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Unleavened Bread, a novel by Robert Grant |
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Book 3. The Success - Chapter 1 |
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_ BOOK III. THE SUCCESS CHAPTER I It had never occurred to Selma that she might lose her husband. Even with his shortcomings he was so important to her from the point of view of support, and her scheme of life was so interwoven with his, she had taken for granted that he would live as long as she desired. She felt that destiny had a second time been signally cruel to her, and that she was drinking deeply of the cup of sorrow. She was convinced that Wilbur, had he lived, would have moved presently to Benham, in accordance with her desire, and that they would then have been completely happy again. Instead he was dead and under the sod, and she was left to face the world with no means save $5,000 from his life insurance and the natural gifts and soul which God had given her. She appreciated that she was still a comparatively young woman, and that, notwithstanding her love for Wilbur, she had been unable as his wife to exhibit herself to the world in her true light. She was free once more to lead her own life, and to obtain due recognition for her ideas and principles. She deplored with a grief which depleted the curve of her oval cheeks the premature end of her husband's artistic career--an aspiring soul cut off on the threshold of success--yet, though of course she never squarely made the reflection, she was aware that the development of her own life was more intrinsically valuable to the world than his, and that of the two it was best that he should be taken. She was sad, sore against Providence, and uncertain as to the future. But she was keenly conscious that she had a future, and she was eager to be stirring. Still, for the moment, the outlook was perplexing. What was she to do? First, and certainly, she desired to shake the dust of New York from her feet at the earliest opportunity. She inclined toward Benham as a residence, and to the lecture platform, supplemented by literature, and perhaps eventually the stage, as a means of livelihood. She believed in her secret soul that she could act. Her supposed facility in acquiring the New York manner had helped to generate that impression. It seemed to her more than probable that with a little instruction as to technical stage business she could gain fame and fortune almost at once as an actress of tragedy or melodrama. Comedy she despised as unworthy of her. But the stage appealed to her only on the ground of income. The life of an actress lacked the ethical character which she liked to associate with whatever she did. To be sure, a great actress was an inspiring influence. Nevertheless she preferred some more obviously improving occupation, provided it would afford a suitable support. Yet was it fitting that she should be condemned to do hack work for her daily bread instead of something to enlighten and uplift the community in which she lived? She considered that she had served her apprenticeship by teaching school and writing for the newspapers, and she begrudged spending further time in subordinate work. Better on the whole a striking success on the stage than this, for after she had made a name and money she could retire and devote herself to more congenial undertakings. Nevertheless her conscience told her that a theatrical career must be regarded as a last resort, and she appreciated the importance of not making a hasty decision as to what she would do. The lease of her house would not expire for six months, and it seemed to her probable that even in New York, where she was not understood, someone would realize her value as a manager of some intellectual or literary movement and make overtures to her. She wrote to Mrs. Earle and received a cordial response declaring that Benham would welcome her with open arms, a complimentary though somewhat vague certificate. She sent a line also to Mr. Dennison, informing him that she hoped soon to submit some short stories for his magazine, and received a guarded but polite reply to the effect that he would be glad to read her manuscripts. While she was thus deliberating and winding up her husband's affairs, Mr. Parsons, who had been absent from New York at the time of Wilbur's decease, called and bluntly made the announcement that he had bought a house in Benham, was to move there immediately, and was desirous that she should live with him as his companion and housekeeper on liberal pecuniary terms. "I am an old man," he said, "and my health is not what it used to be. I need someone to look after me and to keep me company. I like your chatty ways, and, if I have someone smart and brisk around like you, I sha'n't be thinking so often that I'm all alone in the world. It'll be dull for you, I guess; but you'll be keeping quiet for the present wherever you are; and when the time comes that you wish to take notice again I won't stand in the way of your amusing yourself." To this homely plea Selma returned a beatific smile. It struck her as an ideal arrangement; a golden opportunity for him, and convenient and promising for her. In the first place she was accorded the mission of cheering and guarding the declining years of this fine old man, whom she had come to look on with esteem and liking. And at the same time as his companion--the virtual mistress of his house, for she knew perfectly well that as a genuine American he was not offering her a position less than this--she would be able to shape her life gradually along congenial lines, and to wait for the ripe occasion for usefulness to present itself. In an instant a great load was lifted from her spirit. She was thankful to be spared conscientious qualms concerning the career of an actress, and thankful to be freed at one bound from her New York associations--especially with Pauline, whose attitude toward her had been further strained by her continued conviction that Wilbur's life might have been saved. Indeed, so completely alleviating was Mr. Parsons's proposition that, stimulated by the thought that he was to be a greater gainer from the plan than she, Selma gave rein to her emotions by exclaiming with fervor: "Usually I like to think important plans over before coming to a decision; but this arrangement seems to me so sensible and natural and mutually advantageous, Mr. Parsons, that I see no reason why I shouldn't accept your offer now. God grant that I may be a worthy daughter to you--and in some measure take the place of the dear ones you have lost." "That's what I want," he said. "I took a liking to you the first time we met. Then it's settled?" "Yes. I suppose," she added, after a moment's hesitation--speaking with an accent of scorn--"I suppose there may be people--people like those who are called fashionable here--who will criticise the arrangement on the ground--er--of propriety, because I'm not a relation, and you are not very old. But I despise conventions such as that. They may be necessary for foreigners; but they are not meant for self-respecting American women. I fancy my sister-in-law may not wholly approve of it, but I don't know. I shall take pleasure in showing her and the rest that it would be wicked as well as foolish to let a flimsy suggestion of evil interfere with the happiness of two people situated as we are." Mr. Parsons seemed puzzled at first, as though he did not understand exactly what she meant, but when she concluded he said: "You come to me, as you have yourself stated, on the footing of a daughter. If folk are not content to mind their own business, I guess we needn't worry because they don't happen to be suited. There's one or two relations of mine would be glad to be in your shoes, but I don't know of anything in the Bible or the Constitution of the United States which forbids an old man from choosing the face he'll have opposite to him at table." "Or forbids the interchange of true sympathy--that priceless privilege," answered Selma, her liking for a sententious speech rising paramount even to the pleasure caused her by the allusion to her personal appearance. Nevertheless it was agreeable to be preferred to his female cousins on the score of comeliness. Accordingly, within six months of her husband's death, the transition to Benham was accomplished, and Selma was able to encounter the metaphorically open arms, referred to by Mrs. Earle, without feeling that she was a less important person than when she had been whisked off as a bride by Littleton, the rising architect. She was returning as the confidential, protecting companion of a successful, self-made old man, who was relying on her to make his new establishment a pleasure to himself and a credit to the wide-awake city in which he had elected to pass his remaining days. She was returning to a house on the River Drive (the aristocratic boulevard of Benham, where the river Nye makes a broad sweep to the south); a house not far distant from the Flagg mansion at which, as Mrs. Lewis Babcock, she had looked askance as a monument inimical to democratic simplicity. Wilbur had taught her that it was very ugly, and now that she saw it again after a lapse of years she was pleased to note that her new residence, though slightly smaller, had a more modern and distinguished air. The new house was of rough-hewn red sandstone, combining solid dignity and some artistic merit, for Benham had not stood still architecturally speaking. The River Drive was a grotesque, yet on the whole encouraging exhibit. Most of the residences had been designed by native talent, but under the spur of experiment even the plain, hard-headed builders had been constrained to dub themselves "architects," and adopt modern methods; and here and there stood evidences that the seed planted by Mrs. Hallett Taylor and Littleton had borne fruit, for Benham possessed at least half a dozen private houses which could defy criticism. The one selected by Mr. Parsons was not of these half dozen; but the plain, hard-headed builder who had erected it for the original owner was shrewd and imitative, and had avoided ambitious deviations from the type he wished to copy--the red sandstone, swell front variety, which ten years before would have seemed to the moral sense of Benham unduly cheerful. Mr. Parsons was so fortunate as to be able to buy it just after it had been completed, together with a stable and half an acre of ground, from one of the few Benhamites whose financial ventures had ended in disaster, and who was obliged to sell. It was a more ambitious residence than Mr. Parsons had desired, but it was the most available, inasmuch as he could occupy it at once. It had been painted and decorated within, but was unfurnished. Mr. Parsons, as a practical business man, engaged the builder to select and supply the bedroom and solid fittings, but it occurred to him to invite Selma to choose the furnishings for what he called the show rooms. Selma was delighted to visit once more the New York stores, free from the bridle of Wilbur's criticism and unrestrained by economy. She found to her satisfaction that the internal decoration of the new house was not unlike that of the Williamses' first habitation--that is, gay and bedizened; and she was resolved in the selection of her draperies and ornaments to buy things which suggested by their looks that they were handsome, and whose claim to distinction was not mere sober unobtrusiveness. She realized that some of her purchases would have made Wilbur squirm, but since his death she felt more sure than ever that even where art was concerned his taste was subdued, timid, and unimaginative. For instance, she believed that he would not have approved her choice of light-blue satin for the upholstery of the drawing-room, nor of a marble statue--an allegorical figure of Truth, duly draped, as its most conspicuous ornament. Selma was spared the embarrassment of her first husband's presence. Divorce is no bar to ordinary feminine curiosity as to the whereabouts of a former partner for life, and she had proved no exception to the rule. Mrs. Earle had kept her posted as to Babcock's career since their separation, and what she learned had tended merely to demonstrate the wisdom and justice of her action. As a divorced man he had, after a time, resumed the free and easy, coarse companionship to which he had been partial before his marriage, and had gradually become a heavy drinker. Presently he had neglected his business, a misfortune of which a rival concern had been quick to take advantage. The trend of his affairs had been steadily downhill, and had come to a crisis three months before Littleton's death, when, in order to avoid insolvency, he sold out his factory and business to the rival company, and accepted at the same hands the position of manager in a branch office in a city further west. Consequently, Selma could feel free from molestation or an appeal to her sensibilities. She preferred to think of Babcock as completely outside her life, as dead to her, and she would have disliked the possibility of meeting him in the flesh while shopping on Central avenue. It had been the only drawback to her proposed return to Benham. During the years of Selma's second marriage Benham had waxed rapidly in population and importance. People had been attracted thither by the varied industries of the city--alike those in search of fortune, and those offering themselves for employment in the mills, oil-works, and pork factories; and at the date of Littleton's death it boasted over one hundred and fifty thousand inhabitants. It was already the second city of the State in point of population, and was freely acknowledged to be the most wide-awake and enterprising. The civic spirit of Benham was reputed to be constantly and increasingly alert and progressive, notwithstanding the river Nye still ran the color of bean-soup above where it was drawn for drinking purposes, and the ability of a plumber, who had become an alderman, to provide a statue or lay out a public park was still unquestioned by the majority. Even to-day, when trained ability has obtained recognition in many quarters, the Benhamites at large are apt to resent criticism as aristocratic fault-finding; yet at this time that saving minority of souls who refused to regard everything which Benham did as perfection, and whose subsequent forlorn hopes and desperately won victories have little by little taught the community wisdom, if not modesty, was beginning to utter disagreeable strictures. Mrs. Margaret Rodney Earle, when she opened her arms to Selma and folded her to her bosom with a hug of welcome, was raging inwardly against this minority, and they had not been many minutes together before she gave utterance to her grievance. "You have come just in time to give us your sympathy and support in an important matter, my dear. Miss Bailey has been nominated for the School Board at the instance of the Executive Committee of the Benham Institute. We supposed that she would have plain sailing, for many of the voters have begun to recognize the justice of having one or two women on the School Board, and by hard work we had succeeded in getting her name put on the Democratic ticket. Judge, then, of our feelings when we learned that the Reform Club had decided to blacklist and refuse to support at the polls three of the six names on the ticket, including our Luella Bailey, on the ground of lack of experience in educational matters. The Reform Club has nominated three other persons--one of them a woman. And who do you suppose is the head and front of this unholy crusade?" "It sounds like Mrs. Hallett Taylor," answered Selma, sternly. "How did you know? What made you think so? How clever of you, Selma! Yes, she is the active spirit." "It was she who was at the bottom of Miss Bailey's rejection when she was my candidate for a position at Everdean College." "To be sure. I remember. This Reform Club, which was started a year or so ago, and which sets itself up as a censor of what we are trying to do in Benham, has nominated a Miss Snow, who is said to have travelled abroad studying the school systems of Europe." "As if that would help us in any way." "Precisely. She has probably come home with her head full of queer-fangled notions which would be out of keeping with our institutions. Just the reason why she shouldn't be chosen. We are greatly troubled as to the result, dear, for though we expect to win, the prejudice of some men against voting for a woman under any circumstances will operate against our candidate, so that this action of the Reform Club may possibly be the means of electing one of the men on the Republican ticket instead of Luella. Miss Snow hasn't the ghost of a chance. But that isn't all. These Reform Club nominations are preliminary to a bill before the Legislature to take away from the people the right to elect members of the school committee, and substitute an appointive board of specialists to serve during long terms of good behavior. As Mr. Lyons says, that's the real issue involved. It's quixotic and it isn't necessary. Haven't we always prided ourselves on our ability to keep our public schools the best in the world? And is there any doubt, Selma, that either you or I would be fully qualified to serve on the School Board though we haven't made any special study of primers and geographies? Luella Bailey hasn't had any special training, but she's smart and progressive, and the poor thing would like the recognition. We fixed on her because we thought it would help her to get ahead, for she has not been lucky in obtaining suitable employment. As Mr. Lyons says, a serious principle is involved. He has come out strong against the movement and declares that it is a direct menace to the intelligence of the plain people of the United States and a subtle invasion of their liberties." "Mr. Lyons? What Mr. Lyons is that?" "Yes, dear, it is the same one who managed your affair. Your Mr. Lyons. He has become an important man since you left Benham. He speaks delightfully, and is likely to receive the next Democratic nomination for Congress. He is in accord with all liberal movements, and a foe of everything exclusive, unchristian or arbitrary. He has declared his intention to oppose the bill when it is introduced, and I shall devote myself body and soul to working against it in case Luella Bailey is defeated. It is awkward because Mrs. Taylor is a member of the Institute, though she doesn't often come, and the club has never been in politics. But here when there was a chance to do Luella Bailey a good turn, and I'd been able through some of my newspaper friends to get her on the ticket, it seems to me positively unchristian--yes, that's the word--to try to keep her off the board. There are some things of course, Luella couldn't do--and if the position were superintendent of a hospital, for instance, I dare say that special training would be advantageous, though nursing can be picked up very rapidly by a keen intelligence: but to raise such objections in regard to a candidate for the School Board seems to me ridiculous as well as cruel. What we need there are open, receptive minds, free from fads and prejudice--wide-awake, progressive enthusiastic intellects. It worries me to see the Institute dragged into politics, but it is my duty to resist this undemocratic movement." "Surely," exclaimed Selma, with fire. "I am thankful I have come in time to help you. I understand exactly. I have been passing through just such experiences in New York--encountering and being rebuffed by just such people as those who belong to this Reform Club. My husband was beginning to see through them and to recognize that we were both tied hand and foot by their narrowness and lack of enthusiasm when he died. If he had lived, we would have moved to Benham shortly in order to escape from bondage. And one thing is certain, dear Mrs. Earle," she continued with intensity, "we must not permit this carping spirit of hostility to original and spontaneous effort to get a foothold in Benham. We must crush it, we must stamp it out." "Amen, my dear. I am delighted to hear you talk like that. I declare you would be very effective in public if you were roused." "Yes, I am roused, and I am willing to speak in public if it becomes necessary in order to keep Benham uncontaminated by the insidious canker of exclusiveness and the distrust of aspiring souls which a few narrow minds choose to term untrained. Am _I_ untrained? Am _I_ superficial and common? Do _I_ lack the appearance and behavior of a lady?" Selma accompanied these interrogatories with successive waves of the hand, as though she were branding so many falsehoods. "Assuredly not, Selma. I consider you"--and here Mrs. Earle gasped in the process of choosing her words--"I consider you one of our best trained and most independent minds--cultured, a friend of culture, and an earnest seeker after truth. If you are not a lady, neither am I, neither is anyone in Benham. Why do you ask, dear?" And without waiting for an answer, Mrs. Earle added with a touch of material wisdom, "You return to Benham under satisfactory, I might say, brilliant auspices. You will be the active spirit in this fine house, and be in a position to promote worthy intellectual and moral movements." "Thank heavens, yes. And to combat those which are unworthy and dangerous," exclaimed Selma, clasping her fingers, "I can count on the support of Mr. Parsons, God bless him! And it would seem at last as if I had, a real chance--a real chance at last. Mrs. Earle--Cora--I know you can keep a secret. I feel almost as though you were my mother, for there is no one else now to whom I can talk like this. I have not been happy in New York. I thought I was happy at first, but lately we have been miserable. My marriage--er--they drove my husband to the wall, and killed him. He was sensitive and noble, but not practical, and he fell a victim to the mercenary despotism of our surroundings. When I tried to help him they became jealous of me, and shut their doors in our faces." "You poor, poor child. I have suspected for some time that something was wrong." "It nearly killed me. But now, thank heaven, I breathe freely once more. I have lost my dear husband, but I have escaped from that prison-house; and with his memory to keep me merciless, I am eager to wage war against those influences which are conspiring to fetter the free-born soul and stifle spontaneity. Luella Bailey must be elected, and these people be taught that foreign ideas may flourish in New York, but cannot obtain root in Benham." Mrs. Earle wiped her eyes, which were running over as the result of this combination of confidence and eloquence. "If you don't mind my saying so, Selma, I never saw anyone so much improved as you. You always had ideas, and were well equipped, but now you speak as though you could remove mountains if necessary. It's a blessing for us as well as you that you're back among us once more." _ |
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