Читать книгу: «Making People Happy», страница 7

Cicily realized, with an increase of misery, how intolerable had been her conduct. With that swift changefulness that was distinctive of her nature, she sought to make amends as best she could, although she understood that the task was well-nigh a hopeless one.

"I beg your pardon," she said, with as much humility as she could summon. "But, oh, you don't know what you are doing. You can't know! Don't you realize that you are spoiling our one chance for doing good – spoiling our chance to make this a genuine club to help women actually, not just merely making a joke by pretending?"

Mrs. Morton voiced the general sentiment of disagreement succinctly:

"I fail to see how association with such persons could be anything but distasteful, even disgusting."

"Exactly!" Mrs. Carrington agreed.

"Such women have their own clubs," Miss Johnson pointed out for the enlightenment of the presiding officer. She was very happy over her dear Cicily's discomfiture. "How can they help in any really great work? Let them work among the creatures of their own class. We," she concluded loftily, "have our ideals."

"My ideal," the president retorted bitterly, "is to do something – not merely to talk about it. Not one of you," she continued, waxing wroth again, "has ever done any real good, has ever put herself out to be of service to others, has ever really done anything for anybody else – not one of you!"

"Mrs. Hamilton," Mrs. Morton protested indignantly, "I cannot permit such a statement. I for one send my check to the Charity Organization every Christmas, without fail." Others, too, boasted of their philanthropies, always exercised through some most respectable medium. As the clamor of rebuke died away, Cicily ventured one more plea:

"Then, won't you do this for me?" she asked. "I, as your president, ask that you elect these women. Let them in, to help me in doing the hard work. You needn't do anything, but just belong and take the credit. I am under obligations to these persons. I promised them election to the club. I know now that I had no right to do so, but I did. I am sorry that I was so hasty in the matter. But won't you make my word good in this one case?" The musical voice was tenderly persuasive. Some of those who listened yielded to the spell of it and the winning radiance of the amber eyes. But Mrs. Flynn was not of these.

"There's nothing in this book of American parliamentary law that says the president has a right to promise anything binding on the club. I move that the president consider herself rebuked for exceeding her authority."

"Ruth, there's another chance to second something," Cicily suggested, ironically.

The maiden of the large eyes was pleased and flattered by the suggestion, which she accepted in all seriousness.

"Really?" she exclaimed, and turned her gaze aloft. "Oh, then, I second it – I second it, of course!"

"It is moved and seconded," Cicily declared listlessly, "that the president be rebuked for trying to be of some genuine use to herself and to her fellow women. All in favor of the motion will please say ay."

The form in which the president had stated the motion was not satisfactory to most of the members, who preserved a silence of indecision, with the single exception of Ruth, who uttered an enthusiastic affirmative vote, as a matter of course, only to shrink back perplexedly when she found angry eyes focused on her from every side. But Cicily nonchalantly announced the motion as having been carried, without troubling to call for the contrary vote.

"Ladies," she said, "the president accepts the rebuke; and she also resigns from her office and from the club. She is done with you, with all of you, and with your pitiful joke of a club."

She stood serenely defiant, while the company of babbling, head-tossing women hastened forth from the drawing-room, until only Mrs. Delancy remained.

CHAPTER XI

For a few moments after the passing of the Civitas Society, Cicily remained in her place, motionless, tense, her face whitely set. Then, of a sudden, the rigidity of her pose relaxed. She moved swiftly to where her aunt was sitting, dropped to her knees, and buried her face in the old lady's lap. The dainty form was shaken by a storm of sobs… Mrs. Delancy, wise from years, attempted no word of comfort for the time being – only stroked the shining brown tresses softly, and patted a shoulder tenderly. So, the girl, for now she was no more than that, wept out the first fury of her grief in this comforting, sheltering presence, as so often she had done in the years before marriage claimed her. Little by little, the fierceness of her emotion was worn out, until at last she was able to raise a sorrow-stricken face, in which the clear gold of the eyes still shone beautiful, though dimmed, through the veil of tears. The scarlet lips were tremulous, and the notes of the musical voice came brokenly as she spoke her despair.

"I've ruined him!" came the hopeless wail.

Mrs. Delancy misunderstood the final pronoun, for the articulation of the girl, clogged by feeling, was none too distinct.

"Pooh!" she ejaculated, cheerfully. "For my part, I think you're well rid of them."

"But you don't understand," Cicily almost moaned. "It's him – him! I've ruined him, I tell you."

This time, Mrs. Delancy understood the pronoun, but she understood nothing beyond that.

"Ruined him?" she repeated, wholly at a loss. "Whom have you ruined, Cicily? What do you mean?"

Then, the young wife poured forth the tale of the disaster she had all unwittingly wrought in the affairs of her husband. She explained her high hopes of saving a dangerous situation by means of her own influence over the women, who, in turn, controlled the leaders among the workmen in the factory. Cicily was painfully aware of the mischief that must result from the refusal of the Civitas Society to welcome into its sacred circle the three candidates whom she had proposed. She knew the sensitiveness of these women, knew that they would bitterly resent the slight thus put upon them. Where she had meant to bind their friendship for her, she had succeeded only in creating a situation by which they might well come to detest her for having subjected them to needless humiliation. With their hostility aroused against her, they would throw their influence, which she believed dominant, to persuade the men against any concessions in favor of their employer. With a full perception of the catastrophe in which she had so innocently become involved, the wife hurriedly recounted the facts to her aunt, bewailing the evil destiny that had worked such dire havoc with her schemes for good.

"Well, you did what you could," Mrs. Delancy suggested consolingly, when at last the melancholy recital was ended.

"And I failed!" came the retort, in a voice of misery.

Certain utterances of the girl on a former occasion had rankled in the bosom of the old lady, perhaps because she perceived a certain element of justice in them, and by so much a measure of dereliction on her own part in the regulating of affairs between herself and her husband. Now, despite the kindliness of her nature and her real sympathy for the suffering of the niece who knelt at her knees, she could not forbear a mild reproof:

"Well, Cicily," she said gently, "it all comes of a woman fooling with business. Why, if you'd only been content to work for the heathen – "

"I've just finished with the heathen!" was the quick interruption.

"Well, my dear," Mrs. Delancy commented drily, "if you'd only work for the far-off heathen, you'd find it much more satisfactory. You might not do any good, to be sure; but, anyhow, the bad results wouldn't affect you."

Cicily got to her feet, without making any reply, and went to the mirror at one end of the drawing-room. There, she busied herself after the feminine fashion with concealing the more apparent ravages made by her weeping. When she came back to face her aunt again, she was her usual charming self, save for a lack of color in her cheeks, and a portentous gravity in the drooping of the mouth… Happily, she was not of the majority, whose noses bloom redly when watered with tears.

"And now," she said, desolately, "I've got to tell them!" She nodded toward the withdrawing-room, where the three candidates were waiting; and Mrs. Delancy understood.

"Why don't you write it to them?" she advised. "Whenever I have anything uncomfortable to tell anyone, I always write it. Then, I let your Uncle Jim read the reply… It's so much more satisfactory that way, and, you know, he can say right out what I don't dare even to think."

But Cicily had courage and a conscience. She felt that she must not shirk the consequences to herself of her own indiscretion.

"No, I'll tell them," she declared resolutely; but her heart was sick within her at contemplation of the scene that waited.

Fortunately, perhaps, small time was given Cicily for dread anticipations. Hardly had she ceased speaking when the door into the withdrawing-room was cautiously opened, and the face of Mrs. McMahon was made visible to the two women who had faced about at sound of the knob turning. On perceiving that the room was empty save for the hostess and Mrs. Delancy, the Irishwoman threw the door wide, and came forward.

"Faith, it was so quiet I was sure they'd gone," she announced, with manifest pride in her deductive powers. There was, too, a general air of elation in the woman's manner of carriage that struck a chill to Cicily's heart. And the cold of it deepened as Mrs. Schmidt and Sadie Ferguson followed into the drawing-room, each evidently in a state of exaltation. The three ranged themselves in rude dignity before their hostess. Mrs. McMahon constituted herself the spokeswoman.

"Well," she inquired genially, "now that we're members of the club, what is it you'd be after having us to do?"

An interval of silence followed, under the influence of which the three waiting candidates seemed visibly to droop, as if by a subtle instinct they began to apprehend misfortune. When, finally, Cicily spoke, it was in a colorless voice:

"I'm afraid there is nothing that any of us can do, now." The three started, and exchanged glances in which was dawning alarm, "I mean," the unhappy hostess went on, making her confession of failure by a mighty effort of will, "that – that the election did not go as I had expected it to."

Again, there was a painful silence, in which Sadie fidgeted and Mrs. Schmidt seemed to grow more shrunken and faded than before. Mrs. McMahon alone stood unmovingly erect, stiffly pugnacious on the instant.

"So, that's it!" she exclaimed, at last. Her big voice was raucous with anger. "Sure, then, and we're not members, at all!"

As the bald truth was thus made known to Sadie, she flared into complete forgetfulness of the ideal deportment of her heroines.

"Them cats turn us down!" she screeched.

Mrs. Schmidt uttered no word, for she was by nature given to profound silences, almost unbroken for days. Perhaps, she believed the garrulity of her husband ample for the entire family. Nevertheless, in this critical moment, Mrs. Schmidt opened her mouth repeatedly, like a fish out of water, as if she were striving her utmost to speak.

"And – and," Cicily added weakly, "I'm awfully sorry."

"Sure, and you don't need to trouble yourself, Mrs. Hamilton," the Irishwoman declared, viciously. "The likes of us know how you rich people have a habit of bringing us into your parlors to make fun for their friends. You come to our homes, and we treated you like a lady. Faith, now we come here, and you treat us like monkeys – that's all the difference. We're much obliged to you for the lesson. Sure, and we won't bother you again, not a bit of it. And we'll be pleased if you'll treat us the same… Good-day to you, Mrs. Hamilton." The irate woman bobbed her head energetically at her hostess, and strode toward the doorway into the hall. But she halted for a moment as Cicily addressed her impetuously.

"Mrs. McMahon, you must listen to me! I had no idea that this would turn out as it did. I have been your friend – I am your friend. When the club refused to admit you, I resigned from the club. There is nothing more that I can do. Oh, I am so sorry that it all occurred!"

"Faith, we'll take your explanation for all it's worth," was the wrathful woman's comment, uttered with scorn. She was too deeply hurt to be solaced by explanations that did not alter the shameful fact one whit. She turned again toward the doorway, only to be halted by the appearance there of her husband, accompanied by Schmidt and Ferguson.

McMahon paused just within the room, and stood rubbing his hands, and grinning jovially, his round face aglow with satisfaction. He addressed his wife banteringly, evidently in high good spirits:

"Faith, Katy McMahon," he exclaimed, "but you're looking proud the day! Sure, now, I'll have the automobile to take us all up to Sherry's in just a minute, when we've done talking with Mr. Hamilton. Bedad, with our wives and daughters moving in such elegant society and members of such a grand club with the boss's wife, we wouldn't dare take them any less place at all!"

"It's a bad mind-reader you are!" fairly shouted the outraged wife. Sadie added something unintelligible, it was so rapidly uttered and so venomously hissed. Even Mrs. Schmidt displayed every symptom of speech save sound.

"What's the matter, Sadie?" Ferguson demanded, not unkindly, as he observed the expression on his daughter's face. "Wasn't your false hair the right shade? I'm sorry, if it ain't, because I don't see as how I can buy you any more with this ten per cent. cut we're taking."

Instantly, Cicily aroused to new hope. She moved a stop forward, her hands up-raised in eagerness. A glow of color burned in either cheek, and her eyes sparkled again.

"Oh," she questioned tensely, "then you're not going to strike – you'll take the cut?"

It was Schmidt who answered, beaming happily on his hostess.

"Strike? Ah, no! When you make friends with our wives, and Mr. Hamilton, he tells us the truth just like one man with another, we appreciate it, yes; we stand by and help, yes!"

"Schmidt's right," Ferguson added. "Mr. Hamilton and you, ma'am, are human. So, we've decided to stick it out for a while, anyhow."

McMahon, too, yielded his tribute of commendation.

"Yes, Mrs. Hamilton," he said seriously, "there's one thing that the bosses generally don't understand; but the men always appreciate it when the boss, and the boss's wife, too, are on the level."

To the amazement of everyone, Mrs. Schmidt broke into speech; find that outburst was like the eruction of Krakatao in its unexpectedness, its suddenness, its overwhelming virulence.

"Yes, yes, yes," she clamored, addressing her hapless husband, who stood appalled before the attack, "you are one big, fat fool! You always were. You are in love with her – no? You let her bring your wife here, make her for a joke to her rich friends, let her get insults. They laugh and make fun of me, Frieda Schmidt, your wife; and then, when they have had the good laugh, they say: 'What do you think we want of you? You are not like us. We are grand ladies: you are a working woman. Get out! Get out! We have had our laugh at you. Now, go! We are through; we are tired of you. It was very good of Mrs. Hamilton to bring you here for us to laugh at; but it is over. Get out!'… And then you come and thank her because she insults your wife, insults your name; and you take less wages from her husband because she insults your name and me. If you take that cut, you are not my man – never with me no more!" With the last words, she darted from the room, and a moment later the street-door slammed violently behind her.

"Good for Frieda!" Mrs. McMahon applauded. "When she does talk, sure she says something… You heard her, Mike McMahon? Well, what she said, them's my sentiments. You know what she did now." A jerk of the head indicated the wretched hostess. "She pretended to ask us to join a club. She brought us here to insult us, to make fun of us. She made us the laughing-stock of Morton and Carrington's wives. Do you hear that? Morton and Carrington! Put the names of them in your pipe and smoke it. Mike McMahon, listen to what I'm telling you. If you take a cut from them that insult your wife, you can forget to come home for good, my bucco." In her turn, the Irishwoman stalked out of the room and from the house with a tread of heavy dignity.

"That goes with me, Pop!" Sadie declared, as she flounced out.

"It's all been a terrible mistake," Cicily ventured to the three men who stood regarding her with sullen faces and baleful eyes after the revelations that had just been made.

"I'm thinking you're right," McMahon agreed. There was something sinister in his voice. "But it's us that made the mistake. We thought the boss and his wife could be on the level with us. What a bunch of damn fools we were!" And his two confrères nodded gloomy assent.

It was at this most unpropitious moment that Hamilton came briskly into the room. He stopped short in the doorway, at sight of the three men of the committee, who turned to face him.

"Well, boys," he exclaimed briskly, "have you decided?" The men nodded without speaking. "Well?"

"I'll do the talking," Ferguson said, holding up a hand to check Schmidt. "We've decided, Mr. Hamilton. We're going to strike. We'll make you come to terms, or we'll bust you if we can."

Hamilton's face hardened, and he squared his shoulders.

"I suppose you know what you're up against?" he questioned harshly.

"Yes, we've just found out," Ferguson retorted, with gusty rage. "We'd been thinking that you were on the level – you and your wife, too. We swallowed that funny story of your being crushed by the trust. Oh, we were suckers, all right. We were suckers for fair! We were going to fall for it. We were going take your cut. And then your wife brings our wives and daughters here, pretending she's going to put them in her club – brings them here to make a laugh for Morton and Carrington's wives. Yes, Morton and Carrington, the very men you say are crushing you, your enemies! Oh, your enemies are all right! Do you think we are fools? No, to hell with you!" The furious man's voice rose to a shriek with the last words. He whirled, and made for the door, and the other two followed him.

"One minute," Hamilton called. "You needn't go back to the works. We close down in ten minutes. Come back to see me when you are hungry." He stood motionless as the men passed silently out, and until he heard the sound of the street-door closing behind them. Then, he turned to Cicily, who had waited pallid and shaken, her eyes downcast, her hands clasped distressedly. His voice, as he spoke, was not softened; even, it was harder than before. "You see what you have done," he said simply. "This settles it. I'm going into a big fight. I can't be handicapped. For the future, you will stay where you belong. You will confine your activities to the house, where they will be less dangerous, let us hope – less fatal!" Without awaiting any reply, he wheeled, and strode from the room.

CHAPTER XII

Cicily sent word of a severe headache, and did not appear at the dinner-table that night, nor did she see her husband during the evening. She retired to her bed-chamber at an early hour, but not to sleep. Instead, she abandoned herself to torturing reflections on the malevolent predicament into which she had been brought. She did not attempt to disguise from herself the hideous fact that her own precipitancy of action in the matter of the candidates for the club had been the primary cause of the peril that now beset her husband's business prosperity by reason of the strike thus induced. She bewailed the impetuous character of her emotions, which had so evilly led her into an action fraught with such dire consequences. She had no regret for the motives that had impelled her, but she was profoundly sorrowful over the thoughtless haste with which she had entered on a course of more than doubtful expediency. Her one relief was in a reiteration that she would, that she must, find some way by which to make amends for the catastrophe she had so ingenuously engineered. To the discovery of a method for retrieving her error, she gave her mind with an almost frenzied concentration; but the effort was fruitless. Cudgel her wearied brain as she would, it could not make pace to the goal she sought. When, after a sleepless night, she rose, it was with the maze of disaster still unthreaded. Her usual ingenuity of resource was become impotent. Raging against her own supineness, she was yet forced into ignoble inactivity.

Cicily learned that her husband had breakfasted early, and had left the house, without any message to her, or any statement as to when he might return. The sight of food sickened her, but she managed to drink a cup of coffee, which put a little heart into her after the wearing hours of the night. A turn around the Park and along the Drive still further quickened her spirits; but the day passed without any flash of inspiration as to a means for undoing the ill she had wrought. She made a toilette for dinner by a brave effort. Yet, she might have spared her pains, for Hamilton did not appear. She idled through the meal with as much cheeriness of demeanor as she could summon for the benefit of the servants. Afterward, she sought the seclusion of her boudoir, leaving word that she should be notified immediately in the event of her husband's return.

In the meantime, Hamilton himself had opportunity for meditation, and this had softened his mood to some degree. He admitted to himself that her interest in the wives of his workmen had been the prime factor in their determination to endure a temporary cut in the wage-scale without striking. To be sure, his own attitude of confidential intercourse with the leaders in stating his position frankly had had its influence; but he did not for a moment believe that this alone would have sufficed to bend the men to his will. No, it had been the happy effect of his wife's intimate association on terms of equality with the women that had been the chief factor in creating a sentiment of sympathy for him to the extent of coöperation. Without her work in his behalf, the men would certainly have struck. Now, since her mistake in judgment had been the immediate cause of the strike, in justice she could hardly be held guilty of more than an act of folly. Essentially, the final situation was what it would have been without any intervention whatsoever on her part. In going over the succession of events logically and calmly, Hamilton came to the decision that he would absolve his wife from any real guilt in the affair. He even felt a half-hearted kindliness toward her for her blundering good-will. But he was none the less resolved that he would tolerate no further injection of this charming feminine personality into his business concerns. The wife must mind her own business – the home – and that alone; she must have no part in his… It was in this mood that he returned to his house late in the evening, and shut himself into the study. There, presently, Cicily came, seeking him.

The bride was very beautiful to-night, with a touch of sadness in her expression that gave her a new spirituelle charm. She had chosen a black gown as becoming the melancholy of the time, but its austere lines, without any touch of adornment, only brought into full relief the exquisite outlines of the slenderly rounded form, and served to emphasize the creamy whiteness of a complexion that was flawless. There was hardly a glimpse of rose in the ivory curve of the cheeks, but there was no lessening of the bending scarlet in the lips and the amber eyes were luminous even beyond their wont, as their gentle radiance shone forth above the dark circles traced by a sleepless night.

Hamilton turned a little as the door opened. He regarded his wife quizzically as she walked forward with a step of native grace, now grown a trifle languid from the weight on her spirit. He did not speak, however, until she had seated herself in the chair facing his. Then, when at last she looked up, and her somber gaze encountered his, he spoke lightly:

"Cicily, my dear, I think you are well rid of that coterie of cats."

"Why, how did you know?" Cicily questioned, in some astonishment as to his knowledge of her break with the members of the Civitas Society.

"Oh, in a very simple way. Aunt Emma told Uncle Jim, and Uncle Jim told me," Then, out of the kindness of his heart, the young husband went on speaking in such wise, according to his best judgment, as should console the very apparent misery of his wife. "My dear," he said gently, "I want you to know that I don't really blame you for this wretched strike. I'd have had it on my hands just the same, if you'd never had a finger in the pie. So, don't go grieving over something that can't be helped. And, of course, I give you all credit for the very best of intentions in the matter. Only – " he broke off discreetly; but the discretion had come too late.

"Only what?" Cicily questioned, quietly. There was something ominous in the quiet, and this the man realized.

Nevertheless, Hamilton was not one to shirk that which he deemed his duty. So, now, he answered lucidly with just what was in his mind as to the future relations between them, although he understood sufficiently well the ambitions of the woman before him to know that he must wound her deeply.

"Sweetheart," he said softly, "I don't wish to grieve you in any way. Yet, I must insist calmly now on what I said yesterday in the heat of anger. You must attend to your duty in the home. It is for me, and for me alone, to conduct matters of business outside. Can you not understand that you are by nature and training utterly incompetent for the rôle you seek to play? Business aptitude is not a thing to be picked up in an instant, haphazard, at the wish of anyone. It is something acquired by long striving and experience. The man has it in greater or less degree, as the result of generations of the work; he inherits an aptitude; he develops it by systematic training. Feminine intuition cannot give you a substitute for the practical needs of business. So, my dear, I beg you to be reasonable. You must not meddle further in my affairs. But, don't, for heaven's sake, be melancholy over it. I love you, my dear, and I want you to be happy. You will be, if only you can get the right point of view. Try! Won't you, dear?" As he finished speaking with this appeal, Hamilton leaned forward anxiously, pleadingly. Deep down in his heart he felt a glow of pride over the mildness and the reasonableness with which he had presented the case in its true light to this irrational, dear creature.

For a long minute, Cicily vouchsafed no answer, although she felt the intensity of his gaze fixed upon her. She remained motionless, leaning back in the chair, her taper fingers loosely clasped on her lap, her eyes downcast, as one absorbed in earnest, yet not disquieting, thought. Finally, however, she raised her head slowly, and her gaze met that of her husband fairly. It seemed to him that perhaps the faint touch of color in her cheeks had grown a little brighter, but of this he could not be sure. Otherwise, certainly, she betrayed no sign of particular emotion; whereat he rejoiced, since he knew from experience that her temperament might manifest tumultuously on occasion.

"Then, it's come," she said at last, in a low voice. Again, her eyes were downcast, and she rested there, to all appearance, tranquilly indifferent.

Hamilton stirred uneasily. This was not what he had expected, and he found himself unprepared for the emergency.

"If you mean that common-sense has come," he remarked grimly, "I beg to tell you that it has, and that it has come to stay!"

The wife spoke again, rather languidly, without troubling to raise her eyes.

"You mean that you are going to push me back, that you are going to shut me out of your life totally – out of your big, whole, full life? You mean that, for the future, you are going to treat me as a doll, as a plaything with which to amuse yourself when you chance to be tired and in a mood for such diversion – in fact, as other men of the average sort treat their wives? You have told your side of it. Now, I'm going to tell you mine. And I'm going to ask you not to decide too hastily. Think over the matter carefully, I beg of you. For, you see, it involves our whole future, yours and mine… Charles, once you yielded to my wishes. You took me in. You let me help you."

"Yes," exclaimed Hamilton, in exasperation of spirit. "And you made a mess of things all round!" He shook his head emphatically. "No, Cicily; I tell you, no!"

"Charles, wait!" the wife commanded, raising her eyes, and straightening her form in sudden animation. "Take my money – take everything that I have. Throw it away, if you want to. Use it in your business, if it will help the least bit. Do whatever you please – only, don't shut me out. Tell me everything. Teach me something of your knowledge concerning these things. Let me share as much as I can. You direct, of course. I'll only do what you wish me to do. But don't drive me away from you." She paused, leaned farther forward, and went on speaking in a tone of deepest seriousness: "If we part this way now, if I am to cease from any interest in your affairs, and you go on alone, why, then, I'll never have you again. I know that for the truth. That's why I am pleading like this. Once, I demanded it as a right; now, I beg it as a favor. Here is the choice, Charles. You can't be as Uncle Jim is, simply because I won't be like Aunt Emma in this matter. If you shut me out now, I'll shut you out – for good!"

"Good God! was there ever such a woman!" Hamilton cried, in desperation. "Why, if I were to take you in, within two weeks you'd be down there, helping the families of the strikers. You told me that, yourself."