HER GREAT RENUNCIATION
Mary went back to her work next day, but not to the same old treadmill.
It could never be that again. The thought that Phil was waiting for her,
working to provide a home for her, glorified the most commonplace day,
and came between her and her most disagreeable tasks. It was uppermost
in her mind when she made her visits to the tenements, and often caused
her to pause and ask herself why the gods had picked her out to make her
the most blessed among mortals. What had _she_ done that life should
bestow so much more on her than it had on poor Dena and Elsie Whayne?
Somehow the sharp contrast between her lot and theirs hurt her more each
time that it was forced upon her notice. It began to make her feel
personally responsible, if not for the difference between them, at least
for making that difference less. Why she owed it to them to do anything
to make their lives more livable, she could not tell, but the
obligation to do so weighed upon her more heavily every day.
Maybe if her endeavors had not been so effectual she might not have felt
the obligation so keenly, but she could not fail to see the difference
that her visits made to the families in the Row. Sometimes she counted
over the things she accomplished, as one might count the beads of a
rosary, not from any sense of pride in what she had done, but as a sort
of self-justification; asking herself, since she had done that much,
could more be reasonably expected.
It was through her efforts that Dena was sent to a hospital and some one
provided to take care of the invalid father and demented mother. It was
because she had interested charitable people in their behalf that Elsie
Whayne found a home in the country once more, and old Mrs. Donegan's
eyes had such skilful treatment from a specialist that she was able to
use them again. There were a dozen instances like that, but best of all,
she realized that she was responsible in a direct way for the miraculous
change that took place in Diamond Row itself.
The morning that Phil went away she was too much occupied to care for
such trivial matters as the daily papers. She did not even glance at
the Riverville _Herald_ to see if it mentioned the fact that she had
taken Mrs. Blythe's place on the programme. It was not until late that
afternoon that she found there was quite a glowing tribute to her
ability as a speaker. Sandford Berry had written it. He had also done
more. In a way they have in newspaper offices he had taken the paper
that Mary loaned him, traced the article denouncing Burke Stoner to its
source, and found that the man who had written it was now a prominent
lawyer in Riverville. He had been employed on the editorial staff of the
_Herald_ for a short time ten years before. Armed with permission to use
his name if necessary, in verifying the article, Sandford Berry had
electrified the town the morning after Mary's talk, by printing her
description of Diamond Row, and her burning appeal to the people of
Riverville to rise up and wipe out the disgrace in their midst. She had
not mentioned Burke Stoner's name, nor was her name mentioned in
connection with this article. It was for political reasons solely that
the _Herald_ made capital of it, stringing sensational headlines across
the front page in startling black letters: "One of to-morrow's
candidates responsible for death of one tenant and maybe two. Shameful
condition of Tenth and Myrtle Street tenements, from which millionaire
owner collects many thousands a year rental."
There was a picture of Burke Stoner, surrounded by a circle of
condemning snapshots of the basement room which had filled Mary with
such horror on her first visit, the stairway labelled "Death-trap of ten
years' standing," and a portrait of little Terence Reilly, reproduced
from the first paper.
Next morning Sandford Berry called her over the telephone to say
gleefully, "Well, it did the work! Coming as it did the last minute
before election it simply wiped Stoner off the map. He was defeated
overwhelmingly, and, between you and me and the gate-post, it was your
speech that did it. I took the liberty of appropriating it without
giving you any credit, for I knew that you wouldn't want to be mixed up
in a mess like that. Didn't I tell you that you'd be the biggest beacon
fire in the lot when you once got a-going? Well, you've started a blaze
now that'll rage a bit. Tell Mrs. Blythe that she'll have no trouble now
in getting the city ordinance she wanted, providing building inspectors.
This Board of Aldermen is hot for it, now that Stoner is out of the way,
and losing this election is going to cripple his influence through all
this part of the state. It'll help the bill you want to put through the
next session more than you realize. You didn't have any idea how far
your little candle was throwing its beams when you made that speech, did
you, Miss Mary? Well, it's indeed a good deed you did for this naughty
world."
"That's just Orphant Annie's extravagant way of putting things," thought
Mary, as she hung up the receiver. "My part in it wouldn't have amounted
to a row of pins if he hadn't written it up so vividly with all those
scare headlines. But, still, I _did_ start it all," she acknowledged to
herself, "and it's something to have done that."
For a moment she was elated by the sense of power that thrilled her. But
the thought that followed had a queer chilling effect. If she could
start such forces in motion for the betterment of the human beings
around her, had she any right to turn her back on this work which she
knew she was called to, just as definitely as Joan of Arc was called to
_her_ mission?
Phil's coming had made her forget for a little space what she had been
so very sure of for many months, that she had been set apart for some
high destiny, too great to allow her own personal considerations to
interfere. Now, at his call, she was about to forsake her first tryst
and turn to him. In just a little while she would leave it all and give
herself wholly to him. Was it right? Was it right?
That question troubled her oftener as the days went by. Not when his
letters came and his strong personality seemed to fold protectingly
about her while she read, shutting out the doubts which troubled her.
Not when she sat with his picture before her, tracing its outlines over
and over with adoring eyes. Not when she gave herself up to dreams of
the little home he wrote about frequently. The little home she would
know so well how to make into a real hearts' haven. She blessed the old
days of hard times and hard work now, for the valuable lessons they had
taught her.
But "is it right? Is it right to fail in the keeping of my first tryst
for this one of purely selfish pleasure?" she asked herself when she saw
the changes that were being wrought in Diamond Row. Before the winter
went by it had been transformed. It was not the sting of defeat which
drove Burke Stoner to do it, nor the sting of public opinion aroused
against him, but the pride of his own daughter, a girl of Mary's age,
when she learned the facts in the case.
She chanced to be in the audience the day when Mary made her appeal, and
unaware that it was her father's property that was being described, was
one of the most thoroughly aroused listeners in the whole audience. But
when she saw her father's picture in the paper next day, set in the
midst of others, proclaiming him a disgrace to good citizenship, her
mortification at being thus publicly shamed was something pitiful to
see. Hitherto it had been her pride to see his name heading popular
subscription lists, and to hear him spoken of as the friend of the poor,
on account of liberal donations.
Nobody knew what kind of a scene took place when she read the condemning
headlines, but it was reported that she locked herself in her room and
refused to see her father for several days. She was his only child and
his idol, and she had to be pacified at any cost. So she had her way as
usual, this time to the transforming of the whole of Diamond Row, and
the comfort of its inmates.
It began with drains and city water-works to supplant the infected
cistern. It moved on to paint and plaster and new floors, to the putting
in of a skylight in two dark rooms, and the cutting of windows in the
third. And, more than that, it led to the opening of both skylight and
windows into the sympathies of Burke Stoner's petted daughter, and led
her out of her round of self-centred thoughts to unselfish interest in
her unfortunate neighbors. It is a question which of the two gained the
greatest inrush of sunshine by those openings.
Mary, watching all this, felt alternately exultant that she had been the
means of starting these blessed changes, and depressed by the thought
that she would be doing wrong if she turned her back on the opportunity
of continuing such work. Thanksgiving went by and the first of December.
As the shops began to put on holiday dress Mary began to be more
depressed than ever. The burden of her poor people pressed upon her more
sorely each day that she listened to their stories of the hard winter
and their struggle to make both ends meet. But more depressing still
were the times when old Mrs. Donegan begged her to come often, and
called down the blessing of all the saints in the calendar upon her
head, and told her tearfully that it would be a sorry day for the Row
that took her away from it.
"It's God's own blessing you've been to the whole tenement!" she
proclaimed volubly on every occasion, and, remembering the changes that
had been brought about directly and indirectly by her efforts, Mary
knew that it was so, and felt all the more strongly that she would be
doing wrong to abandon the work.
Mr. Blythe was able to be out again by Christmas time. The two boys came
home for the holidays, and for two weeks Mary helped with the
entertaining that went on in the big house. There was no question now of
her going back to the boarding-house at Mrs. Crum's. Mrs. Blythe said
that having once experienced the comfort of having a daughter in the
house, she could not dispense with her. She could go off to the capital
now with a free conscience, leaving Mary in charge of the establishment.
So, in January she went, and for several weeks waited for the bill to
come up before the Legislature; busy weeks in which she was occupied all
day long in making new friends for her cause.
Then she wrote home cheerfully that the bill had come up. There had been
much opposition, and it had been cut down and amended till it would fit
only the larger cities of the state. They had gained only a part of what
they had asked for, but that was something, and they would go on
awakening public sentiment until the next session, and bring it up
again. The fight would have to be made all over again, but they would
make it valiantly, hoping for absolute victory next time. She would be
home in a few days.
Up till this time Mary had not realized how anxiously she was looking
forward to the passage of the bill. Upon its fate depended her own, for
as one draws straws to decide a matter, she had made up her mind to let
its outcome settle the question which had troubled her so long. If it
went through successfully, and the State thus proved that it was fully
awake to its duty, then she would feel that her obligation was ended.
That was the specific work she had pledged herself to do. But if it
failed--well, it would break her heart, but she'd have to keep the
tryst, no matter what it cost her.
Her intense desire for its success gradually led her to feel that it was
assured, and the news of only a partial victory left her as undecided as
before. To escape the mood of depression which seized her the snowy
Sunday night before Mrs. Blythe's return, she put on her wraps and
slipped out to a little church in the next block, hoping to find some
word to quiet her unrest, either in song, service or sermon. She sat
listening almost feverishly till the minister announced his text: "_No
man, having put his hand to the plough, and looking back, is fit for the
kingdom of God."_
It was a sermon extolling sacrifice. The minister, a young man with a
thin, earnest face and deep-set eyes that burned like two dark fires,
seemed to know no call of the flesh. It was all of the spirit. One after
another he cited the examples of the Father Damiens, the Florence
Nightingales of the world, till the whole noble army of martyrs, the
goodly company of the Apostles were marshalled before Mary's accusing
conscience, and she felt herself condemned as unfit to stand with them,
wholly unfit for the kingdom. The closing hymn was as accusing as the
sermon:
"The Son of God goes forth to war. Who follows in His train?
. . . . . .
Who best can drink his cup of woe, triumphant over pain,
Who patient bears his cross below, he follows in His train."
She went away with those lines repeating themselves in her ears. It was
still early when she went home, but Mr. Blythe had retired, so telling
the maid to close the house for the night, she went up to her own room,
where the fire burned cheerfully in the grate. She drew up a little
table before it and brought out her writing material. She had made up
her mind to make the supreme sacrifice of her life, even if it killed
her.
"Keep tryst or die!" she sobbed, as she took up her pen. "Oh, Phil! How
can I write it, that I must give you up?"
It took a long time to tell him. She wanted to make it perfectly clear
to him that it was breaking her heart to do it. She was afraid he
wouldn't understand how she felt about not being fit for the kingdom,
and it was hard to put down in black and white such a deeply personal,
such a spiritual thing as that experience of hearing the voices and
answering the call. But in no other way could she explain. Twice she
broke down utterly, and with her head on her arms on the little table,
cried and sobbed with long shuddering gasps that shook her convulsively.
Once she threw the half-finished letter into the fire, saying fiercely
in a low tone, "I _can't_! Oh, I _can't_! It would be giving up more
than Father Damien did. It's more than I can bear!"
But she remembered again those awful words, "No man, putting his hand to
the plough"-- _This_ was looking back. She took another sheet of paper
and patiently rewrote all that was on the sheets she had just burned. It
was nearly morning when she finally sealed the envelope and crept into
bed exhausted by the ordeal. There was no sense of "rising triumphant
over pain" to reward her for her sacrifice, but her stern little Puritan
conscience found a dreary sort of comfort in the thought that she had
followed duty, and that nothing else mattered.
"One doesn't _have_ to be happy," she told herself, over and over.
When she awoke next morning and remembered what she had done, the bottom
seemed to drop out of the whole universe, and she felt a hundred years
old as she moved languidly about the room at her dressing.
"But I can't go on this way," she exclaimed, catching a glimpse of her
wan-eyed reflection in the mirror. "Such a half-hearted sort of giving
won't do any good. I shall have to do as the nuns do when they shut
their convent gate on the world, shut it entirely and forever. I shall
have to put away everything that reminds me of Phil."
She glanced around the room. How many reminders there were, for she had
always treasured everything he had ever sent her; books, pictures,
little curios picked up on his travels. Even an odd stone he had found
on the desert and brought into the Wigwam one day, she used now as a
paperweight. An Indian basket he had bought from an old squaw at
Hole-in-the-rock held her sewing materials. Just under her hand on the
table lay the little book he had given her to read on the train when she
was starting home after Jack's accident, "The Jester's Sword." As she
fingered it caressingly, it seemed to open of its own accord to the
fly-leaf, where was printed the line from Stevenson: "To renounce when
that shall be necessary and not be embittered." And then on the opposite
page--"Because he was born in Mars' month the bloodstone became his
signet, sure token that undaunted courage would be the jewel of his
soul."
She had thought those lines were wonderfully helpful when she offered
them to Jack as an inspiration to renew _his_ courage, but what a hollow
mockery they seemed now that the time had come to apply them to her own
case. Still, the thought of the brave Jester persisted, and was with her
when she went down to breakfast, and later when she went to the station
to meet Mrs. Blythe. She, too, would wear her sword of conquest so
hidden, and unbeknown, even to those who walked closest to her side.
Almost feverishly she threw herself into the duties of the next few
days, glad that an accumulation of letters on Mrs. Blythe's desk kept
her busy at the typewriter all morning, and that some investigating for
the Associated Charities kept her tramping about the streets the rest of
the time, until nightfall. She thought that she was hiding her secret so
successfully that no one imagined she had one. She talked more than
usual at the table, she laughed at the slightest excuse, she joined
spiritedly in the repartee at dinner, a time when they nearly always had
guests. But keen-eyed Mrs. Blythe saw several things in the course of
the week. She noticed her lack of appetite, the long spells of
abstraction that came sometimes after her merriest outbursts; the deep
shadows under her eyes of a morning, as if she had passed many sleepless
hours.
Then going into her room one day it occurred to her that Phil's pictures
were missing. There had been several, so prominently placed on mantel,
dressing-table and desk that one saw them the first thing on entering.
Then she noticed that the solitaire was gone from Mary's finger, and was
tempted to ask the reason, but resisted the impulse, thinking that it
was probably because of some trivial misunderstanding which would right
itself in time.
One afternoon, passing through the lower end of the hall, she saw Mary
sitting at the typewriter in the alcove that had been curtained off for
an office. She was about to call to her to stop and get ready for a
tramp before dark, when the postman's whistle sounded across the street.
He was making his four o'clock rounds. It was a rare occurrence for him
to pass the house at this time of day without leaving something. All
winter it had been the hour at which Phil's daily letter was most likely
to arrive. Mrs. Blythe recalled the big, dashing hand in which they were
always addressed, and Mary's radiant face when they arrived.
Now, at the sounding of the whistle, the clicking of keys stopped and
Mary leaned forward to look out of the window, and watch the progress of
the postman down the avenue. He did not cross over. As the cheerful
whistle sounded again, further down the street, she suddenly leaned her
arms on the typewriter in front of her and dropped her head upon them in
such an attitude of utter hopelessness that Mrs. Blythe hesitated no
longer.
"What's the matter, dear?" she asked kindly, putting her arms around
her, and Mary, surprised into confession, sobbed out the story of her
renunciation on her sympathetic shoulder.
If there was one person in the world whom Mary thought would
understand, who would heartily approve of what she had done, and who
would comfort her with due appreciation and praise, that person would be
Mrs. Blythe. But, to her astonishment, although the arm that encircled
her closed around her with an affectionate embrace, the exclamation that
accompanied it was only, "Oh, you dear little, blessed little _goose_!"
It was a shock, and yet there was some note in it that gave Mary a glad,
swift sense of relief and comfort. She straightened up and wiped her
eyes. Mrs. Blythe hurried to say:
"Don't think for a moment that I don't appreciate to the very fullest
your motive in making such a sacrifice. I think it is very fine and
noble of you, but--my dear little girl, I don't believe it is wholly
necessary. You see, it's this way. The work we are trying to do can't be
accomplished by any one person. If it could you would be gloriously
justified in giving your whole life up to it. But it must be the work of
many. One little torch can't possibly lighten every town in the country.
Even that greatest of beacons, the statue of Liberty, lightens only one
harbor. All we can hope to do is to kindle the unlit torches next to us,
and keep the circle of light widening in every direction till the
farthest boundary of the farthest state is aglow. And you can do that
wherever you go, Mary. Very few states have their homes safeguarded by
the law we are trying to get for this one. And every town and village in
the United States has the _beginning_ of a city slums in some of its
corners.
"Perhaps the very greatest thing you can do for the cause is to show
other girls that they don't have to be like nuns in order to help. They
don't have to take any sort of vow or veil that shuts them away from a
normal, usual life. It is something in which social influence counts for
a very great deal. Because I have a home of my own, and a recognized
social position, and am a happy wife and mother, people listen to me far
more readily when I go to them with a plea for less fortunate homes and
wives and mothers. Mrs. Philip Tremont will be able to accomplish even
more than little Mary Ware. I cannot see where loyalty to Phil and
loyalty to your conception of what you owe humanity conflict in the
slightest. Marriage may take away the leisure that you have now. Few
women have the time to give to a public cause what I am giving. It is
only of late years that I have had it myself. But a torch is a torch, no
matter where you put it, and sometimes the lights streaming from
cheerful home windows make better guides for the benighted traveller
than the street lamp, whose sole purpose is to give itself to the
public."
"I hadn't thought about it that way," said Mary slowly, looking out of
the window in order to keep her face averted. "Maybe you're right, but
it's too late for me to take your point of view, much as I'd like to. I
wrote to Phil a week ago, and sent back his ring, and I made it so clear
that it was a matter of conscience with me, that I'm very sure that I
convinced him that I was doing the right thing. At any rate, there has
been plenty of time for a reply, and I haven't had a word. 'Silence
gives consent,' you know."
She spoke drearily and kept on looking out of the window so long that
Mrs. Blythe was sure that her eyes were full of tears which she wanted
to hide. So she rose briskly, saying, as if the matter were ended:
"Well, at any rate, come on and let's have our walk. We can tramp out to
the Turnpike Inn and come back by trolley before dark if we start
immediately."
All the way out and back Mrs. Blythe could see what an effort Mary was
making to appear interested in the conversation, but she knew by
intuition that her thoughts were not on the people and places they
passed. Each way she turned she was seeing, not the bare February
landscape, but the handsome, laughing face she was trying so hard to put
out of her memory. It was doubly hard now that Mrs. Blythe had
pronounced her renunciation of it unnecessary. The more Mary thought
about it, the more reasonable Mrs. Blythe's viewpoint seemed. It was
true that Dudley Blythe's position in the professional world gave his
wife a certain prestige with many people, and her words a weight they
would not have had otherwise, despite her own personal charm and
ability. And his hearty endorsement and coöperation was her strongest
support.
"Maybe Mrs. Blythe was right," thought Mary. Maybe giving herself to
Phil wouldn't be looking back from the "plough" to which she had
consecrated herself. Maybe it would only be giving it a strong, guiding
hand. She certainly needed it herself, judging from the mess she had
made of her life and Phil's.
Oddly enough, it was not until that moment that she thought of him as
being particularly affected by her decision. Probably it was because she
had always taken such an humble attitude in her mind towards the Best
Man that she had not realized it might be as hard for him to be
"renounced" as for her to make the sacrifice.
On their return Mrs. Blythe saw her quick glance at the silver tray on
the hall table. Any letters arriving while they were out were always
placed there. It was impossible that there should be any now, for the
postman had made his last rounds before they started out. Nevertheless,
she glanced hopefully towards it, and was turning away in disappointment
when the maid, who had heard their latchkey in the door, came into the
hall.
"There's a caller in the library for Miss Ware," she announced. "Been
waiting nearly an hour."
"It's probably Electa Dunn," said Mary listlessly, to whom the word
"waiting" brought up the figure of an unfortunate little seamstress who
had spent a large part of her life in that attitude.
"I left word that I had some sewing for her to do and would send the
material to-morrow. She must be more eager than ever for work, else she
wouldn't come a day ahead of time and wait till dark to get it."
The library door stood open and the firelight shone out cheerfully
across the hall, now almost dark with the shadows of the February
twilight. Just that way it had shone out to meet her three months
before, when she came down and found Phil there. That room had seemed
sacred to her ever since. She wished the maid had not sent Electa in
there to wait for her. It hurt so to have to go into it and recall all
that had happened since that meeting. For an instant her eyes closed and
her lips pressed together as if an actual physical pain had gripped her.
Then she forced herself to go on. At the doorway she paused again and
passed the back of her hand across her eyes, sure that she was dreaming.
It was all as it had been that never-to-be-forgotten night. Some one
stood before the fire gazing down into the dancing flames. It was not
the patient little seamstress, however. The tall, masterful man that
stood there had never waited patiently for anything in his life. Now, at
the sound of her entrance, he turned and came impetuously towards her,
his face alight, his hands outstretched.
Mrs. Blythe, half-way up the stairs, heard Mary's surprised cry, "Oh,
Phil!" and nodded sagely to herself. "He's come instead of writing, just
as I thought he would. Wise man!"