When Robert Lloyd entered the factory that morning he experienced
one of those revulsions which come to man in common with all
creation. As the wind can swerve from south to east, and its
swerving be a part of the universal scheme of things, so the
inconsistency of a human soul can be an integral part of its
consistency. Robert, entering Lloyd's, flushed with triumph over his
workmen, filled also with rage whenever he thought of poor Risley,
became suddenly, to all appearances, another man. However, he was
the same man, only he had come under some hidden law of growth. All
at once, as he stood there amidst those whirring and clamping
machines, and surveyed those bowed and patient backs and swaying
arms of labor, standing aside to allow a man bending before a heavy
rack of boots to push it to another department, he realized that his
triumph was gone.
Not a man or woman in the factory looked at him. All continued
working with a sort of patient fierceness, as if storming a
citadel--as, indeed, they were in one sense--and waging incessant
and in the end hopeless warfare against the destructive forces of
life. Robert stood in the midst of them, these fellow-beings who had
bowed to his will, and saw, as if by some divine revelation, in his
foes his brothers and sisters. He saw Ellen's fair head before her
machine, and she seemed the key-note of a heart-breaking yet
ineffable harmony of creation which he heard for the first time. He
was a man whom triumph did not exalt as much as it humiliated. Who
was he to make these men and women do his bidding? They were working
as hard as they had worked for full pay. Without doubt he would not
gain as much comparatively, but he was going to lose nothing
actually, and he would not work as these men worked. He saw himself
as he never could have seen himself had the strike continued; and
yet, after all, he was not a woman, to be carried away by a sudden
wave of generous sentiment and enthusiasm, for his business
instincts were too strong, inherited and developed by the force of
example. He could not forget that this had been his uncle's factory.
He shut his mouth hard, and stood looking at the scene of toil, then
he resolved what to do.
He spoke to Flynn, who could not believe his ears, and asked him
over.
"I beg your pardon, sir," he said.
"Go and speak to the engineer, and tell him to shut down," said
Robert.
"You ain't going to turn them out, after all?" gasped Flynn. He was
deadly white.
"No, I am not. I only want to speak to them," replied Robert,
shortly.
When the roar of machinery had ceased, Robert stood before the
employés, whose faces had taken on an expression of murder and
menace. They anticipated the worst by this order.
"I want to say to you all," said Robert, in a loud, clear voice,
"that I realize it will be hard for you to make both ends meet with
the cut of ten per cent. I will make it five instead of ten per
cent., although I shall actually lose by so doing unless business
improves. I will, however, try it as long as possible. If the hard
times continue, and it becomes a sheer impossibility for me to
employ you on these terms without abandoning the plant altogether, I
will approach you again, and trust that you will support me in any
measures I am forced to take. And, on the contrary, should business
improve, I promise that your wages shall be raise to the former
standard at once."
The speech was so straightforward that it sounded almost boyish.
Robert, indeed, looked very young as he stood there, for a generous
and pitying impulse does tend to make a child of a man. The workmen
stared at him a minute, then there was a queer little broken chorus
of "Thank ye's," with two or three shrill crows of cheers.
Robert went from room to room, repeating his short speech, then work
recommenced.
"He's the right sort, after all," said Granville Joy to John
Sargent, and his tone had a quality of heroism in it. He was very
thin and pale. He had suffered privations, and now came additional
worry of mind. He could not help thinking that this might bring
about an understanding between Robert and Ellen, and yet he paid his
spiritual dues at any cost.
"It's no more than he ought to do," growled a man at Granville's
right. "S'pose he does lose a little money?"
"It ain't many out of the New Testament that are going to lose a
little for the sake of their fellow-men, I can tell you that," said
John Sargent. He was cutting away deftly and swiftly, and thinking
with satisfaction of the money which he would be able to send his
sister, and also how the Atkins family would be no longer so
pinched. He was a man who would never come under the grindstone of
the pessimism of life for his own necessities, but lately the
necessities of others had almost forced him there. Now and then he
glanced across the room at Maria, whose narrow shoulders he could
see bent painfully over her work. He was in love with Maria, but no
one suspected it, least of all Maria herself.
"Lord! don't talk about the New Testament. Them days is past,"
growled the man on the other side of Joy.
"They ain't past for me," said John Sargent, stoutly. A dark flush
rose to his cheek as if he were making a confession of love.
"Lord! don't preach," said the other man, with a sneer.
Ellen had stopped work with the rest when Robert addressed them.
Then she recommenced her stitching without a word. Her thoughts were
in confusion. She had so long held one attitude towards him that she
could not readily adjust herself to another. She was cramped with
the extreme narrowness of the enthusiasm of youth. At noontime she
heard all the talk which went on about him. She heard some praise
him, and some speak of him as simply doing his manifest duty, and
some say openly that he should have put the wages back upon the
former footing, and she did not know which was right. He did not
come near her, and she was very glad of that. She felt that she
could not bear it to have him speak to her before them all.
When she went home at night the news had preceded her. Fanny and
Andrew looked up eagerly when she entered. "I hear he has
compromised," said Andrew, with doubtful eyes on the girl's face.
"Yes; he has cut the wages five instead of ten per cent.," replied
Ellen, and it was impossible to judge of her feelings by her voice.
She took off her hat and smoothed her hair.
"Well, I am glad he has done that much," said Fanny, "but I won't
say a word as long as you ain't hurt."
With that she went into the kitchen, and Ellen and Andrew heard the
dishes rattle. "Your mother's been dreadful nervous," whispered
Andrew. He looked at Ellen meaningly. Both of them thought of poor
Eva Tenny. Lately the reports with regard to her had been more
encouraging, but she was still in the asylum.
Suddenly, as they stood there, a swift shadow passed the window, and
they heard a shrill scream from up-stairs. It sounded like "Mamma,
mamma!" "It's Amabel!" cried Ellen. She clutched her father by the
arm. "Oh, what is it--who is it?" she whispered, fearfully.
Andrew was suddenly white and horror-stricken. He took hold of
Ellen, and pushed her forcibly before him into the parlor. "You stay
in there till I call you," he said, in a commanding voice, the like
of which the girl had never heard from him before; then he shut the
door, and she heard the key turn in the lock.
"Father, I can't stay in here," cried Ellen. She ran towards the
other door into the front hall, but before she could reach it she
heard the key turn in that also. Andrew was convinced that Eva had
escaped from the asylum, and thus made sure of Ellen's safety in
case she was violent. Then he rushed out into the kitchen, and there
was Amabel clinging to her mother like a little wild thing, and
Fanny weeping aloud.
When Andrew entered Fanny flew to him. "O Andrew--O Andrew!" she
cried. "Eva's come out! She's well! she's cured! She's as well as
anybody! She is! She says so, and I know she is! Only look at her!"
"Mamma, mamma!" gasped Amabel, in a strange, little, pent voice,
which did not sound like a child's. There was something fairly
inhuman about it. "Mamma," as she said it, did not sound like a word
in any known language. It was like a cry of universal childhood for
its parent. Amabel clung to her mother, not only with her slender
little arms, but with her legs and breast and neck; all her slim
body became as a vine with tendrils of love and growth around her
mother.
As for Eva, she could not have enough of her. She was intoxicated
with the possession of this little creature of her own flesh and
blood.
"She's grown; she's grown so tall," she said, in a high, panting
voice. It was all she could seem to realize--the fact that the child
had grown so tall--and it filled her at once with ineffable pain and
delight. She held the little thing so close to her that the two
seemed fairly one. "Mamma, mamma!" said Amabel again.
"She has--grown so tall," panted Eva.
Fanny went up to her and tried gently to loosen her grasp of the
little girl. In her heart she was not yet quite sure of her. This
fierceness of delight began to alarm her. "Of course she has grown
tall, Eva Tenny," she said. "It's quite a while since you
were--taken sick."
"I ain't sick now," said Eva, in a steady voice. "I'm cured now. The
doctors say so. You needn't be afraid, Fanny Brewster."
"Mamma, mamma!" said Amabel. Eva bent down and kissed the little,
delicate face; then she looked at her sister and at Andrew, and her
own countenance seemed fairly illuminated. "I 'ain't _told_ you
all," said she. Then she stopped and hesitated.
"What is it, Eva?" asked Fanny, looking at her with increasing
courage. The tears were streaming openly down her cheeks. "Oh, you
poor girl, what have you been through?" she said. "What is it?"
"I 'ain't got to go through anything more," said Eva, still with
that rapt look over Amabel's little, fair head. "He's--come back."
"Eva Tenny!"
"Yes, he has," Eva went on, with such an air of inexpressible
triumph that it had almost a religious quality in it. "He has. He
left her a long time ago. He--he wanted to come back to me and
Amabel, but he was ashamed, but finally he came to the asylum, and
then it all rolled off, all the trouble. The doctors said I had been
getting better, but they didn't know. It was--Jim's comin' back.
He's took me home, and I've come for Amabel, and--he's got a job in
Lloyd's, and he's bought me this new hat and cape." Eva flirted her
free arm, and a sweep of jetted silk gleamed, then she tossed her
head consciously to display a hat with a knot of pink roses. Then
she kissed Amabel again. "Mamma's come back," she whispered.
"Mamma, mamma!" cried Amabel.
Andrew and Fanny looked at each other.
"Where is he?" asked Andrew, in a slow, halting voice.
Eva glanced from one to the other defiantly. "He's outside, waitin'
in the road," said she; "but he ain't comin' in unless you treat him
just the same as ever. I've set my veto on that." Eva's voice and
manner as she said that were so unmistakably her own that all
Fanny's doubt of her sanity vanished. She sobbed aloud.
"O God, I'm so thankful! She's come home, and she's all right! O
God, I'm so thankful!"
"What about Jim?" asked Eva, with her old, proud, defiant look.
"Of course he's comin' in," sobbed Fanny. "Andrew, you go--"
But Andrew had already gone, unlocking the parlor door on his way.
"It's your aunt Eva, Ellen," he said as he passed. "She's come home
cured, and your uncle Jim is out in the yard, and I'm goin' to call
him in. I guess you'd better go out and see her."