Miss Muller's message was never delivered, but Doctor McCall did not
leave Berrytown that morning. Going down the road, he had caught sight
of the old Book-house, and Kitty in her pink wrapper at the window. He
overheard Symmes, the clerk at the station, say to some lounger that
Peter Guinness would be at home that day or the next. He took his
valise to the baggage-room.
"My business is not pressing," he said to Symmes. "No need to be off
until this evening."
Perhaps he could see the old man, himself unseen, he thought with a
boyish choking in his throat. He could surely give one more day to the
remembrance of that old sweet, hearty boy's life without wronging the
wretched ghost of a wife whose hand clutched so much away from him.
Miss Muller, seeing him on the bridge from the windows of her room,
supposed her message had been given: "He has stayed to know how he
may win me." For the first time she faced the riddle squarely. In the
morning she had only wished weakly to keep him beside her.
He was married. Popular novels offered recipes by the score for the
cure of such difficulties in love. But Maria was no reader of novels.
Out of a strict Calvinistic family she and her brother had leaped
into heterodoxy--William to pause neatly poised on the line where
Conventionalism ended; Maria to flounder in an unsounded quagmire,
which she believed the well of Truth. Five years ago she would have
felt her chance of salvation in danger if she had spoken to a woman
who persisted in loving a married man. But five years work strange
changes in the creeds of young women now-a-days; and Maria's heart was
choosing her creed for her to-day, according to the custom of her sex.
She saw Doctor McCall idly leaning over the foot-bridge of the creek
while he smoked. Passion and brilliancy unknown to them before came
into her dark eyes: she stretched out her hands as though she would
have dragged him to her: "Must I give him up because of this wife whom
he long ago cast off?"
If she tempted him to marry her? She knew what name her old church,
her old friends, even her father, who was still living, would apply to
her. Some of these people with whom she had lately cast in her lot had
different views on the subject of marriage. Hitherto, Maria had kept
clear of them. "The white wings of her Thought," she had said, "should
not be soiled by venturing near impurity." Now she remembered their
arguments against marriage as profound and convincing.
"I could not suggest to him myself this way of escape," she thought,
the red dying her face and neck. "I could not." But there was to be
a meeting that very evening of the "Inner Light Club," in which Maria
was a M.H.G. (Most Honorable Guide), and the subject for discussion
would be, "Shall marriage in the Advanced Consolidated Republic be for
life or for a term of years?" The profoundest thinkers in the society
would bring to this vital question all their strength and knowledge,
and, as they had all made up their minds beforehand against bondage
and babies, the verdict was likely to be unanimous.
She would contrive that McCall should be one of the audience: the
wisdom and truth of the arguments would shine in like a great light
on his life, and he would start up a new man, throwing aside this
heaviest yoke of social slavery. She would be there ("with a
black lace mantilla and veil--so much better than a bonnet," she
breathlessly resolved), and at the sight of her he would feel the
divine force of true love bringing them together, and claim her as his
own.
The modern Cleopatra fights upon the rostrum, in lieu of "sixty sail,"
and uses as weapons newspaper and club, instead of purple robe and
"cloyless sauce of epicurean cook," but the guerdon of the battle is
none the less Mark Antony.
At sundown that evening Doctor McCall was piloted by little Herr Bluhm
to his office; the Herr, according to his wont, sternly solemn, McCall
disposed to be hilarious, as suited the pleasant temperature of the
evening.
"Club, eh? Inner Light? Oh yes, I've no objections. One picks up good
ideas here, there, anywhere. Meets in your office?"
"Yes--a shabby, vulgar place to the outer eye, but so many noble souls
have there struggled out of darkness into light, such mighty Truths
have been born there which will guide the age, that to me it is the
very Holy Ground of Ideas."
"So?" McCall looked at the little man out of the corner of his eye,
and nodded gravely.
"It is a Woman's Club, though men take part in it. But we have such
faith in the superior integrity and purity of woman's mind when
brought to bear on great but hackneyed questions that we willingly
stand back until she has given her verdict. The magnet, sir, pointing
out with inexplicable intelligence the true path to humanity."
"Well, I don't know about that. Though it's very likely, very likely,"
hurriedly. McCall had no relish for argument about it. He was more
secure of his intellect in the matter of peaches than inner lights.
Cowed and awed as he could have been by no body of men, he followed
Bluhm up a dirty flight of stairs into the assemblage of Superior
Women. The office was by nature a chamber with gaudy wall-paper of
bouquets and wreaths. Viewed as an office, it was well enough, but in
the aesthetic, light of a Holy Ground of Ideas it needed sweeping.
The paper, too, hung in flaps from the damp walls: dusty files of
newspapers, an empty bird-cage, old boots, a case of medical books, a
pair of dilapidated trousers filled up one side of the room. A pot of
clove-pinks in the window struggled to drown with spicy fragrance the
odor of stale tobacco smoke. There was a hempen carpet, inch deep with
mud and dust, on the floor. Seated round an empty fireplace, on cane
chairs and in solemn circle, were about forty followers of the Inner
Light. McCall perceived Maria near the window, the dusky twilight
bringing out with fine effect her delicate, beautiful face. He turned
quickly to the others, looking for the popular type of the Advanced
Female, in loose sacque and men's trousers, with bonnet a-top, hair
cut short, sharp nose and sharper voice. She was not there. A third
of the women were Quakers, with their calm, benign faces for the
most part framed by white hair--women who, having fought successfully
against slavery, when that victory was won had taken up arms against
the oppressors of women with devout and faithful purpose. The rest
McCall declared to himself to be "rather a good-looking lot--women who
had," he guessed shrewdly, "been in lack of either enough to eat or
somebody to love in the world, and who fancied the ballot-box would
bring them an equivalent for a husband or market-money."
A little dish-faced woman in rusty black, and with whitish curls
surmounted by a faded blue velvet bonnet laid flat on top of her head,
had the floor: "Mr. Chairman--I mean Miss Chairman--the object of
our meeting this evening is, Shall marriage in the Consolidated
Republic--"
"I object!" Herr Bluhm sprang to his feet, wrapping a short mantle
like a Roman toga across his chest, and wearing a portentous frown
upon his brow, "There is business of the last meeting which is not
finished. Shall the thanks of this club be presented to the owners of
the Berrytown street-cars for free passes therein? That is the topic
for consideration. I move that a vote of thanks be passed;" and he sat
down gloomily.
"I do _not_ second that motion." A tall woman, with the magisterial
sweep of shawl and wave of the arm of a cheap boarding-house keeper,
rose. "I detect a subtle purpose in that offer. There is a rat behind
that arras. There is a prejudice against us in the legislature,
and the car company wish no mention of Woman Suffrage to be made
in Berrytown until their new charter is granted. Are we so cheaply
bought?--bribed by a dead-head ticket!"
"The order of the day," resumed the little widow placidly, "is, Shall
marriage in the Consol--"
"Legislature!" piped a weak voice in the crowd. "They only laugh at us
in the legislature."
"Let them laugh: they laughed at the slave." The speaker hurled this
in a deep bass voice full at McCall. She was a black-browed, handsome
young woman, wrapped in a good deal of scarlet, who sat sideways on
one chair with her feet on the rung of another. "How long will the
world dare to laugh?" fixing him fiercely with her eye.
"Upon my word, madam, I don't know," McCall gasped, and checked
himself, hot and uncomfortable.
A fat, handsomely-dressed woman jolted the chair in front of her to
command attention: "On the question of marriage--"
"Address the chair," growled Bluhm.
"Miss Chairman, I want to say that I ought to be qualified to speak on
marriage, being the mother of ten, to say nothing of twice twins."
"The question before the house is the street-car passes," thundered
Bluhm. "I move that we at least thank them for their offer. When a cup
of tea is passed me, I thank the giver: when the biscuits are handed,
I do likewise. It is a simple matter of courtesy."
"I deny it," said the black-browed female with a tone of tragedy.
"What substantial tea has been offered? what biscuits have been baked?
It is not tea: it is bribery! It is not biscuits: it is corruption!"
"I second Herr Bluhm's motion."
"Miss Chairman, put the question on its passage."
A mild old Quakeress rose, thus called on: "Thee has made a motion,
Friend Bluhm, and Sister Carr says she seconds it; so it seems to
me--Indeed I don't understand this parliamentary work."
"You're doing very nicely."
"All right!" called out several voices.
"Why should we have these trivial parliamentary forms?" demanded the
Tragic Muse, as McCall called her. "Away with all worn-out garments of
a degraded Past! Shall the rebellious serf of man still wear his old
clothes?"
"But," whispered McCall to Bluhm, "when will the great thinkers you
talked of begin to speak on those mighty truths--"
"Patience! These are our great thinkers. The logical heads some
of them have! Woman," standing up and beginning aloud, apropos to
nothing--"Woman is destined to purify the ballot-box, reform the
jury, whiten the ermine of the judge. [Applause.] When her divine
intuitions, her calm reason, are brought into play--" Prolonged
applause, in the midst of which Bluhm, again apropos to nothing,
abruptly sat down.
"The order of the day," said the little woman in black, "is, Shall
marriage--"
"What about the car company?"
"Let's shelve that."
"The question of marriage," began Bluhm, up again with a statelier
wrap of his toga, "is the most momentous affecting mankind. It demands
free speech, the freest speech. Are we resolved to approach it in
proud humility, giving to the God within ourselves and within our
neighbor freedom to declare the truth?"
"Ay!" "Ay!" from forty voices. Maria, pale and trembling, watched
McCall.
"Free speech is our boast," piped the widow. "If not ours, whose?"
"Before you go any farther," said the Muse with studied politeness,
"I have a question to put to Herr Bluhm. Did you did you not, sir,
in Toombs's drug-store last week, denominate this club a caravan of
idiots?" A breathless silence fell upon the assembly. Bluhm gasped
inarticulately. "His face condemns him," pursued his accuser. "Shall
such a man be allowed to speak among us? Ay, to take the lead among
us?"
Cries of "No!" "No!"
"What becomes of your free speech?" cried Bluhm, red and stammering
with fury. "I was angry. I am rough, perhaps, but I seek the truth,
as those do not who"--advancing and shaking his shut hand at the
Muse--"who 'smile and smile, and are a villain still.'"
"The order of the day"--the widow's voice rose above the din
tranquilly--"_is_ Shall marriage in the Consolidated Republic be
contracted for life or for a term of years?"
The next moment Maria felt her arm grasped. "Come out of this,"
whispered McCall, angry and excited. "This is no place for you, Maria.
Did you hear what they are going to discuss?"
"Yes," as he whisked her out of the door.
"Then I'm sorry for it. Such things oughtn't to be mentioned in a
lady's presence. If I had a sister, she should not know there was
such a thing as bigamy. Good God!" wiping his forehead with his
handkerchief, "if women are not pure and spotless, what have we to
look up to? And these shallow girls, who propose to reform the world,
begin by dabbling with the filth of the gutter, if they do no worse?"
"Shallow girls?" He was so big and angry that she felt like a wren or
sparrow in his hold. But the stupidity of him! the blind idiocy!
She eyed him from head to foot with a bitterness and contempt
unutterable--a handsome six-foot animal, with his small brain filled
with smaller, worn-out prejudices! The way of escape had been set
before him, and he had spurned it--and her!
"I don't see what it can matter to you," she said politely,
disengaging herself, "whether I make friends with these people and am
stained with the filth of the gutter or not?" She had a half-insane
consciousness that she was playing her last card.
"Why, to be sure it matters. You and I have been good friends always,
Maria, and I don't like to see you fellowship
with that lot. What was it Bluhm called them?" laughing. "That was
rough in Bluhm--rough. They're women."
"You are going?"
"In the next train, yes, I waited to see a--a friend, but he did not
come. It's just as well, perhaps," his face saddened. "Well, good-bye,
Maria. Don't be offended at me for not approving of your friends. Why,
bless my soul! such talk is--it's not decent;" and with a careless
shake of the hand he was gone.
Maria told herself that she despised a man who could so dismiss the
great social problem and its prophets with a fillip of his thumb. She
turned to go in to the assemblage of prophets. They were all that was
left her in life. But she did not go in. She went to her bare chamber,
and took Hero up on her lap and cried over him. "_You_ love me,
doggy?" she said.
She had an attack of syncope that night, for which no pack or sitz
proved a remedy; and it was about that time that the long and
painful affection of the ulnar nerve began which almost destroyed her
usefulness as a surgeon.