The war goes on. Global warming threatens to wipe us out.There are vexing
family problems, the prices of everything we need keep rising.
Sometimes I turn away from the news, my books, and anything else that might
be thought provoking. Sometimes I want to escape thinking for a little while.
One route I've found is to watch a bad movie. Not mediocre, they're simply
irritating, but those so bad they become hilarious. Something like giant rabbits
taking over the world, when I might cheer the rabbits on, or even Night of the
Living Dead, although for one who has stood on the street corner in any large
city and watched people emerge from the subway or bus at the end of a
workday, that film isn't always far enough removed from reality.
It's even harder to find the truly bad book. Here again, mediocrity rules, and I
lack the patience to read more than a paragraph or so of such drivel. However,
I did stumble across one this week and it's a gem. I read a page here and there,
then went back to read some that I had missed.
Dainty's Cruel Rivals or the Fatal Birthday, by Mrs. Alex. McVeigh Miller,
copyright 1898, published by The Arthur Westbrook Company, Cleveland.
Shades of Cinderella, although the fairy tale is a great classic compared with this
pot boiler. Not stepsisters, but two cousins are out to get poor Dainty Chase and
prevent her from marrying Lovelace Ellsworth, heir to the fine Ellsworth estate
and tons of money. Judith Ellsworth, currently in possession of the estate, has
invited all three of her nieces to visit the Ellsworth mansion. She schemes to
maneuver her stepson, Lovelace, called "Love" for short, into marrying either
Olive or Ela, thus keeping the mansion and money within the family. Dainty she
had invited as an afterthought, not considering her in the running for Love, who
would only be interested in attractive women, and Dainty's father, Judith's half-
brother, "was a very homely man and I never heard that his wife was a beauty"
so Dainty could not possibly be pretty.
But Olive and Ela, both beautiful women and educated as well (they were
schoolteachers), "feared the rivalry of a girl as fresh and lovely as the morning,
and with the rounded slenderness of eighteen, piquant features, rose-leaf
complexion, delicious dimples, a wealth of curling golden hair, and large, deep,
violet-blue eyes full of soul and tenderness." She was also empty-headed, a trait,
I believe, as undesirable as the maliciousness of the sisters. Nevertheless,
Lovelace takes one look at her and falls head over heels. Olive and Ela had
taken a night train, knowing if they did not wait to go the next day Dainty
would be too cowardly to go by herself. The next day, while she is weeping
and complaining bitterly to her mother about how they have tricked her out
of her holiday, for indeed she is too timid to travel alone, Lovelace happens
by on his way home from his many travels, offers to accompany her to the
mansion, and falls in love with her during the journey. (Dainty likes him too,
but she says she wouldn't be happy away from her mama.)
He is so blinded by love - or lust- that he fails to see the spineless,
tear-sodden creature that we are shown, even as the narrator keeps telling
us what a lovely, pure and sweet creature she is. The sisters are must more
interesting as they and Aunt Judith race about trying to prevent the marriage.
The press of time spurs Lovelace on, for he must marry by his 26th birthday,
about 3 weeks away, or lose his inheritance.
When Olive and Ela tell Dainty there are ghosts at Ellsworth, she goes into
hysterics every night believing that she is seeing and hearing the ghosts, even
though the servant who is forced to sleep in her room never sees nor hears
them. Olive masquerades as a gypsy telling fortunes.Dainty staggers from the
tent, "her face as white as her lilies. and the tears hanging on her lashes like
pearls in the moonlight" She was scarcely able to stand as she was being
urged to relate her fortune from the "gypsy". "..her eyes turned mournfully
to [Love's] while she faltered, fearfully: ".[The 'gypsy' said:]..'You do well
to choose lilies for your adorning, for they are funeral flowers, and you will
soon be the bride of Death!'" And she "dropped like a broken flower and
hung fainting on her lover's arm".
After Lovelace proves that the "gypsy" fortuneteller was actually Olive, the
doctor states that "the dreadful prediction..would have preyed so deeply on
[Dainty's] sensitive mind as to cause her premature death" had the farce not
been exposed.
Ela's boyfriend, Vernon, whom she had jilted when she thought she had a
chance at marrying a rich man, followed her to Ellsworth. Lovelace is told
that it was Dainty who had jilted Vernon, and that she had been meeting him
and exchanging notes on the sly. This gives her another chance to weep
copiously and prove again how pure and virtuous she is.
Later, someone pretending to be the ghost starts carrying her from her room,
drops her when attacked by a servant, and she lies in a coma for a few days.
She gets a lot of mileage out of this while Lovelace hovers over her lamenting
her fate. After she revives, she is kidnapped on the eve of her wedding day.
Lovelace is shot in the temple by Vernon, Ela's old boyfriend, which destroys
his memory. Dainty finds he doesn't know her after her rescue. She is ordered
to leave the Ellsworth mansion, fed some poison, and when she stubbornly
refuses to die, the cabin in which she has sought refuge is set on fire.
While reading this silly tale, I thought of the old movie serial "The Perils of
Pauline". But Pauline's many brushes with death were the result of her active
involvement in one adventure after another while Dainty seems to do little
but stand around waiting for the next attack. And I'm sure Pauline didn't
weep buckets even when she was tied to the railroad track or when the
saw whirred inches from her head.
All works out in the end, of course, Lovelace miraculously recovers. They
had been married secretly days before the planned wedding day, so he
inherited the loot after all, the three who connived to separate them are
exposed, and Dainty's mama comes to live with Lovelace and his bride in
the Ellsworth mansion. And Dainty stops fainting and crying for a page or
so at least. Lovelace orders Aunt Judith, Olive and Ela to leave, and "the
veil of a merciful oblivion fell over their future fate as scheming adventuresses
to the end of their days."
This was no. 88 of The Hart Series, issued weekly, one of 103 titles listed
on the back cover. It could be ordered from the publisher for 20 cents in
coin or postage stamps.
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