EMILY IS HERSELF FREELY
AS Emily turned from Mrs. Ralston's gate, she felt more buoyant
happiness than anything in life had ever hitherto brought her. She felt
licensed on high authority to revel in the hitherto forbidden. She
wanted Lorenzo Rath, and she thought that she understood how to get him.
We may follow her thought and then we will follow where it led her, for
in all the surge of the new teaching there is no lesson greater to learn
than this which Emily had failed to grasp,--that the possession of tools
does not make one a carver; that all things spiritual must be learned
exactly as all things material. One may have so lived previously that
the learning is a mere showing how, but without experience nothing,
either spiritual, mental, or physical, can be efficaciously handled.
When people declare that something is not true because they tried it and
it failed to work, remember Emily Mead. Emily had acquired just one idea
out of Jane's exposition: "That you could get anything that you want."
It is the idea that hosts of people find most attractive in this world,
quite irrespective of its correlative esotericism,--that the soul
growing towards infinite power learns every upward step by resolutely
liking what it gets. No man can climb a stair by hacking down every step
passed; he climbs by being so firm upon each step that he can poise his
whole weight thereon as he mounts. It is part of the supremely beautiful
logic of the highest teaching that the same effort which Jesus
made--every great teacher has made--is sure to make, too. We must see
the Divine embodied in the Present and the Weak and the Humble, before
in our own spirit we may deal, for the good of all, with the Future and
Strength and Power. When one seizes upon anything God-given as a means
of acquiring earth-gifts, one has but seized the empty air; the idea and
then ideal have never been in the possession of such an one. There is
nothing shut away from those who really make God's teaching a vital part
of themselves, but such men and women are no longer keen to selfishly
possess, and the good which they reach out for flows easily in for their
further distribution; in other words, they become what we were all
designed to be,--the outward manifestations of God's purpose, the living
breathing, blessed servants of His will.
How far this interpretation lay from poor Emily's comprehension the
reader knows.
She hurried along, her whole being bounding with joy over the simplicity
of the new lesson. It all seemed almost too story-book-like to be
happening in her stupid, commonplace life. She had spent so many long
hours in thinking over how things would never happen for her, that she
had entirely lost faith in their ever changing their ways and now, all
of a sudden, here was a complete reversal. Bonds were turned into wings;
that unattainable being, a live man, was not only at hand, but
available; she felt herself bidden not to doubt her power; she judged
herself advised to say frankly all the things that girls may never say.
This was the day of feminine freedom. To wish was to have. What one
wanted was the thing that was best for one. Emily--with all of Jane's
ideas swimming upside down in her head--felt superbly joyous and
confident. After all, being alive was a pretty good thing.
She turned a corner into the lane that led in a roundabout way to her
mother's back garden gate and walked swiftly. She was a fine, straight
girl with a lithe, springy walk. Perhaps Lorenzo Rath could not have
done better, from most standpoints, than to marry such an one. Many men
do worse. And there was old Mr. Cattermole's money, too. Some of these
views float in all human atmosphere to-day--float there securely,
because the world is a practical world, and an automobile is obvious,
while love and trust are absolutely unknown to many. "Ye cannot serve
God and Mammon too," and Mammon is very plain and practical, rolling on
rubber tires to the best restaurant. Emily could not have reduced her
roseate visions to any such sordid reasoning, but love to her meant
leaving town and having a good-looking and lively young man to take her
about. This was not really love, any more than the means by which she
expected to acquire it were the religion taught by Jane. We hear much of
the downfall of love and the downfall of religion in these days, but no
one even stops to realize that religion and love cannot possibly even
shake on their thrones. Their counterfeits may crumble and tumble, but
real truth can never fail. It was the counterfeits at which Emily, like
many another, grasped eagerly.
So now she was tripping lightly along and, turning the twist by the
great chestnut tree, her heart gave a sudden flop, for just ahead she
saw her quarry. He was propped against the fence, using his knees for an
easel, while he made a rapid water-color sketch. He was good at those
little impressions of an artistic bit, that nearly always show forth in
youth a great artist struggling to grow.
Emily started, for she was very close to him before she saw him, and her
rampant thoughts led her to blush, apologize, and stammer precisely as
she might have done, had her sex never advanced at all but merely
remained the dominant note that they have always been.
"Why, Mr. Rath," and then she paused.
Lorenzo--who wanted to finish his sketch--nodded pleasantly without
looking up. "Grand day for walking," he said, as a supremely polite
hint, and continued to work rapidly.
Emily went close beside him and looked downward upon the canvas. "How
pretty! I wish I knew more about pictures. What is that brown hill? You
can't see a hill from here."
"That's a cow," said Lorenzo, painting very fast indeed, "but don't ask
me to explain things, for I can't work and talk at the same time."
Emily sank down beside him with a pleasant sense of proprietorship now
that she could get him by will power alone. "I've just come from Mrs.
Ralston's. They're in such distress over old Mrs. Croft."
"Is she worse?" The artist forgot to paint all of a sudden, and turned
quickly towards her.
"Oh, no,--she was asleep when I left. Jane didn't seem a bit troubled,
but Mrs. Ralston is almost wild over not knowing what to say to her
sister when she comes back and finds that awful old woman there. It's a
terrible situation. Everybody knows that young Mrs. Croft has run away.
She just hated to stay and now she's gone. Isn't it awful?"
"Oh, I don't know," said Lorenzo, suddenly regaining his deep interest
in work, "I have a distinct feeling that Miss Grey will bring things out
all right for most people always. It's her way."
"Yes, she's a dear girl," said Emily, and paused to have time to
consider things a little while, feeling that the conversation should be
continued by the man. The man didn't continue the conversation, however,
merely wielding his brush and looking completely absorbed.
Then she remembered her mission. "Mr. Rath, do you believe in frankness
always?"
"I wish that I did."
"But don't you?"
"Civilization wouldn't stand for it."
"Perhaps not every one could bear it, but some could. I could, I'm
sure."
"Are you so sure?"
"Yes, I am sure. I was talking with Jane alone just at the gate before I
left, and she believes that frankness is best always."
"It's easiest, certainly." Lorenzo raised his eyebrows a little
impatiently, but she paid no attention.
"Do you think so?"
"Why, of course. When one wants to be let alone and blurts out, 'Let me
alone,' why, one gets let alone."
"Oh, but that would be impolite," said Emily, feeling that for an artist
he used very crude metaphor. "Of course, Jane and I were not talking
about that kind of people, or that kind of ways. We were talking of
people like you and me--nice people, you know. Jane advised me to be
quite frank with you."
Lorenzo opened his eyes widely. "About what, please?"
"Oh, about all things. You see I meet so few men, and men are so
interesting, and I enjoy talking with them. I've read a good deal, and I
don't care for the life in this place. I want to leave it dreadfully."
"So do I," said the artist. "I quite agree with you there."
"You see, Jane has been teaching me to understand life, and I am getting
the feeling that I am meant for something else than just helping my
mother, wandering about town, and going to church. I'm very tired and
restless."
Lorenzo painted fast.
"Mr. Rath, if you--a man--felt as I do, what would you do?"
"Get out."
"But where?"
"Everybody can find a way, if they really want to."
"It isn't as if I had talent, you see."
"A good many people haven't talent and yet do very well, indeed."
"But I don't want to be a shop-girl or anything like that."
"Naturally not."
There was a pause.
"I'm very much interested in the progress women are making," said Emily.
"I read all I can get hold of about it. Don't you think it remarkable?"
"I don't think much about it, and I skip everything on the subject."
"Oh, Mr. Rath!"
"I'm a jealous brute. I don't like to realize that a woman can do
everything that is a man's work, even to the verge of driving him to
starvation, while he can't do any of her work under any circumstances."
"He could wash and cook and sweep."
"Oh, he's invented machines to save her that."
"I see you've no sympathy with the advanced woman."
"Yes, I have. I'm very sorry for her. A nice mess the next generation
will be."
"Oh, dear."
"My one comfort is that boys take after their mothers, and I'm looking
to see a future generation of men so strong-minded that they smash
ladies back to where they belong--in the rear with the tents."
"Goodness, Mr. Rath, then you don't like any of the ways things are
going?"
"Of course I don't. Once upon a time a busy man's time was sacred; now
any woman who feels like taking it, appropriates it mercilessly."
"I should lock the door, if I felt that way. But now really, don't you
think that we might speak quite openly and frankly?"
Lorenzo began to put up his paints.
"I want to get to the bottom of a lot of things."
"Well?"
"You're the first man that I've ever known that I felt could understand
what I meant, and I do want to know the man's side of things."
"A man hasn't got any side nowadays. He's not allowed one."
Emily looked a little surprised. "You speak bitterly."
"I think I've a right. Men are still observing the rules of the game and
suffering bitter consequences."
"What do you mean?"
"Women with homes have gone into the world to earn some extra pocket
money until they've knocked the bottom out of all wage systems, and you
never can make the wildest among them see that women can't expect men's
pay unless they do men's work. A man's work is only half of it in
business, the other half is supporting a family. Women want equal pay
and to spend the result as they please. The man's wages go usually on
bread and the woman's on bonnets, to speak broadly. He goes to his own
home at night and has every single bill for four to ten people. She goes
to somebody else's house and has only her own needs to face, with
perhaps some contribution towards those off somewhere."
"Dear me," said Emily, "I never thought of that."
"No," said Lorenzo, snapping the lid of his color box shut, "women don't
think of that. But men do."
"But surely there are loads and loads of women who do support families."
"Yes, and who are dragged down by the injustice of what economists call
'The Law of Supplemented Earnings'!"
Emily felt that the experience of conversing frankly with a live man was
not exactly what she had anticipated. It certainly was in no way
romantic. She felt baffled and a good deal chilled. The conversation had
taken a horrid twist away from what she had intended.
"You think that women have no right to go out in the world then?" she
said. "You don't sympathize with the modern trend?"
"I sympathize with nature and human nature," said Lorenzo, "but not with
civilization." He rose to his feet.
"Oh, Mr. Rath!" she looked upward, expecting to be assisted to rise.
"I believe in life, lived by live things in the way God meant. I loathe
this modern institution limping along with its burden of carefully fed
and tended idiots and invalids and babies, better dead. I wish that I
were a Zulu."
"Good Heavens!"
"Come," said the man, picking up his load, "we can go now."
"Had you finished?" She scrambled to her feet.
"I'd done all that I could under the circumstances."
"I suppose the light changes so fast at this time...." Emily was quite
unsuspicious and content. The intuition that used to reign supreme in
women was especially lacking in her. She had not the least idea of what
her presence meant to the unhappy artist.
"Come, come," he repeated impatiently.
They walked away then through the pretty winding lane.
"It seems to me so awful that we are all so hopeless," Emily went on
presently. "We are all put here and often see just what should be done
and can't do it possibly."
"I do exactly what I choose," said Lorenzo,--then he added: "as a usual
thing."
"You must be very happy." She paused. "I suppose that you have plenty of
money to live as you please."
"I'm fortunate enough not to have any."
"Goodness!" the exclamation was sincere. The shock to Emily was
dreadful. "Why do you call that fortunate?" she asked, after a little
hasty agony of downfall as to rich and generous travel, spaced off by
going to the theater.
"Because it makes me know that I shall do something in the world. A very
little money is enough to swamp a man nowadays, when the idea of later
being supported by a woman is always a possibility. Oh," said Lorenzo,
with sudden irritation, "if there weren't so many perfectly splendid
women and girls in the world, I'd go off and become a Trappist.
Everything's being knocked into a cocked hat. I've had girls practically
make love to me. Disgusting."
Emily felt her heart hammer hard. "You're very old-fashioned in your
views," she said, a little faintly.
They came out by her mother's back gate as she spoke.
"Yes, I am," said Lorenzo, "I admit it."
Mrs. Mead came running out of the back door. "Oh, Emily," she cried,
"old Mrs. Croft is dead. Jane sent for the doctor--she sent a boy
running--but she's dead. Wherever have you been for so long?"