grinned inwardly at the story he really could give them! That is why
they condensed the remarks of really important speakers and put Allen
Blynn forth almost verbatim.
Out of it all he got one dubious result, a letter.
“You are getting on, my dear Professor,” it began abruptly, without
heading or date line. “You are no longer a _book_; you have developed
into a _newspaper_. Eventually, you may become wholly human. Press on.”
It was signed, “The Lady of the Interruption,” a title he remembered he
had given her when reporters had interviewed him about her on her first
startling appearance.
At various times these and other exciting adventures were dictated to
the impersonal stenographer-by-the-hour and mailed to the Levering
family.
“The anonymity of the Lady distresses me,” he wrote once. “If I could
put my whole case before her, I am sure she would give me a higher
rating. For already one of my friends of the Public Square benches has
found me out and successfully negotiated the loan of a dollar. Let
someone try to get an unearned dollar out of any ‘newspaper.’”
And that was not all. His companion of the excursion steamer--the
male--had caught him on the campus, where no doubt he had been lying in
wait, and had sold him tickets for the annual Expressmen’s Ball.
“Perfes’r--” he began.
“But I am the janitor; am I not?” Blynn smiled.
“Am I not!” he mimicked, “‘Am-I-not’ ain’t never been no janitor....
‘Am I not!’” he got a deal of amusement out of the phrase. “Knew y’ was
a profess’r all the time. Wharf watchman tol’ me. Said you was a smart
gab-fester, too. He’s heard you--a Socialist, he is.”
“Lately,” wrote Blynn, “he has been seeking my advice on a number of
family matters, leading up to hints for loans. An unkempt, overgrown
daughter came to my rooms yesterday with a note. I was stone-cold;
but it almost made me ill.
“And now ‘Evil’ has found me out. He objects at the hospital because
of my card on a bunch of roses; and threatens to sue me for personal
assault; I presume he will complete the charge by adding alienation
of his wife’s affections! A book I may have been, raised thence to
a daily journal, but, Leverings all, I appeal to you for promotion;
assault and alienation are right human qualities.
“Faithfully yours,
“Allen Blynn.
“I am on the trail of the Lady.”
The Leverings agreed that the “Lady of the Interruption” was a
delightful mystery--all except Gorgas; but she said little at home. She
put the case to Bea Wilcox, and to Bardek.
“What do I think of her?” Bea echoed her inquiry. “I think she’s no
lady at all.”
“That’s what I think. I--” Gorgas began eagerly.
“I think she’s a Brass Image,” said Bea.
“It is so!” Bardek agreed solemnly, who knew nothing of the subtile
English meanings of “brass.” “And it is before such images that men
do often bow in worship. If she is young, as you say, and if she come
to the man and fight him, then it is the female hunting the male for
herself.”
“What _are_ you driving at, Bardek?” Bea broke in. “Females, as you
call them, don’t hunt males. It’s the other way about.” She put her arm
around Gorgas and rocked back and forth in a characteristic attitude.
“We know--us girls know--don’t we, Browny?”
“Oh, yes!” Bardek had open contempt for Bea’s mind. “You talk like most
peoples who do not see anything. Look at all the hats of women! Dead
birds and painted flowers and rags and wires! Ugly? Phuh! But zey do
not see zat zey are ugly. So! When you will want your man, you will go
to him--like all t’others--and you cry out to him that you are here;
and he will not come at first; and zen you will wear crazy clothes, and
dance and beat a drum until he must see you. And all the time you will
not know that you do that. You will not see.... But _how_ you will beat
zat drum!”
“Professor Blynn would not listen to her!” Gorgas announced
irrelevantly. Her mind was on the Lady of the Interruption; there was
defiance in her tone, a note of challenge to the unknown trespasser,
none of which was lost on Bardek. He shaded his bushy brows a trifle,
and he gazed thoughtfully into her flushed face as if he had suddenly
discovered something new and interesting there; but he gave no other
sign of what might be his own surmises.
“Do you think so, Bardek?” she persisted.
“No-o,” he hesitated; “not at the first.” A smile began to flutter
across his face; then he roared in sudden laughter. “He is so far
up--at the top of the Heaven! _How_ she must beat her little drum for
to make Saint Acetum to hear!”
“Who is Saint Acetum?” both girls asked.
Bardek sobered abruptly. “You do not know Saint Acetum?” he asked
gravely.
No; they did not know. Saints were not in fashion any more. This is not
the Middle Ages, Bardek. But they should be ashamed, nevertheless, he
told them, and scolded beautifully. Then he explained:
“Saint Acetum it is who is forever repairing ze roof of ze Heaven. Can
you not see him up there--far superior in altitude to all the angels of
Heaven, and slowly feeling zat he _is_ superior?”
But what had Saint Acetum to do with Mr. Blynn?
“Ho!” cried Bardek. “Mr. Blynn, he is so good! Like Saint Acetum he
is worried zat ze roof of ze Heaven may fall down; so it is zat he is
always fixing, fixing; and he will not listen even when ze good angels
call to come down and be for a little time happy.... And you have not
heard of Saint Acetum? _Nom du nom!_ And you are not ashamed of zat?”
“Acetum?” repeated Bea. “What a funny name.”
“‘Acetum,’ it is ‘vinegar,’” Bardek explained. “Zat is Latin, Miss Bea,
of which you know nothings, because you have gone to school--”
“Oh, we had Latin in school; didn’t we, Browny?”
“Zat is what I say,” nodded Bardek firmly. “You know nothings. What!
You do not know about Saint Acetum, ze Vinegar Saint; you do not
know--” Bardek burst suddenly into ironic laughter--“because it is I,
Bardek, who have jus’ made him up out of my head!”
“Oh!” laughed Gorgas, somehow relieved at the thought that the Vinegar
Saint was merely an invention of Bardek. “Allen Blynn, the Vinegar
Saint! That is _too_ funny!”
“So you see,” Bardek was exulting in his cleverness, “_how_ she must
beat her little drum, that Lady, to draw down Saint Acetum, who is
always repairing ze roof of ze Heaven?”
Gorgas was sobered instantly. “Do you think that woman is trying to
marry Mr. Blynn?” she asked anxiously.
“No,” Bardek replied, while he watched her out of half-closed eyes;
“I do not say so much. I think she do not know what she do. But she
is _vairy_ interested--oh, _vairy_ interested--in the nice young man.
She do not like him? Oh, no! But she go, and go; and she talk and she
write. In all the great big world there is but one reason for that. The
little roots of the weeds, zey shove and push and work and zey do not
know why, but one day zey come out where is water; and _zen_ zey know
why.”
“It is terrible!” the words escaped Gorgas involuntarily. It gave her
an inexpressible sensation of illness to think of _mon capitaine_ at
the mercy of so irresistible a force.
“Oh, no!” laughed Bardek; “it is not terrible. No! It is vairy
wonderful and _le bon Dieu_, he has made it so!”
_Le bon Dieu!_ Ah, no! It could not be from heaven, or why should the
very thought of it torment her?
She went home to nights of acute distress and days of smiling mockery.
She listened to all sorts of inquiries about her health, parried the
questions with vague fibbings; but she knew the cause of the storm that
raged within.
Then came a night of resignation. She surprised herself--and blamed
herself, too--at her easy recovery. What powers of adaptability we
have! The deepest grief is, somehow, assuaged. If it was to be; it was
to be. She found herself, one day, laughing at herself. A fortnight
later, she was lost in the preparation for her graduation from The
Misses Warren’s Select French and English School for Young Ladies. The
sorrows of seventeen are not fatal. Yes; she was quite herself now,
marvelling only occasionally at the turbulence that had shaken her.
And therein she deceived herself, as all of us continually do. She
was quite her serene self--so she thought. We know so little about
ourselves, about what we think, about what we want, even about what we
are doing. We talk much--confidently; we declaim, make speeches, deny
vehemently, or affirm with hand upraised: but deep within us, like a
Hidden River, flows the unconscious life. When it wells to the surface
we know it for the first time, cry out in fear, or exult. When it
subsides we say, “It is not there!” We are poor witnesses, with all our
boastings and modesties, poor witnesses either for or against ourselves.
“I wonder where my roots are going?” Gorgas asked herself. For answer
she dropped the consideration of the width of ribbon she would wear on
her graduation dress and sat down to write a letter to Allen Blynn. It
was a burst of personal confession--the Hidden River was welling very,
very near the surface!--and most particularly she told him about the
“Brass Image,” and warned him. Then she read it over and destroyed it.
“Oh, I guess I’m not brassy enough,” she said and shook her head.
BOOK THREE
The Call to be Free
It was all very well to say, “Drink Me,” but the wise little Alice
was not going to do _that_ in a hurry: “No, I’ll look first,” she
said, “and see whether it’s marked _poison_ or not.”... She had never
forgotten that if you drink much from a bottle marked “poison,” it is
almost certain to disagree with you, sooner or later.
XVI
RATS!
The Levering spring-house had long ago gone to pieces to furnish part
of the masonry of a new workshop, designed by Bardek and built by
Mac, with everybody assisting. They picked a spot at the north of the
orchard, where the light was right, and distant enough from habitation
to allow for the most riotous hammering. A great chimney with both
hand- and foot-bellows forge was the center about which the one-story,
roomy structure spread.
The Leverings hardly knew what was going on. They had this
satisfaction, however: Gorgas was on her own grounds, Mac was always
within hail and Bardek, his wife, and the two shining-eyed youngsters
had so won the affection of everyone that they were added as theoretic
protectors. When young men called, they sauntered around to the cozy
shop, looked on, smoked at their ease and drank continuous tea and
ate toasted muffins. Kate often spent mornings there, pottering over
punched brass, and thinking, to the pantomimic disgust of Bardek, that
she was a workman, too. But no one seemed quite aware that a serious
art was being studied in that busy quarter.
Mrs. Levering began to get inklings of the deep nature of the
undertaking when a big order for a complete hand-wrought silver service
was finished, dispatched, and the check forwarded. Bardek had been the
business manager in securing that and other orders which followed, and
he had overseen the designing and had plotted out the work; but the
labor and the return were placed entirely to Gorgas’ account.
“My dear child,” the mother’s eyes focused agreeably upon the amount.
“This is dreadful! You’re actually making money! Are you sure you are
not taking advantage of someone? How could a little girl like you earn
so much?”
But she soon accustomed herself to that sort of thing, and promptly
let Gorgas take out a separate bank account, and thriftily watched the
amount swell. It was quite proper, she assured herself, for a girl to
make money, provided she stayed at home, and provided, too, it was
something respectable, like--uh--art. Of course, this metal business
was art; at least, the silver part was--she was somewhat dubious over
the copper, really, the most artistic accomplishment of the shop; and
the settings of copper and semi-precious stones, the hand-wrought gold
rings--that was art and respectable. She wished, of course, that there
were no necessity for the ugly forge and for the heavy malleting; but
then, that was all done in the secluded shop away from the street.
To think that all this silly pottering had turned out to be worth
something! What a wonderful adviser was Allen Blynn! When she thought
of the pleasant checks, she was grateful that she had been too busy at
the time to oppose the building of the shop.
But in spite of the obvious fact that Gorgas was able to earn her own
way, the mother continued to keep a controlling hand, as if the child
were still a toddler needing protection, and not an independent young
woman of seventeen: her letters had still to be O. K.’d, the hours of
retiring were not to be changed, and the other claims of womanhood,
the style of gown and hat and the mode of wearing the hair--these were
still matters of maternal jurisdiction. And being the younger daughter
she had more mothering--as is often the case--than Kate, who had long
ago secured her rights to do as she pleased.
There were suggestions of rebellion and occasional flurries of attack
and retreat. At seventeen, Gorgas had gained her right to give all her
mornings to the “smitty,” as the shop was locally dubbed; she had won
out in her right to play tennis and hockey, to bicycle and--an ability
discovered by Bardek--to fence.
“Why can’t you just ride or drive and take walks?” the mother had
complained. “These other games are so boyish and ‘tough,’ my dear.
They give you a color like a hoyden--positively I was ashamed of you
last Wednesday at dinner--and you have a stride like a young rowdy. Of
course, I can’t tell you it’s not ladylike. I see that has no effect
upon you; but you might consider how I feel when you walk through the
streets in that tennis costume--I suppose one might call it a costume.
In a boy it is all right; young Morris is quite attractive; but you,
you look positively unsexed, Gorgas--I’m almost ashamed to use the
word. And really, my dear, I must object to your putting off stays. You
will never come around if you don’t begin early. Your figure is--well,
is there no proper womanly argument that can reach you?”
“Health, first, mother,” Gorgas would say firmly. “I work hard all
morning, I practice at music, to please you, and I must keep up my
reading. Then, open air for me and a stiff fight and a shower. That
makes me sing; makes me fit to do things. I wouldn’t have an original
design in my head if I cooped up like most women. They are talking
about voting! I’m with them there, but good Heavens! they could be
enfranchised tomorrow if they could only break loose and live a decent,
wholesome life.”
The severest quarrel was over clothes. Gorgas’ artistic sense was a
deep-rooted thing. She protested, but without result, against the
slave-like selection of “what everybody was wearing.” Women seemed
to be uniformed like a squad of infantry, irrespective of individual
build or personal taste. That repelled her. Not that she wanted to do
anything eccentric; it was just her desire to be inconspicuous that
led to a wish to study herself and, within the restrictions of the
prevailing vogue, to clothe herself true to her own personal note.
Blynn had walked with her on one of his rare holidays home--lecturing
usually kept him busy in vacation time--when she was driven out
of herself and into stolidity by the mere fact of an outrageous
puffed-sleeve affair, over which her mother had spent hours of
selecting. To Gorgas, it was like wearing some other person’s clothing.
She had gawked about, submerged in self-consciousness; and her chagrin
she expressed in vindictive attacks on the unoffending Allen.
Gorgas resolved to end it then and there. One afternoon in February,
1893--Gorgas was seventeen and a half, but felt tremendously older--she
interviewed the chief cutter of a smart Walnut street tailoring
establishment and outlined to him her plans for a series of frocks
and coats that made his eyes glisten. She produced a check for
part-payment, and made it peremptorily clear that her own ideas were to
prevail or no sale.
“Mother, I’ve ordered some spring clothes,” she let the news out
bluntly. “I won’t stand being dressed and undressed and being put to
bed any longer. You’d better get used to the idea, for it’s to be the
thing. I’m paying my way now and I’ve got to go it on my own.”
And then she left immediately for the “smitty.”
Those were stormy days in the Levering family, but the disturbance was
all from the elders. Gorgas was serene and calm. They were sure Gorgas
would adopt some reckless fashion that would put them down before
everybody, probably a bifurcated skirt or an out-and-out Dr. Mary
Walker attire. There was much talk in the air at that period of boldly
abolishing the dress distinction of sex. But when Gorgas appeared
before them one afternoon in a neat, inconspicuous, tailor-made gown,
right as to style, but with a mysterious wonder in it of something just
beyond the style, the family capitulated. Capitulated? They broke ranks
and rushed over one another to cheer the enemy.
Mount Airy, after all, had always been a country village. Its
main charm, in spite of its nearness to a large city, was not its
suburbanity, but its rurality. And it was well-known that the most
careful copying by Mount Airyites of the designs in Godey’s “Lady
Book,” would always be crude and home-made when compared with
exactly the same pattern worn by the city ladies who could be seen
any day moving in and out of certain exclusive in-town shops. The
distinguishing difference is not so much one of material as of art.
In that apparel Gorgas could have argued the family out of its house
and grounds. Oh, the subtle overpowering authority of the right gown!
It will give strength to weakness, add courage to the natural craven,
and overawe even Lizzie-in-the-kitchen. If I were a physician I would
make most of my prescriptions on the blanks of proper tailors. Most
women are not ill, they are simply inadequately gowned; their strength
is oozing away through the terrible struggle to feel better than they
look. And it is not primarily a question of money; it is a matter of
taste and intelligence.
The young men responded instantly to the new touch. They didn’t know
how it had happened, but the news passed quickly along that Gorgas
Levering was “all right.” Callers, formal and informal, of all
ages from sixteen to thirty-five, dropped in or begged permission,
according to the type. The “smitty,” on Thursday afternoons, became a
sort of rendezvous for all this fluttering group. Work and play were
declared off, and the reception of guests was in order. Mrs. Levering
occasionally dropped in, in her capacity as overseer, but Kate was
always present, the mother’s viceroy; and Bea Wilcox and a few of
Gorgas’ intimates; and, of course, Bardek.
Here they sang, chatted and danced as the mood seized. And on clear,
summer afternoons there was always the tennis-court and the shadowy
orchard; in winter there was hockey and skating on the Wissahickon at
Valley Green, or, more often, roastings and toastings before the huge
log fire in the “smitty.”
Gorgas’ permanent exhibition of unsold work brought other visitors.
These came at all times. Usually, it was Bardek’s business to do the
explaining and the selling, a duty he loved, and some of the customers
became regular visitors and eventually slipped over into the Thursday
afternoon group. Not that the Thursday afternoon group could be kept
away at other times. Gorgas rather welcomed the opportunity to chat
while she worked, but she always worked--except once.
One Thursday in April Morris took Gorgas aside and asked if he couldn’t
come the next day in the morning and have a private talk with her.
She looked him over suspiciously.
“We’ve been partners for a long while, Neddie,” she summed up her look.
“This sounds mighty strange and mysterious. Give me a hint beforehand.
What’s up?”
“Can’t do it here,” he scowled at the crowd. “I’ll be in at about
eleven. What d’y’ say?”
“How absurd you are,” she held him off to search his face. “You know
anyone may see me at any time.”
“I know,” he hastened to explain awkwardly in the midst of the chatter
and movement. “This is different. This is something--I can’t tell you
here.”
“Well,” she patted him on the arm, “come along, sonny. You’ll have to
talk loud. I’ve got a special fine lot of hammering to do that won’t
wait.”
That night she tossed about and brought herself to book.
Morris had been behaving lately in a way they do before they begin
to go to pieces and become temporary asses in the presence of their
Titania. He had lost his fine spirit of _camaraderie_. He had been
glaring at his fraternity pin, which Gorgas used, like a dozen other
such articles, to adorn the dress it best suited. He had been moody
and listless--the usual symptoms; and he had been hanging about like a
stupid.
Try as she might she couldn’t get a thrill out of the thought. Ned
Morris was a brother; that was all; a splendid chum, the sort at fellow
you get terribly used to and wouldn’t give up without a fight. But
anything else-- Horrors! It was profanation of friendship to think it.
Nevertheless, she enjoyed the prospect of an adorer. It gave her the
most unaccountable feeling of elation and self-pity and yearning and
depression--all enjoyable sensations, every one. It attacked her so
hard that she arose at sun-up, ate no breakfast, and let the metal work
slide.
“You do not work today?” Bardek looked up from his bench, where he was
inlaying a hair-like design of silver in the softest copper.
“Nope.”
“You are sick, may be?”
“Goodness, no!”
Hammer, hammer, hammer.
“Goin’ to jus’--loaf, eh?”
“Rather.”
Hammer, hammer.
“Ah! you fight the French revolution all over again with the mother?”
he guessed. “_Bome! bome!_ Down will go t’e Bastile. Huzza! Out come
the prisoners--little ladies who t’eir mutters have boxed up! _Vive la
révolution des jeunes filles!_”
Hammer, hammer, hammer.
“What?” he looked up.
“Wrong tack, Bardek. Take in a reef.”
“Eh? What?”
“And let down your jib.”
“_Nom du nom!_ What language you talk?” Tap, tap, tap. “Somebody come,
eh?”
“Yes; Morris.”
“Ho-ho-o-o!” softly, as much as to say, “So that’s the way the wind
blows.” “Ho-ho-o-o!” louder, meaning, “I’ve been suspecting that boy.”
“Ho-ho-o-o!” very wisely, with a glance that said, “I understand what’s
in your little head, missy!”
“Oh, rats! Bardek.”
She arose and tried a few strokes, but soon gave it up.
“Perhaps Morris he would take share in partnership?” Bardek inquired
with grotesque sympathy.
“Rats!” she called back.
“R-rats!” Bardek laughed as he tapped. “Rats--it is the meaning of
what? When I say, ‘How beautiful is Miss Gorgas, this morning,’
Miss Gorgas say, ‘Rats!’--that is to say, ‘Thank you so much for
compliment.’ When I say, ‘She work too hard, she must play more,’
Miss Gorgas say, ‘Rats!’--that is to say, ‘Do you think I small
child, eh?’ If I say, ‘When you going marry, Miss Gorgas?’ Miss
Gorgas say, ‘Rats!’--which is to say, ‘Shut up, you ol’ fool, and
mind own business.’ It is vairy convenient; one nice, little word do
for everything. It mean, ‘I don’t believe you’; it mean, ‘Go bag your
head’; it mean, ‘Not on your tin-type.’ Jus’ now it mean, ‘Mr. Morris
will talk to Miss Gorgas on vairy important matter. Ol’ Bardek better
take holiday and fix more w’ite-wash in his house.’”
“Rats! Bardek,” she stopped him. “Stay where you are. I don’t want to
seem to be clearing everybody out for Ned Morris. If we want to talk
privately, we’ll go into the orchard. It’s warm enough outside.”
Bardek grinned so openly that she was forced into some sort of
explanation. She talked earnestly and Bardek affected to be perfectly
guileless.
“Morris is just a good friend, Bardek; not a thing more. Not a thing
more.”
“Rats!” roared Bardek, suddenly slipping from earnest solicitude
into loud irony. “Oh, I love that nice, easy, little word. It saves
so much breath. I say, ‘Rats!’ and I mean, oh, a whole lot. With one
word I say, ‘Don’t you be telling me all that foolishness about friend
business and all that. The friend business is all played out. It had
one grand failure, long ago, when Adam thought he try. Mr. Morris, he
just like Adam. He hang ’round ’while and watch animals and sleep in
the sun. Then, one day he wake up and he say he want nice, long talk,
all alone; and Eve, she dress up in nice clothes, she can’t work, can’t
hammer, can’t sit down, can’t walk, can’t do one thing but look and
look and look at not’ing at all, and say, ‘Rats!’ All that for one
little word!”
“Double fault, Bardek; you’re putting too many in the net.”