TIME BEGINS HIS REVENGES
Political and social undercurrents were slowly working to the surface in
the world of Stirling. Though it was barely spring, the mayoralty
campaign was well under way, promising a close struggle in the fall. A
more immediate matter was the threatened strike, which the men's leaders
were urging in the hope that the approaching annual meeting of the
stockholders of the street-railway might bring some relief. In these
affairs the attitude of Ellis was of importance.
The newspapers called him the Sphinx, since he gave no sign of his
purposes. In politics, of course, it was to be assumed that he was on
the side of the machine. But against the strike he might take a variety
of courses, with a variety of results, all of which were, by the
speculative, mapped and calculated in advance. He might yield and avoid
the strike, he might defy it, or at the last minute he might by some
sudden action entirely change the aspect of affairs and bring himself
profit and credit. Just how this last could be done no one seemed to be
sure, but since from day to day matters were growing worse and Ellis
made no move, it was confidently stated that he had "something up his
sleeve."
Otherwise there was no explaining his conduct. His opponents did not
dare to believe that he was blinded by self-confidence, and yet his own
followers, trust him as they might, were uneasy. His manner showed a
steady, almost savage determination to win, and yet he did not "tend to
business." There were days when he was absent from his office
altogether, refusing to talk with his subordinates except by
telephone--and they hated to discuss plans except within four walls.
There was even one day when he disappeared altogether, just when the
Stirling representatives had come down from the State capital to confer
with him on the street-railway bill, the prospects of which, on account
of the clause conferring eminent domain, were none too bright. Ellis,
when at last his men found him in the evening, said only that he had
been at Chebasset. Moreover, his men got little out of him: with an odd
new gleam in his eye, he merely listened as they spoke; he gave no
directions, and when they begged him to run up to the capital and lobby
for himself he thanked them and said he'd think it over. Feeling their
journey to have been for nothing, they left him, grumbling among
themselves. Something seemed wrong with him.
Something was wrong with him. A man with a pain gnawing at his heart and
a ghost always before his eyes cannot attend to his work. It was not the
Colonel's ghost that dogged Ellis: he never troubled for his part in
Blanchard's death. Judith, splendid in cold anger, haunted him. She
spoiled his sleep, she came between him and his work, she tormented him
by the vision of what he had lost. There was a steady drain upon him, as
from an unhealed wound--or from that inward bleeding which, on the very
first day of their acquaintance, he had felt on leaving her. No, he was
not himself; his mind was confused, his energies wasted, by the constant
alternation of anger and despair.
When realisation swept upon him suddenly, then he shut himself up,
refused himself to all, and fought his fury until he had controlled it.
That day when he went to Chebasset he had not intended to go, but on
his way to his office there suddenly rushed over him the sense of his
loss. Possessed by the thought, he took the train to Chebasset and
wandered half the day among his grounds, tormenting himself by the
recollection that these drives, walks, shrubberies were laid out for
Judith, and now she would never live among them. When he took out of his
pocket a slip of paper bearing her signature and told himself that she
was in his power--in his power!--he found no pleasure in the thought.
In the evening he had not cast off his mood, and when he met his men,
sent them away dissatisfied. One, bolder or more foolhardy than the
others, lingered a moment. "Say," he asked, "what's wrong?"
"Nothing," answered Ellis.
"Honest I'm telling you," said his henchman, "a strike will kill the
bill. And the men on the road are getting ugly."
"Thanks," Ellis replied impatiently. The glow in his eyes suddenly
became fierce, and the man took himself off.
All this was extremely irritating to Ellis; he felt more angry with his
own men than with his opponents, and was ready to punish them for
insubordination without considering the cause of their alarm. It was
unfortunate for Mr. Price that he chose to come to Ellis just after his
legislators had left him. Price wore the same uneasy air.
"Now, what are you worried about?" Ellis began on him.
It was his street-railway stock, Price explained. The quotations were so
continually dropping----
"Only fifteen dollars!" Ellis interrupted scornfully.
"Yes," agreed Price, "but they will soon be down again to where I bought
them."
"Bought?" sneered Ellis. "_Bought!_"
"Well----" hesitated Price.
"What is it to you," demanded Ellis in jarring tones, "where the price
of the stock is, up or down? It cost you nothing, it pays you well, it's
a sure thing. Just you hold it and send me your proxies."
"But," suggested Price, very much brow-beaten, yet endeavouring to say
what he came for, "if it's such a good thing, won't you, perhaps, take
it?"
"What!" rasped Ellis. "My God, Price, haven't you the decency to sit
still and say nothing?"
"Oh, well," mumbled the jeweller, writhing, "if the stock is so
sure--you're sure it's solid?"
"Certainly," Ellis said. "Price, don't be an ass! The other side is just
selling itself a share or two, every little while, to make the
impression that the value is falling. Don't you be taken in."
"Oh, if that's all!" breathed Price, much relieved. He took his hat.
"There, run along," said Ellis. "You know who are your best friends." He
spoke as if directing a child, and Price went away with an irritated
sense of his own impotence and meanness.
But Ellis found no relief in scolding his dependents. He missed
something; he knew that he needed a place where he might sit quiet and
forget the grind and grime of his affairs. The best that was left to him
was Mrs. Harmon, but she never could equal Judith, and when he went to
see her now she bothered him with her advice.
"I wanted to see you," were her first words. "I have been thinking of
telephoning you."
"What is it now?" he asked drearily.
"Stephen," she demanded with energy, "do you realise what is going on?
They are all organising against you."
"What can they do?" he snarled.
"Your own men are frightened," she said. "Two of them came to me
to-day--no, I won't tell their names. They begged me to tell you there
mustn't be a strike. You'll lose your bill, your mayor will be defeated.
Can't you see that?"
"No!" he returned.
"The papers are all calling for Mather as street-railway president," she
went on. "The men say they would never strike under him. It's all very
well for you to say that the travelling public must take what you give
them, but people won't----"
"Lydia," he interrupted, "it's very good of you to be interested in my
position, but suppose you give your time to your own. It needs it bad
enough."
He touched a sore, for Judge Harmon's old friends, remembering his
disappointment in his wife, were dropping her. She was irritated, and
snapped in return. "You look very badly," she said critically. "Just for
a girl, Stephen?"
He glared at her so furiously, at a loss for speech, that she was
frightened and begged his pardon. Yet after she had given him tea she
returned again to the charge.
"You said, Stephen, that you control a majority of shareholders' votes.
You aren't afraid that some of your men will sell out to the other side?
I see the stock is down."
"But is it traded in?" he asked. "Only a share or two. You are like
Price; he came whimpering to me yesterday about his fifty shares."
"But the balance is pretty even, isn't it?" she inquired. "Mightn't
fifty shares just make the whole difference?"
"If you mean whether Price would sell me out," he answered. "He never
bought his shares. They came to him through me. He's tied to me."
"I don't see how?" she said doubtfully. "He's not in politics now; he's
independent, and he gets his money from the upper people--the other side
entirely. But I suppose you know. Still, I wish Abiel had never sold his
stock."
"Don't worry," he commanded. "Confound it, I have to supply courage to
the whole of you."
His men had need of his courage as day by day matters drifted nearer to
a crisis and they saw their enemies organising. Those nervous and eager
persons, the reform politicians, had long talks with the men of money,
who were not now averse to giving them interviews. The men of money
talked together, and the newspapers claimed that at last, after almost a
generation, the society leaders were to take a hand in politics. As
several of the reformers held railway stock, and as the fashionables
could (if they chose) muster many votes for the election, their alliance
against Ellis might prove formidable. The reformers grew more cheerful,
old Mr. Fenno more grim, Pease more thoughtful as the days went by. The
time was near for the annual meeting of the street-railway shareholders,
and the strike, if it came at all, would come before that. The whole
city was intent upon the event.
And Judith, tired as she was, roused to watch the struggle. Was her
sluggish class waking at last? Was Ellis at bay? Was Mather to come
forward and lead? Judith read the newspapers, but gleaned only such
statements as: "Mr. Fenno and Mr. Branderson at last control a majority
of street-railroad votes," or "Mr. Watson has added largely to his
holdings of street-railway stock." She knew these reports could not be
true: the stock was tied fast long ago, and Ellis would take every
pains to maintain his supremacy. But Mather would explain to her the
condition of affairs.
Yet he came seldom to the house. She knew that his mind was occupied, he
was interviewed and pestered on all hands. Day by day she read in the
papers: "Mr. Mather refuses to make any statement." But he might speak
to her. His only desire, when he came to call, appeared to be to throw
off every care save for her health. She did not like to broach the
important topic, yet with repression her interest grew, and she felt
deeply disappointed when, the opportunity being given to speak upon it,
he was reserved.
He met her in a street-car, and sat by her side. When the conductor came
for his fare Mather nodded to him and called him by name. "Good-day,
Wilson."
"I've taken Mr. Ellis's fare every day for two years," said the man,
"yet I don't think he knows me by sight. Ah, Mr. Mather, if we only had
you back there wouldn't be no strike."
Mather smiled. "We were all good friends in those days."
The man went away, and Judith asked as much as she dared. "How does it
seem to be so in demand?"
"I'm not so sure how much in demand I am," he replied, and then spoke of
other things.
She thought that he was avoiding the subject, and told herself that he
did not need her any more. Far away were those days when he sought her
advice--and this thought made her sigh occasionally over her work. The
tasks grew harder as she felt herself left out; she became eager to do
more than merely study, feeling that, with so much going on around her,
she was nothing.
One night when Mather came he spoke for a while with Pease privately,
then hurried away without waiting to see the others. Judith had put her
books away; now she took them again, and went into the dining-room to
work. But she could not fix her mind on her figures, and after a while
she said aloud in the room: "A month ago when he came to see me I would
not stop work to speak with him. Now when he comes I put away my books,
but he does not wait."
Then she heard Pease speaking with Beth in the parlour, and heard
George's name coupled with Ellis's. So Beth was learning all about the
plans! Smothering a sudden jealousy, Judith determined to go and ask
what had been said, yet at the door her resolution failed her, and she
turned back. Let others know, she would go without--and she applied
herself to her figures until her head swam with them. She went unhappily
to bed and lay there thinking.
Through her loneliness was rising a dread of Ellis as an overhanging
menace; she began to fear that he would defeat Mather a second time.
Ellis's sinister force began to oppress her, not only as a cause of
general evil, but also as threatening disaster to that friend whose
value, even whose excellence, her anxieties were teaching her to
acknowledge. As Judith's thoughts dwelt on the man in whom, without
brilliance or the stamp of genius, there was nothing false, nothing base
or mean, and nothing hidden, Ellis seemed like an enemy who, once
successful against herself, was slowly approaching for an attack on
Mather--an enemy whose skill she knew, whose resources she feared, and
whose mercy she doubted. Dreading thus for Mather, she began to tremble
also for herself: she was in Ellis's debt so deep that only a miracle
could ever clear her, while every day was rolling up the interest
against her. Where would this end?
And through her dread increased her loneliness. Looking for help, she
found that she must depend solely upon herself. Day by day she had
learned how small were her powers beside the immense energies of the
city. The definite fear of Ellis suggested still other calamities,
vague, hid in the impenetrable future; there was no misfortune which
fate could not bring upon her, no defense which she could interpose. She
was alone--and suddenly she began to long for companionship, the
fellowship which some one could give, which some one once offered, which
then she had refused, but which now seemed more precious than anything
in the world.
Thus Judith, in her trouble, was unmindful of the power which still was
hers, and ignorant of the revenge which she was to take for all of her
misfortunes. For though she felt herself so weak, it was she, and she
alone, who brought on Ellis the strike which his supporters were so
anxious to prevent.
On a morning, the consequences of whose events were to reach far, going
as usual to her school she passed Ellis in the street. Faltering and
shocked, he stood still while she passed. He had not seen her since the
night of her rejection of him, and the change in her was startling. She
was in black, had grown thin and pale, and her spirited carriage had
changed to the walk of weariness, yet her beauty of face shone out the
clearer, and still she was a picture which men turned to watch. She did
not notice Ellis, but passed with face set, eyes looking far away,
absorbed in thought. When she had gone from his sight Ellis hurried to
his offices and locked himself in the inner room. There for an hour he
walked up and down, up and down.
His clerk heard him, and dared not interrupt him for small matters; the
routine business of the morning was easily discharged. But about noon
came a deputation from the street-railway employees, asking to see Mr.
Ellis.
The secretary listened at the door; Ellis was still pacing the room, yet
the matter was important. The secretary knocked.
"Men from the union to see you," he said through the door.
"Tell them to come again," answered Ellis.
The secretary went with this answer to the deputation. The spokesman
answered: "We have wasted enough time. We must see him now or not at
all."
The secretary knocked again at Ellis's door. "They say they must see you
now, sir," he said.
"Send them to the devil," Ellis replied. The secretary, without thought
of the irony of his interpretation of the order, asked the men to wait.
They consulted among themselves and went away.
That morning the cars on the streets had run as usual, but the delegates
of the union, returning angrily from Ellis's office, gave the order for
the men to strike. As each car returned to the barn its crew left; by
one o'clock almost all the cars were housed. Then the supporters of
Ellis began to gather in his outer office. Price was there, Daggett was
there, a dozen others as well; they consulted anxiously. Not one of them
had expected that Ellis would let the trouble go so far.
At last, with pale face and fierce eye, he appeared among them. "Ha," he
said sardonically when he saw so many of them. "What has frightened you
all?"
They told him of the strike; there was still one day, they reminded him,
before the transfer books of the road should close. Some of his men
thought he was staggered at the news, and the hastier, Price loudest
among them, begged him to conciliate the men.
But the old fighting fire kindled within him, and he stopped them with
scorn. "Don't be fools," he said. "Price, you're a coward. The men will
hit first, will they? Well, we'll give them all they want!"
He began to give directions how to meet the strike, and his energy was
communicated to them all, save one. Even that one applauded with the
rest, and outwardly approved.