The Harts were to dine at the Elisha Stewarts' that evening, and the
architect had considered this engagement of sufficient importance to
bring him back to Chicago all the way from Indianapolis. Elisha
Stewart had made his money many years ago, when he commanded a vessel
on the lakes, by getting control of valuable ore properties. The
Elisha Stewarts had lived in Shoreham for nearly a generation, and were
much considered,--very good people, indeed. Their rambling,
old-fashioned white house, with a square cupola projecting from the
roof, was one of the village landmarks. The place was surrounded by a
grove of firs set out by Elisha himself when he built the house.
It was a large dinner, and most of the guests, who were of the older
set, were already assembled in the long drawing-room when Helen and
Jackson arrived. The people in the room were all talking very
earnestly about a common topic.
"It's the Crawfords," Mrs. Stewart murmured asthmatically into Helen's
ear. "You know they find his affairs in such a frightful tangle. They
say there won't be much left."
"Indeed!" Jackson exclaimed sympathetically.
"Anthony wasn't all right, not fit for business for more than a year
before he died," Colonel Raymond was saying to the group. "And he
snarled things up pretty well by what I hear."
"That slide in copper last March must have squeezed him."
"Squeezed? I should say it did."
"It wasn't only copper."
"No, no, it wasn't only copper," assented several men.
Among the women, the more personal application of the fact was openly
made.
"Poor old Anthony! It must have troubled him to know there wasn't one
of his family who could look out for himself. Morris was a pleasant
fellow, but after he got out of Harvard he never seemed to do much. It
will come hard on Linda."
"What has the youngest boy been up to lately?"
"The same thing, I guess."
"I heard he'd been doing better since he went on the ranch."
"He couldn't get into much trouble out there."
"Isn't there anything left?"
"Oh, the widow will have a little. But the in-laws will have to hunt
jobs. One is out in California, isn't he?"
The company did not seem able to get away from the topic. Even after
they went out to dinner, it echoed to and fro around the table.
"I say it's a shame, a crime!" Mr. Buchanan pronounced with confident
earnestness. "A man with that sort of family has no right to engage in
speculative enterprises without settling a proper sum on his family
first. There's his eldest daughter married to an invalid, his youngest
daughter engaged to be married to a parson, and neither of his sons
showing any business ability."
"That's a fact, Oliver," Mr. Stewart nodded. "But you know Anthony
always loved deep water."
"And now it's his family who have got to swim in it."
"He was a most generous man," Pemberton remarked in a milder tone. "I
hardly know of a man who's done more first and last for this town, and
no one ever had to ask twice for his help in any public enterprise."
"Seems to have looked after other people's affairs better'n his own.
It's a pity now the boys weren't brought up to business."
"That isn't the way nowadays. He was always ready for a gamble, and
she didn't want her sons in the business."
From time to time there were feeble efforts to move the talk out of the
rut in which it had become fixed. But the minds of most of those about
the table were fascinated by the spectacle of ruin so closely presented
to them. The picture of a solid, worldly estate crumbling before their
eyes stirred their deepest emotions. For the moment it crowded out
that other great topic of the new strike in the building trades. Every
one at the table held substantially the same views on both these
matters, but the ruin of the Crawford fortune was more immediately
dramatic than the evils of unionism.
"When are you fellows going to start that school, Pemberton?" some one
asked at last.
"Not until these strikes let up, and there's no telling when that will
be. If these labor unions only keep on long enough, they will succeed
in killing every sort of enterprise."
"Yes, they're ruining business."
Then Pemberton, who was seated next to Helen, remarked to her:--
"You will be glad to know, Mrs. Hart, that the trustees have decided
not to hand the work over to any institution, at least for the present."
"I am so glad of that," she replied.
"That's about as far as we have got."
Sensitively alive to her former blunder in expressing her wish that her
husband might draw the plans for the school, she took this as a hint,
and dropped the subject altogether, although she had a dozen questions
on the tip of her tongue.
She noticed that Jackson, who was seated between Mrs. Stewart and Mrs.
Phillips, was drinking a good deal of champagne. She thought that he
was finding the dinner as intolerably dull as she found it, for he
rarely drank champagne. When the women gathered in the drawing-room
for coffee, the topic of the Crawfords' disaster had reached the
anecdotal stage.
"Poor Linda! Do you remember how she hated Chicago? She's been living
at Cannes this season, hasn't she? I suppose she'll come straight home
now. Does she own that place in the Berkshires?"
"No, everything was in his name."
"He was one of the kind who would keep everything in his own hands."
"Even that ranch doesn't belong to Ted, I hear."
"My, what a tragedy it is!"
There seemed to be no end to the talk about the lost money. Helen sat
limply in her chair. The leaden dulness of the dinner-talk, the dead
propriety and conventionality of the service, the dishes, the guests,
had never before so whelmed her spirit as they did to-night. These
good people were stung into unusual animation because a man had died
leaving his family not poor, but within sight of poverty. For poverty
is the deadliest spectre to haunt the merchant class at their lying
down and at their uprising.
When the men came in, murmuring among themselves fragments of the same
topic, Helen felt as though she might shriek out or laugh hysterically,
and as soon as she could she clutched her husband, just as he was
sitting down beside Mrs. Pemberton.
"Take me away, Francis. It's awful," she whispered.
"What's the matter?" he asked in quick concern. "Don't you feel well?"
"Yes, yes, I am all right. No, I am tired. My head aches. Can't we
leave? I shall do something silly--come!"
As they got into their carriage, he demanded, "What was the matter?"
"Nothing,--just the awful dulness of it,--such people,--such talk,
talk, talk about poor Mr. Crawford's money!"
"I thought the crowd was all right," he grumbled. "The best out
here--what was the matter? Your nerves must be wrong."
"Yes, my nerves are wrong," she assented.
Then they were silent, and from the heat, fatigue, and champagne he
relapsed into a doze on the way home. But when they reached the house
he woke up briskly enough and began to talk of the dinner again:--
"Nell, Mrs. Phillips was speaking to me to-night about Venetia. She's
worried to death over the girl. The men say pretty rough things about
her, you know. Little fool! She'd better marry Lane if he wants her
still, and keep quiet."
"Like mother, like daughter," Helen replied dryly. "And of the two I
prefer the daughter."
"What makes you say that? Louise is all right; just likes to have her
hand squeezed now and then."
"Phew!" Helen exclaimed impatiently.
There was something so short and hard in his wife's voice that Jackson
looked at her in surprise. They went to their dressing-room; now that
he had got his eyes open once more he made no haste to go to bed.
There was something he wanted to say to his wife which needed delicate
phrasing. He lit a cigarette and leaned back against the open window,
through which the night air was drawing gently. After a little time he
remarked:--
"The judge was talking some about the school. They are getting ready
to build as soon as the strikes are settled. Has Everett said anything
to you about it?"
"Not lately. I haven't seen him since we were at the Buchanans'. Why?"
"Why! I am counting on Everett, and the last time I saw him he seemed
to me to be side-stepping. I've seen Pemberton once or twice, but he
always avoids the subject. I asked him point-blank to-night what their
plans were, and he said the papers had everything that had been
settled. He's a stiff one! I saw you were talking to him. Did he say
anything about the school?"
Helen, who had been moving about the room here and there, preparing to
undress, suddenly stood quite still. The memory of her remark to
Pemberton that morning on the train swept over her again, coloring her
cheeks. She answered the question after a moment of hesitation:--
"Yes, he spoke about their not giving the money to the university, but
that was all. And I didn't like to ask questions."
"Oh!" Jackson murmured in a disappointed tone. "You might have drawn
him out. He's likely to have a good deal to say about what is done.
The judge is down on me, never liked me since I built for
Louise--thinks I stuck her, I suppose. Wasn't his money, though.
Hollister is on the fence; he'll do what Everett tells him. It rests
with Pemberton, mostly."
Helen turned toward where he was standing and asked swiftly, "Why do
you want them to give it to you so much?"
"Why?" The architect opened his mouth in astonishment. "Don't you
know the size of the thing? They're going to spend a million or more
on the school, put up one large building or several smaller ones. It's
a chance that doesn't come every week to do a great public building."
She had begun to unhook her dress, and her nervous fingers tangled the
lace about the hooks. Jackson, seeing her predicament, put down his
cigarette and stepped forward to help her. But she swerved away from
him unconsciously, tugging at the lace until it broke loose from the
hook.
"Francis!" she exclaimed, with a kind of solemnity. "You would not do
it for money, just like any ordinary building?"
"And why not?" he asked, puzzled. "Am I drawing plans for fun these
days? I'll tell you what, Nell, I need the money, and I need it badly.
Something must turn up, and right away. Since the strikes began there
hasn't been much new business coming into the office, of course, and it
costs us a lot to live as we do. That's plain enough."
"We can live differently. I've often thought it would be better if we
did, too."
"But I don't want to live differently. That's nonsense!"
They were silent for a little while before their unfinished thoughts.
He broke the silence first:--
"Perhaps I ought to tell you that I've been caught in an--investment,
some stocks I bought. A friend of mine advised me, a broker who is in
with Rainbow. But the thing went wrong. I don't believe those fellows
know as much as the man outside. Well, instead of making a good thing
by it, I must find ten or twelve thousand dollars, and find it mighty
quick. Now if I get this commission, I can borrow the money all right.
I know who will let me have it. And then by the end of the year it
will straighten out. And the next time I go to buy stocks, well--"
"But that building--the school?" Helen interrupted. She pulled a thin
dressing-sack over her shoulders and sat down on the edge of the bed,
looking breathlessly into his face. What he had said about his losses
in the stock market had made no impression on her. "That work is uncle
Powers's gift, his legacy to the people. You can't do it just to make
money out of it!"
"Why not?" he demanded shortly, and then added, with a dry little
laugh: "I should say that building rather than any other. I'd like to
pick up a few crumbs from the old man's cake. It's only common
justice, seeing he did me out of all the rest."
She stared at him with bewildered eyes. Perhaps she was not a very
quick woman, if after five years of daily contact with her husband she
did not know his nature. But the conceptions she had cherished of him
were too deep to be effaced at once. She could not even yet understand
what he meant.
"'Did you out of all the rest'?" she queried in a low voice.
"Yes!" he exclaimed hardily. "And I think the trustees should take it
into consideration that I didn't contest the will when I had the best
kind of case and could have given them no end of trouble. I was a fool
to knuckle under so quickly. I might at least have had an agreement
with them about this matter."
"So," she said, "you want to build the school to make up what you think
uncle should have given you?"
"You needn't put it just like that. But I need every cent I can make.
The bigger the building, the better for me. And I can do it as well
for them as anybody. They're probably thinking of having a
competition, and asking in a lot of fellows from New York and Boston.
They ought to keep it in this city, anyway, and then the only man I'd
hate to run up against would be Wright. He's got some mighty clever
new men in his office."
He talked on as he stripped off his coat and waistcoat and hung them
neatly on the clothes-tree, permitting her to see all the consideration
he had given to his chances for securing this big commission.
Evidently he had been turning it over and over in his mind, and he was
desperately nervous lest he might lose what he had counted on having
all along ever since his marriage. He refrained from telling his wife
that he felt she had seconded him feebly in this matter; for she knew
the judge, and Pemberton, and Everett, too, a great deal better than he
did. They had always paid her rather marked attention.
Helen said nothing. There was nothing in her surprised and grieved
heart to be said. For the first time she saw clearly what manner of
man her husband was. She knew how he felt about his uncle. He was
vindictive about him, and seemed to welcome this job as a chance to get
even with the old man for slighting him in his will. For some reason
unknown to her he had not tried at the time of his death to break his
will and show his ingratitude, and now he regretted that he had
displayed so much forbearance.
This sudden sight of the nakedness of the man she loved dulled her
heart so that she could not view the thing simply. It was impossible
for her to see that there was nothing very dreadful in her husband's
attitude, nothing more than a little ordinary human selfishness,
sharpened by that admirable system of civilized self-interest which our
philosophers and statesmen so delight to praise. She had been dreaming
that her husband might have the honor to design this great building as
a testimonial, a monument of gratitude, to the man who had succored his
youth, who had given him his education! Her sentiment turned rancid in
her heart.
"Now if Everett or the judge should say anything to you, give you a
chance, you know what it means to me," Jackson remarked finally, as he
put his boots outside the door for the man to get in the morning. He
had meant to say more than this, to point out to her in detail the
service she could do them both. Something in her manner, however,
restrained him, and he contented himself with this final hint.
But Helen had stepped back into the dressing-room and did not hear him.
When she returned her husband was already in bed, and his eyelids were
closed in sleep. She placed herself beside him and turned out the
light.
She lay there a long, long time, her open eyes staring upward into the
darkness, her arms stretched straight beside her, as she used to lie
when she was a little child, and her nurse had told her to be good and
not to stir. Something strange had happened that day, something
impalpable, unnamable, yet true, and of enormous importance to the
woman. The man who lay there beside her, her husband, the indivisible
part of her, had been suddenly cut from her soul, and was once more his
own flesh--some alien piece of clay, and ever so to be.
She did not cry or moan. She was too much stunned. All the little
petty manifestations of character, unobserved through those five years
of marriage, were suddenly numbered and revealed to her. It was not a
question of blame. They declared themselves to her as finalities, just
as if she had suddenly discovered that her husband had four toes
instead of five. He was of his kind, and she was of her kind. Being
what she was, she could no longer worship him, being what he was. And
her nature craved the privilege of worship. That thin, colorless
protestantism of her fathers had faded into a nameless moralism. She
had no Christ before whom she could pour her adoration and love.
Instead, she had taken to herself a man; and now the clay of his being
was crumbling in her hands....
Outside the room the lake began to clamor on the sands beneath the
bluff. It called her by its insistent moan. She rose from the bed and
stepped out upon the little balcony that looked eastward from their
room. The warm night was filled with a damp mist that swathed the tree
trunks to their branches and covered the slow-moving waves of the lake.
Through this earth fog there was moving a current from some distant
point, touching the sleeping town.
All the unquiet feelings that latterly had been rising in her
soul--Venetia's bold challenge, Hussey's harsh words, her own
dissatisfaction with the empty life of getting and spending--now
hardened into judgment. The poor bookbinder was right: it was useless,
perhaps, to mix the two orders of life,--those that labor for mere
living and those that labor for luxury. But here in the superb
indifference of nature she knew herself to be kin with him, the man of
the people, the common man, whose lot it was to labor for his scanty
bread. Surely a new order of the world was to be born, wherein the
glory of life should not be for the ferocious self-seekers, wherein all
that was fine in man should not be tainted with greed!
She held her arms out to the mist, vaguely, blindly, demanding some
compensation for living, some justification that she knew not of. And
there in the vigil of the misty night the woman was born. From a soft,
yielding, dreaming, feminine thing, there was born a new
soul--definite, hard, and precise in its judgment of men and life....
In the house behind her slept her husband and her two boys,--her
children and his. But only in the words of the sentimentalists are
children a sufficient joy to woman's heart. Loving as she was by
nature, nevertheless she asked more of God than her two boys, whose
little lives no longer clung to hers by the bonds of extreme infancy.
They were growing to become men; they, too, like her husband, would
descend into the market for the game which all men play. The fear of
it gripped her heart.
And at last she wept, miserably, for the forlorn wreck of her worship,
longing for the glorious man she had once adored.
The next morning she said to her husband:--
"Francis, I want to go back to the city this winter."
"Well--there's time to think of it--you may change your mind by the
fall."
She said no more, but the first step in her new life had been taken.