Tales of the City Room/Miss Van Dyke's Best Story
MISS VAN DYKE'S
BEST STORY
MISS VAN DYKE'S BEST STORY.
WHEN Miss Van Dyke joined the staff of the "Evening Globe," the men of that small but ably conducted sheet bestowed on her a due amount of critical observation. After cursory but thorough consideration of her appearance and manner, they decided that she "was all right," as Matthews, the political editor, elegantly put it. That important point being settled, they proceeded to waste a great deal of their time at her desk, telling her about their wives or sweethearts and their personal affairs. This retarded her work and annoyed the managing editor; but it gave her a sweet sense of good-fellowship with her associates, and made her very happy. As she was fully twenty-three, she gave the younger reporters much motherly advice, which they immediately forgot, and assumed the rôle of sister to several of the older ones. On the very rare occasions when she worked late at the office, one of her fellow-workers escorted her home, or, if this was impossible, the city editor sent a messenger boy with her. She was a small woman, with appealing blue eyes and the usual journalistic assortment of nerves. They felt it was quite out of the question for her to be on the streets at night alone,—in which opinion Miss Van Dyke concurred.
She did not say much about herself, having discovered at an early period of her newspaper experience that the interest her good comrades felt in the conversation lagged as soon as they ceased to do the talking. Nevertheless, on several occasions she had managed to inject into the train of reminiscences a few of her own, and one of these had made the rounds of the office and was generally regarded as very touching.
"When I left the convent," said Miss Van Dyke, in telling the story to her ardent champion, Matthews, "the nuns knew that I had decided to go into journalism. One of them, Sister Clare, was very fond of me, as I was of her. The day I was graduated, she took me into the convent garden for a little farewell advice. It was all very good, and I was very much touched—especially by her last words. I shall never forget them. As she kissed me good-by, she held me in her arms an instant, and said: 'Farewell, little one. May angels ever guide your pen!'
"I think of it so often," added Miss Van Dyke, looking up into the young man's face with childlike eyes dimmed by the recollection. "And when I have a story that is at all unpleasant to handle, I keep that advice in mind. It has prevented me from making a great many mistakes, I'm sure. One could n't write improper or slangy things with those sweet words in mind."
The picture appealed to the office taste. It was pleasant to think of little Miss Van Dyke (they always punctiliously gave her the title) "turning out her copy in the shadow of an angel's wing," as the sporting editor remarked. That youth was so deeply affected by the charm of the incident that he once referred to it with almost lachrymose feeling, after a very late supper, and actually came to blows with some one who laughed at him. He got a black eye for his pains. Miss Van Dyke saw the bruise the next morning when he came to the office. There was, in fact, little that her sharply observing blue eyes did not see, but she never heard the story of its origin. She continued to turn out innocuous copy, and to suggest, by request, appropriate birthday and Christmas presents for the wives of her friends. She also listened earnestly to the recital of long conversations that had taken place between reporters and the young women with whom they were in love. Miss Van Dyke interpreted to the reporters what the young women might have meant by certain remarks, and as her sweet good-nature unconsciously made these interpretations bear a somewhat flattering air, her popularity grew apace. Even the office boys heeded her mild requests, and the managing editor went the length of remarking that she was a hard-working, level-headed little woman.
A few days after this momentous dictum, the managing editor accepted a suggestion from his chief to retire from the management of the "Evening Globe." His successor came into the office unhampered by any knowledge of the members of the staff. He gave out an oracular utterance to the effect that he was after "hot stuff" for the paper, and consequently the reporters, wishing to retain their official heads, bestirred themselves to give him what he wanted.
He was a young man of intense and feverish activity, and the repose of Miss Van Dyke's manner did not appeal to him. So, too, her correct and colorless little stories, perhaps because constructed in the cool shadow of the angel's wings, struck him as having no "go!" Being a young man of frank nature, he did not take the trouble to conceal his impression, and Miss Van Dyke awoke to the painful consciousness that she was disapproved of by the new editor.
She was thinking of this as she stood at a window in the editorial rooms about half-past six o'clock on the afternoon of election day. There rose to her ears, from "Newspaper Row," the din of tin horns, fervently tooted by enthusiastic Tammanyites, who saw the approaching end of the so-called "reform administration." Even at this early hour it was admitted that Tammany had carried Greater New York by a sweeping plurality. The frantic shouts of loyal adherents of the Wigwam came to her from City Hall Park, where the crowd was watching the bulletins in front of the great newspaper offices for the returns. The entire staff of the "Evening Globe" was still on duty, its members toiling in the city room with tense nerves and haggard faces. From the basement came the thunder of the presses as they ground out the extras containing the latest news.
Miss Van Dyke knew that with the single exception of herself every woman on the paper was hard at work. The reflection was not a pleasant one. She brooded over it as her sorrowful eyes looked at the surging throng below her. While she gazed abstractedly at it a great roar came from the packed mass of humanity across the street. Another district had sent in returns for Tammany. The ringing cheer swept through the crowds in Park Row and across City Hall Park, to be taken up by other throats and sent in waves of sound up Broadway.
"Well, well, well,
Reform has gone to Hell,"
rang in her ears from the hoarsely shrieking throats of thousands of excited men. Miss Van Dyke turned from the window with a shocked expression.
Matthews brushed past her, his hat on the back of his head, his tie under his ear, his expression eloquent of disgust. He had not a word or glance for her—he who was usually her most loyal and devoted slave, and who had assured her that he should always continue to be at least this, as she would make him nothing more.
"A landslide for Tammany, is n't it?" called one of the artists as Matthews passed his easel. "Everything will be wide-open after this! Good times coming in the Tenderloin again. Eh, old man?"
"Coming," repeated Matthews, with contemptuous scorn. "They 've come. It's broken loose already. The Tenderloin has been celebrating for two hours past. By this time it's a blaze of the old-time glory."
He strode on, into the managing editor's office. With a sudden impulse Miss Van Dyke followed him. An inspiration had seized her, and she acted upon it without giving herself time for a second thought.
Her timid rap on the editor's door was unheard. She pushed it open and entered the "kennel," as the box of a room was irreverently styled by the staff. The tired-looking young man sat at his desk, which was littered with papers, telegrams, and long columns of "returns." He was talking quickly to Matthews when she entered, and both men looked in surprise at the small black figure before them.
"I beg your pardon," hesitated the girl. "I am sorry to interrupt you, but I have a suggestion for a special which I thought you might like to have me work up."
The managing editor's lips twitched rather impatiently, but he answered her with the businesslike courtesy he showed to all the women who worked for him.
"Thank you, Miss Van Dyke," he said, "but we 're very busy now. If you don't mind waiting until morning I can give your suggestion more careful consideration."
"I'm afraid it's something that won't wait," the girl persisted. She flushed a little. "I want you," she added, "to let me do the Tenderloin to-night—to describe its celebration of Tammany's victory from a woman's point of view."
Matthews uttered a startled ejaculation, but neither Miss Van Dyke nor the editor heard it. The latter had turned quickly, a sudden interest in his cool gray eyes.
"That's good," he said promptly. "Do it by all means. New thing—fresh point of view. Write the best story you ever wrote in your life. You 've got a splendid chance to turn in a good piece of work."
He thought a moment, and added more slowly: "Of course you must have some one with you. I 'll send Henderson along, and you can go from place to place in a carriage. Or perhaps Matthews would like to go," he added, turning to that young man with a sudden twinkle in his eyes, which showed that he had not been so oblivious to the social conditions of the office as he had seemed.
At this opening Matthews broke out in vigorous expostulation.
"She can't go," he said excitedly. "It's madness. I don't know what you 're thinking of.It's not Miss Van Dyke's kind of a story at all. Why don't you send Miss Masters if you want a Tenderloin special?" he demanded, forgetting the deference due his superior officer in his agitation.
The editor considered his objections gravely.
"That's true, Miss Van Dyke," he said, turning to her with a sudden lapse of interest. "It is n't your kind of a story, you know. Are you quite sure you realize what you 're attempting?"
"I should like to take the assignment," the newspaper woman returned nervously but firmly. "I think I can give you what you want. At least, I 'll do my best."
"Well, all right then," said the young man, briskly. He tapped his bell, and told the office boy who responded to get Henderson and a carriage. When Henderson entered, almost at once, he gave him some concise directions in a low tone. Then he turned again to Miss Van Dyke.
"I think a couple of hours uptown will be enough," he said kindly. "It won't be a pleasant experience for you. Then come back to the office and write the story while it is fresh. Turn it in to me when you 've finished it and go home for a good rest. Of course we won't expect you down to-morrow, as we 'll have your copy all ready for the first edition in the morning. I 've told Henderson to take you to a few places only, but they 're typical, and you 'll get the atmosphere. Are you going, Matthews?"
With words much too emphatic that youth declared that he was not, and reiterated his reasons, to which the managing editor lent but an indifferent ear. He had turned to his desk and was deep in the election returns again, so that he did not even hear Miss Van Dyke's timid "good-night" as she left his office. He had, in fact, forgotten her and her assignment within five minutes after her departure. This was not the case with the now miserable Matthews.
When Miss Van Dyke returned to the office at two o'clock in the morning she found that young man awaiting her with anguish on his brow. He had confided to all his associates on the "Evening Globe" the tragedy of the night, to which they listened without much comment. Ordinarily, it would have excited a great deal, but the work on election night was too pressing to permit of idle talk. He turned upon the tired reporter, as she entered, a face on which reproach and scorn were strongly blended. She lifted her hand, and the motion of the delicate fingers silenced the words that rushed to his lips.
"If you say one word to me," she asserted, "I shall cry." There was a treacherous break in her voice, though she had tried to make the words light. "I'm worn out," she continued, "and I have my story to write before I can go home. I know everything you want to say. It will be a waste of time to go over it. I want to be left in peace to do my work."
He opened his lips to speak, despite her protest.
"If you have any friendliness at all for me," she begged, "go away and leave me alone." And with a lowering brow he went.
Miss Van Dyke wrote her story, putting into it the best work of which she was capable. The wild scenes of the night were like a horrible dream in their effect on the quiet little woman who had gone to them still full of memories of convent gardens, and dimly lighted chapels where black-robed nuns prayed silently. She described them vividly and strongly, setting them down as she had seen them, not wholly understanding what she wrote, but giving to the public a story whose realism haunted many a man and woman who read it the next day. It was the report of innocence on vice, made with the fidelity with which a little child tells of some horror that it does not comprehend, and for that very reason describes the more effectively. Miss Van Dyke finished her story as dawn was breaking. Then she went alone through the gray streets, past dimly burning lamps, to the elevated train which carried her to a station near her up town boarding-house. There had been no arrangement made by the office for her safe conduct on this occasion. It had been taken for granted that a young woman who had done an election night special, describing the gayest scenes in gay New York, could afterwards make her way home alone.
She did not come to the office at all the next day. It was well that she did not, for the larger part of the day was given to the discussion and mental digestion of "Little Van Dyke's story." For the first time the members of the staff did not trouble themselves to say "Miss" Van Dyke, which they had been so careful to do before. The quiet little woman and her story were the talk of the office, and the comments upon both made Matthews set his teeth. Henderson epitomized the general feeling by his one remark at the end of a spirited debate as to how much she understood of what she had written.
"Anyhow," he said, with somewhat feeling sarcasm, "the angel was certainly off duty, temporarily;" and during the yell of laughter that followed, Matthews was conscious of a lust for Henderson's blood that alarmed him by its intensity. Later in the day, he overheard further remarks suggesting the general view of Miss Van Dyke's story.
"It's a corker," said the managing editor, with generous enthusiasm. "One of the best things of the kind I ever read. I might have known she had it in her. That quiet, shrinking type of woman always has."
"What a stunning bluff she put up on us!" laughed another man. "She took us all in—every one of us—with her convent manner and her nursery eyes. I thought she was fresh from vernal fields, but I guess she knows a few things." Matthews, listening to it all, wondered if he were becoming the victim of homicidal mania, since there seemed no other explanation for his feverish longing for the gore of these friends of his.
"Let's make her feel at home when she drops in," suggested the bright young woman who did sensational stories for the "Evening Globe." She wore blonde hair and much red paint, and she had always resented keenly the deep respect shown by the staff to Miss Van Dyke. The Tenderloin story was one she would have been glad to write if she had thought of it. Not having done so, she was pleased by the sentiment concerning Miss Van Dyke which that young person's story had called forth so freely.
"This will do it," she added jocosely, as she produced a large placard and nailed it above Miss Van Dyke's desk. It bore what the bright young woman called a sentiment appropriate to the occasion. "Welcome to Little Van Dyke," it read, in large black letters,—"the Tenderfoot of the Tenderloin." When the brilliant originator of this heard the laughter that greeted its appearance, she realized that success had crowned her sisterly efforts.
"Little Van Dyke" arrived at the office at eight o'clock the next morning, and marvelled at the silence that fell over the city room as she came in. The heads that usually rose to greet her remained bent over their desks. Her friends—and she had many—were bitterly chagrined by the step she had so innocently taken. Her enemies—and she had a few—exulted openly over it. Nevertheless, everybody waited for some one else to utter one of the pleasantries all knew were coming. The force of habit was strong, and despite themselves the staff shrank from speaking to this convent girl as they would have spoken to Miss Masters. As she approached her desk, Miss Van Dyke saw the placard hung on the wall. On her table were bottles, glasses, cigarette stumps, and other reminders of her recent experience. They watched her look at these, and then brush them aside, her pale cheeks flushing as she caught the implication. They noticed her slight figure straighten as she read the lurid sentiment on the wall. Then she tore it down and dropped it into her waste-paper basket, brushing the débris from her desk into the same receptacle as she took her seat. Several of the men who liked her, and who had thought that a little experience of the kind she was having might do her good, now felt that the matter had gone far enough, and rose to speak to her. They were interrupted by conversational pleasantries bearing on the case from some of the younger men scattered about the room. One of these, a youth to whom Miss Van Dyke had always objected, and whom she had rather pointedly avoided, sauntered up to her now with a lounging familiarity that made the blood of her champions boil.
"Why did n't you take me with you last night?" he asked in an easy, off-hand way. "I should have enjoyed it first rate, and you could have shown me a new phase of life."
The others followed his lead, not from cruelty, but because the situation appealed to their peculiar sense of humor.
"Well, we 've got almost as much of it as if we had gone," said one, comfortingly. "Miss Van Dyke's story conducted us all through the gilded haunts of the Tenderloin. She exhausted the subject, I tell you," the speaker laughed.
One of the girl's friends swore softly at this and she heard him. He would not have sworn in her presence last week, she thought. He seized his hat and left the room precipitately, missing the explanation which she now made to the assembled company.
"I can't understand your attitude this morning," she said with a dignified warmth. "I went on that assignment because it seemed to me a chance for good work. The managing editor liked the suggestion and told me to carry it out. I wrote a faithful report of what I saw, and that is all there is to it."
They listened quietly, with the mental reservations of those who knew more about the subject than the speaker did. Wheeler, one of her friends, came to her a little later.
"I could have told you, little girl," he said very gently, "what a serious blunder you were making. If I had been here I would most certainly have warned you that night. But I knew nothing about it until I came yesterday morning and found the office teeming with the story. It was a horrible mistake for you to make. It's an assignment no woman should have taken, and no good woman would have dreamed of attempting it—if she had realized what she was doing," he added hastily, as the girl paled under the words. "I'm afraid it will take you months to live it down."
Absurd as the words sounded, Miss Van Dyke found them very true. As the weeks passed she tried to slip back into her quiet little niche on the paper, but they would not have it so. Even the managing editor unconsciously added his share to her weight of woe. He had highly approved her Tenderloin story, and now, from day to day, he gave her others along similar lines.
"Give us something as good as that Tenderloin special, Miss Van Dyke," he would say, in open self-gratulation that she had emerged from beneath the angel's wing. At each repetition of the words the girl's heart grew heavier.
She wrote the stories with photographic accuracy, and they were satisfactory, although no other ever contained the brilliant work of that fatal night. She never became reconciled to the fact that the men now treated her as one of themselves, with a good-natured camaraderie, in which, however, the deference of the old days was wholly lacking. She knew that they called her "Little Van Dyke" and that "The Tenderfoot of the Tenderloin" still clung to her as a sobriquet. Also that there was no further reference to the angel that guided her pen. The managing editor's approval and the off-hand kindliness of her associates did not repay her for this lack, which she felt in every fibre of her sensitive nature.
Even the devoted Matthews was changed. He was as respectful, as deferential, as in the old days—even more so, as if he wished to make up, by his personal efforts, for the change in the office atmosphere. But he was irritable and moody and wholly unhappy, and each new assignment given to the "Little Tenderfoot" wrung his manly soul. Very early in their acquaintance he had laid his heart and hand at her feet, and she had declined both with gentle firmness and womanly appreciation of the honor he had offered her. He had never mentioned the matter again, but she had felt, until that eventful night, that he remained unchanged.
She was thinking it all over one afternoon, as he came to her desk in the city room.
"How much longer are you going to endure this?" he asked brusquely. "Do you realize that you 're taking rank on the paper with Miss Masters, who smokes and drinks, and is regarded as 'a good fellow' by the boys? Don't you see that your assignments are getting more and more objectionable all the time? Why don't you chuck it all?"
Miss Van Dyke turned her head wearily. "How can I?" she asked dismally. I 've got to make a living somehow. The way the men treat me is bad enough, but there's another thing that's worse. I'm in the position of the author of 'The Deceased Wife's Sister.' Everything I write is compared with that wretched Tenderloin story and found wanting. 'Give us another as good as that,' the editors say, and when I turn in the copy they look it over and grumble, 'Well, this is pretty good, but it is n't a patch on your election night special.' It's just as Mr. Wheeler said the next day. I shall never live it down, and yet I'm chained here, and there's no chance of my getting away."
The tears filled her eyes as she spoke. She openly wiped them away, glad that no one saw them but this loyal friend, who had been so faithful.
Matthews seized his opportunity, clever man that he was.
"Let me give you an assignment," he said earnestly. He leaned over her desk and took from her little hand the pen with which she had been drawing erratic designs on her desk blotter as she spoke.
"Drop this," he said urgently, his dark face flushed with earnestness. "Drop it for all time and come to me. Let me take care of you forever. Surely there is nothing finer in being a self-supporting woman than in marrying a poor human being like me and making him happy."
Miss Van Dyke looked into his dark eyes, her own falling beneath their expression of love and longing. In a sudden mental illumination she realized why it had been so hard for her to bear her little trials of the past two months under their critical but loving gaze. He had been so fine through it all. He had suffered for her and with her, and it had been unnecessary pain—for she knew now that she had loved him all along.
His stalwart form was between her and the desks near hers. It would be a human bulwark between her and the world, as long as it had life and strength, she knew. The career on which she had entered so happily seemed to have passed beyond her control. Others were shaping it—to her undoing. After all, a woman's place is in a home! She put her hand on the brown ones lying near her, which promptly aught and held it fast. A careful inspection out of the corner of his eye showed Matthews that Henderson was watching the little scene with polite interest. He had to content himself with a very tender pressure of the hand he held in his own.
"I—I think I 'll take the assignment," Miss Van Dyke whispered shyly.
For the first time since Tammany's return to power, the cloud lifted from the brow of Matthews.