“And he made her pathway very rosy, or he was as much in love with her as he was with
him.”1
“The deterioration of his fortunes as more gradual than is the case usually with men
of his sort. They found themselves obliged to cut down, to some extent their living
expenses. She did this willingly and prettily, but he oomed over it, and, as he told
me afterwards, his nerve for the first time, began to fail him. He acquired the
rnicious habit of a prophetic imagination, and literally tortured himself by
imagining this or that possible misfortune. And strangely enough, just as he feared
and imagined things, so they came to pass.”2
“The time came when they found themselves part of another social life, simpler
suburban community, and it as at this time he should have saved himself. But he
thought his wife meant only for luxury. He wanted her crowned with diamonds and
roses, and he plunged and fought frantically to win back the fortune he had lost.” 3
“She did not tell him so, but there had come to her meanwhile, an irresistible desire
to return to the stage, and for her husband’s failing fortunes, she thought she now
saw an excuse. She could appear for just a short season. would be a brief triumphant
tour, and then, with the money earned, they could settle down happily once more.”4
“Now, like many men who have married women of the stage, he had the most unreasonable
prejudice against it. Though her associates had been of the best, he had cut her
apart from them all. It irritated him even to have her allude to her past, and the
thought of her returning to the footlights was beyond his darkest dreams.”5
“He first learned of her intentions through the chance remark of an acquaintance, who
knew the manager to whom she had gone. He rushed home like a madman, there to
overwhelm her with reproaches and pleadings. She had ceased to love him, so he
said. She had but loved the luxury with which he had surrounded her, and now that it
was gone, she too, meant to desert him. All her protestations and tears were
unavailing, and he finally literally wrung from her, not a mere promise, but an oath,
that she would never act upon the stage again.”6
“And now he began a furious campaign to win back the fortune that would make the
woman he loved supremely happy once again. That year was a bad one anyhow, and more
than one firm went under in the panic.”7
“Mazurka’s husband when he learned the truth, that his last throw,—for he had
staked practically all they had left—had failed, and he was now penniless, went
into a public telephone booth, called up his wife, and then while the frantic
woman heard the shot at the other end, and the telephone girl without saw the act
through the glass door of the booth, blew his distracted brains out.”
Bonnie’s eyes were almost starting from her head. She was literally hanging upon
every word spoken by the doctor.
“Tell me,” she cried, breathlessly, “did she keep her oath?”
“For—fifteen years,” said the doctor slowly.
“I don’t know exactly what she did
during that period, but she managed to live somehow. She must have reached a pretty
desperate condition, however, before she brought herself to return to the stage, for
she told me that her life was literally a haunted one. She blamed herself for her
husband’s death, because she fancied his sudden knowledge of her stage plans was what
first drove him to his frenzied end. For some time afterwards, she said, she used to
pace up and down her room, just repeating the oath he had extracted from her.”8
“For a time she lived with some old friends—stage folk, like yourself, Bonnie—for
oddly enough the only ones who rallied about her at this time, were the people she
had known when she was on the stage. None of the fine friends they had made after her
marriage seemed to remember her existence even; but her old stage associates rallied
about her at that time. I know there was some benefit given on her account, at which
many notable actors and actresses played, and for a time at least her needs were
cared for. But even her actor friends had no sympathy with her determination not to
appear again, and gradually they too, slipped away from her, and she was left alone
again, neglected and forlorn, —she who had known nothing but adulation and
flattery.”9
“As I said, it was fifteen years before she returned to the stage. She was then a
woman of fifty-eight, broken of spirit and of heart. There was not even a ghost of
her old imperial beauty to recall her past. No one shows age so sadly as an old
actress. I sometimes think all the lines and creases they have painted in their faces
in the past seem to become a deep reality. Weakly they resort to the make-up tricks
which in their youth they have reserved for the footlights only. There is nothing so
ghastly as peroxide hair on an old woman; unless it be her rouged cheeks and
lips.”10
“How shall I tell you of her pathetic, wandering life from this time on. At first she
inspired compassion at least among the profession, and she appeared here and there;
but pretty soon her voice went out, for she suffered from asthma, and even to play
the part of an old woman a certain strength is necessary. Mazurka wandered about from
company to company, and then there came a time when she could not get even the
smallest of engagements.”11
“When the end came she was in a room so tiny that—it barely was large enough for her
bed. It looked out upon an almost completely dark court, and the room next to it was
the family’s kitchen. The people she lived with were desperately poor, too, and I
suspect at some time she must have befriended them, for although they would not bury
her—or perhaps could not—they seemed to feel her death in a really sincere way.”12
“I went myself, to two of the newspaper offices, and got in a story about Mazurka’s
life and its pitiful ending. This, as I had expected, brought a number of noisy
contributions from members of the theatrical profession, who got themselves written
up as burying the famous old actress.”13
“I never understood why Mazurka did not enter some home or institution. I presume
her pride kept her from this. After she was buried, scores of her friends wrote to
me, and to the papers, claiming in the past to have constantly helped her and
expressing surprise at her utter destitution. But destitute she was, whether she
heedlessly spent the money when she had it, in the shiftless manner of people of
her temperament, or whether the assertions of her friends were untrue, and she had
been unsuccored, as it seemed.”
Bonnie’s head, back on the pillow, moved restlessly. After a moment’s silence she
said gravely: “Doctor, I guess you think me a pretty mean little lot, eh?”
“Why should I, Bonnie?”
“Oh, to make all that scream about my own petty tale of woe. Gee! when I think of
that other actress—well, I tell you what, Doctor, I just feel’s if—well, as if I’d
never had a real trouble in the world at all.”
An illuminating smile of satisfaction lighted up the doctor’s tired face.
“And that’s exactly how I like my patients to feel!” he said.
VIII
“That bell has rung exactly eleven times since I sat down to lunch,” said the
doctor reflectively.
“Yes,” said Laura, “but all the same you are going to finish it. They can
wait. It isn’t quite one yet anyhow.”
Katy flounced through the dining-room back into her kitchen. She had been kept pretty
busy with waiting on the table and answering the bell, and now, as she returned
from the eleventh rime, to her kitchen, her face was wrathful. But she was back in
an instant with some hot scones and honey, and these she slapped down before the
doctor. Then she stood back, her hands on her hips, and surveyed him defiantly—one
might say commandingly. For the doctor had folded his napkin and had pushed back
his chair.
“Ye’ll be eating these,” said Katy in a very ominous voice, “and before they
fall flat, what’s more,” she added.
The doctor glanced up warily over his glasses at Katy. Then he drew his chair up
hastily to the table again.
“Why certainly, Katy, certainly. They’re very fine indeed, and—er-hum! don’t you
think you might spare a few for——”
“Is it furnishing them now wid me hot bishkits ye’d have me?” she demanded.
The doctor smiled apologetically.
“I thought you might save a few for Miss Scovel, Katy. Didn’t you say she was out
there? You know she doesn’t get—she’d appreciate something exceptionally fine like
these!”14
Katy looked a bit mollified.
“Well, sure she’s wilcome to some, but not out there, wid the rest of them looking
on. Shure the bunch of them wud be schrambling for thim thimselves. Hawiver, I’ll
shlip a fresh pan into me oven, and ye’ll send Miss Scovel back here in exactly
twinty minutes, no sooner nor later.”
“Thank you, Katy, and I’m sure she’ll enjoy them as much as I did.”
He had pushed back his chair, examined his vest for any errant crumb adhering, and
with a slight throw back of his chest, strutted professionally down the hall, Laura
following him. She saw him safely seated at his desk in the alcove, ere she opened
the door of the reception room and threw a quick glance at the various waiting
patients.
“Who was first?” she asked, and two women instantly pushed forward. The one
regarded the other with indignant scorn, and the younger one with an insinuating
smile shook Laura by the hand.
“Dear Miss Laurence, I’ve been here since 11.30 really, though I didn’t come in,
knowing your uncle’s hours. In fact he let me in himself, and told me he would see
me at once.”
“I got here,” said the other woman angrily, “before the doctor himself,
and——”
Off in a corner of the room a baby whimpered, and then fell to coughing desperately.
The doctor’s head suddenly appeared between the portieres.
“Bring me that baby,” said he, and withdrew just as the two warring females
turned toward him. They watched the thin, shabby little woman carry the baby wearily
across the room, and their glances met, but neither of them spoke.
Laura had discreetly withdrawn, end the other inmates of the room continued staring
apathetically before them, or turned over the pages of the magazines and
journals.
From inside the doctor’s office came a sudden wailing from the infant, and the voice
of the mother raised in alarm. Then a sound of choking and coughing.
“You shouldn’t have brought Buster out on a day like this,” said the doctor,
gravely. “There’s a great deal of congestion here, and I wish you would heed my
orders and keep the child indoors for the present.”
“I can’t do that,” she said bitterly, “for I’ve got to go about my
work.”
“You don’t mean to tell me you tale the baby with you?”
“Yes, I do,” she said wearily, “I’m afraid to leave him alone. I read in the
paper of some children burning up when their mother was away, and I couldn’t work
if I had that on my mind.”
The doctor drew his brows together, pursed up his lips thoughtfully.
“What are your hours?”
“Well, they change, doctor. I’m on the night shift just now, and working from
eleven till eight in the morning. I’m a scrubwoman, you know, at the Grand Central
Hotel.”
“You mean you take the baby out with you at night?”
“Yes. I have to.”
“Why didn’t you tell me this before? You’ll kill the child. No wonder it’s not
improving. A baby with a bad case of congestion like this can’t be taken out
nights—or in the day-time either for that matter.”
“I roll him under my shawl, doctor, —and they’re real good about it at the hotel.
My cousin there is head of the laundry and ——”15
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