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Stories from Everybody\'s Magazine
E >> Everybody\'s Magazine >> Stories from Everybody\'s Magazine Pages: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27 | 28 | 29 These are stories from Everybody's Magazine, 1910 issues.
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Vol. XXIII No.1 JULY 1910
THE LAYING OF THE MONSTER
BY THEODOSIA GARRISON
Dorothea reposed with her shoulders in the shade of the bulkhead
and her bare feet burrowing in the sun-warmed sand. Beneath her
shoulder blades was a bulky and disheveled volume--a bound year
of Godey's Lady Book of the vintage of the early seventies.
Having survived the handling of three generations, this seemed to
take naturally to being drenched with rain and warped by sun, or,
as at the present moment, serving its owner either as a
sand-pillow or as a receptacle for divers scribbled verses on its
fly-leaves and margins.
It was with a poem now that Dorothea was wrestling, as she
wriggled her toes in the sand and gazed blankly oceanward. Under
the scorching August sun, the Atlantic seemed to purr like a
huge, amiable lion cub.
It was not the amiabilities of nature, however, in which Dorothea
found inspiration. A harp of a single string, she sang as that
minstrel might who was implored to make love alone his theme.
Given an imaginative young person of eleven, who, when not
abandoning herself utterly to athletics, has secret and continual
access to the brand of literature peculiar to the "Seaside
Library," and the result is obvious. Dorothea's mother read
recipes; her father was addicted to the daily papers. It was only
in her grandmother that Dorothea found a literary taste she
approved. On that cozy person's bookshelves one could always find
what happened to Goldie or what the exquisite Irish heroine said
to the earl before she eloped with the captain.
In this knowledge Dorothea's parents had no ambition that their
daughter should excel. In fact, an uncompromising edict on the
subject had been given forth more than once to a sullen and
rebellious sinner. But how should the most suspicious parent,
when his daughter sits in his presence apparently engrossed in a
book entitled "The Girlhood of Famous Women," guess that
carefully concealed in its interior is a smaller volume bearing
the title "Muriel's Mistake, or, For Another's Sin?"
Having acquired knowledge, the true student seeks to demonstrate.
Dorothea had promptly and intentionally fallen in love with the
son of her next-door neighbor. Amiel--fresh from his first year
in college-- was a tall, broad-shouldered youth, with kindly
brown eyes and a flash of white teeth when he smiled. In contrast
to the small boys and the sober-going fathers of families in
which the summer colony abounded, he shone, as Dorothea's
favorite novelists would have expressed it, "like a Greek god."
It was this unsuspecting person whom Dorothea had, at first
sight, elected to be the Hero of her Dreams. She trailed him,
moreover, with a persistency that would have done credit to a
detective. Did he go to the post-office, he was sure to meet
Dorothea returning (Lady Ursula, strolling through her estate,
comes upon her lover unawares). Dorothea, emulating her heroine's
example by vaulting a fence and cutting across lots, could be
found also strolling (if slightly breathless) as he approached.
She timed her day, as far as possible, with his. Would he swim,
play tennis, or go crabbing--there was Dorothea. Would he repose
in the summerhouse hammock and listen to entire pages declaimed
from Tennyson and Longfellow, the while being violently
swung--his slave was ready. She read no story in which she was
not the heroine and Amiel the hero. At the same time, she was
perfectly and painfully conscious in the back of her brain that
Amiel regarded her only as a sun-browned, crop-headed tomboy, who
had an extraordinary facility for remembering all the poetry she
had ever read, and who amused and interested him as his own small
sister might. Outwardly she kept strictly to this role--a purely
natural one--while inwardly she soared dizzily from fantasy to
fantasy, even while her physical body was plunging in the waves
or leaping on the tennis court.
Could Amiel have had the slightest insight into the fancies
seething in his small neighbor's mind, he would have been
astounded to the verge of doubting her reason. Little did he
know, as he stood now on the bulkhead and looked down at her,
that at the moment Dorothea was finishing mentally a poem in
which with "wild tears" and "clasping hands," he had bidden her
an eternal farewell--by moonlight. She was, moreover, perturbed
by the paucity of her native language. There appeared to be
nothing to rhyme with "love" except "shove," "above," and "dove."
Of these one was impossible and two were trite. Scowling fiercely
at the ocean, she finally gave the bird to the hungry line and
repeated the final couplet doubtfully:
" `Farewell,' he said. `Ah, love, my love,
My heart is breaking for thee, Dove.' "
"Look out!" said a voice above her. "I'm going to jump."
Dorothea sat up delightedly, with her bare, brown legs tucked
beneath her, Turk-like, as she welcomed him. ("Ah! Beloved," said
Lady Ursula with her hand on her fluttering heart.) "Hello," said
Dorothea, with a wide grin.
He flung himself down beside her and surveyed her with amusement.
"Been digging holes with your head?" he asked affably. "Your hair
and eyelashes look it. Been here all the afternoon?"
"Yes," she said. "I saw you go riding after lunch. I've been here
ever since. I love to be on the beach when there isn't a lot of
people bothering around. Then"--she made a wide gesture with her
brown hand-- "all of it seems to belong to me, not broken up in
little bits for everybody." She shook her cropped head
vigorously, and the sand pelted down her shoulders.
"Well," he said, watching this operation, "you came near taking
your little bit to the house with you to keep, didn't you? How
long have you worn your hair cropped like that, Dorothea? Was it
when you decided to be captain of a ball team?"
He drew a box of chocolates from his pocket and tossed it over to
her. She caught it neatly on her outstretched palm, as a boy
would have done, and nibbled squirrel-like as she talked. She did
not resent being teased by Amiel--she liked it, rather, as
representing a perfect understanding between them. Also, once
removed from the high hills of romance, she was not devoid of
humor.
"It was cut in June--before you came. They didn't want me to, but
I just begged them. It was such a nuisance bathing and then
flopping about drying afterward, and being sent upstairs all day
long to make it smooth."
"You funny kid," he said. "You don't care how you look, do you?
You ought to have been a boy. What have you been doing down here
all by yourself?"
"Reading--and--listening," said Dorothea vaguely. She folded
Godey's Lady Book tightly to her chest. Lady Ursula or no Lady
Ursula, she would have died--with black, bitter shame at the
thought of any eye but her own falling upon the penciled lines
therein. The horror of ridicule is the black shadow that hangs
over youth. That strange, inner world of her own Dorothea shared
with nothing more substantial than her dreams.
"Listening?" he inquired.
"To the ocean," explained Dorothea. "It was high tide when I came
down, and the waves boom-boomed like that, as though it were
saying big words down in its chest, you know."
"And what were the wild waves saying?"
"Oh, big words like--" she thought a moment, her small, sunburnt
face serious and intent. "Oh, like
"Robert of Sicily, Brother of Pope Urbane
And Valmond, Emperor of Allemaine."
she intoned deeply. "You see?"
"Absolutely," he said enjoyingly. "And so you weren't lonesome?"
Dorothea, who had spent her afternoon in a region peopled with
interesting and exquisite figures, shook her head.
"You don't get lonesome when you think," she said--"imagine" was
the word she meant; she used the other as appealing to his
understanding. Suddenly the vague, introspective look left her
face; she turned to him with the expression of one imparting
pleasing tidings. "My friend is coming to-morrow to stay a week,"
she said. "You remember I told you that mother had asked her.
Well, she's coming down with father to-morrow. She has never been
to the seashore before. You'll take us crabbing, won't you,
Amiel? And if we have a bonfire you'll ask father to let us stay
up, won't you?"
"Sure," he said good-naturedly. "What's her name?"
"Her name is Jennie Clark, and she lives next door to us in the
city, and we're going to have fun--fun--fun," chanted Dorothea.
"Come on." She sprang lightly to her feet and dug her shoes and
stockings out of the sand. "We can have a game of tennis before
dinner."
Clutching her book with her shoes and stockings, she raced with
him to the steps that led to the bulkhead, and from that
eminence--with the air of one performing an accustomed act--she
clambered on the fence that separated the green lawns from beach
to avenue. This, with a fine disregard for splinters, she
proceeded to walk--her property tucked under her arm.
Amiel strode beside her on the lawn. She was as sure-footed as a
goat; but when he clutched her elbow as she performed a daring
pirouette, she offered no opposition, but proceeded sedately
beneath his hold. Why not? She had ceased to be Dorothea on her
way to a tennis game ("Lean heavily on me, dearest," whispered
Reginald, "the chapel is in sight. Bear up a little longer").
With a weary sigh the Lady Ursula slid finally from the gate-post
to the ground and proceeded to put on her stockings.
Jennie Clark arrived duly and was received, if not rapturously,
at least hospitably. To be frank, Jennie Clark was not among
those first suggested by Dorothea as a prospective visitor. Of
her own private and particular friends some five had been
rejected by a too censorious parent, mainly, it seemed, because
of a lack of personal charm--Dorothea preferring a good sport
from the gutter, as it were, to a dull fairy from a dancing
school.
Jennie had been near, perilously near, the end of Dorothea's
list. Her sole claims to Dorothea's friendship were that, living
next door, she was available on rainy days when greater delights
failed, and that Dorothea, by a dramatic relation of a ghost
story, could hypnotize her into a terrified and wholly fascinated
wreck.
Jennie was thirteen, a very young thirteen--pretty and mindless
as a Persian kitten--but developing rapidly a coquettish instinct
for the value of a red ribbon in her dark curls, and the set of a
bracelet on her plump arm. Beside her curves and curls and pretty
frilled frocks, Dorothea, in her straight, blue flannel playing
suit or stiff afternoon pique', with her cropped blonde head,
suggested nothing so much as wire opposed to a sofa cushion.
She was in white pique' this afternoon. To meet one's friend at
the station was an event. Dorothea was honestly excited and
happy, and she was not at all pained that Jennie Clark's first
greeting was a comment on her short hair and her sunburn.
By what might have seemed to the unobserving a happy coincidence,
Amiel, strolling from his house to the beach with his after-
dinner pipe, was hailed by Dorothea from the summerhouse. She had
run the unsuspecting Miss Clark very hard to arrive at the
psychological moment. Joining them there, he was duly presented
to Jennie Clark, and Dorothea, accepting the courteous fashion in
which he acknowledged the introduction as an indirect compliment
to herself, was elated. Jennie was certainly very pretty. She
tossed back her long curls and talked to Amiel with an occasional
droop of her long lashes, and Dorothea, beaming upon them both,
had no notion that, hovering above her in the quiet twilight, the
green- eyed Monster was even then scenting its victim and
preparing to strike.
Presently Dorothea's father and mother and Amiel's stout and
amiable parents joined their offspring in the summerhouse. One of
the affable, if uninteresting, neighbors came as well and,
promptly introducing a banjo as a reason for his being, lured the
assembled company into song.
Dorothea, snuggled into her corner, blissfully conscious of
Amiel's careless arm about her shoulder, gave herself up to
happiness. The night was soft as velvet, sewn with the gold
spangles of stars. The waves whispered secrets to each other as
they waited for the moon to rise. Dorothea, rapturously using the
atmosphere as a background for Lady Ursula, became suddenly aware
that the singing of "Juanita" in six different keys had ceased,
and that Jennie, having been discovered to be the possessor of a
voice, was singing alone. She had an exquisite little pipe, and
she sang the dominating sentimental song of the year with ease if
not with temperament. Its close was greeted with instant and
enthusiastic applause. Jennie became instantly the center of
attraction.
It was Amiel who urged her to sing again, Amiel who seized upon
the banjo and accompanied her triumphantly through a college
song, turning his back squarely upon Dorothea the while.
Dorothea sat up straight, a sudden, bewildering anger at her
heart as she watched them. In the midst of the song she announced
casually that the moon was coming up. No one paid the slightest
attention to her except the calling neighbor, who said "Hush!"
An instant later, the instant that saw Amiel lay a commending and
fraternal hand on Jennie's curls, the Monster struck. Jealousy
had no firmer grip of beak and talons on the Moor of Venice than
on the crop-headed Dorothea. In absolute self- defense she did an
unprecedented and wholly unexpected thing. Without warning she
burst into song, even as Jennie was coyly preparing for an
encore.
"O fair dove, O fond dove.
O dove with the white, white breast,"
shrilled Dorothea to her startled audience. This was the same
song with which Lady Ursula invariably brought blinding, bitter
tears to the eyes of those assembled at picnics and hunt balls.
It had an opposite effect upon Dorothea's auditors. With
apparently one accord they burst into hilarious mirth, comment,
and expostulation.
"My child!" "Where did you get that absurd song?" "Dorothea,
never try to sing again. I forbid it." This last from her father.
It was Amiel who commented admiringly on the fact that Dorothea
with practice might go through an entire song without once
touching upon the tune and time, and Jennie who giggled
enjoyingly and said, "Oh, Dorothea, you're awfully funny."
Dorothea sat out the rest of the evening in stony silence, which
nobody regarded. She refused to join in the various choruses-- no
one noticed the omission in the least. When at last she walked to
the house with Amiel between herself and Jennie, and haughtily
shrugged her shoulder away from his hand, he continued listening
to Jennie's prattle without giving the slightest attention to her
aloofness.
Long after Jennie was asleep, Dorothea, wide-eyed, communed with
the Monster. This was not an imitation Lady Ursula jealousy at
all. That was an interesting game at which one played when Amiel
occasionally walked and talked with some stray damsel in the
colony. She had no real jealousy of the young ladyhood that at
times intruded. But this was different; here she was out- ranked
in HER OWN CLASS. In that lay the sting. She reflected dismally
that this was only Tuesday and that Jennie was to stay until the
following Monday.
She was perfectly and miserably fair in recounting Jennie's
attractions as contrasted with her own. She, Dorothea, could, at
demand, which was seldom, reel off pages of poetry; Jennie could
sing--to appreciative audiences. Dorothea could swim and dive;
Jennie had curly hair. Plainly, Jennie had all the best of it. It
remained only for Dorothea not to forget the courtesy due a guest
and, above all, oh, above everything, not to show the slightest
trace of the jealousy that consumed her. Lady Ursula had several
times been the life of the party when her heart was breaking. Her
proud smile had never faltered in the presence of her rival.
Well, neither would Dorothea's. She assumed it instantly in the
darkness by way of immediate practice, and fell asleep with the
result plastered upon her face.
In the morning the Monster, wearied perhaps by his session of the
night before, seemed to lie dormant. Dorothea woke jubilant as
the morn and, having roused her friend by the gentle method of
half stifling her with a pillow, rushed her through her dressing
and led her forth.
The ocean welcomed them with rapture; it caught the sun for them
and threw it back in millions and millions of living, rainbowed
diamonds. The world was all gold and blue and tremulous with
clean salt winds. It seemed ridiculous that one could be unhappy
on such a day. Dorothea danced pagan-like at the wave edge while
Jennie watched demurely from the bulkhead.
However, it appeared that even on a day like this one could carry
black envy at one's heart. It was during the bathing hour that
the Monster again asserted himself--this time for no indefinite
stay. As a rule, the bathing hour was one in which Dorothea
reveled. Arrayed in her faded bathing suit, guiltless of skirt or
sleeves, her prowess as an amphibious creature had been highly
commended by that one for whose praise she would gladly have
precipitated herself from the highest pier.
In vain to-day did she perform feats of daring and agility that
would have done credit to a flying fish. No one had eyes for her
except an agitated mother and grandmother, who finally ordered
her summarily out of the water and into the bath house.
Amiel had occupied himself in coaxing Jennie into the water and
giving her primary instructions in swimming. Jennie, in the
daintiest red and white suit that could be imagined, skirted and
stockinged, with her curls escaping from a coquettish red
handkerchief, timorously advancing and drawing back from the wave
rush with little, appealing cries, was as fascinating as a
playful kitten.
Dorothea regarded her with the disgust of the seasoned veteran
for the raw recruit. This, however, her erstwhile friend might
have been pardoned for not suspecting, seeing that whenever she
caught Dorothea's eye she was immediately the recipient of a wide
and beaming smile that even one less vain might have accepted as
a tribute to her attractions. It never wavered even while Jennie
shook down her long curls ostensibly to let the sun dry a single
lock that in some unaccountable way had felt the touch of a wave.
Beamingly Dorothea heard Amiel humorously contrast this brown
glory with her own short crop. Beamingly she fell into the plans
for the crabbing party that afternoon. However, it was this
lightsome expedition that laid the last straw upon the Monster's
back.
The gentle art of crabbing involves the carrying of a
long-handled net and a huge basket, and a stop at the butcher's
to purchase unsavory lumps of meat for bait.
Hitherto Dorothea had always proudly and vehemently insisted upon
carrying the basket the long, hot mile to the bay. To-day, as
Amiel dropped the bait in and handed it to her as a matter of
course, she accepted it with the look of the proud spirit that
will not cry out beneath indignities. She hung the basket over
her blue flanneled arm and trudged valiantly before them.
The afternoon was one of long and unprecedented martyrdom.
Dorothea reviewed it as she changed into her white pique' for
dinner, the while beamingly advising Jennie as to the selection
of hair ribbons. SHE had vaulted fences; Jennie had been
assisted. SHE had baited lines; Jennie's had been baited. The
fact that a week before the offer of help in that delicate
operation would have been regarded as an insult to her
intelligence failed to occur to her to-day. She burned with
humiliation as she remembered that after a half hour of seeing
Jennie's line carefully prepared, she had handed her own to Amiel
with the air of one doing only what was expected of her. Amiel,
in return, had stared at her, and in the tone he might have used
to a younger brother had said briefly, "Well, go on and bait it.
What's the matter?" She had baited it. Also, she had carried home
the net while Amiel had borne the spoils and protested
courteously when Jennie offered an assisting hand. It was dreary
consolation to realize that never for a moment had the proud
smile wavered. She was beginning to feel as though an elastic
band had been stretched for hours under her nose and behind her
ears, and the sole comment her lofty amiability had drawn forth
had been a reference to the famed animal of Cheshire.
From her window she presently saw Jennie, all rosy muslin and
tossing curls, strolling beachward with Amiel. The sight nerved
her to demonstrate an idea that had occurred to her inspiringly
during the day. Once by simply placing a dewy rose in her golden
torrent of hair, Lady Ursula had brought the ball room to her
feet. In emulation, Dorothea extracted a hair ribbon from
Jennie's stock and, failing other means, tied it bandage-wise
about her head. The result was not coquettish. It suggested only
accident or disease. She removed it wearily, and sat down on the
edge of the bed to think. Plainly, she could not compete with
Jennie on the grounds of beauty or accomplishments. Apparently
the fact of being able to swim, vault, and leap from vast heights
constituted none of these things. And yet, before Jennie
arrived--and doubtless after Jennie departed--after these five
interminable days that stretched before her--but why five?
The dinner bell rang insistently. Some one was calling her from
the stairs. Dorothea sat still, with her arms folded on the
bedpost and a new thought playing like summer lightning in her
brain. The thought gradually resolved itself into a problem. It
was well enough to decide that Jennie must go--the problem was
how to make her go. A telegram or a letter summoning her home? A
good idea if there were any one in the city to send it. That was
obviously impossible.
Dorothea walked downstairs with her brows knitted in thought
above the unchanging smile, and in her eyes the look of the rapt
soul momentarily expecting inspiration.
The inspiration arrived during that hour when the denizens of
the little colony sat ring-wise about the beach fire.
The neighbor with the banjo had done his worst, and desisted;
Jennie had piped through her repertoire and was now graciously
accepting the support of Amiel's arm. Dorothea and the Monster,
somewhat withdrawn from the circle, watched a crooked moon lift
itself above the horizon and lay a trail of opal glory on the
waves. Still awaiting inspiration, she regarded it with as little
interest as Lucretia Borgia might have given the sunset that
preceded one of her little poisoning dinners.
Presently, as befitted the atmosphere and hour, the talk of the
little circle fell upon things ghostly and mysterious--strange
happenings and prophetic dreams. Dorothea, who had a love of
horrors, lent a suddenly attentive ear; but Jennie, though
plainly fascinated, uttered a protesting plaint. "Oh, please
stop! You don't know how you frighten me! Dorothea has had some
awfully queer things happen to her, and it scares me almost to
death when she tells about them."
Mirth followed the announcement of Dorothea's occult powers,
which, needless to say, had come as a surprise to her immediate
family.
Dorothea paid no attention whatever. Instead she rose to her feet
and, flinging her arms wide, yawned elaborately. It was a
delicate suggestion, which caused the men to look at their
watches, and the party forthwith dispersed.
Dorothea, for all the sand in her shoes, seemed to walk to the
house on air. The inspiration had arrived, fully accoutered, as
it were, on the breath of Jennie's complaint.
The work in hand called for the dexterity of the true artist.
With managerial instinct, Dorothea, repelling any attempt at
conversation, waited only until Jennie was comfortably ensconced
in bed, to turn the lamp down so that it glimmered in sickly
fashion, before beginning proceedings. Then, seating herself
beside the bed--an eerie figure in her straight, white gown--she
shook her head dismally and indulged in a heartfelt sigh. Jennie,
her nerves already on edge with the ghost stories of the hour
before, turned startled eyes upon her.
"What is the matter? What is it?" she inquired anxiously.
"I--feel--strange," said Dorothea. She turned upon her victim a
face full of uncanny suggestion. Divested of its perpetual smile,
it seemed to Jennie as unfamiliar as a room from which an
accustomed piece of furniture had been moved.
"I feel--strange. Something terrible is happening somewhere.--I
can tell--I always can--I am going to have a vision--I can feel
it--It always comes like this." With a quick hand she
extinguished the lamp. "It will come in a dream," she muttered.
"Let me sleep, oh, let me sleep!"
She made a sweeping pass with her out- stretched hands and, after
a dramatic pause, fell heavily on her pillow, where she instantly
proceeded to fall into a deep and trance-like slumber--a slumber
that prevailed through the terrified questionings, whimperings,
and agitated shakings by her friend.
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