AY BRUNTON was one of those stars who suddenly shine out on Broadway in full effulgence, and are almost as quickly darkened. Most people will remember her name, but I doubt if many could name the parts in which she appeared. But to those of us who knew her, she remains a vivid and lovely memory; she was so beautiful! And that was not all of it; beauty is not uncommon on Broadway: it was her great sweetness of nature that endeared her to us; her girlishness; her simplicity.
She was not a great actress; her smile was her passport to popular favor. She had only to come out on the stage and smile—and she was always smiling—for the house to be hers.
She was so plainly enjoying herself you see; and in her smile there was a confident expectation of friendliness that touched the hardest heart. In the ruthless and artificial world that centers on Broadway, a thing so sweet and natural was simply irresistible. In a single season the whole town took Fay Brunton to its breast.
My employer, Madame Storey, who knows everybody in the great world, had become acquainted with Fay, and through her I had met the girl. By degrees, I can hardly say how, Fay and I had become intimate friends. She brought color and incident into my life. To a plain jane like me, she was simply marvelous. I was the recipient of all her charming confidences—or nearly all; and as well as I could, I steered her with my advice among the pitfalls that beset a popular favorite.
For one in the limelight she was incredibly ignorant of evil. And you could not bear to put her wise to the ugly side of life. I can see now that I was wrong in this.
How bitterly I regretted that I had not warned her against Darius Whittall in the beginning. But I had thought that her natural goodness would protect her. Goodness, however, is apt to be blind. Whittall's name had been connected with Fay's for several months now, but he was only one of many. I had hoped that one of the young men would win out; particularly one who was called Frank Esher, a fine fellow.
I banked on the fact that Fay had been shy about mentioning his name in her confidences. As for Whittall, he was a notorious evil liver. It was not what he had done however, but what he was; black evil lurked in his eyes. His wife had committed suicide some weeks before. To me he was no better than a murderer.
How well I remember the morning that Fay came to our office to tell us. It must have been November, for the trees in Gramercy Park had shed their leaves, though the grass was still green. This was during Fay's second season when she was appearing with huge success in “Wild Hyacinth.” She came in beaming, and I marked the gleam of a new pearl necklace under her partly opened sables. What a vision of youthful loveliness she made, sparkling with a childlike excitement! One thought of a little girl who had been promised a treat.
She had Mrs. Brunton with her. This lady was not her real mother, but an aging actress whom Fay had rescued from a cheap boarding-house, and set up as her official chaperone. Such an arrangement is not unusual on the stage. Mrs. Brunton was a typical stage mamma; over-dressed over-talkative; a foolish woman, but devoted to Fay, and people put up with her on that account.
When Fay came to call, business was dropped for the time being. I took her in to my mistress. What a complement they made to each other! That one so dark and tall and wise; the other simple, fair and girlish. Alongside my regal mistress, the girl looked the least bit colorless, but that was inevitable. There is only one Madame Storey. Fay was not aware that she suffered by comparison with the other, and if she had been, I doubt if she would have minded.
Mrs. Brunton was in a great flutter. “Oh, I hope were not interrupting anything important! Fay couldn't wait a minute! What I have been through since last night you wouldn't believe! I didn't sleep a wink! And then to be hauled out of my bed at eight o'clock! Eight o'clock! And dragged here half-dressed. Is there a mirror anywhere? I know I'm a sight—!”
And so on; and so on. The exasperating thing about that woman was that her talk never meant anything. She surrounded herself with a cloud of words. Nobody ever paid any attention to what she said. Talk with her was a sort of nervous habit like biting the finger nails.
Meanwhile Mme. Storey was gazing into Fay's face with searching kindness. Nervously pulling off one of her gloves, the girl mutely exhibited the third finger of her left hand. I caught a glimpse of an emerald that took my breath away.
“Who is it?” asked Mme. Storey.
“Darius Whittall,” she murmured.