Mapleton

“ Irene Mapleton was two years older than Scott Wilmer, and through his mother’s influence he had paid her marked attention while she was on a visit to a friend in the beautiful city of Detroit, her home being in San Francisco. Her father, who had invested largely in mining stocks and become wealthy, spared no pains to give Irene means to gratify every wish. June had spoken truly when she said that Irene’s dresses were lovely. There never was a bow or a flower misplaced, or colors that did not blend with perfect harmony. ”

“ And now that she was about to marry Schuyler Carleton, the event of the wedding was the only thing talked of, thought of, or dreamed of by Mapleton society.
Madeleine, who always kept in touch with Tom Willard by correspondence, had written him of her approaching marriage, and he had responded by coming at once to America to attend the ceremony.
Relieved from the embarrassment of his uncle’s presence, Tom was his jovial self, and showed forth all the reprehensible attractiveness which so often belongs to the scapegrace nature. ”

“ Wilmer said; “I have just received a dispatch by telegraph saying that Irene Mapleton will be here in a few days. Isn’t that nice?”
“I don’t see anything nice about it,” answered June, honestly; “she cannot amuse me any, for she is older yet than brother Scott.”
“But she sings and plays beautifully, and you cannot help loving her. I always enjoy her society; she writes such lovely poetry, too.”
“Well, I can’t see anything very nice about writing poetry. I am sure that will not amuse me at all.”
“Perhaps not, but we must love Irene for Scott’s sake, for you know she will be his wife some time.” ”

“ Thus my readers can see the great [Pg 71] importance of always doing what is right, thereby keeping their reputations unsullied.
Had Fred not fallen a victim to De Vere's revengeful plot, he would have been saved the shame that caused him so much misery; he would have retained the good opinion of the people of Mapleton; he would not have forfeited a certain very desirable friendship; and he would, in all probability, have held his position with Mr. Rexford, regardless of the mysterious disappearance of the bill. ”

“ But Dave Farrington took occasion to remark in an undertone to Tom:
[Pg 7] "If Mat De Vere and a dozen more just like him should try to keep the girls away from Fred Worthington, they'd find a big contract on their hands; and the one who 'hated himself' would not be Fred, either. Just wait till the party comes off, then look out for fun."
[Pg 8]
II.
Mapleton is a good type of a New England village, showing everywhere plentiful evidences of thrift and energy. ”

“ The country round is very lonely, but about half a mile to the north there is a small cluster of villas which have been built by a Tavistock contractor for the use of invalids and others who may wish to enjoy the pure Dartmoor air. Tavistock itself lies two miles to the west, while across the moor, also about two miles distant, is the larger training establishment of Mapleton, which belongs to Lord Backwater, and is managed by Silas Brown. In every other direction the moor is a complete wilderness, inhabited only by a few roaming gypsies. ”

“ And if a woman did do it, that unpleasant Morton woman is by far the most likely suspect. And if she was actuated by a desire to get her inheritance, why, there’s the motive, and she surely had opportunity. It’s a tangle, but we must find something soon to guide us. A murder like that can’t have been done without leaving some trace somewhere of the criminal.” And then Fessenden’s thoughts drifted away to Kitty French, and he was quite willing to turn the responsibility of his new information over to Mr. Benson. On his way to the coroner’s office he passed the Mapleton Inn. ”

“ The track of a horse was plainly outlined in the soft earth in front of him, and the shoe which he took from his pocket exactly fitted the impression.
"See the value of imagination," said Holmes. "It is the one quality which Gregory lacks. We imagined what might have happened, acted upon the supposition, and find ourselves justified. Let us proceed."
We crossed the marshy bottom and passed over a quarter of a mile of dry, hard turf. Again the ground sloped, and again we came on the tracks. Then we lost them for half a mile, but only to pick them up once more quite close to Mapleton. ”

“ And now, at twenty-two, Madeleine was on the eve of marriage to Schuyler Carleton, a member of one of the oldest and best families of Mapleton.
The village gossips were pleased to commend this union, as Mr. Carleton was a man of irreproachable habits, and handsome enough to appear well beside the magnificent Madeleine.
He was not a rich man, but, as her marriage would bring her inheritance, they could rank among the millionaires of the day. Yet there were those who feared for the future happiness of this apparently ideal couple. Mrs. ”

“ Mapleson walked there with her every morning. At night, too, it was Mr. Mapleson who always heard her lessons. "Spell cat," Mr. Mapleson would say; and when Bab, after deep thought, announced that c-a-t spelled cat, Mr. Mapleson would exclaim: "Very good! Very good!" and, laying down the spelling book, would pick up the reader. "Read, please," he would direct; and the little girl, bending earnestly over her book, would display to the man's breathless interest that wonderful evidence of the Creation, the marvel of a child's growing mind. "Oh, see the ox! Is the ox kind? Yes, the ox is kind." ”

“ At the time I now write of, Father Mapple was in the hardy winter of a healthy old age; that sort of old age which seems merging into a second flowering youth, for among all the fissures of his wrinkles, there shone certain mild gleams of a newly developing bloom—the spring verdure peeping forth even beneath February’s snow. No one having previously heard his history, could for the first time behold Father Mapple without the utmost interest, because there were certain engrafted clerical peculiarities about him, imputable to that adventurous maritime life he had led. ”

“ When Mapleson and Abbey were drawing up their forces for the battle royal between the Academy of Music and the Metropolitan Opera House in 1883, one of the New York newspapers reported Mme. Patti as saying: "Colonel Mapleson comes here when he wants me to sing, and he calls me 'My dear child,' and he goes down on both knees and kisses my hands, and he has, you know, quite a supplicating face, and it is not easy to be firm with a man of such suavity of manners." ”

“ Mapleson returned, her face dimpling all over at this suggestion. “If you could have seen him you would never ask such a question. No woman would have dared approach him; no woman would have lived with such a creature, or as he lived. He built himself a small stone house in the woods a few miles from Vue de l’Eau. ”

“ One of us began to state what the object in view was, when she exclaimed—
"It's all nonsense; but I can well understand. Mapleson is an impresario, and wants to ruin you by making you sing."
She then asked me how I could possibly think of such a thing when the chintz and the crumbcloth of his dressing-room had not been fixed?
It was the custom of Mrs. Reeves to hang the walls with new chintz and place a fresh-mangled white damask cloth on the floor the nights her husband sang; and on this occasion the sacred hangings had gone to the wash. ”

“ Outside of the Columbia Theatre, with the McCaull people there has been nothing to talk about but the Colonel. There are times when Mapleson, unconsciously, perhaps, appeals to sympathy. He is the only living man to-day with nerve enough to go into the business at all, who can govern and control the average opera singer. The latter is the most trying beast on earth. Male or female, Italian or Greek, German or 'American,' they are all alike. A more obstreperous, cantankerous, and altogether unreasonable being than an opera singer it is hard to find in any other walk of life. ”

“ Italian opera in London seemed for the time on the verge of extinction; but in 1888 Augustus Harris took Covent Garden with a very strong financial backing, against which Mapleson could not contend. New enterprises on Mapleson's part were often reported later; he succeeded in opening the Academy of Music at New York in 1896, but the rivalry of the Metropolitan Opera-house soon compelled him to close his season. He died in London of Bright's disease on 14 Nov. ”

“ To Maple Valley, through the mouth of her sister, she was merely an Iowa girl who had had the good fortune to marry an Italian nobleman with whom she had lived in his villa outside Ravenna until he died, when her position and her desire made it a simple matter for her to claim a social rank of considerable eminence in Paris. This much these folk would know about her, and little besides. Her friends would be middle-aged. Some of them would have married and have left Maple Valley. ”

“ We have only the blood of the nobility in our veins. My father had two sons, twins—Pierre the priest, and Jean the renegade, outlawed even among the savages; for his scalp will hang from Satanta's tepee pole if the chance ever comes. Mapleson, here, has told you the truth about his being married to a sister of Chief Satanta. He also is the father of Jean Pahusca. You have noticed the boy's likeness to me. If he, being half Indian, has such a strong resemblance to his family, you can imagine how much alike we are, my brother and myself. ”

“ For instance, Mapleson always carries the scenery for "Aida," even to big cities where there are first-class theatres. Hundreds of pieces of baggage are left at the hotels, and hundreds at the theatre. Immediately the troupe arrives the principal artists fall into the hands of the interviewer, and as the tenor and the prima donna and the others, too, are tired, the newspaper man gets very little to write about unless he runs across such a good fellow as Campanini, or happens to meet Charles Mapleson, if it is Her Majesty's Company. ”

“ In 1878 he had a stroke of good fortune in the discovery of Bizet's 'Carmen,' which had not succeeded in Paris, but at its first London performance, on 22 June, at once obtained its enduring success. Mapleson then took his company to the United States, and during the rest of his career divided his life between England and America. He managed a London season in the summer, and toured in America during the winter. ”

“ At the close of the opera I was called before the curtain, and on quitting the stage, with Adelina Patti on my right and Scalchi on my left, I was met by Chief Justice Shea, who approached me and said—
"Colonel Mapleson, a number of our citizens who represent significant phases of social life and important business interests in this metropolis desire to testify in a public and notable manner that they understand and laud the superb success which has followed your efforts to establish Italian Opera in this city. It is seldom that public men are understood. ”

“ Mapy," he knew, meant Mr. Mapleson. He knew, too, like the other boarders, Bab's interest in the quaint, gray-faced little man, his next-door neighbor upstairs. True, Bab often laughed blithely at Mr. Mapleson, teasing him endlessly for his idiosyncrasies; but otherwise, as also Varick knew, her heart held for the queer, curious little man a deep well of tenderness, of love and gentle understanding. However, that was not the point. What had Mapleson to do with David Lloyd? ”

“ Wood could only reply that he would not sign with Mapleson and Gye.
There was no money made that season at the Royal Italian Opera; whilst Mr. Wood's season at Drury Lane was simply disastrous. The moneyed partner soon proposed to shut up; but Jarrett, to whom Mr. Wood was bound, would not hear of this.
"I have no more money," said Wood.
"But you have a number of pianofortes," replied Jarrett. "You have music shops here and in Scotland whose contents and goodwill can be sold." ”

“ The Italian contingent of the guild is the worst to get along with. The Italian singer is rapacious, improvident, ungrateful, and wholly inconsiderate of his manager. At the same time he is a vain fool whom a word of flattery will move. Mapleson speaks Italian fluently, and hence when trouble arises he seeks the complainer, gives him a lot of Tuscan taffy, and the idiot goes off and sings as if nothing had happened. The Mapleson season at the Chicago Opera-house has had its difficulties, yet it has scored successes. The leading people have stood by the Colonel. ”

“ But where the king’s could be almost counted on the fingers of the two hands, Johnson’s cover whole hill-sides. I was informed by Miss Macleod, of Macleod, for whose kindness I am most grateful, that she had no doubt that it was his reproaches which stirred up her grandfather to plant so widely. How luxuriantly nature can deck the ground when she is aided by art, was seen in the strange variety of flowers which we noticed in the grounds. ”

“ A morning performance, La Sonnambula, was given next day, with Gerster. The audience, like all the previous ones, was immense. Every seat was occupied, whilst 2,000 people who had paid two dollars apiece were standing up. The toilettes of the ladies were simply magnificent, baffling all description. The audience went wild over Gerster, encores were demanded and re-demanded, people hurrahed and waved their handkerchiefs, whilst the most expensive bouquets and flowers were pelted on the prima donna, who at last was embowered in roses. ”

“ The Times, in an article published just after the close of the last season, showed that Col. Mapleson had been unfortunate. While the good people of the West, who are popularly supposed to possess but a tithe of the culture that animates the East, flocked to the Opera as if they really knew that they were not likely, as the Boston Theatre stage carpenter expressed it, to hear any better singing than that of Patti and Scalchi this side of heaven, the people of New York and Philadelphia failed to regard the entertainment in the same light. ”