It was on the following day that a less important member of society
than Miss Minster resolved to also pay a visit to the milliner’s shop.
Ben Lawton’s second wife--for she herself scarcely thought of “Mrs.
Lawton” as a title appertaining to her condition of ill-requited
servitude--had become possessed of some new clothes. Their monetary
value was not large, but they were warm and respectable, with bugle
trimming on the cloak, and a feather rising out of real velvet on the
bonnet; and they were new all together at the same time, a fact which
impressed her mind by its novelty even more than did the inherent charm
of acquisition.
To go out in this splendid apparel was an obvious duty. Where to go was
less clear. The notion of going shopping loomed in the background of
Mrs. Lawton’s thoughts for a while, but in a formless and indistinct
way, and then disappeared again. Her mind was not civilized enough to
assimilate the idea of loitering around among the stores when she had no
money with which to buy anything.
Gradually the conception of a visit to her step-Jessica took shape in
her imagination.
Perhaps the fact that she owed her new clothes to the bounty of this
girl helped forward this decision. There was also a certain curiosity to
see the child who was Ben’s grandson, and so indirectly related to her,
and for whose anomalous existence there was more than one precedent in
her own family, and who might turn out to resemble her own little lost
Alonzo. But the consideration which primarily dictated her choice was
that there was no other place to go to.
Her reception by Jessica, when she finally found her way by Samantha’s
complicated directions to the shop, was satisfactorily cordial. She was
allowed to linger for a time in the show-room, and satiate bewilderment
over the rich plumes, and multi-colored velvets and ribbons there
displayed; then she was taken into the domestic part of the building,
where she was asked like a real visitor to take off her cloak and
bonnet, and sat down to enjoy the unheard-of luxury of seeing somebody
else getting a “meal of victuals” ready. The child was playing by
himself back of the stove with some blocks. He seemed to take no
interest in his new relation, and Mrs. Lawton saw that if Alonzo
had lived he would not have looked like this boy, who was blonde
and delicate, with serious eyes and flaxen curls, and a high, rather
protuberant forehead.
The brevet grandmother heard with surprise from Lucinda that this
five-year-old child already knew most of his letters. She stole furtive
glances at him after this, from time to time, and as soon as Jessica had
gone out into the store and closed the door she asked:
“Don’t his head look to you like water on the brain?”
Lucinda shook her head emphatically: “He’s healthy enough,” she said.
“And his name’s Horace, you say?”
“Yes, that’s what I said,” replied the girl.
Mrs. Lawton burned to ask what other name the lad bore, but the
peremptory tones of her daughter warned her off. Instead she remarked:
“And so he’s been livin’ in Tecumseh all this while? They seem to have
brung him up pretty good--teachin’ him his A B C’s and curlin’ his
hair.”
“He had a good home. Jess paid high, and the people took a liking to
him,” said Lucinda.
“I s’pose they died or broke up housekeepin’,” tentatively suggested
Mrs. Lawton.
“No: Jess wanted him here, or thought she did.” Lucinda’s loyalty to her
sister prompted her to stop the explanation at this. But she herself
had been sorely puzzled and tried by the change which had come over
the little household since the night of the boy’s arrival, and the
temptation to put something of this into words was too strong to be
mastered.
“I wish myself he hadn’t come at all,” she continued from the table
where she was at work. “Not but that he’s a good enough young-one, and
lots of company for us both, but Jess ain’t been herself at all since
she brought him here. It ain’t his fault--poor little chap--but she
fetched him from Tecumseh on account of something special; and then
that something didn’t seem to come off, and she’s as blue as a whetstone
about it, and that makes everything blue. And there we are!”
Lucinda finished in a sigh, and proceeded to rub grease on the inside of
her cake tins with a gloomy air.
*****
In the outer shop, Jessica found herself standing surprised and silent
before the sudden apparition of a visitor whom she had least of all
expected--Miss Kate Minster.
The bell which formerly jangled when the street door opened had been
taken off because it interfered with the child’s mid-day sleep, and
Jessica herself had been so deeply lost in a brown study where she sat
sewing behind the counter that she had not noted the entrance of the
young lady until she stood almost within touch. Then she rose hurriedly,
and stood confused and tongue-tied, her work in hand. She dropped this
impediment when Miss Minster offered to shake hands with her, but even
this friendly greeting did not serve to restore her self-command or
induce a smile.
“I have a thousand apologies to make for leaving you alone all this
while,” said Kate. “But--we have been so troubled of late--and, selfish
like, I have forgotten everything else. Or no--I won’t say that--for I
have thought a great deal about you and your work. And now you must tell
me all about both.”
Miss Minster had seated herself as she spoke, and loosened the boa
about her throat, but Jessica remained standing. She idly noted that no
equipage and coachman were in waiting outside, and let the comment drift
to her tongue. “You walked, I see,” she said.
“Yes,” replied Kate. “It isn’t pleasant to take out the horses now. The
streets are full of men out of work, and they blame us for it, and to
see us drive about seems to make them angry. I suppose it’s a natural
enough feeling; but the boys pelted our coachman with snowballs the
other day, while my sister and I were driving, and the men on the corner
all laughed and encouraged them. But if I walk nobody molests me.”
The young lady, as she said this with an air of modest courage, had
never looked so beautiful before in Jessica’s eyes, or appealed so
powerfully to her liking and admiration. But the milliner was conscious
of an invasion of other and rival feelings which kept her face smileless
and hardened the tone of her voice.
“Yes, the men feel very bitterly,” she said. “I know that from the
girls. A good many of them--pretty nearly all, for that matter--have
stopped coming here, since the lockout, because _your_ money furnished
the Resting House. That shows how strong the feeling is.”
“You amaze me!”
There was no pretence in Miss Kate’s emotion. She looked at Jessica with
wide-open eyes, and the astonishment in the gaze visibly softened and
saddened into genuine pain. “Oh, I _am_ so sorry!” she said. “I never
thought of _that_. Tell me--what can be done? How can we get that cruel
notion out of their heads? I did so _truly_ want to help the girls.
Surely there must be some way of making them realize this. The closing
of the works, that is a business matter with which I had nothing to do,
and which I didn’t approve; but this plan of yours, _that_ was really
a pet of mine. It is only by a stupid accident that I did not come here
often, and get to know the girls, and show them how interested I was in
everything. When Mr. Tracy spoke of you yesterday, I resolved to come at
once, and tell you how ashamed I was.”
Jessica’s heart was deeply stirred by this speech, and filled with
yearnings of tenderness toward the beautiful and good patrician. But
some strange, undefined force in her mind held all this softness in
subjection.
“The girls are gone,” she said, almost coldly. “They will not come
back--at least for a long time, until all this trouble is forgotten.”
“They hate me too much,” groaned Kate, in grieved self-abasement.
“They don’t know _you!_ What they think of is that it is the Minster
money; that is what they hate. To take away from the men with a shovel,
and give back to the girls with a spoon--they won’t stand that!” The
latent class-feeling of a factory town flamed up in Jessica’s bosom,
intolerant and vengeful, as she listened to her own words. “I would
feel like that myself, if I were in their place,” she said, in curt
conclusion.
The daughter of the millions sat for a little in pained irresolution.
She was conscious of impulses toward anger at the coldness, almost the
rudeness, of this girl whom she had gone far out of and beneath her way
to assist. Her own class-feeling, too, subtly prompted her to dismiss
with contempt the thought of these thick-fingered, uncouth factory-girls
who were rejecting her well-meant bounty. But kindlier feelings strove
within her mind, too, and kept her for the moment undecided.
She looked up at Jessica, as if in search for help, and her woman’s
heart suddenly told her that the changes in the girl’s face, vaguely
apparent to her before, were the badges of grief and unrest. All the
annoyance she had been nursing fled on the instant. Her eyes moistened,
and she laid her hand softly on the other’s arm.
“_You_ at least mustn’t think harshly of me,” she said with a smile.
“That would be _too_ sad. I would give a great deal if the furnaces
could be opened to-morrow--if they had never been shut. Not even the
girls whose people are out of work feel more deeply about the thing
than I do. But--after all, time must soon set that right. Tell me about
yourself. You are not looking well. Is there nothing I can do for you?”
An answering moisture came into Jessica’s eyes as she met the other’s
look. She shook her head, and withdrew her wrist from the kindly
pressure of Kate’s hand.
“I spoke of you at length with Mr. Tracy,” Kate went on, gently. “_Do_
believe that we are both anxious to do all we can for you, in whatever
form you like. You have never spoken about more money for the Resting
House. Isn’t your store about exhausted? If it is, don’t hesitate for a
moment to let me know. And mayn’t I go and see the house, now that I am
here? You know I have never been inside it once since you took it.”
For a second or two Jessica hesitated. It cost her a great deal
to maintain the unfriendly attitude she had taken up, and she was
hopelessly at sea as to why she was paying this price for unalloyed
unhappiness. Yet still she persisted doggedly, and as it were in spite
of herself.
“It’s a good deal run down just now,” she said. “Since the trouble came,
Lucinda and I haven’t kept it up. You’d like better to see it some time
when it was in order; that is, if I--if it isn’t given up altogether!”
The despairing intonation of these closing words was not lost upon Kate.
She looked up quickly.
“Why do you speak like that?” she said. “Are you discouraged, Jessica?
Oh, I hope it isn’t as bad as that!”
“I’m thinking a good deal of going away. You and Miss Wilcox can put
somebody else here, and keep open the house. It doesn’t need me. My
heart isn’t in it any more.”
The girl forced herself through these words with a mournful effort. The
hot tears came to her eyes before she had finished, and she turned away
abruptly, walking behind the counter to the front of the shop.
Miss Minster rose and went to her. “There is something you are not
telling me, my child,” she urged with tender earnestness. “What is it?
Are you in trouble? Tell me. _Let_ me help you!”
“There is nothing--nothing at all,” Jessica made answer. “Only I am not
happy here. It was a mistake to come. And there are--other things--that
were a mistake, too.”
“Why not confide in me, dear? Why not let me help you?”
“How could _you_ help me?” The girl spoke with momentary impatience.
“There are things that _money_ can’t help.”
The rich young lady drew herself up instinctively, and tightened the fur
about her neck. The words affected her almost like an affront.
“I’m very sorry,” she said, with an obvious cooling of manner. “I did
not mean money alone. I had hoped you felt I was your friend. And I
still want to be, if occasion arises. I shall be very much grieved,
indeed, if you do not let me know, at any and all times, when I can be
of use to you.”
She held out her hand, evidently as an indication that she was going.
Jessica saw the hand through a mist of smarting tears, and took it, not
daring to look up. She was filled with longings to kiss this hand, to
cry out for forgiveness, to cast herself upon the soft shelter of this
sweet friendship, so sweetly proffered. But there was some strange spell
which held her back, and, still through the aching film of tears, she
saw the gloved hand withdrawn. A soft “good-by” spread its pathos upon
the silence about her, and then Miss Minster was gone.
Jessica stood for a time, looking blankly into the street. Then she
turned and walked with unconscious directness, as in a dream, through
the back rooms and across the yard to the Resting House. She had passed
her stepmother, her sister, and her child without bestowing a glance
upon them, and she wandered now through the silent building aimlessly,
without power to think of what she saw. Although the furniture was
still of the most primitive and unpretentious sort, there were many
little appliances for the comfort of the girls, in which she had had
much innocent delight. The bath-rooms on the upper floor, the willow
rocking-chairs in the sitting-room, the neat row of cups and saucers
in the glassfaced cupboard, the magazines and pattern books on the
table--all these it had given her pleasure to contemplate only a
fortnight ago. Now they were nothing to her. She noted that the fire in
the base-burner had gone out, though the reservoir still seemed full of
coal. She was conscious of a vague sense of fitness in its having gone
out. The fire that had burned within her heart was in ashes, too. She
put her apron to her eyes and wept vehemently, here in solitude.
Lucinda came out, nearly an hour later, to find her sister sitting
disconsolate by the fireless stove, shivering with the cold, and staring
into vacancy.
She put her broad arm with maternal kindness around Jessica’s waist, and
led her unresisting toward the door. “Never mind, sis,” she murmured,
with clumsy sympathy. “Come in and play with Horace.”
Jessica, shuddering again with the chill, buried her face on her
sister’s shoulder, and wept supinely. There was not an atom of courage
remaining in her heart.
“You are low down and miserable,” pursued Lucinda, compassionately.
“I’ll make you up some boneset tea. It’ll be lucky if you haven’t caught
your death a-cold out here so long.” She had taken a shawl, which hung
in the hallway, and wrapped it about her sister’s shoulders.
“I half wish I had,” sobbed Jessica. “There’s no fight left in me any
more.”
“What’s the matter, anyway?”
“If I knew myself,” the girl groaned in answer, “perhaps I could do
something; but I don’t. I can’t think, I can’t eat or sleep or work. O
God! what is the matter with me?”