Mr. Hodder said he had been considering the matter ever since his arrival. He had only one criticism of inst.i.tutional work, that in his observation it did not bring the people whom it reached into the Church in any great numbers. Perhaps that were too much to ask, in these days.
For his part he would willingly a.s.sume the extra burden, and he was far from denying the positive good such work accomplished through a.s.sociation and by the raising of standards.
Mr. Ferguson declared his readiness to help. Many of his salesgirls, he said, lived in this part of the city, and he would be glad to do anything in his power towards keeping them out of the dance-halls and such places.
A committee was finally appointed consisting of Mr. Parr, Mr. Atterbury, and the rector, to consult architects and to decide upon a site.
Hodder began a correspondence with experts in other cities, collected plans, pamphlets, statistics; spent hours with the great child-specialist, Dr. Jarvis, and with certain clergymen who believed in inst.i.tutionalism as the hope of the future.
But McCrae was provokingly non-committal.
"Oh, they may try it," he a.s.sented somewhat grudgingly, one day when the rector had laid out for his inspection the architects" sketch for the settlement house. "No doubt it will help many poor bodies along."
"Is there anything else?" the rector asked, looking searchingly at his a.s.sistant.
"It may as well be that," replied McCrae.
The suspicion began to dawn on Hodder that the Scotch man"s ideals were as high as his own. Both of them, secretly, regarded the new scheme as a compromise, a yielding to the inevitable....
Mr. Ferguson"s remark that an enlarged parish house and a new settlement house might help to keep some of the young women employed in his department store out of the dance-halls interested Hodder, who conceived the idea of a dance-hall of their own. For the rector, in the course of his bachelor shopping, often resorted to the emporium of his vestryman, to stand on the stairway which carried him upward without lifting his feet, to roam, fascinated, through the mazes of its aisles, where he invariably got lost, and was rescued by suave floor-walkers or pert young women in black gowns and white collars and cuffs. But they were not all pert--there were many characters, many types. And he often wondered whether they did not get tired standing on their feet all day long, hesitating to ask them; speculated on their lives--flung as most of them were on a heedless city, and left to shift for themselves. Why was it that the Church which cared for Mr. Ferguson"s soul was unable to get in touch with, or make an appeal to, those of his thousand employees?
It might indeed have been said that Francis Ferguson cared for his own soul, as he cared for the rest of his property, and kept it carefully insured,--somewhat, perhaps, on the principle of Pascal"s wager. That he had been a benefactor to his city no one would deny who had seen the facade that covered a whole block in the business district from Tower to Vine, surmounted by a red standard with the familiar motto, "When in doubt, go to Ferguson"s." At Ferguson"s you could buy anything from a pen-wiper to a piano or a Paris gown; sit in a cool restaurant in summer or in a palm garden in winter; leave your baby--if you had one--in charge of the most capable trained nurses; if your taste were literary, mull over the novels in the Book Department; if you were stout, you might be reduced in the Hygiene Department, unknown to your husband and intimate friends. In short, if there were any virtuous human wish in the power of genius to gratify, Ferguson"s was the place. They, even taught you how to cook. It was a modern Aladdin"s palace: and, like everything else modern, much more wonderful than the original. And the soda might be likened to the waters of Trevi,--to partake of which is to return.
"When in doubt, go to Ferguson!" Thus Mrs. Larrabbee and other ladies interested in good works had altered his motto. He was one of the supporters of Galt House, into which some of his own young saleswomen had occasionally strayed; and none, save Mr. Parr alone, had been so liberal in his gifts. Holder invariably found it difficult to reconcile the una.s.suming man, whose conversation was so commonplace, with the t.i.tanic genius who had created Ferguson"s; nor indeed with the owner of the imposing marble mansion at Number 5, Park Street.
The rector occasionally dined there. He had acquired a real affection for Mrs. Ferguson, who resembled a burgomaster"s wife in her evening gowns and jewels, and whose simple social ambitions had been gratified beyond her dreams. Her heart had not shrunken in the process, nor had she forgotten her somewhat heterogeneous acquaintances in the southern part of the city. And it was true that when Gertrude Constable had nearly died of appendicitis, it was on this lady"s broad bosom that Mrs.
Constable had wept. Mrs. Ferguson had haunted the house, regardless of criticism, and actually quivering with sympathy. Her more important dinner parties might have been likened to ill-matched fours-in-hand, and Holder had sometimes felt more of pity than of amus.e.m.e.nt as she sat with an expression of terror on her face, helplessly watching certain unruly individuals taking their bits in their teeth and galloping madly downhill. On one occasion, when he sat beside her, a young man, who shall be nameless, was suddenly heard to remark in the midst of an accidental lull:
"I never go to church. What"s the use? I"m afraid most of us don"t believe in h.e.l.l any more."
A silence followed: of the sort that chills. And the young man, glancing down the long board at the clergyman, became as red as the carnation in his b.u.t.tonhole, and in his extremity gulped down more champagne.
"Things are in a dreadful state nowadays!" Mrs. Ferguson gasped to a paralyzed company, and turned an agonized face to Holder. "I"m so sorry," she said, "I don"t know why I asked him to-night, except that I have to have a young man for Nan, and he"s just come to the city, and I was sorry for him. He"s very promising in a business way; he"s in Mr.
Plimpton"s trust company."
"Please don"t let it trouble you." Holder turned and smiled a little, and added whimsically: "We may as well face the truth."
"Oh, I should expect you to be good about it, but it was unpardonable,"
she cried....
In the intervals when he gained her attention he strove, by talking lightly of other things, to take her mind off the incident, but somehow it had left him strangely and--he felt--disproportionately depressed,--although he had believed himself capable of facing more or less philosophically that condition which the speaker had so frankly expressed. Yet the remark, somehow, had had an illuminating effect like a flashlight, revealing to him the isolation of the Church as never before. And after dinner, as they were going to the smoking-room, the offender accosted him shamefacedly.
"I"m awfully sorry, Mr. Holder," he stammered.
That the tall rector"s regard was kindly did not relieve his discomfort.
Hodder laid a hand on his shoulder.
"Don"t worry about it," he answered, "I have only one regret as to what you said--that it is true."
The other looked at him curiously.
"It"s mighty decent of you to take it this way," he laid. Further speech failed him.
He was a nice-looking young man, with firm white teeth, and honesty was written all over his boyish face. And the palpable fact that his regret was more on the clergyman"s account than for the social faux pas drew Holder the more, since it bespoke a genuineness of character.
He did not see the yearning in the rector"s eyes as he turned away...
Why was it they could not be standing side by side, fighting the same fight? The Church had lost him, and thousands like him, and she needed them; could not, indeed, do without them.
Where, indeed, were the young men? They did not bother their heads about spiritual matters any more. But were they not, he asked himself, franker than many of these others, the so-called pillars of the spiritual structure?
Mr. Plimpton accosted him. "I congratulate you upon the new plans, Mr.
Hodder,--they"re great," he said. "Mr. Parr and our host are coming down handsomely, eh? When we get the new settlement house we"ll have a plant as up-to-date as any church in the country. When do you break ground?"
"Not until autumn, I believe," Hodder replied. "There are a good many details to decide upon yet."
"Well, I congratulate you."
Mr. Plimpton was forever congratulating.
"Up-to-date"--"plant"! More illuminating words, eloquent of Mr.
Plimpton"s ideals. St. John"s down at the heels, to be brought up to the state of efficiency of Mr. Plimpton"s trust company! It was by no means the first time he had heard modern attributes on Mr. Plimpton"s lips applied to a sacred inst.i.tution, but to-night they had a profoundly disquieting effect. To-night, a certain clairvoyance had been vouchsafed him, and he beheld these men, his a.s.sociates and supporters, with a detachment never before achieved.
They settled in groups about the room, which was square and high, and panelled in Italian walnut, with fluted pilasters,--the capitals of which were elaborately carved. And Hodder found himself on a deep leather sofa in a corner engaged in a desultory and automatic conversation with Everett Constable. Mr. Plimpton, with a large cigar between his lips, was the radiating centre of one of the liveliest groups, and of him the rector had fallen into a consideration, piecing together bits of information that hitherto had floated meaninglessly in his mind. It was Mrs. Larrabbee who had given character to the career of the still comparatively youthful and unquestionably energetic president of the Chamber of Commerce by likening it to a great spiral, starting somewhere in outer regions of twilight, and gradually drawing nearer to the centre, from which he had never taken his eyes. At the centre were Eldon Parr and Charlotte Gore. Wallis Plimpton had made himself indispensable to both.
His campaign for the daughter of Thurston Gore had been comparable to one of the great sieges of history, for Mr. Plimpton was a laughing-stock when he sat down before that fortress. At the end of ten years, Charlotte had capitulated, with a sigh of relief, realizing at last her destiny. She had become slightly stout, revealing, as time went on, no wrinkles--a proof that the union was founded on something more enduring than poetry: Statesmanship--that was the secret! Step by step, slowly but surely, the memoranda in that matrimonial portfolio were growing into accomplished facts; all events, such as displacements of power, were foreseen; and the Plimptons, like Bismarck, had only to indicate, in case of sudden news, the pigeonhole where the plan of any particular campaign was filed.
Mrs. Larrabbee"s temptation to be witty at the expense of those for whom she had no liking had led Hodder to discount the sketch. He had not disliked Mr. Plimpton, who had done him many little kindnesses. He was good-natured, never ruffled, widely tolerant, hail-fellow-well-met with everybody, and he had enlivened many a vestry meeting with his stories.
It were hypercritical to accuse him of a lack of originality. And if by taking thought, he had arrived, from nowhere, at his present position of ease and eminence, success had not turned to ashes in his mouth. He fairly exhaled well-being, happiness, and good cheer. Life had gone well with him, he wished the same to others.
But to-night, from his corner, Hodder seemed to see Mr. Plimpton with new eyes. Not that he stood revealed a villain, which he was far from being; it was the air of sophistication, of good-natured if cynical acceptance of things as they were--and plenty good enough, too!--that jarred upon the rector in his new mood, and it was made manifest to him as never before why his appeals from the pulpit had lacked efficacy.
Mr. Plimpton didn"t want the world changed! And in this desire he represented the men in that room, and the majority of the congregation of St. John"s. The rector had felt something of this before, and it seemed to him astonishing that the revelation had not come to him sooner. Did any one of them, in his heart, care anything for the ideals and aspirations of the Church?
As he gazed at them through the gathering smoke they had become strangers, receded all at once to a great distance.... Across the room he caught the name, Bedloe Hubbell, p.r.o.nounced with peculiar bitterness by Mr. Ferguson. At his side Everett Constable was alert, listening.
"Ten years ago," said a stout Mr. Varnum, the President of the Third National Bank, "if you"d told me that that man was to become a demagogue and a reformer, I wouldn"t have believed you. Why, his company used to take rebates from the L. & G., and the Southern--I know it." He emphasized the statement with a blow on the table that made the liqueur gla.s.ses dance. "And now, with his Munic.i.p.al League, he"s going to clean up the city, is he? Put in a reform mayor. Show up what he calls the Consolidated Tractions Company scandal. Pooh!"
"You got out all right, Varnum. You won"t be locked up," said Mr.
Plimpton, banteringly.
"So did you," retorted Varnum.
"So did Ferguson, so did Constable."
"So did Eldon Parr," remarked another man, amidst a climax of laughter.
"Langmaid handled that pretty well."
Hodder felt Everett Constable fidget.