Linda Lee, Incorporated: A Novel

"Now, lishn, Jim… Do' mind my callin' you Jim, do you, ol' scout?.. Get thish straight: M'wife's here t'night 'nd I don' want her know I wash here, shee? If she don' know I wash here, she's got nothin' on me, nothin' 'tall, shee? So you don' know me, you never heard of me, shee?"

"Yes, Mr. Druce."

"'Caush it's this way: if she's got nothin' on me, I'm all right, 'nd I got somethin' on her. Believe me, Jim, I got good 'nd plenty on her t'night. She's here with man I know and don' like, man I got no ush for at all – shee? – no ush whatever. Ain't that limit, jush like woman? Insist you gotta walk chalk-mark, but minute your back'sh turned, what they do? Go off on private lil parties all their own, that'sh sort of thing they do!.."

Panting and sick with mortification, Lucinda turned from the sound of that babbling voice of a fool – and heard her own name pronounced.

"The car is here, Mrs. Druce."

In a wild stare she identified the face of her chauffeur, saw that he understood the situation and was anxious to be helpful.

"Wait," she quavered.

And then by a miracle of will-power she managed to master her nerves and, putting aside her horror and humiliation, took thought quickly and clearly.

"All I wan' you to do ish remember, if Mishish Druce asks if you've seen me, you never heard of me, don' know me 'tall – shee, Jim, shee what I mean?"

As Lucinda drew near the porter must have guessed who she was, for he spoke to Bellamy in a low voice, and the latter swung round with startled eyes and a dropping jaw. She closed her fingers on his wrist and put all her strength into their grasp.

"Come, Bel," she said clearly and not unkindly. "Please don't keep me waiting. The car is here, we're going home."

For a moment the balance wavered, then Bel's eyes fell, and she knew she had won.

"Oh, a'right," he mumbled with strange docility. "Didn' know you were waitin', Linda. Get ri' in the car – be with you in jush a minute."

"No," she said firmly – "you're coming with me now."

She drew him away. He yielded without remonstrance, permitted her to lead him to the door of the car, stumbled in on his knees, and crawled up to the seat. Lucinda followed, the door closed behind her with a clap sweeter than music in her hearing, and with purring gears the car shot out of range of those leering faces.

Lucinda had forgotten Dobbin as utterly as if she had never known him.

Bellamy lay in a loose slouch, breathing heavily. The passing lights revealed the stupidity of his congested features. His eyes were half-closed, he seemed to be asleep.

Cringing as far away from him as she could, Lucinda dug nails into her palms to keep from giving over body and mind to the dominion of hysteria. She saw nothing of the streets through which they passed, knew no thought other than to preserve her self-control.

When at length the car stopped, she jumped out and, leaving Bellamy to the care of the chauffeur and footman, ran up to her room. The maid waiting there she dismissed for the night in half a dozen words whose decision sent the woman from her in astonishment.

Alone, her first move was to secure the door communicating with Bel's rooms. Then she threw herself upon the bed and lay listening to the noise on the stairway of voices and stumbling feet. The door between the hall and Bel's rooms banged. She heard him maundering incoherently to his valet for a time, a long time; the valet seemed to be trying to make him listen to reason and failing in the end. The neck of a decanter chattered against the rim of a glass, there was a lull in the murmur of voices, then a thick cry and the thud of a fall. After that the quiet was little disturbed by the valet's labours with the body of the drunkard. Eventually the man went out and closed the door. In the subsequent silence the clock downstairs chimed twelve.

Lucinda rose then, and changed to her simplest street suit.

For half an hour or so she was busy at desk and dressing-table, packing a checque book and her jewels with other belongings in a small handbag. She did not falter once or waste a single move through indecision. Indeed, it did not once occur to her that there was anything to be done but what she meant to do.

Shortly after one o'clock she left Bel snoring, crept down the stairs and with infinite stealth let herself out to the street.

Nobody saw her go, neither did she hesitate as she turned her back upon the home that had till then held for her every precious thing in life.

XIV

Spurred by irrational fear lest Bellamy wake up, discover her flight, and give chase, Lucinda made in haste for Fifth avenue; but had not taken half a dozen steps when a cab slid up to the curb by her side, its driver with two fingers to his cap soliciting a fare. He seemed Heaven-sent. Lucinda breathed the first address that came to mind – "Grand Central, please" – hopped in, and shrank fearfully away from the windows.

On second thought, the destination she had named seemed a sensible choice. Any one of the several hotels which tapped the railroad terminal by subway would take her in for the night. In the morning she would be better able to debate her next step. At present she felt hopelessly incapable of consecutive thought.

At the station a negro porter with a red cap opened the cab door and took possession of her single piece of luggage, and when she had paid off the taxi and looked to him in indecision, prompted her with: "What train was yo' wishin' to tek, ma'm?"

An instant later Lucinda was wondering why she had replied: "The first train for Chicago, please." She knew no reason why she should have named Chicago rather than any other city where she was unknown and where, consequently, she might count on being free to think things out in her own time and fashion.

"Ain't no Chicago train befo' eight-fo'ty-five tomorrow mawnin', ma'm."

"Very well. I'll go to a hotel for tonight."

"Yes'm. W'ich hotel, Commodo', Biltmo', Belmont?"

Lucinda settled on the Commodore, because it was the largest of the three and she would be lost in the multitude of its patrons.

She registered as Mrs. L. Druce, Chicago, and, before proceeding to her room, arranged to have the head porter purchase her ticket and reservation the first thing in the morning.

Some hours later she was awakened by a cramp in one of her arms and found that she had fallen asleep while sitting on the edge of her bed. In a daze she finished undressing, and sleep again overwhelmed her like a dense, warm, obliterating cloud.

It seemed but a minute or two before she was being scolded awake by the shrewish tongue of the telephone by the head of the bed, to hear a dispassionate voice recite the information that it was seven o'clock, the hour at which she had asked to be called.

She felt as if she had not slept at all.

Again, in the train, the aching misery of heart and mind could not prevent her nodding and drowsing all morning long; and after a meal of railroad food by way of luncheon, she gave up trying to stave off the needs of a highly organized nature fatigued by inordinate strains, called the porter, had him make up the lower berth in her drawing-room, and went to bed.

In the neighborhood of midnight she woke up to discover, first by peering out under the edge of the window-shade at concrete platforms bleakly blue and bare in the glare of unseen lamps, then by consulting a timetable, that the train was in Cleveland.

As it pulled out again, she resigned herself to the inescapable. Rested, her mind clear and active, and with nothing to do but think for eight hours more, she must go down into the hell appointed.

Nor was she spared any portion of its torments. Successively and in concert, vanity wounded to the quick, sickening self-pity, and implacable, grinding regret laid hold on her heart and soul and worried them till she had to bury her face in the pillow and sink her teeth into it to keep from screaming.

It was cruel enough to have loved and lost, but to have lost and still to love seemed punishment intolerable. The shameful knowledge that body and spirit still hungered for the man who had served both so shabbily ate into her amour-propre like a corrosive acid.

To her agonized imagination she figured in the semblance of a leaf harassed by that high wind of fatality which latterly had swept into and through her life with Bel, driving them asunder; a leaf torn from the homely branch that had given it life and nurtured it, a leaf hunted helplessly into strange ways and corners, even now being hounded on and on… And to what end?..

She burned with resentment of her persecution by those unknown powers whose ill-will she had not wittingly done anything to invite, she writhed in the exasperation bred of her impotence to placate them or withstand their oppression.

A lull fell at last in the transports of her passion, she lay quite still, and her mind too grew calm in awareness of the quiet, resolute mustering of all her forces to wrest from malicious chance and circumstance the right to live a life of her own choosing; as if her soul, drawing strength from new-found knowledge of its indestructible integrity, lifted up its head and with calm eyes challenged Fate.

Her paroxysms were now spent and ended, the past had been put definitely behind her, it was with the future alone that she had need to be concerned.

She addressed herself to the task of taking stock of Lucinda Druce, the woman all alone, her condition and resources, and of trying to map out for her a new and independent existence that would prove somehow livable.

If she had not succeeded in this undertaking when the train breathed its last weary puffs under the echoing glass canopy of the La Salle Street station, success was not forfeited, it was but deferred. There was so much to be taken into consideration, she could not yet see further than tomorrow, if so far. Certain immediate steps were indicated to her intelligence as requisite and reasonable; whither they would lead she could by no means guess.

Bred on the Atlantic seaboard, she knew more of Europe than of the United States west of the Alleghenies. Chicago to her was a city that once had burned to the ground because a cow kicked over a lighted lamp; a city famous for great winds, something known as "the Loop," something hardly less problematic called "stock-yards." The name of a hotel, too, the Blackstone, had found lodgment in her memory.

The short drive in a yellow taxicab from the station to the hotel through a labyrinth of back streets a-brawl with traffic, failed to register any impressions other than of cobblestones, blasphemous truck drivers, street-cars pounding and clanging, begrimed buildings, endless columns of self-absorbed footfarers. The hotel itself seemed in grateful contrast, it might have been one of her own New York. Only the view from her rooms, many stories above the street, of a public park bleached, frost-bitten, desolate, and slashed by a black railroad cutting, and beyond this a vast expanse of tumbled waters, slate-grey flecked with white, blending with a grim grey sky, drove home the fact that her first uncertain gropings toward a new life were to be framed in a foreign, and to her perceptions an unfriendly, environment.

But she turned from the window with the light of battle in her eyes. Nature was wasting its effects, she was not to be disheartened by an ill-dispositioned day.

After breakfast she went out to do a little necessary shopping, and spent the morning and most of her cash in hand as well in department stores which she was unreasonably surprised to find differed not materially from establishments of the same character in the East, save in the crowds that thronged them, drab rivers of people persistently strange in her sight.

But the experience served to remind her that she had more material problems to solve than those provided by her inner life. She found herself running short of ready money and with a checque-book valueless unless she were willing to prove her identity as the wife of Bellamy Druce.

She thought of telegraphing old Harford Willis, who had been her father's close friend, legal adviser, and executor of his estate, as he was today steward of Lucinda's. But he could not be expected to understand a peremptory demand for money in Lucinda's name, from a city which he had no reason to believe she had ever even thought of visiting, without explanations too lengthy and intimate for transmission by telegraph. The alternative was to write him, and that meant a long, full letter, for (Lucinda suddenly discovered) Willis was the one man in the world whom she could safely and freely confide in, consult and trust.

She did not even remember Dobbin's pretensions to such standing with her. In the first twenty-four hours of her flight from Bellamy she had not thought of Daubeney once. Now, when she thought of him at all, it was as of some revenant of kindly countenance from a half-forgotten dream.

She spent most of the afternoon composing her letter and despatched it after dinner, a rather formidable manuscript under a special delivery stamp.

After that there was nothing to do but fold her hands and commend her soul to patience.

Three eventless days dropped out of her history. The dreary weather held, there was rain and snow, gales like famished banshees pounded and yammered at the hotel windows. She seldom ventured into the streets, even for exercise. She read a great many novels purchased at the hotel news-stand, or pretended to, for her mind refused as a general thing to travel with the lines of print. Her most exciting diversion lay in reviewing and enlarging the list of things she meant to buy as soon as she was able. And one afternoon she went to see Alma Daley in her latest production (not "The Girl in the Dark," of course, it was too soon for that) at a motion-picture theatre near the hotel.

She came away confirmed in her belief that Miss Daley was an unusually attractive and capable young mistress of pantomime. But the picture-play itself had seemed frightfully dull stuff. Indeed, Lucinda had experienced considerable difficulty in following its thread of plot, and sat it out only because of her personal interest in the actress.

Returning to her rooms possessed by memories of that afternoon she had spent at the studios of Culp Cinemas Inc., the last afternoon of her life as Bellamy's wife, she wondered, not with any great interest, how her tests had turned out, what the others, Dobbin and Jean and Nelly, and Fanny Lontaine and her husband, had thought of them; whether any one had known or guessed the reason for her absence, when they had gathered in Culp's projection-room for the showing; whether any one had cared.

Dobbin had cared, of course. At least, Dobbin had believed he cared. So had Lucinda, then…

How long ago it seemed!

XV

INEXPRESSIBLY SHOCKED ARRIVING TO-MORROW WILL CALL ON YOU TEN A M MEANWHILE BANK OF MICHIGAN WILL SUPPLY YOU WITH FUNDS IN ANY AMOUNT YOU MAY REQUIRE IF YOU WILL BE PLEASED TO IDENTIFY YOURSELF TO MR. SOUTHARD THERE

The author of this telegram, which was delivered on the morning of Lucinda's fifth day in Chicago, was punctual to the minute of his appointment; otherwise he would hardly have been the rectilinear gentleman of the frock-coat school that he was.

Notwithstanding that Harford Willis was pledged to a code of morals and manners vinted in the early Eighteen-Eighties, and so implacably antagonistic to the general trend of present-day thought on the divorce question, his great affection for Lucinda predisposed him to allow that the course she had taken with Bellamy had been the only one his conduct had left open to her.

On the other hand he was unhappily unable to hide the disconcertion inspired by the simple gladness of her greeting, the spontaneity of which was in such marked contrast to his own well-composed demeanour of honorary pall-bearer at a fashionable funeral.

"If you only knew how good it is to see a friendly face for the first time in a whole week!"

"But, my dear Lucinda," Willis intoned deliberately in his well-modulated voice of a public speaker, "I must say you seem to be bearing up remarkably well, all things considered, re-mark-ably well."

"I've stopped howling and drumming the floor with my heels," Lucinda admitted – "if that's what you mean. When I found it didn't do any good, I gave it up, and I've felt more cheerful ever since."

"Cheerful!" Willis repeated in a sepulchral voice.

"More like an average human being who's been horribly hurt but who can't see why life should be counted a total loss for all that; less like the wronged wife in a movie, mugging at a camera."

"But, my poor child! how you must have suffered."

"Let's not talk about that, please," Lucinda begged. "It only makes me vindictive to remember; and I don't want to feel that way about Bel, I don't want to be unjust. It's bad enough to have to be just."

"Must you?" Willis asked, shaking a commiserative head.

"Yes." Lucinda met his skeptical old eyes with eyes of clear candour. "Absolutely," she added with a finality not to be discredited.

Willis sighed heavily, released her hand, sat down, and meticulously adjusted the knees of striped grey trousers.

"I will confess I had hoped to find you of another mind."

"I'm sorry. Please don't think me hard or unforgiving, but … I've had plenty of time to mull things over, you know; and I know I couldn't consider going back to Bel, no matter what he might be ready to promise. Bel can't keep a promise, not that kind, at least."

"I feel sure you wrong him there; it's true I don't know your husband as well as I know you, my dear, but I assure you that amongst men he has the reputation of a man of honour."

"Man of honour meaning, I presume, one who won't cheat another man but will cheat a woman."

"Oh, come! that's a bit sweeping."

"The men who know Bel know how he's been treating me – all New York knows! If he treated them as treacherously, would they call him a man of honour?" Willis gave a vague gesture of deprecation, and Lucinda laughed a little, but not in mirth. "Women are at least more honest among themselves; if a woman knows another who isn't playing fair with her husband, she either keeps quiet about it or calls her a cat, and lets it go at that – she doesn't call her a woman of honour."

"You don't think it would be worth while," Willis suggested as one in duty bound, "to forgive Bellamy, give him another chance?"

"I don't know I've got anything to forgive him, Mr. Willis. Bel did the best he could. And that's the whole trouble. Why should I forgive him for being true to himself? It's myself I can't forgive, because I was silly enough to let him go on as long as I did, making me a laughing-stock… Besides, I'm not so sure it's good for us to be forgiven our sins; we're all such vain creatures, we're too apt to take forgiveness as a license to misbehave still more… Don't you see?"

"I see you are beginning to formulate a philosophy of life."

"Isn't it about time?"

"You will need it, my dear, if you mean to fight this out alone. Philosophy is good medicine only for lonely hearts. The others it merely hardens."

Lucinda eyed Willis sharply. "Bel has been to see you."

"He looked me up," Willis admitted in mild surprise, "two days after your disappearance, thinking you might have communicated with me. Of course, I could tell him nothing. But how did you know – ?"

"That suggestion, the underlying thought that I might not be intending to fight out my fight alone – that originated with Bel, didn't it?"

"Well!" Willis stammered, trying to smile disarmingly – "I confess – "

"It wasn't enough, of course, that I should have found Bel out for the dozenth time, there had to be a lover in my background to account for my leaving him! Did he mention any name?"

Willis made a negative sign. "Bellamy didn't imply – he merely said he was afraid – "

"It doesn't matter. What else did he have to say?"

"He seemed most remorseful – "

"I know how remorseful Bel can seem."

"And determined – "

"In what way?"

"To find you – "

"He'd only be wasting his time."

"He spoke of employing detectives to trace you, when I assured him I knew nothing of your whereabouts and that when – and if – I did hear from you, I would necessarily be guided by your wishes."

"Thank you," said Lucinda. "It wouldn't do Bel any good to see me; it would only irritate him to find I could hold out against a plea he made in person."

"I understand," Willis agreed; and then with a quizzical look: "You seem to know your own mind, young woman; so I shan't attempt to advise you. But would you mind telling me what you have decided to do?"

"I shall divorce Bel, of course."

"You don't think it might be advisable to wait a while? It makes me very sad to think of you in relation to divorce proceedings. But then, of course, I belong to a generation that viewed divorce in a different light." Lucinda was silent. "Ah, well!" Willis sighed, and renounced hope then and there – "if you must, you must, I presume; and I will do my best to serve your wishes, my dear. Only tell me how…"

"Why, naturally, I want to get it over with as quickly and quietly as possible, with the minimum amount of public scandal."

"Then you won't sue in New York State."

"Why not?"

"Its laws recognize only one ground for absolute divorce."

"No," Lucinda concluded thoughtfully; "I'd rather not drag others into the case, I'd rather get my freedom, if I can, without making anybody unhappy, more than us two."

"The laws of the State of Nevada are most liberal. But it would be necessary for you to establish a legal residence by living in Reno for, I believe, six months."

"I suppose that's unavoidable."

"I will look up the most reputable firm of lawyers there, and recommend you to them. If you find yourself in need of other advice, write or telegraph me and I will come out to confer with you."

"I hope I won't have to impose on your kindness to that extent."

Willis blinked, removed the gold-rimmed pince-nez of his fading day, and polished the lenses with a silk handkerchief.

"I should not consider it an imposition, but a privilege, Lucinda. I can think of nothing I wouldn't do for your father's daughter, or for yours, if you had one."

"Thank God I haven't!"

"I'm afraid I can't say Amen to that. But then, as I have already remarked, I am in many respects a survival, an interesting one, I trust, but a survival none the less, of a conservative-minded generation."

He replaced the glasses.

"Is there anything else, my dear? If so, we can take it up over our luncheon. That is to say, I am hoping you will find it convenient and agreeable to lunch with me today."

Bowing punctilious acknowledgment of Lucinda's acceptance, he sat back and joined the fingers of both hands at his chin. "And now," he pursued – "if you don't mind satisfying an inquisitive old man – I would very much like to know what you propose to do with your freedom, when you get it."

Lucinda jumped up and turned away with a quaver of desolation.

"Ah, I wish you hadn't asked me! That's what I'm trying all the time to forget – "

"I thought so."

"The emptiness to come!.. What can a woman do to round out her life when she's lost her husband and is fit for nothing but to be a wife?"

"She can find another husband. Many do."

"Marry again!" A violent movement of Lucinda's hands abolished the thought. "Never that! I'm through with love for good and all."

"No doubt," agreed the student of law and life. "But are you sure that love is through with you?"

XVI

Willis left for New York on a late afternoon train; and when Lucinda had said good-bye to him at the station, she felt as if she had parted with her one real friend in all the world.

Nevertheless it had done her good to see and talk with him, and it was in a courageous if not altogether a cheerful temper that she bade the driver of her taxi stop at the Consolidated Ticket Office on the way back to the Blackstone.

But a set-back threatened immediately when she applied for transportation and a drawing-room through to Reno. The Winter stampede of California tourists was in full westward swing, she learned, and not only was every drawing-room and compartment sold for the next fortnight on the trains of the Union Pacific system, the direct route to Reno, but she would have to wait several days even if she were willing to content herself with an upper berth.