COMPENSATION
The next day the Premier kept to his room, and refused to look at the
papers. The cabinet ministers telephoned in vain; he was out, the
maid said. He hated them, every one--for their insane laughter their
idiotic applause--this disloyal attendance at such a place! He could
not speak to them or see them.
When his wife spoke to him, he snapped back at her like an angry
rattlesnake, and asked her why she had never tried to develop a mind
of her own. Her patience, submissiveness, the abject way she deferred
to him and tried to please him--the very qualities he had demanded of
her, now infuriated him beyond words. He began to despise her for her
spiritless submission.
Fortunately for her, the days that followed took him away from home,
and the household breathed easier each time he departed.
"This settles it," said Rosie, the housemaid, when he went out angrily
slamming the front door. "I will never marry a member of Parliament,
no, not though he goes on his bended knee to ask me. I may not have
wealth or fame--but I'll have peace."
"Don't be too sure," said the cook, who was Scotch, and a
Presbyterian. "You can't be sure of any of them--they are all queer.
You never know what a man will do till he's dead."
The Woman's Parliament held sessions for three nights in the city
before it began its tour of the country with every night an audience
that packed the theatre to the roof. Each night the woman "Premier"
took her curtain calls and received the bouquets which came showering
in, but not a word could the public find out about her. The papers
said her identity would remain a mystery until all the engagements
were filled.
On the last night, when Pearl went to her room--she was staying with
the President of the Woman's Club--a box of flowers was on her table.
When she opened it, she found an armful of American Beauty roses, and
a letter. Pearl's face went suddenly aflame like the roses, and a
jagged flash of lightning tore her heart. He had not forgotten her!
Hastily locking her door, for no one must interrupt her, Pearl read
her letter. She had faced three thousand people two hours before, but
her hand trembled now as she read:
"I have been in your audience, Pearl, drinking in every word you say,
rejoicing over you, loving you--but glad every minute that I played
the game fair. You have won the election--of that I am sure--for you
have set the whole Province laughing at the old-style politician. It
is easy going for the rest of us now. Our old friend George Steadman
has had the ground torn from under his feet. They all think you left
Purple Springs to take some gentle and safe job in the Department of
Education, and are breathing curses on this mysterious stranger who
has upset the foundations of the Government. Driggs suspected as soon
as he heard about the play, and he and I came into the city to see for
ourselves--we held hands to keep from disgracing ourselves last night
when you got up to speak.
"The leader of the Opposition, who seems to be a solid sort of chap,
would like to meet you when it is all over--he is well pleased with
the women's activities, and especially your part, and wants to meet
you personally.
"I do not need to tell you, dear, what I think. I believe you know.
I am in a mellow and pleasant state of being able to say 'I told you
so.'
"I am not sending you roses because I think you are short of bouquets,
but just because there are certain things a red rose can say, that I
can not. H.C."
"And why can't you say it?" Pearl whispered, "and why don't you say
it, and me hungry for it. Who is stopping you from saying it--I'm sure
it's not me."
She threw aside her pride, and going to the phone, called the hotel
where she knew he stayed.
"Is Dr. Clay of Millford there?" she asked, trembling with eagerness.
"Just a minute," said the clerk.
Pearl's heart was pounding in her throat, her ears sang, her mouth was
dry with excitement. She wanted to hear his voice--she wanted to see
him.
It seemed a long, long time--then the clerk's voice, mechanical and
dull as the click of an adding machine:
"No, Dr. Clay checked out tonight."
Pearl hung up the receiver listlessly. The ripple of laughter and
waves of voices came from the drawing-room below. A company of people
had come over from the theatre, some one was calling to her outside
her door, asking her if she would come down.
Suddenly it had all become distasteful to her,
hollow--useless--vain--what was there in it?--a heavy sense of
disappointment was on her. After all, was life going to disappoint
her, cheat her--giving her so much, and yet withholding the greatest
joy of all?
She caught the roses in her arms, and kissed them fiercely. "I love
you--red roses," she said, "but you are not enough. You do not say
much either, but I wish you would tell me why he is so stingy with
me!"
* * * * *
In a week, the election was over, and the Government defeated. The
newspapers, in red headlines, gave the women the credit, and declared
it to be the most sensational campaign the country had ever seen. "The
barbed arrows of ridicule had pierced the strong man's armor," one
editorial said, "and accomplished something that the heaviest blows of
the Opposition had been powerless to achieve." Dr. Clay had defeated
George Steadman by a large majority, and the Millford "Mercury" was
free to express itself editorially, and did so with great vigor.
The Premier had fought valiantly to the last, but his power was
gone--the spell broken--he could no longer rouse an audience with his
old-time eloquence. His impassioned passages had lost their punch, for
the bitterness, the rage which filled his heart, showed in his words
and weakened them; and the audiences who before had been kindled with
his phrases, showed a disposition now to laugh in the wrong place.
The week of the campaign had been to him a week of agony, for he knew
he was failing as a leader, and only his stern pride kept him going.
He would let no one say he was a "welsher." The machine worked night
and day, and money was freely spent, and until the last, he hoped,
his party would be returned, and then he could resign and retire
honorably. He did not believe the machine could be defeated. They had
too many ways of controlling the vote.
When the news of the Government's defeat began to come in from the
country places--the city seats having all gone to the Opposition--the
old man went quietly home, with a set face of ashy pallor. He walked
slowly, with sagging shoulders, and the cane which he used, did not
beat the pavement in rage, but gropingly felt its way, uncertainly, as
if the hand which guided it was hesitant and weak.
In his house on Water Street, a big, square brick house, with
plain verandahs, the ex-Premier sat alone that night. A few of his
followers--the close-in favorites--had called to see him, but had been
denied. His wife, flutteringly made excuses. He sat in his big black
leather chair, looking into the fireplace, where no fire was kindled,
and when one of the maids had come in to build the fire, he had gently
told her he liked it better as it was, dull, bleak and dead, it suited
the occasion--and she had gone out hurriedly, and in the kitchen burst
into tears.
"It ain't natural for him to be mild like that," she sobbed to the
cook. "I'd rather have him damn me up and down. The old man's heart is
broken, that's what it is. He's sittin' there so calm and quiet--it
would make any one cry that has known him in his good days. I don't
believe we'll ever hear him rip and tear again--the blessed old dear."
"Well indeed, I'll be glad if we don't," said the cook grimly. "He's
raised enough hell in his time for one man, if he never does another
turn at it. I've put up with him for over fifteen years. I saw him
drive out Master Jim, and Jim's poor wife, with the dearest little pet
of a grandson any man ever had. He was sorry enough after, but that
didn't bring them back. I hope he will sit still for a while and think
it all over, and give the poor missis a rest. She's been bawled at,
and sworn at enough too, and her that gentle and pleasant."
"She's cryin' in her room now," said the housemaid, dabbin' her
eyes with her handkerchief and wishin' he'd come up and rage over
anything."
"O, is she?" said the cook. "I'll bet she's not. The house is so quiet
it makes her nervous--that's all! But she'll get used to it. O no,
Rosie dear, he's got his, and it's about time. I ain't worryin' over
him, for all I like the old man--but I believe the day of judgment
begins here. He's reaping what he sowed--and all I wonder at is that
the harvest has been so late."
"That's all right for you--you're a Presbyterian," said Rosie
tearfully, "but I belong to the Army. You know God's side of it
bettern' I do, but we're all for the sinner, and I can't bear to see
him so quiet and mild. It's just like havin' a corpse in the house
to see him there in front of the dead fire; I wouldn't wonder if the
morning light will find him cold and stiff in death." Rosie's tears
gushed forth anew at this sad picture.
"No chance," said the cook, "I haven't cooked breakfast for him for
fifteen years without knowin' him better than that. He'll come back."
But the Presbyterian cook, so sure of her theology and her knowledge
of human nature, had no breakfast to cook for him the next day, for
the ex-Premier kept his bed, and declined to see any one except
his wife, whom he did not let out of his sight. His gentleness was
terrible--he was even pleasant. When Rosie brought the mail to the
door, he actually thanked her, which brought on another paroxysm of
tears, and made even the cook shake her head doubtfully.
He spoke little, and made no complaint. He was only tired, he
said--just a little weary. No, he would not see a doctor--it was not a
doctor he needed.
Beside him sat his wife, the quiet, self-effacing little woman who had
had no thought or ambition apart from him. Under half closed eyes, he
watched her, wonderingly. What were the thoughts of her heart--this
gentle-faced woman who had so tenderly cared for him, and put up with
him all these years. Many a time he had made her cry--he had driven
away her son--and her grandson--and yet she had offered no word of
remonstrance. How old and sad she looked when her face was in repose.
It was a face of deep lines and great sadness--a wistful, troubled,
hungry face, but dominated by a self-control of iron power. She sat
beside the bed, without moving; waiting, watchful.
"You've been good to me, Jessie," he said at last, as he stroked her
hand.
She started nervously.
"Better than I have been to you--but I am going to be better--it is
not too late yet."
With eyes of alarm, growing wider every moment--she watched him as he
spoke.
"I guess I needed a set-back," he said, "and I got it--and I've
learned a lot in a short time. One thing was that you are more to me
than I thought. My friends--in politics--were everything to me--but
they valued me only for what I could do for them. I could harangue the
crowd--gather in the votes--keep things going. I remembered every one,
slapped every one on the back, called them by their first name--and it
went. But they laughed at me behind my back. Their only interest in me
was that I could carry elections. With you, it has been different. I
don't know why you stuck to me. Why did you, Jessie?"
Without replying, she hastily left the room--and phoned for the
doctor.
The papers that night reported the ex-Premier's condition as "causing
grave apprehension to his friends."
When Pearl read it in the evening papers, she made a quick resolve. A
letter must be sent to Purple Springs.
When Annie Gray and Jim went to the post-office for the mail, two days
after the election, they were not disappointed, for Pearl had written.
"It is all over," wrote Pearl, "and the Government has gone down to
defeat. The new Government will make good its promises too. But I am
sure from what I have heard and seen of your father-in-law, you have
nothing to fear from him. He would not take little Jim away from you
even if he could. You can tell the people of Purple Springs all about
yourself now, and wouldn't I like to see Mrs. Cowan's face when she
hears who your father-in-law is?"
"Tonight's paper says he is not well, and I am wondering if you hadn't
better come in to the city, you and Jim. You will know best about
this. I feel sorry for Mr. Graham. He is a domineering old man, full
of prejudice and narrow ways. There could be no progress so long as he
was at the head of affairs--so he had to be removed. He held the
door shut just as long as he could, and when the crash came, quite
naturally he was trampled on, and that is never a pleasant experience.
But the whole thing has a pathetic side. I wish it could have been
settled without this.
"The night of the election, women paraded the streets, singing and
cheering, mad with joy, it made my eyes blur to see them. I am sorry
it had to come to a show-down, for it seems to set men and women
against each other--at least, I know some men feel that way. Of course
we had lots of men helping us--we could not have got far without them.
Peter Neelands has been one of the best. He was elected in one of the
city seats, and we are all so glad.
"Here are some stamps and two balloons for Jim. I do hope you will
come--. Lovingly, Pearl."
* * * * *
The winds of June, which whipped the dust of Water Street into
miniature whirlwinds under the noses of the horses, were heavy with
the unmistakable perfume of wild roses. The delivery man, sniffing
the air, decided he would go that night to the Beach, just to see the
fields of roses; the streetcar-conductor went suddenly homesick for a
sight of the poplar trees, with the roses on the headlands, and the
plushy touch of green grass under his feet, and the wizened little
Scotch milliner across the road took what she called a "scunner" at
the silk and muslin flowers, with their odious starchy, stuffy smell,
and wondered where the farmer was, who two years ago had asked her
to marry him. The wind--heavy with the perfume that stirred so many
hearts with longing, eddied carelessly into the garden of the big
brick house with the plain verandas, doubling round to the garden
at the back, where, in an old-fashioned rocking chair with chintz
cushions, sat the ex-Premier.
The wind, still charged with wild roses, stirred the lilac trees and
mountain ash, and circled noiselessly around the chair where he sat,
and played queer tricks with his memory, for all of us are young in
June, when the pageant of summer is passing by.
"I like to see you knitting, Jessie," he said gently "it is a peaceful
art, untouched by worldly cares. I wish I could hear hens cackling,
and the drowsy sounds of a farmyard, all set in nature's honest key.
I'm tired of people and machinery and telephones and committees, and
all these other inventions of the devil."
Rosie, scrubbing the veranda, hearing the last part of the sentence,
piously thanked God for the master's returning health of body and
mind, and flattened her head against the veranda post, to catch more.
"The things I have given my life to," he said sadly, "have fallen away
from me--I built on a foundation of sand, and when the rains descended
and the floods came, my house fell and left me by the ruins, groping
in the ashes."
"It isn't so bad as that, James," his wife said timidly. "You are a
respected man still, you know you are--you have plenty of friends, if
you would only let them come. It's no disgrace for a public man to be
defeated."
"It's not that, Jessie," he said. "It doesn't matter to me now what
the world thinks, it can't think any worse of me than I think of it.
No, the bitterest part of all this to me is that I have none of my
own. I want some one of my own. I was too harsh--too hasty."
"If Jim had lived," she began, wistfully--
The front veranda bell pealed loudly, and Rosie hastily wiped her
hands on her petticoat, and went to answer it, sorry to miss any part
of the conversation.
"I won't see any one," said the ex-Premier, again. "She knows--I
won't. Go and tell her I won't."
When Rosie opened the door, a card was put in her hand, and the
visitor, a young lady, asked her if she would be good enough to give
it to the ex-Premier.
"He won't see you," said Rosie quickly. "He won't see any one. I am
turning them away by the dozens."
The visitor took the card from Rosie's hand, and hastily wrote a few
words on it. Rosie told the cook about it afterwards.
"She had eyes like a fairy princess, lips like cherries, and the
nicest clothes, but you could tell she wasn't thinkin' about them. I
just wanted her to stay and talk to me. 'Will you give this to him,'
she said to me, 'I'll wait here, and if he doesn't want to see me--it
is all right--I will go away--but I think he will want to see me,'
says she, with a smile at me that made me want him to see her too, and
she sat down on one of the veranda chairs.
"When I gave him the card, he read it out loud--ain't he the nicest
ever? Lots of people wouldn't have read it out. 'Miss Pearl Watson,'
says he, and what's this, 'teacher at Purple Springs,' and he nearly
jumped out of his chair.
"'My God!' he says, and he reached for his cane, like as if he was
going somewhere. 'Bring her here,' he said, and his voice was more
natural than it has been since--it made me all prickle," said Rosie.
When Pearl was taken around to the back garden, Rosie retired to a
point of vantage on the sleeping-porch above, and got most of the
conversation, by abandoning all scrubbing operations, and sitting very
still.
The ex-Premier's wife arose as if to leave, but he motioned her to
stay.
"This concerns you too, Jessie," he said.
For a moment a silence fell on them, as the wind gently stirred the
lilacs in front of them and a humming bird on silken wings went
flashing past, like a flower that had come alive.
"You are a teacher, your card says, at Purple Springs. Is that in the
far North?" The ex-Premier endeavored to speak calmly.
"No," said Pearl, "it is only a hundred miles from here."
His face clouded with disappointment.
"But it was named for the valley in the far North, by a woman who came
from there."
"Where is the woman now," he asked, with a fine attempt to make his
question casual.
"I came to tell you about her," said Pearl, with evasion. "That is, of
course, if you would like to hear. It is an interesting story."
He motioned to her to begin, trembling with excitement.
Pearl told the story that had been told to her the night she and Annie
Gray had sat by the dying fire, told it, with many a touch of pathos
and realism, which made it live before him. His eyes never left her
face, though he could not discover how much she knew, and yet the very
fact of her coming to him seemed to prove that she knew everything.
The old man's face twitched painfully when she spoke of the young
widow's quarrel with her husband's father.
"He was not accustomed to having his wishes thwarted," said Pearl
simply. "He was a man whose word was law in his own household and
among his friends. But she had the freedom of the wilderness in her
blood, and they quarrelled violently. He was determined to send the
boy to England for his education."
"He only said that--he wouldn't have done it--he loved the boy too
well," he burst in, impatiently.
"Well, of course, the young mother did not know that--not being a
mind-reader, she had no way of telling--and besides, he threatened to
take the child from her altogether. He was his son's heir, and he was
therefore the guardian of the child. The law was with him, I believe,
in that. That is one of the laws that have roused the women to take a
hand in public matters.
"So, to save her boy, to keep him for her very own--she allowed her
father-in-law to think she had not been legally married. She gave up
her good name, to keep her boy. She went away--with only her two hands
to make a living for them both."
"Where is she?" cried the old man, with something of his old
imperiousness.
Pearl did not at once reply. He should hear all of the story. She did
not minimize the hard struggle that Annie Gray had had in her attempts
at self support, even when she saw the old man wince. He got it all.
"When she came to the farm on the Souris, she could not tell her
story--the fear was on her night and day that she might be discovered,
and the child taken from her."
"No judge in the country would do that," he cried stormily. "She had
nothing to fear even if--if--"
"Unfortunately," said Pearl quietly, "she did not know that. She
believed her father-in-law. She thought it was true, because he had
said so, and she knew that the illegitimate child belongs to the
mother, and to her alone, so she chose to let it stand at that.
"The people at Purple Springs adopted the name she had put upon her
gate--but ostracized her. The fact that she did not tell them anything
of her part, was proof to them she was not a good woman, and a man
from Ontario, who knew something about the case, fed the curiosity of
her neighbors with gossip which confirmed their suspicions."
"For three years she has lived alone, not a neighbor has come to her
door--and she has kept herself and little Jim; has worked the
farm, educated her boy, for the trustees would not let him come to
school--kept sweet and sane in spite of it all.
"When I went to see her, she cried with joy to see a human being of
kindly intention in her house. But the neighbors cut me dead, and kept
the children home from school because I went to live with her."
A groan broke from him. "Poor girl!" he said brokenly, "Poor girl, she
didn't deserve that."
Pearl's heart was softening, so she hurried on.
"The little fellow got into a fight at school, because a boy said
things about his mother. He is the sweetest tempered child I ever
knew, but he knew when to fight, and thrashed a boy a head taller than
himself; and the trustees turned him out."
"What kind of people are they?" he stormed. "It was a brave thing for
the boy to defend his mother--a brave thing I tell you. The other boy
should have been expelled--you are the teacher--why did you let them?"
Pearl let him rage, then very quietly she said, "It happened three
years before I knew them--but you should not blame the boy, Mr.
Graham, or even the trustees. They were under no obligation to protect
the woman or her boy. The boy's own grandfather had said much worse
things about her than the boy at the school. He not only insulted
her, but his own son as well--when the rage was on him. So why should
strangers spare her?"
"Go on," he said hoarsely, "let me hear it all."
She was standing in front of him now, and her eyes were driving the
truth deep into his soul. Something about her eyes, or her voice with
its rich mellowness, caused him to start and exclaim.
"Who are you, girl--tell me, who you are--I have heard your voice
somewhere! My God! was it you? was it you?"
"Yes," said Pearl, "it was me; and when the women of the city here,
who had come to you and tried to break down your stubborn prejudices,
tried to reason with you, but found it all in vain; when they told me
that first night to think of some sad case that I had known of women
who had suffered from the injustice of the law and men's prejudice,
and strike without mercy, I thought of your daughter-in-law and all
that she had suffered. I saw again the hungry look in her sweet face,
when I went to see her. I saw the gray hairs and the lines of sorrow;
I saw again the heroic efforts she makes to give her boy everything
that the world is bent on denying him--I thought of these things--and
the rest was easy. There was no other way, sir; you would not listen;
you would not move an inch--you had to be broken!"
Speechless, almost breathless, he looked at her--all the fight had
gone out of him.
"I am going now, sir," she said. "I have delivered her message. She
only wanted to clear your son's memory. She will tell the people now
who she is, and prove her marriage, for little Jim's sake.
"Don't go, girl," he cried, "sit down--tell me more. Tell me what the
boy is like--how big is he?" "The boy is like you," said Pearl, "a
tall lad for ten; clever far beyond his years."
"Does he know about me--does he hate me--has she told him?" His voice
was pitiful in its eagerness.
"Not a word--the boy has a heart of love, and as sunny a disposition
as any child could have. She has made his life a dream of happiness,
in spite of all."
The old man's face began to quiver, and a sob tore its way upward from
his heart. His face was hidden in his hands.
"Would she ever forgive me?" he said, at last, lifting his head.
"Would she believe me if I said I was sorry--would she have pity on a
broken old man, who sees the evil he has done--would the boy let
me love him--and try to make it up to him and his mother? You know
her--why don't you answer me girl? Is there no hope that she might
forgive me?"
Pearl stepped back without a word, as Annie Gray came quickly across
the lawn. She had been standing in the shade of a maple tree, waiting
for Pearl's signal.
A cry broke from Mrs. Graham, Jim's mother, a welcoming cry of joy.
The old man rose to his feet, uncertainly holding out both his hands.
"My girl," he cried "I don't deserve it--but can you forgive me?"
And Annie Gray, who had suffered so bravely, so tearlessly, found her
heart swept clean of resentment or bitter memory as she looked at him,
for it was Jim's father, old, sad and broken, who called to her, and
to Jim's father's arms she went with a glad cry.
"Dad!" she said, "Oh Dad! Little Jim and I are very tired of being
orphans!"
And on the back veranda behind them, where she had been crouching with
her ear to the paling, Rosie came out of hiding and burst out like a
whole hallelujah chorus, and with the empty scrub pail in one hand,
and the brush in the other, beat the cymbals as she sang:
"O that will be glory for me,
Glory for you and glory for me,
When by His grace I shall look on His face,
That will be glory for me!"