I
To say that Mrs. Foster was cruel, that she lacked sympathy with the
unfortunate, or that she was selfish, would be to state only the dark
half of a truism that has a wider application than class or sex could
give it; a truism whose boundary lines, indeed, are set by nothing short
of the ignorance of human beings hedged in by prejudice and handicapped
by lack of imagination. So when she sat, with dainty folded hands whose
jeweled softness found fitting background on the crimson velvet of her
trailing gown, and announced that she could endure everything associated
with, and felt deep sympathy for, the poor if it were not for the
besetting sin of uncleanliness that found its home almost invariably
where poverty dwelt, it would be unjust to pronounce her hard-hearted or
base.
"It is all nonsense to say that the poor need be so dirty," she
announced, as she held her splendid feather fan in one hand and caressed
the dainty tips of the white plumes with the tips of fingers only less
dainty and white.
"I have rarely ever seen a really poor man, woman, or child who was at
the same time really clean looking in person, and as to clothes--"
She broke off with an impatient and disgusted little shrug, as if to
say--what was quite true--that even the touch of properly descriptive
words held for her more soilure than she cared to bear contact with.
John Martin laughed. Then he essayed to banter his hostess, addressing
his remarks meanwhile to her daughter.
"One could not imagine your mamma a victim of poverty and hunger, much
less of dirt, Miss Gertrude," he began slowly; "but even that sumptuous
velvet gown of hers would grow to look more or less--let us say--rusty,
in time, I fear, if it were the only costume she possessed, and she were
obliged to eat, cook, wash, iron, sew, and market in it."
The two ladies laughed merrily at the droll suggestion, and Miss
Gertrude pursed up her lips and developed a decided squint in her eyes
as she turned them upon the folds of her mother's robe. Then she took up
Mr. Martin's description where the laugh had broken in upon it.
"Too true, too true," she drawled; "and if she dusted the furniture
a week or so with that fan, I'm afraid it would lose more or less
of its--gloss. Mamma quite prides herself upon the delicate
peach-fuzz-bloom, so to speak, of those feathers. Just look at them!"
The girl reached over and took the fan from her mother's lap. She spread
the fine plumes to their fullest capacity, and held them under the rays
of the brass lamp that stood near their guest. Then she made a flourish
with it in the direction of the music stand, as if she were intent upon
whisking the last speck of dust from the sheets of Tannhauser that lay
on its top A little cry of alarm and protest escaped Mrs. Foster's lips
and she stretched oat her hand to rescue the beloved fan.
"Gertrude! how can you?" She settled back comfortably against the
cushions of the low divan with her rescued treasure once more waving in
gentle gracefulness before her.
"Oh, no," she protested. "Of course one could not work or live
constantly in one or two gowns and look fresh, but one could look and be
clean and--and whole. A patch is not pretty I admit, but it is a decided
improvement upon a bare elbow."
"I don't agree with you at all," smiled her guest; "I don't believe
I ever saw a patch in all my life that would be an improvement
upon--upon--" He glanced at the lovely round white arms before him, and
all three laughed. Mrs. Foster thought of how many Russian baths and
massage treatments had tended to give the exquisite curve and tint to
her arm.
"Then beside," smiled Mr. Martin, "a rent or hole may be an immediate
accident, liable to happen to the best of us. A patch looks like
premeditated poverty." Gertrude laughed brightly, but her mother did not
appear to have heard. She reverted to the previous insinuation.
"Oh, well; that is not fair! You know what I mean. I'm talking of elbows
that burst or wear out--not about those that never were intended to be
in. Then, besides, it is not the elbow I object to; it is the hole
one sees it through. _It_ tells a tale of shiftlessness and personal
untidiness that saps all sympathy for the poverty that compelled the
long wearing of the garment."
"Why, my dear Mrs. Foster," said Martin, slowly, "I wonder if you have
any idea of a grade of poverty that simply can't be either whole or
clean. Did--?"
"I'll give up the whole, but I won't give in on the clean. I can easily
see how a woman could be too tired, too ill, or too busy to mend a
garment; I can fancy her not knowing how to sew, or not having thread,
needles, and patches; but, surely, surely, Mr. Martin, no one living is
too poor to keep clean. Water is free, and it doesn't take long to take
a bath. Besides--"
Gertrude looked at her mother with a smile. Then she said with her
sarcastic little drawl again:--
"Russian, or Turkish?"
"Well, but fun' and nonsense aside, Gertrude," said her mother, "a plain
hot bath at home would make a new creature out of half the wretches one
sees or reads of, and--"
"Porcelain lined bath-tub, hot and cold water furnished at all hours.
Bath-room adjoining each sleeping apartment," laughed Mr. Martin. "What
a delightful idea you have of abject poverty, Mrs. Foster. I do wish
Fred could have heard that last remark of yours. I went with his clerk
one day to collect rents down in Mulberry Street. He had the collection
of the rents for the Feedour estate on his hands--"
"What's that about the rents of the Feedour estate?" inquired the head
of the house, extending his hand to their guest as he entered. Mrs.
Foster put out her hand and her husband touched the tips of her fingers
to his lips, while Gertrude slipped her arm through her father's and
drew him to a seat beside her. Her eyes were dancing, and she showed a
double row of the whitest of teeth.
"Oh, Mr. Martin was just explaining to mamma how your clerk collects
rent for the porcelain bath-tubs in the Feedour property down in
Mulberry Street. Mamma thinks that bath-rooms should be free--hot and
cold water, and all convenient appointments."
Fred Foster looked at their guest for a moment, and then both men burst
into a hearty laugh.
"I don't see anything to laugh at," protested Mrs. Foster. "Unless you
are guying me for thinking Mr. Martin in earnest about the tubs being
rented. I suppose, of course, the bath-rooms go with the apartments,
and one rent covers the whole of it. In which case, I still insist that
there is no reason why the poor can't be clean, and if they have only
one suit of clothes, they can wash them out at night and have them dry
next morning."
The men laughed again.
"Gertrude, has your mamma read her essay yet before the Ladies' Artistic
and Ethical Club on the 'Self-Inflicted Sorrows of the Poor?'" asked Mr.
Foster, pinching his daughter's chin, and allowing a chuckle of humorous
derision to escape him as he glanced at their guest.
"No," said the girl, a trifle uneasily; "Lizzie Feedour read last time.
Mamma's is next, and she has read her paper to me. It is just as good
as it can be. Better than half the essays used to be at college, not
excepting Mr. Holt's prize thesis on economics. I wish the poor people
could hear it. She speaks very kindly of their faults even while
criticising them. You--"
"Don't visit the tenement houses of the Feedour estate, dear, until
after you read your paper to the club," laughed her husband, "or your
essay won't take half so well. College theses and cold facts are not
likely to be more than third cousins; eh, Martin? I'm sure the part on
cleanliness would be easier for her to manage in discussion before she
visited the Spillini family, for example."
"Which one is that, Fred?" asked Mr. Foster.
Martin, a droll twinkle in his eye. "The family of eight, with Irish
mother and Italian father, who live in one room and take boarders?"
There was a little explosive "oh" of protest from Gertrude, while her
mother laughed delightedly.
"Mr. Martin, you are so perfectly absurd. Why didn't you say that the
room was only ten by fifteen feet and had but one window!"
"Because I don't think it is quite so big as that, and there is no
outside window at all," said he, quite gravely. "And their only bath-tub
for the entire crowd is a small tin basin also used to wash dishes in."
"W-h-a-t!" exclaimed Mrs. Foster, as if she were beginning to suspect
their guest's sanity, for she recognized that his mood had changed from
one of banter.
The portiere was drawn aside, and other guests announced. As Mrs. Foster
swept forward to meet them, Gertrude grasped her father's arm and looked
into his eyes with something very like terror in her own. "Papa," she
said hastily, in an intense undertone; "Papa, is he in earnest? Do the
Feedour girls collect rent from such awful poverty as that? Do eight
human beings eat and sleep--live--in one room anywhere in a Christian
country? Does--?"
Her father took both of her hands in his own for a moment and looked
steadily into her face.
"Hundreds of them, darling," he said, gently. "Don't stare at Miss
Feedour that way. Go speak to her. She is looking toward us, and your
mother has left her with Martin quite long enough. He is in an ugly
humor to-night. Go--no, come," he said, slipping her hand in his arm and
drawing her forward through the long rooms to where the group of guests
were greeting each other with that easy familiarity which told of
frequent intercourse and community of interests and social information.