A Pasteboard Crown: A Story of the New York Stage

by Clara Morris

In the days when he had been a neighbor of the Lawtons, over in the picturesque Orange Mountains, he had had a wife, or, to be more exact, there had been a Mrs. Bulkley, since for many years she had been nothing more to him than an unsalaried housekeeper. His contemptuous indifference as to her knowledge of his infamies deprived her even of the cloak of pretended ignorance with which many a betrayed wife hides her wounded pride and self-respect. So, from a rosy, cheery, happy wife, she had been changed into a pale and silent housekeeper. Sometimes a certain alleviating friendship exists between a wife and her disloyal husband, but not in this case; for without sympathy there can be no friendship, and there was not a particle of sympathy between the dutiful, pure-minded, humiliated Anna Bulkley and the lax, self-loving, and carnal William H. Bulkley.

So she had folded her lips closely to hide their tendency to tremble, and had borne her lot silently, growing a little paler, a little thinner, a little more retiring year by year, until there came that hottest morning of a long, hot stretch of weather when she failed to descend to breakfast, and her husband had angrily rapped upon her door, declaring that because he wished to go to the city early that day he supposed she meant to sleep forever, and was surprised to find his supposition was an absolutely correct one, for she slept forever. "Heart failure," said the hastily summoned doctor, and doubtless he accurately stated the immediate cause of death, but there were certain women among these lovely country homes who felt sure that the fatal weakness was neither recent nor caused by the summer heat; who believed the poor wife's heart failure dated from the time her husband abandoned home for harem, and by the publicity of his infidelities had made her an object of contemptuous pity. Therefore cold and unfriendly were the glances they cast upon the black-clothed, crêpe-bound widower in their midst.

Now, looking back to that time, he recalled his dead wife's fondness for the little ones of her neighbor's—the bon-bons she always kept at hand, the swing she had put up for her childish visitors' amusement, and the accident, one day, when the rope broke, and—yes, these very children of Lawton's were the ones that fell; and then quite suddenly he seemed to hear his wife's voice, crying: "Oh, Dorrie, Sibbie, are you hurt?"

With a triumphant laugh he struck his hands together, exclaiming: "I've found them! I've got their names at last! Now, if I can find the girls again in this confounded crowd, I'll have fair sailing!"

But it happened that the girls saw him first, and cleverly avoided him by whipping through a side street over to Sixth Avenue, where, with a sigh for the salads and strawberries of Broadway, they lunched upon coffee and buns in a clean little bakery; for, by so doing and by walking and saving cross-town fares both ways, they were able each to buy a bit of bright ribbon for Lena to turn into the awful bows with which she loved to plaster her honest German breast.

"Poor thing!" sighed Dorothy; "I wish we could get her something worth while!"

"So do I," answered Sybil; "for positively she is the staff of our family at present, and to think that papa should have found her! I believe the one dollar he paid to the intelligence office that day was the only lucky investment of his life!"

"Poor thing!" repeated Dorothy; "I'm afraid she will not walk a primrose path to-day!"

"No!" answered Sybil, "it will not be easy for mamma to forgive that 'cheeks bottle' speech, and Lena will probably hear a good many allusions to sculleries in consequence, or mamma may crush her into speechless awe by suddenly and apropos of nothing telling her that she—the mistress—once danced in the same room with the Prince of Wales!" And they laughed a little over the old boast as they hastened back to Broadway to secure the new bottle of rouge-vinaigre.

Meantime Mr. Bulkley, who, like most vain men, had a corn or two, had grown weary of watching from the sidewalk, and, swearing a little to himself, had gone to a fashionable restaurant, much favored by women; and, little dreaming that the place was far beyond the means of the girls he sought, he secured a seat near the door, where he sat, and, like a fat old spider, watched for his pretty flies. But they came not, and when he could decently sit there no longer, he cursed just under his breath with an ease and fluency that showed long and earnest practice; then, red and hot with wine and anger, he paid his bill and went out, quite forgetting that truthful old saying, "The devil takes care of his own," until his infernal majesty did it in his case by suddenly bringing into view the two girlish figures he had so long been searching for.