The City of Masks/Chapter 3
CHAPTER III
THE CITY OF MASKS
NEW YORK is not merely a melting pot for the poor and the humble of the lands of the earth. In its capacious depths, unknown and unsuspected, float atoms of an entirely different sort: human beings with the blood of the high-born and lofty in their veins, derelicts swept up by the varying winds of adversity, adventure, injustice, lawlessness, fear and independence.
Lords and ladies, dukes and duchesses, counts and countesses, swarm to the Metropolis in the course of the speeding year, heralded by every newspaper in the land, fêted and feasted and glorified by a capricious and easily impressed public; they pass with pomp and panoply and we let them go with reluctance and a vociferous invitation to come again. They come and they go, and we are informed each morning and evening of every move they have made during the day and night. We are told what they eat for breakfast, luncheon and dinner; what they wear and what they do not wear; where they are entertained and by whom; who they are and why; what they think of New York and—but why go on? We deny them privacy, and they think we are a wonderful, considerate and hospitable people. They go back to their homes in far-off lands,—and that is the end of them so far as we are concerned.
They merely pause on the lip of the melting pot, briefly peer into its simmering depths, and then,—pass on.
It is not with such as they that this narrative has to deal. It is not of the heralded, the glorified and the toasted that we tell, but of those who slip into the pot with the coarser ingredients, and who never, by any chance, become actually absorbed by the processes of integration but remain for ever as they were in the beginning: distinct foreign substances.
From all quarters of the globe the drift comes to our shores. New York swallows the good with the bad, and thrives, like the cannibal, on the man-food it gulps down with ravenous disregard for consequences or effect. It rarely disgorges.
It eats all flesh, foul or fair, and it drinks good red blood out of the same cup that offers a black and nauseous bile. It conceals its inward revulsion behind a bland, disdainful smile, and holds out its hands for more of the meat and poison that comes up from the sea in ships.
It is the City of Masks.
Its men and women hide behind a million masks; no man looks beneath the mask his neighbour wears, for he is interested only in that which he sees with the least possible effort: the surface. He sees his neighbour but he knows him not. He keeps his own mask in place and wanders among the millions, secure in the thought that all other men are as casual as he,—and as charitable.
From time to time the newspapers come forward with stories that amaze and interest those of us who remain, and always will remain, romantic and impressionable. They tell of the royal princess living in squalor on the lower east side; of the heir to a baronetcy dying in poverty in a hospital somewhere up-town; of the countess who defies the wolf by dancing in the roof-gardens; of the lost arch-duke who has been recognized in a gang of stevedores; of the earl who lands in jail as an ordinary hobo; of the baroness who supports a shiftless husband and their offspring by giving music-lessons; of the retiring scholar who scorns a life of idlness and a coronet besides; of shifty ne'er-do-wells with titles at homes and aliases elsewhere; of fugitive lords and forgotten ladies; of thieves and bauds and wastrels who stand revealed in their extremity as the sons and daughters of noble houses.
In this City of Masks there are hundreds of men and women in whose veins the blood of a sound aristocracy flows. By choice or necessity they have donned the mask of obscurity. They tread the paths of oblivion. They toil, beg or steal to keep pace with circumstance. But the blood will not be denied. In the breast of each of these drifters throbs the pride of birth, in the soul of each flickers the unquenchable flame of caste. The mask is for the man outside, not for the man inside.
Recently there died in one of the municipal hospitals an old flower-woman, familiar for three decades to the thousands who thread their way through the maze of streets in the lower end of Manhattan. To them she was known as Old Peg. To herself she was the Princess Feododric, born to the purple, daughter of one of the greatest families in Russia. She was never anything but the Princess to herself, despite the squalor in which she lived. Her epitaph was written in the bold, black head-lines of the newspapers; but her history was laid away with her mask in a graveyard far from palaces—and flower-stands. Her headstone revealed the uncompromising pride that survived her after death. By her direction it bore the name of Feododric, eldest daughter of His Highness, Prince Michael Androvodski; born in St. Petersburgh, September 12, 1841; died Jan. 7, 1912; wife of James Lumley, of County Cork, Ireland.
It is of the high-born who dwell in low places that this tale is told. It is of an aristocracy that serves and smiles and rarely sneers behind its mask.
When Cricklewick announced the Princess Mariana Theresa the hush of deference fell upon the assembled company. In the presence of royalty no one remained seated.
She advanced slowly, ponderously into the room, bowing right and left as she crossed to the great chair at the upper end. One by one the others presented themselves and kissed the coarse, unlovely hand she held out to them. It was not "make-believe." It was her due. The blood of a king and a queen coursed through her veins; she had been born a Princess Royal.
She was sixty, but her hair was as black as the coat of the raven. Time, tribulation, and a harsh destiny had put each its own stamp upon her dark, almost sinister, face. The black eyes were sharp and calculating, and they did not smile with her thin lips. She wore a great amount of jewellery and a gown of blue velvet, lavishly bespangled and generously embellished with laces of many periods, values and, you could say, nativity.
The Honourable Mrs. Priestly-Duff having been a militant suffragette before a sudden and enforced departure from England, was the only person there with the hardihood to proclaim, not altogether sotto voce, that the "get-up" was a fright.
Restraint vanished the instant the last kiss of tribute fell upon her knuckles. The Princess put her hand to her side, caught her breath sharply, and remarked to the Marchioness, who stood near by, that it was dreadful the way she was putting on weight. She was afraid of splitting something if she took a long, natural breath.
"I haven't weighed myself lately," she said, "but the last time I had this dress on it felt like a kimono. Look at it now! You could not stuff a piece of tissue paper between it and me to save your soul. I shall have to let it out a couple of— What were you about to say, Count Fogazario?"
The little Count, at the Marchioness's elbow, repeated something he had already said, and added:
"And if it continues there will not be a trolley-car running by midnight."
The Princess eyed him coldly. "That is just like a man," she said. "Not the faintest idea of what we were talking about, Marchioness."
The Count bowed. "You were speaking of tissue paper, Princess," said he, stiffly. "I understood perfectly."
Once a week the Marchioness held her amazing salon. Strictly speaking, it was a co-operative affair. The so-called guests were in reality contributors to and supporters of an enterprise that had been going on for the matter of five years in the heart of unsuspecting New York. According to his or her means, each of these exiles paid the tithe or tax necessary, and became in fact a member of the inner circle.
From nearly every walk in life they came to this common, converging point, and sat them down with their equals, for the moment laying aside the mask to take up a long-discarded and perhaps despised reality. They became lords and ladies all over again, and not for a single instant was there the slightest deviation from dignity or form.
Moral integrity was the only requirement, and that, for obvious reasons, was sometimes overlooked,—as for example in the case of the Countess who eloped with the young artist and lived in complacent shame and happiness with him in a three-room flat in East Nineteenth street. The artist himself was barred from the salon, not because of his ignoble action, but for the sufficient reason that he was of ignoble birth. Outside the charmed conclave he was looked upon as a most engaging chap. And there was also the case of the appallingly amiable baron who had fired four shots at a Russian Grand-Duke and got away with his life in spite of the vaunted secret service. It was of no moment whatsoever that one of his bullets accidentally put an end to the life of a guardsman. That was merely proof of his earnestness and in no way reflected on his standing as a nobleman. Nor was it adequate cause for rejection that certain of these men and women were being sought by Imperial Governments because they were political fugitives, with prices on their heads.
The Marchioness, more prosperous than any of her associates, assumed the greater part of the burden attending this singular reversion to form. It was she who held the lease on the building, from cellar to roof, and it was she who paid that important item of expense: the rent. The Marchioness was no other than the celebrated Deborah, whose gowns issuing from the lower floors at prodigious prices, gave her a standing in New York that not even the plutocrats and parvenus could dispute. In private life she may have been a Marchioness, but to all New York she was known as the queen of dressmakers.
If you desired to consult Deborah in person you inquired for Mrs. Sparflight, or if you happened to be a new customer and ignorant, you were set straight by an attendant (with a slight uplifting of the eyebrows) when you asked for Madame "Deborah."
The ownership of the rare pieces of antique furniture, rugs, tapestries and paintings was vested in two members of the circle, one occupying a position in the centre of the ring, the other on the outer rim: Count Antonio Fogazario and Moody, the footman. For be it known that while Moody reverted once a week to a remote order of existence he was for the balance of the time an exceedingly prosperous, astute and highly respected dealer in antiques, with a shop in Madison Avenue and a clientele that considered it the grossest impertinence to dispute the prices he demanded. He always looked forward to these "drawing-rooms," so to speak. It was rather a joy to disregard the aspirates. He dropped enough hs on a single evening to make up for a whole week of deliberate speech.
As for Count Antonio, he was the purveyor of Italian antiques and primitive paintings, "authenticity guaranteed," doing business under the name of "Juneo & Co., Ltd. London, Paris, Rome, New York." He was known in the trade and at his bank as Mr. Juneo.
Occasionally the exigencies of commerce necessitated the substitution of an article from stock for one temporarily loaned to the fifth-floor drawing-room.
During the seven days in the week, Mr. Moody and Mr. Juneo observed a strained but common equality. Mr. Moody contemptuously referred to Mr. Juneo as a second-hand dealer, while Mr. Juneo, with commercial bitterness, informed his patrons that Pickett, Inc., needed a lot of watching. But on these Wednesday nights a vast abyss stretched between them. They were no longer rivals in business. Mr. Juneo, without the slightest sign of arrogance, put Mr. Moody in his place, and Mr. Moody, with perfect equanimity, quite properly stayed there.
"A chair over here, Moody," the Count would say (to Pickett, Inc.,) and Moody, with all the top-lofty obsequiousness of the perfect footman, would place a chair in the designated spot, and say:
"H'anythink else, my lord? Thank you, sir."
On this particular Wednesday night two topics of paramount interest engaged the attention of the company. The newspapers of that day had printed the story of the apprehension and seizure of one Peter Jolinski, wanted in Warsaw on the charge of assassination.
As Count Andreas Verdray he was known to this exclusive circle of Europeans, and to them he was a persecuted, unjustly accused fugitive from the land of his nativity. Russian secret service men had run him to earth after five years of relentless pursuit. As a respectable, industrious window-washer he had managed for years to evade arrest for a crime he had not committed, and now he was in jail awaiting extradition and almost certain death at the hands of his intriguing enemies. A cultured scholar, a true gentleman, he was, despite his vocation, one of the most distinguished units in this little world of theirs. The authorities in Warsaw charged him with instigating the plot to assassinate a powerful and autocratic officer of the Crown. In more or less hushed voices, the assemblage discussed the unhappy event.
The other topic was the need of immediate relief for the family of the Baroness de Flamme, who was on her death-bed in Harlem and whose three small children, deprived of the support of a hard-working music-teacher and deserted by an unconscionably plebeian father, were in a pitiable state of destitution. Acting on the suggestion of Lord Temple, who as Thomas Trotter earned a weekly stipend of thirty dollars as chauffeur for a prominent Park Avenue gentleman, a collection was taken, each person giving according to his means. The largest contribution was from Count Fogazario, who headed the list with twenty-five dollars. The Marchioness was down for twenty. The smallest donation was from Prince Waldemar. Producing a solitary coin, he made change, and after saving out ten cents for carfare, donated forty cents.
Cricklewick, Moody and McFaddan were not invited to contribute. No one would have dreamed of asking them to join in such a movement. And yet, of all those present, the three men-servants were in a better position than any one else to give handsomely. They were, in fact, the richest men there. The next morning, however, would certainly bring checks from their offices to the custodian of the fund, the Hon. Mrs. Priestly-Duff. They knew their places on Wednesday night, however.
The Countess du Bara, from the Opera, sang later on in the evening; Prince Waldemar got out his violin and played; the gay young baroness from the Artists' Colony played accompaniments very badly on the baby grand piano; Cricklewick and the footmen served coffee and sandwiches, and every one smoked in the dining-room.
At eleven o'clock the Princess departed. She complained a good deal of her feet.
"It's the weather," she explained to the Marchioness, wincing a little as she made her way to the door.
"Too bad," said the Marchioness. "Are we to be honoured on next Wednesday night, your highness? You do not often grace our gatherings, you know. I—"
"It will depend entirely on circumstances," said the Princess, graciously.
Circumstances, it may be mentioned,—though they never were mentioned on Wednesday nights,—had a great deal to do with the Princess's actions. She conducted a pawn-shop in Baxter street. As the widow and sole legatee of Moses Jacobs, she was quite a figure in the street. Customers came from all corners of the town, and without previous appointment. Report had it that Mrs. Jacobs was rolling in money. People slunk in and out of the front door of her place of business, penniless on entering, affluent on leaving,—if you would call the possession of a dollar or two affluence,—and always with the resolve in their souls to some day get even with the leech who stood behind the counter and doled out nickels where dollars were expected.
It was an open secret that more than one of those who kissed the Princess's hand in the Marchioness's drawing-room carried pawnchecks issued by Mrs. Jacobs. Business was business. Sentiment entered the soul of the Princess only on such nights as she found it convenient and expedient to present herself at the Salon. It vanished the instant she put on her street clothes on the floor below and passed out into the night. Avarice stepped in as sentiment stepped out, and one should not expect too much of avarice.
For one, the dreamy, half-starved Prince Waldemar was rarely without pawnchecks from her delectable establishment. Indeed it had been impossible for him to entertain the company on this stormy evening except for her grudging consent to substitute his overcoat for the Stradivarius he had been obliged to leave the day before.
Without going too deeply into her history, it is only necessary to say that she was one of those wayward, wilful princesses royal who occasionally violate all tradition and marry good-looking young Americans or Englishmen, and disappear promptly and automatically from court circles.
She ran away when she was nineteen with a young attaché in the British legation. It was the worst thing that could have happened to the poor chap. For years they drifted through many lands, finally ending in New York, where, their resources having been exhausted, she was forced to pawn her jewellery. The pawn-broker was one Abraham Jacobs, of Baxter street.
The young English husband, disheartened and thoroughly disillusioned, shot himself one fine day. By a single coincidence, a few weeks afterward, old Abraham went to his fathers in the most agreeable fashion known to nature, leaving his business, including the princess's jewels, to his son Moses.
With rare foresight and acumen, Mrs. Brinsley (the Princess, in other words), after several months of contemplative mourning, redeemed her treasure by marrying Moses. And when Moses, after begetting Solomon, David and Hannah, passed on at the age of twoscore years and ten, she continued the business with even greater success than he. She did not alter the name that flourished in large gold letters on the two show windows and above the hospitable doorway. For twenty years it had read: The Royal Exchange: M. Jacobs, Proprietor. And now you know all that is necessary to know about Mariana, to this day a true princess of the blood.
Inasmuch as a large share of her business came through customers who preferred to visit her after the fall of night, there is no further need to explain her reply to the Marchioness.
When midnight came the Marchioness was alone in the deserted drawing-room. The company had dispersed to the four corners of the storm-swept city, going by devious means and routes.
They fared forth into the night sans ceremony, sans regalia. In the locker-rooms on the floor below each of these noble wights divested himself and herself of the raiment donned for the occasion. With the turning of a key in the locker door, barons became ordinary men, countesses became mere women, and all of them stole regretfully out of the passage at the foot of the first flight of stairs and shivered in the wind that blew through the City of Masks.
"I've got more money than I know what to do with, Miss Emsdale," said Tom Trotter, as they went together out into the bitter wind. "I'll blow you off to a taxi."
"I couldn't think of it," said the erstwhile Lady Jane, drawing her small stole close about her neck.
"But it's on my way home," said he. "I'll drop you at your front door. Please do."
"If I may stand half," she said resolutely.
"We'll see," said he. "Wait here in the doorway till I fetch a taxi from the hotel over there. Oh, I say, Herman, would you mind asking one of those drivers over there to pick us up here?"
"Sure," said Herman, one time Count Wilhelm Frederick Von Blitzen, who had followed them to the sidewalk. "Fierce night, ain'd it? Py chiminy, ain'd it?"
"Where is your friend, Mr. Trotter," inquired Miss Emsdale, as the stalwart figure of one of the most noted head-waiters in New York struggled off against the wind.
"He beat it quite a while ago," said he, with an enlightening grin.
"Oh?" said she, and met his glance in the darkness. A sudden warmth swept over her.