Clark's Field Part 6

"What do you do with yourself when you are not studying?" he concluded in a patronizing tone.

"Oh," Adelle responded vaguely, "I don't know. Nothing much--read some and take walks."

The new trust officer was enough of a human being to realize the emptiness of this reply, and for a few moments was puzzled. This was a woman's job, rather than a man's, he reflected sagely. However, being a man he must do the best he could to win the girl's confidence, and after all Herndon Hall had the highest reputation.

"They treat you right?" he inquired bluntly.

The girl murmured something in a.s.sent, because she could think of nothing better to say. It was quite impossible for her to phrase the sense of misery and indignity that was nearly constant in her mind.

"The teachers are kind?" the trust officer pursued.

"I guess so," she said, with a dumb look that made him uncomfortable.

He rose nervously and walked across the room. As he gazed out of the open window at the distant prospect across the "n.o.ble River" (so described in the dainty leaflet sent forth by the school) "from the ivy-shrouded old stone Hall," he caught sight of a party of girls riding off on horseback for their daily excursion. That gave him an idea.

"You ride, too?" he inquired, turning again to the girl.

"No, I haven't any horse," she replied simply. "You have to have your own horse."

"But you can have a horse if you want to ride," the trust officer hastily remarked. "Riding is a very good exercise, and I should think it would be fine in this country."

Here was something tangible that a man could get hold of. The girl looked pale and probably needed healthful exercise. If other girls had their own horses, she could have one. It was really ridiculous how little she was spending of her swelling income. And he proceeded at once to take up this topic with Miss Thompson, who presently arrived upon the scene. Mr. Ashly Crane was much more successful in impressing the head mistress of Herndon Hall with the importance of the ward of the Washington Trust Company than in probing the heart of the lonely little girl. He gave the elegant Miss Thompson to understand clearly that Miss Adelle Clark was to have every advantage that money could buy, not merely music and art as extras, but horses,--he even put it in the plural,--a groom, and if she wanted it a private maid, which he was told was never permitted. Miss Thompson quickly gathered from his tone and his words that Miss Adelle Clark's expectations were such as to insure her the most careful consideration in every respect, and if Herndon Hall could not provide her with all the advantages to which wealth was ent.i.tled, her guardians would quickly remove her from the school. Miss Thompson accompanied the trust officer to the door out of earshot of Adelle and a.s.sured him haughtily that Herndon Hall which sheltered a Steigman of Philadelphia, a Dyboy of Baltimore, not to mention a Miss Saltonsby from his own city, knew quite as well as he what was fitting under the circ.u.mstances. However, they shook hands as two persons from the same world and parted in complete understanding. Adelle had already slipped off with her armful of roses.

XIII

From the moment, when she emerged upon the corridor that led to the schoolrooms with that huge bunch of American Beauty roses in her arms, a new period of her school life began. The girls, of course, had seen from their desks the arrival of the motor-car and its single occupant,--a Man,--and the older girls who had peeked into the drawing-room reported that Mr. Ashly Crane was a very smart-looking man, indeed. When a woman first receives flowers from a man, an event of importance in her existence has happened. Senorita Diane, who was an incorrigible sentimentalist, went into ecstasies over the roses and at once whispered about the school that they were the fruit of an admirer, not of a mere relative. Miss Thompson talked to her teachers, especially to "Rosy,"

and it became known throughout the Hall that the ugly duckling was undoubtedly Somebody, and she was treated thereafter with more consideration. If the trust company had thought to take notice of its ward's existence earlier in her school career, Adelle might have been saved a very disagreeable year of her life.

In due time there arrived a beautiful saddle-horse and a groom, both selected with judgment by Mr. Ashly Crane and charged to the ward's account. The appearance of the blooded mount did more than anything else to acquaint Adelle with the meaning and the power of money. In many subtle ways she began to feel a change in the att.i.tude of her world towards her, and naturally related it immediately to the possession of this unknown power. A dangerous weapon had thus been suddenly placed in her hands. She could command respect, attention, even consideration, thanks to this weapon--money. It was merely human that as the years went on the silent child, who had absorbed many unhappy impressions of life before discovering this key to the world, should become rapidly cynical in her use of her one great weapon of offense and defense. The next few years of her life was the period when she exercised herself in the use of this weapon, although she did not become really proficient in its control until much later.

A suitable habit was quickly provided, and she set forth each pleasant day with that little group of older girls who enjoyed this privilege, accompanied always by her own groom, who was a well-trained servant and effaced himself as nearly as possible. The California girls rode, and that Miss Dyboy of Baltimore, but the little Mexican, though she had ridden all her life, had no horse, and as long as affairs continued unsettled in Morelos was not likely to have one. When Adelle discovered this fact, she did not play the part of the unselfish heroine, I am sorry to say, and allow Diane to use her horse even on those days when she did not care to ride (as of course she would do in a well-conducted story). Instead she merely wrote a little letter to Mr. Crane at the Washington Trust Company, telling him rather peremptorily to send her another horse. Somewhat to her surprise the second horse arrived in due season, and now she lent the beast to her little friend, carefully refraining from giving up her t.i.tle to him. For a second time she felt the sweet sense of unlimited power in response to desire. She wrote her letter as Aladdin rubbed his magic lamp, and straightway her desire became fact! It was modern magic. This time it happened that her desire was a generous one and brought her the approval as well as the envy of the small social world at the Hall. But that was purely accidental: the next time she should try her lamp, as likely as not the cause might be purely selfish. As a matter of fact she soon discovered that, by distributing her favors and lending her extra horse to a number of schoolmates, she could enlarge her circle of influence and consideration. So the little Mexican by no means had all the rides.

Horseback riding was a beneficial pleasure in more than one way. Adelle, of course, profited from the exercise in the open air: she began to grow slowly and to promise womanhood at some not distant day. It also brought her into close relations with some of the leading girls, who had thus far ignored her existence; among them the breezy California sisters, "the two Pols," as they were known in school. These girls profited by Adelle's groom to dispense with the chaperonage of the old riding-master, and before long Adelle learned why this arrangement was made. In their long expeditions across country, with the discreet groom well in the rear, the girls put their heads together in the most intimate gossip, from which Adelle learned much that completed her knowledge of life. Most of this was innocent enough, though some was not, as when one afternoon, when "the Pols" judged that Adelle was a "good sport," they led the way to a remote road-house where a couple of men were waiting evidently by appointment. One of them, a fair-haired, overdressed young man, Adelle was given to understand was Sadie Pol's "artist" friend. She herself was sent back to entertain the groom while the two sisters went into the road-house with their "friends." Conduct, even conduct that came near being vice, was largely meaningless to Adelle: she silently observed. She had no evil impulses herself, very few impulses, in fact, of any kind. But she was the last person to tell tales, and "the two Pols," having tested her and p.r.o.nounced her "safe,"

she was allowed to see more and went more than once to the rendezvous at the quiet road-house. In this way she raised herself nearly to a plane of equality with the leaders of the school. Indeed, it was Adelle who a.s.sisted Irene Paul to escape from the Hall one winter night, and stayed awake far into the morning in order to let the girl in. But that was a year later....

When Adelle discovered the power of her magic lamp, she was generous with her pocket-money, ordering and buying whatever the older girls desired. In this way she rapidly attained favor in the Hall, where few even of the richer girls could procure money so easily as the ward of the Washington Trust Company. "Get Adelle to do it," or "Adelle will dig up the money," "Ask Adelle to write her bank," became familiar expressions, and Adelle never failed to "make good." It is safe to say that if contact with any sort of human experience gives education, Adelle was being educated rapidly, although she was completely ignorant of books and as nearly illiterate as a carefully protected rich girl can be. Before Nature had completed within her its mission, Adelle was cognizant of many kinds of knowledge, some of which included depravity.

For in the exclusive, protected, rich world of Herndon Hall she had met everything she might have encountered in the Alton Girls' High and a good deal more beside.

By the end of this second year she was not much happier, perhaps, but she was perfectly comfortable at the Hall and thoroughly used to her new environment. The blonde Irene had given her a diploma,--

"Dell's all right--she's a good little kid."

XIV

That summer she did not have to mope by herself in the empty Hall. The little Mexican carried her away for a long visit to her distant home.

The trouble in Morelos had temporarily subsided, so that Senor Merelda felt that it was safe to gather his large family at the hacienda. The journey, which the two girls made alone as far as St. Louis, where Diane's elder brother met them, was the first view of the large world that Adelle had ever had. They were both filled with the excitements of their journey so that even Adelle's pale cheeks glowed with a happy sense of the mystery of living. This ecstasy was somewhat broken by the presence of Carlos, a gentlemanly enough young man; but Adelle was afraid of all men. She failed also to a.s.similate the strange sights that she encountered south of St. Louis. The journey became a jumble in her memory of heat and red sunsets and dirty Indians and stuffy dining-cars.

But Morelos itself made a more lasting impression upon her little mind.

There was, first of all, the strange landscape, dominated by the snowy peak of Popocatepetl, the sugar-fields, and the drowsy languor of the little town, and then there was the family life of the Mereldas at the hacienda. That was both delightful and queer to Adelle. Instead of one "queer" person to whom she had become accustomed, there were half a dozen odd human beings in the persons of Senor and Senora Merelda and the older boys and girls. They all spoke all the time as did Diane, about everything and nothing. They seemed to care warmly for one another, yet quarreled like children over nothings. Young Carlos, who was at a technical school, made violent love to Adelle. It was the first time that a boy had looked at her twice even under compulsion, and it bewildered and troubled Adelle until she perceived that it was all a joke, a "queer" way of expressing courtesy to a stranger.

"It would not be polite," Diane explained demurely, "if Carlos did not make the bear to my friend."

So Adelle got over her fright when the youth uttered strange speeches and tried to take her hand. She even felt a faint pleasure in thus becoming of a new importance.

"Of course," Diane remarked sagely, "Carlos cannot marry yet--he is still in school. But he will marry soon--why not you?... You are so very rich. I should like Carlos to marry a rich girl and my friend, too ..."

And with a little sigh,--"It must be pleasant to be so rich as you!"

From which it will be seen that the little Mexican had also become somewhat corrupted by her year at Herndon Hall.

Adelle had not yet found out fully how nice it was to be rich, but she was learning fast. To be able to attract the attentions of agreeable young men like Carlos Merelda was another of the virtues of her magic lamp that she had never thought of before. Although she had no idea of taking Carlos's courtship seriously, she thought all the better of herself for this extra magnetism which her money gave her person. The kindliness of the Mereldas and their Mexican circle to the little American was due largely to her being a good friend of their Diane and also their guest, but it made Adelle grow in her own estimation. At present life seemed to consist in a gradual unfolding to her of the meaning of her new power, and a consequent enlargement of her egotism.

That is unfortunately one of the commonest properties of wealth,--stimulating egotism,--and it takes much experience or an extraordinary nature to counteract this unhealthy stimulus. For the ordinary nature it is impossible to live day after day, year in and year out, under the powerful external stimulus of riches, without confounding the outer source of power with an innate virtue.

But with our Adelle, by the time her visit had come to an end, her new education had got merely to the point where she had the self-interest and a.s.surance of the ordinary American girl of twelve. That Church Street experience had chastened her. But if her education was to continue at the present rate, she was likely to become selfish, egotistical, and purse-proud in a few years. As yet it had not made her unpleasant, merely given her a little needed confidence in her own being.

She chose to make the long journey homewards by water from Vera Cruz to New York in charge of the captain of the vessel. For Senor Merelda, after the hara.s.sing activities of political warfare and its pecuniary drains, did not feel able to send his daughter back to Herndon Hall. So the two friends kissed and parted at Vera Cruz, Diane shedding all the tears. They expected to meet again before long, and of course agreed to write frequently. But life never again brought Adelle in contact with the warm-hearted little Latin, who had first held out to her the olive branch of human sympathy.

Adelle was met at the dock by "Rosy," who had with her "the two Pols"

and Eveline Glynn at whose country home they were staying. "Rosy," as well as her schoolmates, was agreeably surprised by Adelle's appearance after her summer in Mexico. Nature was tardily a.s.serting herself; Adelle was becoming a woman,--a small, delicate, pale little creature, whose rounding bust under her white dress gave her the dainty atmosphere of an early spring flower, fragile and frigid, but full of charm for some connoisseurs of human beauty. She had also acquired in Mexico a note of her own, which was perhaps due to the clothes she had bought in Mexico City on her way home, of filmy fabric and prominent colors; and her usually taciturn speech had taken on a languorous slowness in imitation of the Mereldas' way of speaking English. In the drawling manner in which she said,--"h.e.l.lo, Rosy," and nonchalantly accepted Miss Glynn's invitation for the intervening days before school opened, the new Adelle was revealed. The girls exchanged glances. And "Rosy" whispered Irene Paul,--"Our little Adelle is coming on." To which the California girl replied with a chuckle,--"Didn't I tell you she was a good old sport?"

Adelle, overhearing this, felt an almost vivid sense of pride.

But as yet hers was only a very little air, which was quickly wilted by the oppressive luxury of the Glynns' country-place--one of those large, ostentatious establishments that Americans are wont to start before they know how, and where consequently the elaborate domestic machinery creaks. There were men-servants of different nationalities, ladies'

maids, and a houseful of guests coming and going as in a private hotel.

Adelle shrank into the obscurest corner and her anemonelike charm, tentatively putting forth, was quite lost in the scramble. Beechwood was a much less genial home than the slipshod Mexican hacienda of the Mereldas and n.o.body paid any attention to the shy girl. Eveline Glynn, who expected in another year to be free from school, was too much occupied with her own flirtations to bother herself about her chance guest. Adelle, being left to her usual occupation of silent observation, managed to absorb a good deal at Beechwood in four days, chiefly of the machinery of modern wealth. There were the elaborate meals, the drinking, the card-playing, the motors, the innumerable servants, and the sickening atmosphere of inane sentimentalism between the s.e.xes.

Everybody seemed to be having "an affair," and the talk was redolent of innuendo. Adelle had occasion to observe the potency of her lamp in this society. She worked it first upon the waiting-woman a.s.signed to her, to whom she gave a large fee and who coached her devotedly in the ways of the house and supplied her with the gossip. It also brought her the annoying attentions of a middle-aged man, to whom her hostess had confided that the dumb little Clark girl was "awful rich."

At the end of the visit the girls went back to New York, under the chaperonage of "Rosy," to equip themselves for the school term, staying at a great new hotel, and here Adelle's corruption by her wealth was continued at an accelerated pace. The four girls flitted up and down the Avenue, buying and ordering what they would. There were definite limits to the purse of the Californians, but Adelle, perceiving the distinction to be had from free spending, ordered with a splendid indifference to price or amount. She won the admiration of her friends by the ease with which she gave her name and address. Adelle was in fact a little frightened by her own extravagance, but persisted with a child's curiosity to find out the limit of her magic lamp. She did not reach it, however. Mr. Crane at her request had opened an account for her at the trust company's correspondent on upper Fifth Avenue, and apparently it was of a size that produced respect in the heart of the shopkeeper.

All these purchases, the clothes and the jewelry and the other rubbish that the girl bought, gave her no special pleasure, gratified no desires: she did not know what she could do with half the things at Herndon Hall. What gave her keen pleasure was the prestige of lavish spending.... After a debauch of theaters and dinners and shopping, the four girls were again taken in tow by the sophisticated "Rosy" and went up the river to Herndon Hall for Adelle's third year of boarding-school.

XV

Adelle Clark was thoroughly infected with the corruption of property by this time, and the coming years merely confirmed the ideas and the habits that had been started. She was now seventeen and an "old girl" at the Hall, privileged to torture less sophisticated girls when they presented themselves, if she had felt the desire to do so. She had not forgotten her Church Street existence: it had been much too definite to be easily forgotten. But she had been removed from it long enough to realize herself thoroughly in her new life and to know that it was not a dream. She would always remember Church Street, her aunt and uncle, and the laborious years of poverty with which it was identified; but gradually that part of her life was becoming the dream, while Herndon Hall and the Aladdin lamp of her fortune were the reality. By means of the latter she had won her position among her mates, and naturally she respected more and more the source of her power. Eveline Glynn "took her up" this year, and quite replaced the gentler Diane Merelda in her affections.

There was if anything less study this year than before. The older girls scouted the idea of studying anything. Most of them expected to leave school forever the next spring and under the auspices of their mothers to enter the marriage game. A few intended as a preliminary to travel in Europe, "studying art or music," But the minds of all were much more occupied with love than anything else. Although the s.e.x interest was still entirely dormant in Adelle, she learned a great deal about it from her schoolmates. Those good people who believe in a censorship of literature for the sake of protecting the innocent American girl should become enrolled at Herndon Hall. There they might be occasionally horrified, but they would come out wiser mortals. Adelle knew all about incredible scandals. Divorce, with the reasons for it,--especially the statutory one,--was freely discussed, and a certain base, pandering sheet of fashionable gossip was taken in at the Hall and eagerly devoured each week by the girls, who tried to guess at the thinly disguised persons therein pilloried. Thus Adelle became fully acquainted with the facts of s.e.x in their abnormal as well as more normal aspects.

That she got no special personal harm from this irregular education and from the example of "the two Pols" was due solely to her own unawakened temperament. Life had no gloss for her, and it had no poetic appeal. She supposed, when she considered the matter at all, that sometime as a woman she would be submitted to the coil of pa.s.sion and s.e.x, like all the others about whom her friends talked incessantly. They seemed to regard every man as a possible source of excitement to a woman. But she resolved for her part to put off the interference of this fateful influence as long as possible. Sometime, of course, she must marry and have a child,--that was part of the fate of a girl with money of her own,--and then she should hope to marry a nice man who would not scold or ill-treat her or prefer some other woman--that was all.

"Dell is just a lump of ice!" Irene Paul often said, putting her own plump arms about Adelle's thin little body; and while Adelle tried to wriggle out of the embrace she teased her by a.s.suming the man's aggressive role.