
and thinking and remembering? I would rather go down to Southern Italy
and look at lazzaroni lie on stone walls, in red cloaks, as they do in
pictures, and not be obliged to topple off the common Italian to pile
the gray stone with old memories of some great dead man. Everything is
ghostly in Rome. Now, there must be some excitement in Southern Italy.
There's Vesuvius, and she isn't dead--like Nero--but a living demon,
that may erupt any night, and give you a little red grave by the sea for
your share."

"She's not nearly through yet," laughed Edith, as Mae paused for breath.

"I'm only afraid," said Mae, "that after I had been down there a week,
I should forget English, buy a contadina costume, marry a child of the
sun, and run away from this big world with its puzzles and lessons,
and rights and wrongs. Imagine me in my doorway as you passed in your
travelling carriage, hot and tired on your way--say to Sorrento. I would
dress my beautiful Italian all up in scarlet flowers and wreathe his big
hat and kiss his brown eyes and take his brown hand, and then we would
run along by the bay and laugh at you stiff, grand world's folks as we
skipped past you."

"We shall know where to look for you, if ever you do disappear," said
Norman Mann.

"But, my dear Mae," added Albert, "though this is amusing, it is utterly
useless."

"Amusing things always are," said Mae.

"The question is, shall we or shall we not go to Rome for the winter?"

"Certainly, by all means, and if I don't like it, I'll run away to
Sorrento," and Mae shook her sunny head and twinkled her eyes in a
fascinating sort of way, that made Eric feel a proud brotherly pleasure
in this saucy young woman, and that gave Norman Mann a sort of feeling
he had had a good deal of late, a feeling hard to define, though we have
all known it, a delicious concoction of pleasure and pain. His eyes were
fixed on Mae, now. "What is it?" she asked. "You will like Rome, I am
sure." "No, I never like what I think I shall not."

"It might save some trouble, then, if I ask you now if you expect to
like me," said he, in a lower tone. "Why certainly, I do like you very
much," she replied, honestly. "What a stupid question," he thinks,
vexedly. "Why did I tell him I liked him?" she thinks, blushingly. So
the waves of anxiety and doubt begin to swell in these two hearts as
the outside waves beat with a truer sea-motion momently against the
steamer's side.

Between days of sea-sickness come delightful intervals of calm sea and
fresh breezes, when the party fly to the hurricane deck to get the very
quintessence of life on the ocean wave. One morning Mrs. Jerrold and
Edith were sitting there alone, with rugs and all sorts of head devices
in soft wools and flannels, and books and a basket of fruit. The matron
of the party was a tall, fine-looking woman, a good type of genuine
New England stock softened by city breeding. New Englanders are so many
propositions from Euclid, full of right angles and straight lines, but
easy living and the dressmaker's art combine to turn the corners gently.
Edith was like her mother, but softened by a touch of warm Dutch blood.
She was tall, almost stately, with a good deal of American style, which
at that time happened to be straight and slender. She was naturally
reserved, but four years of boarding-school life had enriched her store
of adjectives and her amount of endearing gush-power, and she had
at least six girl friends to whom she sent weekly epistles of some
half-dozen sheets in length, beginning, each one of them, with "My
dearest ----" and ending "Your devoted Edith."

As Edith and her mother quietly read, and ate grapes, and lolled in a
delightfully feminine way, voices were heard,--Mae's and Norman's. They
were in the middle of a conversation. "Yes," Mae was saying, "you
do away with individuality altogether nowadays, with your dreadful
classifications. It is all the same from daffodils up to women."

"How do we classify women, pray?"

"In the mind of man," began Mae, as if she were reading, "there are
three classes of women; the giddy butterflies, the busy bees, and the
woman's righters. The first are pretty and silly; the second, plain
and useful; the third, mannish and odious. The first wear long trailing
dresses and smile at you while waltzing, the second wear aprons and give
you apple-dumplings, and the third want your manly prerogatives, your
dress-coat, your money, and your vote. Flirt with the giddy butterflies,
your first love was one. First loves always are. Marry the busy bee.
Your mother was a busy bee. Mothers always are. And keep on the other
side of the street from the woman's righter as long as you can. Alas!
your daughter will be one."

"Well, isn't there any classifying on the other side? Aren't there
horsemen and sporting men and booky men, in the feminine mind?"

"Perhaps so. There certainly are the fops, and nowadays this terrible
army of reformers and radicals, of whom my brother Albert here is the
best known example."

"What is it?" asked Albert, looking up abstractedly from his book, for
he and Eric had sauntered up the stairs too, by this time.

"They are the creatures," continued Mae, "who scorn joys and idle
pleasures. They deal with the good of the many and the problems of the
universe, and step solemnly along to that dirge known as the March of
Progress. And what do they get for it all? Something like this. Put down
your book, I'm going to prophesy," and Mae backed resolutely up against
the railing and held her floating scarfs and veils in a bunch at her
throat, while she prophesied in this way:

"Behold me, direct lineal descendant of Albert Madden, speaking to my
children in the year 1995: 'What, children, want amusement? Want to see
the magic lantern to note the effects of light? Alas! how frivolous.
Listen, children, to the achievements of your great ancestor, as
reported by the Encyclopedia. "A. Madden--promoter of civilization and
progress, chiefly known by his excellent theory entitled The Number of
Cells in a Human Brain compared to the Working Powers of Man, and that
remarkable essay, headed by this formula: Given--10,000,000 laboring
men, to find the number of loaves of bread in the world." Here,
children, take these works. Progressimus, you may have the theory, while
Civilizationica reads the essay. Then change about. Ponder them well,
and while we walk to the Museum later, tell me their errors. Then I will
show you the preserved ears of the first man found in Boshland by P. T.
Barnum, jr.' Oh, bosh," said Mae suddenly, letting fly her streamers,
"what a dry set of locusts you nineteenth century leaders are. You are
devouring our green land, and some of us butterflies would like to turn
our yellow wings into solid shields against you, if we could. There,
I've made a goose of myself again on the old subject. Edith, there's the
lunch bell. Take me down before I say another word." Exeunt feminines
all.

"Where did the child pick up all that?" queried Albert.

"'All that' is in the air just now," answered Norman. "It is a natural
reaction of a strong physical nature against the utilitarian views of
the day. Miss Mae is a type of--"

"O, nonsense, what prigs you are," interrupted Eric, "Mae is jolly. Do
stop your reasoning about her. If you are bound to be a potato yourself
to help save the masses from starvation, don't grumble because she grew
a flower. Come, let us go to lunch too."

Conversation was not always of this sort. One evening, not long after,
there was a moon, and Edith and Albert were missing. Eric was following
a blue-eyed girl along the deck, and Mae and Norman wandered off by
themselves up to this same hurricane deck again. The moonlight was
wonderful. It touched little groups here and there and fell full on the
face of a woman in the steerage, who sat with her arms crossed on her
knee and her face set eastward. She was singing, and her voice rose
clearly above the puff of the engine and the jabber below. There was a
chorus to the song, in which rough men and tired looking women joined.
The song was about home, and once in a while the girl unclasped her arms
and passed her hands over her eyes. Mae and Norman Mann looked at her
silently. "I suppose we don't know when we make pictures," said Mae.
"Don't we?" asked Norman pointedly. Mae looked very reprovingly out from
her white wraps at him, but he smiled back composedly and admiringly,
and drew her hand a trifle closer in his arm. And saucy Mae began to
feel in that sort of purring mood women come to when they drop the
bristling, ready-for-fight air with which they start on an acquaintance.
Perhaps, if the steamer had been a sailing-vessel, there would have
been no story to tell about Mae Madden, for a long line of evenings,
and girls singing songs, and hurricane decks by moonlight, are dangerous
things. But the vessel was a fast steamer, and was swiftly nearing land
again.



CHAPTER II.


ROME, February, 18--.

MY DEAR MAMMA:--Yes, it is Rome, mamma, and everybody is impressed.
The boys talk of emperors all the time; Edith is wild over Madonnas
and saints, and Mrs. Jerrold runs from Paul's house to Paul's walks and
Paul's drives and Paul's stand at the prisoner's bar, and reads the Acts
through five times a day, in the most religious and Romanistic spirit.
No one could make more fuss over a patron saint, I am sure. For my part,
I feel as if I were in the most terrible ghost story. The old Romans are
all around me. Underneath the street noises, I seem to hear cries, and
in the air I half see a constant flashing of swords and scars and blood,
and I can't even put my foot on the Roman pavement without wondering
which dead Caesar my saucy Burt boot No. 2 is walking over. I shouldn't
mind trampling old Caligula, but I don't like the thought on general
principles. I feel all out of place, so modern and fixed up and
flimsy. If I could get into old picturesque clothes and out of the
English-speaking quarter, I should not be so oppressed and might worship
Rome. But I seriously think I shall die if I stay here much longer.
There's a spirit-malaria that eats into my life. I feel as if all the
volumes of Roman history bound in heavy vellum, that papa has in his
study, were laid right on top of my little heart, so that every time it
beats, it thumps against them, and I assure you, mamma, its worse than
dyspepsia. If I could only get out on a New England hillside, where
there were no graves more important than those of grasshoppers and
butterflies! What should I do when I got there? Take off my hat, and
scream for joy, and feel free and glad to be in a fresh country, with
rich, warm, untainted earth and young life.