The Glass Slipper

I
t was Steven who talked of the glass slipper. That was the night the thing began; the night Rue Hatterick had her first intimation of disaster; the night of November eighteenth. That was the night Flagstad sang Isolde, the night of the Bachelors and Benedicts ball; a cold, drearily rainy night in Chicago, with the pavements slick and shining with reflected lights from the towers of Chicago’s near north side.

Rue gave herself a last glance in the mirror and went to the window and pushed aside the gray taffeta curtains which had been selected as everything else in the house had been selected by her predecessor, the first Mrs Hatterick. Brule had not come home to dinner, and she had not yet heard him arrive, and they were going to be late. She looked down into the street below — or tried to look — but the black windowpane only reflected herself in her shimmering silver-shift gown. It was a clouded image, however, darkened by the black backdrop of the night outside, she looked strange to herself standing there, a slender, fair woman with bare, smooth white shoulders and light hair exactly and faultlessly coiled. Her mouth was scarlet, and in that wavering reflection her black eyebrows looked a little heavy and serious and her gentian-blue eyes very brilliant.

How many times had she seen herself reflected just so in the dark glitter of a window against the still night. With startling clearness the composite recollection of many nights came to her; anxious, muted nights in a great hospital; herself raising or lowering a window, pausing to put her cheek for an instant’s rest against the cold glass — and to see herself then, as now, as another woman. Then her fair hair was not so faultlessly done but instead was pulled back smoothly to a knot below her starched, trim white cap; her nurse’s uniform was white and crisp and trimly tailored, refreshingly astringent in memory and in contrast to the clinging, artful loveliness of the gown she now wore; her face then was scrubbed and bare of any suggestion of makeup. For the chief of staff, the great and famous surgeon, the veritable emperor of that small, intensely circumscribed and terribly important world, Dr Brule Hatterick, had frowned on make-up on the faces of his nurses.

But he liked it on his wife’s face — softly and glamorously applied. He didn’t like the serious, thoughtful expression her beautifully planed face with its firm generous chin and curving red mouth was all too likely to take on. Moments when her dark-fringed eyes were likely to be intensely blue and straight and keen as a whip and uncomfortably serious. And unfortunately there had been too many times during the short period of Rue’s marriage to her emperor when she had looked just like that — as serious, Brule Hatterick would say, as if she were assisting him, as she had done so many times, at a very difficult operation. It annoyed him. He wanted her to be gay and laughing and, though he didn’t say it, frivolous. A doll, pleased with the pretty things he gave her instead of love. A person who didn’t really matter and thus wouldn’t trouble his conscience.

Not that she had any right to expect his love, that had been clearly understood, and it was outside their agreement. But it had been a serious business, stepping into another woman’s place, trying to fulfill all the duties that had fallen to the lot of the well-known and socially prominent first Mrs. Hatterick, Crystal Hatterick, whose beautiful portrait still hung in Brule’s library.

Rue let the curtains drop into place. By putting her forehead to the cool glass — approaching close to that strange woman who looked back at her — she could perceive street lights and the long black outline of the Hatterick limousine opposite the front door, but Brule’s coupé was nowhere to be seen. Perhaps he had arrived while she was dressing.

She was nervous. She went back to the dressing table, touched her hair, which was pulled upward away from her face in the mode and arranged in smooth curls high on her head, hesitated a moment to make sure there was no flaw, no wrinkle in her gown, no detail that was out of place and that Brule’s eyes that saw everything would see and disapprove. A little gust of impatience touched her, and with one of the impulsive gestures she was learning to control, she picked up long white gloves and small, jeweled bag and turned to leave her room.

The big silken bedroom which had been in its pseudo-Victorian luxuriousness a triumph of the decorator employed and assisted by Crystal Hatterick. Crystal had liked the thin, old French carpet with its faded pastel flowers; the chaise longue heaped in satin and lace pillows; the tiny pink marble mantel with its gilt clock and mirror; the ruffled, elaborate dressing table; the French prints on the soft gray walls; the great swan bed with its crepe de chine sheets and its down puffs; even the adjoining bathroom was done in soft, flattering shades of pink, and the great clothes closets were lined in quilted satin, heavily scented.

The first time Rue had ever entered that room she had hated the soft, enveloping scent of roses that permeated it; she still hated it and could not entirely dispossess it. It clung to the room like a ghostly reminder of Crystal’s presence.

A French screen, all cupids and Fragonard-like ladies and gilt, stood before the door.

Rue, pausing, remembered sharply and clearly the first time she’d entered that room; she saw herself standing on the threshold, a little hesitant because it was the great Mrs Brule Hatterick she had come to nurse; because she had been selected (from all the nurses at the hospital) by Dr Brule Hatterick to care for his wife. She’d had a panicky instant, standing there in the shadow of the great screen, her blue nurse’s cape still over her shoulders; her little leather bag in her hand. What would Mrs Hatterick be like? Would she be a difficult patient? Would she, Rue, succeed in the exacting eyes of the great Brule Hatterick? It had taken all her courage to step around that screen and go to Crystal, ill, white, hard to please, waiting for her in that great soft bed.

She had failed because Crystal Hatterick had died. Yet she hadn’t failed in Brule Hatterick’s eyes; for a short ten months later he had married her.

Married her and brought her as mistress to that house she had first entered as a nurse. Crystal’s house.

The autumn had not been so difficult; they’d been at camp; she’d been able to fall in with the routine of the household even if she had not quite grasped the reins of it from the capable and determined hands of the domestic staff Crystal had hired and trained. Steven had helped, quietly and kindly. Madge had been her main problem, but she had known Madge would be; it was mainly because of Madge, Brule had told her in that curiously frank interview, that he wanted her, Rue, for a wife.

But now it was winter; the social season was beginning; Brule depended upon her to carry on exactly the same life Crystal had balanced so easily and lightly in her poised and certain hands. But Crystal had been born in that very house; it had been her money and her position that had started Brule on his meteorlike flight upward. She had been considerably older than Brule; she had known all the people who could help him; she had known all the affiliations, all the loyalties, all the age-established feuds; she had known who counted and who didn’t; she had made no mistakes. Rue had all that to learn; and she must learn it, for Brule’s position demanded it, and Madge, now fifteen, later must be suitably launched.

Well, Alicia would help. Alicia Pelham, who had been Crystal’s best friend and was to be married to Steven.

It must be that Brule had arrived without her knowledge and was now dressing in his own rooms at the end of the narrow long hall. This was one of the first big nights of the season; surely he wouldn’t be late, certainly he would be there to support Rue in her new, untried role.

Yes, she was nervous.

Only her fellow nurses at the hospital would have guessed that nervousness. It made her eyes a little brighter, her head more erect, her movements a little more deliberately controlled.

In the hall she met Steven, and he paused to look at her.

“Going to the opera?”

“Yes.”

“And to the ball later?”

“Yes.”

He smiled down at her. Steven Hendrie, tall, dark, with his temples faintly gray, was a distinguished-looking man in his late thirties. And he actually was distinguished, for he was a composer of note in spite of the semi-invalidism which had dogged him for years. His big, time-mellowed Steinway piano was in a sunny corner of the wing on the first floor which had been built for his workroom; the repetitious, clear notes from the piano were so constantly and familiarly a part of the fabric of the household that you were almost unconscious of the sound.

Crystal’s brother — or stepbrother, was it? — and Brule’s patient, Steven was a fixture in the Hatterick household. He had never married, though his engagement to Alicia Pelham was a long-standing affair. Crystal probably had liked having him there, especially when he became famous. And after Crystal’s death he had stayed on with them, for it was his home as much as it was Brule’s, since Crystal had willed it to them jointly. He bore his share of the expenses, so he was in no way a pensioner on Brule’s bounty. Rue liked him, for he’d been from the first her friend. She never knew exactly how much he knew of her curious relationship with Brule, but she thought he guessed a great deal, for he was extremely sensitive. And, especially lately, he had befriended her in many small ways. Steven, indeed, made her life bearable. And Steven could always manage Madge. She answered the smile in his deep-set, strangely luminous brown eyes with cheerful friendliness.

“You are very splendid,” he said. “Schiaparelli?”

“Yes. My first.” Rue looked down at the expertly suave lines of her gown.

It was then that quite suddenly Steven’s eyes sobered. He touched the dress lightly with his strong, musician’s fingers. And he said rather gently: “Little Cinderella. I wonder — does the glass slipper ever pinch your little foot?”

Cinderella. It was an apt analogy of course, so far as it went.

She was mistress of that house and all its luxury and beauty. In the hall below a maid waited with a dark sable wrap of incredible softness to place around Rue’s shoulders. Outside a motor was waiting, long and shining, with a uniformed chauffeur at the wheel.

A year ago, thought Rue with a strange little clutch at her heart, she had scrambled for a place on the crowded elevated; had clung to a swaying strap, had fought her way through crowded streets. Curiously there was a touch of sadness in the thought. She ought to be happy. Married to the chief of staff; the fashionable young Mrs Hatterick — jewels, gowns with the labels of famous dressmakers, furs — everything a girl could want.

Steven was waiting, looking into her eyes without, now, the faintest glimmer of a smile. It was as if he really wanted to know something that Rue could not tell him. As if he waited for an answer, and the answer was one that Rue could not give.

“No,” she said, avoiding his eyes. “It doesn’t pinch. Is Madge downstairs, do you know?”

It was a rebuff. Steven’s eyes deepened a little. He said coolly: “You would never tell if it did. Yes, Madge is still downstairs, I think. Do you want to see her?”

“I thought I’d show her my dress. But — I’m not sure Brule has come yet.”

“He hasn’t.” Steven looked at his watch. “I’m afraid you’re going to be very late. I expect he was detained with a patient. Don’t mind being late; it will only give Brule a chance to show you off in all your glory. There’s nothing like entering a box in the middle of the overture for getting the concerted gaze of all the opera glasses in the house. And I must say you’ll do him credit. It’s your first public appearance, isn’t it?”

“I — yes.”

“Don’t worry. You’re very beautiful. Here’s Madge now.”

She came up the stairway, eyes lowered and pretending to be unconscious of Rue and Steven standing at the top of the steps. She was a living, feminine reproduction of Brule; lithe and compact and trim, with ruddy cheeks and wide, ruthless jaws, masked only a little by the youthful roundness of her face. Her thick hair was cut long and fell on her shoulders in a dark mane; her mouth was straight and a little sulky; even her square small hands were suggestive of strength.

She said nothing. Steven spoke, bridging the gap between Rue and Madge as he had done so often in the past two months.

“Isn’t she lovely, Madge?”

Madge stopped. She wore a simple, dark silk dinner gown with a little-girl white collar; she looked demure, if sullen; but then she lifted thick long eyelashes and gave Rue an altogether unchildish look.

“It is a beautiful gown,” she said coolly and added with studied rudeness, “My father chose it, didn’t he, Rue?”

“I chose it,” said Rue. “But I hope Brule likes it.”

“It must be nice,” said Madge, “to have so much money to spend. You never had it before, did you?”

“Madge,” said Steven quickly and sharply, “don’t be silly and childish.” Madge whirled abruptly away and went quickly up the second flight of stairs without another word, and Steven turned hopelessly to Rue. “I’m sorry, Rue,” he said. “She’s got dreadful manners and a worse disposition. She looks like Brule, but she’s exactly like Crystal.”

“Hush, she’ll hear you… I don’t blame the child. It can’t be easy to see another woman taking your mother’s place. She loved her mother.”

Madge’s own door closed. Steven said slowly: “Madge is too young and too selfish to love anything. Don’t mind her. Rue. She’ll come around.”

Another door opened and closed heavily. It was the great front door in the hall below, and Rue said: “It’s Brule. I’ll go down to meet him. Good night, Steven. I wish you were coming.”

“I wish so too,” said Steven. “Well, my dear, keep your chin up but don’t lead with it.”

He knew she was nervous. He knew she dreaded the thing that lay before her: the eyes, the leveled opera glasses and lorgnettes, the whispers. That’s the new Mrs Hatterick. The nurse he married, you know, after Crystal died. So soon after, too. They say she was the nurse who took care of Crystal when she died. How young she is! Well, you never know.

She wondered if any of them would be kind.