An Ambitious Woman: A Novel

She was soon prepared to seek out Mrs. Diggs and pay her a long, intimate visit. She found her new friend in a small but charming home. The drawing-room into which she was shown displayed a great deal of good taste, and yet it had not a touch of needless grandeur. Its least detail, from the cushion of a sofa to the panel of a screen, suggested permanent and sensible usage. It was a room that shocked you with no inelegance, while it invited you by a sort of generally sympathetic upholstery and appointment.

Mrs. Diggs was delighted to hear of the new Twenty-Eighth Street residence. She took Claire's gloved hand in both of her slim, bony ones, and proffered the most effusive congratulations.

"It's so much nicer, don't you know, to be a real châtelaine, like that – to have your own four domiciliary walls, and not live in a honeycomb fashion, like a bee in its cell, with Heaven knows how many other bees buzzing all about you. I'm inexpressibly glad you've done it. Now you are lancée, don't you know? You can entertain people. And I'm sure, my dear, that you do want to entertain people."

Claire gave a pretty little trill of a laugh. "I have no people to entertain, yet," she said.

Mrs. Diggs was still holding her hand. "Oh, you sly mouse!" she exclaimed. "You've got great ideas in your head for the coming winter. Don't tell me you haven't. Remember our talks at Coney Island. And you're going straight for the big game. You're not of the sort that will be content with a small, low place. Not you! You want a large and a high one. It's going to be a great fight. Now, don't say it isn't. I know all about you. I dote on you, and I know all about you. You intend to try and be a leader. You've got it in you to be one, too. I believe you'll succeed – I do, honestly! I'll put my money on you, as that dear Manhattan of mine would say of a horse… You're not annoyed at me?"

"Not at all," smiled Claire. "But everything must have a beginning, you know. And I have no beginning, as yet. I have only met yourself and" … She paused, then, looking a little serious.

Here Mrs. Diggs dropped Claire's hand, and burst into a loud, hilarious laugh. Her mirth quite convulsed her for several seconds.

"Cornelia Van Horn!" she presently shouted in a riotously gleeful way. "Myself and Cornelia Van Horn! That is what you mean. Isn't it, now? Isn't it?"

She was looking at Claire with both hands in her lap and her angular body bent oddly forward. She gave the idea of a humorous human interrogation-mark.

"Well, yes," said Claire, soberly, and a little offendedly; "I do mean that. Pray what is there so funny about it?"

Mrs. Diggs again became convulsed with laughter: "Funny!" she at length managed to say. "Why, it's magnificent! It's delicious! You're going to tilt against Cornelia! Of course you are! You don't know a soul yet; you're quite obscure; but you have a sublime self-confidence. That is always the armor-bearer of genius; it carries the spear and shield of the conqueror. My dear, I always wanted to have somebody beard Cornelia in her den, don't you know, like the Douglas! I'm with you – don't forget that! I'll help you all I can. And when you've shaken the pillars of New York society to their foundations, please be grateful and recollect that I set you up to it."

She threw back her head and laughed again, in her boisterous, vehement, but never ill-bred way.

Claire sat and watched her. She was not even smiling now; she was biting her lip. She had concluded, some time ago, that she understood Mrs. Diggs perfectly. But she did not know, at present, in what spirit to take this noisy paroxysm. Was it sincere, amicable amusement, or was it pitiless and impudent mockery?

XV

But Claire's doubts were soon settled. If that visit did not precisely end them, a few succeeding days forever laid the ghost of her spleen. Mrs. Diggs had been jocundly candid, and that was all. No baleful sarcasms had pulsed beneath her vivacious prophecies. She soon convinced Claire that she was a stanch and loyal confederate.

She often dropped into the Twenty-Eighth Street house, and praised its appointments warmly. "Your little reception-room is perfect," she told Claire, "with those dark crimson walls and that furniture so covered with big pink roses. I like it immensely, don't you know? I wouldn't have liked it two or three years ago; I would have thought crimson and pink a weird discord; but fashion gives certain things their stamp; it makes us wake up, some morning, and find our hates turned to loves." About the dining-room, on the same floor, and the drawing-room, on the floor above, she was genially critical. This or that detail she discovered to be "not just quite right, don't you know?" and Claire in nearly all such cases changed dissent into agreement after a little serious reflection. Some of the resultant alterations involved decided expense. This Claire regretted while she would let her husband incur it. Hollister always did so readily enough. Wall Street had rather smiled upon him, of late. A few of his ventures had become bolder, but flattering successes had persistently followed them.

"The theatre is all lit," he said to her one evening, "but the curtain doesn't rise. How is that, Claire?"

She knew perfectly well what he meant, but chose to feign that she did not know. They had been surveying together a few decorative improvements, recently wrought, in mantel, dado, or even table-cover.

"I don't think I follow your metaphor," said Claire. There was the tiny outbreak of a smile at each corner of her mouth. It struck Hollister, who was standing quite near her, that she looked delightfully prim. He kissed her before he answered, and then, while he did so, let his lips almost graze her ear, saying in an absurd guttural semitone, as of melo-dramatic confidence: —

"I mean that it's time for Act First. Time for the lords and ladies to enter, with a grand flourish of trumpets. Of course, when they do come, they'll all kiss the hand of their charming hostess, just like this."

But she would not let him kiss her hand, though he caught it and made the attempt.

"There are no lords and ladies in New York," she said, laughing and receding from him at the same time. "And if they should come, they would never behave in such an old-fashioned style as that."

But though she treated them lightly, his words fed the fuel of her deep, keen longing. She had made up her mind that Mrs. Diggs had been right. She would never be content to take a low place. Nothing save the highest of all would ever satisfy her.

At the same time she clearly understood that great sums of money were needed to accomplish any such end. She spent several days of brooding trouble. She had not great sums of money – or rather, Hollister had not. And there seemed slight chance of her husband ever securing them.

"The season is dreadfully young yet," said Mrs. Diggs to her, the next day, while they sat together. "There is simply nothing going on. There are no teas, no receptions, and, of course, no balls. But we'll go and take our drive in the Park. Do hurry and dress."

Claire dressed, but not very quickly. She kept Mrs. Diggs waiting at least fifteen minutes. Mrs. Diggs's carriage was also waiting. It was not at all like its owner, this carriage. It was burly and somewhat cumbrous. The silver-harnessed horses that drew it had clipped tails and huge auburn bodies. But the wheels of the vehicle were touched here and there with a tasteful dash of scarlet, as if in pretty chromatic tribute to the violent complexion of "dear Manhattan." When they were being rolled side by side together in this easy-cushioned carriage, Mrs. Diggs said to Claire: —

"You kept me waiting a little eternity. I hate to wait. I suppose it's because I'm so nervous. I've been to three or four different doctors about my nervousness. They nearly all say it's a kind of dyspepsia. But that seems to me so ridiculous. Dyspepsia means indigestion, and I can digest a pair of tongs – no matter at what hour I should eat it. My dear Claire" (she had got to use this familiar address, of late), "I don't see how you can get on without a maid. That is why you're so slow with your bonnet and wraps; be sure it is. Oh, a maid is a wonderful comfort."

"So is a carriage like this," said Claire, smiling.

"Yes, a carriage is indispensable, too. At least I find it so. You will also, my dear, when you come to pay visits among a large circle of friends."

"I'm afraid that both the maid and the carriage will be out of my reach for a very long time yet," said Claire. "Our taking the house, you know, was a great act of extravagance."

"Oh, your husband is doing finely in Wall Street. I have heard from Manhattan about his brilliant strokes. Manhattan thinks him intensely clever. His success is creating a good deal of talk, I assure you."

This was true. Hollister would now often laugh and say: "The luck seems to be all on my side, Claire. And I don't take any very fearful risks, either, somehow. The money isn't coming in by hundreds, at present; it is coming in by thousands. I'm getting to be a rather important fellow; upon my word, I am. My own dawning prominence amuses me considerably. But it isn't turning my head the least in the world. A lot of the big men down there are taking me up. A month ago they scarcely knew if I existed."

Then he and Claire would talk together of the real speculative reasons for his success; he would find that she had forgotten hardly an item of past information; her judgments and decisions were sometimes so shrewd that they startled him, considering how purely they were based upon theory and hearsay. Once or twice he permitted her counsels to sway him, though not with her secured sanction. The result turned out notably well. He told her what he had done, and why he had done it, after the triumph had been achieved. She was by no means flattered on discovering the faith he had reposed in her. She even went so far as to markedly chide him for having reposed it.

"Remember, Herbert," she said, "that I am of necessity ignorant regarding these matters, in every practical sense. All my opinions are quite without the value of experience. Please never take me for your guide again. Never sell nor buy a single share because I venture the expression of an idea on sales or purchases. I am proud and glad to think myself the cause of your having made a lucky operation; that, of course, I need not tell you. But I should not forgive myself for ever leading you into disaster."

She reflected, secretly: 'How weak Herbert is! He is no doubt clear and quick of mind, and he is of just the light-hearted, easy temperament that has what he himself calls "nerve on the Street." But how weak he is in his trust of me! Does not that show him weak in other ways? Would a man of strong nature let his fondness ever so betray his prudence? I must be guarded hereafter in my talks with him. I really know nothing; I only use his knowledge to build upon. What he is doing is three quarters mere hazard, and the rest cleverness. I see plainly that he has begun a very precarious career. He may win in it; others have won. He may win enormously; I am just beginning to accept his chances of doing so. But there must be no balking and thwarting on my part. He would ruin himself, most probably, if I proposed it. He is so weak where I am concerned! Yes, in all such ways he is so weak!'

She could not dwell upon the fact of this weakness with any tender feeling. She had grown to accept his love as something so natural and ordinary that she could coldly survey as a flaw any point in its devotion which verged upon indiscreet excess. Just at this period in her life it sometimes struck her that she was very cold toward her husband. But no pang of conscience accompanied the realization. She had disguised nothing from Herbert. He knew precisely what she wished to do. He even sympathized with her aim, and desired to abet it. She could not help being cold. Besides, he had never offered the faintest objection to her coldness. He evidently wanted her to be just as she was. And moreover, she was no different at this hour, when the possibility of a great social victory assumed definite outlines – when she was his wife and the mistress of his household – when she was sure of sharing his fortunes until death should end further companionship – than she had been at the hour when he had first asked her to marry him. She had a great sense of duty toward him. She meant to leave no obligation of wifely fealty unfulfilled. And this determination, flinchlessly kept, must stand for him in place of passion. She had no passion to give him. She had given all that to her dear dead father. If he were alive, now, and dwelling with her, what joy she would have in putting her arms about his neck, her lips to his cheek, and telling him how the hopes whose seed he had sown long ago might soon ripen into splendid fruit!

"You tell me that you have new adherents, new friends," she soon said to her husband. "If any of them are people of prominence – of the sort I would wish to know – why do you not ask them here, to our house?"

"True enough," said Hollister. "That is an idea." And then, with beaming hesitation, he added: "But I thought you would not want them without their wives."

Claire seemed to meditate, for a slight time. "I should not want them without their wives," she presently said, "unless I felt sure that their wives were the kind of women whom I would be very willing to have among my acquaintances."

A few days later Hollister announced to Claire that he had arranged a dinner at which some four gentlemen besides himself were to be present. He had placed the whole affair in the hands of a noted restaurateur, who assured him that it should be conducted on the most admirable plan.

"It was intended as a little surprise for you," he said. "The men are all of the kind that I am nearly sure you will approve. I mean they are what is called "in society." You see, I am getting quite wise with regard to these matters. A few weeks have made a world of difference with me. I am waking up to a sense of who is who. Before, it was all stupid treadmill sort of work. I cared very little about associates, connections, influence. I wanted to make both ends meet, and found the process a rather dull one. Now I am in a wholly different frame of mind. I am beginning to amuse myself as much by the study of men as by the study of stocks. I have several distinct adherents, several more distinct supporters, and one or two would-be patrons. I don't think I was ever unpopular on the Street; I was simply unimportant. But now that I'm important I have got to be quite popular… I dare say the whole thing is attributable to yourself, Claire. You've pricked me into life. I was torpid till I met and knew you."

She was considerably alarmed about the plan of the dinner-party. She was not at all sure if it would be in good style for Hollister to give it with herself as the only lady present. As soon as circumstances permitted, she hastened to consult with Mrs. Diggs.

"Oh, it's all right," decided the oracle. "You are always certain of being correct form if you do anything like that in company with your husband. But, my dear Claire, it is too bad that you couldn't find three more ladies besides yourself and me. You see, I invite myself provisionally, so to speak. Isn't it dreadful of me? But then I take such an interest in you that I want to be present, don't you know, at the laying of your corner-stone. Manhattan ought to be asked, too, dear fellow; it's etiquette, don't you know? But then you need not mind, this once."

"I wish that I knew three more ladies," said Claire, thoughtfully.

"Yes … that would make a dinner of just ten. A dinner of ten is so charming. Mr. Hollister wouldn't object, would he?"

Claire quickly shook her head. "Oh," she said, "Herbert never objects."

It was so seriously spoken that Mrs. Diggs broke into one of her most mutinous laughs. "How delicious!" she exclaimed. "What a superb conjugal truth you condense in one demure little epigram!.. Well, if 'Herbert,' as you say, 'never objects,' there is … let me see … there is Cornelia Van Horn."

"Would she come if I asked her?" said Claire.

"You haven't asked her, so of course you don't know. Nobody can ever predicate anything about Cornelia. But considering how grand was her amiability at Coney Island, I should say that… Well, yes, I should say that Cornelia would come." Here Mrs. Diggs raised one thin finger, and shook it in smiling admonition. "That is," she added, "if you call on her, as she requested."

Claire looked grave. "I will call on her," she at length said. "I have not felt sure whether I would or no. I did not like her way of asking me, or her manner beforehand… But I will call on her, provided there are two other ladies." Here she paused a moment, and then proceeded with decision. "But of course there are no other two ladies. At least, not yet."

Mrs. Diggs's eyes were sparkling most humorously. "I don't know why it is," she exclaimed, "that you always entertain me so when you talk of Cousin Cornelia. There's a latent pugnaciousness in the very way that you mention her name. It seems to be fated that you and she shall become dire foes. She's so big and mighty that I'm always reminded, when you discuss her, of dauntless little David, with his sling and stone, marching against the doughty old giant… As for our one other lady, Claire, how about Mrs. Arcularius?"

"Mrs. Arcularius? Why, we have quarreled."

"Nonsense. You snubbed her mildly. I don't doubt that she will come. Women at her time of life have survived nearly every sentiment except that of appetite. Ten to one that she will scent the odor of a good dinner, and come, as your dear former instructress, and all that, don't you know?"

"Very well," said Claire, with gravity; "I might ask her. But then there would be the fifth lady. I am afraid that she is not to be found."

Mrs. Diggs put one slim hand to one pale temple, and drooped her bright eyes. "I have it!" she presently exclaimed. "There is my other cousin, Jane Van Corlear. We won't ask Jane until we are sure of the others. Then we shall be certain of getting her to fill the vacant place. You remember her at Coney Island, don't you? No? Well, in a certain sense nobody ever remembers poor Jane, and nobody ever forgets her. She has been a widow for years, like Cornelia. But she never asserts herself. She is tallowy, obese, complaisant. She rarely goes anywhere, and yet she leaves a sort of aristocratic trail wherever she has been. She will accept if I tell her to; she always gives in to me, though in her sluggish way I know she thinks me objectionable. Poor Jane is a perfect goose, and yet I dote on her. She is such a dear, consistent, inoffensive, companionable goose, don't you know? Claire, your dinner-party is entirely arranged."

"I am afraid not," said Claire, dubiously.

The next day she and Mrs. Diggs concocted the invitations together. On the day following, the two ladies whom they had asked each sent a courteous, conventional refusal.

Mrs. Van Horn gave no reason for her refusal. Mrs. Arcularius mentioned a previous engagement as the reason of her non-acceptance.

"You see," said Claire, to her fallacious counselor, "our ladies are not obtainable, after all."

She was secretly chagrined; but Mrs. Diggs showed herself openly so. "It is too bad!" declared the latter. "I've a lurking belief in the authenticity of Mrs. Arcularius's 'previous engagement.' As for Cornelia, I suspect pique at your not having been to visit her. But we shall see what we shall see, regarding Mrs. Van Horn. Of course our little dinner is ruined. You must preside as the only woman, Claire, and I don't doubt you will do it charmingly. But I shall drop in upon Cornelia to-morrow, and try to sound the unfathomable."

Mrs. Diggs did so, and on the afternoon of the same day she sought out Claire, filled with her recent exploring skirmish.

"She received me, my dear Claire, with a great deal of high-nosed graciousness. I hadn't been three minutes in her presence before I felt that her cold, serene eyes were reading me through and through. She mentioned you herself; she made it a point to do so. She spoke of you as that pretty young woman whom Beverley used to know. Then she recollected that you had asked her to dinner. 'But of course I could not accept,' she said, with her best sort of ducal look. 'I do not really know your friend. I have met her only once, and then for a few minutes.' She wanted to change the conversation, after that; she has vast tact in the way of changing conversations; great leaders like herself always have. But I wouldn't put up with that at all. I am usually a good deal awed by Cornelia. But I made up my mind not to be awed to-day at any hazard. I reminded her that she had sought to know you and asked you to visit her. I showed her that I wouldn't stand her delicate rapier-thrusts. I swung a bludgeon, and I flatter myself that I swung it rather well. I told her that she had given you a perfect right to invite her. I told her that you had treated her with unusual courtesy, and that instead of leaving a slip of meaningless pasteboard with her footman, you had resolved on the more honest and significant civility of asking her to dinner. Moreover, I added, the fact of her brother having been your most intimate friend had rendered, to my thinking, the civility a still more kindly and genuine one."

"You must have made her very angry," said Claire, with a peculiar fleeting smile.

"Angry? She was in a white heat. She could never be in a red one, don't you know, she is so constitutionally placid and chill. She replied that you had actually attempted to offer her patronage, and that your effort had amused her not a little."

"Did she say that?" questioned Claire, with a certain quick eagerness. "Then I was right at first. She had some unpleasant purpose in wanting me to visit her."

"Good gracious!" exclaimed Mrs. Diggs; "you never suggested such a thing before!"

Claire had grown very grave and calm again. "Did I not?" she said. "Well, I had supposed it. It was a sort of fancy."

Mrs. Diggs took one of Claire's hands and held it, at the same time giving her an intent look.

"You're keeping something from me," she said. "Yes, Claire, I know you are… Did Beverley Thurston ever ask you to marry him?"

Claire colored to the roots of her rich-tinted tresses. She tried to draw her hand away, but Mrs. Diggs still retained it.

"He did!" exclaimed her friend. "Your complexion tells me so! Everything is explained now. You refused Beverley. Yes, my dear, you refused him. And she somehow got wind of it. Perhaps Beverley told, or perhaps his complexion, like yours, divulged secrets, don't you know?.. And yet, on second thought, Beverley's complexion could do nothing so expressive; it is too battered and world-worn; its capability for blushing is entirely null… No, he told her. And she has not forgiven you, and never will. Her monstrous pride would not permit her to do so. I understand everything, now. You remember what I told you about her clannish feeling – how she loves to quietly exalt her family name?.. Ah, my dear Claire, you have committed, in her eyes, the great unpardonable sin. I was right; I felt it to be in the air that you and she would prove enemies. I begin to think myself a sort of haphazard sibyl; I divined what would happen, and it has happened. You have presumed to refuse her brother, and Cornelia knows it. Prepare to be crushed."

Claire lightly tossed her graceful head, and her lip curled a little as she did so.

"I am not at all prepared to be crushed," she said. "Mrs. Van Horn has spoiled our prospective dinner-party, as regards ladies, but she has not spoiled me."

"Delightful!" declared Mrs. Diggs, softly clapping her hands. "That's the spirit I like to see. The fight has begun; it's going to be serious. But remember that I am always your devoted auxiliary!" …

The dinner took place. There were no ladies present except Claire herself. It was an extremely elegant dinner. Claire rose when coffee was being served, and left the gentlemen together. She performed, so to speak, her unaided office of hostess with singular charm and dignity. And during the progress of the dinner she made a friend.

This was Mr. Stuart Goldwin. Everybody in Wall Street knew Stuart Goldwin. He had drifted into that stormy region of risk about four years ago. He had so drifted from a remote New England town, and his speculative successes had been phenomenal. He was reputed to be worth, at present, a good many millions of dollars. He had acquired an enormous influence among his constituents; he was the reigning Wall Street King. But he had none of the vulgarity which had marked a few of his immediate predecessors; he had always shown a full appreciation of his royalty and the duties resultant from it. He had been admitted, with singular promptness, into the social holy of holies; he was hand in glove with what are termed the best people; he belonged to three or four of the most select clubs; his circle of acquaintances had rapidly become huge. Women liked him as much as men. He was personally the type of man whom women like. His frame was tall and imposing; he wore a large tawny mustache, which drooped with silky abundance below a delicately-cut nostril. His eyes were large, and of a soft, glistening hazel. His manners were full of a fascinating frankness. His age was about forty years, but he might have passed for considerably younger. Books had not fed his rapid and distinctive intelligence, for he had no time to read them; and yet he had caught the reverberation, as it were, of the best and newest ideas announced by the best and newest writers.

Claire thought him delightful. He, in turn, thought her even more than this. She was a discovery to him. He had never married, and he was fond of saying, in his blithe, epigrammatic way, that half womankind was so enchanting to him as to have made, in his own case, anything except the most Oriental polygamy quite out of the question. He had wit in no small store, but when he liked a woman greatly it was his most deft of arts to keep this in very judicious reserve, and employ it only as a means of subtly wooing forth the mental sparkle of her to whom he paid court.

Claire found herself vain, in a covert way, of her own conversational gifts, before she had talked with Goldwin more than twenty minutes. She would have liked to talk with him exclusively during the dinner, but her two other guests were persons of importance who ought not to receive her impolitic neglect. She managed matters with tact and skill. Everybody thought her charming when she glided from the dining-room, in decorous retreat before that little anti-feminine bayonet, the after-dinner cigar. She had made a distinct success. She felt it as she sat in the drawing-room, waiting for the gentlemen to ascend and join her.

Goldwin had not deceived her. She read him with lucid insight. She saw him to be imposingly superficial; she perceived him to be a man whose polished filigrees would ring hollow at so much as one sincere tap of the finger-nail. He was agreeable to her, but not admirable; he captivated, but he did not dazzle her. She compared him with Beverley Thurston (never thinking to compare him with her husband), and noted all the more clearly his lack of genuine and manly magnitude. He came and joined her before any of the other gentlemen. His face was a little flushed from the wine he had taken, but with no unbecoming suggestion of excess.

"I couldn't stay away from you," he said, sinking into a happy, half-lounging posture on the sofa at her side. He was faultlessly dressed, in garments that seemed to accept every bend of his fine moulded figure without a wrinkle of their dark, flexible surface. "Your husband smokes the nicest sort of cigar, but he has another possession that seems to me vastly superior." Then he broke into a mellow laugh, and waved one hand hither and thither, with an air of mock explanation. "I allude to this beautiful little drawing-room," he continued.

His mirthful sidelong look made Claire echo his laugh. "I will tell Herbert how much you like it," she said; "he will be so pleased to know."

"Pray do nothing of the sort!" he expostulated, with a good deal of comic seriousness. "I should never forgive you if you did. Husbands are such oddly jealous fellows. There is no telling what innocent little outburst of esteem may sometimes offend them."

Claire thought the time had come for a decisive parry, in the parlance of fencers. "Oh, Herbert is not at all jealous," she said, measuring the words just enough not to make them seem out of accord with her bright smile. "He has never had the least occasion to be, I assure you."

He fixed his eyes with soft intentness on her sweet, blooming face. "Never?" he questioned, quite low of tone.

"Never," she answered, gently laconic.

"But he might take some stupid pretext … who knows?"

"Oh, if he did I would soon show him the stupidity of it. We understand each other excellently."

They talked on for at least a half hour. The other gentlemen remained below. Goldwin made no more daring complimentary hazards. He listened quite as much as he talked. Their converse turned upon social matters – upon what sort of a season it would be – upon the coming opera – upon the nature of New York entertainments – upon the men and women who were to give them. Claire made it very plain to him that she wanted to enter the gay lists. She at length said: —

"Do you know Mrs. Van Horn?"

Goldwin laughed. "Why don't you ask me if I know the City Hall," he said, "or the Stock Exchange? Of course I know her."

"Do you like her?"

"Nobody ever likes her. Who likes statues?"

"People sometimes worship them."

"Oh, she is a good deal worshiped, if you mean that."

Hollister and his two remaining guests now appeared. Claire re-welcomed both the latter gentlemen with beaming suavity. They were both important personages, as it has been recorded. They both had important wives, to whom they repaired, a little later, and to whom they loudly sang praises of Claire's loveliness. The remarks of each took substantially the same form, and the following might be given as their connubial and somewhat florid average: —