_"What would you do? what would you say now, if you were in such a
position?"_--Thackeray.
_"Thackeray is always protesting that no good is to be done by
blinking the truth. Let us have facts out, and mend what is bad if we
can"_--Trollope.
Mr. John Boler had been in the hotel business, as he phrased it, ever
since he was born. Before he could walk he had been the "feature" of his
father's summer hotel, where he was the only baby to be passed around
and hugged into semi-unconsciousness by all the women in the house.
Because of the scarcity of his kind, too, he was subjected to untold
agony by the male guests, most of whom appeared to believe that the
chief desire of his infantile heart was to be tossed skyward from hour
to hour and caught in upstretched hands as he descended with a sickening
sense of insecurity and a wild hysterical laugh. In these later years he
often said that he would like to know who those summer fiends were who
had made his infancy so full of narrow escapes from sudden and violent
death. Finally he thought he had revenge at hand. A benevolent-looking
old gentleman came puffing up to the desk of the Boler House, and,
after registering, proceeded to question the genial proprietor as to his
identity.
"Dear me, dear me," he puffed, "and so you are the son of old John
Boler, the best hotel-keeper the sun ever shone upon! Why, I remember
tossing you up to the rafters under the porch of your father's house
when you were only the size of a baked apple and mighty nigh as measly
looking. Well, well, to be sure you had grit for a young one. Never got
scared. Always yelled for more. I believe if you had batted your soft
little head against the roof you'd have laughed all the louder and
kicked until you did it again," and the old man chuckled with the
pleasure of age and retrospection.
"Yes, I remember well," said Mr. Boler, casting about in his own mind
for the form of revenge he should take on this man now that he was to
have the chance for which he had so longed and waited.
His first thought was to put him in the room next to the three sporting
men who played poker and told questionable stories of their own exploits
after two o'clock every night, but that hardly seemed adequate. The
room adjoining the elevator popped into his head. Every time the old
gentleman fell asleep _bang_ would go that elevator door or _bzzzz_
would start off the bell so suddenly that it would leave him unnerved
and frantic in the morning. But what was that? What John Boler yearned
for was to make the punishment fit the crime, and, after all these years
of planning and wishing for the chance, here it was, and he felt that he
could think of nothing, absolutely nothing, bad enough.
So with a fine satire which was wholly lost upon his victim, Mr. Boler
ordered him taken to the very best room in the house, and made up his
mind that after disarming all suspicion in that way he would set about
his revenge, which should take some exquisitely torturous form.
All this had run through his mind with great rapidity while the old
gentleman talked. Then Mr. Boler turned the register around, wrote "98"
opposite the name. Said he should be delighted to show his own mettle to
one of his father's old guests, called out "Front," and transferred his
attention to a sweet-faced girl who stood waiting her turn to register.
"A small room, please," she said in a voice scarcely above a whisper.
Mr. Boler knew just what it meant in an instant. He knew that she was
not used to hotels--that she was uncertain what to do, and that she
wanted her living to cost her as little as possible. She was evidently a
lady, and quite as evidently from some small town.
"Front," he called again. "Show this lady to 96. Step lively." Front
grinned. Ninety-six was a mere closet with no window except one facing a
dark shaft. Indeed, it had once been the dressing-room and clothes press
for the adjoining suite, and so far as Front could remember had never
been used as a sleeping apartment by any one except the valet of a
certain French gentleman who once occupied 98.
"Took my revenge on the wrong person that time," mused Mr. Boler as he
saw the lady enter the elevator. "Now I wonder why I did that?" But Mr.
John Boler had his little superstition, as most of us have, and whenever
he was moved by a perfectly blind impulse to do a thing, he always
believed that "something would come of it sure," as he expressed it.
"Never knew it to fail. Of course I don't believe in such things; but--"
and then he would laugh and go on believing in it as implicitly as ever.
All day he brooded over what he should do to old Winkle, as he called
the man in 98, and as surely as his mind grew exhausted and his various
plans fell through, his thoughts would catch a glimpse of the timid
girl in the next room, and he would smilingly wink to himself and say,
"Something will come of it, something will come of it sure. Never put a
guest in that beastly room before, and I had nothing against _her. Must_
have been him It was after." He always called his blind impulses "It"
when he was utilizing them for superstitious purposes or to quiet his
reason.
"I'll bet that girl being in that closet will be the means of getting
me even with old Winkle yet, and she is not used to city hotels. She'll
think that it is all right and she will most likely be out all day. It's
not so bad to sleep in after all. Quietest room in the house."
The next morning Mr. Winkle strolled into the office and harassed Mr.
Boler about his infancy, reminding him that he had possessed a very weak
stomach. "And who wouldn't," thought that gentleman indignantly, "if he
was pitched about like a bale of hay from morning till night by every
fool that got hold of him?" but he smiled pleasantly and said no doubt
he had been very much like other infants, judging from the way he grew
up. He looked upon a baby as the embryonic man, and as he was about an
average adult male biped now, he had most likely been very close to an
average male infant. "I might have been more," he hinted darkly, "but
for certain idiotic people," and then he laughed. For it was not in Mr.
John Boler's nature to be openly unpleasant to any one. This was the
secret of his success as an innkeeper.
"By the way, Johnnie," said old Mr. Winkle late the next afternoon, "I
thought I heard some one sobbing in the room next to mine last night.
This morning I concluded I was mistaken, but now I'm sure I heard it.
Anybody sick in there? I tried the door that leads into my room but it
was locked. It sounds like a woman's voice. It always did tear the very
heart out of me to hear a woman cry--" He went on talking but Mr. John
Boler heard no more. His heart gave a wild bound of delight. "It" had
given him his revenge. He would let the young woman stay in the hotel
free of charge as long as old Winkle was in the house if only she would
weep and sob pretty steadily. "'Johnnie,' by gad," thought he, resenting
this new indignity to his name. "By George, what luck!" And then he went
about his duties with a new spring in his always elastic step. At the
lunch hour the following day he glanced into the dining-room, and sure
enough, there sat the occupant of 96, and her eyes were swollen and red.
At almost any other time this would have disturbed John Boler, but now
it was a deep delight to him.
"Had a spat with her lover, no doubt," speculated he, "and, by Jove! it
came at a lucky time for me. I'd pay her lover to keep up the row for
three weeks if I could get at him. 'Weak stomach,' 'Johnnie,' indeed!"
And he went back to the office rubbing his hands in a satisfied way,
thinking that old Winkle would be afraid to go to his room that night,
and that his sleep would be broken by visions of a weeping woman next
door, even if she did not keep him awake half the time sobbing because
Ralph had called her a mean thing or a proud stuck-up flirt, and hinted
darkly that she was in love with his rival.
Matters had gone on in this way for nearly a week and Mr. Winkle had
fretted and fumed and asked for another room two or three times, but
Mr. Boler told him that the house was full and that there wasn't another
room fit to offer him anyhow. He said that he would change the young
lady's room as soon as he could, but he expected her to leave every day.
She went out a good deal and wrote a large number of letters, and
he felt sure she was going to remain only a day or two longer. He
apologized and explained and planned, and then he would chuckle to
himself the moment "old Winkle's" back was turned to think how "_It_"
had succeeded in getting him even with the old reprobate without the
least overt act on his part.
But the eighth morning Mr. Winkle rebelled outright. He said that he
would wring the girl's worthless neck if he could get at her, but he
could not and would not bear her sobs any longer. The night before they
had been worse than ever and he had not slept a wink all night long. At
last Mr. Boler promised that he would transfer the girl to another room
that very afternoon if she did not leave, and the old man softened at
once and said if she could not afford to pay for any other room he would
pay the difference and she need never know it.
John Boler was not mercenary, but this offer gave him keen delight.
For "old Winkle" would have to buy his relief after all. He thought how
willingly a certain infant of his memory would have paid for rest
and quiet too when it was helpless clay in the hands of certain old
imbeciles he knew of.
At 2 p.m. he told Front to go up to 96 and tell the young lady that he
now had a better room for her that would cost her no more than the one
she now occupied, and to change her and her belongings to 342 forthwith.
In five minutes Front came back as white as a cloth and said that the
young lady's door was unlocked, that there were a number of letters on
the table and that she was dead.
Mr. John Boler dashed from behind the desk across the street and was
back in an incredibly short space of time, dragging behind him the
dignified and wealthy physician whose office faced the hotel.
At this stage of the proceedings he cautioned the employees not to say
a word about the matter on pain of instant dismissal. They one and all
promised, and then proceeded to tell the first reporter who dropped in
that a young lady had committed suicide upstairs and that she had
cried out loud for a week. They gave a full description of her and her
effects, all of which appeared in the 5 o'clock edition of the paper,
duly headlined with her name and certain gratuitous speculations in
regard to her motive for self-destruction. In these it was darkly hinted
that she was no better than she should be, but now that she was dead
"we" (the immaculate young gentlemen of the press) felt disposed to draw
a veil of charity over her past and say with the law that her suicide
proved her insanity, and that her mental condition might also account
for her past frailties.
While these generous young gentlemen were penning their reports the
doctor and Mr. John Boler worked over the poor helpless body of the
unconscious girl in the dark little room upstairs. Between times they
read the letters on the table and learned the old, old story--not of
crime, but of misfortune. No work had offered, and she must work or
starve--or sell the only value she possessed in the sight of men. One or
two of the answers to her advertisement had boldly hinted at this,
and when her little stock of money had run out and the little stock of
misfortune had swelled into a mountain, and the little pile of insults
had increased until she felt that she could endure life no longer, she
had concluded to brave another world where she was taught to believe a
loving Father awaited her because she had been good and true and pure to
the last in spite of storms and disappointments and temptations. So she
made the wild leap in the dark, confident that the hereafter could
hold nothing worse, and believing sincerely that it must hold
something better for Her and her kind, even if that better were only
forgetfulness.
Up to this point her story was that of thousands of helpless girls who
face the unknown dangers of a great city with the confidence of youth,
and that ill training and ignorance of the world which is supposed to be
a part of the charm of young womanhood. She had not registered her real
name, it is true; but this was because she intended to advertise for
work and have the replies sent to the hotel, and somehow she thought
that it would be easier for her to do that over a name less sacred to
her than her mother's, which was also her own. So instead of registering
as Fannie Ellis Worth of Atlanta, she had written "Miss Kate Jarvis" and
had given no address whatever. This latter fact told strongly against
her with the reporters. They located her in a certain house on
Thirty-first Street and "interviewed" the madam, who gave them a picture
of a girl who had once been there, and a cut of this picture appeared
in two of the morning papers with the fuller account of the suicide. A
beautiful moral was appended to this history of the girl's life
"which had now come to its appropriate ending." But when one of these
enterprising young gentlemen of the press called to get the details of
the funeral for his paper, he was shocked to learn that the young lady
was not dead after all, and that she was now in a fair way to recover.
He was still further disgusted when neither Mr. Boler nor the attending
physician would submit to an interview and declined to allow him to send
his card to the girl's room.
Then and there he made up his mind that if he had to rewrite that
two-column report to fit the new developments in the case, he would, as
he expressed it, make John Boler and pompous Dr. Ralston wish that they
had never been bom. Incident to this undertaking, he would darkly hint
at a number of things in regard to the girl herself and their relations
with her. This was not at all to make her wish that she had never been
born; but if it should serve that purpose, the young gentleman did not
feel that he would be in the least to blame--if, indeed, he gave the
matter a thought at all, which he very likely did not.
The article he wrote was certainly very "wide awake" and surprised even
himself in its ingenuity of conjecture as to the motive which could
prompt two such men as John Boler, proprietor of the Boler House, and
Dr. Ralston, "whose reputation had heretofore been above suspicion, to
place themselves in so unenviable, not to say dangerous, a position."
He suggested that although the young woman had taken her case out of
the jurisdiction of the coroner by not actually dying, this fact did
not relieve the affair of certain features which demanded the prompt
attention of the police court. The matter was perfectly clear. Here was
a young woman who had attempted to relieve herself, by rapid means, of
the life which all the social and financial conditions which surrounded
her had combined to take by a slower and more painful process. If she
had succeeded, the law held that she was of unsound mind--that she was,
in short, a lunatic--and treated her case accordingly; but, on the other
hand, if she failed, or if, as in this instance, her effort to place
herself beyond want and pain was thwarted by others, then the law was
equally sure that she was _not_ a lunatic at all, but that she was a
criminal, and that it was the plain duty of the police judge to see
that she was put with those of her class--the enemies and outcasts of
society.
It was also quite clear that any one who aided, abetted, or shielded a
criminal was _particeps criminis,_ and that unless Mr. John Boler and
Dr. Ralston turned the young offender over to the police at once, there
was a virtuous young reporter on the _Daily Screamer_ who intended to
know the reason why.
It was this article in the _Screamer_ which first made Mr. Winkle aware
of the condition of affairs in the room adjoining his own. He had been
absent from the hotel for some hours, and had, therefore, known nothing
of the sad happenings so near him. He dashed down into the office with
the paper in his hand and asked for Mr. Boler; but that gentleman was
not visible. It was said that he was in consultation with Dr. Ralston
at the office of the latter, whereupon Mr. Winkle re-read the entire
article aloud to the imperturbable clerk and expressed himself as under
the impression that something was the matter with the law, or else that
a certain reporter for the _Screamer_ was the most dangerous lunatic
at present outside of the legislature. The clerk smiled. A young man
leaning against the desk made a note on a tablet, and then asked Mr.
Winkle what he knew of the case and to state his objections to the law,
first saying _which_ law he so vigorously disapproved. The clerk winked
at Mr. Winkle, but Mr. Winkle either did not see, or else did not regard
the purport of the demonstration, and proceeded to express himself with
a good deal of emphasis in regard to a condition of affairs which made
it possible to elect as lawmakers men capable of framing such idiotic
measures and employing on newspapers others who upheld the enactment.
But before he had gone far in these strictures on public affairs as now
administered he espied John Boler and followed him hastily upstairs.
That afternoon Mr. Winkle almost fell from his chair when he saw the
evening edition of the _Screamer_ with a three-column "interview" with
himself. It was headed, "_Rank Socialism at the Boler House. A Close
Friend of the Offending Landlord Lets the Cat out of the Bag. A
Dangerous Nest of Law Breakers. John Boler and Dr. Ralston still
Defiant. Backed by a Man Who Ought to Know Better. Shameless Confession
of one of the Arch Conspirators. The Mask torn from Old Silas Winkle Who
Roomed Next to the Would-be Suicide. Will the Police Act Now?_"
When Mr. Winkle read the article appended to these startling headlines,
he descended hastily to the office floor and proceeded to make some
remarks which it would be safe to assert would not be repeated by any
Sunday-school superintendent--in the presence of his class--in the
confines of the State of New York. John Boler was present at the time
and whispered aside to Mr. Winkle that a reporter for the _Screamer_ and
five others from as many different papers were within hearing,
whereupon Mr. Winkle became more and more excited, and talked with great
volubility to each and every one of the young men as they gathered about
him. "_Adds Blasphemy to His Other Crimes_," wrote one of them as his
headline, and then John Boler interfered.
"Look here, boys," said he pleasantly, but with a ring of determination
in his voice, "you just let Mr. Winkle alone. This sort of thing is all
new to him, and he had no more to do with that girl than if his room
had been in Texas." (The reporters winked at each other and one of them
wrote, _Connived at by the Proprietor_.) "I put her in the room next to
his. _I_ helped the doctor to resuscitate her. _I_ positively refuse to
give you her real name and present address, although I know both, and
Mr. Winkle does not, and if the police court has any use for me it knows
where to find me. Have a cigar?" Each reporter took a weed, and three of
them went to the office of Dr. Ralston to complete their records as soon
as possible.
"I'm sorry all this has happened to you in my house, Mr. Winkle," said
John Boler, as they stood alone for a moment. "It is partly my fault,
too," he added, in a sudden burst of contrition. "It" had carried his
revenge further than he had intended. He knew how the old man's sudden
outbreak of righteous indignation would go against him in the newspaper
reports that would follow, and John Boler was kind-hearted as well as
fearless.
"Good Lord, don't you worry about me, Johnnie!" said the old man,
craning his neck to watch the retreating forms from the window. "But
those young devils have gone over to the doctor's office and they'll
bully him into telling where the girl is, and then they'll bully the
police into dragging her into court yet. Dear me, dear me!"
"Now, don't you be scared about that, Mr. Winkle. The doctor and I have
made up our minds to fight this thing out. We've found out all about the
girl and that it was simply a case of utter despair. It was a question
of death by slow or by quick means. Society, law, prescribed the slow
method, and the girl herself chose the rapid one. Well, now, as long as
she was to be the sufferer in either case, it strikes me that she had
about as good a right to a voice in the matter as the rest of us. Dr.
Ralston and I checkmated her. (I can't afford to have that kind of thing
happen in the hotel, of course.) But, by gad, we're not going to let
them make a criminal of her. All the circumstances combined to do that
before and she chose death. Well, we stopped her efforts in that line
too, and now the court proposes to put the finishing touches on
society's other inhumanities and send her up for it. Why, good God, man,
just look at it! In substance that girl said, 'I'll die before I'll be
forced into association with criminals,' and the court says, 'You shall
do nothing of the kind. Science shall doctor you up and we will _send_
you up. Despair is a crime.' That girl tried every way she knew of to
live right. She failed. No work that she could do came her way. Well,
now, will you just tell me what she was to do? You know what any man on
God's earth would do if _he_ had been situated that way and _could_ have
sold his virtue--in the sense we use virtue for women. Well, some women
are not built that way. They prefer to die. Life don't mean enough of
happiness to them to pay for the rest of it--life as it is, I mean.
Well, since women don't have anything to say about what the laws and
social conditions shall be, it strikes me that the situation is a trifle
arbitrary, to put it mildly. We make laws for and demands upon women
that no man on earth would think of complying with, and then we tell 'em
they sha'n't even die to get away from the conditions we impose and
about which they are not allowed a word to say. To tell you the bald
truth _I'm_ ashamed of it. So when we learned that girl's story we just
made up our minds that since we had taken the liberty to keep her from
getting out of the world by a shorter cut than the one usually
prescribed in such cases--starvation--that we'd just take the additional
liberty of keeping her from being hounded to insanity and made a
criminal of by legal verdict."
Mr. Winkle gave a snort that startled John Boler, for he had been
running on half to himself during the last of his talk and had almost
forgotten that the old man was present. When he heard the explosion he
mistook its meaning and his conscience gave him another smart twinge.
"Yes, I'm sorry, _very_ sorry, Mr. Winkle, that this trouble has come to
you in my house, but who could have foreseen that--a--that is to say--"
"Trouble to _me?_" exclaimed Mr. Winkle. "Trouble to _me?_ Who's said
anything about any trouble to me? Do you suppose I care what those young
scamps say about me in the papers? Got to make a living, haven't they?
Well, society doesn't object to their making a living by taking what
does not belong to 'em, if it happens to be a man's reputation or a
woman's chance to ever make an honest living again. Little thefts like
that don't count That is not a crime; but dear me, Johnnie, do you
suppose I care a tinker's dam about that, so for as _I_ go? God bless my
soul, if the dear boys can sell their three columns of rot about me, and
it will keep them off the heels of some poor devil that it might ruin,
why, I'm satisfied. All I've got to say to you is, if they arrest
you I'll go bail, and if they fine you I'll pay it, and if they jail
you--hang it, Johnnie, I'll serve your term, that's all."
Mr. Boler laughed. "My punishment shall all be vicarious then, hey? Good
idea, only it won't work in every-day life. The law doesn't let other
people serve out your term. But I'm just as much obliged, and--and--to
tell you the truth, Mr. Winkle, I'm--that is to say, I hope you will
forgive me--the fact is, I forgive you freely for the part you took in
helping to addle such brains as I had when I was a child. There is my
hand. 'It' went a little too far this time, and--"
Mr. Winkle took off his glasses and polished them carefully. Then he
placed them astride his nose and gazed thoughtfully at his old friend's
son for fully a minute before he said a word. Finally he took the
extended hand, shook it solemnly, and walked slowly away, wondering to
himself if it could be possible that hard-headed old John Boler's son
was touched a little in the brain. Mr. Boler noticed his perplexed
expression and laughed merrily to himself as he started toward the
elevator. Before he reached it he turned and beckoned to Mr. Winkle to
follow him. On the third floor they were joined by Dr. Ralston.
"She is so much better now, Mr. Winkle," explained the genial hotel man,
"and you are an older man than either the doctor or I, so I thought-- It
just struck me that she might feel-- That you might like-- Oh, damn it,
would you like to go up to see her? We are going now. A clergyman has
called, and if she wants to see him we shall not stay but a minute; but
as there is no woman about, as she is so alone, I thought perhaps she
might like to have an older man come with us, for she seems to be a very
sensitive girl. She has been silent about herself so far; but she is
better now, and we want to find out what work she can do, and have a
place ready for her when she is able to get about. Perhaps she will talk
more freely to you."
The old gentleman looked perplexed, but made no reply until they
were out of the elevator. Then he took Mr. Boler by the arm and said
helplessly, "I--I am a bachelor, you know, Johnnie, and--"
"No!" laughed Mr. Boler. "Well, confound it, you don't look it. Anybody
would take you for the proud father of a large brood. She will think you
are and it may help her. Come on."
The old gentleman entered the darkened room last and sat down silently
in the deepest shadow. The doctor stepped to the bed and spoke in a low
tone. A white face on the pillow turned slowly, so that the only band of
light that reached in from the open door fell full upon it. Mr. Winkle
shuddered as he saw for the first time the delicate, pallid, hopeless
face.
"A priest?" she said feebly, in answer to the doctor. "Oh, no. Why
should I want to see a priest? You've had your way. You've brought me
back to battle with a world wherein I only now acknowledged my defeat."
Her voice trembled with weakness and emotion, but she was looking
steadily at the doctor with great wide eyes, in which there burnt the
intensity of mental suffering and a determination to free her mind even
at the risk of losing the good-will of those who had intended to be kind
to her. "A priest! What could he do? _This_ life is what I fear. His
mission is to deal with other worlds--of which I know already what he
does--and that is _nothing_. Of this life I know, alas! too much. Far
more than he. He cannot help me, for I could tell him much he _cannot_
know, of suffering and fortitude and hope laid low at last, without a
refuge even in cloistered walls. I know what he would say. His voice
would tremble and he would offer sympathy and good advice--and, maybe,
alms. These are not what I want or need. I am not very old--just
twenty-two--but I have thought and thought until my brain is tired, and
what good could it do for him to sit beside me here and say in gentle
tones that it is very sad? No doubt that he would tell me, too, how
wicked I have been that I should choose to die by my own hand when life
had failed me."
She smiled a little, and her wan face lit from within was beautiful
still in spite of its pallor. The doctor murmured something about
natural sympathy, and Mr. Boler remarked that men who were fortunate
would gladly help those who were in distress if only they knew in time.
She did not appear to heed them, but presently went on as though her
mind were on the clergymen below waiting to see her.
"To feel that it is sad is only human; but what is to be done? That is
the question now. What is to be done for suffering in _this_ world? It
is life that is hard to bear, not death. Sympathy with the unfortunate
is good. Kind words and gentle tones as your priest recounts their woes
are touching. Yes, and when they are drawn to fit the truth would melt
a heart of stone; but unless action wings the sympathy and dries the
tears, the object of his tenderness is in no wise bettered--indeed, is
injured. Why? Because he lulls to sleep man's conscience and thereby
gives relief from pangs that otherwise had found an outlet through an
open purse. And when I say an open purse I do not speak of charity, that
double blight which kills the self-respect in its recipient and numbs
the conscience of the 'benevolent' man who grasps the utmost penny
_here_ that he may give with ostentation _there_, wounding the many that
he may heal the few. All this was safe enough, no doubt, while Poverty
was ignorant, for ignorance is helpless always; but now--" There was
a pause. She raised her head a little from the pillow and a frightened
look crept into her eyes--"but now the poor are not so ignorant that
it will long be safe to play at cross purposes with suffering made too
intelligent to drink in patient faith the bitter draughts of life and
wait the crown of gold he promises hereafter--and wears, meanwhile,
himself. A _little_ joy on earth, they think, will not bedim the lustre
of a life that is to come--if such there be. You see I've thought a
little in these wretched days and months just past." She was silent
again for a moment. A bitter smile crossed her face and vanished. The
doctor offered her a powder which she swallowed without a word. John
Boler stepped to the table and poured out a glass of wine, but when he
held it toward her she shook her head and closed her eyes a moment. Then
she spoke again as if no break had checked her thought. "Oh, no; I
do not care to see your priest. The poor no longer fail to note his
willingness to risk the needle's eye with camel's back piled high with
worldly gain. If he may enter thus, why may not they with simpler train
and fewer trappings? The poor are asking this to-day of prince and
priest alike. No answer comes from either. Evasion does not satisfy.
I ask, but no one answers. The day once was when silence passed for
wisdom. That day is gone. To-day we are asking why? and why? and why? no
longer, when? And so the old reply, 'hereafter,' does not fit the query.
Why, not when, is what we urge to-day, and your replies must change to
fit the newer, nearer question. When I say _your_ replies, I do not mean
you, doctor, nor your friend. You two meant kindly by me. Yes, I know.
I am not claiming that you are at fault, nor they--the fortunate--the
prince and priest. I understand. Blind nature took her course and trod
beneath her cruel feet the millions who were born too weak to struggle
with the foes they found within themselves and in their stronger
brothers. I know, I know."
She lay back on the pillow and closed her eyes wearily. Mr. Winkle drew
near and stood behind the doctor's chair, still keeping in the shadow,
but watching her pale face with an intensity born of a simple nature
easy to stir and quick to resolve. The doctor touched her pulse with a
light finger and gravely nodded his head as he glanced at his watch. Her
heavy eyelids did not lift but her voice broke the silence again. There
was a cadence in it that gave a solemn thrill to the three men as they
listened, the doctor watching with professional interest the effect of
the powder he had given; the other two waited, expecting they knew not
what.
"The ignorance and cruelty of all the past, the superstitious fears,
the cunning prophecies, the greeds and needs of men, joined hands and
marched triumphant. They did not halt to ask the fallen what had borne
them down. They did not silence bugle blasts of joy where new-made
graves were thick. No silken flag was lowered to warm to life the
shivering forms of comrades overcome and fallen by the way. The strong
marched on and called themselves the brave. Sometimes they were. But
other times the bravest had gone down, plucked at, perchance, by wife or
child or friend whose sorrow or distress reached out and twined itself
about the strong but tender heart and held it back until the foot lost
step, and in the end the eye lost sight of those who only now had kept
him company."
She lifted her small white hand and pointed as if to a distant
battlefield, but her eyes remained closed. The doctor glanced uneasily
at his watch and took her other wrist in his fingers again.
"The next battalion trampled him. The priest bent low and whispered
'over there, hereafter,' and slipped the treasure of the fallen hero
beneath his ample robe to swell the coffers of the church, since dead
men need no treasures."
Her voice was infinitely sad but she laughed a little and opened
her eyes. They fixed themselves upon the silvered head of Mr. Winkle
standing behind the doctor's chair.
"Perhaps I shock you. I do not mean to, but I have thought and thought
these last few wretched months, and looking at the battlefields of life
backward through all the ages, I thought I saw at night, in camp, the
priest and conqueror meet beside the campfire and council for the next
day's march. I thought I heard the monarch say, 'I go before and cleave
my way. You follow me and gather up two things--the spoils I miss and
all the arrows of awakened scorn and wrath embedded in the breasts of
those of our own ranks who fall or are borne down, lest they arise and
overtake us while we sleep and venge themselves on us. Tell them to
wait. Their time will come. Tell them _I_ clear the way for them, and
_you_ forgive a hatred which you see is growing up within their wicked
breasts. Quiet, soothe, and shame them into peace. Assure them that
_hereafter_ they, not we, shall have the better part. Gain time.
Lay blame to me if need be; but always counsel patience, waiting,
acquiescence, peace, submission to the will of God--_your will and
mine_. Your task is easy. No danger lies therein. I take the risk and
share with you the glory and the gain.' I heard the priest disclaim all
greed of gain and go to do his part as loyal subject and as holy man.
I saw all this and more before I took the last resolve you balked. You
meant it kindly, doctor, yes, I know, but I am very tired and what is
there ahead for me, or such as I, on battlefields like these?"
No one ventured a reply. She closed her eyes and waited. The doctor took
another powder from his case and held it above her lips. She smiled and
swallowed it.
"We take our powders very docilely," she said, with a bitter little
laugh as the wine-glass left her hand and Mr. Boler's finger touched her
own. He noticed that hers was very cold.
"They used to make us sleep in the good old days of priest and monarch,
but our nerves are wrong just now. Our powders only make us think the
more and have strange visions."
Dr. Ralston glanced at Mr. Boler and nodded his head mysteriously. The
powder was beginning to work, he thought, for she had reverted to the
old vision, and talked as if she were in a dream. "That way it was,
another way it is, and still another will be," she was saying. "To-day
the honest poor, the hampered weak, are defeated, dazed, and some of us
are hopeless. Others there are who cling to hope and life and brood on
vengeance. That is your danger, gentlemen, for days that are to come.
You will have to change your powders. The old prescriptions do not make
us sleep. We think, and think, and think. We strain our nerves and break
our hearts, for what? A life as cold and colorless and sad as death
itself--to some of us far sadder--and yet you will not even let us die.
Again we ask you, why? There is no place on earth for such as we, unless
we will be criminals. That is the hinge whereon the future turns. How
many will prefer the crime to want? What dangers lie behind the door
that now is swinging open? Intelligence has taught us scorn for such
a grovelling lot, has multiplied our needs, and turned the knife of
suffering in quivering wounds no longer deadened by the anaesthetics of
ignorant content with life or superstitious fear of death. The door is
swinging on the hinge. The future has to face creatures the past has
made like demons. Some, like myself, behind the door, who do not love
mere life, will turn the sharpened dagger on themselves. But there are
others--"
Her voice sank. The three men thought that she had fallen asleep at
last. The doctor drew a long satisfied breath and consulted his watch
for the fourth time, making a mental note for future use in giving the
drug whose action he was watching. He started and frowned, therefore,
when her voice broke the silence again.
"Others there are, in spite of pain and anguish, in spite of woe and
fear, who cling to life--who read in eyes they worship the pangs of
hunger, cold, and mental agony. Where will their vengeance go? Who
knows?"
She opened her great eyes and looked first at one and then at another,
and repeated, "Who knows?"
Again there was no reply. After a long pause Mr. Winkle said gently:
"There is a place in life for girls like you. I shall charge myself
with it. You shall find work and joy yet, my child. Now go to sleep. Be
quiet. We have let you talk too long. Stop thinking sadly now. You think
too much. You _think_ too much."
She closed her eyes quickly and there was a tightening of the lips that
left them paler than before. Then a tear rolled slowly down her temple.
Before it reached the pillow the doctor bent forward and dried it softly
with his silk handkerchief. She opened her eyes wide at the touch. "'Be
quiet?'" she repeated, "'stop thinking?' Oh, yes; _I_ will be quiet, but
the rest, the others? Those with whom you do not charge yourself, who
find no work, no joy? Will _they_ be quiet, will they stop thinking? Oh,
yes; I can be quiet, very quiet, but the rest, the rest? The others who
think too much--_all, all?_"
There was a wild look in her dry eyes. The doctor touched her wrist
again and said softly to the men beside him, "It is working now. She
will sleep. But the shock of all her trouble has left her mind unhinged,
poor child. 'The rest? the others?' _We_ cannot care for all the
countless poor. Her brain is surely touched, poor child, poor child. How
can we tell whether the others will stop thinking, or how, or when? Her
mind was wandering, and now she sleeps, poor child. Come out. She is
best alone."
They closed the door gently behind them and stood a moment in awkward
silence outside, each one afraid to speak and yet ashamed of his own
tender helplessness. At last Mr. Winkle looking steadily in the crown of
his hat, said huskily, "By gad, boys, there is something rotten in the
state of Denmark." They all three laughed with an effort, but kept their
eyes averted.
"It is a rat in the wainscoting of the storeroom," said John Boler, with
a desperate attempt to regain his old manner and tone, "and I've got
to go and look after it or there'll be the devil to pay with the Boler
House." And he ran down the stairs three steps at a time heartily
ashamed of his own remark, but determined not to allow the tears to show
themselves either in his eyes or voice, and feeling that his only safety
was in flight.
But Mr. Winkle had not stood silently behind the doctor's chair all that
time for nothing, and if his nature was somewhat light, and if he had
taken life so far as something of a jest, he was by no means without
a heart. He did not now trouble himself very greatly about the tangled
problems of existence, but he felt quite equal to dealing with any given
case effectively and on short notice. With systems he was helpless,
with individuals he could deal promptly. Therefore he, in common with
the doctor and Mr. Boler, and, indeed, with most of us, occupied himself
with the girl he saw suffering and in need.
When she had cried out, "But the rest, the others, what of them?" he had
said nothing, because he had nothing to say. He was vaguely aware that
when the smallpox broke out on one of Dr. Ralston's patients that astute
practitioner did not essay to treat each individual pustule separately
as the whole of the disease and so devote his entire skill and mind to
each in turn until it was cured. But then he could not undertake to cure
the whole human race of its various social ailments any more than Dr.
Ralston could hope to look after all of its physical pains. So Mr.
Winkle took this one little social pustule upstairs as his particular
charge, and in his own peculiar way went about securing better
conditions for her, leaving the "others who think too much" to somebody
else, or to fate, as the case might be. Therefore, when Mr. Winkle
reached the street door and met an officer of the law who had come
prepared to learn the whereabouts of the would-be suicide or else take
Mr. John Boler and Dr. Ralston into custody, the old gentleman made up
his mind to begin his part in the future proceedings without further
delay.
Unknown to Mr. Winkle himself, literature had lost a great novelist when
he had gone into the mercantile business, and the surprises which he now
sprang upon the policeman were no less astonishing and interesting to
himself than they were to that astute guardian of the public morals.
"Want to know where she is, do you? Well, don't worry Johnnie Boler any
more. They've already got him so his mind is a little affected. I'll
tell you all about that girl. Her name is Estelle Morris. She worked for
me for nine years as a nursery governess. Last month my youngest child
died, and it upset Estelle so that she has been out of her head ever
since. I thought if I'd bring her to the city maybe she might get over
it, but she didn't, and the doctor gave her some stuff and she took
a double dose by mistake, and all the row came from that and the
long tongues of the servants, pieced out by the long pencils of the
reporters. See!"
"Is that so?" exclaimed the officer. "Where is she now?"
Mr. Winkle had not thought of that, and he did not know exactly what to
say; but he agreed to produce her in court on the following day if so
ordered, and there the matter dropped for the moment.
That evening there appeared in a paper this "want:" "A good-looking
young woman who is willing to lie like a pirate for the space of
one hour for the sum of $50. May have to go to court." The number of
handsome girls who were anxious to lend the activity of their tongues
for the purpose named and the amount stipulated was quite wonderful. One
particularly bright young miss remarked that she had been in training
for just that position for years. She was confidential correspondent for
a broker. Mr. Winkle accepted her on the spot.
"Now," said he, "look solemn and sad. That is right. You do it first
rate. Whatever I tell about you you are to stick to. Understand that?"
"Perfectly. Years of practice," she responded, with entire simplicity
and without a suspicion of humor.
"Your name is Estelle Morris, and you have been the governess of my
children for nine years. How old are you?"
"Nineteen," said Estelle Morris demurely.
"Good gracious, girl, what could you teach at ten years of age? You've
got to be older. Take the curl out of your hair in front and put on a
bonnet with strings. I heard my niece say that made her look ten years
older. Mind you, you are not a day under twenty-six. Not a day."
"All right," said Estelle Morris thoughtfully.
"You are to look sick, too, and--"
"Oh, I can fix _that_ easy enough. I'll--"
"Well, then fix it and come back here at exactly two o'clock this
afternoon."
At the appointed hour, Mr. Winkle met Miss Estelle Morris and took her
with great dignity and care to the Boler House, where he was joined
by another gentleman--an officer of the law--and the three started out
together.
"The examination was strictly private in deference to the wishes of the
parties first implicated, John Boler and Dr. Ralston, and because it is
now believed that the girl is more sinned against than sinning," wrote
the reporter for the morning rival of the _Screamer_. "It is the object
of justice to help the erring to start anew in life wherever that line
of action is consonant with the stern necessities of the blind goddess.
Neither of the male accomplices appeared in the case, but Mr.
Silas Winkle--whose name has figured somewhat conspicuously in the
matter--produced the principal, who, it must be confessed, is pretty
enough to account for all the chivalry which has been displayed in
her behalf. She confessed to twenty-six years of single wretchedness,
although she could easily pass for a year or two younger. It would
appear that she had lived in Mr. Winkle's family for nine years as
governess to his children and came to the city with him about two weeks
ago. The justice accepted this explanation of the relations existing
between them, and that there was no attempt at suicide at all, but only
an accidental overdose of a remedy prescribed by Dr. Ralston, which
explained satisfactorily the doctor's connection with the unsavory
case, and places him once more in the honorable position from which this
unfortunate affair so nearly hurled him. In short, the justice said in
substance, 'not guilty, and don't do it any more.' The young woman bowed
modestly, and Silas Winkle led her from the court-room a sadder, and,
let us hope, a wiser woman. Such as she must have much to live for. Many
a man has braved death for a face less lovely than hers. This ends the
'Boler House Mystery,' which, after all, turns out to be only a tempest
in a teapot, with a respectable father of a family and his children's
governess for _dramatis persono_ and a fresh young reporter on a certain
sensational morning contemporary as general misinformer of the public
as usual." This was headlined, "_Exploded--Another Fake by Our Esteemed
Contemporary_."
That night John Boler rubbed his eyes when he read the report. "I
thought you were a bachelor, Mr. Winkle," said he, "and here you produce
in court a governess--"
"I am," said Mr. Winkle, laughing, and then he showed his "want"
advertisement. "That is the whole case, Johnnie, my boy, but it is all
over now. Don't you worry; it might go to your head again. You saved the
girl and I saved you, and it only cost me $50. I'd pay that any time
to get ahead of the _Screamer_, and I rather think I salted that
enterprising sheet down this time, don't you? But what is to become of
that girl?" added he, without waiting for a reply to his first question.
"You've taken the liberty to save her life, which she had decided she
did not want under existing circumstances. Has she simply got to go over
the same thing again? I told her that I'd look after her, but I don't
see how in thunder I'm going to do it. She won't take money from me and
_I've_ got nothing for her to do. Is there nothing ahead of her but a
coffin or a police court?"
"For this individual girl, yes. Dr. Ralston has already secured work
for her; but for all the thou-sands of her kind--" John Boler's voice
trembled a little and he stopped speaking to hide it. He in common with
most men was heartily ashamed of his better nature.
"For all the thousands of her kind," broke in Mr. Winkle, "there are
just exactly three roads open--starvation, suicide, or shame, with the
courts, the legislature, and the newspapers on the side of the latter.
I just tell you, Johnnie, it makes my blood boil. I--I don't see any way
out of it--none at all. That is the worst of it."
"I do," said Mr. Boler.
"_You do!_" exclaimed Mr. Winkle excitedly, and then looked hard at his
old friend's son to see if he had gone crazy again.
"Yes, I do. Those same newspapers you are so down on will do it. They're
bound to. The boys go wrong sometimes, as they did in this case; but
that only makes sensible people indignant, and, after all, it called
attention to the law that makes such things possible. _More light on
the laws_. That's the first thing we want, and no matter which side of
a question the papers take, we are bound to get that in the long run.
Silence is the worst danger. We get pretty mad at the boys if they write
what we don't like, but that isn't half so dangerous as if they didn't
write at all. See?"
Mr. Winkle turned slowly away and shook his head as he murmured to
himself: "Who would have believed that old John Boler would have been
the father of a lunatic? Dear me, dear me. I'm going back to Meadville
before I get touched in the head myself." And he started to his room to
pack his valise. John Boler followed him to the elevator.
"I don't blame you for feeling pretty mad about all the stuff they put
in the _Screamer_ about you; but--oh, the boys _mean_ all right--"
"So does the devil," broke in the old man. But Mr. Boler gave no
evidence of noticing the interruption nor of observing the irascibility
of his guest.
"The trouble is with the system," he went on, entering the elevator
after Mr. Winkle. "Why, just look at it, man. What I say or do, if it is
of a public nature, I'm responsible for _to_ the public. What you write
you put your name to; but it's a pretty big temptation to a young fellow
who knows he has got the swing in a newspaper and doesn't have to sign
his name to what he says, to make an effort to 'scoop' his rivals at
whatever cost. The boys don't mean any harm, but irresponsible power is
a mighty dangerous weapon to handle. Not many older men can be trusted
to use it wisely. Then why should we expect it of those young fellows
who don't know yet any of the deeper meanings of life? Great Scott, man!
_I_ think they do pretty well under the circumstances. I'm afraid I'd do
worse."
Mr. Winkle stroked his chin reflectively.
"No doubt, no doubt," he said abstractedly, as they stepped out of the
elevator.
John Boler looked at him for a brief space of time to see if he had
intended the thrust and then went on:
"That girl's life or death just meant an item to the boys, and it didn't
mean much more to you or me until--until we stood and heard her talk and
saw her suffer, and were made personally uncomfortable by it. Yet we are
old enough to know all about it for her and others. We _do_ know it, and
go right along as if we didn't. We are a pretty bad lot, don't you think
so?"
Silas Winkle unlocked his door before he spoke. Then he turned to his
old friend's son and shook his hand warmly.
"Good-bye," he said, looking at him steadily. "Good-bye, Johnnie. I see
it only comes on you at odd spells. Come up to Meadville for a while
and I think you will get over it altogether. Your father was the
clearest-headed man I ever saw and you seem to have lucid intervals.
Those last remarks of yours were worthy of your father, my boy," and the
old man patted him softly on the back.
John Boler whistled all the way downstairs. Then he laughed.
"I wonder if old Winkle really does think I am off my base," said he,
as he took down his hat. "I suppose we are all more or less crazy. He
thinks I am and I know he is. It is a crazy world. Only lunatics could
plan or conduct it on its present lines." And he laughed again and then
sighed and passed out into the human stream on Broadway.