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'MOW GIRLS LIVES A
WRECKED 1 ■'
The “Belle of Norfolk” Comes Back
Half a Stowaway to Save Her Little
Sister from a Loveless Marriage and
Tells for the First Time Her Life Story
IN AND OUT of the Great Way slips, at nightfall,
a ghost, a modern ghost, wearing a yellow wig
that slips out of place now and then, disclosing
close-cropped golden hair. Its tall figure stoops and
shambles. The once-regular features are changed al
most beyond recognition by those who once admired
them. This is the living ghost of Florence Schenck,
six years ago the most beautiful girl in Norfolk.
She ran away from home to “see the world.” For
getting the honor of her family, one of the oldest and
most respected in Virginia, her father a surgeon in
MY WARNING STORY—-By Florence Schenck
OUT of my shame and suffer
ing and despair I would like
to cry out to every girl in
the. world:
If you have beauty fear it.
If you have a weak, foolish head,
easily turned, stay at home. The
home folk will keep it straight.
If a married man tries to make
love to you, run from him; it is
as ominous as the hissing of a
snake.
Don’t trust any man; don’t marry
any but an old-fashioned one.
The only man who may possibly
not be a villain is one who goes in
a straight forward fashion to
your family and asks permission
to win you.
Don’t try to see the w’orld until
you have been happily married.
The girl who sees the world sees
more of horror, misery and disgrace
than beauty or gaiety or joy.
Be good, for only in that old way
can be found happiness.
I was sixteen when I ran away
from home. lam only twenty-three
to-day. It is six years since I set
forth in that well-named private
car of Alfred Vanderbilt, the Way
farer. I have been a wayfarer
ever since.
For six years I have “seen the
world” and I am what? A woman
without a heart, a woman turned
t 9 stone.
When 1 went out into the streets
alone I was alway followed. If
there was a strange man in town
he was sure to pursue me. The at
tention I attracted pleased me. I
began to dream of New York.
The Horse Show in 1906 brought
many strangers, many of them
wealthy and of distinguished name
to Norfolk. I, craving sight of “the
world" went to the Horse Show.
The beauty with wjiich Norfolk
credited me had its usual effect.
Strange men followed me about the
stalls and paddocks. Strange voices
whispered, “Who is she?” and voices
1 knew answered: “She is Dr.
Schenck's daughter, only seven
teen.” Those kindly voices meant
well by throwing in that little saving
clause, but, alas, it did not save.
Dazzled by the splendor of the
names of the "Horsy Set” I ac
cepted an invitation to go to
Washington and New York in that
car with the name that sounded
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so alluring then ,that I soon knew
was portentious.
I saw “life.” The places that
had been only names to me be
came realities. I visited New York
and lived at Newport. I went to
London. In all those places my
beauty won praise for me. That
which I dreamed of in my home at
Norfolk came true. I became
known throughout my country and on
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the navy, she joined the "horsey set," and matched
her beauty against the world’s standards. On this
page she tells how she has “seen the world,” and ut
ters a warning to other girls. She was the toast of
Broadway and the Strand, but briefly. After that
came sleeping on the Thames Embankment, a term in
Holloway Jail because she had not eighty cents to
pay her fine, and witnessing the suicide of another
unfortunate like herself.
“I don’t know what will become of rrie,” she says.
Shipwrecked herself, she cries out to other girls to
shun the way of wreck.
way! For while I was returning
from Europe I quarrelled with
Charles Wilson, Alfred Van
derbilt’s horse trainer and on the
dock I denounced him, pouring forth
my story of deception-and wrong.
My name, as I had hoped in that
foolish year of dreams before, was
in the papers with great headlines,
but in what a shameful way! My
pictures spread before the eyes of
in the street cars made me
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EmTa!i£nt rOt Fi r r Kee £ er k ? ” Fa ™ OUi Painting by J. C. Dollman, of the Outcasts on Thames
Embankment. Florence Schenck, Once Feted Beauty of the “Horse Set,” Slept Here for Two ’lights
and Draws a Remarkable Pen Picture of Its Misery.
hide my face for fear of recogni
tion. Already the bitterness of
“seeing the world” was being forced
upon me.
But I was young and youth is
buoyant. I went on the stage and
recited a Southern bit about yellow
roses and an old black mammy. I
stood in a big gold frame and the
audiences applauded me when I was
discovered” in that setting.
Emptiness! Emptiness! My value
was solely because of the scandals.
The engagement was short. I
found the level of the chorus.
Chorus salaries are too small to
satisfy the tastes I had so
quickly formed I knew want.
I came at this time to know
a very beautiful and very un
fortunate woman, Ruth Ruiz. She
was kind to me. I went to London
as her guest. She understood me,
and I hope some day her real story
will be written. Came tragedy. In
several days she had drooped, but
she was proud and never confided
to me that her heart was aching.
I asked her if she was jealous of
the woman whom her protector, it
was rumored, intended to marry.
She always said: “No. He loves
me far more than he does her.”
But she was very silent for days.
One day she complained of a head
ache. I was sitting on the foot
of her bed chatting, when she asked
me to go downstairs to telephone
for her. When I returned the bed
clothes had been drawn over her
head.
“I sent the message, Ruth,” I said.
She did not answer.
“Ruth,” I called. There was
silence I shook her shoulder.
'Stop pretending," I began to say,
but the words were never finished.
Slowly, fearfully, I drew back the
pink silk coverlet. Her eyes were
closed. Over the white silk night
gown was a spot as small as though
a cigarette had burned it and a
little pearl pistol lay near her hand.
I recall that, as I opened the door,
I fancied I had smelled smoke.
I went with her to the hospital,
holding her in my arms on the way.
She never regained consciousness.
Every Saturday her grave is covered
with a carpet of flowers. The order
came from Mr. Ruiz, her husband.
If you have seen a life go out be
cause some one had grown too weak
to bear it, there is a powerful sug
gestion in it. That suggestion has
come to me often. Once in a miser
able room, for which I could not
pay, in a London hotel, I, too, tried,
but failed—but I will not say more
of that. It is enough that the chlo
ral had not been for me the friend
the pistol was for Ruth Ruiz.
This attempt followed my hear
ing the news that Wilson had repu
diated my later marriage. He de
clared that the marriage was illegal.
There had been none. A great
black wall shut me out from ths
home that had seemed so unlike
those of Laura Jean Libbey's novels,
but that seemed to me now so in
estimably precious. I felt that I
was lost. All through my misery I
had clung to that belief of my mar
riage. Whatever I was, I was an
honest woman and a wife.
I went to Paris. People talked
less of my beauty that! they had
done. When people stared at me
now there was pity in their looks.
Oh, listen to me, this is very "De
Profundis!”
An enemy as great as man had
thrown its shadow across my world,
that world I was seeing with such
pitiless clearness. It was love of
drink. The woman who is facing
black despair is likely to seek for
getfulness of it in drugs or drink.
When torturing thoughts of the
jjufet home and the life I had for
saken overcame me I drank to for
get It. Brandy gives a man cour
age; a woman, too, for a moment.
I swung between Paris and Lon
don. Persons I knew pitied me and
gave me money now and then. I
had none of my own. I was still
"honest.” Persons on whom I had
a claim I felt that I might ask for
money. One of these was the man
I still regarded as my husband, al
though he had repudiated our mar
riage and married some one else.
Arriving in Ixmdon from Paris,
whence I had travelled third class, I
went to Mr. Wilson's office.
After I had waited an hour he
drove up with his bride, a beauti
ful girl, shining with diamonds and
happiness. I spoke to him. I dared
even to speak to her! He ordered
me to leave. I refused. He sent
for a policeman and said: “I want
this woman - locked up for safety.”
I was taken before a magistrate
who fined me four shillings or four
days. I hadn’t a cent. I was taken
to Holloway Jail. My long hair,
once so much admired by Charles
Wilson who had sent me there, was
cut off close to my head. I was put
into the uniform of the prisoners, a
coarse, striped frock, with the num
ber "526” sewed on the shoulder. I
served my term.
Things grew worse for me. Two
nights I slept on the Embankment,
the refuge of the outcast and the
beggar on the banks of the Thames.
There I saw real misery—but none
worse than mine. “Am I my
brother’s keeper!” The man who
painted that picture had the Saviour
in his heart.
Let me draw a little picture for you
of the Embankment at night. Dusk
begins to fall on London. Into the
Park begin to drift the unfortunates.
Here shuffles a man who has long
■
Florence Schenck as She Was
When in the Hey-Day of ths
“Gay Life.”
Jost all hope. He sinks upon s
bench and dully rests his head on
his hands. Soon he sleeps—ls that
miserable stupor can be called sleep.
Here comes a man with fierce eyes
and grim mouth, he Is still fighting
that thing called London. And after
awhile he, too, sleeps. And here
comes a man leading a woman by
the hand. She carries a baby. His
face Is filled with sea of that
fierce, unclean beast we call civiliza
tion, which gives him no chance
even to fight for his mate and his
whelp. The woman, too, has fear
In her face, a mother’s fear. The
baby walls Its hunger and she tries
to feed It; tries to feed It, she whe
has perhaps not tasted food her self
that day! A girl hardly eighteen
creeps fearfully In. In her face Is
another fear. I call her to me and
we talk. She telle me that she has
come In from the provinces, that
she has lost her place anti is without
friends or money. She fears — ths
streets and the wolfllke men whs
stare at her and follow her. She
falls asleep at last In my arms.
And still they shuffle and slink In.
The arc lights glare through our
closed eyelids. The cold fog comes
up from the river and enshrouds
us. The rain drenchej us. Misery,
misery, misery!
I drifted Into Paris. There In my
poverty and despair a letter cams
to me from a friend and former
schoolmate at Norfolk:
She wrote:
"Your little sister Helen has been
to see me. She Is eighteen now.
This is what she said : ’A man wants
to marry me. I don’t love him, but
he promises that if I marry him wa
will go away and live in a different
place and my sister Florence may
live with us. Maybe I could save
Florence. What do you think?’”
I couldn’t stand for that. That
letter brought me back to America.
I gathered up a little money, not
enough, but I got on the ship with
out buying my ticket and when we
had left the tender, what could be
done. I poured out all I had in the
purser’s hand and said, “That's
every cent I have. I didn’t buy a
ticket because I didn’t have enough
money to buy it. ’What can you do?
You can’t put a tramp overboard
in mid-ocean.” They were kind. I
arrived in my own country. I am
here waiting. A good woman who
sympathizes with me, though the
■world has branded me as "bad,” has
communicated with my family. I
hope my mother will come to me.
I am waiting. Friends of the White
Way talk of sending me to a sana
tarium. I do pot know what will
become of me. I don’t care much.
At twenty-three everything is over.
It is sort of sad, isn’t it?