Chapter II: A Preliminary Trial

A Rebellious Heroine

by John Kendrick Bangs

"I'll not be made a soft and dull-eyed fool
To shake the head,
relent, and sigh, and yield."
- "Merchant of Venice."

The extraordinary failure of Miss Andrews, cast for a star role
in Stuart Harley's tale of Love and Villany, to appear upon the stage
selected by the author for her debut, must be explained. As I have
already stated at the close of the preceding chapter, it was entirely
Harley's own fault. He had studied Miss Andrews too superficially to
grasp thoroughly the more refined subtleties of her nature, and he
found out, at a moment when it was too late to correct his error,
that she was not a woman to be slighted in respect to the
conventionalities of polite life, however trifling to a man of
Harley's stamp these might seem to be. She was a stickler for form;
and when she was summoned to go on board of an ocean steamship there
to take part in a romance for the mere aggrandizement of a young
author, she intended that he should not ignore the proprieties, even
if in a sense the proprieties to which she referred did antedate the
period at which his story was to open. She was willing to appear,
but it seemed to her that Stuart Harley ought to see to it that she
was escorted to the scene of action with the ceremony due to one of
her position.

"What does he take me for?" she asked of Mrs. Corwin,
indignantly, on the eve of her departure. "Am I a mere marionette,
to obey his slightest behest, and at a moment's notice? Am I to
dance when Stuart Harley pulls the string?"

"Not at all, my dear Marguerite," said Mrs. Corwin, soothingly.
"If he thought that, he would not have selected you for his story. I
think you ought to feel highly complimented that Mr. Harley should
choose you for one of his books, and for such a conspicuous part,
too. Look at me; do I complain? Am I holding out for the
proprieties? And yet what is my situation? I'm simply dragged in by
the hair; and my poor children, instead of having a nice, noisy
Fourth of July at the sea-shore, must needs be put upon a great
floating caravansary, to suffer seasickness and the other discomforts
of ocean travel, so as to introduce a little juvenile fun into this
great work of Mr. Harley's--and yet I bow my head meekly and go. Why?
Because I feel that, inconspicuous though I shall be, nevertheless I
am highly honored that Mr. Harley should select me from among many
for the uses of his gifted pen."

"You are prepared, then," retorted Marguerite, "to place
yourself unreservedly in Mr. Harley's hands? Shall you flirt with
the captain if he thinks your doing so will add to the humorous or
dramatic interest of his story? Will you permit your children to
make impertinent remarks to every one aboard ship; to pick up
sailors' slang and use it at the dining-table--in short, to make
themselves obnoxiously clever at all times, in order that Mr.
Harley's critics may say that his book fairly scintillates with wit,
and gives gratifying evidence that 'the rising young author' has made
a deep and careful analysis of the juvenile heart?"

"Mr. Harley is too much of a gentleman, Marguerite, to place me
and my children in a false or ridiculous light," returned Mrs.
Corwin, severely. "And even if he were not a gentleman, he is too
true a realist to make me do anything which in the nature of things I
should not do--which disposes of your entirely uncalled-for remark
about the captain and myself. As for the children, Tommie would not
repeat sailors' lingo at the table under any circumstances, and
Jennie will not make herself obnoxiously clever at any time, because
she has been brought up too carefully to fail to respect her elders.
Both she and Tommie understand themselves thoroughly; and when Mr.
Harley understands them, which he cannot fail to do after a short
acquaintance, he will draw them as they are; and if previous to his
complete understanding of their peculiarities he introduces into his
story something foreign to their natures and obnoxious to me, their
mother, I have no doubt he will correct his error when he comes to
read the proofs of his story and sees his mistake."

"You have great confidence in Stuart Harley," retorted Miss
Andrews, gazing out of the window with a pensive cast of
countenance.

"Haven't you?" asked Mrs. Corwin, quickly.

"As a man, yes," returned Marguerite. "As an author, however, I
think he is open to criticism. He is not always true to the real.
Look at Lord Barncastle, in his study of English manners! Barncastle,
as he drew him, was nothing but a New York society man with a title,
living in England. That is to say, he talked like an American,
thought like one--there was no point of difference between them."

"And why should there be?" asked Mrs. Corwin. "If a New York
society man is generally a weak imitation of an English peer--and no
one has ever denied that such is the case--why shouldn't an English
peer be represented as a sort of intensified New York society
man?"

"Besides," said Miss Andrews, ignoring Mrs. Corwin's point, "I
don't care to be presented too really to the reading public,
especially on board a ship. I never yet knew a woman who looked well
the second day out, and if I were to be presented as I always am the
second day out, I should die of mortification. My hair goes out of
curl, my face is the color of an unripe peach, and if I do go up on
deck it is because I am so thoroughly miserable that I do not care
who sees me or what the world thinks of me. I think it is very
inconsiderate of Mr. Harley to open his story on an ocean steamer;
and, what is more, I don't like the American line. Too many
Americans of the brass-band type travel on it. Stuart Harley said so
himself in his last book of foreign travel; but he sends me out on it
just the same, and expects me to be satisfied. Perhaps he thinks I
like that sort of American. If he does, he's got more imagination
than he ever showed in his books."

"You must get to the other side in some way," said Mrs. Corwin.
"It is at Venice that the trouble with Balderstone is to come, and
that Osborne topples him over into the Grand Canal, and rescues you
from his baleful influence."

"Humph!" said Marguerite, with a scornful shrug of her
shoulders. "Robert Osborne! A likely sort of person to rescue me
from anything! He wouldn't have nerve enough to rescue me from a
grasshopper if he were armed to the teeth. Furthermore, I shall not
go to Venice in August. It's bad enough in April--damp and hot--the
home of malaria- -an asylum for artistic temperaments; and insecty.
No, my dear aunt, even if I overlook everything else to please Mr.
Harley, he'll have to modify the Venetian part of that story, for I
am determined that no pen of his shall force me into Italy at this
season. I wouldn't go there to please Shakespeare, much less Stuart
Harley. Let the affair come off at Interlaken, if it is to come off
at all, which I doubt."

"There is no Grand Canal at Interlaken," said Mrs. Corwin,
sagely; for she had been an omnivorous reader of Baedeker since she
had learned the part she was to play in Harley's book, and was
therefore well up in geography.

"No; but there's the Jungfrau. Osborne can push Balderstone
down the side of an Alp and kill him," returned Miss Andrews,
viciously.

"Why, Marguerite! How can you talk so? Mr. Harley doesn't wish
to have Balderstone killed," cried Mrs. Corwin, aghast. "If Osborne
killed Balderstone he'd be a murderer, and they'd execute him."

"Which is exactly what I want," said Miss Andrews, firmly. "If
he lives, it pleases the omnipotent Mr. Harley that I shall marry
him, and I positively--Well, just you wait and see."

There was silence for some minutes.

"Then I suppose you will decline to go abroad altogether?" asked
Mrs. Corwin after a while; "and Mr. Harley will be forced to get some
one else; and I--I shall be deprived of a pleasant tour--because I'm
only to be one of the party because I'm your aunt."

Mrs. Corwin's lip quivered a little as she spoke. She had
anticipated much pleasure from her trip.

"No, I shall not decline to go," Miss Andrews replied. "I
expect to go, but it is entirely on your account. I must say,
however, that Stuart Harley will find out, to his sorrow, that I am
not a doll, to be worked with a string. I shall give him a scare at
the outset which will show him that I know the rights of a heroine,
and that he must respect them. For instance, he cannot ignore my
comfort. Do you suppose that because his story is to open with my
beautiful self on board that ship, I'm to be there without his making
any effort to get me there? Not I! You and the children and Osborne
and Balderstone may go down any way you please. You may go on the
elevated railroad or on foot. You may go on the horse-cars, or you
may go on the luggage-van. It is immaterial to me what you do; but
when it comes to myself, Stuart Harley must provide a carriage, or I
miss the boat. I don't wish to involve you in this. You want to go,
and are willing to go in his way, which simply means turning up at
the right moment, with no trouble to him. From your point of view it
is all right. You are anxious to go abroad, and are grateful to Mr.
Harley for letting you go. For me, however, he must do differently.
I have no particular desire to leave America, and if I go at all it
is as a favor to him, and he must act accordingly. It is a case of
carriage or no heroine. If I'm left behind, you and the rest can go
along without me. I shall do very well, and it will be Mr. Harley's
own fault. It may hurt his story somewhat, but that is no concern of
mine."

"I suppose the reason why he doesn't send a carriage is that
that part of your life doesn't appear in his story," explained Mrs.
Corwin.

"That doesn't affect the point that he ought to send one," said
Marguerite. "He needn't write up the episode of the ride to the pier
unless he wants to, but the fact remains that it's his duty to see me
safely on board from my home, and that he shall do, or I fail him at
the moment he needs me. If he is selfish enough to overlook the
matter, he must suffer the consequences."

All of which, I think, was very reasonable. No heroine likes to
feel that she is called into being merely to provide copy for the
person who is narrating her story; and to be impressed with the idea
that the moment she is off the stage she must shift entirely for
herself is too humiliating to be compatible with true heroism.

Now it so happened that in his meditations upon that opening
chapter the scene of which was to be placed on board of the New York,
Stuart realized that his story of Miss Andrews's character had indeed
been too superficial. He found that out at the moment he sat down to
describe her arrival at the pier, as it would be in all likelihood.
What would she say the moment she--the moment she what?--the moment
she "emerged from the perilous stream of vehicles which crowd West
Street from morning until night," or the moment "she stepped out of
the cab as it drew up at the foot of the gangway"? That was the
point. How would she arrive--on foot or in a cab? Which way would
she come, and at what time must she start from home? Should she come
alone, or should Mrs. Corwin and the twins come with her?--or would a
woman of her stamp not be likely to have an intimate friend to
accompany her to the steamer? Stuart was a rapid thinker, and as he
pondered over these problems it did not take him long to reach the
conclusion that a cab was necessary for Miss Andrews; and that Mrs.
Corwin and the twins, with Osborne and Balderstone, might get aboard
in their own way. He also decided that it would be an excellent plan
to have Marguerite's old school friend Mrs. Willard accompany her to
the steamer. By an equally rapid bit of thought he concluded that if
the cab started from the Andrews apartment at Fifty-ninth Street and
Central Park at 9.30 A.M., the trip to the pier could easily be made
in an hour, which would be in ample time, since the sailing hour of
the New York was eleven. Unfortunately Harley, in his hurry, forgot
two or three incidents of departures generally, especially departures
of women, which he should not have overlooked. It was careless of
him to forget that a woman about to travel abroad wants to make
herself as stunning as she possibly can on the day of departure, so
that the impression she will make at the start shall be strong enough
to carry her through the dowdy stage which comes, as Marguerite had
intimated, on the second and third days at sea; and to expect a woman
like Marguerite Andrews, who really had no responsibilities to call
her up at an early hour, to be ready at 9.30 sharp, was a fatal
error, unless he provided his cab with an unusually fast horse, or a
pair of horses, both of which Harley neglected to do. Miss Andrews
was twenty minutes late at starting the first time, and just a half-
hour behind schedule time when, having rushed back to her rooms for
her gloves, which in the excitement of the moment she had forgotten,
she started finally for the ship. Even then all would have been well
had the unfortunate author not overlooked one other vital point.
Instead of sending the cab straight down Fifth Avenue, to Broadway,
to Barclay Street, he sent it down Sixth, and thence through
Greenwich Village, emerging at West Street at its junction with
Christopher, and then the inevitable happened.

The cab was blocked!

"I had no idea it was so far," said Marguerite, looking out of
the cab window at the crowded and dirty thoroughfare.

"It's a good mile farther yet," replied Mrs. Willard. "I shall
have just that much more of your society."

"It looks to me," said Marguerite, with a short laugh, as the
cab came suddenly to a halt -"it looks to me as if you were likely to
have more than that of it; for we are in an apparently inextricable,
immovable mixture of trucks, horse-cars, and incompetent policemen,
and nothing short of a miracle will get us a mile farther along in
twenty minutes."

"I do believe you are right," said Mrs. Willard, looking at her
watch anxiously. "What will you do if you miss the steamer?"

"Escape a horrid fate," laughed Marguerite, gayly.

"Poor Mr. Harley--why, it will upset his whole story," said Mrs.
Willard.

"And save his reputation," said Marguerite. "It wouldn't have
been real, that story," she added. "In the first place, Balderstone
couldn't write a story that would fascinate me; he could never
acquire a baleful influence over me; and, finally, I never should
marry Robert Osborne under any circumstances. He's not at all the
style of man I admire. I'm willing to go along and let Mr. Harley
try to work it out his way, but he will give it up as a bad idea
before long--if I catch the steamer; and if I don't, then he'll have
to modify the story. That modified, I'm willing to be his
heroine."

"But your aunt and the twins--they must be aboard by this time.
They will be worried to death about you," suggested Mrs. Willard.

"For a few moments--but Aunt Emma wanted to go, and she and the
rest of them will have a good time, I've no doubt," replied Miss
Andrews, calmly; and here Stuart Harley's heroine actually chuckled.
"And maybe Mr. Harley can make a match between Aunt Emma and Osborne,
which will suit the publishers and please the American girl," she
said, gleefully. "I almost hope we do miss it."

And miss it they did, as I have already told you, by three
minutes. As the cab entered the broad pier, the great steamer moved
slowly but surely out into the stream, and Mrs. Willard and Mr.
Harley's heroine were just in time to see Mrs. Corwin wildly waving
her parasol at the captain on the bridge, beseeching him in agonized
tones to go back just for a moment, while two separate and distinct
twins, one male and one female, peered over the rail, weeping
bitterly. Incidentally mention may be made of two young men,
Balderstone and Osborne, who sat chatting gayly together in the
smoking-room.

"Well, Osborne," said one, lighting his cigar, "she didn't
arrive."

"No," smiled the other. "Fact is, Balderstone, I'm glad of it.
She's too snippy for me, and I'm afraid I should have quarrelled with
you about her in a half-hearted, unconvincing manner."

"I'm afraid I'd have been the same," rejoined Balderstone; "for,
between us, there's a pretty little brunette from Chicago up on deck,
and Marguerite Andrews would have got little attention from me while
she was about, unless Harley violently outraged my feelings and his
own convictions."

And so the New York sailed out to sea, and Marguerite Andrews
watched her from the pier until she had faded from view.

As for Stuart Harley, the author, he sat in his study, wringing
his hands and cursing his carelessness.

"I'll have to modify the whole story now," he said, impatiently,
"since it is out of my power to bring the New York back into port,
with my hero, villain, chaperon, and twins; but whenever or wherever
the new story may be laid, Marguerite Andrews shall be the heroine--
she interests me. Meantime let Mrs. Willard chaperon her."

And closing his manuscript book with a bang, Harley lit a
cigarette, put on his hat, and went to the club.