He started to follow his own suggestion, and I thought then that my
friend would miss her meeting. But she had more nerve than I imagined.
“No,” she said. “Please don’t.”
“Why not?” Still there was no emotion in the cold, grey eyes.
“Because--I think there’s something going on.”
“What of that?”
“I’m not in a hurry, and I’d like to see.”
He stood for a moment looking at the crowd. Mrs. Frothingham had come
forward, evidently intending to speak. “What is this, Ferris?” he
demanded of the chauffeur.
“I’m not sure, sir,” said the man. “I think it’s a Socialist meeting.”
(He was, of course, not missing the little comedy. I wondered what he
thought!)
“A Socialist meeting?” said van Tuiver; then, to his wife: “You don’t
want to stay for that!”
Again Sylvia astonished me. “I’d like to very much,” she answered
simply.
He made no reply. I saw him stare at her, and then I saw his glance
take me in. I sat in a corner as inconspicuous as I could make myself.
I wondered whether I was a sempstress or a tutor, and whether either
of these functionaries were introduced, and whether they shook hands or
not.
Mrs. Frothingham had taken her stand at the base of Washington’s statue.
Had she by any chance identified the tall and immaculate gentleman who
stood beside the automobile? Before she had said three sentences I made
sure that she had done so, and I was appalled at her audacity.
“Fellow citizens,” she began--“fellow-buccaneers of Wall Street.” And
when the mild laughter had subsided: “What I have to say is going to
be addressed to one individual among you--the American millionaire.
I assume there is one present--if no actual millionaire, then surely
several who are destined to be, and not less than a thousand who aspire
to be. So hear me, Mr. Millionaire,” this with a smile, which gave you
a sense of a reserve fund of energy and good humour. She had the
crowd with her from the start--all but one. I stole a glance at the
millionaire, and saw that he was not smiling.
“Won’t you get in?” asked his wife, and he answered coldly: “No, I’ll
wait till you’ve had enough.”
“Last summer I had a curious experience,” said the speaker. “I was
a guest at a tennis match, played upon the grounds of a State
insane-asylum, the players being the doctors of the institution. Here,
on a beautiful sunshiny afternoon, were ladies and gentlemen clad in
festive white, enjoying a holiday, while in the background stood a
frowning building with iron-barred gates and windows, from which
one heard now and then the howlings of the maniacs. Some of the less
fortunate of these victims of fate had been let loose, and while we
played tennis, they chased the balls. All afternoon, while I sipped tea
and chatted and watched the games, I said to myself: ‘Here is the most
perfect simile of our civilization that has ever come to me. Some people
wear white and play tennis all day, while other people chase the balls,
or howl in dungeons in the background!’ And that is the problem I wish
to put before my American millionaire--the problem of what I will call
our lunatic-asylum stage of civilization. Mind you, this condition
is all very well so long as we can say that the lunatics are
incurable--that there is nothing we can do but shut our ears to their
howling, and go ahead with our tennis. But suppose the idea were to
dawn upon us that it is only because we played tennis all day that the
lunatic-asylum is crowded, then might not the howls grow unendurable to
us, and the game lose its charm?”
Stealing glances about me, I saw that several people were watching the
forty-or-fifty-times-over millionaire; they had evidently recognised
him, and were enjoying the joke. “Haven’t you had enough of this?” he
suddenly demanded of his wife, and she answered, guilelessly: “No, let’s
wait. I’m interested.”
“Now, listen to me, Mr. American Millionaire,” the speaker was
continuing. “You are the one who plays tennis, and we, who chase the
balls for you--we are the lunatics. And my purpose to-day is to prove
to you that it is only because you play tennis all day that we have
to chase balls all the day, and to tell you that some time soon we are
going to cease to be lunatics, and that then you will have to chase your
own balls! And don’t, in your amusement over this illustration, lose
sight of the serious nature of what I am talking about--the horrible
economic lunacy which is known as poverty, and which is responsible
for most of the evils we have in this world to-day--for crime and
prostitution, suicide, insanity and war. My purpose is to show you, not
by any guess of mine, or any appeals to your faith, but by cold business
facts which can be understood in Wall Street, that this economic lunacy
is one which can be cured; that we have the remedy in our hands, and
lack nothing but the intelligence to apply it.”
18. I do not want to bore you with a Socialist speech. I only want to
give you an idea of the trap into which Mr. Douglas van Tuiver had
been drawn. He stood there, rigidly aloof while the speaker went on
to explain the basic facts of wealth-production in modern society. She
quoted from Kropotkin: “‘Fields, Factories and Work-shops,’ on sale
at this meeting for a quarter!”--showing how by modern intensive
farming--no matter of theory, but methods which were in commercial
use in hundreds of places--it would be possible to feed the entire
population of the globe from the soil of the British Isles alone. She
showed by the bulletins of the United States Government how the machine
process had increased the productive power of the individual labourer
ten, twenty, a hundred fold. So vast was man’s power of producing wealth
today, and yet the labourer lived in dire want just as in the days of
crude hand-industry!
So she came back to her millionaire, upon whom this evil rested. He was
the master of the machine for whose profit the labourer had to produce.
He could only employ the labourer to produce what could be sold at a
profit; and so the stream of prosperity was choked at its source. “It
is you, Mr. Millionaire, who are to blame for poverty; it is because
so many millions of dollars must be paid to you in profits that so
many millions of men must live in want. In other words, precisely as I
declared at the outset, it is your playing tennis which is responsible
for the lunatics chasing the balls!”
I wish that I might give some sense of the speaker’s mastery of this
situation, the extent to which she had communicated her good-humour to
the crowd. You heard ripple after ripple of laughter, you saw everywhere
about you eager faces, following every turn of the argument. No
one could resist the contagion of interest--save only the American
millionaire! He stood impassive, never once smiling, never once
betraying a trace of feeling. Venturing to watch him more closely,
however, I could see the stern lines deepening about his mouth, and his
long, lean face growing more set.
The speaker had outlined the remedy--a change from the system of
production for profit to one of production for use. She went on to
explain how the change was coming; the lunatic classes were beginning
to doubt the divine nature of the rules of the asylum, and they were
preparing to mutiny, and take possession of the place. And here I saw
that Sylvia’s husband had reached his limit. He turned to her: “Haven’t
you had enough of this?”
“Why, no,” she began. “If you don’t mind--”
“I do mind very much,” he said, abruptly. “I think you are committing
a breach of taste to stay here, and I would be greatly obliged if you
would leave.”
And without really waiting for Sylvia’s reply, he directed, “Back out of
here, Ferris.”
The chauffeur cranked up, and sounded his horn--which naturally had the
effect of disturbing the meeting. People supposed we were going to try
to get through the crowd ahead--and there was no place where anyone
could move. But van Tuiver went to the rear of the car, saying, in a
voice of quiet authority: “A little room here, please.” And so, foot by
foot, we backed away from the meeting, and when we had got clear of the
throng, the master of the car stepped in, and we turned and made our way
down Broad Street.
And now I was to get a lesson in the aristocratic ideal. Of course van
Tuiver was angry; I believe he even suspected his wife of having known
of the meeting. I supposed he would ask some questions; I supposed that
at least he would express his opinion of the speech, his disgust that
a woman of education should make such a spectacle of herself. Such
husbands as I had been familiar with had never hesitated to vent their
feelings under such circumstances. But from Douglas van Tuiver there
came--not a word! He sat, perfectly straight, staring before him, like
a sphinx; and Sylvia, after one or two swift glances at him, began to
gossip cheerfully about her plans for the day-nursery for working-women!
So for a few blocks, until suddenly she leaned forward. “Stop here,
Ferris.” And then, turning to me, “Here is the American Trust Company.”
“The American Trust Company?” I echoed, in my dumb stupidity.
“Yes--that is where the check is payable,” said Sylvia, and gave me a
pinch.
And so I comprehended, and gathered up my belongings and got out. She
shook my hand warmly, and her husband raised his hat in a very formal
salute, after which the car sped on up the street. I stood staring after
it, in somewhat the state of mind of any humble rustic who may have been
present when Elijah was borne into the heavens by the chariot of fire!
19. Sylvia had been something less than polite to me; and so I had not
been home more than an hour before there came a messenger-boy with a
note. By way of reassuring her, I promised to come to see her the next
morning; and when I did, and saw her lovely face so full of concern, I
forgot entirely her worldly greatness, and did what I had longed to do
from the beginning--put my arms about her and kissed her.
“My dear girl,” I protested, “I don’t want to be a burden in your
life--I want to help you!’”
“But,” she exclaimed, “what must you have thought--”
“I thought I had made a lucky escape!” I laughed.
She was proud--proud as an Indian; it was hard for her to make
admissions about her husband. But then--we were like two errant
school-girls, who had been caught m an escapade! “I don’t know what I’m
going to do about him,” she said, with a wry smile. “He really won’t
listen--I can’t make any impression on him.”
“Did he guess that you’d come there on purpose?” I asked.
“I told him,” she answered.
“You _told_ him!”
“I’d meant to keep it secret--I wouldn’t have minded telling him a fib
about a little thing. But he made it so very serious!”
I could understand that it must have been serious after the telling. I
waited for her to add what news she chose.
“It seems,” she said, “that my husband has a cousin, a pupil of Mrs.
Frothingham’s. You can imagine!”
“I can imagine Mrs. Frothingham may lose a pupil.”
“No; my husband says his Uncle Archibald always was a fool. But how can
anyone be so narrow! He seemed to take Mrs. Frothingham as a personal
affront.”
This was the most definite bit of vexation against her husband that she
had ever let me see. I decided to turn it into a jest. “Mrs. Frothingham
will be glad to know she was understood,” I said.
“But seriously, why can’t men have open minds about politics and money?”
She went on in a worried voice: “I knew he was like this when I met
him at Harvard. He was living in his own house, aloof from the poorer
men--the men who were most worth while, it seemed to me. And when I
told him of the bad effect he was having on these men and on his own
character as well, he said he would do whatever I asked--he even gave
up his house and went to live in a dormitory. So I thought I had some
influence on him. But now, here is the same thing again, only I find
that one can’t take a stand against one’s husband. At least, he doesn’t
admit the right.” She hesitated. “It doesn’t seem loyal to talk about
it.”
“My dear girl,” I said with an impulse of candour, “there isn’t much you
can tell me about that problem. My own marriage went to pieces on that
rock.”
I saw a look of surprise upon her face. “I haven’t told you my story
yet,” I said. “Some day I will--when you feel you know me well enough
for us to exchange confidences.”
There was more than a hint of invitation in this. After a silence, she
said: “One’s instinct is to hide one’s troubles.”
“Sylvia,” I answered, “let me tell you about us. You must realise that
you’ve been a wonderful person to me; you belong to a world I never had
anything to do with, and never expected to get a glimpse of. It’s the
wickedness of our class-civilization that human beings can’t be just
human beings to each other--a king can hardly have a friend. Even after
I’ve overcome the impulse I have to be awed by your luxury and your
grandness; I’m conscious of the fact that everybody else is awed by
them. If I so much as mention that I’ve met you, I see people start and
stare at me--instantly I become a personage. It makes me angry, because
I want to know _you_.”
She was gazing at me, not saying a word. I went on: “I’d never have
thought it possible for anyone to be in your position and be real and
straight and human, but I realise that you have managed to work that
miracle. So I want to love you and help you, in every way I know how.
But you must understand, I can’t ask for your confidence, as I could for
any other woman’s. There is too much vulgar curiosity about the rich and
great, and I can’t pretend to be unaware of that hatefulness; I can’t
help shrinking from it. So all I can say is--if you need me, if you ever
need a real friend, why, here I am; you may be sure I understand, and
won’t tell your secrets to anyone else.”
With a little mist of tears in her eyes, Sylvia put out her hand and
touched mine. And so we went into a chamber alone together, and shut the
cold and suspicious world outside.
20. We knew each other well enough now to discuss the topic which has
been the favourite of women since we sat in the doorways of caves and
pounded wild grain in stone mortars--the question of our lords, who had
gone hunting, and who might be pleased to beat us on their return.
I learned all that Sylvia had been taught on the subject of the male
animal; I opened that amazing unwritten volume of woman traditions, the
maxims of Lady Dee Lysle.
Sylvia’s maternal great-aunt had been a great lady out of a great
age, and incidentally a grim and grizzled veteran of the sex-war. Her
philosophy started from a recognition of the physical and economic
inferiority of woman, as complete as any window-smashing suffragette
could have formulated, but her remedy for it was a purely individualist
one, the leisure-class woman’s skill in trading upon her sex. Lady Dee
did not use that word, of course--she would as soon have talked of her
esophagus. Her formula was “charm,” and she had taught Sylvia that the
preservation of “charm” was the end of woman’s existence, the thing by
which she remained a lady, and without which she was more contemptible
than the beasts.
She had taught this, not merely by example and casual anecdote, but by
precepts as solemnly expounded as bible-texts. “Remember, my dear, a
woman with a husband is like a lion-tamer with a whip!” And the old lady
would explain what a hard and dangerous life was lived by lion-tamers,
how their safety depended upon life-long distrustfulness of the
creatures over whom they ruled. She would tell stories of the rending
and maiming of luckless ones, who had forgotten for a brief moment the
nature of the male animal! “Yes, my dear,” she would say, “believe
in love; but let the man believe first!” Her maxims never sinned by
verbosity.
The end of all this was not merely food and shelter, a home and
children, it was the supremacy of a sex, its ability to shape life to
its whim. By means of this magic “charm”--a sort of perpetual individual
sex-strike--a woman turned her handicaps into advantages and her chains
into ornaments; she made herself a rare and wonderful creature, up to
whom men gazed in awe. It was “romantic love,” but preserved throughout
life, instead of ceasing with courtship.
All the Castleman women understood these arts, and employed them. There
was Aunt Nannie, when she cracked her whip the dear old bishop-lion
would jump as if he had been shot! Did not the whole State know the
story of how once he had been called upon at a banquet and had risen and
remarked: “Ladies and gentlemen, I had intended to make a speech to you
this evening, but I see that my wife is present, so I must beg you to
excuse me.” The audience roared, and Aunt Nannie was furious, but poor
dear Bishop Chilton had spoken but the literal truth, that he could not
spread the wings of his eloquence in the presence of his “better half.”
And with Major Castleman, though it seemed different, it was really
the same. Sylvia’s mother had let herself get stout--which seemed a
dangerous mark of confidence in the male animal. But the major was
fifteen years older than his wife, and she had a weak heart with which
to intimidate him. Now and then the wilfulness of Castleman Lysle would
become unendurable in the house, and his father would seize him and turn
him over his knee. His screams would bring “Miss Margaret” flying to the
rescue: “Major Castleman, how dare you spank one of _my_ children?” And
she would seize the boy and march off in terrible haughtiness, and lock
herself and her child in her room, and for hours afterwards the poor
major would wander about the house, suffering the lonelines of the
guilty soul. You would hear him tapping gently at his lady’s door.
“Honey! Honey! Are you mad with me?” “Major Castleman,” the stately
answer would come, “will you oblige me by leaving one room in this house
to which I may retire?”
21. I would give you a wrong idea of Sylvia if I did not make clear that
along with this sophistication as to the play-aspects of sex, there
went the most incredible ignorance as to its practical realities. In my
arguments I had thought to appeal to her by referring to that feature of
wage-slavery which more than even child-labour stirs the moral sense of
women, but to my utter consternation I discovered that here was a
woman nearly a year married who did not know what prostitution was. A
suspicion had begun to dawn upon her, and she asked me, timidly: Could
it be possible that that intimacy which was given in marriage could
become a thing of barter in the market-place? When I told her the truth,
I found her horror so great that it was impossible to go on talking
economics. How could I say that women were driven to such things by
poverty? Surely a woman who was not bad at heart would starve, before
she would sell her body to a man!
Perhaps I should have been more patient with her, but I am bitter on
these subjects. “My dear Mrs. van Tuiver,” I said, “there is a lot of
nonsense talked about this matter. There is very little sex-life for
women without a money-price made clear in advance.”
“I don’t understand,” she said.
“I don’t know about your case,” I replied, “but when I married, it was
because I was unhappy and wanted a home of my own. And if the truth were
told, that is why most women marry.”
“But what has THAT to do with it?” she cried. She really did not see!
“What is the difference--except that such women stand out for a
maintenance, while the prostitute takes cash?” I saw that I had shocked
her, and I said: “You must be humble about these things, because you
have never been poor, and you cannot judge those who have been. But
surely you must have known worldly women who married rich men for their
money. And surely you admit that that is prostitution?”
She fell suddenly silent, and I saw what I had done, and, no doubt, you
will say I should have been ashamed of myself. But when one has seen as
much of misery and injustice as I have, one cannot be so patient with
the fine artificial delicacies and sentimentalities of the idle rich. I
went ahead to tell her some stories, showing her what poverty actually
meant to women.
Then, as she remained silent, I asked her how she had managed to remain
so ignorant. Surely she must have met with the word “prostitution” in
books; she must have heard allusions to the “demi-monde.”
“Of course,” she said, “I used to see conspicuous-looking women at the
race-track in New Orleans; I’ve sat near them in restaurants, I’ve known
by my mother’s looks and her agitation that they must be bad women. But
you see, I didn’t know what it meant--I had nothing but a vague feeling
of something dreadful.”
I smiled. “Then Lady Dee did not tell you everything about the
possibilities of her system of ‘charm.’”
“No,” said Sylvia. “Evidently she didn’t!” She sat staring at me, trying
to get up the courage to go on with this plain speaking.
And at last the courage came. “I think it is wrong,” she exclaimed.
“Girls ought not to be kept so ignorant! They ought to know what such
things mean. Why, I didn’t even know what marriage meant!”
“Can that be true?” I asked.
“All my life I had thought of marriage, in a way; I had been trained to
think of it with every eligible man I met--but to me it meant a home, a
place of my own to entertain people in. I pictured myself going driving
with my husband, giving dinner-parties to his friends. I knew I’d have
to let him kiss me, but beyond that--I had a vague idea of something,
but I didn’t think. I had been deliberately trained not to let myself
think--to run away from every image that came to me. And I went on
dreaming of what I’d wear, and how I’d greet my husband when he came
home in the evening.”
“Didn’t you think about children?”
“Yes--but I thought of the CHILDREN. I thought what they’d look like,
and how they’d talk, and how I’d love them. I don’t know if many young
girls shut their minds up like that.”
She was speaking with agitation, and I was gazing into her eyes, reading
more than she knew I was reading. I was nearer to solving the problem
that had been baffling me. And I wanted to take her hands in mine, and
say: “You would never have married him if you’d understood!”
22. Sylvia thought she ought to have been taught, but when she came to
think of it she was unable to suggest who could have done the
teaching. “Your mother?” I asked, and she had to laugh, in spite of the
seriousness of her mood. “Poor dear mamma! When they sent me up here to
boarding school, she took me off and tried to tell me not to listen to
vulgar talk from the girls. She managed to make it clear that I mustn’t
listen to something, and I managed not to listen. I’m sure that even
now she would rather have her tongue cut out than talk to me about such
things.”
“I talked to my children,” I assured her.
“And you didn’t feel embarrassed?”
“I did in the beginning--I had the same shrinkings to overcome. But I
had a tragedy behind me to push me on.”
I told her the story of my nephew, a shy and sensitive lad, who used to
come to me for consolation, and became as dear to me as my own children.
When he was seventeen he grew moody and despondent; he ran away from
home for six months and more, and then returned and was forgiven--but
that seemed to make no difference. One night he came to see me, and I
tried hard to get him to tell me what was wrong. He wouldn’t, but went
away, and several hours later I found a letter he had shoved under the
table-cloth. I read it, and rushed out and hitched up a horse and drove
like mad to my brother-in-law’s, but I got there too late, the poor boy
had taken a shot-gun to his room, and put the muzzle into his mouth, and
set off the trigger with his foot. In the letter he told me what was the
matter--he had got into trouble with a woman of the town, and had caught
syphilis. He had gone away and tried to get cured, but had fallen into
the hands of a quack, who had taken all his money and left his health
worse than ever, so in despair and shame the poor boy had shot his head
off.
I paused, uncertain if Sylvia would understand the story. “Do you know
what syphilis is?” I asked.
“I suppose--I have heard of what we call a ‘bad disease’” she said.
“It’s a very bad disease. But if the words convey to you that it’s a
disease that bad people get, I should tell you that most men take the
chance of getting it; yet they are cruel enough to despise those upon
whom the ill-luck falls. My poor nephew had been utterly ignorant--I
found out that from his father, too late. An instinct had awakened in
him of which he knew absolutely nothing; his companions had taught him
what it meant, and he had followed their lead. And then had come the
horror and the shame--and some vile, ignorant wretch to trade upon it,
and cast the boy off when he was penniless. So he had come home again,
with his gnawing secret; I pictured him wandering about, trying to make
up his mind to confide in me, wavering between that and the horrible
deed he did.”
I stopped, because even to this day I cannot tell the story without
tears. I cannot keep a picture of the boy in my room, because of the
self-reproaches that haunt me. “You can understand,” I said to Sylvia,
“I never could forget such a lesson. I swore a vow over the poor lad’s
body, that I would never let a boy or girl that I could reach go out in
ignorance into the world. I read up on the subject, and for a while I
was a sort of fanatic--I made people talk, young people and old people.
I broke down the taboos wherever I went, and while I shocked a good
many, I knew that I helped a good many more.”
All that was, of course, inconceivable to Sylvia. How curious was the
contrast of her one experience in the matter of venereal disease. She
told me how she had been instrumental in making a match between her
friend, Harriet Atkinson and a young scion of an ancient and haughty
family of Charleston, and how after the marriage her friend’s health had
begun to give way, until now she was an utter wreck, living alone in a
dilapidated antebellum mansion, seeing no one but negro servants, and
praying for death to relieve her of her misery.
“Of course, I don’t really know,” said Sylvia. “Perhaps it was
this--this disease that you speak of. None of my people would tell me--I
doubt if they really know themselves. It was just before my own wedding,
so you can understand it had a painful effect upon me. It happened that
I read something in a magazine, and I thought that--that possibly my
fiancée--that someone ought to ask him, you understand--”
She stopped, and the blood was crimson in her cheeks, with the memory
of her old excitement, and some fresh excitement added to it. There are
diseases of the mind as well as of the body, and one of them is called
prudery.
“I can understand,” I said. “It was certainly your right to be reassured
on such a point.”
“Well, I tried to talk to my Aunt Varina about it; then I wrote to Uncle
Basil, and asked him to write to Douglas. At first he refused--he only
consented to do it when I threatened to go to my father.”
“What came of it in the end?”
“Why, my uncle wrote, and Douglas answered very kindly that he
understood, and that it was all right--I had nothing to fear. I never
expected to mention the incident to anyone again.”
“Lots of people have mentioned such things to me,” I responded, to
reassure her. Then after a pause: “Tell me, how was it, if you didn’t
know the meaning of marriage, how could you connect the disease with
it?”
She answered, gazing with the wide-open, innocent eyes: “I had no
idea how people gave it to each other. I thought maybe they got it by
kissing.”
I thought to myself again: The horror of this superstition of prudery!
Can one think of anything more destructive to life than the placing of
a taboo upon such matters? Here is the whole of the future at stake--the
health, the sanity, the very existence of the race. And what fiend has
been able to contrive it that we feel like criminals when we mention the
subject?
23. Our intimacy progressed, and the time came when Sylvia told me about
her marriage. She had accepted Douglas van Tuiver because she had lost
Frank Shirley, and her heart was broken. She could never imagine herself
loving any other man; and not knowing exactly what marriage meant, it
had been easier for her to think of her family, and to follow their
guidance. They had told her that love would come; Douglas had implored
her to give him a chance to teach her to love him. She had considered
what she could do with his money--both for her home-people and for those
she spoke of vaguely as “the poor.” But now she was making the discovery
that she could not do very much for these “poor.”
“It isn’t that my husband is mean,” she said. “On the contrary, the
slightest hint will bring me any worldly thing I want. I have homes in
half a dozen parts of America--I have _carte blanche_ to open accounts
in two hemispheres. If any of my people need money I can get it; but if
I want it for myself, he asks me what I’m doing with it--and so I run
into the stone-wall of his ideas.”
At first the colliding with this wall had merely pained and bewildered
her. But now the combination of Veblen and myself had helped her
to realize what it meant. Douglas van Tuiver spent his money upon
a definite system: whatever went to the maintaining of his social
position, whatever added to the glory, prestige and power of the van
Tuiver name--that money was well-spent; while money spent to any other
end was money wasted--and this included all ideas and “causes.” And
when the master of the house knew that his money was being wasted, it
troubled him.
“It wasn’t until after I married him that I realized how idle his life
is,” she remarked. “At home all the men have something to do, running
their plantations, or getting elected to some office. But Douglas never
does anything that I can possibly think is useful.”
His fortune was invested in New York City real-estate, she went on to
explain. There was an office, with a small army of clerks and agents to
attend to it--a machine which had been built up and handed on to him by
his ancestors. It sufficed if he dropped in for an hour or two once a
week when he was in the city, and signed a batch of documents now and
then when he was away. His life was spent in the company of people whom
the social system had similarly deprived of duties; and they had, by
generations of experiment, built up for themselves a new set of duties,
a life which was wholly without relationship to reality. Into this
unreal existence Sylvia had married, and it was like a current sweeping
her in its course. So long as she went with it, all was well; but let
her try to catch hold of something and stop, and it would tear her loose
and almost strangle her.
As time went on, she gave me strange glimpses into this world. Her
husband did not seem really to enjoy its life. As Sylvia put it, “He
takes it for granted that he has to do all the proper things that the
proper people do. He hates to be conspicuous, he says. I point out to
him that the proper things are nearly always conspicuous, but he replies
that to fail to do them would be even more conspicuous.”
It took me a long time to get really acquainted with Sylvia, because of
the extent to which this world was clamouring for her. I used to drop in
when she ‘phoned me she had half an hour. I would find her dressing for
something, and she would send her maid away, and we would talk until
she would be late for some function; and that might be a serious matter,
because somebody would feel slighted. She was always “on pins and
needles” over such questions of precedent; it seemed as if everybody in
her world must be watching everybody else. There was a whole elaborate
science of how to treat the people you met, so that they would not
feel slighted--or so that they would feel slighted, according to
circumstances.
To the enjoyment of such a life it was essential that the person
should believe in it. Douglas van Tuiver did believe in it; it was his
religion, the only one he had. (Churchman as he was, his church was
a part of the social routine.) He was proud of Sylvia, and apparently
satisfied when he could take her at his side; and Sylvia went, because
she was his wife, and that was what wives were for. She had tried her
best to be happy; she had told herself that she _was_ happy yet all the
time realizing that a woman who is really happy does not have to tell
herself.
Earlier in life she had quaffed and enjoyed the wine of applause. I
recollect vividly her telling me of the lure her beauty had been to
her--the most terrible temptation that could come to a woman. “I walk
into a brilliant room, and I feel the thrill of admiration that
goes through the crowd. I have a sudden sense of my own physical
perfection--a glow all over me! I draw a deep breath--I feel a surge of
exaltation. I say, ‘I am victorious--I can command! I have this supreme
crown of womanly grace--I am all-powerful with it--the world is mine!’”
As she spoke the rapture was in her voice, and I looked at her--and yes,
she was beautiful! The supreme crown was hers!
“I see other beautiful women,” she went on--and swift anger came into
her voice. “I see what they are doing with this power! Gratifying their
vanity--turning men into slaves of their whim! Squandering money upon
empty pleasures--and with the dreadful plague of poverty spreading in
the world! I used to go to my father, ‘Oh, papa, why must there be so
many poor people? Why should we have servants--why should they have to
wait on me, and I do nothing for them?’ He would try to explain to me
that it was the way of Nature. Mamma would tell me it was the will
of the Lord--‘The poor ye have always with you’--‘Servants, obey your
masters’--and so on. But in spite of the Bible texts, I felt guilty. And
now I come to Douglas with the same plea--and it only makes him angry!
He has been to college and has a lot of scientific phrases--he tells me
it’s ‘the struggle for existence,’ ‘the elimination of the unfit’--and
so on. I say to him, ‘First we make people unfit, and then we have to
eliminate them.’ He cannot see why I do not accept what learned people
tell me--why I persist in questioning and suffering.”
She paused, and then added, “It’s as if he were afraid I might find out
something he doesn’t want me to! He’s made me give him a promise that I
won’t see Mrs. Frothingham again!” And she laughed. “I haven’t told him
about you!”
I answered, needless to say, that I hoped she would keep the secret!
24. All this time I was busy with my child-labour work. We had an
important bill before the legislature that session, and I was doing what
I could to work up sentiment for it. I talked at every gathering where I
could get a hearing; I wrote letters to newspapers; I sent literature to
lists of names. I racked my mind for new schemes, and naturally, at such
times, I could not help thinking of Sylvia. How much she could do, if
only she would!
I spared no one, least of all myself, and so it was not easy to spare
her. The fact that I had met her was the gossip of the office, and
everybody was waiting for something to happen. “How about Mrs. van
Tuiver?” my “chief” would ask, at intervals. “If she would _only_ go on
our press committee” my stenographer would sigh.
The time came when our bill was in committee, a place of peril for
bills. I went to Albany to see what could be done. I met half a hundred
legislators, of whom perhaps half-a-dozen had some human interest in my
subject; the rest, well, it was discouraging. Where was the force that
would stir them, make them forget their own particular little grafts,
and serve the public welfare in defiance to hostile interests?
Where was it? I came back to New York to look for it, and after a blue
luncheon with the members of our committee, I came away with my mind
made up--I would sacrifice my Sylvia to this desperate emergency.
I knew just what I had to do. So far she had heard speeches about social
wrongs, or read books about them; she had never been face to face with
the reality of them. Now I persuaded her to take a morning off, and see
some of the sights of the underworld of toil. We foreswore the royal
car, and likewise the royal furs and velvets; she garbed herself in
plain appearing dark blue and went down town in the Subway like common
mortals, visiting paper-box factories and flower factories, tenement
homes where whole families sat pasting toys and gimcracks for fourteen
or sixteen hours a day, and still could not buy enough food to make
full-sized men and women of them.
She was Dante, and I was Virgil, our inferno was an endless procession
of tortured faces--faces of women, haggard and mournful, faces of little
children, starved and stunted, dulled and dumb. Several times we stopped
to talk with these people--one little Jewess girl I knew whose three
tiny sisters had been roasted alive in a sweatshop fire. This child had
jumped from a fourth-story window, and been miraculously caught by a
fireman. She said that some man had started the fire, and been caught,
but the police had let him get away. So I had to explain to Sylvia
that curious bye-product (sic) of the profit system known as the “Arson
Trust.” Authorities estimated that incendiarism was responsible for
the destruction of a quarter of a billion dollars worth of property in
America every year. So, of course, the business of starting fires was
a paying one, and the “fire-bug,” like the “cadet” and the dive-keeper,
was a part of the “system.” So it was quite a possible thing that the
man who had burned up this little girl’s three sisters might have been
allowed to escape.
I happened to say this in the little girl’s hearing, and I saw
her pitiful strained eyes fixed upon Sylvia. Perhaps this lovely,
soft-voiced lady was a fairy god-mother, come to free her sisters from
an evil spell and to punish the wicked criminal! I saw Sylvia turn her
head away, and search for her handkerchief; as we groped our way down
the dark stairs, she caught my hand, whispering: “Oh, my God! my God!”
It had even more effect than I had intended; not only did she say that
she would do something--anything that would be of use--but she told me
as we rode back home that her mind was made up to stop the squandering
of her husband’s money. He had been planning a costume ball for a
couple of months later, an event which would keep the van Tuiver name
in condition, and would mean that he and other people would spend many
hundreds of thousands of dollars. As we rode home in the roaring Subway,
Sylvia sat beside me, erect and tense, saying that if the ball were
given, it would be without the presence of the hostess.
I struck while the iron was hot, and got her permission to put her name
upon our committee list. She said, moreover, that she would get some
free time, and be more than a mere name to us. What were the duties of a
member of our committee?
“First,” I said, “to know the facts about child-labour, as you have seen
them to-day, and second, to help other people to know.”
“And how is that to be done?”
“Well, for instance, there is that hearing before the legislative
committee. You remember I suggested that you appear.”
“Yes,” she said in a low voice. I could almost hear the words that were
in her mind: “What would _he_ say?”
25. Sylvia’s name went upon our letter-heads and other literature, and
almost at once things began to happen. In a day or two there came a
reporter, saying he had noticed her name. Was it true that she had
become interested in our work? Would I please give him some particulars,
as the public would naturally want to know.
I admitted that Mrs. van Tuiver had joined the committee; she approved
of our work and desired to further it. That was all. He asked: Would she
give an interview? And I answered that I was sure she would not. Then
would I tell something about how she had come to be interested in the
work? It was a chance to assist our propaganda, added the reporter,
diplomatically.
I retired to another room, and got Sylvia upon the ‘phone, “The time has
come for you to take the plunge,” I said.
“Oh, but I don’t want to be in the papers!” she cried “Surely, you
wouldn’t advise it!”
“I don’t see how you can avoid having something appear. Your name
is given out, and if the man can’t get anything else, he’ll take our
literature, and write up your doings out of his imagination.”
“And they’ll print my picture with it!” she exclaimed. I could not help
laughing. “It’s quite possible.”
“Oh, what will my husband do? He’ll say ‘I told you so!’”
It is a hard thing to have one’s husband say that, as I knew by bitter
experience. But I did not think that reason enough for giving up.
“Let me have time to think it over,” said Sylvia. “Get him to wait till
to-morrow, and meantime I can see you.”
So it was arranged. I think I told Sylvia the truth when I said that I
had never before heard of a committee member who was unwilling to have
his purposes discussed in the newspapers. To influence newspapers was
one of the main purposes of committees, and I did not see how she could
expect either editors or readers to take any other view.
“Let me tell the man about your trip down town,” I suggested, “then I
can go on to discuss the bill and how it bears on the evils you saw.
Such a statement can’t possibly do you harm.”
She consented, but with the understanding that she was not to be quoted
directly. “And don’t let them make me picturesque!” she exclaimed.
“That’s what my husband seems most to dread.”
I wondered if he didn’t think she was picturesque, when she sat in
a splendid, shining coach, and took part in a public parade through
Central Park. But I did not say this. I went off, and swore my reporter
to abstain from the “human touch,” and he promised and kept his word.
There appeared next morning a dignified “write-up” of Mrs. Douglas van
Tuiver’s interest in child-labour reform. Quoting me, it described some
of the places she had visited, and some of the sights which had shocked
her; it went on to tell about our committee and its work, the status
of our bill in the legislature, the need of activity on the part of our
friends if the measure was to be forced through at this session. It
was a splendid “boost” for our work, and everyone in the office was in
raptures over it. The social revolution was at hand! thought my young
stenographer.
But the trouble with this business of publicity is that, however
carefully you control your interviewer, you cannot control the others
who use his material. The “afternoon men” came round for more details,
and they made it clear that it was personal details they wanted. And
when I side-stepped their questions, they went off and made up answers
to suit themselves, and printed Sylvia’s pictures, together with
photographs of child-workers taken from our pamphlets.
I called Sylvia up while she was dressing for dinner, to explain that I
was not responsible for any of this picturesqueness. “Oh, perhaps I am
to blame myself!” she exclaimed. “I think I interviewed a reporter.”
“How do you mean?”
“A woman sent up her card--she told the footman she was a friend of
mine. And I thought--I couldn’t be sure if I’d met her--so I went and
saw her. She said she’d met me at Mrs. Harold Cliveden’s, and she began
to talk to me about child-labour, and this and that plan she had, and
what did I think of them, and suddenly it flashed over me: ‘Maybe this
is a reporter playing a trick on me!’”
I hurried out before breakfast next morning and got all the papers,
to see what this enterprising lady had done. There was nothing, so I
reflected that probably she had been a “Sunday” lady.
But then, when I reached my office, the ‘phone rang, and I heard the
voice of Sylvia: “Mary, something perfectly dreadful has happened!”
“What?” I cried.
“I can’t tell you over the ‘phone, but a certain person is furiously
angry. Can I see you if I come down right away?”
26. Such terrors as these were unguessed by me in the days of my
obscurity. Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown, uneasy also, lies
the wife of that head, and the best friend of the wife. I dismissed my
stenographer, and spent ten or fifteen restless minutes until Sylvia
appeared.
Her story was quickly told. A couple of hours ago the acting-manager of
Mr. van Tuiver’s office had telephoned to ask if he might call upon a
matter of importance. He had come. Naturally, he had the most extreme
reluctance to say anything which might seem to criticise the activities
of Mr. van Tuiver’s wife, but there was something in the account in
the newspapers which should be brought to her husband’s attention. The
articles gave the names and locations of a number of firms in whose
factories it was alleged that Mrs. van Tuiver had found unsatisfactory
conditions, and it happened that two of these firms were located in
premises which belonged to the van Tuiver estates!
A story coming very close to melodrama, I perceived. I sat dismayed
at what I had done. “Of course, dear girl,” I said, at last, “you
understand that I had no idea who owned these buildings.”
“Oh, don’t say that!” exclaimed Sylvia. “I am the one who should have
known!”
Then for a long time I sat still and let her suffer. “Tenement
sweat-shops! Little children in factories!” I heard her whisper.
At last I put my hand on hers. “I tried to put it off for a while,” I
said. “But I knew it would have to come.”
“Think of me!” she exclaimed, “going about scolding other people for the
way they make their money! When I thought of my own, I had visions of
palatial hotels and office-buildings--everything splendid and clean!”
“Well, my dear, you’ve learned now, and you will be able to do
something--”
She turned upon me suddenly, and for the first time I saw in her face
the passions of tragedy. “Do you believe I will be able to do anything?
No! Don’t have any such idea!”
I was struck dumb. She got up and began to pace the room. “Oh, don’t
make any mistake, I’ve paid for my great marriage in the last hour or
two. To think that he cares about nothing save the possibility of being
found out and made ridiculous! All his friends have been ‘muckraked,’ as
he calls it, and he has sat aloft and smiled over their plight; he was
the landed gentleman, the true aristrocrat, whom the worries of traders
and money-changers didn’t concern. Now perhaps he’s caught, and his
name is to be dragged in the mire, and it’s my flightiness, my lack of
commonsense that has done it!”
“I shouldn’t let that trouble me,” I said. “You could not know--”
“Oh, it’s not that! It’s that I hadn’t a single courageous word to say
to him--not a hint that he ought to refuse to wring blood-money from
sweat-shops! I came away without having done it, because I couldn’t face
his anger, because it would have meant a quarrel!”
“My dear,” I said gently, “it is possible to survive a quarrel.”
“No, you don’t understand! We should never make it up again, I know--I
saw it in his words, in his face. He will never change to please me,
no, not even a simple thing like the business-methods of the van Tuiver
estates.”
I could not help smiling. “My dear Sylvia! A simple thing!”
She came and sat beside me. “That’s what I want to talk about. It is
time I was growing up. It it time that I knew about these things. Tell
me about them.”
“What, my dear?”
“About the methods of the van Tuiver estates, that can’t be changed to
please me. I made out one thing, we had recently paid a fine for some
infraction of the law in one of those buildings, and my husband said
it was because we had refused to pay more money to a tenement-house
inspector. I asked him: ‘Why should we pay any money at all to a
tenement-house inspector? Isn’t it bribery?’ He answered: ‘It’s a
custom--the same as you give a tip to a hotel waiter.’ Is that true?”
I could not help smiling. “Your husband ought to know, my dear,” I said.
I saw her compress her lips. “What is the tip for?”
“I suppose it is to keep out of trouble with him.”
“But why can’t we keep out of trouble by obeying the law?”
“My dear, sometimes the law is inconvenient, and sometimes it is
complicated and obscure. It might be that you are violating it without
knowing the fact. It might be uncertain whether you are violating it
or not, so that to settle the question would mean a lot of expense and
publicity. It might even be that the law is impossible to obey--that it
was not intended to be obeyed.”
“What do you mean by that?”
“I mean, maybe it was passed to put you at the mercy of the
politicians.”
“But,” she protested, “that would be blackmail.”
“The phrase,” I replied, “is ‘strike-legislation.’”
“But at least, that wouldn’t be our fault!”
“No, not unless you had begun it. It generally happens that the landlord
discovers it’s a good thing to have politicians who will work with him.
Maybe he wants his assessments lowered; maybe he wants to know where new
car lines are to go, so that he can buy intelligently; maybe he wants
the city to improve his neighbourhood; maybe he wants influence at court
when he has some heavy damage suit.”
“So we bribe everyone!”
“Not necessarily. You may simply wait until campaign-time, and then make
your contribution to the machine. That is the basis of the ‘System.’.”
“The ‘System ‘?”
“A semi-criminal police-force, and everything that pays tribute to it;
the saloon and the dive, the gambling hell the white-slave market, and
the Arson trust.”
I saw a wild look in her eyes. “Tell me, do you _know_ that all these
things are true? Or are you only guessing about them?”
“My dear Sylvia,” I answered, “you said it was time you grew up. For the
present I will tell you this: Several months before I met you, I made
a speech in which I named some of the organised forces of evil in the
city. One was Tammany Hall, and another was the Traction Trust, and
another was the Trinity Church Corporation, and yet another was the van
Tuiver estates.”
27. The following Sunday there appeared a “magazine story” of an
interview with the infinitely beautiful young wife of the infinitely
rich Mr. Douglas van Tuiver, in which the views of the wife on the
subject of child-labour were liberally interlarded with descriptions
of her reception-room and her morning-gown. But mere picturesqueness by
that time had been pretty well discounted in our minds. So long as
the article did not say anything about the ownership of child-labour
tenements!
I did not see Sylvia for several weeks after that. I took it for granted
that she would want some time to get herself together and make up her
mind about the future. I did not feel anxious; the seed had sprouted,
and I felt sure it would continue to grow.
Then one day she called me up, asking if I could come to see her. I
suggested that afternoon, and she said she was having tea with some
people at the Palace Hotel, and could I come there just after tea-time?
I remember the place and the hour, because of the curious adventure into
which I got myself. One hears the saying, when unexpected encounters
take place, “How small the world is!” But I thought the world was
growing really too small when I went into a hotel tea-room to wait for
Sylvia, and found myself face to face with Claire Lepage!
The place appointed had been the “orange-room”; I stood in the door-way,
sweeping the place with my eyes, and I saw Mrs. van Tuiver at the same
moment that she saw me. She was sitting at a table with several other
people and she nodded, and I took a seat to wait. From my position I
could watch her, in animated conversation; and she could send me a smile
now and then. So I was decidedly startled when I heard a voice, “Why,
how do you do?” and looked up and saw Claire holding out her hand to me.
“Well, for heaven’s sake!” I exclaimed.
“You don’t come to see me any more,” she said.
“Why, no--no, I’ve been busy of late.” So much I managed to ejaculate,
in spite of my confusion.
“You seem surprised to see me,” she remarked--observant as usual, and
sensitive to other people’s attitude to her.
“Why, naturally,” I said. And then, recollecting that it was not in the
least natural--since she spent a good deal of her time in such places--I
added, “I was looking for someone else.”
“May I do in the meantime?” she inquired, taking a seat beside me. “What
are you so busy about?”
“My child-labour work,” I answered. Then, in an instant, I was sorry for
the words, thinking she must have read about Sylvia’s activities. I did
not want her to know that I had met Sylvia, for it would mean a flood of
questions, which I did not want to answer--nor yet to refuse to answer.
But my fear was needless. “I’ve been out of town,” she said.
“Whereabouts?” I asked, making conversation.
“A little trip to Bermuda.”
My mind was busy with the problem of getting rid of her. It would be
intolerable to have Sylvia come up to us; it was intolerable to know
that they were in sight of each other.
Even as the thought came to me, however, I saw Claire start. “Look!” she
exclaimed.
“What is it?”
“That woman there--in the green velvet! The fourth table.”
“I see her.”
“Do you know who she is?”
“Who?” (I remembered Lady Dee’s maxim about lying!)
“Sylvia Castleman!” whispered Claire. (She always referred to her
thus--seeming to say, “I’m as much van Tuiver as she is!”)
“Are you sure?” I asked--in order to say something.
“I’ve seen her a score of times. I seem to be always running into her.
That’s Freddie Atkins she’s talking to.”
“Indeed!” said I.
“I know most of the men I see her with. But I have to walk by as if I’d
never seen them. A queer world we live in, isn’t it?”
I could assent cordially to that proposition. “Listen,” I broke in,
quickly. “Have you got anything to do? If not, come down to the Royalty
and have tea with me.”
“Why not have it here?”
“I’ve been waiting for someone from there, and I have to leave a
message. Then I’ll be free.”
She rose, to my vast relief, and we walked out. I could feel Sylvia’s
eyes following me; but I dared not try to send her a message--I would
have to make up some explanation afterwards. “Who was your well-dressed
friend?” I could imagine her asking; but my mind was more concerned with
the vision of what would happen if, in full sight of her companion, Mr.
Freddie Atkins, she were to rise and walk over to Claire and myself!
28. Seated in the palm-room of the other hotel, I sipped a cup of
tea which I felt I had earned, while Claire had a little glass of the
fancy-coloured liquids which the ladies in these places affect. The room
was an aviary, with tropical plants and splashing fountains--and birds
of many gorgeous hues; I gazed from one to another of the splendid
creatures, wondering how many of them were paying for their plumage
in the same way as my present companion. It would have taken a more
practiced eye than mine to say which, for if I had been asked, I
would have taken Claire for a diplomat’s wife. She had not less than a
thousand dollars’ worth of raiment upon her, and its style made clear to
all the world the fact that it had not been saved over from a previous
season of prosperity. She was a fine creature, who could carry any
amount of sail; with her bold, black eyes she looked thoroughly
competent, and it was hard to believe in the fundamental softness of her
character.
I sat, looking about me, annoyed at having missed Sylvia, and only half
listening to Claire. But suddenly she brought me to attention. “Well,”
she said, “I’ve met him.”
“Met whom?”
“Douglas.”
I stared at her. “Douglas van Tuiver?”
She nodded; and I suppressed a cry.
“I told you he’d come back,” she added, with a laugh.
“You mean he came to see you?”
I could not hide my concern. But there was no need to, for it
flattered Claire’s vanity. “No--not yet, but he will. I met him at Jack
Taylor’s--at a supper-party.”
“Did he know you were to be there?”
“No. But he didn’t leave when he saw me.”
There was a pause. I could not trust myself to say anything. But Claire
had no intention of leaving me curious. “I don’t think he’s happy with
her,” she remarked.
“What makes you say that?”
“Oh, several things. I know him, you know. He wouldn’t say he was.”
“Perhaps he didn’t want to discuss it with you.”
“Oh, no--not that. He isn’t reserved with me.”
“I should think it was dangerous to discuss one’s wife under such
circumstances,” I laughed.
Claire laughed also. “You should have heard what Jack had to say about
his wife! She’s down at Palm Beach.”
“She’d better come home,” I ventured.
“He was telling what a dance she leads him; she raises Cain if a woman
looks at him--and she damns every woman he meets before the woman has a
chance to look. Jack said marriage was hell--just hell. Reggie Channing
thought it was like a pair of old slippers that you got used to.” Jack
laughed and answered, “You’re at the stage where you think you can solve
the marriage problem by deceiving your wife!”
I made no comment. Claire sat for a while, busy with her thoughts; then
she repeated, “He wouldn’t say he was happy! And he misses me, too. When
he was going, I held his hand, and said: ‘Well, Douglas, how goes it?’”
“And then?” I asked; but she would not say any more.
I waited a while, and then began, “Claire, let him alone. Give them a
chance to be happy.”
“Why should I?” she demanded, in a voice of hostility.
“She never harmed you,” I said. I knew I was being foolish, but I would
do what I could.
“She took him away from me, didn’t she?” And Claire’s eyes were suddenly
alight with the hatred of her outcast class. “Why did she get him?
Why is she Mrs. van Tuiver, and I nobody? Because her father was rich,
because she had power and position, while I had to scratch for myself in
the world. Is that true, or isn’t it?”
I could not deny that it might be part of the truth. “But they’re
married now,” I said, “and he loves her.”
“He loves me, too. And I love him still, in spite of the way he’s
treated me. He’s the only man I ever really loved. Do you think I’m
going off and hide in a hole, while she spends his money and plays the
princess up and down the Avenue? Not much!”
I fell silent. Should I set out upon another effort at “moulding water”?
Should I give Claire one more scolding--tell her, perhaps, how her very
features were becoming hard and ugly, as a result of the feelings she
was harbouring? Should I recall the pretences of generosity and dignity
she had made when we first met? I might have attempted this--but
something held me back. After all, the one person who could decide this
issue was Douglas van Tuiver.
I rose. “Well, I have to be going. But I’ll drop round now and then, and
see what success you have.”
She became suddenly important. “Maybe I won’t tell!”
To which I answered, indifferently, “All right, it’s your secret.” But I
went off without much worry over that part of it. Claire must have some
one to whom to recount her troubles--or her triumphs, as the case might
be.
29. I had my talk with Sylvia a day or two later, and made my excuse--a
friend from the West who had been going out of town in a few hours
later.
The seed had been growing, I found. Ever since we had last met, her life
had consisted of arguments over the costume-ball on which her husband
had set his heart, and at which she had refused to play the hostess.
“Of course, he’s right about one thing,” she remarked. “We can’t stay in
New York unless we give some big affair. Everyone expects it, and there
is no explanation except one he could not offer.”
“I’ve made a big breach in your life, Sylvia,” I said.
“It wasn’t all you. This unhappiness has been in me--it’s been like a
boil, and you’ve been the poultice.” (She had four younger brothers and
sisters, so these domestic similes came naturally.)
“Boils,” I remarked, “are disfiguring, when they come to a head.”
There was a pause. “How is your child-labour bill?” she asked, abruptly.
“Why, it’s all right.”
“Didn’t I see a letter in the paper saying it had been referred to a
sub-committee, some trick to suppress it for this session?”
I could not answer. I had been hoping she had not seen that letter.
“If I were to come forward now,” she said, “I could possibly block that
move, couldn’t I?”
Still I said nothing.
“If I were to take a bold stand--I mean if I were to speak at a public
meeting, and denounce the move.”
“I suppose you could,” I had to admit.
For a long time she sat with her head bowed. “The children will have to
wait,” she said, at last, half to herself.
“My dear,” I answered (What else was there to answer?) “the children
have waited a long time.”
“I hate to turn back--to have you say I’m a coward--”
“I won’t say that, Sylvia.”
“You will be too kind, no doubt, but that will be the truth.”
I tried to reassure her. But the acids I had used--intended for tougher
skins than hers--had burned into the very bone, and now it was not
possible to stop their action. “I must make you understand,” she said,
“how serious a thing it seems to me for a wife to stand out against
her husband. I’ve been brought up to feel that it was the most terrible
thing a woman could do.”
She stopped, and when she went on again her face was set like one
enduring pain. “So this is the decision to which I have come. If I do
anything of a public nature now, I drive my husband from me; on
the other hand, if I take a little time, I may be able to save the
situation. I need to educate myself, and I’m hoping I may be able to
educate him at the same time. If I can get him to read something--if
it’s only a few paragraphs everyday--I may gradually change his point of
view, so that he will tolerate what I believe. At any rate, I ought to
try; I am sure that is the wise and kind and fair thing to do.”
“What will you do about the ball?” I asked.
“I am going to take him away, out of this rush and distraction, this
dressing and undressing, hurrying about meeting people and chattering
about nothing.”
“He is willing?”
“Yes; in fact, he suggested it himself. He thinks my mind is turned,
with all the things I’ve been reading, and with Mrs. Frothingham, and
Mrs. Allison, and the rest. He hopes that if I go away, I may quiet
down and come to my senses. We have a good excuse. I have to think of my
health just now---”
She stopped, and looked away from my eyes. I saw the colour spreading in
a slow wave over her cheeks; it was like those tints of early dawn that
are so ravishing to the souls of poets. “In four or five months from
now---” And she stopped again.
I put my big hand gently over her small one. “I have three children of
my own,” I said.
“So,” she went on, “it won’t seem so unreasonable. Some people know, and
the rest will guess, and there won’t be any talk--I mean, such as
there would be if it was rumoured that Mrs. Douglas van Tuiver had got
interested in Socialism, and refused to spend her husband’s money.”
“I understand,” I replied. “It’s quite the most sensible thing, and I’m
glad you’ve found a way out. I shall miss you, of course, but we can
write each other long letters. Where are you going?”
“I’m not absolutely sure. Douglas suggests a cruise in the West Indies,
but I think I should rather be settled in one place. He has a lovely
house in the mountains of North Carolina, and wants me to go there; but
it’s a show-place, with rich homes all round, and I know I’d soon be in
a social whirl. I thought of the camp in the Adirondacks. It would be
glorious to see the real woods in winter; but I lose my nerve when I
think of the cold--I was brought up in a warm place.”
“A ‘camp’ sounds rather primitive for one in your condition,” I
suggested.
“That’s because you haven’t been there. In reality it’s a big house,
with twenty-five rooms, and steam-heat and electric lights, and half a
dozen men to take care of it when it’s empty--as it has been for several
years.”
I smiled--for I could read her thought. “Are you going to be unhappy
because you can’t occupy all your husband’s homes?”
“There’s one other I prefer,” she continued, unwilling to be made to
smile. “They call it a ‘fishing lodge,’ and it’s down in the Florida
Keys. They’re putting a railroad through there, but meantime you can
only get to it by a launch. From the pictures, it’s the most heavenly
spot imaginable. Fancy running about those wonderful green waters in a
motor-boat!”
“It sounds quite alluring,” I replied. “But isn’t it remote for you?”
“We’re not so very far from Key West; and my husband means to have a
physician with us in any case. The advantage of being in a small place
is that we couldn’t entertain if we wanted to. I can have my Aunt Varina
come to stay with me, a dear, sweet soul who loves me devotedly; and
then if I find I have to have some new ideas, perhaps you can come---”
“I don’t think your husband would favour that,” I said.
She put her hand out to me in a quick gesture. “I don’t mean to give up
our friendship! I want you to understand, I intend to go on studying and
growing. I am doing what he asked me--it’s right that I should think of
his wishes, and of the health of my child. But the child will be growing
up, and sooner or later my husband must grant me the right to think,
to have a life of my own. You must stand by me and help me, whatever
happens.”
I gave her my hand on that, and so we parted--for some time, as it
proved. I went up to Albany once more, in a last futile effort to save
our precious bill; and while I was there I got a note from her, saying
that she was leaving for the Florida Keys.