Besides, Mr. Beirne will leave his money to the Masons. Now for some beauty slumber--I"m quite ready for it, too! Sleep well, Mats dear."
They kissed, and parted for sweet dreams. At the door, Cally, pausing, said:
"Oh, Mats, go with me to Madame Smythe"s to-morrow? I"m buying things for New York."
But Mats could not reply, being already at her devotions....
In her own room, Cally prayed briefly with preoccupied thoughts, and rising, removed her thin blue robe, switched out the lights, raised shades and windows. In the quiet street below, a cat trotted silently, swallowed up as she watched in an immense flickering shadow from the tall street light. The girl stood a moment, looking down, a strange wish in her heart.
She wished for a confidante, some one to tell her troubles to. Mamma, of course, was impossible in this connection; you never told things to mamma, and besides, they were barely on speaking terms most of the time now. Mattie was hardly less out of the question: a girl with many excellent merits and her best friend, but the last person you would ever dream of giving yourself away to. But then you really could not trust anybody as far as that. In all the world there was no one to whom she could go and freely pour out her unhappiness and her heart.
A self-contained and self-sufficient girl, she now felt lonesomely that it would be a great comfort to talk everything over with somebody.
Things seemed only to get worse by being kept locked up so tight in her own bosom. Everything was changing so, just in a little while; you could not go by the old landmarks any more. Only a few weeks ago life had been more serene, more secure and halcyon than ever before. Now, as from the clouds, one hard stroke fell after another; old established certainties exploded with a bang all about. Nothing seemed to be fixed or to be relied upon any more, nothing seemed to be settled. How had she fallen only this afternoon, supposing herself high-born of great inst.i.tutions, to find herself in the turning of an eyelash merely the creature of an ugly little rattletrap!... But no,--no! That was simply ridiculous.
Business was like that. No one had ever really supposed that a factory could possibly be anything different....
Agitating such matters as these, Cally Heth got into bed and pulled up the covers. She repelled the thought of the Works, as she had done, all evening. Nevertheless the last thing she thought of as she dropped off to sleep was Dr. Vivian, as he stood and looked up at her from the dingy sidewalk. She wondered whether she would have agreed to speak to papa about that girl, if only the Works hadn"t looked so _awful_....
XIV
In which Catty tells a Certain Person that she isn"t Happy--very.
The question recurred next day. The strange ubiquity of the nephew persisted. When Carlisle called about noon to "inquire" after her respected neighbor, who had lain four weeks in mysterious coma, her ring was answered and the door opened by young Dr. Vivian. He had seen her coming, through the window.
"Oh!--good-morning, Miss Heth!" said he, in a manner indicating the experiment of pleased surprise, tempered with a certain embarra.s.sment.... "What a glorious day outdoors, isn"t it?--almost spring.... Won"t you come in?"
Miss Heth replied, as she would have replied to the housemaid (who, indeed, could herself be spied just then, pausing, down the dimness of the hall):
"Good-morning. No, I stopped to ask how Mr. Beirne is to-day. We hope there is better news?"
The young man stepped at once out into the vestibule.
"Oh! That"s kind of you," said he, his pleasure gaining strength. "I"m happy to say that there _is_,--the best news. He"s going to get well."
"I"m so glad to hear it," replied Miss Heth....
If, in despite of herself, there was a trace of stiff self-consciousness in her voice and air, how was she to be blamed for that? There is a breaking-point for even the most "finished" manner, and the sight of this man to-day was like a rough hand on a new wound. A great wave of helplessness had broken over her, as the opening door revealed his face: how could you possibly avoid the unavoidable, how destroy the indestructible? And it seemed that, since yesterday, he had robbed her of her one reliable weapon....
The tall young man pushed back his light hair. He was smiling. The mild winter sun streamed down upon him, and his face looked worn, as if he wanted sleep.
"We had a consultation this morning--three doctors," he went on, in the friendliest way. "They"re sure they"ve found out where the trouble is. A little operation, of no difficulty at all--I"ve done it myself, once in the hospital!--and he"ll be walking the street in a fortnight."
"That is good news, indeed. We have been so--sorry about his illness."
"Thank you--it"s a tremendous relief to me, of course. He seemed so very ill last night...."
Standing under his eye in the tiled vestibule, Carlisle produced, from her swinging gold case, not her card, but those of Mr. and Mrs. B.
Thornton Heth, and extended them in a gloved hand.
"May I leave these?" she said, with the reemergence of "manner." "My mother and father will be delighted to learn that Mr. Beirne is soon to be well again."
"That"s very kind. I know my uncle would be--_will_ be--much gratified by your interest and sympathy."
Who shall know the heart of a woman? The thing was done, the inquiry over. The most punctilious inquirer could have bowed now, and walked away down the steps. Cally imperceptibly hesitated.
She had four times met this man, and he had three times (at the lowest computation) driven her from his presence. That thought, unsettling in its way, had leapt at her somewhere in the night: she had sought to drape it, but it had persisted somewhat stark. And now had not he himself taught her, by that hateful apology which seemed to have settled nothing, that there were subtler requitals than by buffets upon the front?...
The pause was psychological purely, well covered by the card-giving.
Words rose to Cally"s tongue"s tip, gracious words which would show in the neatest way how unjust were this man"s opinions of her and her family. However, the adversary spoke first.
"I"m so glad to--to see you again, Miss Heth," he began, with a loss of ease, twirling the B. Thornton Heth cards between long thin fingers--"to have the opportunity to say.... That is--perhaps you"ll let me say--you mustn"t think the Works are so--so disappointing as perhaps they may seem, just at first sight. You know--"
Her flushing cheeks stopped him abruptly; and she had not usually found him easy to stop.
"But I didn"t think they were disappointing at _all_! Not in the _least_!"
The young man"s eyes fell.
"Oh!" he said, with noticeable embarra.s.sment. "I--only thought that possibly--as you--you had not happened to be in the factory district for--for some time,--that possibly you might be just a little surprised that things weren"t--well, prettier. You know, business--"
"But I wasn"t surprised at all, I"ve said! I knew exactly what it was like, of course. Just exactly. And I consider the Works--_very pretty_ ... for a factory."
She gazed up at him indignantly from beneath a little mushroom hat lined with pink, challenging him to contradict her by look or word. But he swallowed her dare without a quiver.... Good heavens, what girl worth her salt would endure apologies on behalf of her own father, from one so much, much worse than a stranger to her? It may be that V. Vivian liked the lovely Hun the better for that lie.
"Well," he said, compounding the felony with a gallant gulp, "I--I"m glad you weren"t disappointed--"
She could certainly have retired upon that with all the honors, but the fact was that the thought of doing so did not at the moment cross her mind. She found the conversation interesting to a somewhat perilous degree.
"I suppose _your_ idea is," she said, and it showed her courage that she could say it, "that a factory ought to be a--a sort of _marble palace_!"
"No. Oh, no. No--"
"But it _is_ your idea, is it not, that it"s my father"s duty to take his money and build a perfectly gorgeous _new_ factory, full of all sorts of comforts and luxuries for his work-girls? That _is_ your idea of his duty to the poor, is it not?..."
There it was, the true call: what ear could fail to catch it? Out they came running from the city again, the old scribes with new faces; pouring and tumbling into the wilderness to ask a lashing from the grim voice there.... Only, to-day, it must have been that he did not hear their clamors. Surely there was no abhorrence in these eager young eyes....
"Well--personally, I don"t think of any of those things just as a--a duty to the poor--exactly."
"Oh! You mean it"s his duty to himself, or something of that sort? That sounds like the catechism.... That _is_ what you meant, is it not?"
"Well, I only meant that--I think we might all be happier--if ..."
An uproar punctuated the strange sentence. Mr. Beirne"s butler had chosen to-day to take in coal, it seemed; a great wagon discharged with violence at precisely this moment. Two shovelers fell to work, and an old negro who was washing the bas.e.m.e.nt windows at the house next door, the Carmichaels", desisted from his labors and strolled out to watch. It was the most interesting thing happening on the block at the moment, and of course he wanted to see it.
Carlisle stared at Mr. Beirne"s nephew, caught by his word.