"Oh, it is--I'm sure. And yet.... It seems to me--I've thought," said
Cally, somewhat less conversationally, "that life, for a woman,
especially, is something like one of those little toy theatres--you've
seen them?--where pasteboard actors slide along in little grooves when
you pull their strings. They move along very nicely, and you--you might
think they were going in that direction just because they wanted to. But
they never get out of their grooves.... I know you'll think that a--a
weak theory."
"No, I know it's a true theory."
Surely the girl could not have been thinking only of her father's
business as she went on, more and more troubled in voice:
"So much seems to be all fixed and settled, before one's old enough to
know anything about it--and then there's a great deal of pressure--and a
great deal of restraint--in so many different ways.... Don't you think
it's hard ever to get out of one's groove?"
"It's heroic."
She put back her trailing motor-veil, and said: "And for a woman
especially?"
"It would take the strength of all the gods!... I mean, of course--as
women are placed, to-day. Perhaps in some other day--perhaps
to-morrow--"
He broke off suddenly; a change passed over his face.
"And yet," he added, in a voice gentle and full of feeling--"some of
them are doing it to-day."
What his thought might be, she had no idea; but his personal implication
was not to be mistaken. The man from the slums, who had mistakenly put
his faith in her once before in the Cooneys' parlor, conceived that she
was or might be one of these strong he spoke of; little suspecting her
present unconquerable weakness.
Cally was startled into looking at him, a thing she had been rather
avoiding; and looking, she looked instantly away. In Mr. V.V.'s eyes,
that strange trusting look, which had not been frequently observable
there of late, had saluted her like a banner of stars....
"Certainly I was not meant to be one of them," said she, rather faintly.
He must have meant only a general expression of confidence, she was sure
of that; only to be kind and comforting. But to her, grappling with new
hard problems, that strange gaze came like a torch lit in a cave at
night. Much she had wondered how Vivian could possibly hold her
responsible for what her father did, or left undone. And now in a flash
it was all quite clear, and she saw that he had not been holding her
responsible at all. No, this simple and good man, who let the crows
bring his raiment, or not, as they preferred, had only reposed a trust
in her--in Cally Heth. It was as if, that day at the Settlement, he had
said to her, by his eyes: "I know _you_. Once _you_ go to the Works, you
won't rest till you've made things better...."
But instead of this making things better for Cally Heth now, it seemed
to make them worse at once. She became considerably agitated; knew that
he must see her agitation, and did not mind at all. And suddenly she sat
down on the sway-backed sofa between the windows....
"I'm the last woman in the world ever to think of getting out of my
groove," said Cally, her cheek upon her hand.
And then, with no premeditation at all, there came strange words from
her, words clothing with unlessoned ease thoughts that certainly she had
never formulated for Hugo Canning.
"And yet I feel that it might have been different. I've felt--lately--as
if I haven't had much of a chance.... I think I have a mind, or had
one ... some--some spirit and independence, too. But I wasn't trained to
express myself that way; that was all ironed down flat in me. I never
had any education, except what was superficial--showy. I was never
taught to think, or to _do_ anything--or to have any part in serious
things. No one ever told me that I ought to justify my existence, to pay
my way. Nobody ever thought of me as fit to have any share in anything
useful or important--fit for any responsibility.... No, life for me was
to be like butterflies flying, and my part was only to make myself as
ornamental as I could...."
V. Vivian, who wrote articles about the Huns in newspapers, stood at the
Cooney mantel. He did not move at all; the man's gaze upon her
half-averted face did not wink once. His own face, this girl had
thought, was one for strange expressions; but she might have thought the
look it wore now stranger than any she had ever seen there....
"Maybe, it's that way with all women, more or less--only it seems to
have been always more with me.... Money!" said the low hurried
voice--"how I've breathed it in from the first moment I can remember.
Money, money, money!... Has it been altogether my fault if I've measured
everything by it, supposed that it was the other name for
happiness--taken all of it I could get? I've always taken, you
see--never given. I never gave anything to anybody in my life. I never
did anything for anybody in my life. I'm a grown woman--an adult human
being--but I'm not of the slightest use to anybody. I've held out both
hands to life, expecting them to be filled, kept full...."
She paused and was deflected by a fleeting memory, something heard in a
church, perhaps, long ago....
"Isn't there," she asked, "something in the Bible about
that?--horse-leech's daughters--or something?--always crying '_Give,
give_'?..."
There was a perceptible pause.
"Well--something of the sort, I believe...."
She had seemed to have the greatest confidence that, if anything of the
sort was in the Bible, this man would know it instantly. However, his
tone caught her attention, and she raised her eyes. Mr. V.V.'s face
was scarlet.
"I see," said Cally, colorlessly, out of the silence, "you had already
thought of me as one of those daughters.... Why not?"
"Of you! Not in my life," cried V.V.... "I ... it's--"
"Why shouldn't you? I know that's what I am. You're--"
"_Don't_.... I can't let things be put upside down like that."
His difficulties, in the unhappy moment, were serious. His skin had
turned traitor to him, sold out his heart. And now, if he had the
necessity of saying something, his was also the fear lest he might say
too much....
"If I ... I appeared to look--conscious, when you asked me that, it was
only because of the--the strange coincidence. I--you compel me to tell
you--though it's like something from another life."
He paused briefly; and when he went on, his voice had acquired something
of that light hardness which Cally had heard in it before now.
"Once, a year ago, when I had never so much as heard your name,
Commissioner O'Neill and I happened to be talking about the local
factory situation, about the point of view of the owners or,--to be
exactly honest,--the owners' families. By chance--I did use those words.
And O'Neill said I was a wild man to talk so, that if I knew any of
these people, personally, I'd never judge them so--so unkindly.... It
was a long time before I saw ... how right he might be.... And that's
what I tried to say to you the other day--when I spoke of _knowing the
people_. I--"
"Yes, sometimes that makes a difference, I know." Had she not felt it
only this afternoon? "But I'm afraid this isn't one of the times ..."
Cally rose, feeling that she desired to go. Nevertheless, glancing at
his troubled face, she was suddenly moved by perhaps the most selfless
impulse she had ever felt in her life.
"Please," she said, gently, "don't mind about that. I liked you better
for it. I like people to say what they think. I've--"
"Do you? Then allow me to say that I'm not quite a bitter fool...."
The young man was advancing toward her, throwing out his hands in a
quaint sort of gesture which seemed to say that he had had about as much
of this as he could stand.
"For surely I don't think I am--I don't think I'm quite so dumb and
blind as you must think me...." His repressed air was breaking up
rapidly, and now he flung out with unmistakable feeling: "Do you suppose
I could ever forget what you did last May! Not if I tried a thousand
years!" said Mr. V.V.... "How could I possibly think anything of you,
after that, but all that is brave and beautiful?..."
The two stood looking at each other. Color came into Cally's cheek; came
but soon departed. The long gold-and-black lashes, which surely had been
made for ornaments, fluttered and fell.
Out of the dead silence she said, with some difficulty:
"It's very sweet of you to say that."
Cally moved away from him, toward the door, deeply touched. She had
wanted to hear such words as these, make no doubt of that. Among all her
meetings with this man last year, she had only that May morning to
remember without a stinging sense of her inferiority. And she supposed
that he had forgotten....
"You see," she said, not without an effort, "I have been telling you my
troubles, after all.... I--I'm afraid I've kept them waiting for you
upstairs. I must go."
But she did not leave the parlor at once, even when Hen, hearing the
door creak open, cried down that the infirmary was ready....
If Cally felt that she had somehow confessed her weakness to Mr.
V.V.--about the Works, about life--and been forgiven by him, it seemed
that even that did not quite settle it all. It must have been that one
small corner of her mind refused to consider that all this was a
closed episode.
She turned, with her hand on the knob.
"Shall you go to that meeting of Mr. Pond's next Wednesday--his meeting
for workers? He has asked me to go."
The young man said that he would be at the meeting; that he hoped to see
her there.
Cally hesitated again. Perhaps she thought of Hugo then; of perhaps the
small unreconstructed corner of her mind grew more unrestful.
"I'm not sure that I'll be able to go," she said, slowly.... "Dr.
Vivian--is your telephone number still the same--Meeghan's Grocery? I--I
may want to speak to you some time."
Yes, it was just the same. Meeghan's Grocery.
V.V. stood looking at her from the middle of the floor, one hand raised
to his hair in his characteristic gesture. His old-fashioned sort of
face wore a faraway look, not so much hopeful now as wistful; a look
which had been moving to Cally Heth, even in the days when she had tried
to dislike him. But of this, the young man from the lonely outskirts was
not aware; of the nature of his replies he had taken no note. In his
ears whispered the subtlest of all his many voices: "She'll never speak
to you, once that's printed. Tear it up. You've a right to your
youth...."
"Good-bye," said Cally, "and thank you."
"Miss Heth," said Vivian, starting, hurriedly--"I--if I--if it should
ever happen that I could _help_ you in any way--it's not likely, of
course, I understand that--but if it _should_ ever happen so--_promise_
me that you'll send for me."
But the girl did not make that promise then, her reply being: "You
_have_ helped me--you _must_ know that.... You're the one person in the
world who has."
* * * * *
Cally walked home alone, in the dying effects of a lovely afternoon.
She had left the Cooney parlor in the vein of one emerging from strange
adventures in undiscovered countries. This queer feeling would hardly
last over the solid threshold of Home, whose atmosphere was almost
notoriously uncongenial to eccentricities of that sort. But it did
linger now, as Cally trod somewhat dreamily over streets that she had
long known by heart. Four blocks there were; and the half-lights
flickering between sky and sidewalk were of the color of the girl's
own mood.
In this moment she was not troubled with thought, with the drawing of
moral lessons concerning duty or otherwise. Now Mr. V.V.'s unexpected
last speeches to her seemed wholly to possess her mind. She was aware
that they had left her curiously humbled.... Strange it seemed, that
this man could be so unconscious of the influence he had upon her, had
clearly had even last year. Stranger yet that he, whom only the other
day she had thought of as so narrow, so religiously hard, should prove
himself absurdly over-generous in his estimate of her.... Or no, not
that exactly. But, at least, it would have been absurd, if it had not
been so sweet....
The revolting corner of her mind seemed now to have laid down arms.
Perhaps the girl's vague thought was that the feelings roused in her in
the bunching-room had, after all, been unreasonable, even hysterical, as
Hugo had plainly enough stated, as Hen herself had partly argued.
Perhaps it was merely that all that trouble would keep, to be quietly
pondered over at a later time. But rather, it seemed as if a mist had
settled down over the regions of practical thought, hiding problems from
view. The Works had somehow been swallowed up in that apologia she had
made, Cally Heth's strange apology to Mr. V.V. for herself and her life.
Cally walked slowly along the familiar street, her thoughts a thousand
miles in the blue. If the words of the good young man had humbled her,
they had also mysteriously stirred and uplifted. She thought of his too
trusting tribute, she thought of what they had said about women, their
strength and their hope of freedom; and the misty pictures in her mind
were not of herself--for well she had felt her weaknesses this day--but
rather they were of a dim emerging ideal, of herself as she might some
day hope to be. Vague aspirations were moving in her; new reachings of
the spirit; dreams that spoke with strange voices....
And, companied by these ethereal fancies, she came, before she was aware
of it, to the substantial steps of Home, where began the snuggest of all
snug grooves....
She arrived with the intention, already well formed, of retiring
forthwith to her room, and--probably--spending the whole evening there.
But here, as it chanced, interruption fell across her thought. Just at
her own door, Cally almost ran into a man who was standing still upon
the sidewalk, as if waiting for some one: a tall old gentleman standing
and leaning upon his cane. Cally came out of her absorption just in time
to escape collision.
"I beg your pardon!..." she began, with manner, stepping back.
But then her feet faltered, and her voice died suddenly away, as she saw
that this silent old man was her neighbor, Colonel John B. Dalhousie,
whom she had never spoken to in her life.
The Colonel was regarding her with frightening fixity. The girl's
descent from the empyrean to reality had the stunning suddenness of a
fall: she showed it in her blanching face. Now, as the two thus stood,
the old man raised a hand and swept off his military hat in a bow of
elaborate courtesy.
"An apology from Miss Heth," said he, in a purring voice, "is the last
thing on earth one of my name would have ventured to expect."
Doubtless the meeting had been obliged to come some day: Cally had often
thought of it with dread, once escaped it by a narrow margin. That it
should have come now, in the gentler afterglow of this curiously
disturbing day, seemed like the grimness of destiny.... No fear of
over-generosity here; no gleam in these eyes of brave and beautiful
things....
"But you ask my pardon," the smooth-cutting voice went on. "It is
granted, of course, my dear. You took my son's heart, and broke it, but
that's a bauble. You took his honor, and I kicked him out, but honor's a
name in a printed book. You took his life, and I buried him, but sons,
we know, cannot live forever. What is there here to make a father's
heart grow hard?"
Cally raised her hand to her throat. She felt suffocating, or else a
little faint. From life she seemed to have stepped into the house of
dead men's bones; and here she could see at play old emotions not met
before in her guarded life: shrivelling contempt, undying hatred,
immortal unforgiveness. Nevertheless, the subtlest stroke in the naked
confrontation was that something in the father's expression, distorted
though it was, reminded her of the son, whose face in this world she
should see no more.
She tried to move past the face of her Nemesis, appeared physically
incapable of motion; tried to speak, and had little more success.
"I--I'm--very sorry--for--" she said, indistinctly, and her ears were
mocked with her ghastly inadequacy. "I--I've--"
"Sorry? Why, of course you are. Doubtless the little unpleasantness has
marred your happiness at times. But I am gratified to know that you have
other young men for your amusement, now that my son has withdrawn
himself from your reach."
The old Colonel stooped further, brought his stabbing gaze nearer her.
There were heavy yellow pouches under his eyes; his lower lip, not
hidden by the stained white mustaches, twitched spasmodically.
"God looked and repented him that he had made man. I might wish that
he'd made you a man--for just five minutes. But what do you imagine he
thinks when he contemplates you and your work, my dear? Eh?... little
she-devil, pretty little hell-cat!..."
Cally smothered a little noise between a cry and a sob. She started
away, by sheer strength of horror; somehow got away from the terrible
old face, ran up her own steps. Glancing whitely over her shoulder from
this secure coign, she saw that Jack Dalhousie's father still stood
unmoving on her sidewalk, staring and leaning on his cane....
She closed the door quickly, shutting out the sight.