Chapter II
WHEN King Dubignon left Cornell and some seven hundred who had labored with him through several years of architecture and watercolor, he bore with him the consciousness that final examples of his work, left there, had not been excelled, and the memory of many friendly assurances that his place was waiting for him out in the great world. That he construed these assurances too literally was the fault of his temperament, and so, perfectly natural. Home yearning pulled him back to his beloved South for the initial plunge, and it was not long before his name in gilt invited the confidence of the good people of Macon, who had castles in the air.
The field proved narrow and depressing for one of his profession and temperament. The seven-room cottage of many colors seemed the limit of popular imagination at that time.
This, for a young man who was bursting with ideas, and who dreamed of thirty-live story buildings and marble palaces printing graceful lines against skies of blue! The years that slipped held some minor triumphs, but he classed them as time wasted.
Then a provincial board turned down his modern school building for a combination barn, silo and garage, designed by somebody’s nephew, and the proverbial straw was on the celebrated camel’s back.
It was a spring day when the camel’s spine collapsed. Birds were building homes for themselves, and wonderful flowers were solving, without human aid, marvels of form and color, and voices were calling to him across years unborn. Ah, those voices! He placed a foot under the corner of his drawing table and wrecked it against the wall.
Three days later he was in New York, that Mecca of ambitious young Southerners, and at the door of Beeker, Toomer & Church, esteemed by him and many another as the great city’s leading architects. Mr. Church, the junior partner, heard his application. A little smile hovered about the man’s thin lips, and a slight movement of the lines leading southeast and southwest from the nostrils expressed a cynical weariness.
“On an average,” said he with an air of calculation, “we have applications from Cornell men at the rate of six a week. And there are others!” He waved a hand feebly toward a vista of rooms with bending forms therein. “We can’t always keep the crowd we have busy.”
“I know all about that,” said King coolly, “but perhaps you need a man in this special line—art glass, stained glass windows?” He opened a portfolio and laid some designs before the architect.
Now, while no artist listens with patience to business argument, none refuses to listen to pictures. Mr. Church looked, carelessly at first, then with a distinct show of interest. The sheets slipped rapidly through his hands and he shot a swift glance at his visitor.
“These yours?”
“Yes.” Mr. Church pressed a button somewhere, his eyes still on the designs. A little gate opened.
“Come in,” he said.
And King Dubignon stood at the threshold of his career.
Back in the junior partner’s office the designs were more carefully examined.
“Very creditable,” was the grudging admission; “it so happens that we may be able to use a man in this line—temporarily. Be seated.” He disappeared. When he returned he was accompanied by a stout man of perhaps forty-five, prompt of manner and with a face that seemed to have been carved from tinted marble after a Greek model. This one, with quick eye, examined the designs, which he handled as an expert handles Sevres.
“Excellent! Yours?”
“Yes,” said King.
“Where are you from?”
“Georgia.”
“Learn this down there?”
“Partly, and partly at Cornell.”
“Nothing finer ever in this office, Church. You want to work with us, I suppose?” This to King.
“If agreeable, sir.”
“All right. How does twenty-five hundred strike you for a starter?”
“Fine.” And then, “Just what I made last year building freak cottages.” Mr. Beeker laughed:
“I know; served my time on them. The young wife brings you a home-made ground plan, providing for hotel accommodations, and wants a roof put over it—bay windows, porte cochere, etc. Cries when she finds your roof will cost more than her cottage. You’ll be under Mr. Church, Mr.—”
“Dubignon.”
“Good old name. Any advice needed, drop in on me.” He shook hands and turned away, but came back and placed a finger on the pictures:
“I say, Church, how about the memorial windows?”
“Yes, I think Mr. Dubignon might help.”
“Better give him a free hand on it.”
A sudden flush overspread the Southerner’s face and his look of gratitude followed the great architect.
But if King looked for sudden fame in New York, he was disappointed. Putting aside his ambition for the time being, he threw himself into the task of developing along the special line he had chosen for a foothold, with the same ardor that had carried him to the front at college, and his work stood all tests, easily. Beeker, Toomer & Church became headquarters for art glass designs in architecture. Presently his salary rose. And then again. And at length he found himself independent. But, to use his own expression, he “got nowhere.” The reason was simple; it was a rule of the office that all designs should bear the firm’s name only. Church had carefully explained this in the beginning. Church had also seen to it that press notices of their notable work invariably mentioned that Ralph Church was the head of the department responsible for it. King writhed under this system, but he could not budge without financial backing. He was heartily tired of his narrow field. At odd times, in his own living room, he worked on his ambitious dream.
The dream of the young architect was a thirty-five story office building wherein utility was to be combined with beauty without sacrifice of dividend-paying space or money, and without offense to the artistic eye from any point of view. Many architects have wrestled with the same problem and some with brilliant results. Now, by strange coincidence, a thirty-five story office building for Chicago, financed in New York, began to be talked of in building circles. No plans had been asked, no consultation with architects had. A rumor had started and was kicked around as a football. King took the backward trail and patiently followed it into the office of a certain great banker, whose young woman secretary had a friend that served an afternoon paper in reportorial capacity. Here King met his Waterloo; for no man in New York was less accessible than this particular banker, who had once received a “black-hand” letter. Red tape, red-headed office boy, confidential clerks, private secretary, hemmed him in from all but his selected associates. And the banker’s offices were full of unsuspected exits. All roads led from his Rome.
King stalled at the red-headed boy—the extreme outer guard.
It was at this stage of his career that he put aside ambition and raced off to Georgia for a few days along the coast. One proved sufficient. He spent that laying holly wreaths on graves under mossy live oaks. Then he betook himself to Macon, to lunch and dine and sup with his old-time S. A. E. friends of Mercer, scene of his earliest college years. He found them in law offices, doctor shops, banks and trade—glad to see him, but busy. Then, bankrupt of emotions, he began to stand on the street corners during their busy hours and watch the people pass.
And watching thus, he had seen her.
And, finally, after three days more in his hotel, much boring of friends and many fruitless chases of false rumors, and hours in front of Wesleyan College, he had arrived at the conclusion that he was, after all, a sublime ass. Bearing this added burden, he had taken himself off to New York, in what old-time writers were pleased to call a frame of mind.
But, at the bottom of a formidable array of Christmas greetings piled on his desk by his devoted friend, Terence, the office boy, he found an envelope postmarked “Jacksonville, Fla., Dec. 25.” Within was a card, one of the kind sold five for a nickel, bearing these lines:
“I found your card in my bag on my way to Florida. Am keeping it in memory of the only impudence I have ever encountered at the hands of a man. Nevertheless, I am wishing for you a very happy Christmas and New Year. This, I take it, is the proper Christmas spirit.
“Beautiful.”
“P. S. Very likely I shall return to New York before Easter.”
And for King Dubignon, Christmas came back.
Also for Terence. The tip was five dollars, and an injunction:
“Small boy, note this handwriting! You will perceive that it is more of a jumping than a running hand—well, it belongs on the top of all mail. Understand?”
“I’m on,” said Terence with his broadest grin.
“Return to New York,” quoted King, self communing; “I should have known from the way she crossed the street she belonged in New York.”
“Sir?”
“On your way, Terence; on your way!” but this with a smile.