A Woman of Yesterday

by Caroline Atwater Mason

CHAPTER XXXIII

“Lo, fool,” he said, “ye talk

Fool’s treason; is the king thy brother fool?”

Then little Dagonet clapt his hands and shrill’d,

“Ay, ay, my brother fool, the king of fools!

Conceits himself as God that he can make

Figs out of thistles, silk from bristles, milk

From burning spurge, honey from hornet combs,

And men from beasts—Long live the King of fools!”

—Tennyson.

But yours the cold heart and the murderous tongue,

The wintry soul that hates to hear a song,

The close-shut fist, the mean and measuring eye,

And all the little poisoned ways of wrong.

—The Rubaiyat.

Everett had improvised a studio in a low loft over the bachelors’ quarters, contiguous to the cabin which he and Gregory shared.

It was necessary, he said, for him to get down to hard work now. That hedging and ditching nonsense was great sport for a man’s holidays, but he had no more time to play; he must paint. The work he had produced in Fulham had not been, often, especially salable or popular in its character, a certain mystic quality pervading it not readily understood by casual observers. All that, he declared, was now to be rigidly excluded from his painting; he should paint to sell—cheap, pretty things, picturesque, palpable. With this purpose he had set to work with a will, and by February had a few hundred dollars to turn over to the treasury as the fruit of his industry. His pictures were sold in the North through Keith Burgess as intermediary.

He was hard at work in the studio at nine o’clock on a night in February, laying in the outline for a bit of the valley which he declared he could paint now with his eyes shut, he had done it so often, having found it “a good seller,” when he heard Gregory’s step on the stairs. That the boy had just brought the mail up from Spalding Everett knew, having heard the horse galloping over the bridge, and stopping before the house.

Gregory came in now with several letters in his hand, one open. He did not speak at first, and Everett let him walk up and down the place undisturbed, seeing that he was peculiarly perplexed, probably by the open letter, which Everett noticed was in Keith Burgess’s handwriting. After a few moments he remarked slowly, but with an unusually incisive quality in his tone:—

“Burgess is a singularly prudent little man. Did it ever strike you so?”

“He has some capacity, however, for the opposite quality.” Everett threw out this remark with no manifestation of especial interest, and it seemed to pass unnoticed.

“Having it in his power,” Gregory continued, with the same incisive deliberation, “to extricate us from our whole present difficulty himself, with the utmost ease, he yet jogs about the country after a comfortable fashion, presenting the subject publicly as occasion offers, and sends me back such letters as this.”

Lifting the sheet in his hand, Gregory read from it:—

“I held a meeting last night in Grand Rapids, to which I have been working up carefully for over a week through the press, etc. The attendance was fair, and the people listened well. I regret, however, to be obliged to report that the practical results of the meeting were not all that we could have wished—” and dropping the letter, Gregory added:—

“And so on, copiously, through nearly four pages of matchless ambiguity and polite phrases, which could all have been condensed to the usual sum total of his reports; thus far, nothing!”

“Still, Mr. Gregory, we must remember that he did pretty well for the first few weeks.”

“Yes,” said Gregory, nodding a short assent, “while he was covering the field which was ready for harvest—seeing the men already committed to the cause. We can evidently expect nothing more from him. What kind of a speaker is he, Everett?”

“Good, really very good as a special pleader. He had very fair success when he was missionary secretary.”

“I wonder at it,” murmured Gregory,—“a mild, prudent little man like that with his perpetual fears and scruples; I cannot fancy his ever letting himself go.”

Everett, unwontedly sober and silent, worked on. Gregory paced the room for a little while. He wanted to ask Everett how Keith’s marriage with a woman like Anna could ever have come about, but he could not bring himself to frame the question, and presently left the studio.

Hanging about the door below, Gregory found Barnabas Rosenblatt, apparently waiting to speak with him.

“Hello!” said Gregory, not unkindly, but shortly. “Do you want me?”

“Well, shust a minit, if Herr Gregory vas not too busy,” and the little Jew shuffled along by Gregory’s side until they reached the door of the cabin.

Gregory brought his visitor in and gave him a chair, then stirred up a smouldering fire and threw on a piece of pine, which, flaring up into a sudden blaze, made other light unnecessary. The reflection of the yellow flames played weirdly over the walls, and Barnabas seemed unable to withdraw his eyes from the picture above the chimney.

“Our lady,” he said simply, nodding across at Gregory, and closing his eyes impressively.

“Well, Barnabas, what is it you want?” asked his host.

“It’s our lady,” said Barnabas, sniffing quite vigorously; “das is it. How she fall off!” and he shook his head with a slow, mournful motion.

“Fall off what? I do not understand, Barnabas. You are speaking of Sister Benigna?” Gregory’s face changed.

“So—so—” and the little man nodded emphatically. “She’s got awful poor! Oh, my! Her bones comes right through zu next. My Kleine, she say our lady don’t eat notin’s, shust only leetle, leetle milk, an’ work, work, work, like a holy angel everywheres at one time, up an’ down the valley; sick folks an’ well folks, all derselbe. Light come all place she come!” and Barnabas relapsed into meditative silence, having found his vocabulary hard tested by this prolonged statement.

“Do you mean that Sister Benigna is sick?” asked Gregory, with slight sharpness.

“Ja, ja, Herr Gregory; she has went home sick heut’ abend from the sew class down to der mill. When she go, all go. Fraternia ohne Sister Benigna,” and the little man drew his shoulders quite up to his ears in a characteristic shrug strongly expressive of a thing unthinkable.

Gregory rose, Barnabas following his example.

“I will go over and inquire,” he said, taking his hat, and they left the house at once.

The night was cold, a light fall of snow lay over the valley, and the stars glittered from a frosty sky.

When they reached the neighbourhood of Anna’s cottage Gregory sent Barnabas up to the door, while he waited at a little distance. In a few moments Frieda, who now shared Anna’s cabin, joined him, while Barnabas, with the action of a waiting watch-dog, humble, and yet with a due sense of responsibility, hung about near by. Frieda’s account was reassuring, as far as immediate solicitude for Anna was concerned; she had come home ill from the afternoon sewing class, and had a chill, headache, and fever. She was resting now, and would doubtless be up again in a day or two.

“Nothing can keep her down, Mr. Gregory,” Frieda said in conclusion. “I am not frightened just now, but we all see plainly that Sister Benigna is killing herself by inches. She eats hardly anything, and yet works as if there were no limit to her strength. Sometimes I think she is just laying down her very life for us here in Fraternia, and we’re not worth it,” and with this Frieda’s voice broke a little, and without stopping to say more she hurried back.

Gregory bade Barnabas good night hastily, and then, instead of going home, he walked rapidly down the rough road to the mill, unlocked the door, and went into his office and sat down at his desk. His face had changed strangely; it had grown grey and his lips were tightly compressed. He sat long in motionless silence, thinking intensely. Although he had himself watched Anna with growing uneasiness, the suggestions of Frieda and Barnabas came upon him with startling effect. He asked himself now with unsparing definiteness whether this was indeed the final turn of the wheel of torture on which he was bound, or whether he could wait for another. The conviction was upon him, stark and stern, that in the end he should yield and seek the one means of escape which was still open to him, and which he had been holding off with almost dogged resolution. He recalled the shaping of events in Anna’s life during the last few months, and his face softened.

Late in November, when Keith went North, she had accompanied him, having been sent for by her sister Lucia. Their mother, Gulielma Mallison, upon whom age and infirmity had increased heavily, had conceived a controlling desire to return to her childhood home, the Moravian town of Bethlehem, to end her days. Anna had visited Haran therefore, and had brought her mother back to her early home, establishing her there in the quiet Widows’ House in peace and satisfaction.

At Christmas, when she returned alone to Fraternia, Anna had seemed to bring with her a new infusion of active and aggressive force. Relieved of anxiety for Keith, whom she had left in good spirits, and from the constant ministration to his comfort, she was now wholly free to devote herself to the common good. With new and contagious ardour she had thrown herself therefore into the life of the discouraged little community, cheering the faint-hearted and rekindling the flagging purposes of the fickle. She taught the girls and women quaint fashions of embroidery and work on linen which she had learned from her mother, and inspired them with the ambition to earn something with their needles, thus dispelling their listlessness. She seemed at times to possess in her own enthusiasm and courage sufficient motive power to energize them all; she worked and moved among them as if no less a task had been given her, and with a sweetness and sympathy that never failed.

All who watched her wondered at the power in her, and many who had murmured hitherto now declared themselves ashamed, and responded willingly. John Gregory marvelled more and more at the qualities of brilliant leadership which she now developed. Within him a voice, which he could not always silence, sometimes whispered that if such a nature as that which had been gradually revealed to him in Anna Burgess, in its plenitude of power and its greatness of purpose, could have been allied to his own, a movement far beyond what he had even dreamed of in Fraternia might have been possible.

But while a certain reënforcement of courage had followed Anna’s strong initiative, and while in some respects the domestic conditions of the people had been improved and their murmurings for the time partially silenced, the gravity of the situation and of the prospects for the future as Gregory saw them remained unchanged. Keith’s mission had proved unproductive, as the letter just received emphasized afresh. Gregory himself could not leave Fraternia at this juncture without manifest peril. Only his personal influence now availed to hold together many discordant elements which were very actively at work and arrayed against each other. From no quarter could he discern any hope of substantial support.

And now, last of all, she was laid low; worse, they told him she was laying down her life in her devotion to his cause—she, his one high-hearted, intrepid, dauntless ally! Bitterly Gregory said to himself that she who had freely left wealth and station was starving and working to her death to save him from defeat, and all in vain, unless—Should he calmly sit by and permit the sacrifice? Great of heart as she was, all her work could not avail, nor his, unless aid of another kind could be found, and that at once.

And it could be found; of that he had little doubt. To find it he must, indeed, make a certain compromise, but it was one which involved only himself, his own position,—perhaps, after all, only his own pride. Had he not himself preached against the subtle selfishness which underlies the passion for individual perfection? Did not the common good and the larger interests of his cause call for the sacrifice?

Gregory rose at last and went to the outer door of the mill. It was five o’clock of the February morning, and off to the east a faint yellowish light was climbing up the sky. The mill pond lay dead in its stillness below him; the water fell quietly, stilled with ice, over the dam; the valley stretched out white and cold; a mile below was the black belt of the forest, and beyond, the dim plain, with the stars shining over. It was pure and cold and pitiless. In sky or earth no sign of relenting, no suggestion of a gentler day. But Gregory was not looking for signs, or reckoning with omens, save the omen which had come unasked and taken up its abode in his mind. He was thinking, not of the scene before him, nor of the sleeping village behind, nor even of the outline of the future, nor of Anna in her pain and patience.

An old story was repeating itself within him of the ancient king to whom the sibyl came bringing nine books, which, being offered, he rejected; and of how, in the end, it had been the fate of the king to desire the three which alone were left, and to obtain them at a threefold price.

Presently the door of the mill was closed, and Gregory returned to his desk. There was sternness in his face as he set about writing a letter, and self-disdain and humiliation; but he wrote on, and finished the letter, which he signed and sealed. Then, without further hesitation or pause, he crossed the road to the mill stables, brought out and saddled his own horse, a tall roan, fit to carry a man of his proportions, mounted it, and rode away down the valley toward Spalding. The letter which he chose to mail with his own hand was addressed to Senator Ingraham, and it stated briefly that the writer had come to the conclusion that his rejection of the generous gift offered him on a certain night known to them both was ill advised, and that if the same or any part of it were offered him now for the furtherance of his coöperative work, it would not be refused.

A week passed, and Anna, protesting that she was as well as ever, had returned to her regular round of cares. The only change in her appearance was a peculiar whiteness of the tints of her skin, such that her face at times seemed actually to emit light. The contrast of this whiteness of tint with the masses of her dull, dark hair and the large, clear eyes, full of the changing lights which lurk in hazel eyes, gave her at this time a startling beauty, startling because it suggested evanescence. Most marked, Fraternia people said, was this phase of Anna’s appearance on a night near the end of another week, when a large company was gathered in the hall over the mill for an entertainment. Anna had been much interested through the winter in a series of author’s evenings, and this chanced to be the occasion for the closing programme of the series. The subject was Lowell, and prose had been read and poetry declaimed; the changes rung on all,—humorous, pathetic, and patriotic. The little hall was full and the audience eager for the closing number, because it was to be given by Anna herself, who had a charming gift in rendering poetry.

She had chosen a number of passages from the “Commemoration Ode,” and as she stood on the platform with its dark crimson background and drapery, dressed, as she was habitually when indoors, in white, her eyes kindling as she spoke the noble words of the noblest American poem, the audience watched her face with an attention even closer than that with which they listened to her voice. This, indeed, showed a slight weakness, but the eloquence and energy of her spirit subdued it to a deeper pathos, while its impressiveness was most marked when she reached the close of the fifth strophe, every word of which to her meant John Gregory:—

“But then to stand beside her,

When craven churls deride her,

To front a lie in arms and never yield,

This shows, methinks, God’s plan

And measure of a stalwart man,

Limbed like the old, heroic breeds,

· · · · ·

Fed from within with all the strength he needs.”

She was half-way through the lines when a striking and incomprehensible change passed over her. Her eyes dilated, then drooped, her breath almost forsook her, and her quiet hands clasped each other hard. She continued to speak, but her voice had lost its tone and timbre. Almost mechanically she kept on to the close of the part she had selected, but those who loved her feared to see her fall before the end. When she reached the room behind the stage, the faithful Frieda was waiting to receive her.

What had happened? Was it merely that Sister Benigna was still weak from her illness? As they broke up, these questions were repeatedly asked among the people. Some of them called attention to the fact that while she was speaking a stranger had tiptoed into the hall so noiselessly that only a few persons had been aware of his coming, but he was a man of so singular a physiognomy and an expression so repellent that a vague connection was felt to link Anna’s agitation with his appearance.

This man was Oliver Ingraham.

Anna, with Frieda, hurrying out of the mill alone into the blackness of the starless and stormy night, and turning homeward, heard steps approaching, heavy and hard. Some one passed them. Anna knew only by the great height and breadth of shoulder, dimly discerned through the dark, that it was Gregory. She stopped, and he turned, catching a glimpse of her white face.

“Mr. Gregory,” she said, “Oliver Ingraham is here. What can it mean?”

“Here already!” he cried almost harshly. “I have only this moment received a despatch!” and he hastened forward, as if he might yet interpose some obstacle to this most unwelcome arrival.

The words in the despatch, crumpled fiercely and thrust into Gregory’s pocket, were these:—

“My son will be the bearer of the funds required. Trust you will give him the opportunity he desires for study of social problems.

“Ingraham.”

It was the first word of reply to his letter which Gregory had received, and it was a word which made him set hard his teeth and groan like a wounded lion.

“Perhaps it is fair,” he said to himself, as he crossed the bridge; “but Ingraham’s Nemesis as the price is a higher one than even I expected.”

Above, in the mill hall, Oliver was mingling with the people who were in the habit of remaining together for an hour of social interchange after the programme, on these occasions. He quickly found his old townsman, Mr. Hanson, who seemed more amazed than rejoiced to greet him in Fraternia.

“Stopped over, eh, to see our village?” he asked. “On your way North, I suppose?”

“Oh, no,” said Oliver, smiling complacently; “I have come straight from home. I have a commission for your czar from my father, and I rather look to throwing in my fortunes with you folks. I want to see how this experiment works; study it, you know, on all sides. If I like it, I guess I shall stay.”

“Oh, really,” said Hanson, a little aghast.

“How are you getting on, anyway?” proceeded Oliver, craftily. “Rose-colour washed off yet? Has it been pretty idyllic this winter? Say, I should think catering for a crowd up in this valley would be quite a job. Don’t get salads and ices every day, I take it.”

Hanson shook his head impatiently, longing to get away from the questioner.

“Well,” said Oliver, “I suppose by this time Gregory the Great has issued his edicts and made all the poor people rich, hasn’t he? and all the rich people poor? That seems to be the method of evening up. I don’t wonder the poor fellows like it. Should think they would.”

“You will know better about us when you have been here awhile, Mr. Ingraham.”

Oliver nodded cheerfully. “Oh, yes, of course. I am going to take notes, you see. Perhaps I’ll write it up by and by,” and he tapped the neat note-book which protruded from a pocket of his coat. “Are all the sinners saints by this time?” he added.

“Hardly.”

“Well, then, we’ll put it the other way,” said Oliver, with a peculiar significance in his high voice, “are the saints all sinners yet?” The malicious leer with which this question was accompanied seemed to turn it into a hateful insinuation, which Hanson, with all his half-suppressed discontent, resented hotly. He was about to make a hasty reply when Gregory came up and spoke to Oliver, to whom he held out his hand. His manner was as cold as could be with decent courtesy, and when Oliver had shaken his hand he passed his handkerchief over it with the impulse a man has after touching a slug or a snake.

Oliver noticed the gesture, and rubbed his long white hands together reflectively.