Her Soul's Inspiration

Summary

A barefoot prodigy pirouettes through dust-clouded farmyards, her every heartbeat syncopated to an inaudible rag; the widowed father, desperate to honor a death-bed covenant, trades furrows for footlights and buys a ramshackle troupe that smells of lamp-oil and sweat. Inside this gaudy caravan a gorgon in spangles—Madame La Rue—sniffs opportunity: while the girl arabesques under calcium glare, the sire collapses, is spirited into the harridan’s dressing-room, and with his last oxygen bequeaths both bankroll and bloodline. The widow pockets the roll, wires the uncle a lie, spirits her own pallid offspring northward to silk cushions, and leaves the orphan amid collapsing canvas and snarling creditors. Salvation arrives in the shape of salt-stung nets: a fisherman’s shack, a boy named Bob whose gaze lingers longer than the gulls, and the crash of surf that keeps waltz-time. Fortune, ever fickle, sends a silk-hatted novelist strolling the tideline; moonlit manuscripts and sand-dusted slippers converge until jealousy—fermented by La Rue’s poisoned gossip—erupts in a single wild swing that seems to murder hope itself. Exile, rehearsal, years of lamp-black backstage corridors follow, until at last a chandeliered gala the dancer—now incandescent—spins into the very ballroom where imposture sits enthroned. A locket clicks open, a counterfeit princess wilts, and the music that once lived only in metatarsals finally ascends to trumpet and string, promising that love, like rhythm, will out.

Synopsis

Mary seemed to have been born with music in her feet. She danced to school, danced at her work and danced while at play. Her invalid mother, realizing her talents and knowing her ambition to become an expert dancer, made the father promise that Mary should have her heart's desire. When the mother died Mary's father sold the farm and purchased a traveling show to give Mary her chance to be a stage dancer. There was a Madame La Rue in the company, who had a daughter of about Mary's age, and the two girls disagreed, with Mme. La Rue continually inspiring discord. Mary's father is stricken at a time when Mary is on the stage giving her performance, Mme. La Rue has him removed to her own dressing room, and there the old man makes his dying statement to the scheming woman. He tells her where in his trunk he keeps his money; asks that his wealthy brother, in a distant town, be notified of his death, and that Mary be taken to her undo who will provide her from his abundance with a home. Mme. La Rue takes the money from the trunk, wires to Mary's uncle that she is bringing Mary and the body of her father to him, and, deserting Mary, takes her own daughter instead. Mme. La Rue and her child are accordingly, established in luxury. When the authorities disband the juvenile opera company because the owner is dead and there is no one to carry on the show. Mary is taken in charge by a shrewish woman who makes a kitchen slave of the child. Mary bears oppression as long as she can, and then runs away to the town where her father is buried. Near the ocean shore she locates a cottage that offers shelter, even though the owner is not at home. Mary goes to sleep in the bed and awakes next morning to find that a kindly disposed young man, who makes his living fishing with his nets, owns the cottage and straightway offers a home and working partnership. Mary one day meets Phillip, a handsome young author, who is a visitor at the home of Mary's uncle. Mme. La Rue has been trying to ensnare Phillip as a husband for her daughter, Zella, but Phillip is slow to advance. Mary and Phillip meet frequently on the beach, and Bob grows jealous of his rival. One day Mme. La Rue and Zella recognize Mary as she is conversing with Phillip, they also observe Bob's jealous conduct. Going to Bob they tell him that Phillip is engaged to Zella and is only trifling with Mary. Bob in a rage assaults Phillip, and believes that the blow be strikes has killed the young author. Informing Mary of what he has done, the two friends agree that they had better leave the neighborhood and go at once to a distant town. In the years that follow Bob devotes himself to the task of realizing, for Mary, her ambition to become a great dancer. At a society function where Mary is the attraction, Phillip (who has only been stunned by Bob's blow) sees the girl and recognizes his little friend from the fishing village. The renewal of acquaintance discloses Mary's parentage, and the locket she wears proves that she should be occupying the place in her uncle's home that Mme. La Rue had, by fraud, established for Zella. The outcome gives Mary her proper place and we are left to believe that she and Phillip will find their way to happiness.