A BLACK CONSPIRACY
On the following morning Mrs. Jocelyn was ill and much depressed
from the reaction of the drug that had been given without her
knowledge, and after learning all that had transpired she sank
into an almost hopeless apathy. Mildred also was unable to rise,
and Belle went to their respective employers and obtained a leave
of absence for a day or two, on the ground of illness in the family.
Mrs. Wheaton now proved herself a discreet and very helpful friend,
showing her interest by kindly deeds and not by embarrassing questions.
Indeed she was so well aware of the nature of the affliction that
overwhelmed the family that she was possessed by the most dismal
forebodings as well as the deepest sympathy.
Mr. Jocelyn had departed at an early hour, leaving a note wherein
he stated that he might be absent some days seeking employment in
a neighboring city. He had felt that it would be impossible to meet
his family immediately after the experiences of the previous day.
Indeed he had gone away with the desperate resolve that he would
break his habit or never return; but alas for the resolves of an
opium slave!
Time dragged heavily on, the family living under a nightmare
of anxiety, fear, and horrible conjectures. What might he not do?
What new phase of the tragedy would hereafter be developed?
Now that the busy season was over, the girls found that they could
retain their position as saleswomen only by accepting whatever
their employers chose to pay, and the thrifty shopkeepers satisfied
their consciences with the thought that they could obtain scores
of others at even lower prices. Mr. Schriven, in the multiplicity
of other interests, had almost forgotten Belle, and she had become
in his mind merely a part of the establishment. Her dejected face
and subdued manner excited some remark among her companions when
she again appeared, but her explanation, "Mother is ill," quieted
all curiosity.
For a few days Mildred looked as white and crushed as a broken
lily, and then the reserve strength and courage of the girl began
to reassert themselves. With a fortitude that was as heroic as it
was simple and unostentatious, she resolutely faced the truth and
resolved to do each day's duty, leaving the result in God's hands.
With a miser's care she husbanded her strength, ate the most
nourishing food they could afford, and rested every moment her
duties permitted. The economy they were now compelled to practice
amounted almost to daily privation. Belle and the children were
often a little petulant over this change, Mrs. Jocelyn apathetic,
but Mildred was inflexible. "We must not run in debt one penny,"
she would often remark with compressed lips.
Although frequently unoccupied at the shop, she was nevertheless
compelled to stand, and in spite of this cruel requirement she
rallied slowly. Thanks, however, to her wise carefulness, she did
gain steadily in her power to endure and to fight the hard battle
of life.
One of the saddest features of their trouble was the necessity
of reticence and of suffering in silence. Their proud, sensitive
spirits did not permit them to speak of their shame even to Mrs.
Wheaton, and she respected their reserve. Indeed, among themselves
they shrank from mentioning the sorrow that oppressed every waking
moment and filled their dreams with woful imagery.
Daring an absence of nearly two weeks Mr. Jocelyn occasionally wrote
a line, saying that he was as well as they could expect, and that
was all. Then he reappeared among them and began leading a desultory
kind of life, coming and going in an aimless way, and giving but
little account of himself. They saw with a deeper depression that
he had not improved much, although apparently he had avoided any
great excesses. Occasionally he gave Mildred a little money, but
how it was obtained she did not know. It was well he was reticent,
for had she known that it was often part of a small loan from some
half-pitying friend of former days, and that it would never be
repaid, she would not have used a penny of it. They were simply
compelled to recognize the awful truth, that the husband and father
was apparently a confirmed opium inebriate. At first they pleaded
with him again and again, unable to understand how it was possible
for him to continue in so fatal a course, but at last they despairingly
desisted. He would at times weep almost hysterically, overwhelmed
with remorse, and again storm in reckless anger and unreasoning
fury. As in thousands of other homes wherein manhood and honor have
been destroyed, they found no better resource than silent endurance.
Under such inflictions resignation is impossible. For Mrs. Jocelyn
and Mildred it was simply a daily martyrdom, but in her companionship
with Roger, Belle had much to sustain, cheer, and even brighten
her life.
He was in truth a loyal friend, and daily racked his brain for
opportunities to show her and Mrs. Jocelyn some reassuring attention;
and his kindness and that of Mrs. Wheaton were about the only
glints of light upon their darkening way. Mildred was polite and
even kind in her manner toward the young man, since for Belle's
sake and her mother's she felt that she must be so. His course,
moreover, had compelled her respect; but nevertheless her shrinking
aversion did not diminish. The fact that an evil destiny had seemingly
destroyed her hope of ever looking into the face of Vinton Arnold
again made the revolt of her heart all the more bitter against
an unwelcome love of which she was ever conscious when Roger was
present. But he had won her entire respect; he knew so much, and
he worked on and waited. The grasp of his mind upon his studies
daily grew more masterful, and his industry and persistence were
so steady that the old commission merchant began to nod to himself
approvingly.
The current of time flowed sluggishly on, bringing only changes for
the worse to the Jocelyns. Early spring had come, but no spring-tide
hope, and in its stead a bitter humiliation. The pressure of poverty
at last became so great that the Jocelyns were in arrears for rent
and were compelled to move. In this painful ordeal Mrs. Wheaton
was a tower of strength, and managed almost everything for them,
since no dependence could be placed on Mr. Jocelyn. The reader's
attention need not be detained by a description of their new shelter--for
it could not be called a home. They had a living-room and two very
small bedrooms in a brick tenement wedged in among others of like
unredeemed angularity, and belonging to the semi-respectable,
commonplace order. It was occupied by stolid working-people of
various nationalities, and all engaged in an honest scramble for
bread, with time and thought for little else. The house was simply
a modern, cheap shelter, built barely within the requirements
of the law, and, from its newness, unsoiled as yet with the grime
of innumerable crowded families. Everything was slight, thin, and
money-saving in the architecture; and if a child cried, a shrill-tongued
woman vociferated, or a laborer, angry or drunk, indulged in the
general habit of profanity, all the other inmates of the abode
were at once aware of the fact. By the majority, such sounds were
no more heeded than the rumble in the streets, but to poor Mrs.
Jocelyn and Mildred, with natures like AEolian harps, the discords
of such coarse, crowded life were often horrible. There was naught
to do but exist from day to day, to win what bread they could
wherewith to sustain a life that seemed to promise less and less.
Mr. Jocelyn was steadily sinking, and Belle, at last, growing bitter
and restless under the privations of her lot, in spite of Roger's
unfaltering friendship.
Mr. Jocelyn was not one who could sin in a conservative, prudent
way. He seemed utterly unable to rally and be a man in his
own strength, and his remorse over his conduct was so great that
he sought a refuge in almost continuous excess. The greater the
height, the more tremendous the fall, and he had now reached the
recklessness of despair. He had many stolid, slouching neighbors
in the tenements, who permitted life to be at least endurable for
their families because of the intervals between their excesses;
but an interval to Mr. Jocelyn was a foretaste of perdition.
Nevertheless, if the wretched man, by a kindly violence, could
have been shut up and away for weeks, perhaps months, from all
possibility of obtaining the poisons that were destroying him,
and treated with scientific skill, he might have been saved even
at this late hour. When the world recognizes that certain vices
sooner or later pass from the character of voluntary evil into the
phase of involuntary disease, and should be treated rigorously and
radically under the latter aspect, many lives and homes will be
saved from final wreck.
No principles are better known than the influences of soil, climate,
darkness, and light upon a growing plant. If the truth could be
appreciated that circumstances color life and character just as
surely, marring, distorting, dwarfing, or beautifying and developing,
according as they are friendly or adverse, the workers in the moral
vineyard, instead of trying to obtain fruit from sickly vines,
whose roots grope in sterility, and whose foliage is poisoned,
would bring the richness of opportunity to the soil and purify the
social atmosphere. Immature Belle, in spite of all the influences
for good from her mother, her sister, and Roger, could scarcely reside
where she did and grow pure and womanly. She was daily compelled
to see and hear too much that was coarse, evil, and debasing.
She knew that Roger was a friend, and nothing more--that his whole
heart was absorbed in Mildred--and her feminine nature, stimulated
by the peculiarities of her lot, craved warmer attentions. In her
impoverished condition, and with her father's character becoming
generally known, such attentions would not naturally come from young
men whom those who loved her best could welcome. She was growing
restless under restrictions, and her crowded, half-sheltered life
was robbing her of womanly reserve. These undermining influences
worked slowly, imperceptibly, but none the less certainly, and she
recognized the bold, evil admiration which followed her more and
more unshrinkingly.
Mr. Jocelyn's condition was no longer a secret, and he often,
in common with other confirmed habitues, increased the effects of
opium by a free use of liquor. He therefore had practically ceased
to be a protector to his daughters. Fred and Minnie, in spite of
all the broken-hearted and failing mother could do, were becoming
little street Arabs, learning all too soon the evil of the world.
Since the revelation of her father's condition Mildred had finally
relinquished her class at the mission chapel. Her sensitive spirit
was so shadowed by his evil that she felt she would be speechless
before children who might soon learn to associate her name with
a vice that would seem to them as horrible as it was mysterious.
Bread and shelter she must obtain, but she was too fear-haunted,
too conscious of the shame to which she was linked, to face the
public on any occasion not connected with her daily toil.
The pride characteristic of American people who have lapsed
from a better condition was intensified by her Southern birth and
prejudices. More than hunger, cold, and even death, she feared being
recognized, pointed out, stared at, and gossiped about, while the
thought of receiving charity brought an almost desperate look into
her usually clear blue eyes. Therefore she shrank from even Mr.
Wentworth, and was reticent on all topics relating to their domestic
affairs. She knew that there were many families whom he was almost
sustaining through crises of illness and privation; she also knew
that there were far more who sought to trade upon his sympathies.
While she could take aid from him as readily as from any one, she
also believed that before she could receive it she must be frank
concerning her father. Rather than talk of his shame, even to her
pastor, it might well be believed that the girl would starve. What
she might do for the sake of the others was another question.
Mr. Wentworth in sadness recognized the barrier which Mildred's
pride was rearing between them, but he was too wise and experienced
to be obtrusively personal. He sought earnestly, however, to guard
the young girl against the moral danger which so often results from
discouragement and unhappiness, and he entreated her not to part
with her faith, her clinging trust in God.
"A clinging trust is, indeed, all that I have left," she had replied
so sadly that his eye suddenly moistened; "but the waves of trouble
seem strong and pitiless, and I sometimes fear that my hands
are growing numb and powerless. In plain prose, I'm just plodding
on--God knows whither. In my weary, faltering way I am trying to
trust Him," she added, after a brief silence, "and I always hope
to; but I am so tired, Mr. Wentworth, so depressed, that I'm like
the soldiers that have been described to me as marching on with
heavy eyes and heavy feet because they must. There is no use
in my coming to the chapel, for I haven't the heart to say a word
of cheer to any one, and hollow words would hurt me, while doing
no good. I am trying your charity sorely, but I can't help it. I
fear you cannot understand me, for even your Christian sympathy is
a burden. I'm too tired, too sorely wounded to make any response;
while all the time I feel that I ought to respond gratefully and
earnestly. It seems a harsh and unnatural thing to say, but my chief
wish is to shrink away from everybody and everything not essential
to my daily work. I think I shall have strength enough to keep up
a mechanical routine of life for a long time, but you must not ask
me to think or give way to feeling, much less to talk about myself
and--and--the others. If I should lose this stolid self-control
which I am gaining, and which enables me to plod along day by day
with my eyes shut to what may be on the morrow, I believe I should
become helpless from despair and grief."
"My dear child," the clergyman had replied, in deep solicitude, "I
fear you are dangerously morbid; and yet I don't know. This approach
to apathy of which you speak may be God's shield from thoughts that
would be sharp arrows. I can't help my honest sympathy, and I hope
and trust that I may soon be able to show it in some helpful way--I
mean in the way of finding you more remunerative and less cruel
work," he added quickly, as he saw a faint flush rising in the young
girl's face. Then he concluded, gravely and gently, "Miss Mildred,
I respect you--I respect even your pride; but, in the name of our
common faith and the bonds it implies, do not carry it too far.
Good-by. Come to me whenever you need, or your conscience suggests
my name," and the good man went away wholly bent on obtaining some
better employment for Mildred; and he made not a little effort
to do so, only to find every avenue of labor suited to the girl's
capacity already thronged. Meanwhile the needs and sorrows of
others absorbed his time and thoughts.
Belle, because of her thorough liking and respect for Mr. Wentworth,
and even more for the reason that he had obtained her promise to
come, was rarely absent from her class, and the hour spent at the
chapel undoubtedly had a good and restraining influence; but over
and against this one or two hours in seven days were pitted the
moral atmosphere of the shop, the bold admiration and advances
in the streets, which were no longer unheeded and were scarcely
resented, and the demoralizing sights and sounds of a tenement-house.
The odds were too great for poor Belle. Like thousands of other
girls, she stood in peculiar need of sheltered home life, and
charity broad as heaven should be exercised toward those exposed
as she was.
As Mr. Jocelyn sank deeper in degradation, Mildred's morbid impulse
to shrink, cower, and hide, in such poor shelter as she had, grew
stronger, and at last she did little more than try to sleep through
the long, dreary Sabbaths, that she might have strength for the almost
hopeless struggle of the week. She was unconsciously drifting into
a hard, apathetic materialism, in which it was her chief effort not
to think or remember--from the future she recoiled in terror--but
simply to try to maintain her physical power to meet the daily
strain.
It is a sad and terrible characteristic of our Christian city, that
girls, young, beautiful, and unprotected like Mildred and Belle,
are the natural prey of remorseless huntsmen. Only a resolute
integrity, great prudence and care, can shield them; and these not
from temptation and evil pursuit, but only from the fall which such
snares too often compass.
Of these truths Mildred had a terrible proof. A purer-hearted girl
than she never entered the maelstrom of city life; but those who
looked upon her lovely face looked again, and lingeringly, and
there was one who had devoured her beauty daily with wolfish eyes.
In charge of the department of the shop wherein she toiled, there
was a man who had long since parted with the faintest trace of
principle or conscience. He was plausible, fine-looking, after a
certain half-feminine type, and apparently vigilant and faithful
in his duties as a floor-walker; but his spotless linen concealed
a heart that plotted all the evil his hands dared to commit. For
him Mildred had possessed great attractions from the first; and,
with the confidence bestowed by his power, and many questionable
successes, he made his first advances so openly that he received
more than one public and stinging rebuff. A desire for revenge,
therefore, had taken entire possession of him, and with a serpent's
cold, deadly patience he was waiting for a chance to uncoil and
strike. Notwithstanding his outward civility, Mildred never met
the expression of his eyes without a shudder.
From frank-tongued Belle, Roger had obtained some hints of this
man's earlier attentions, and of his present ill-concealed dislike--a
latent hostility which gave Mildred no little uneasiness, since,
by some pretext, he might cause her dismissal. She knew too well
that they were in such straits now that they could not afford one
hour's idleness. Roger therefore nursed a bitter antipathy against
the fellow.
One evening, late in March, the former was taking his usual brief
walk before sitting down to long hours of study. He was at liberty
to go whither he pleased, and not unnaturally his steps, for the
hundredth time, perhaps, passed the door through which he could
catch a glimpse of the young girl, who, with apparent hopelessness,
and yet with such pathetic patience, was fighting a long battle
with disheartening adversity. He was later than usual, and the
employees were beginning to leave. Suddenly the obnoxious floor-walker
appeared at the entrance with a hurried and intent manner. Then he
paused a second or two and concealed himself behind a show-case.
Roger now saw that his eyes were fixed on a girl who had just
preceded him, and who, after a furtive glance backward, hastened
up the avenue. Her pursuer--for such he evidently was--followed
instantly, and yet sought to lose himself in the crowd so that she
could not detect him. Partly in the hope of learning something to
the disadvantage of one who might have it in his power to injure
Mildred, and partly from the motive of adding zest to an aimless
walk, Roger followed the man.
The girl, with another quick glance over her shoulder, at last turned
down a side street, and was soon walking alone where passengers
were few and the street much in shadow; here her pursuer joined
her, and she soon evinced violent agitation, stopping suddenly with
a gesture of indignant protest. He said something, however, that
subdued her speedily, and they went on together for some little
distance, the man talking rapidly, and then they turned into a
long, dark passage that led to some tenements in the rear of those
fronting on the street. About midway in this narrow alley a single
gas jet burned, and under its light Roger saw them stop, and the
girl produce from beneath her waterproof cloak something white, that
appeared like pieces of wound lace. The man examined them, made a
memorandum, and then handed them back to the girl, who hesitated
to take them; but his manner was so threatening and imperious that
she again concealed them on her person. As they came out together,
Roger, with hat drawn over his eyes, gave them a glance which fixed
the malign features of the man and the frightened, guilty visage
of the girl on his memory. They regarded him suspiciously, but,
as he went on without looking back, they evidently thought him a
casual passer-by.
"It's a piece of villany," Roger muttered, "but of what nature I
have no means of discovering, even were it any affair of mine. I am
satisfied of one thing, however--that man's a scoundrel; seemingly
he has the girl in his power, and it looks as if she had been
stealing goods and he is compounding the felony with her."
If he had realized the depth of the fellow's villany he would not
have gone back to his studies so quietly, for the one nearest to
his heart was its object. The scene he had witnessed can soon be
explained. Goods at the lace counter had been missed on more than
one occasion, and it had been the hope of Mildred's enemy that he
might fasten the suspicion upon her. On this evening, however, he
had seen the girl in question secrete two or three pieces as she
was folding them up, and he believed she had carried them away with
her. Immediately on joining her he had charged her with the theft,
and in answer to her denials threatened to have her searched
before they parted. Then in terror she admitted the fact, and was
in a condition to become his unwilling accomplice in the diabolical
scheme suggested by his discovery.
He had said to her, in effect, that he suspected another girl--namely,
Mildred Jocelyn--and that if she would place the goods in the pocket
of this girl's cloak on the following afternoon he would by this
act be enabled to extort a confession from her also, such as he had
received in the present case. He then promised the girl in return
for this service that he would make no complaint against her, but
would give her the chance to find another situation, which she must
do speedily, since he could no longer permit her to remain in the
employ of the house for whom he acted. She was extremely reluctant
to enter into this scheme, but, in her confusion, guilt, and fear,
made the evil promise, finding from bitter experience that one sin,
like an enemy within the walls, opens the gate to many others. She
tried to satisfy such conscience as she had with the thought that
Mildred was no better than herself, and that the worst which could
happen to the object of this sudden conspiracy was a quiet warning
to seek employment elsewhere. The man himself promised as much,
although he had no such mild measures in view. It was his design
to shame Mildred publicly, to break down her character, and render
her desperate. He had learned that she had no protector worthy
of the name, and believed that he could so adroitly play his part
that he would appear only as the vigilant and faithful servant of
his employers.
Mildred, all unconscious of the pit dug beneath her feet, was passing
out the following evening into the dreary March storm, when the
foreman touched her shoulder and said that one of the proprietors
wished to see her. In much surprise, and with only the fear of one
whose position meant daily bread for herself and those she loved
better than self, she followed the man to the private office, where
she found two of the firm, and they looked grave and severe indeed.
"Miss Jocelyn," began the elder, without any circumlocution, "laces
have been missed from your department, and suspicion rests on you.
I hope you can prove yourself innocent."
The charge was so awful and unexpected that she sank, paie and
faint, into a chair, and the appearance of the terror-stricken girl
was taken as evidence of guilt. But she goon rallied sufficiently
to say, with great earnestness, "Indeed, sir, I am innocent."
"Assertion is not proof. Of course you are willing, then, to be
searched?"
She, Mildred Jocelyn, searched for stolen goods! Searched, alone,
in the presence of these dark-browed, frowning men! The act, the
indignity, seemed overwhelming. A hot crimson flush mantled her
face, and her womanhood rose in arms against the insult.
"I do not fear being searched," she said indignantly; "but a woman
must perform the act."
"Certainly," said her employer; "we do not propose anything
indecorous; but first call an officer."
They were convinced that they had found the culprit, and were
determined to make such an example of her as would deter all others
in the shop from similar dishonesty.
Mildred was left to herself a few moments, faint and bewildered,
a whirl of horrible thoughts passing through her mind; and then,
conscious of innocence, she began to grow calm, believing that the
ordeal would soon be over. Nevertheless she had received a shock
which left her weak and trembling, as she followed two of the most
trusty women employed in the shop to a private apartment, at whose
door she saw a bulky guardian of the law. The majority, unaware
of what had taken place, had departed; but such as remained had
lingered, looking in wonder at the hasty appearance of the policeman,
and the intense curiosity had been heightened when they saw him
stationed near an entrance through which Mildred was speedily led.
They at once surmised the truth, and waited for the result of the
search in almost breathless expectation. The girl who had done
Mildred so deep a wrong had hastened away among the first, and so
was unaware of what was taking place; the chief conspirator, from
an obscure part in the now half-lighted shop, watched with cruel
eyes the working of his plot.