John Bangs - A Rebellious Heroine

“I don’t want to put in three vivid figures, and leave the reader to imagine that the rest of the world has been wiped out of existence,” said Harley, as he talked it over with me. “That is not art. There should be three types of character in every book—the positive, the average, and the negative. In that way you grade your story off into the rest of the world, and your reader feels that while he may never have met the positive characters, he has met the average or the negative, or both, and is therefore by one of these links connected with the others, and that gives him a personal interest in the story; and it’s the reader’s personal interest that the writer is after.”

So Miss Andrews was provided with a very conventional aunt—the kind of woman you meet with everywhere; most frequently in church squabbles and hotel parlors, however. Mrs. Corwin was this lady’s name, and she was to enact the rôle of chaperon to Miss Andrews. With Mrs. Corwin, by force of circumstances, came a pair of twin children, like those in the Heavenly Twins , only more real, and not so Sarah Grandiose in their manners and wit.

These persons Harley booked for the steamship New York , sailing from New York City for Southampton on the third day of July, 1895. The action was to open at that time, and Marguerite Andrews was to meet Horace Balderstone on that vessel on the evening of the second day out, with which incident the interest of Harley’s story was to begin. But Harley had counted without his heroine. The rest of his cast were safely stowed away on ship-board and ready for action at the appointed hour, but the heroine missed the steamer by three minutes , and it was all Harley’s own fault .

The extraordinary failure of Miss Andrews, cast for a star rôle in Stuart Harley’s tale of Love and Villany , to appear upon the stage selected by the author for her débût, 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.”