Miss Mink's Soldier and Other Stories by Alice Hegan Rice

A >> Alice Hegan Rice >> Miss Mink\'s Soldier and Other Stories

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8

A slow smile broke the brass-like stillness of Tsang Foo's face:

"Pipe," he gasped softly, "opium velly good,--make land and sea--all
same--by an' by!"

THE WILD OATS OF A SPINSTER

Judging from appearances Miss Lucinda Perkins was justifying her reason
for being by conforming absolutely to her environment. She apparently
fitted as perfectly into her little niche in the Locustwood Seminary for
young ladies as Miss Joe Hill fitted into hers. The only difference was
that Miss Joe Hill did not confine herself to a niche; she filled the
seminary, as a plump hand does a tight glove.

It was the year after Miss Lucinda had come to the seminary to teach
elocution that Miss Joe Hill discovered in her an affinity. As
principal, Miss Joe Hill's word was never questioned, and Miss Lucinda,
with pleased obedience, accepted the honor that was thrust upon her, and
meekly moved her few belongings into Miss Joe Hill's apartment.

For four years they had lived in the rarified atmosphere of celestial
friendship. They clothed their bodies in the same raiment, and their
minds in the same thoughts, and when one was cold the other shivered.

If Miss Lucinda, in those early days found it difficult to live up to
Miss Joe Hill's transcendental code she gave no sign of it. She laid
aside her mildly adorned garments and enveloped her small angular person
in a garb of sombre severity. Even the modest bird that adorned her hat
was replaced by an uncompromising band. She foreswore meat and became a
vegetarian. She stopped reading novels and devoted her spare time to
essays and biography. In fact she and Miss Joe Hill became one and that
one was Miss Joe Hill.

It was not until Floss Speckert entered the senior class at Locustwood
Seminary that this sublimated friendship suffered a jar.

Floss's father lived in Chicago, and it was due to his unerring
discernment in the buying and selling of live stock that Floss was being
"finished" in all branches without regard to the cost.

"Learn her all you want to," he said magnanimously to Miss Lucinda, who
negotiated the arrangement. "I ain't got but two children, her and Tom.
He's just like me--don't know a blame thing but business; but Floss--"
his bosom swelled under his checked vest--"she's on to it all. I pay for
everything you get into her head. Dancin', singin', French--all them
extries goes."

Miss Lucinda had consequently undertaken the management of Floss
Speckert, and the result had been far-reaching in its consequences.

Floss was a person whose thoughts did not dwell upon the highest
development of the spiritual life. Her mind was given over to the
pursuit of worldly amusements, her only serious thought being a burning
ambition to win histrionic honors. The road to this led naturally
through the elocution classes, and Floss accepted Miss Lucinda as the
only means toward the desired end.

A drop of water in a bottle of ink produces no visible result, but a
drop of ink in a glass of water contaminates it at once. Miss Lucinda
took increasing interest in her frivolous young pupil; she listened
with half-suppressed eagerness to unlimited gossip about stage-land, and
even sank to the regular perusal of certain bold theatrical papers. She
was unmistakably becoming contaminated.

Meanwhile Miss Joe Hill, quite blind to the situation, condoned the
friendship. "You are developing your own character," she told Miss
Lucinda. "You are exercising self-control and forbearance in dealing
with that crude, undisciplined girl. Florence is the natural outcome of
common stock and newly acquired riches. It is your noble aspiration to
take this vulgar clay and mold it into something higher. Your motive is
laudable, Lucinda; your self-sacrifice in giving up our evening hour
together is heroic. I read you like an open book, dear."

And Miss Lucinda listened and trembled. They were standing together
before the window of their rigid little sitting room, the chastened
severity of which banished all ideas of comfort. "What purpose do you
serve?" Miss Joe Hill demanded of every article that went into her
apartment, and many of the comforts of life failed to pass the
examination.

After Miss Joe Hill had gone out, Miss Lucinda remained at the window
and restlessly tapped her knuckles against the sill. The insidious
spring sunshine, the laughter of the girls in the court below, the
foolish happy birds telling their secrets under the new, green leaves,
all worked together to disturb her peace of mind.

She resolutely turned her back to the window and took breathing
exercises. That was one of Miss Joe Hill's sternest
requirements--fifteen minutes three times a day and two pints of water
between meals. Then she sat down in a straight-back chair and tried to
read "The Power Through Poise." Her body was doing its duty, but it did
not deceive her mind. She knew that she was living a life of black
deception; evidences of her guilt were on every hand. Behind the books
on her little shelf was a paper of chocolate creams; in the music rack,
back to back with Grieg and Brahms, was an impertinent sheet of ragtime
which Floss had persuaded her to learn as an accompaniment. And deeper
and darker and falser than all was a plan which had been fermenting in
her mind for days.

In a fortnight the school term would be over. Following the usual
custom, Miss Lucinda was to go to her brother in the country and Miss
Joe Hill to her sister for a week. This obligation to their respective
families being discharged, they would repair to the seclusion of a
Catskill farmhouse, there to hang upon each other's souls for the rest
of the summer.

Miss Lucinda's visits to her brother were reminiscent of a multiplicity
of children and a scarcity of room. To her the Inferno presented no more
disquieting prospect than the necessity of sharing her bedroom. She
always returned from these sojourns in the country with impaired
digestion, and shattered nerves. She looked forward to them with dread
and looked back on them with horror. Was it any wonder that when a
brilliant alternative presented itself she was eager to accept it?

Floss Speckert had gained her father's consent to spend her first week
out of school in New York provided she could find a suitable chaperon.
She had fallen upon the first and most harmless person in sight and
besieged her with entreaties.

Miss Lucinda would have flared to the project had not a forbidding
presence loomed between her and the alluring invitation. She knew only
too well that Miss Joe Hill would never countenance the proposition.

As she sat trying vainly to concentrate on her "Power Through Poise,"
she was startled by a noise at the window, followed immediately by a
dishevelled figure that scrambled laughingly over the sill.

"I came down the fire escape!" whispered the invader breathlessly, "Miss
Joe Hill caught us making fudge in the linen closet, and I gave her the
slip."

"But Florence!" Miss Lucinda began reproachfully, but Floss interrupted
her:

"Don't 'Florence' me, Miss Lucy! You're just pretending to be mad
anyhow. You are a perfect darling and Miss Joe Hill is an old bear!"

Miss Lucinda was aghast at this irreverence but her halting protests
had no effect on the torrent of Floss's eloquence.

"I am going to take you to New York," the girl declared "and I am going
to give you the time of your life! Dad's got to put us up in style--a
room and a bath apiece and maybe a sitting room. He likes me to splurge
around a bit, says he'd hate to have a daughter that acted like she
wasn't used to money."

Miss Lucinda glanced apprehensively at the door and then back at the
sparkling face before her.

"I can't go," she insisted miserably, trying to free her hand from
Floss's plump grasp. "My brother is expecting me and Miss Hill--"

"Oh, bother Miss Joe Hill! You don't have to tell her anything about it!
You can pretend you are going to your brother's and meet me some place
on the road instead."

Miss Lucinda looked horrified, but she listened. A material kept plastic
by years of manipulation does not harden to a new hand. Her objections
to Floss's plan grew fainter and fainter.

"Think of the theaters," went on the temptress, putting an arm around
her neck, and ignoring the fact that caresses embarrassed Miss Lucinda
almost to the point of tears; "think of it! A new show every night, and
operas and pictures. There will be three Shakspere plays that week,
'Merchant of Venice,' 'Twelfth Night,' and 'Hamlet.'"

Miss Lucinda's heart fluttered in her bosom. Although she had spent a
great part of her life interpreting the Bard of Avon, she had never seen
one of his plays produced. In her secret soul she believed that her own
rendition of "The quality of mercy," was not to be excelled.

"I--I haven't any clothes," she urged feebly, putting up her last
defense.

"I have," declared Floss in triumph--"two trunks full, and we are almost
the same size. It's just for a week, Miss Lucy; won't you come?"

Miss Lucinda, sitting rigid, felt a warm cheek pressed against her own,
and a stray curl touched her lips. She sat for a moment with her eyes
closed. It was more than disconcerting to be so close to youth and joy
and life; it was infectious. The blood surged suddenly through her
veins, and an exultation seized her.

"I'm going to do it," she cried recklessly; "I never had a real good
time in my life."

Floss threw her arms about her and waltzed her across the room, but a
step in the hall brought them to a halt.

"It's Miss Joe Hill," whispered Floss, with trepidation; "I am going out
the way I came. Don't you forget; you have promised."

When Miss Joe Hill entered, she smiled complacently at finding Miss
Lucinda in the straight-back chair, absorbed in the second volume of the
"Power Through Poise."

At the Union Depot in Chicago, two weeks later, a small, nervous lady
fluttered uncertainly from one door to another. She wore a short, brown
coat suit of classic severity, and a felt hat which was fastened under
her smoothly braided hair by a narrow elastic band.

On her fourth trip to the main entrance she stopped a train-boy. "Can
you tell me where I can get a drink?" she asked, fanning her flushed
face. He looked surprised. "Third door to the left," he answered. Miss
Lucinda, carrying a hand-bag, a suit-case, and an umbrella, followed
directions. When she pushed open the heavy door she was confronted by a
long counter with shining glasses and a smiling bartender. Beating a
confused retreat, she fled back to the main entrance, and stood there
trembling. For the hundredth time that day she wished she had not come.

The arrangements, so glibly planned by Floss, had not been adhered to in
any particular. At the last moment that mercurial young person had
decided to go on two days in advance and visit a friend in Philadelphia.
She wrote Miss Lucinda to come on to Chicago, where Tom would meet her
and give her her ticket, and that she would meet her in New York.

With many misgivings and grievous twinges of conscience, Miss Lucinda
had bade Miss Joe Hill a guilty farewell, and started ostensibly for her
brother's home. At the Junction she changed cars for Chicago, missed two
connections, and lost her lunch-box. Now that she had arrived In
Chicago, three hours late, nervous and excited over her experiences,
there was no one to meet her.

A sense of homesickness rushed over her, and she decided to return to
Locustwood. It was the same motive that might prompt a newly hatched
chicken, embarrassed by its sudden liberty, to return to its shell. Just
as she was going in search of a time-table, a round-faced young man came
up.

"Miss Perkins?" he asked, and when she nodded, he went on: "Been looking
for you for half an hour. Sis told me what you looked like, but I
couldn't find you." He failed to observe that Floss's comparison had
been a squirrel.

"Isn't it nearly time to start?" asked Miss Lucinda, nervously.

"Just five minutes; but I want to explain something to you first." He
looked through the papers in his pocket and selected one. "This is a
pass," he explained; "the governor can get them over this road. I got
there late, so I could only get one that had been made out for somebody
else and not been used. It's all right, you know; you won't have a bit
of trouble."

Miss Lucinda took the bit of paper, put on her glasses, and read, "Mrs.
Lura Doring."

"Yes," said Tom; "that's the lady it was made out for. Nine chances out
of ten they won't mention it; but if anything comes up, you just say
yes, you are Mrs. Doring, and it will be all right."

"But," protested Miss Lucinda, ready to weep, "I cannot tell a
falsehood."

"I don't think you'll have to," said Tom, somewhat impatiently; "but if
you deny it, you'll get us both into no end of a scrape. Hello! there's
the call for your train. I'll bring your bag."

In the confusion of getting settled in her section, and of expressing
her gratitude to Tom, Miss Lucinda forgot for the time the deadly
weight of guilt that rested upon her. It was not until the conductor
called for her ticket that her heart grew cold, and a look of
consternation swept over her face. It seemed to her that he eyed the
pass suspiciously and when he did not return it a terror seized her. She
knew he was coming back to ask her name, and what was her name? Mrs.
Dora Luring, or Mrs. Dura Loring, or Mrs. Lura Doring?

In despair she fled to the dressing room and stood there concealed by
the curtains. In a few moments the conductor passed, and she peeped at
his retreating figure. He stopped in the narrow passage by the window
and studied her pass, then he compared it with a telegram which he held
in his hand. Just then the porter joined him, and she flattened herself
against the wall and held her breath.

"It's the same name," she heard the conductor say in an undertone. "I'll
wire back to headquarters at the next stop."

If ever retribution followed an erring soul, it followed Miss Lucinda on
that trip. No one spoke to her, and nothing happened, but she sat in
terrified suspense, looking neither to right nor left, her heart beating
frantically at every approach, and the whirring wheels repeating the
questioning refrain, "Dora Luring? Dura Loring? Lura Doring?"

In New York, Floss met her as she stepped off the train, fairly
enveloping her in her enthusiasm.

"Here you are, you old darling! I have been having a fit a minute for
fear you wouldn't come. This is my Cousin May. She is going to stay with
us the whole week. New York is simply heavenly, Miss Lucy. We have made
four engagements already. Matinee this afternoon, a dinner
to-night--What's the matter? Did you leave anything on the train?"

"No, no," stammered Miss Lucinda, still casting furtive glances backward
at the conductor. "Was he talking to a policeman?" she asked
suspiciously.

"Who?"

"The conductor."

The girls laughed.

"I don't wonder you were scared," said Floss; "a policeman always does
remind me of Miss Joe Hill."

They called a cab and, to Miss Lucinda's vast relief, were soon rolling
away from the scene of danger.

* * * * *

It needed only one glance into a handsome suite of an up-town hotel one
week later to prove the rapid moral deterioration of the prodigal.

Arrayed in a shell-pink kimono, she was having her nails manicured. Her
gaily figured garment was sufficient in itself to give her an unusual
appearance; but there was a more startling reason.

Miss Lucinda's hair, hitherto a pale drab smoothly drawn into a braided
coil at the back, had undergone a startling metamorphosis. It was
Floss's suggestion that Miss Lucinda wash it in "Golden Glow," a
preparation guaranteed to restore luster and beauty to faded locks. Miss
Lucinda had been over-zealous, and the result was that of copper in
sunshine.

These outward manifestations, however, were insignificant compared with
the evidences of Miss Lucinda's inner guilt. She was taking the keenest
interest in the manicure's progress, only lifting her eyes occasionally
to survey herself with satisfaction in the mirror opposite.

At first her sense of propriety had been deeply offended by her changed
appearance. She wept so bitterly that the girls, seeking to console her,
had overdone the matter.

"I never thought you _could_ look so pretty," Floss had declared; "you
look ten years younger. It makes your eyes brighter and your skin
clearer. Of course this awfully bright color will wear off, and then it
will be just dear."

Miss Lucinda began to feel better; she even allowed May to arrange her
changed locks in a modest pompadour.

The week she had spent in New York was a riotous round of dissipation.
May's fiance had prepared a whirlwind of pleasures, and Miss Lucinda was
caught up and revolved at a pace that made her dizzy. Dances, dinners,
plays, roof-gardens, coaching parties, were all held together by a line
of candy, telegrams, and roses.

There was only one time in the day when Miss Lucinda came down to earth.
Every evening, no matter how exhausted she might he from the frivolities
of the day, she conscientiously penned an affectionate letter to her
celestial affinity, expressing her undying devotion, and incidentally
mentioning the health and doings of her brother's family. These she sent
under separate cover to her brother to be mailed.

Her conscience assured her that the reckoning would come, that sooner or
later she would face the bar of justice and receive the verdict of
guilty; but while one day of grace remained, she would still "in the
fire of spring, her winter garments of repentance fling."

As the manicure put the finishing touch to her nails, Floss came rushing
in:

"Hurry up, Miss Lucy dear! Dick Benson has just 'phoned that he is going
to take us for a farewell frolic. We leave here at five, have dinner
somewhere, then do all sorts of stunts. You are going to wear my tan
coat-suit and light blue waist. Yes, you are, too! That's all
foolishness; everybody wears elbow-sleeves. Blue's your color, and I've
got the hat to match. May says she'll fix your hair, and you can wear
her French-heel Oxfords again. They pitch you over? Oh, nonsense! you
just tripped along the other day like a nice little jay-bird. Hurry,
hurry!"

Even Miss Lucinda's week of strenuous living had not prepared her for
what followed. First, there was a short trip on the train, during which
she conscientiously studied a map. Then followed a dinner at a large and
ostentatious hotel. The decorations were more brilliant, the music
louder, and the dresses gayer, than at any place Miss Lucinda had yet
been. She viewed the passing show through her glasses, and experienced a
pleasant thrill of sophistication. This, she assured herself, was
society; henceforth she was in a position to rail at its follies as one
having authority.

In the midst of these complacent reflections she choked on a crumb, and,
after groping with closed eyes for her tumbler, gulped down the
contents. A strange, delicious tingle filled her mouth; she forgot she
was choking, and opened her eyes. To her horror, she found that she had
emptied her glass of champagne.

"Spirituous liquor!" she thought in dismay, as the shade of Miss Joe
Hill rose before her.

Total abstinence was such a firm plank in the platform of the celestial
affinity that, even in the chafing-dish, alcohol had been tabooed. The
utter iniquity of having deliberately swallowed a glass of champagne was
appalling to Miss Lucinda. She sat silent during the rest of the dinner,
eating little, and plucking nervously at the ruffles about her elbows.
The fear of rheumatism in her wrists which had assailed her earlier in
the evening gave way to a deeper and more disturbing discomfort.

When the dinner was over, the party started forth on a hilarious round
of sight-seeing. Miss Lucinda limped after them, vaguely aware that she
was in a giant electric cage filled with swarming humanity, that bands
were playing, drums beating, and that at every turn disagreeable men
with loud voices were imploring her to "step this way."

"Come on!" cried Dick. "We are going on the scenic railway."

But the worm turned. "I--I'm not going," she protested. "I will wait
here. All of you go; I will wait right here."

With a sigh of relief she slipped into a vacant corner, and gave herself
up to the luxury of being miserable. She longed for solitude in which to
face the full enormity of her misdeed, and to plan an immediate
reformation. She would throw herself bodily upon the mercy of Miss Joe
Hill, she would spare herself nothing; penance of any kind would be
welcome, bodily pain even--

She shifted her weight to the slender support of one high-heeled shoe
while she rested the other foot. Her hair, unused to its new
arrangement, pulled cruelly upon every restraining hair-pin, and her
head was beginning to ache.

"I deny the slavery of sense. I repudiate the bondage of matter. I
affirm spirit and freedom," she quoted to herself, but the thought
failed to have any effect.

A two-ringed circus was in progress at her right while at her left a
procession of camels and Egyptians was followed by a noisy crowd of
urchins. People were thronging in every direction, and she realized that
she was occasionally the recipient of a curious glance. She began to
watch rather anxiously for the return of her party. Ten minutes passed,
and still they did not come.

Suddenly the awful possibility presented itself that they might have
lost her. She had no money, and even with it, she knew she could not
find her way back to the hotel alone. Anxiety gained upon her in leaps.
In bitter remorse she upbraided herself for ever having strayed from the
blessed protection of Miss Joe Hill's authority. Gulfs of hideous
possibility yawned at her feet; imagination faltered at the things that
might befall a lone and unprotected lady in this bedlam of frivolity.

Just as her fear was turning to terror the party returned.

"Oh, here you are!" cried Floss. "We thought we had lost you. It was
just dandy, Miss Lucy; you ought to have gone. It makes you feel like
your feet are growing right out of the top of your head. Come on; we are
going to have our tintypes taken."

Strengthened by the fear of being left alone again, Miss Lucinda rallied
her courage, and once more followed in their wake. She was faint and
exhausted, but the one grain of comfort she extracted from the situation
was that through her present suffering she was atoning for her sins.

At midnight Dick said: "There's only one other thing to do. It's more
fun than all the rest put together. Come this way."

Miss Lucinda followed blindly. She had ceased to think; there were only
two realities left in the world, French-heels and hair-pins.

At the foot of a flight of steps the party paused to buy tickets.

"You can wait for us here, Miss Lucy," said Floss.

Miss Lucinda protested eagerly that she was not too tired to go with
them. The prospect of being left alone again nerved her to climb to any
height.

"But," cried Floss, "if you get up there, there's only one way to come
down. You have to--"

"Let her come!" interrupted the others in laughing chorus, and, to Miss
Lucinda's great relief, she was allowed to pass through the little gate.

When she reached the top of the long stairs, she looked about for the
attraction. A wide inclined plane slanted down to the ground floor, and
on it were bumps of various sizes and shapes, all of a shining
smoothness. She had a vague idea that it was a mammoth map for the
blind, until she saw Dick and Floss sit down at the top and go sliding
to the bottom.

"Come on, Miss Lucinda!" cried May. "You can't get down any other way,
you know. Look out! Here I go!"

One by one the others followed, and Miss Lucinda could not distinguish
them as they merged in the laughing crowd at the base.

Delay was fatal; they would lose her again if she hesitated. In
desperation she gathered her skirts about her, and let herself
cautiously down on the floor. For one awful moment terror paralyzed her,
then, grasping her skirts with one hand and her hat with the other and
closing her eyes, she slid.

Miss Lucinda did not "hump the bumps"; she slid gracefully around them,
describing fanciful curves and loops in her airy flight. When she
arrived in a confused bunch on the cushioned platform below, she was
greeted with a burst of applause.

"Ain't it great?" cried Floss, straightening Miss Lucinda's hat and
trying to get her to open her eyes. "Dick says you are the gamest
chaperon he ever saw. Sit up and let me pin your collar straight."

But Miss Lucinda's sense of direction had evidently been disturbed, for
she did not yet know which was up, and which was down. She leaned limply
against Floss and tried to get her breath.

"Excuse me," said a man's voice above her, "but are either of you
ladies Mrs. Lura Doring?"

The effect was electrical. Miss Lucinda sat bolt upright and stared
madly about. Tom Speckert had told her to be sure to answer to that
name. It would get him into trouble if she failed to do so.

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8