Chapter IV: The End of Dreaming

Marcy’s first waking thought on All Saints’ Day was that, being a holiday, there would be no school, and after Mass she should have nothing to do all day long but write her tragedy. She had begun a novel and an epic poem on Joan of Arc but a few weeks before, and had several other great works started, but now she was fired with the desire to write a tragedy and longed to begin.

Inez said Marcy did things “by fits and starts--mostly starts,” which was her way of stating that the genius of the family undertook more than she fulfilled.

“Now, Nellie, I’m going to write a play to-day,” said Marcy as she took off her things and smoothed her rumpled braid on their return from church. “I’m going to the observatory, and I want to be let alone. Will you keep the children away?”

“Of course,” said Nellie, impressed by this announcement. “What kind of a play will it be, Marcy?”

“It’s to be a tragedy. I don’t know yet what the plot will be, but it will be the sad story of the loveliest maiden you ever saw or heard of. She’s to be lovely--oh! more lovely than I can say,” replied Marcy, waving the pencil she was sharpening in a circle, as if to signify a loveliness that embraced everything. “I don’t care so much about the plot, but I do want a nice name for her, and I may have to think hours before I can find one.”

Marcy took her pad and pencil and a box of candy, and bidding Nellie good-by, started up to the top of the house.

The former owner had evidently been fond of star-gazing, for he had built an observatory on the roof, and here Marcy liked to establish herself when the sun was not too hot nor the wind too cold. She had piled several soft pillows and shawls in one corner, and it certainly made a nook that a greater poet than Marcy might have envied, though the delight of lazily watching the fleecy clouds drift by was apt to drive all thoughts of her great schemes from the little girl’s brain.

She had been here scarcely more than half an hour when Inez’s voice was heard calling her softly from the foot of the stairs.

Marcy gathered herself up and opened the small door, looking rather crossly down the steep flight of steps that led to her retreat.

“Nellie told me you wanted to be let alone, Marcy,” Inez began apologetically; “but it’s too good for you to miss. We’ve got a street fiddler in the gymnasium, and we’re dancing; come on down.”

Marcy could never resist the temptation to dance. She quickly closed the door behind her and ran down to join the others. She found a picturesque Italian boy standing in the corner and showing his teeth, while Grace was teaching Nellie to waltz, and Bob was trying to dance in a ladylike manner, with Hugh for partner.

“How did you do it?” demanded Marcy, getting her arm around Inez without loss of time. “Where’s Norah?”

“Norah has gone with mamma to take Lucy down-town to have her pictures taken. We brought the boy in by the front door, and nobody saw us,” Inez replied as they caught the right beat and began to waltz.

It was twelve o’clock before they thought of stopping dancing, and then they emptied their purses into the pockets of the young street musician, who rarely did such a good day’s work as that short time had proved.

After luncheon Inez went out, and Marcy and Nellie stopped in the gymnasium on their way up-stairs.

“I don’t see how boys can use those bars and rings, do you?” said Nellie, surveying the appointments of the gymnasium admiringly.

“Boys! Pooh! I can beat Bob at the exercise,” exclaimed Marcy contemptuously. “I never did gym exercise for you, did I? You wait here till I get my suit on, and I’ll show you something.”

Marcy ran away, leaving Nellie to spread the pads for the floor as she had directed. In a few moments a little figure all in red ran into the room and made a bow to left and right, like a performer in the ring.

Nellie exclaimed in delight. She thought that she had never seen anything so pretty.

Marcy wore a tight-fitting crimson woollen tunic that fell to her knees, trimmed with tiny lines of black fur, full Turkish trousers of the crimson gathered around her slender ankles, and her black-stockinged feet looked very small under the fur band above them, and her long dark hair fell loosely on her shoulders, surmounted by a jaunty crimson cap set saucily on one side.

Marcy ran across the gymnasium, sprang, caught a ring, pulled herself up, and swung gayly through the air, looking like a magnified Baltimore oriole. Giving herself a long, hard swing, she caught the bar, and did all kinds of things upon it till she was tired, and sat on it, swinging contentedly, her feet crossed and her lips parted with her quickened breath, while her cheeks glowed as red as her dress under her long hair.

“It’s splendid!” cried Nellie. “I never knew you were so strong. Isn’t the exercise fun?”

“Oh, it’s beautiful. The doctor said I was getting round-shouldered, so papa had this put in. I’ll tell you something, Nellie. Sometimes I think I’d like this to be the great thing I do in my life,” said Marcy.

“Gymnastics?” asked Nellie, rather puzzled.

“Oh, no, I don’t mean just that; but--well, do you suppose it would be awful to go in the circus?” asked Marcy.

“Why, Marcy! Of course,” said Nellie promptly.

“Well, sometimes I think I’d like to have a beautiful horse, and run and jump on his back, and do all sorts of strong, splendid things, and have the band playing, and the crowd cheering,” said Marcy, looking rather ashamed, but nodding her head emphatically as she swung.

“Why, they say it’s an awful life, and the people are rough who do these things,” Nellie began.

“Oh, well, I’d be a lady-like circus girl, of course,” said Marcy. “But I suppose I shouldn’t really like it. Look out, I’m coming down.”

“Don’t fall, Marcy,” cried Nellie anxiously.

“Fall! I never fall,” laughed Marcy. “Here goes.” She swung herself harder, threw herself towards a pair of rings, caught them dexterously, and dropped to the mattress, where she turned a hand somersault, and came up bowing and smiling like the acrobats in the circus. “Don’t tell about the somersault,” she said as soon as she could speak. “Mamma might think that was rough, and I only practise that when I’m alone. Now I must go up-stairs and write that tragedy; I haven’t done one thing all day. Good-by,” and waving her hands. Marcy ran into the hall and disappeared up the stairs like a red spark up the chimney.

Marcy opened the door of the observatory and dropped down among her cushions with a happy sigh.

“How nice it is to be alive!” she said aloud. “How lovely to dance, and jump, and run, and then how loveliest it is to think, and dream, and lie still, and watch the clouds! But I mustn’t watch the clouds now, I must write. I don’t believe it makes much difference about the characters in a tragedy, for I looked all through the books in the library, and I found some have lots and some have very few; so I’ll just write ahead, and whenever I need a new one I’ll put it in, and make a list afterwards. I’m going to call this tragedy ‘Cruel Fate,’ because it sounds nice, and might mean anything; and I don’t know yet what it will be about. Only it will be about this lovely, lovely princess, and I wish I knew a name nice enough for her; I must think one out, and I must make up my mind what she’s to be like. Oh, dear! I don’t know whether to have her a princess with hair like spun gold or black as a raven’s wing. I think she’d better have dark hair, because it suits an unfortunate person better. I’ll write the name any way.”

So Marcy wrote in her fairest hand at the head of her blank page, “Cruel Fate,” then she settled herself back and looked up at the floating clouds, turning over in her mind all the most beautiful names she had ever heard in the vain effort to discover one which should express all the lovely qualities of mind, and soul, and body with which she intended to endow her heroine.

Gradually her thoughts wandered to her own future, and she fell to building castles in the air of the fine deeds she would do. First of all, she imagined this tragedy finished and acted before a great audience, which went mad with delight over the beauty of the piece, and called for the author; and she bowed unconsciously, fancying herself responding to this call, and stepping from her box before the curtain. Or perhaps she should act the part of the heroine herself, and she pictured the enthusiasm rising to a tremendous pitch as the audience showered with flowers the gifted creature who could write and act such glorious things. Or, again, perhaps Nellie was right, and it was best to give up all thought of glory and live for others; and Marcy imagined her father beggared by some sudden reverse of fortune, and that she came forward, saying nobly, “Never mind, father, I will be your comfort and help. I will lay aside all my hopes of fame, and will work for you and the children;” and she wondered if she would be willing to take a position as a saleswoman in one of the big stores for the sake of her family.

Poor Marcy had no notion of doing humdrum duties day by day, and all her ideas were colored by fancy rather than facts. In the mean time the setting sun rested warm on the observatory, and her previous exercise made Marcy rather drowsy. Her fancies grew less and less distinct, and gradually the dark lashes drooped, her head fell over on her pad, and the would-be tragic author was fast asleep on the blank page whereon was written, like a prophecy, the last word her hand was to pen for many a day--“Cruel Fate.”

The sun went down in a blaze of crimson and golden splendor, and Marcy did not waken. The bell that warned the household that they had half an hour in which to get ready for dinner penetrated her brain dimly, reaching her in her high perch like a faint echo of real life; but it was enough to arouse her to partial consciousness. Following instinct rather than thought--for she was not fully awake--Marcy arose to her feet, gathered up her pad and pencil, staggered to the door of the observatory, opened it, and the next instant the household was startled by the sound of a heavy fall.

The nursery was the room nearest the observatory stairs, and Norah was the first to reach the little crimson and black heap lying motionless at their foot.

“O Miss Marcy! my darling!” cried poor Norah, trembling so that she scarcely dared lift the hand nearest her.

Marcy groaned as she touched her, and the entire family, that had by this time gathered with horror-stricken faces around her, uttered a sigh of gratitude that at least she was still alive.

“No bones broken,” said the doctor later, as he examined the poor little body, but a few hours before flying through the air in the gymnasium, so full of strength and life. “No one can be sure yet whether it is brain or spine; we must wait till she becomes conscious. It is an internal injury, and, I fear, serious.”

Night settled in awful stillness over the Merricks’ house. In all of great New York there seemed to be but one living thing, and that was the figure on Marcy’s bed, lying motionless and still but for an occasional groan, the dark hair falling around a face not less white than the pillow, on which even the few hours that had passed had set the mark of pain in the blue eyelids and drawn lips.