XI
Three months later, on a rare day in early June, Miss Lucille Wilson was made Mrs. Clarence Waldo, in the presence of a fashionable company. Journalistic social tittle-tattle had engendered such lively public interest that the neighborhood of St. Stephen's was beset by a throng of sight-seers—chiefly random women—who for two hours previous to the ceremony occupied the adjacent sidewalks and every spot which would command a glimpse of the bride and guests. A force of policemen guarded the church against the incursion of the multitude. Yet perhaps the patient waiters felt rewarded for their pains, inasmuch as the heroine of the occasion, after alighting from her carriage, stood for an instant at the entrance to the canopy before proceeding, as though she were willing to give the world a brief opportunity to behold her loveliness and grandeur. For those with pocket cameras there was time enough for a snap-shot before she was lost to sight.
Within the church were gay silks and nodding bonnet plumes and imposing formalities. Six maids, each wearing as a memento an exquisite locket encrusted with diamonds, and six ushers with scarf-pins of a pearl set in a circle of tiny rubies, escorted the bride to the altar, where the Rev. Mr. Prentiss and two assistant priests were in attendance. When the happy pair had been made man and wife a choir of expensive voices chanted melodiously "O Perfect Love," and the procession streamed down the aisle on its way to the wedding-breakfast. This was served by a New York caterer on little tables with all the gorgeous nicety of which he was capable. Though June is a month when most delicious things are to be had, an effort had evidently been made to procure delicacies which were not in season. The effect of a jam of guests elbowing for their food, as is usual on such occasions, would have lacerated Mrs. Wilson's sensibilities. Her house was large, so she had been able to invite her entire social acquaintance without crowding her rooms, and her instructions had been that there should be numerous deft waiters in order that each guest might come under the benign influence of personal supervision. Accordingly everyone was pleased and in good spirits unless it were the bridegroom, and the doubt in his case was suggested only by the impassiveness of his countenance at a time when it should properly have been the mirror of his heart's joy. Perhaps he had not fully recovered from the farewell dinner given him by his stag friends, as newspaper women are apt to designate a bachelor's intimates, where he had seen fit to express his emotion by drinking champagne to the point when he became musically mellow, a curious and singularly Anglo-Saxon prelude to the holy rite of matrimony. Nevertheless, he was dignified if unemotional; and his frock coat, built for the occasion, his creased trousers, and mouse-colored spats were irreproachable.
When the hour came for the bride and groom to depart there were so many sight-seers about the door that the police had to keep the public at bay in order to afford the happy pair a clear passage to the carriage; and also to give the blithe young men and women ample scope for the discharge of the rice and slippers which convention prescribes shall be hurled at those who set forth on their honeymoon in the blaze of social distinction. For a moment the fun was furious, and, the contagion spreading to the spectators, a cheer partly of sympathy, partly of derision broke forth as the spirited horses, bewildered by the shower of missiles, bounded away toward the station. Two hatless, exhilarated youths chased the retreating victims down the street, one of whom skilfully threw an old shoe so that it remained on the top of the vehicle. When the young couple entered the special Pullman car reserved for them the newsboys were already offering papers containing full accounts of the wedding ceremony, including a list of the guests and of the presents with their donors, large pictures of the bride and groom, and diverse cuts reproductive of the salient features of what one of the scribes designated as the most imposing nuptials in Benham's social history.
And so they were married. And sorry as she was to lose her daughter, Mrs. Wilson was thankful to have it all over, and to be able to settle down once more and unreservedly to the schemes for social regeneration which had shared with maternal affection the energies of her adult mind. To a certain extent these interests had been rivals, unconsciously and involuntarily so, but it has already been intimated that Lucille was not the kind of girl her mother had intended her to be, and lacked the sympathies which might have made Mrs. Wilson's interests virtually one. To give Lucille all which a modern parent could give and to see her happily married had been her paramount thought. This was now accomplished. The child had received every advantage which wealth could supply, and every stimulus which her own intelligence could suggest. Lucille had not chosen the husband she would have picked out for her. Still Lucille loved him, and since fate had so ordained it, and they had become husband and wife, she was determined to be pleased, and she felt in a measure relieved. The main responsibility was at an end, and she could now enjoy her daughter's married state, and was free to give almost undivided thought to her social responsibilities.
Accordingly on the days which followed the wedding Mrs. Wilson shut herself up in her study, and with the aid of her private secretary proceeded to dispose of her accumulated correspondence, and to put her personal affairs to rights. June was the fag end of the social year. Many of those who had been energetic in social enterprises since the autumn were now a little jaded and on the eve of departure for the country, the Lakes, the Atlantic coast or Europe, in search of that respite from the full pressure of modern life which all who can afford it in our large cities now endeavor to procure for themselves. Nevertheless it was the best time to look the field over and to sow the seeds of new undertakings by broaching them to those whose support she desired by a short note of suggestion which could be mulled over during the summer. It was not the season to extract definite promises from allies or to enlist new recruits, but essentially that for exploiting ideas which might bear fruit later when the brains and sensibilities of Benham's best element had been rested and refreshed. Mrs. Wilson had numerous charities, clubs in furtherance of knowledge and classes promoting hygienic or æsthetic development to be pondered. For some of these—the struggling annual charities—methods like a fair or theatricals must be devised in order to raise fresh annual funds. The progressive courses of the past winter, such as the practical talks to young mothers, with live babies as object-lessons, and lectures on the relaxation of the muscles, must be superseded by others no less instructive and alluring. Then again new blood must be introduced into the various coteries which worked for the regeneration and enlightenment of the poor to make good the losses caused by matrimony or fickleness, and new schemes originated for retaining the attention of the meritorious persons to be benefited. In this last connection the idea of a course which should emphasize the importance to every woman of learning something on which she could fall back for self-support, suggested by Mrs. Stuart's plight, now recurred to her as timely. And besides these public interests there were the—perhaps more absorbing because more flattering—numerous personal demands on her sympathies and time made by other women—women largely of her own, but of every walk. Here it seemed to her was her most precious vineyard, for here the opportunity was given for soul to compass soul in an affinity which blessed both the giver and the receiver of spiritual benefits. Sometimes the need which sought her was that of the sinful woman, eager to rehabilitate herself. Sometimes that of the friendless, aspiring student seeking recognition or guidance; but oftener than any that of the blossoming maid or wife of her own class whose yearning nature, reaching out to hers as the flower to the sun and breeze, received the mysterious quickening which is the essence of the higher life, and gave to her in return a love which was like sexual passion in its ardor, but savoring only of the spirit. If she were thus able by the unconscious gifts or grace which were in her to relieve the necessities and attune the aspirations of these choice—and it seemed to her that often the neediest were the choicest—natures, was it strange that she should cherish and even cultivate this involuntary power? Mrs. Wilson's theory in regard to this personal influence was that it was the grateful product of her allegiance to, and passion for, beauty so far as she could lay claim to any merit in the matter. She accepted it as a heaven-sent and heaven-kissing gift which was to be rejoiced in and administered as a trust. Since her talent had turned out to be that of a leader to point the way by virtue of sympathetic intelligence—or, to quote her own mental simile, the electric medium which opened to eager, groping souls the realm of spirit—was not the mission the most congenial which could have been offered her, and in the direct line of her tastes and ambitions? Consequently her private correspondence with those who sought counsel and inspiration in return for adoring fealty was a labor of care as well as of love. Just the right words must be written, and the individual personal touch imparted to each message of criticism, revelation, homely advice, or mere greeting. To be true to beauty and to maintain her individuality by the free outpouring of herself from day to day in felicitous speech of tongue and pen was her glowing task. In the pursuance of it she had acquired mannerisms which were now a part of herself. Her phrases of endearment, her chirography, her note-paper, her method of signing herself, had severally a distinction or peculiarity of their own. All this was now a second nature; but at the outset she had been conscious of it, and, though never challenged, she had once written in vindication in one of her heart-to-heart missives that the mysterious forces of the universe through which God talks with man wear not the garb of conforming plainness, but have each its special exquisiteness; witness the moon-bathed summer night, the mountain peak at sunrise, the lightening glare among the forest pines, the lordly ocean in its many moods. She had a memory for birthdays and anniversaries. In the hour of bereavement her unique words of consolation were the first to arrive. She was prodigal of flowers, and her proselytes, knowing her affection for the rose and the lily, were apt to transform her study into a bower on the slightest excuse. She never wrote without flowers within her range of vision. In the evening of one of these days following her daughter's wedding, Mrs. Wilson was interrupted in her correspondence by the entrance of her maid with the bewildering news that a baby had been left on the doorsteps, and that a woman, presumably its mother, had, in the act of stealing away after ringing the bell, run into the arms of one of the servants, and was now a prisoner below stairs. The maid was agitated. Should they send for a policeman, or what was to be done? The course to adopt had not been clear to those in authority in the kitchen, and the solution had been left to the mistress whose eleemosynary tendencies had to be taken into account.
An infant, a waif of destiny, left on her doorsteps at dead of night! There was only one thing to do, to see the baby, and to talk to the mother, and for this purpose Mrs. Wilson had both brought before her in the ante-room where she had received Constance Stuart. Rumor flies fast, and by this time a burly, belted policeman had arrived on the scene and stood towering in the background behind the quartette of servants, the butler, the second-man, who had apprehended the woman, a housemaid who had taken the custody of the child, and Mrs. Wilson's own maid. Mrs. Wilson surveyed the group for an instant with the air of a photographer in search of a correct setting. Then, with a smile of divination, she said, authoritatively, "Now, Mary, give the child to its mother, and when I need anyone, I will ring. You, too, Mr. Officer, please wait outside. I am sure that this woman will tell me her story more freely if we are alone. And, James, bring some tea—the regular tea-service."
"I am sure that this woman will tell me her story"
As the servants took their departure, Mrs. Wilson looked again at the woman, whom she had already perceived to be young and good looking. She stood holding her baby securely but not tenderly, with a half-defiant, half-bewildered air, as of a cat at bay in strange surroundings. But though her mien expressed a feline dismay, Mrs. Wilson perceived that she was no desperate creature of the slums. Nor was she flauntily dressed like the courtesan of tradition. Her attire—a neat straw sailor hat, a well-fitting dark blue serge skirt and serge jacket over a white shirt, and decent boots indicated some social aptness; and her features, especially her clever and sensitive, though somewhat hard, mouth gave the challenge of intelligence. It was a smart face, one which suggested quick-wittedness and the habit of self-reliance, if not self-satisfaction, to the detriment of sentiment and delicacy. She appeared to Mrs. Wilson to be about twenty-three, and slightly shorter than Mrs. Stuart, with a sturdier, less flexible figure. Her hair was light brown, and her complexion fair, but she had roving dark eyes which gave a touch of picturesqueness to what might be called the matter-of-fact modernness of her aspect. They were curious eyes, almost Italian in their hue and calibre, yet in repose coldly scrutinizing and impassive. Mrs. Wilson appreciated with a sense of relief that here was no case of sodden ignorance and degradation; for though in such instances the remedy was more obvious, she preferred to be brought in contact with natures which drew upon her intellectual faculties. She believed herself modern in her sympathies, and in her capacity as a philanthropic worker was partial to the problems with which modern conditions and modern thought confront struggling human nature.
"Won't you sit down? And perhaps you would like to lay your baby on the sofa while we talk and I make you some tea."
The girl, who was prepared probably for a sterner method, yielded, after a quiver of uncertainty, to the fascination of this gracious appeal; pausing for a brief instant to examine the tiny face peering from the folds of the knit shawl in which the child was wrapped, but with a gaze scientific rather than maternal, as though she were seeking to trace a likeness or some law of heredity. Then she sat down and raised her eyes to meet her entertainer's with a glance bordering on irony, and which seemed to ask, "Well, what are you going to do about it?" Mrs. Wilson noticed that her hands, which lay in her lap, lightly crossed, with the palms down, were long and efficient-looking, and that she wore no wedding-ring.
"Is it a boy or a girl?" Mrs. Wilson resumed, with disarming gentleness.
"A girl." With a contraction of her mouth which began in a bitter smile and ended against her will in a gulp, she added, "I didn't intend to have it. I didn't want to have it. I suppose you've guessed I'm not a married woman."
"Yes, I guessed that. I see, too, that you are in trouble, and my sole object in detaining you here to-night is to give you all the aid in my power. I'm not seeking to judge or to lecture you, but to help you."
The girl regarded her with a matter-of-fact stare, then said, bluntly, "I'd have been all right now if your servant hadn't nabbed me."
"You mean if you had succeeded in abandoning your child?"
"Yes. I was earning my living before, and I could go on. I guess I could have got back my old place."
"But— Do you mind telling me why you wished to abandon your baby?"
"That's why. I've just told you. To make a fresh start."
"I see. And it was chance, I suppose, that you left it on my door-steps rather than elsewhere?"
"You're Mrs. Randolph Wilson, aren't you?"
"Yes."
"I had read about you in the newspapers, and all about the wedding, and that you were tremendously rich. When my child was born I hoped she'd die; but, as she didn't, I made up my mind that the best thing I could do was to let you look after her. But the luck was against me a second time. I was caught again." She laughed as though her only concern was to let fate perceive that she had some sense of humor.
Mrs. Wilson frowned involuntarily. Yet, though her taste was offended her curiosity was whetted.
"But wasn't your—wasn't he man enough to look after you and provide for the child?"
"I didn't tell him. He doesn't know. It wasn't his fault. That is"—she paused for a moment, but her expression suggested solicitude lest the naked truth should be disconcerting rather than shame—"I took the chance. Neither of us intended to be married. He travels mostly, and is here only two or three times a year. What would he do with a baby anyway?"
The entrance of the butler with the tea things was opportune. It gave Mrs. Wilson time to think. Her experience of women of this class had been considerable. If not invariably penitent, they had always shown shame or humble-mindedness. Here was a new specimen, degenerate and appalling, but interesting to the imagination.
While the servant set the glittering, dainty silver service on the table at his mistress's side the girl watched her and him with obvious curiosity and a mixture of disdain and fascination. Now and again her roving eyes took in the exquisite surroundings, then reverted to the face of her would-be benefactress as to a magnet. It seemed to be the triumph of a desire not to appear worse than she really was which made her speak when they were alone, and Mrs. Wilson, still in search of inspiration, was busy with the tea-caddy.
"I wasn't going to let her out of my sight until I knew she was safe." She nervously compressed the back of one of her hands with the long fingers of the other in the apparent effort to justify her course, a consideration to which she was evidently not accustomed. "Wouldn't she have had a better home at the expense of the State than any I could have given her? And there was the chance you might take a fancy to her and adopt her. She's less homely than the average new-born young one. You see I thought everything over, lady. And next to its dying that seemed to me the best chance it had for happiness in a best possible world."
"Ah, but you mustn't talk like that. It's hard, I know, egregiously hard. But you mustn't be bitter," said Mrs. Wilson, with mandatory kindness.
The girl smiled in a superior fashion; it was almost a sneer. Her desire to justify herself had been an involuntary expression. Now vanity intervened, vanity and the pride of smouldering opinion. "I'm not bitter; I'm only telling you the plain truth. I'm ignorant, I dare say, compared to you; but I'm not so ignorant as you think. I've thought for myself some; and—and all I say is that this isn't any too good a world for a girl like me anyway, and when a girl like me goes wrong, as you call it, and has a kid, instead of crying her eyes out the sensible thing for her to do is to find someone to look after it for her."
"Which only proves, my child, that such a thing ought never to happen to her."
"No—not if she has luck."
There was a brief pause; then with an impulsive glide Mrs. Wilson swept across the room and transferred a cup of tea to the hands of this wanderer from the fold of grace and ethics. The girl, taken off her guard, tried to rise to receive it, and looked at her with the half-fascinated expression of a bird struggling against the fowler. Sitting down beside her, Mrs. Wilson took one of her hands and said, "Do you not understand, my dear, that society must insist for its own preservation that a woman shouldn't go wrong? The whole safety of the family is based on that. That's the reason the world has to seem a little cruel to those of our sex who sin against purity. Children must know who their fathers are." She had these precepts in their modern guise at the tip of her tongue; she hastened to add, benignly, "But though the world in self-defence turns a cold shoulder on the unchaste woman, for her who seeks forgiveness and a fresh start there are helping hands and loving words which offer forbearance and counsel and friendship."
"But supposing I'm not seeking forgiveness? That's the trouble, lady. If only now I were a shame-faced, contrite sinner down in the dust at the foot of the cross asking permission to lead a new life, how much simpler it would be for both of us!"
Mrs. Wilson gasped. The coolness of the sacrilege disturbed her intellectual poise. The girl might have been speaking of an invitation to dinner instead of the redemption of her soul so casual was her regret. "That is where you belong; that is where you must come in order to find grace and peace," she said, in an intense whisper.
"I've shocked you."
"Yes, you've shocked me. But that doesn't matter. You don't realize what you're saying. The important thing is to save you from yourself, to cleanse the windows of your soul so that the blessed light of truth may enter."
The girl regarded her curiously, nervously abashed at the impetuous kindness of this proselytism. "That's what I meant by saying I'd thought some. If it's church doctrine you mean, you'd only be disappointed. It may help people like you. But for the working people—well, some of us who use our wits don't think much of it."
Though Mrs. Wilson looked profoundly grieved, the spiritual melancholy emanating from her willowy figure and mobile countenance was charged with resolution as well as pity.
"It isn't merely church doctrine that you lack. You lack the spirit of Christian civilization. Your entire point of view is distorted. You are blind, child, utterly blind to the eternal verities."
The girl's dark eyes grew luminous in response to this indictment, but a deprecating smile trembled on her lip in protest at her own susceptibility.
"What is it you want me to do?" she said at last.
"To begin with, I wish you to support your child as a woman should. You brought it into the world, and you owe to the helpless little thing a mother's love and care. Will you tell me your name?"
"Loretta Davis."
"And what has been your employment?"
"They don't know. I don't want them to know. I gave them as an excuse that I was tired of the place."
"I'm not asking your employer's name. What kind of work was it?"
"I was assistant cashier in a drug store."
"And before that?"
"I answered the bell for a doctor."
"I see. I don't wish to pry into your affairs; but do you belong here? Are your parents living?"
"I don't mind telling. There's not much to tell. My father and mother are dead. I was born about a hundred miles from here and attended the public school. I had my living to make, so I came to Benham about two years ago. I had acquaintances, and was crazy to go into a store. But a girl who came from the same town as I was going to be married, and got me her place to look after the doctor's bell and tidy up. He was a dentist. He lost his health and had to go to Colorado for his lungs, and then I went to the drug store. That's all there is to tell, lady—that is, except one thing, which doesn't count much now."
"You might as well tell me that also."
"Oh, well, I'd been thinking of training to be a nurse when I got into trouble. I'd got used to doctors and medicine, and they told me I had the sort of hands for it." She exhibited her strong, flexible fingers. "If I had got rid of my baby, I was going to apply to a hospital. So you see I've got some ambition, lady. I wanted to be of some use. I'm not altogether bad."
"No, no, I'm sure you're not. I understand perfectly. And the baby shan't stand in the way of your making the most of yourself. I will arrange all that." Mrs. Wilson spoke with fluent enthusiasm. She felt that she had discovered the secret of, if not the excuse for, the girl's callousness. Unwelcome maternity had interrupted the free play of her individuality at the moment when she was formulating a career, and as a modern woman herself, Mrs. Wilson understood the bitterness of the disappointment. It gave her a cue to Loretta's perversion, so that she no longer felt out of touch with her. She refrained from the obvious temptation of pointing out that a nurse's best usefulness would be to guard her tender child, and broached instead the project which swiftly suggested itself the moment she felt that she had fathomed the cause of the culprit's waywardness.
"I know just the home for you; a little tenement in the Lincoln Chambers. The rooms are savory, convenient, and attractive, and on the opposite side of your entry lives an earnest, interesting spirit, a woman whose husband has deserted her, left her with two children to provide for. She will be glad to befriend you, and you will like her. I happen to know that the tenement is vacant, and it is the very place for you."
Loretta had listened with sphinx-like attention. When Mrs. Wilson paused her eyes began to make another tour of her surroundings, and at the close of her remark ignored the theme of conversation.
"I never was inside a multi-millionaire's house before. That's what you are, ain't it?"
The query was queer, but not to be evaded. "I'm a rich woman certainly, which makes it all the easier for me to help you." If this savored of a pauperizing line, which was contrary to Mrs. Wilson's philanthropic principles, she felt that she must not at all hazards let the girl slip through her fingers.
"If I'm willing that you should."
"Of course. But you are, I'm sure you are. You're going to trust me and to put yourself into my hands."
The confidence and charm of this fervor suddenly met with their reward. Loretta had held back from genuine scruples, such as they were. Instinctive independence and a preconceived distrust of fine ladies had kept her muscles stiff and her face set, though she felt thrilled by a strange and delicious music. No one could have guessed that it was only the habit of awkwardness which restrained her from falling on her knees in an ecstasy of self-abasement, not from an access of shame, but as a tribute to the woman whose personality had captivated her against her will.
"You seem to take a heap of interest in me, don't you?" The words by themselves suggested chiefly surprise, but the sign of her surrender showed itself in her eyes. They were lit suddenly with an intensity which overspread her countenance, bathing its matter-of-fact smartness in the soft light of emotion. "I'm willing to do whatever you like," she said.