He waved a hand towards the backs of the a.s.semblage. "I suppose you recognize some of your own handicraft, don"t you, "Rory?" said he, laughing.
Aurora laughed, also. "A good many," said she frankly. "But the mail order business in ready-trimmed hats has cut into my trade a great deal of late. Then there are excursions into Columbus. Still, I see some of my bonnets here and there--even now and then a gown."
They both laughed yet again, cheerily, both knowing the philosophy of the poor. Further conversation at the time was cut off by the entrance of the musicians of the evening, an organization known as the Spring Valley Cornet Band. These young men, a dozen in number, made their way solemnly to a place adjacent to the platform, where presently they busied themselves with certain mild tapping of drums and soft moanings of alto horns and subdued tootlings of cornets.
The leader of the band was the chief clerk in the First National Bank, Mr. Jerome Westbrook by name, himself Spring Valley"s gla.s.s of fashion and mold of form, and not unconscious of the public attention attracted to himself in his present capacity. Now and again he looked out over the audience to see if he could locate a certain young lady, none less than Sallie Lester, the daughter of the president of his bank, upon whom he had bestowed the honor of his affections. He was willing to add thereto eke the honor of his hand.
It was as Aurora Lane had said--this annual gathering of Miss Julia"s was the social clearing house of the community. And this typical attendance, representative of the little city at its best, offered that strange contrast of the s.e.xes so notable in any American a.s.semblage. The men were ordinary of look and garb, astonishingly ordinary, if one might use the term; stalwart enough, but slouchy, shapeless, and ill-clad. Not so the women, who seemed as though of another and superior social world.
If here and there the face of a man seemed stolid, cloddish, peasant-like, not so any of the half dozen faces of the women next adjoining him. Type, cla.s.s--call what you like that which is owned by the average American woman, even of middle cla.s.s--that distinction was as obvious as is usual in all such gatherings. Scattered here and there through this audience, as in any audience of even the humblest sort in America, were a half dozen faces of young women, any of whom must have been called very beautiful, strikingly beautiful--beautiful as Aurora Lane must once have been.
The apparel of the men was nondescript. That of the women, however or wherever secured, made them creatures apart. The men, too, sat uncommunicative, silent; whereas their daughters or spouses turned, chattering, laughing, waving a hand to this or that friend. In short, the women availed themselves fully, as women will, of this opportunity of social intercourse. And always, as head turned to head, there was a look, a whispered word, of woman to woman. Little by little, in the mysterious way of such a.s.semblages, every woman in the house came to know that Aurora Lane and her boy--who had only been hid, and not dead, all these years--were seated on the back seat, next to Old Man Rawlins.
Did anyone ever hear the like of _that_? In reality Spring Valley was out to hear the rest of the news about Aurora Lane and her unfathered boy as soon as possible. Gossip covers all the nuances, the shades, the inner and hidden things of information, especially when information may be cla.s.sified as scandal. This is the real news. It never needs wings.
It needed no wings now.
Naturally, it was inc.u.mbent upon Judge Henderson to introduce a minister of the gospel to open the meeting with prayer--we Americans apologize to Providence at all public occasions, even our political conventions.
Naturally thereafter Judge Henderson rose once more, took a drink of water, and signaled to the leader of the Spring Valley Silver Cornet Band; whereupon Mr. Jerome Westbrook, wiping all previous trace of German silver from below his mustache, essayed once more the leadership in concord of sweet sounds. This brought Judge Henderson up to his introductory remarks, properly so-called.
He made no ill figure as he stood, immaculately clad as was his custom, his costume still being the long black coat, his white waistcoat, the white tie, which he had worn that afternoon in court. It was charged against him, by certain of his enemies, that Judge Henderson had been known to change his shirt twice in one day, but this was not commonly believed. That he changed it at least once every day had, however, come to be accepted in common credence, although this also was held as his sheer eccentricity.
His face was smooth-shaven, for really he was shaved daily, and not merely on Sat.u.r.day nights. His wide, easy, good-humored mouth, his large features, his well-defined brows, his full eye, his commanding figure, gave him a presence good enough for almost any stage. He stood easily now, accepting as his right the applause which greeted him, and smiled as he placed on the table beside him the inevitable gla.s.s of water at which he had sipped. Some said that in his own office Judge Henderson did not confine himself to water--but any leading citizen must have his enemies.
The worthy Judge made precisely what manner of address must be made on precisely such occasions. To him his audience was made up of fellow citizens, ladies and gentlemen. He accosted them with the deference and yet the confidence of some statesman of old. Indeed, he might have been scarce less a figure than Senator Thomas Hart Benton himself, so profuse--and so inaccurate--were the cla.s.sical quotations which he saw fit to employ. It had grown his custom to do this with care-free mind.
Indeed, there was but one here in this audience tonight who perhaps might have chided him for his Greek--a young man who sat far back in the rear, in a place near the door--a young man who none the less, it must be confessed, paid small attention to the Hendersonian allusions which had to do with literature, with history, the gentle arts, the culture, the progress of our proud republic, and of this particular American community.
So now it came on to the time of Reverend Henry B. Fullerton, who likewise spoke of literature and culture, patriotism and the glories of our republic. The other ministers also in due course, after certain uneasy consultation of the clock upon the opposite wall, spoke much in similar fashion.
After these formidable preliminaries, it was time for Judge Henderson to give the real address of the evening--this latter now delivered with frequent consultations of the large watch which he placed beside him on the table. So presently he came to such portion of his speech as requires the orator to say, "But, my friends, the hour grows late."
Whereafter presently, figuratively, he dismissed the audience with his blessing, well satisfied from the applause that his campaign was doing well. He had but casually and incidentally allowed it to be known that his own annual check to the city library was for a thousand dollars--no more than would cover the librarian"s salary.
By this time, it was a half-hour past midnight, and none present might say that he had not had full worth of all the moneys expended for this entertainment. It had been a great evening for the candidate. Moreover, most of the old ladies present had enjoyed themselves in social conversation regarding the absorbing news of the day. As for the half dozen young village beauties present, there was not one who did not know precisely where Don Lane sat--not even Sally Lester, who irritated Jerome Westbrook beyond measure when he saw her pretending to look at the clock at the back of the hall to see what time it was. Really, as Jerome Westbrook knew very well, she was only trying to see Don Lane, the newest young man in town--wholly impossible socially, but one who had made sudden history of interest in feminine eyes.
Moody and intent upon his own thoughts, Don Lane himself by no means realized the importance of the occasion so far as he himself and his mother were concerned. He did not know that he was on trial here, that they two were on inspection. His ears were deaf to the impa.s.sioned words of all and several of the orators of the evening. Before his eyes appeared only one face. It was that of a young girl with a face clean-cut and high-browed, with sweet and kindly eyes--the girl he was to meet tomorrow, to whom he was to say good-by--Anne Oglesby. "Anne!
Anne!" his heart was exclaiming all the time. For now he knew that he in turn must bruise yet another human heart, because of what had been, and in his brain was room now for no other thought, no other scene, no other face. There swept down upon him, if he thought of it at all now and then, only a feeling of the insufficiency, the narrowness, the unworthiness, the tawdriness, of all this which lay about him. And yet it was this to which he must come back--this was his world--this at least was the world in which his mother had made her own battle--had won for a time, and now had lost.
After midnight, when the a.s.sembly was dismissed, Spring Valley felt it had done its duty--it had come out to see Miss Julia"s library. Everyone who pa.s.sed Miss Julia, as she stood near the door, flushed and pleased, congratulated her on the progress she had made, on the neatness of her desks and shelves. Some said a word about the great work she was doing.
Others shook hands with the elevated elbow, smiled sweetly, and repeated, parrot-like, "So glad!" and "Thanks so much!" In any case, little by little the room was cleared. There remained only the unspeakable desolation of any room lately occupied by a crowd--the litter of paper and odds and ends, the dulled lights, the heavy and oppressive air.
In her place, back of the dividing line which fenced off the socially elect, stood Aurora Lane, pale, weary, and yet composed, her hands folded low before her. She looked straight ahead, nor asked any of these people pa.s.sing out for that recognition which she knew they would not give her. Don himself, speaking now and then to the kindly old man who retained his place at their side, found himself now and again in spite of himself wondering that of all these who pa.s.sed, and of these many who turned and gazed their way, none ventured a greeting. His own face grew hard. All life to him had been a sweet, happy, sunny thing till now. He never had known any contest but that of sport, and there, even in defeat, he had met sportsmanship. He had not learned that in human life as we live it, honor and fair play and generosity and justice are things not in any great demand, nor sportsmanship in any general practice.
"Come, we must go," said Aurora at length.
They were the last to leave the room, although they might have been the first. In a brief lesson Don Lane"s mother had taught him much.
CHAPTER VII
AT MIDNIGHT
Miss Julia, late mistress of ceremonies, pa.s.sed here and there, turning out the lights. The bonnets and blouses all had departed, the coughs and shufflings had subsided. She might give way now to the weariness, the reaction, attendant upon long hours of eager enterprise.
Strange, she did not look about to find her friend, Aurora Lane, did not even hasten to take the hand of Don Lane before he had left the room.
The little group at the door--Aurora, Don and the old minister, now was increased in the entry way by the addition of none less than the tall and awkward figure of Horace Brooks, who came forward, smiling uncertainly as the other three finally emerged from the door. Aurora, quickly divining his purpose, made some hesitating excuse, and darted back into the hall, where now Miss Julia had well accomplished the purpose of extinguishing the lights. But what Aurora saw caused her to withdraw softly, and not to speak to Miss Julia at all that evening!
One by one the switches had cut off the side lights, the desk lights, those of the ceiling. Two lights remained burning at the back of the little platform where the speakers had sat, one electrolier on each side of the portrait over which still hung the draped flag of the Union--the portrait of the Honorable William Henderson, lawyer, judge, politician and leading citizen.
Before this portrait stood Julia Delafield, her smooth-topped stick resting on the little table against which she supported herself now. She stood, both her hands clasped at her bosom. She was looking up directly at the lighted features of this portrait, and on her face was so rapt a look, her gaze was so much that of one adoring a being of another world--so much ardor was in her face, pale as it was--that Aurora Lane, seeing and knowing much, all with a sudden wrench of her own heart, withdrew silently, thankful that Miss Julia had not known.
"Miss Julia"s tired," said she to her companions, who still stood waiting at the entry way. "We"ll not disturb her tonight, Don, after all. I know she wants to see you. You can imagine she has a thousand things to talk about--books, pictures, everything. But tonight we"ll just go on home. We"ll come again tomorrow."
The people of Spring Valley scattered this way and that from the cla.s.sical front of the Carnegie Library. They pa.s.sed away in long streams in each direction on the street, which, arched across in places by the wide branches of the soft maples, lay half lighted by the moon, and yet more by the flickering arc light sputtering at the top of its mast at the corner of the public square, which made the shadows sheer black. So close did the trees stand to the street that the summer wind could not get through them to lighten the pall of the night"s sultriness.
In Spring Valley the climate in the summer time was at times so balefully hot that common folk were forced to take the mattress from the bed and spread it on the floor at the front door in order to get a partial breath of air. The atmosphere was close and heavy under the trees tonight, and some commented on the fact as they pa.s.sed on toward the public square where yet further separations of the scattered groups must ensue.
They pa.s.sed along a street lined by residence houses, some small, others large, all hedged about with shrubs or trees, all with little flower beds; a certain conformity to accepted canons in good taste being exacted of all who dwelt in the village. Each one of this dispersing a.s.semblage knew his neighbor, and all the other neighbors of the town.
This was general plebiscite. Moreover, it seemed to have a certain purpose--an ultimate purpose of justice.
This was the actual jury of peers--this long stream of halting, hesitating figures who at midnight strolled on across the patch-work shadows of the maples. And before it had come on for trial the case of Aurora Lane and her unfathered boy.
"Look at them go!" said Old Hod Brooks, chuckling bitterly to himself as he and his companions turned toward the public square, this same thought occurring to him. "For instance, there"s an even dozen just ahead of us now, if we cared to poll them."
Had this jury been polled it might have been found in some part resembling the original concourse which filled Noah"s ark, since for the most part they walked two and two. Ben McQuaid, traveling salesman--the deadly rival of Jerome Westbrook in matters of fashion--who traveled out of Chicago but had his home in Spring Valley, because it was cheaper living there--walked now arm in arm with Newman, the clothing merchant of the Golden Eagle. He inquired solicitously as to the condition of business. Newman said he "gouldn"t gomplaim, though gollections mide be better." But that was not in the least what both were thinking of at that time.
"Seems like there was a little rukus on the square today," said McQuaid casually. "I just heard of it--Number Four come in a little late today."
"Vell, yes," said Newman, looking around to see that he might not be heard. "I ain"t saying a vord about it--but listen, that kid has the punch in either hand--the last time you should have seen it--you see, they got at it twice now already----"
They drew apart, because they now saw approaching them too closely at the rear two of the ministers of the gospel. These found themselves none too happily a.s.sorted.
"I enjoyed your remarks very much indeed, Brother Burnham," said Reverend Fullerton, with a mendacity for which no doubt the recording angel dropped a suitable tear. "I agree with you that the tendency towards looseness of living in modern life----"
Reverend Fullerton coughed ominously. Anyone very close to him might have heard half-whispered words of "brazen exhibition" and "necessity of public measures."
But these did not speak freely, because close behind them came yet two--Dr. Arthur Bowling, the homeopathic physician, who somewhat against his will had fallen into the company of Miss Elvira Sonsteby. Now, Miss Elvira Sonsteby was the town"s professional invalid. She tried regularly all the doctors in turn as they arrived. It was well known of all that she had suffered all the diseases ever known to man, as well as many of which no man ever had known. Just now, with much eagerness, she was explaining to Dr. Bowling that she feared her neuritis had become complicated with valvular heart trouble, and that she suspected gall stones as well. As to her rheumatism, of course she had long since given up all hope of that--but this trouble in her arm----; and much other conversation extremely painful to Dr. Bowling at that time, because he was much possessed of the inclination to step forward a few paces and walk with Sally Lester, the banker"s daughter. But even they hit common ground of converse when Miss Sonsteby voiced her belief that it was an outrage for a public personage like a certain milliner she could name if she cared to say, to appear in public on an occasion such as this, when only the most refined personages of the town should have been invited.
"I am sure," said she in tense tones to the young doctor, "that although alone in the world myself--not so old as some would try to make me out, either--I would die rather than have anyone voice the slightest suspicion of blame against me--the slightest blemish on my name. Now, _that_ woman...."
Back of these two came yet others. Old Mr. Rawlins had gently said his farewells to Aurora and her son when they emerged upon the open street, and as he advanced pa.s.sed certain of these groups, until presently he fell in with none less than Miss Hattie Clarkson, soprano and elocutionist of Spring Valley, who had favored the a.s.semblage that evening with two selections, but who, it seemed, was not wholly satisfied.
"It seemed to me, Mr. Rawlins," said she, throwing about her shoulders the light scarf of tulle which she always wore when entertaining professionally--"that the exercises rather dragged tonight. Of course, we know what to expect when Judge Henderson speaks--he"s very entertaining, to be sure. But it seemed to me that had there been a selection or two more of elocutionary sort it might have lightened up the evening----Who is that coming just back of us?" she whispered, looking back over her shoulder.
"That"s Aurora Lane, my dear," said Mr. Rawlins, quietly. "Her son is with her."
"Indeed!"