The Woman With a Past/The Only Way

HE was the prettiest and the most dainty young creature that Pippa had ever seen, a being who might have been made of gossamer stuff—of spun moonbeams and dream fiber.

And the more Mrs. Carpenter looked at her, the more dissatisfied she became with that first adjective that had leaped impulsively to her mind. No, the girl was not “pretty”; she was something better. Her features were irregular, her hair rather colorless, her figure too slender, her eyes a nondescript gray green, her complexion pale to excess. Yet she was exquisite. With that subtle and delicate young grace, she might have been really ugly, and yet charming. As it was, it cast a glamour over her whole person, enchanting her hair to a luster that it did not actually possess, lighting her eyes, laying soft spells of wistful sweetness about her little pale mouth.

“What a fairy child!” thought Pippa, charmed. “She is grown up—twenty, I should say and yet she has the dew upon her petals still. What a dear, dreamy smile! And she has little-girl eyes!”

As they were both living at the same small family hotel, Pippa found it easy to introduce herself. It was the sort of hotel where one can get a suite or a hall bedroom, just as one likes. Philippa Carpenter had the suite, and the girl the hall bedroom. She had a voice as charming as her appearance, Philippa found, and was prettily grateful to the older woman for speaking to her. She was, she admitted simply, awfully lonely.

That Sunday evening saw them deep in talk—understanding talk that went far below the surface of things. Among other confidences, the girl divulged that her name was Phyllis Grant, and that she was on the stage.

“The stage!” echoed Pippa, amazed.

The very idea was preposterous. This fragile child, with the wistful little mouth, and the glamour of fairyland still about her, on the stage! Mrs. Carpenter felt vaguely indignant. How had it happened that she had ever been permitted to select so unsuitable a calling? And how had she preserved her dewlike freshness in surroundings that must be more or less sordid and meretricious?

“How long have you been on the stage?” she asked the girl.

She was startled further by the answer: “Two years.”

“Two years! And you aren't tired of it yet?”

“I couldn't be tired of it—ever!” The “little-girl eyes” were like stars. “Why, Mrs. Carpenter, it's wonderful! More wonderful than anything I ever dreamed! And that's saying a good deal, too, for I've dreamed some pretty wonderful things sometimes!” She laughed, a child's laugh, clear and sweet.

“Tell me,” said Mrs. Carpenter, “what it is that you find—wonderful.”

Phyllis leaned forward, her thin hands clasped on her knee, her eyes wide and abstracted.

“Why—everything; just everything!” she returned slowly, a little frown creasing her forehead as she tried to put the thing into words. “I—I don't know how it has been with you. Maybe you haven't dreamed a lot; maybe you haven't had to, I mean?' Her eyes met Pippa's eagerly. “Maybe you've lived all the lovely things, and didn't need to dream them?”

Pippa did not answer, for the memory of her own lost dreams choked her. The girl went on:

“Everything with me has just been pretending. Do you remember 'Sara Crewe'? Well, my childhood was a little bit like that—hard work, and ugly things to look at, and ugly clothes to wear. There was a brown calico thing” She shuddered. “But never mind about that! Even the food was ugly. There was enough of it, you understand, but it was all ugly, and uninteresting—turnips, and boiled beef, and pork and beans, eaten on awful dishes that you couldn't break—I know, because I hated them so that sometimes I tried. Do you understand?”

Philippa nodded without speaking. She was afraid to say anything. Confidences are as shy as birds, and can be frightened back into their cages by an inopportune word.

“I used to want—oh, how I used to want pretty things!” said Phyllis. “I used to get up in the middle of the night, and pray, “Please God, make me pretty, and let me wear pretty clothes, and eat pretty food!' I know 'pretty' is a silly word to use about things to eat, but I meant something that wasn't just food, but was dainty and pleasant, too. One day I went to a lady's house to carry home some sewing my stepmother had been doing for her, and she saw me in the dining room where she and her daughter were lunching. On the table was a big silver bowl of pale green salad, and another bowl, made of bright glass, full of ripe, red strawberries. And there was a big glass pitcher. I had never seen anything so pretty as that table in all my life; I hadn't known that just food could be so lovely!” Phyllis laughed with a sort of break in her laughter. “You see, I was hungry—but hungry for beauty! When I went on the stage, it was because of the beauty it brought into my life.”

“Beauty! The theater?”

“Yes—oh, yes! There people can pretend beautiful things anyway. They can wear lovely clothes, and have nice, dainty things about them for a few hours a day, even if it is all nothing but a play. Can't you see?”

“I can see that you are a very wonderful little person,” said Pippa gently. “Won't you go on?”

Phyllis smiled at her in vague bewilderment; then continued, pouring out her heart:

“Why, I was an 'extra girl' once in a production with an Oriental setting. I nearly went out of my mind every night with the pleasure and excitement of it. It didn't matter to me a bit that it was ugly behind the scenes; so it was ugly in the kitchen at home! And rehearsing all day and being scolded by the stage manager wasn't any worse than hanging out clothes in the sun, and being scolded by my stepmother! When I had on my Oriental costume, and got on the stage, with a big green-and-gilt god on one side, and a lot of pink paper cherry blossoms and some girls with funny stringed instruments on the other; with all those queer lights, and the thumpy, Eastern music—well, it was like heaven, that's all! Sometimes I'd hardly wake up till the performance was over. Then I'd go out and buy pretty things to eat—fruit, and little rolls, and milk, and things like that. The first thing I bought for my furnished room was a glass pitcher!”

Pippa looked at her wonderingly and tenderly. What a rare and lovely nature that it could idealize so triumphantly! But what tragic roads might stretch before it!

“And in this fairy-tale life of yours,” she said, very gently, “there is no fairy prince?”

The color poured into Phyllis Grant's face.

“Why did you—how did you know?” she asked breathlessly, her eyes widening and darkening. “Yes! There is a fairy prince now—a real, real fairy prince!”

She was so full of this new wonder, which had evidently so recently come to her, that she told her love story willingly enough. It appeared that the fairy prince was Basil Coverley, the matinée idol, famed for his good looks rather than for his good acting, but an undoubtedly popular Broadway star.

Pippa knew of him, and had a shrewd notion that he was very far from being the fairy prince of little Phyllis Grant's dreams. A rather selfish, material, young-old man, whose potentialities for spiritual or mental development had been smothered for all time by prosperity and adulation—this was the Basil Coverley that she had heard described by men and women who knew him. Yet Phyllis thought him a fairy prince!

The child went on to describe him as he appeared to her. He was, it appeared, handsome, brilliant, chivalrous, charming; the kindest, the best, the most gallant of men, a sort of demigod who had stooped from his exalted place to—wasn't it wonderful?—actually to fall in love with a poor little actress who spoke just two lines in his new play! Sometimes he took her out to luncheon after rehearsal, she told Pippa; and he sent her violets, and he said that one of these days they'd be married, and she'd have real parts to play! Only, he didn't want to announce it just yet, because a married star scared the managers, and he had booked under a new man and didn't want to get him down on him the very first season.

“But what does that part of it matter anyway?” Phyllis wound up happily. “We don't have to make any announcement; we know we are engaged! And, later, the company is going on the road for three months. Think of it! I'll be with him lots and lots of the time, traveling in the same train, and sometimes dining with him! Oh, isn't it heavenly to—to have a fairy prince, Mrs. Carpenter?' And she colored again, and laughed shyly.

Pippa was cordial and sympathetic, but her instinct told her that all was not well. These plausible reasons for not announcing the engagement sounded more like the Basil Coverley of report than like Phyllis' preux chevalier. This, and what she had heard of the man, and her knowledge of the free-and-easy code of “the road” among a certain class of actors—all combined to make the older woman uneasy. She had a strong desire to see Coverley for herself. She was sure that, if she did, she would know whether or not he was worthy to be trusted with so lovely a thing as Phyllis Grant.

“I wonder,” she said slowly, “if you would not like to have me meet your fiancé?”

Phyllis flushed with pleasure

“Oh, Mrs. Carpenter, what a dear you are, to take so much interest!” she exclaimed. “Of course I'll arrange it, and he—Basil”—she stammered a little over the name—“will be delighted, I know.”

She was as elated as a child, and charmingly self-important. That it should be given to her humble self to bring about a meeting between this wonderful and delightful Mrs. Carpenter and the celebrated Basil Coverley!

Next day she tapped on Pippa's door, in high spirits.

“I fixed it!” she announced gayly. “Basil wants us both to lunch with him at the Nestor to-morrow. You will be able to come, won't you?”

There was a casual informality about Coverley's invitation that displeased Philippa, for, like a great many unconventional people, she liked the little social niceties to be strictly preserved; but she was interested only in seeing and judging the man, so she accepted.

When Phyllis had gone, she sat down to do a little serious thinking. As a result of this meditation, she got up with a sigh and a slight grimace, and went to look over her hats.

When Phyllis Grant stopped for her next day, she found an entirely new person awaiting her.

“Oh, how—how wonderful you are!” she breathed, in open-eyed admiration.

Mrs. Carpenter was always beautifully gowned and daintily groomed, but to-day she was in some obscure way more exquisite, in all ways more perfect. Phyllis Grant had never seen any one so charming to look upon. There are few women who do not know on occasion how to present themselves at the greatest advantage; and Pippa Carpenter knew more about it than most women!

Her wonderful deep-red hair was dressed with that miraculous touch that suggests simplicity, but is almost impossible to copy. Her hat and gown carried the tone of her purple-gray eyes to deeper shades of amethyst. She was, in fine, looking her very best.

“Hello, there! I thought you were never coming!”

The cheerful hail came from ten feet down the Nestor corridor. Mrs. Carpenter, as she turned with Phyllis, could not help a mental comment to the effect that men did not as a rule greet their feminine guests from such a distance in public places.

A very blond, clean-featured man was smilingly holding out his hand.

“So this is the lovely lady at last!” he said, with startling ease.

Coverley was distinctly good looking—not only in the “beauty actor” style, either. He had muscle, inches, and a chin, and his skin looked well from the front with very little make-up. His hair was so fair that one did not see the threads of gray that would have proclaimed him a good deal older than was admitted by his press agent. His eyes were big and blue; sundry of his enemies had been known to say that he was the only male alive who cultivated “the baby stare'!

Pippa eliminated with difficulty the annoyance that swept her at his confident impertinence, and said graciously enough, “What a very nice way to put it!”

They went in to the orange room, and Phyllis, at whom Coverley had barely glanced and smiled, heard Mrs. Carpenter saying in her delicious and rather plaintive voice: “You know there is a sort of catchword about town; I've forgotten the actual form of it, but it's to the effect that 'if Basil Coverley is not the one best authority on women's clothes, looks, and behavior, it is merely because he's too busy attending to his profession'! Are those heavenly looking tall glasses clam cocktails?”

Coverley laughed at every other word she said. Pippa was not being witty to-day; she was clever enough not to be, before him. Therefore she appraised each burst of laughter at its value; weighed and judged him by this, and by a certain shifting smile that she interpreted in the light of past experience. The man was no better and probably no worse than she had expected him to be. He was frankly animal, frankly unintellectual, frankly ordinary. Nothing but Phyllis Grant's exquisite idealism could have transformed him into the semblance of a fairy prince. Pippa thanked Heaven that she was in time. The child should be saved from the influence of such a man at any cost.

And she was in time. She knew very well, within ten minutes of their meeting, that she could do what she liked with Basil Coverley. This fact in itself aroused a fiercer sense of resentment and antagonism on the girl's account. And as her anger rose, her eyes grew brighter and more dangerous as she looked at him.

But poor little Phyllis did not understand the game! She was young and sensitive; she adored Basil, and looked up to Mrs. Carpenter as the most charming woman she had ever met. And what was happening before her? Both her idols were tottering upon their pedestals, changing from moment to moment into persons as foreign to her understanding as beings from another planet. Her wide, little-girl eyes turned from one face to the other in a vaguely pained bewilderment.

Phyllis had seen women flirt before, but it had been ordinary flirting, either brazen or silly. She had never seen a clever and fascinating and high-bred woman make herself deliberately charming in order to attract a man.

Basil Coverley's face was flushed, and Phyllis thought that his eyes looked oddly flushed too, as if he had been drinking, though she knew that he had not. She could not understand it at all. She only knew that he had forgotten her as completely as if she did not exist.

The luncheon—exceedingly good, though a shade too elaborate and ample—ended at last. The three stood on the steps of the hotel while the carriage man called up a taxicab.

“Are you coming back with me?” asked Pippa of Phyllis.

The girl shook her head, without looking at the older woman.

“No,” she said dully. “I—I've some errands to attend to. Good-by!”

She turned and left them abruptly, walking quickly down the street as if she were hastening away from something. Coverley laughed patronizingly.

“Nice little girl!” he remarked, in a condescending tone. “Would you like a turn in the park?”

Pippa could have struck him, in her present mood, but instead she said languidly:

“Some other day.”

“To-morrow?” he demanded eagerly.

She let her eyes meet his and smiled as women can smile when they have an object.

“If you like,” she agreed sweetly.

In one week Pippa Carpenter did it all. She annexed Basil Coverley as utterly as if she had bought and paid for him in a market. He cut rehearsals, bungled his part, quarreled with his manager, ruined himself on flowers and old editions—did every insane and foolish thing that he could do to prove that, as he himself put it, he was “off his head about her”! In the first white heat of his emotions, he was easily induced to have Phyllis Grant dropped from his company as incompetent.

She came to Pippa's room, very white indeed, and told her about it.

“Of course it's your doing,” she said in a matter-of-fact manner, looking straight at the older woman. “I can't see how you could have borne to—do it.”

Philippa knew well that the last sentence referred to something more than the loss of the position.

“Naturally,” the girl went on, “my engagement to Mr. Coverley is broken, also. You are—you are a very wicked woman. I thought any one as beautiful as you must be high and good; but you are wicked.”

Then she went quietly out of the room, and Pippa Carpenter broke down and cried as if her heart would break.

After a time, she went to her desk and wrote a very brief note to Basil Coverley. She was through with him. He had served his purpose, and she dismissed him as curtly and with as little compunction as she would have dismissed a messenger boy after he had finished his errand

Phyllis was safe; she and Coverley would never come together again. Philippa found comfort in this thought. And yet—it was long before she could think of the little-girl eyes without a stabbing sense of pain. The child had adored her in the whole-hearted, innocent way in which a young girl can adore an older woman, and it had meant much to Pippa to have a girl's friendship. And she had forfeited it for all time.

“It was the only way,” she whispered to her own heart. “She would never have believed that he was unworthy if she had not seen! But to save her, I had to—lose her!”