SOCIAL QUESTIONS
The social world seemed about to open to the coule girl. At Mrs.
Harvey's she called, and behold! her house was but one street removed
from the Lake Shore Drive, on which she had stood that September day. It
was a home of comfort rather than of wealth, not at all ostentatious,
and yet its elegance troubled Rose not a little.
She knew values by instinct, and she knew there was nothing shoddy and
nothing carelessly purchased in the room. The Harveys were envied by
some of their wealthier neighbors for the harmoniousness of their house.
They contrived to make their furniture distinguish itself from a
down-town stock--which requires taste in selection, and arrangement as
well.
Rose heard voices above, and soon Mrs. Harvey and Isabel came down
together. Rose was glad of her friend's presence--it made it easier for
her.
After hearty greetings from Mrs. Harvey they all sat down and Mrs.
Harvey said:
"I'm glad you came over. We--Isabel and I--feel that we should do
something for you socially. I would like to have you come over some
Wednesday and pour tea for me. It's just my afternoon at home, and
friends drop in and chatter a little while; perhaps you'd enjoy it."
"O, you're very kind!" Rose said, dimly divining that this was a
valuable privilege, "but I really couldn't do it. I--I'm not up to
that."
"O, yes, you are. You'd look like a painting by Boldini up against that
tapestry, with your hair brought low, the way you wore it concert
night."
Isabel put in a word. "It isn't anything to scare you, Rose. It's hardly
more formal than at college, only there won't be any men. It will
introduce you to some nice girls, and we'll make it as easy for you as
we can."
"O, yes, indeed; you can sit at the table with Isabel."
"O, it isn't that," Rose said, looking down. "I haven't anything
suitable to wear." She went on quickly, as if to put an end to the whole
matter. "I'm a farmer's girl living on five hundred dollars a year, and
I can't afford fifty dollar dresses. I haven't found out any way to earn
money, and I can't ask my father to buy me clothes to wear at teas. You
all are very kind to me, but I must tell you that it's all out of my
reach."
The other women looked at each other while Rose hurried through this.
Mrs. Harvey was prepared at the close:
"There, now, my dear! don't let that trouble you. Any simple little gown
will do."
"It's out of the question, Mrs. Harvey, until I can buy my own dresses.
I can't ask my father to buy anything more than is strictly necessary."
There was a note in her voice which seemed to settle the matter.
Isabel said, "Perhaps you have something made up that will do. Won't you
let me see what you have? Certainly the dress you wore at the concert
became you well."
"If you have anything that could be altered," Mrs. Harvey said, "I have
a dressmaker in the house now. She could easily do what you need. She's
looking over my wardrobe."
Rose shook her head, and the tears came to her eyes.
"You're very, very kind, but it wouldn't do any good. Suppose I got a
dress suitable for this afternoon, it wouldn't help much. It's
impossible. I'd better keep in the background where I belong."
She stubbornly held to this position and Mrs. Harvey reluctantly gave up
her plans to do something for her socially.
Rose had come to see how impossible it was for her to take part in the
society world, which Isabel and Mrs. Harvey made possible to her. The
winter was thickening with balls and parties; the society columns of the
Sunday papers were full of "events past," and "events to come."
Sometimes she wished she might see that life, at other times she cared
little. One day, when calling upon Isabel, she said suddenly:
"Do you know how my father earned the money which I spend for board? He
gets up in the morning, before any one else, to feed the cattle and work
in the garden and take care of the horses. He wears old, faded clothes,
and his hands are hard and crooked, and tremble when he raises his
tea----"
She stopped and broke into a moan--"O, it makes my heart ache to think
of him alone up there! If you can help me to earn a living I will bless
you. What can I do? I thought I was right, but Mr. Mason made me feel
all wrong. I'm discouraged now; why was I born?"
Isabel waited until her storm of emotion passed, then she said:
"Don't be discouraged yet, and don't be in haste to succeed. You are
only beginning to think about your place in the economy of things. You
are costing your father but little now, and he does not grudge it;
besides, all this is a part of your education. Wait a year and then we
will see what you had better do to earn a living."
They were in her library and Rose sat with her hat on ready to go back
to her boarding house. Isabel went on, after a time spent in thought:
"Now the social question is not so hopeless as you think. There are
plenty of select fine places for you to go without a swagger gown. Of
course, there is a very small circle here in Chicago which tries to be
ultra-fashionable, but it's rather difficult because Chicago men have
something else to do and won't be dragooned into studying Ward
McAllister. You'll find the people here mostly good, sensible people,
like the Harveys, who'll enjoy you in any nice, quiet dress. You can
meet them informally at dinner or at their little Sunday evening in. So
don't you take any more trouble about it," she ended, "and you needn't
pay me for the lecture either."
Rose answered her with smiles:
"I wish I could feel--I wish I didn't care a cent about it, but I do. I
don't like to feel shut out of any place. I feel the equal of any one; I
was brought up that way, and I don't like to be on the outside of
anything. That's a dreadful thing to say, I suppose, but that's the way
I feel."
"I'm not going to quarrel with you about the depth of your depravity;
but I assure you there is no circle in Chicago worth knowing which will
shut you out because you are a poor girl. Thank heaven, we have not
reached to that point yet. And now about your writing. I believe in you.
I liked those verses, though I may not be an acute critic--Mr. Mason
says I'm a conservative, and he's probably right. He says you should
write as you talk. He told me you had remarkable power in suggesting
images to the mind, but in your verse the images were all second-hand.
He believes you'll come to your own themes and style soon."
"I hope so." Her answer was rather spiritless in tone.
"There's another thing, Rose. You're going to have suitors here in
Chicago, and fine ones too. May I talk with you about that?"
Rose flushed deeply and her eyes fell; she was a little incoherent.
"Why, yes--I don't see any reason--there isn't any need of secrecy."
Isabel studied her from a little distance.
"Rose, tell me: how is it that you didn't marry young, as so many poor
girls do?"
Rose considered a moment:
"I hardly know myself."
"You had lovers, always?"
"Yes, always."
"And you had fancies, too?"
"O yes, as all girls do, I suppose."
"Why didn't you marry one of these?"
"Well, for one reason, they didn't please me well enough--I mean _long_
enough. They grew tiresome after awhile; and then I was ambitious, I
wanted to get out into the world. I couldn't marry some one who would
bind me down to the cook-stove all my life, and then I had my ideals of
what a man should be--and, some way, the boys didn't interest me after
awhile."
"I think I understand that. You're going to marry some time, of course."
Rose looked down: "Why, yes, I suppose so--most girls do."
"Don't think I'm impertinent, will you, but is there any--are you bound
to any one?"
Rose lifted her face.
"No, I am as free as any woman."
"I'm glad of that, Rose. I was afraid you might be half-engaged to some
one in the college or back in the valley. It makes it very fine and
simple if you can enter your wider life here, free. You are sure to
marry, and you ought to marry well."
Rose replied a little disgustedly:
"I hate to think of marrying for a home, and I hate to think of marrying
as a profession. Writers accuse us of thinking of nothing else, and I
get sick and tired of the whole thing. I wish I was just a plain animal
or had no sex at all. Sometimes I think it is a curse to be a woman."
She ended fierce and sullen.
Isabel shrank a little:
"O don't be too hard on me, Rose! I didn't mean to anger you."
"I'm not angry; the things I want to say I can't seem to say. It isn't
your fault or mine. It's just fate. I hate to think of 'marrying
well'--"
"I think I understand," Isabel said, a little appalled at the storm she
had raised. "I haven't been troubled by that question because I have a
profession, and have something to think about besides marriage, and
still we must think about it enough to prepare for it. The world must
have its wives and mothers. You are to be a wife and mother, you are
fitted for it by nature. Men see that--that is the reason you are never
without suitors. All I was going to say, dear, was this: you are worthy
the finest and truest man, for you have a great career, I feel sure of
it--and so--but no, I'll not lecture you another minute. You're a
stronger woman than I ever was, and I feel you can take care of
yourself."
"That's just it. I don't feel sure of that yet. I feel dependent upon my
father and I ought not to be; I'm out of school, I'm twenty-three years
of age, and I want to do something. I must do something--and I don't
want to marry as a--as a--because I am a failure."
"Nobody wants you to do that, Rose. But you didn't mean that exactly.
You mean you didn't want to come to any man dependent. I don't think you
will; you'll find out your best holt, as the men say, and you'll
succeed."
Rose looked at her in silence a moment:
"I'm going to confess something," she finally said with a little laugh.
"I hate to keep house. I hate to sew, and I can't marry a man who wants
me to do the way other women do. I must be intended for something else
than a housewife, because I never do a bit of cooking or sewing without
groaning. I like to paint fences and paper walls; but I'm not in the
least domestic."
Isabel was amused at the serious tone in which Rose spoke.
"There is one primal event which can change all that. I've seen it
transform a score of women. It will make you domestic and will turn
sewing into a delight."
"What do you mean?" asked Rose, though more than half guessing.
"I mean motherhood."
The girl shrank, and sat silent, as if a doom had been pronounced upon
her.
"That is what marriage must mean to you and to me," Isabel said, and her
face had an exultant light in it. "I love my profession--I am ambitious
in it, but I could bear to give it all up a hundred times over, rather
than my hope of being a mother."
The girl was awed almost into whispering.
"Does it mean that--will it take away your power as a physician?"
"No, that's the best of it these days. If a woman has brains and a good
man for a husband, it broadens her powers. I feel that Dr. Sanborn and I
will be better physicians by being father and mother. O, those are great
words, Rose! Let me tell you they are broader than poet or painter,
deeper than wife or husband. I've wanted to say these things to you,
Rose. You've escaped reckless marriage someway, now let me warn you
against an ambitious marriage--"
She broke off suddenly. "No, I'll stop. You've taken care of yourself so
far; it would be strange if you couldn't now." She turned quickly and
went to Rose. "I love you," she said. "We are spiritual sisters, I felt
that the day you crushed me. I like women who do not cry. I want you to
forgive me for lecturing you, and I want you to go on following the lead
of your mysterious guide; I don't know what it is or, rather, who he
is--"
She stopped suddenly, and seating herself on the arm of Rose's chair,
smiled.
"I believe it is a man, somewhere. Come now, confess--who is he?"
Quick as light the form and face of William De Lisle came into Rose's
thought, and she said:
"He's a circus rider."
Isabel unclasped Rose's arm and faced her.
"A circus rider!"
Rose colored hotly and looked away.
"I--can't tell you about it--you'd laugh and--well, I don't care to
explain."
Isabel looked at her with comical gravity.
"Do you know what you've done, 'coolly' girl? You know the common
opinion of woman's curiosity? I don't believe a woman is a bit more
curious than a man, only a woman is curious about things he isn't. I'm
suffering agonies this minute. You know I'm an alienist. I've studied
mad people so much I know just what sends them off. You've started me.
If you don't explain at once--" She went to the door and called, "Etta!
Don't disturb me, no matter who comes."
"Now tell me about it," she said, as she sat down beside Rose and
studied her with avid eyes.
"Why, it's nothing," Rose began. "I never spoke to him, and he never
even saw me, and I never saw him but once--"
"And yet he influenced your whole life?"
Rose mused a moment:
"Yes, I can see it now--I never realized it before--he has helped me all
my life."
She told of her first sight of him, of her long ride home, of her
thoughts of him, reserving something, of course, and her voice grew
husky with remembered emotion. She uttered more than she knew. She
showed the keen little woman at her side the more imaginative side of
her nature. It became evident to Isabel that the beautiful poise of the
head and supple swing of the girl's body was in part due to the
suggestion of the man's perfect grace. His idealized face had made the
commonplace apparent--had led her, lifted her.
"Why, it's all a poem!" she exclaimed at the end. "It's magnificent; and
you thought I'd laugh!" She looked reproachful. "I think it's incredibly
beautiful. What was his name? We may meet him some time--"
Rose drew back and grew hot with a blush.
"Oh, no--I don't want to see him now. I'm afraid he wouldn't seem the
same to me now."
Isabel considered. "You're right! He never really existed. He was a
product of your own clean, sweet imagination, but let me tell you--" she
made a swift feminine turn to the trivial, "You'll marry a tall, lathy
man, or a short, dumpy man. That's the way things go. Really, I'll need
to keep Doctor and Mason out of the house."