The Destroying Angel

Summary

A bourgeois heiress, Mary Ladislas, flees the gilded cage of expectation in a moonlit Packard, her chauffeur-companion both steersman and co-conspirator; their roadside nuptials are thwarted when the car vaults into a ravine, leaving her widowed by circumstance and branded by scandal. Adrift in a limbo of hotel lobbies and whispered slurs, she is intercepted by Hugh Whittaker—an industrialist already measured for his coffin—who, sensing twin abysses, weds her on a whim of pity and pockets her future inside a sealed envelope to his partner, the sybaritic Drummond. While Hugh’s reported death in the western ore fields becomes the stuff of telegrams, Mary metamorphoses into Carmen, a siren of the footlights whose off-stage liaisons end in inexplicable corpses: David the tenor asphyxiates in the flies, Thurston the millionaire drowns beneath a ferry’s churn, each misfortune tightening the epithet “The Destroying Angel.” Yet Hugh, resurrected by a vein of silver and sheer narrative perversity, returns to find his widow haloed in notoriety and pursued by the now-destitute Drummond. On a salt-sprayed boardwalk the triangle collapses: Drummond kidnaps, the valet intervenes, a revolver coughs, and the curse is broken not by clerics but by the sheer stubborn aliveness of a man who refuses to die on schedule. Mary, stripped of her lethal mystique, steps back into the proscenium glow, this time with Hugh’s unscathed shadow beside her, the curtain falling on a woman who discovered that destiny’s scythe can be blunted only when the reaper himself calls in sick.

Synopsis

Mary Ladislas elopes with the chauffeur because of his sympathy for her ideals, and they stop at a hotel. The scornful attitude of all who meet them causes Mary to desire immediate marriage, but on the way for a license, the auto overturns and kills the chauffeur. It is too late for Mary to return home now and she is left alone, disconsolate. Hugh Whittaker, ill, given up by the doctors, leaves his affairs in the hands of Drummond, his partner, and prepares to leave for the west. He meets Mary and prevents her suicide. Pitying her and feeling his own end near, he marries her and continues on his journey, after giving her a note to his partner, Drummond, so that he may provide for her. Drummond, who is dissipating and appropriating Hugh's funds, is fascinated by Mary, but she refuses his aid. Later, news comes of Hugh's death. Mary obtains the title role in Carmen at Max's theater, who treasures her for her artistic acting. In a jealous rage he causes the death of David, another actor whom Mary is to marry. Four years pass. Thurston, a young millionaire, who is to marry Mary, is pushed off a ferry boat by Max and drowned. Drummond, meanwhile, is forcing his attentions on Mary. Hugh, contrary to reports, has not been killed. His mining operations in the west have made him a millionaire and he returns home cured. At the theater he sees Mary. She recognizes him and suffers a nervous breakdown. Her unfortunate affairs with men have earned her the title of "The Destroying Angel." She goes to the seashore to recover from her attack. Drummond, meanwhile, who has spent all the money left in his care by Hugh, has disappeared. Unconscious of Mary's whereabouts, Hugh also takes a cottage at the seashore. He foils Drummond, who has suddenly reappeared, in an attempt to kidnap Mary. Drummond is killed in the scuffle by Hugh's valet. Fearing to cast her terrible spell upon him, Mary leaves Hugh and returns to the stage. He follows, however, and Max attempts to shoot him, but Hugh has broken the deadly spell, for Max's bullets go wild. Mary, who really loves Hugh, gives herself up to her love, and returns with him. His is the charmed life which has pierced the circle of death about "The Destroying Angel."