Some friends of Mrs. Blythe"s came hunting Mary just then, to carry her off to the hurricane deck, where something of especial interest was going on. There was no more time for serious meditation, and the combination of youth and mirth and moonlight worked its magical charm.
By the time the boat had made its return trip, Mary was restored to her usual normal self, and to the equanimity that the heat and the slums and Pink"s letter had upset. When the lights of the town streamed out across the river to meet them, she was rested and refreshed, ready to take up the next day"s work with her usual enthusiasm.
It was late when she reached home, but her long sleep in the afternoon made her wakeful, and she sat up till after midnight trying to compose a satisfactory answer to Pink"s letter. It was a depressing task, and she tore up page after page, in her effort to make her refusal as kind as possible, and yet to make him understand that it was final.
When it was finished and sealed she drew another envelope towards her, intending to address it to Phil. Then she hesitated and pushed it aside, saying:
"I"d better wait until I"m in a more cheerful frame of mind. If I write now it"ll be so full of slums and disappointments that it"ll give him the doldrums."
CHAPTER V
MARY AND THE "BIG OPPORTUNITY"
The cheerful frame of mind came soon, but it was nearly a month before that letter was written. Unlike the others which preceded it, this one was not thrust under the rubber band that held the many missives from "The Little Vicar." It was slipped into Phil"s pocket; for the package, with all the rest of the contents of the private drawer in his desk, reposed in the bottom of his trunk. His work in Mexico was done and he was starting back to the States.
He had expected to buy his ticket straight through to New York, and retrace his steps as far as Lloydsboro Valley later. Rob Moore had written him that Lloyd was arranging for a house-party during the Thanksgiving holidays, and that he and Alex Shelby and Mary Ware were to be included among the guests, and for him to make his plans accordingly.
Mary"s letter also mentioned this house-party. She had been invited but could not accept. She had been too extravagant the month before, she told him in a joking way.
"I have squandered my princely income on paltry trifles, and now must pay the penalty. I must see the door of Paradise slam in my face and shut me away into outer darkness. But, seriously, even if I could afford the trip, I could not take so much time. Mrs. Blythe needs me. We are straining every nerve to accomplish certain things before the next session of the Legislature, when the bill for better housing is to be brought up. Oh, I am sure that you understand, knowing how I love the Valley and the blessed people in it, that a house-party at Oaklea, just that alone, would be little short of heaven for me. But to meet the Best Man there, and Kitty Walton and Katie Mallard and all the rest--well, I can"t talk about it calmly. The thought of missing it is too grievous to mention in public. Enough said. Only the lonely pillow and the midnight hour shall hear my plaint.
"I couldn"t possibly bear the disappointment if we were not so busy.
Mrs. Blythe is ma.s.sing her forces like a major-general, and I am too deeply interested in the fight to let my personal affairs stand in the way. Three months ago, in my innocence and ignorance, I could not have believed that any fight would be necessary. I would have taken it for granted that all one had to do was to put the plain facts before the public and show what a danger and disgrace such houses are to a community, and it would rise up of its own accord to change conditions.
I was utterly amazed when I found that there are respectable men who not only will do nothing to help, but will throw all their weight on the other side, and spend hundreds of dollars to prevent the pa.s.sage of such a law.
"And I"ve learned a lot about politics, too. I"ve come to see that it"s just a great, greedy hand, reaching out to get the best of everything for itself. You don"t see how it _could_ want to interfere with anything like giving people decenter houses to live in, and wiping the causes of disease out of the world, but it does, and it dips in just where you"d least expect it. That is why Mrs. Blythe is so anxiously watching the results of the city election, which is to be held next week.
"Mr. Stoner, the owner of Diamond Row, is one of the candidates for office, and if he gets in he"ll have it in his power to pull lots of wires against us in the Legislature. There is almost no hope of defeating him. Don"t think that Mrs. Blythe has gone in personally for politics or anything like that, because she hasn"t. But she has waked up a lot of influential people to work for her cause, and induced one of the foremost men in the senate to introduce the bill. Also she has managed to get an invitation to explain it all to a big audience that will be in the Opera House next week, before the election.
"We are so excited over that, for it is one of the Big Opportunities that we hope will count for a great deal. She has a love of a new gown to wear, and a big black hat with plumes, and her speech is certainly soul-stirring. I wish you could hear her. It"s nothing but "the short and simple annals of the poor," but when she gets done there won"t be "a dry eye in the house." That"s the highest praise that the Riverville _Herald_ can give, and it gives it to her so often that it has become a household joke at the Blythes."
When Phil slipped this letter into his pocket he had changed his mind about buying a ticket to New York. He had decided to take a roundabout route by way of Riverville, with the privilege of a short stop-over. He intended that Mary should be one of the guests at the house-party, and he knew that the only way to persuade her was to go in person and answer each objection as it was raised. She had written jokingly of her disappointment, but her very effort to make light of it seemed pathetic to him, and showed him how deeply she felt it.
All the way up from Mexico his thoughts kept drifting back to her. He wondered if he would find her greatly changed. She had pa.s.sed through so much in the time he had been away, yet he was sure that he would find her the same st.u.r.dy, valiant little soul that had challenged his admiration when she was a child. He wondered what effect her mother"s death had had upon her, and what had been the outcome of her a.s.sociation with a woman like Mrs. Blythe, one who made addresses in public. He hoped that Mary wouldn"t imbibe any strong-minded, women"s rights notions to detract from her feminine charm. He was glad she had mentioned so enthusiastically the "love of a gown, and the big, black plumed hat" that Mrs. Blythe was to wear.
It would take a great deal to eradicate Mary"s love of pretty clothes.
That trait of hers had always amused him. He recalled more than one Sunday at Ware"s Wigwam when she insisted on putting on her "rosebud sash" to wear walking on the desert, when there was nothing but the owls and the jack-rabbits to take notice. And he recalled the big hat-box she had squeezed into the automobile that day in New York, when he took the girls out to the Wayside Inn, and how blissfully she peeped at the lilac-trimmed concoction within from time to time.
A hot box delayed Phil"s train awhile on the first day of his journey, and a disabled engine on another, so that he missed the St. Louis connection, and was a day late getting into Riverville. It happened most unfortunately for his plans and the limited time he had to spare, that it was the very day of the "Big Opportunity," when Mrs. Blythe was to speak in the Opera House, to a crowd which would a.s.semble to hear several other speakers, one of national importance.
Phil did not discover this until after he had reached the hotel. Ha wanted his meeting with Mary to be as great a surprise to her as it had been the day he met her coming across the field of blue-bonnets in Bauer. But he also wanted to be sure of finding her at home when he called. So while he waited for his late luncheon to be served, he walked into the telephone booth and called up the boarding-house. Mrs. Crum took his message, with the answer that Miss Ware had not been at the house for over a week. She had been so busy that she was spending her nights as well as her days with Mrs. Blythe, and probably would not return to her room for another week. She advised him to call up Mr.
Dudley Blythe"s residence.
The maid answered his ring at that place, and asked that he leave a message for Mrs. Blythe, who was resting and could not be disturbed, as she was to speak at the Opera House in a little while. Miss Ware? No, the maid could not say where she was, but had heard her say something had happened which called her down on Myrtle Street. She knew that Mrs.
Blythe had arranged to meet her there in her auto on her way to the Opera House. Probably they would be back about six o"clock.
Phil hung up the receiver impatiently. He hadn"t come all the way from Mexico to listen to a speech on housing reform, but, under the circ.u.mstances, he had no other choice if he was to find Mary before dark. Then he laughed outright, thinking of her amazement if she should happen to catch sight of him in the audience. He supposed she would naturally sit near the front, and he could easily locate her. He didn"t dare run the risk of suddenly sitting down beside her. One never knew what Mary would say or do when very much surprised. It would be better to send an usher with a note, asking her to meet him at the entrance and then--well, Mary should decide how and where they should spend the rest of the afternoon together. It was a chilly, gray day in early November, a trifle cold either for an auto spin or a ride on the river. But they must go to some place where they could have a long, uninterrupted talk, and he could tell her all he had come to Riverville to say.
With his pulses quickening at the thought, he left the hotel for a brisk walk along the river, until time to go to the place of meeting.
Meanwhile Mary was having an exciting experience down at Diamond Row. A message had called her there just as they arose from the lunch-table.
"Oh, why couldn"t it have come sooner," she mourned, "before I was all dressed up so spick and span for your grand speechifying occasion? I always feel as if I ought to be fumigated when I come back from there.
More than likely it"s just another complaint that old Mrs. Donegan wants to lodge against the universe. She seems to think lately that it owes her a special grudge, and that my ears are Heaven-ordained funnels for her to pour her troubles into."
But it was not Mrs. Donegan"s troubles this time which summoned her, although that excitable old woman met her, crying and wringing her hands. It was for a neighbor"s misfortunes that she invoked Mary"s aid.
Dena Barowsky, a frail girl in the room above hers, who supported a family by her work in the factory, had had a bad fall.
"Both legs broken and all hurted inside she is!" wailed Mrs. Donegan, eager to be the first to tell the bad news.
"Where is she?" asked Mary. "Where did it happen? At the factory?"
Half a dozen eager voices interrupted each other to tell her. It seemed as if all the inmates of the tenement had gathered on the stairs and the landing to discuss the accident in sympathizing little groups. It was something which might have happened to any one of them. Dena Barowsky had come home from the factory at noon to fix a bite and sup for her old father, who was worse than usual, and while going down the rickety stairs to the cellar for some reason, had fallen. A loose board had tripped her, so that she pitched against the bannister, which was so rotten that it broke under her weight, and she fell headlong into the cellar.
A doctor was in the room with her now, examining to find how badly she was hurt, Mrs. Donegan explained. The saints only knew what would become of the family if it should be so that she was laid up long. Her father was bedridden, and her mother so queer in her head that she did nothing but sit in a corner and mutter to herself all day long. Luckily there wasn"t more than a foot of water in the cellar, and they got her out right away. It had been half full when little Terence Reilly fell in, for that was the time of the backwater in the spring freshets.
Following half a dozen self-appointed guides, Mary picked her way to the stairway and looked down. The broken piece of rotten timber, the gaping hole in the splintered bannister, the dark gleam of the water beneath, told their own story. One long, horrified look was enough for Mary. The others hung over the spot as if it held some unexplainable fascination, pointing out the step which tripped her first, the rusty nail to which still clung a shred of her dress torn out in falling, the jagged splinter that must have been the one which made the gash in her face.
With a shudder Mary turned away and asked to be taken to Dena"s room. At the opening of the door a strong odor of anaesthetics rose above the mouldy smell of the unventilated apartment, which was made still closer by the inquisitive neighbors whom the doctor"s orders had not been able to bar out. Despite his sternness they gathered in the corners, watching the white-faced girl on the bed. She was moaning, though unconscious.
This was not the first time Mary had met the young doctor in such places. He looked up with evident relief at her entrance.
"It"s a case for a district nurse," he said, when he had explained briefly in a low tone the seriousness of the injuries. He spoke purposely in medical terms so that the old father, sobbing childishly on the opposite bed, could not understand the gravity of the situation.
"I"ll find the nurse at once and send her just as soon as possible,"
promised Mary. "I can telephone from the corner grocery."
She hurried out, thankful for the Organized Charities which made such help possible, and remembering with a queer mixture of resentment and grat.i.tude that it was the owner of this disgraceful Diamond Row, Mr.
Stoner himself, who had made such a generous contribution to the a.s.sociation that they were able to hire an extra nurse for this part of town.
"If he had only gone at the root of the matter," wailed Mary, inwardly, "and used the "ounce of prevention," there would have been no need for this great "pound of cure." There wouldn"t have been this dreadful accident."
At the foot of the landing she was halted again by old Mrs. Donegan, who was haranguing an interested crowd while she waited for Mary"s appearance. She was waving a time-yellowed and tattered newspaper in their faces, and calling attention to the headlines and pictures on the front page.
"We want you should take it to Mrs. Blythe, and let her put it in the great speech she"ll be after making this day. The whole town ought to know what happened this ten years gone on account of that same stairway.
Mrs. Reilly didn"t want to let the paper go. She couldn"t bear the thought of losing that picture of little Terence. But I took it from her, and told her you"d never let it out of your hands till you brought it back safe to her. That it was for the good of us all you"d be using it."
The telephone was in use when Mary entered the grocery, and while she waited for her turn, she glanced through the paper that Mrs. Donegan had thrust into her hands. She had already seen the marked account of the funeral on one of her visits to old Mrs. Reilly, for she had been asked on that trying occasion to read it aloud; but she had not read until now the article on the opposite page, which gave a graphic description of the tenement in which the accident occurred, and which indignantly called attention to the criminal negligence which had caused the death of a tenant. No names were given, but Mary knew that Burke Stoner owned the premises then, and that in the ten years he had collected nearly fifty thousand dollars in rents from the inmates of Diamond Row. She had been busy collecting statistics as well as other kinds of information since her first interview with his agent, and the recording angel was not the only one who had a long list of black figures set down against his name. Mary kept hers on a page by itself in a neat little memorandum book, biding her time to sound the promised trumpet before him.
It was a very grim and determined Mary who came out of the corner grocery five minutes later. She had been able to locate the nurse much sooner than she expected to, and was on her way back to Dena"s room to report that help was coming. And when a little later the honk of Mrs.
Blythe"s machine sounded at the curbstone in front of Diamond Row, she climbed into her seat beside her friend without a glance at the new gown and the picture hat she was wearing for the first time. That omission in itself showed Mrs. Blythe that something was wrong, for usually Mary was keenly interested in her appearance, and never failed to express her admiration of anything which she especially admired.
"What"s gone wrong?" asked Mrs. Blythe, as they whirled around a corner and turned into a pleasanter part of the town.
For once Mary waited before speaking, taking a deep breath and pressing her lips tightly together. Then she answered in a tense way: