Harriet Stark

“ There, in the straight white dress she wore at the wedding, Helen lay, as if sleeping, upon a couch. Floods of shining hair fell about her shoulders. In the white dignity of death her face was marvellous. All trace of stress and strain had left it, replaced by an enigmatic calm. She looked not merely beautiful, but Beauty's self vouchsafed to mortal eyes.
I do not know how long I gazed. Vaguely, between Kitty's sobs, I heard the ticking of a watch.
"For another woman of such loveliness," at length said a reverent voice behind me, "we must wait the final evolution of humanity." ”

“ It is so little that I ask—the money to live upon, and a chance, only the chance—it is maddening to be denied that!—and fair play to live my life and carry out my destiny.
There was a time when I wanted less, expected less; like Cadge with queer, devoted Pros. or Kitty Reid, her hair blowing about her face, happy with her daubs, messing about in the studio. Was I happier when I was like that? I would not go back to it! I would not barter my beauty for any other gift on earth. I shall fight and fight to the last ditch. I don't propose to be a pawn on the chess-board. ”

“ I cried. "I care as much for my beauty as you for your fame. And I hold you to your promise. I was to be first, and I shall be first. I haven't yet begun to live. You have barely finished your experiments, and now you're planning my ruin. I will not be balked."
"I vill not be balked by such selfishness," screamed Prof. Darmstetter, his parchment face livid with rage; "I vill be master of my own vork."
My beauty! My hold on life and power and success and love! My only hope of Ned, if he loves me—and God knows whether he does or no! See such beauty multiplied by the thousand, the million? ”

“ I should go crazy if I yielded to love that I can't return, and I should despise him if he accepted. A husband not too impassioned, a fair bargain—beauty bartered for position, power, for a name in history—that is all there is left to me, now that love has vanished.
The farm! I couldn't go back, to isolation and dull routine! I told John I might go abroad. Why not? I might see the great capitals, and in the splendour of palaces find a fitting frame for my beauty. There may be salve for heartache in the smile of princes. At any rate, the seas would flow between me and Ned Hynes. ”

“ What is a man, that he should love and not love?
How cold the old Nelly was! Since coming to the city, I had never let John kiss me; yet I thought I loved him. I thought love was a brook to make little tinkling music, and it had become a mighty ocean sweeping over me, sweeping over me!
But I must act at once, I thought; I must go away. I must find my aunt, must tell her—what? Where could I go? Not back to Kitty; she had left the den. Not to Miss Baker, who would share Aunt's wrath. Where could one such as I find refuge? A woman whom all women must hate for her loveliness?
"Ned! Ned! ”

“ Going away! I was going away from Ned! My beauty had meshed him; I almost hated it. I saw his haggard face, I heard again his voice, solicitous for Milly's grief. I know now that pain cannot kill, or I should have died.
Going away! He did not love me. He cared nothing for my hurt, only for Milly's. He loved that little white piece of putty that hadn't life enough to love any man!
I heard rain against the windows and felt a sudden fierce longing to go out and fight the storm. Could not a strong woman compel love? ”

“ If women are not meant to study, Prof. Darmstetter should be pleased with me. Instead of working up my laboratory notebooks, I have sat until midnight, dreaming.
"Go to bed early and get your beauty sleep," says Aunt, but I push open the window and lean upon the sash and let the cold air blow over me. I'd like to dance a thousand miles in the moonlight; I'm so young, and so strong, and such glorious things are coming!
To-morrow I shall have a foretaste of the future; I shall know what other people—not John and my relatives—think of me. Ah, there's only one thing they can think! ”

“ Would I have given her up if her hair were blanched by pain or sorrow, her cheeks furrowed, her face grown pale in illness? Need I look upon her coldly because she had become radiant, compellingly lovely? Why, she was enchanting!
And she was Helen. A miracle had been worked, but Helen's self was looking at me out of that goddess-like face as unmistakably as from an unfamiliar dress. It was seeing her in a marvellous new garb of flesh.
"Oh, I'm so happy! I'm the happiest girl on earth; I'm—am I really beautiful?" ”

“ If only Cadge'd come! That's what eating me!" Kitty groaned. "But do you see our Princess? All she needed was me to make her comfy. Shall I get you the least little bit of colour, out of a box, Helen? Or—no; you're too lovely. But come, you must have some roses."
As Helen joined us, very pale in her shimmering dress, with her hair like an aureole about her head, she looked a tall, white Grace, a swaying lily shining in the dusky place. Almost with the old reverence I whispered:—
"You are the most beautiful of woman!" ”

“ I understand many things that were hidden from the plain girl from the West. I have lived a year in every day. I see as they are these people I have thought so kind. So rich I call them now; so smug, so socially jealous.
There's Meg Van Dam, now; surely she knows why I have come to her, and she was Milly's friend; yet she fawns upon me. I thought her a great person, but now I know she's eager to rise by hanging at my skirts, and I amuse myself with her joy that I've rejected Ned, as she thinks; with her talk of Strathay, her dismay at John Burke's wooing. ”

“ She was terrible as an army with banners; fair as the sea or the sunset. Men fought for her; died for her. She had hair that meshed hearts and eyes that smote. Sometimes I think—do you believe in soul transmigration?"
My heart beat until it choked me. Some voice far in the depths of my soul warned me that I must check him—we must wait until I—he—Milly—
"Sometimes; who does not? But Prof. Darmstetter would say that it was nonsense," I whispered, and waited without power to say another word.
"It is true; Helen is alive again, and all men worship her." ”

“ She shrinks from her father's suggestion of a summer on the farm. But in time her wholesome nature must reassert itself; she must become, if not again the fresh, light-hearted girl I knew a year ago, a sweet and gracious woman whose sufferings will have added pathos to her charm.
And even now she's not to be judged like other women; before the shining of her beauty, reproach falls powerless. It is my sacred task to guard her—to soothe her awakening from all that nightmare of inflated hopes and vain imaginings. ”

“ I will marry him. Other women take husbands so. I like him; I should like him even if he were not an Earl—and his name a career.
I shall make Strathay as fine a Countess as any cold, blonde English girl, and he'll be proud of me, and every man will envy him. I shall wrong him less than I should have wronged John Burke. I should have hated John if I had married him, for he'd expect love, where Strathay will be content to give it. Why, the one honest thing I've done was to break with John. ”

“ Mrs. Van Dam smiled, and I felt gauche, like a schoolgirl. I am so impulsive!
"It was all delightful!" cried Kitty; "and yet—while you were my chum, Helen, I did think you rather good-looking!"
"You find yourself mistaken?" the General inquired.
"Oh, no-o-o; not exactly; a beautiful girl, certainly; but—oh, I could have made pincushions of some of those pudgy women, nibbling wafers, and delivering themselves of lukewarm appreciations! 'Too tall'—'too short'—'too dark'—'too light'; 'I like your height bettah, my deah.' Helen, you dairymaid, powder! ”

“ All New York knows it. That her walk is like a lily's swaying in the wind, her voice is the sweetest music that ever ravished ear, her hair a lure for sunbeams? It is the commonplace of conversation at every smart house.
For this lovely woman of science is no ascetic. She moves by right of beauty and high purpose, in the best society. This farmer's daughter walks among the proudest in the land, and none there is to compare with her. ”

“ With her snubby nose and her yellow braids, she'll grow into just another white-faced doll as Milly.
Miss Baker talked persistently about Bermuda; as if my exile had ever been a possibility! In all my blind whirlwind of pain, I was glad that this was the last night I should have to writhe under the click of her knitting needles, and sit opposite her large, solemn features.
"A change will do you good, Frances," she purred. "By either the Orinoco or the Trinidad you'll have only a two days' voyage. Helen will be in her element among the coral, and Milly must come home with a coat of tan." ”

“ I found the story of the Bacillus, the curse that killed Darmstetter, that killed Helen. With it was a letter that I have read a thousand times—this letter that I am now reading. The scent of roses still breathes from it. On the last page there are splashes of wine.
This is what it says:—
JOHN: I cannot bear it. Prof. Darmstetter gave me death when he gave me beauty.
I am not a coward; but what is left? I am tired, wretched; there is no place for me.
The Bacillus has defeated every wish it has aroused. It has refused me love, ambition, honest work. From men it has compelled fear ”

“ In all the world I am the sole guardian of the Secret. I shall be the most beautiful woman for years and years and years; blessed with such beauty that men shall know the tale of it is a lie, until they, too, come from far countries to look upon it; and they shall go home and be known as liars in their turn, and always dream of me. When I am old and gray, I will tell the world how Darmstetter died, on the eve of publishing his discovery. ”

“ The rattle of street cars came up from below. A child was sitting on the bench where I had sat and feasted my eyes upon the flutter of Helen's curtains. My numb brain vaguely speculated whether that child could see me. The sun had gone, the square was wintry.
After a long minute Helen followed me.
"John," she said, "I am so glad to see you; but I—I want to tell you. Everything here is so new, I—I don't—"
It must all be true; I remember her exact words. They came slowly, hesitated, stopped.
"Are you—what do you mean, Helen?" ”

“ And so one day I reached the New York I had dreamed about. It wasn't as a shrine of learning that it appealed to me, altogether; but as a wonderful place, beautiful, glittering, feverish with motion, abounding with gayety, thronged with people, bubbling with life.
How it fascinated me!
Just at first of course I was lonely because John had not yet come, and Mrs. Baker, mother's cousin, was away from home. But I soon made friends with my cousins, Ethel and Milly; shy, nice girls, twins and precisely alike, except, that Ethel is slightly lame. ”

“ He does love me, but he guards a man's honour.
I have broken John's heart, given up my home, estranged my friends; I have given up even Ned for love of him. But I'd have gone to the ends of the earth in gladness, I'd have given up for him all else in life—even my beauty; which is dearer than life.
He'll come to me yet. Milly won't forgive, won't trust. She will not try to understand. Her only thought will be to hurt, to punish. She'll drive him to me again ”

“ But can no man help seeming to care for me—help caring while he is with me? Ned told me he did not love; but you, you I trusted; you would have married me, not letting me know—
Ethel limps, she is plain. Plain as I was when you adored my ugly face, my freckles. Does beauty kill love, or do men see beauty only where they love? Little brown partridges, little brown partridges—
The Bacillus is a cheat; every woman to her lover is the most beautiful! ”

“ Will any woman who reads the story of my life—the real story which sometime I shall write, leaving out the paltry details which now harass me—will any woman believe that the most beautiful woman in the world in the wonderful year, of the finding of the Bacillus actually thought of tramping the streets, looking for work, like a story heroine seeking her fortune? I shall have to do something—anything!
But I can't work; I'm not calm enough, and it would ruin my beauty. ”

“ If you think my sorrow could have been avoided, offer the Bacillus as a wedding gift to—.
Give Milly, who has Ned's love, my beauty? Would it turn him from her? If I thought it—But even for that, there shall be no other! It shall go first. Forever and forever my name, my face,—
"Delilah!" It grins, it gibbers. Wait for no tests. Print quick! To-morrow, to-day—it's almost day. Give him what he wants, John—"Delilah!"
Why do you come back, dead face, dead eyes? Haven't I promised? You shall have print, type, a million circulation! Go away, you're dead! What's fame to youth, health, life? ”

“ Blue-eyed Gretchen, Giuseppina, with her bare locks and rainbow-barred apron, slant-eyed O Mimosa San, all in good time would dream over the fair face on the heralding page; women shut in the zenanas of the unchanging East would gossip from housetop to housetop of the wonderful Feringhe beauty; whipped slaves in midmost Africa would carry my picture in their packs into regions where white men have never trod, and dying whalers in the far North would look at my face and forget for a little while their dooming ice floes. ”

“ Here we were together again in the wholesome daylight, Father Winship, little Helen 'Lizy and the Schoolmaster, and all must yet be well.
Mr. Winship sighed with deep content as he sank into a chair, his eyes scarcely leaving Helen. He owned himself beat out and glad of a dish of tea; but when Clesta had served him in her scuttling crab fashion, he would stop in the middle of a sentence, with saucer half lifted, to gaze with perplexed, wistful tenderness at his stately daughter.
She is the child of his old age; I think he must be long past sixty, and fast growing feeble. ”

“ The smile grew sunnier; it rippled to a laugh that was merriment set to music.
"John! John Burke!" she said, giving my hands a little, impatient shake, just as Nelly used to do. "It isn't possible! Don't you—why, you goose! Don't you know me?"
"Helen!"
Of course! I had known her from the beginning! A man couldn't be in the same room with Nelly Winship and feel just as if she were any other girl. But she was not Helen at all—that radiant impossibility! ”

“ Oh, the manager's an important person in his way; he has theatres in every part of the country and is a busy man. But he was willing enough to see me when his stupid people had let him know that I was the Miss Winship! Sorry as was my heart, I felt a thrill of triumph at this new proof of my fame and the power beauty gives.
When I entered his office, a bald little man turned from a litter of papers and looked at me with frank, business-like curiosity, as if he had a perfect right to do so-and indeed he had. ”

“ Whitney, who just then made her appearance, "are they a hobby with Miss Reid?"
"I'd drown 'em," cried Kitty, vanishing, "nine times!"
Oh, I'm weary of these bickerings; so womanish! Every creature whose rival I could possibly become is my enemy. I don't blame them. What chance have they while I am present? Women who agree about nothing else make common cause against one who surpasses them. They are like prairie wolves that run in packs to pull down the buffalo, and I shall pity them as I would pity wolves. They shall find that I have a long memory.
I have decided. I shall marry Strathay. ”

“ I shall dream of her for months—of her and Darmstetter, old and wrinkled as I shall be some day, and dead—with that same awful look in my fixed eyes!
Ah, what a Nelly I have come to be! Is it possible that I once rode frisky colts bareback and had no nerves! I mustn't have nerves! They make one old. Mr. Blumenthal said so. But how to avoid them? Oh, I must be careful; so careful! How do women dare to ride bicycles?
And this theatrical Napoleon, part of whose business is the appraisement of beauty—did he suspect that mine was less than perfect? ”

“ I objected.
"Oh, you dear goose!" said Kathryn Reid—it's really her name, though of course I call her Kitty—"Live in studios? Bless you, child, everybody does it. And I know a beyewtiful studio that we can have cheap, because we're such superior young persons; also because it's ever so many stories up and no elevator. Can you cook a little? Can you wash dishes, or not mind if they're not washed? You got the blessed bump of disorder? You good at don't care? Then live with me and be my love. You've no idea the money you'll save." ”

“ I shall succeed. I will take my place by right of beauty or die fighting! If I see Lord Strathay again, he shall marry me within a week. They shall call it "one of those romantic weddings."
I can't live here alone. I have nothing to fall back upon; nothing but a father who doesn't answer my letters, and Judge Baker who lectures me in polysyllables, and John Burke—poor old John; what a good fellow he is!—who simply loves me; and Mrs. Van Dam, who was my friend as long as she hoped to rise by my beauty to higher place, but who has headaches now ”

“ Trouble is, so many beautiful women think beauty as an asset is worth more than it is; it makes 'em careless about studying while they're young, and it can't last—"
I never heard the end of that sentence. I flew home and went straight to my mirror. Sure enough, I fancied I saw a haggard look about the eyes—
My God! This gift of beauty doesn't confer immunity from fatigue, accident, old age. This loveliness must fade and crack and wrinkle, these full organ tones must shrivel to a shrill pipe; and I—I! shall one day be a tottering old woman, bent, gray, hideous! ”