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The Portion of Labor, a novel by Mary E Wilkins Freeman |
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Chapter 46 |
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_ Chapter XLVI It was some time after Mrs. Lloyd's death. Ellen had not seen Robert except as she had caught from time to time a passing glimpse of him in the factory. One night she overheard her father and mother talking about him after she had gone to bed, the sitting-room door having been left ajar. "I thought he'd come and call after his aunt died," she heard Fanny say. "I've always thought he liked Ellen, an' here he is now, with all that big factory, an' plenty of money." "Mebbe he will," replied Andrew, with a voice in which were conflicting emotions, pride and sadness, and a struggle for self-renunciation. "It would be a splendid thing for her," said Fanny. "It would be a splendid thing for _him_," returned Andrew, with a flash. "Land, of course it would! You needn't be so smart, Andrew Brewster. I guess I know what Ellen is, as well as you. Any man might be proud to get her--I don't care who--whether he's Robert Lloyd, or who, but that don't alter what I say. It would be a splendid chance for Ellen. Only think of that great Lloyd house, and it must be full of beautiful things--table linen, and silver, and what-not. I say it would be a splendid thing for her, and she'd be above want all her life--that's something to be considered when we 'ain't got any more than we have to leave her, and she workin' the way she is." "Yes, that's so," assented Andrew, with a heavy sigh, as of one who looks upon life from under the mortification of an incubus of fate. "We'd ought to think of her best good," said Fanny, judiciously. "I've been thinkin' every evening lately that he'd be comin'. I've had the fire in the parlor stove all ready to touch off, an' I've kept dusted in there. I know he liked her, but mebbe he's like all the rest of the big-bugs." "What do you mean?" asked Andrew, with an inward qualm of repulsion. He always hated unspeakably to hear his wife say "big-bugs" in that tone. Although he was far from being without humility, he was republican to the core in his estimate of his own status in his own free country. In his heart, as long as he kept the law of God and man, he recognized no "big-bugs." It was one of the taints of his wife's ancestry which grated upon him from time to time. "Oh, well, mebbe he don't want to be seen callin' on a shop-girl." "Then he'd better keep away, that's all!" cried Andrew, furiously. "Oh, well, mebbe it ain't so," said Fanny. "He's always seemed to me like a sensible feller, and I know he's liked Ellen, an' lots of girls that work in shops marry rich. Look at Annie Graves, married that factory boss over to Pemberton, an' has everythin'. She'd worked in his factory years. Mebbe it ain't that." "Ellen don't act as if she minded anything about his not comin'," said Andrew, anxiously. "Land, no; she ain't that kind. She's too much like her grandmother, but there 'ain't been a night lately that she 'ain't done her hair over when she got home from the shop and changed her dress." "She always changes her dress, don't she?" said Andrew. "Oh yes, she always has done that. I guess she likes to get rid of the leather smell for a while; but she has put on that pretty, new, red silk waist, and I've seen her watchin', though she's never said anything." "You don't suppose she--" began Andrew, in a voice of intensest anxiety and indignant tenderness. "Land, no; Ellen Brewster ain't a girl to fret herself much over any man unless she's sure he wants her; trust her. Don't you worry about that. All I mean is, I know she's had a kind of an idea that he might come." Ellen, up-stairs, lay listening against her will, and felt herself burning with mortified pride and shame. She said to herself that she would never put on that red silk waist again of an evening; she would not even do her hair over. It was quite true that she had thought that Robert might come, that he might renew his offer, now that he was so differently situated, and the obstacles, on his side, at least, removed. She told herself all the time that the obstacles on her own were still far from removed. She asked herself how could she, even if this man loved her and wished to marry her, allow him to support all her family, although he might be able to do so. She often told herself that she ought perhaps to have pride enough to refuse, and yet she watched for him to come. She had reflected at first that it was, of course, impossible for him to seem to take advantage of the deaths which had left him with this independence, that he must stay away for a while from motives of delicacy; but now the months were going, and she began to wonder if he never would come. Every night, when she took off the pretty, red silk waist, donned in vain, and let down her fair lengths of hair, it was with a sinking of her heart, and a sense of incredulous unhappiness. Ellen had always had a sort of sanguinity of happiness and of the petting of Providence as well as of her friends. However, the girl had, in spite of her childlike trust in the beauty of her life, plenty of strength to meet its refutal, and a pride equal to her grandmother's. In case Robert Lloyd should never approach her again, she would try to keep one face of her soul always veiled to her inmost consciousness. The next evening she was careful not to put on her red silk waist, but changed her shop dress for her old blue woollen, and only smoothed her hair. She even went to bed early in order to prove to her mother that she expected nobody. "You ain't goin' to bed as early as this, Ellen?" her mother said, as she lighted her lamp. "Yes, I'm going to bed and read." "Seems as if somebody might be in," said Fanny, awkwardly. "I don't know who," Ellen returned, with a gentle haughtiness. Andrew colored. He was at his usual task of paring apples. Andrew, in lieu of regular work outside, assisted in these household tasks, that his wife might have more time to sew. He looked unusually worn and old that night. "If anybody does come, Ellen will have to get up, that's all," said Fanny, when the girl had gone up-stairs. Then she pricked up her ears, for the electric-car had stopped before the house. Then it went on, with a sharp clang of the bell and a gathering rush of motion. "That car stopped," Fanny said, breathlessly, her work falling from her fingers. Andrew and she both listened intently, then footsteps were heard plainly coming around the path at the side of the house. Fanny's face fell. "It's only some of the men," said she, in a low voice. Then there came a knock on the side door, and Andrew ushered in John Sargent, Joe Atkins, and Amos Lee. Nahum Beals did not come in those days, for he was in prison awaiting trial for the murder of Norman Lloyd. However, Amos Lee's note was as impressive as his. He called often with Sargent and Atkins. They could not shake him off. He lay in wait for them at street corners, and joined them. He never saw Ellen alone, and did not openly proclaim his calls as meant for her. She prevented him from doing that in a manner which he could not withstand, full of hot and reckless daring as he was. When he entered that night he looked around with keen furtiveness, and was evidently listening and watching for her, though presently his voice rose high in discussion with the others. After a while the man who lived next door dropped in, and his wife with him. She and Fanny withdrew to the dining-room with their sewing--for the woman also worked on wrappers--and left the sitting-room to the men. "It beats all how they like to talk," said the woman, with a large-minded leniency, "and they never get anywhere," she added. "They work themselves all up, and never get anywhere; but men are all like that." "Yes, they be," assented Fanny. "Jest hear that Lee feller," said the woman. Amos Lee's voice was audible over the little house, and could have been heard in the yard, for it had an enormous carrying quality. It was the voice of a public ranter. Ellen, up in her chamber, lying in her bed, with a lamp at her side, reading, closely covered from the cold--for the room was unheated--heard him with a shiver of disgust and repulsion, and yet with a fierce sympathy and loyalty. She could not distinguish every word he said, but she knew well what he was talking about. Mrs. Lloyd's death had made a certain hush in the ferment of revolt at Lloyd's, but now it was again on the move. There was a strong feeling of dislike to young Lloyd among the workmen. His uncle had heaped up ill-feeling as well as wealth as a heritage for him. The older Lloyd had never been popular, and Robert had succeeded to all his unpopularity, and was fast gathering his own. He was undoubtedly disposed to follow largely his uncle's business methods. He had admired them, they had proved successful, and he had honestly seen nothing culpable in them as business methods go; so it was not strange that he tried to copy them when he came into charge of Lloyd's. He was inclined to meet opposition with the same cool inflexibility of persistency in his own views, and was disposed to consult his own interests and carry out his own plans with no more brooking of interference than the skipper of a man-o'-war. Therefore, when it happened, shortly after his aunt's death, that he conceived a dissatisfaction with some prominent spirits among union men, he discharged them without the slightest reference to the fact that they were old and skilful workmen, and employed non-union men from another town in their places. He had, indeed, the object of making in time his factory entirely non-union. He said to himself that he would be dictated to by no labor organization under the sun, and that went a step beyond his uncle, inasmuch as the elder Lloyd had always made his own opinion subservient to good business policy; but Robert was younger and his blood hotter. It happened, also, a month later, when he began to see that business had fallen off considerably (indeed, it was the beginning of a period of extreme business depression), and that he could no longer continue on the same scale with the same profits, that instead of assembling the men in different departments, communicating the situation to them, and submitting them a reduced price-list for consideration, as was the custom with the more pacific of the manufacturers in the vicinity, he posted it up in the different rooms with no ado whatever. That had been his uncle's method, but never in the face of such brewing discontent as was prevalent in Lloyd's at that time. It was an occasion when the older man would have shut down, but Robert had, along with his arbitrary impetuosity, a real dislike to shut down on account of the men, for which they would have been the last to give him credit. "Poor devils," he told himself, standing in the office window one night, and seeing them pour out and disappear into the early darkness beyond the radius of the electric-lights, "I can't turn them adrift without a dollar in midwinter. I'll try to run the factory a while longer on a reduced scale, if I only meet expenses." He saw Ellen going out, descending the steps with the Atkins girls, and as she passed the light, her fair head shone out for a second like an aureole. A great wave of tenderness came over him. He reflected that it would make no difference to her, that it was only a question of time before he lifted her forever out of the ranks of toil. The impulse was strong upon him to go to see her that night, but he had set himself to wait three months after his aunt's death, and the time was not yet up. He had a feeling that he might seem to be, and possibly would be, taking advantage of his bereavement if he went sooner, and that Ellen herself might think so. It was that very night that Ellen had gone to bed early, to prove not only to her mother but to herself that she did not expect him, and the men came to see Andrew. Once she heard Amos Lee's voice raised to a higher pitch than ever, and distinguished every word. "I tell you he's goin' to cut the wages to-morrow," said he. There was a low rumble of response, which Ellen could not understand, but Lee's answer made it evident. "How do I know?" he thundered. "It is in the air. He don't tell any more than his uncle did; but you wait and see, that's all." "I don't believe it," the girl up-stairs said to herself, indignantly and loyally. "He can't cut the wages of all those poor men, he with all his uncle's money." But the next morning the reduced price-list was posted on the walls of the different rooms in Lloyd's. _ |
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