Senator North

G >> Gertrude Atherton >> Senator North

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"Her son wanted her to keep house for him, and she secured the
services of a female from a neighboring village. Miss Trumbull is
forty-odd and unmarried. She has a large bony face, the nondescript
colouring of the average American, and a colossal vanity. We amuse
ourselves watching her smirk as she passes a looking-glass. But she is
an excellent housekeeper, and her vanity would be of no consequence if
she would keep her place. The day we arrived she hinted broadly that
she wanted to sit at table with us, and one night when John was ill
and she had to help wait, she joined in the conversation. She's a
good-natured fool, but an objectionable specimen of that 'I'm-as-good-
as-you-are' American. I've been waiting for you to come and extinguish
her."

"I certainly shall extinguish her."

"She victimizes poor Harriet, whom she seems to think more on her
level," said Miss Carter, not without unction.

Betty could feel her face flush. "The sooner she puts that idea out of
her head the better," she said coldly. "I am surprised that Harriet
permits a liberty of that sort."

"Harriet lacks pride, my dear, in spite of her ambition and what
Nature has done for her outside. She is curiously contradictory. But
that lack is one which persons of Miss Trumbull's sort are quick to
detect and turn to their own account. Your housekeeper's variety of
pride is common and blatant, and demands to be fed, one way or
another."

Mrs. Madison had not retired and was awaiting her daughter in the
living-room. Betty found the household an apparently happy one. The
Major was a courtly gentleman who told stories of the war. Harriet in
her soft black mull with a deep colour in her cheeks looked superb,
and Betty kissed and congratulated her warmly; as Senator North had
predicted, the physical repulsion had worn away long since. The big
room with its matting and cane divans and chairs, heaped with bright
cushions, and the pungent fire in the deep chimney--for the evenings
were still cold--looked cosey and inviting; no wonder everybody was
content. Even Jack looked less careworn than usual; doubtless the
pines, as ever, had routed his malaria. Only Sally's gayety seemed a
little forced, and there was an occasional snap in her eye and
dilation of her nostril.

When Betty had put her mother to bed and talked her to sleep, she went
to her own room and opened the window. She could hear the lake
murmuring at the foot of the terrace, the everlasting sighing of the
pines; but it was very dark: she could hardly see the grim mountains
across the water. Just below them was a triple row of lights. He
should have been behind those lights and he was not. For the moment
she hated politics.

She closed the window and wrote the following letter:--

DEAR MR. NORTH,--I am home, you see. Don't reply and tell me that the
Tariff Bill surrounds you like a fortress wall. I am going for a walk
at five o'clock on Saturday morning, and I expect to meet you
somewhere in the forest above the north end of the lake. You can reach
it by the path on your side. I shall row there. Do not labour over an
excuse, my friend. I know how you hate to write letters, and you know
that I am a tyrant whose orders are always obeyed.

BETTY MADISON.

"That should not worry him," she thought, "and it should bring him."

III

As soon as she awoke next morning, she dressed and went downstairs. A
woman stood in the lower hall, and from Sally's description Betty
recognized Miss Trumbull. The woman's large mouth expanded in a smile,
which, though correct enough, betrayed the self-satisfaction which
pervaded her being. She was youngish-looking, and not as ugly as Miss
Carter's bald description had implied.

"Good-mornin'," She drawled. "I had a mind to set up for you last
night, but I was tired. You like to get up early, don't you? It's just
six. Miss Walker and Miss Carter don't git up till eight, Mr. Emory
till nine fifteen, and your ma till eleven. The Major's uncertain. But
I'm real glad you like gittin' up early--"

"Will you kindly send me a boy?" interrupted Betty. "I wish a letter
taken to the post-office."

The woman came forward and extended her hand. "I'll give it to him,"
she said.

"Send the boy to me. I have other orders to give him."

As the woman turned away, Betty thought she detected a shade of
disappointment on her face. "Has she that most detestable vulgarity of
her class, curiosity?" she thought. "She seems to have observed the
family very closely."

The boy came, accompanied by Miss Trumbull, who made a slight but
perceptible effort to see the address of the letter as Betty handed it
to him.

"Take this at once and bring me back a dollar's worth of stamps; and
go also to the village store and bring me some samples of worsted."

She thought of several other things she did not want, reflecting that
she must in the future herself take to the post-office such letters as
she did not wish Miss Trumbull to inspect and possibly read. The boy
went his way, and Betty turned to the housekeeper and regarded her
sharply.

"I'm afraid you will find this a lonely situation," she said. "We are
only here for a few months in the summer."

"Well, of course I like the society of nice people, but I guess I can
stand it. Poor folks can't pick and choose, and I suppose you wouldn't
mind my havin' a friend with me in the winter, would you?"

"Certainly not," said Betty, softening a little. But she did not like
the woman, who was not frankly plebeian, but had buttered herself over
with a coat of third-rate pretentiousness. And her voice and method of
speech were irritating. She had a fat inflection and the longest drawl
Betty had ever heard. Upon every fourth or fifth word she prolonged
the drawl, and accomplished the effect of smoothing down her voice
with her tongue. Capable as she might be, Betty wondered if she could
stand Miss Trumbull through the summer. But the position was a very
difficult one to fill. Even an old couple found it lonely, and a
woman with a daughter never had been permitted to remain for two
consecutive years. If the woman could be kept in the background, it
might be worth while to give her a trial.

Betty went out of doors and down to the lake. It lay in the cup of a
peak, and about it towered higher peaks, black with pine forests, only
a path here and there cutting their primeval gloom. Betty stepped into
a boat and rowed beyond sight of her house and the hotel. Then she lay
down, pushed a cushion under her head, and drifted. It had been a
favourite pastime of hers since childhood, but this morning her mind
for the first time opened to the danger of a wild and brooding
solitude, still palpitating with the passions which had given it
birth, for those whose own were awake.

"Civilization does wonders for us," she said aloud; she could have
raised her voice and been unheard, and she revelled in her solitude.
"It makes us really believe that conventions are the only comfortable
conditions in the world, certainly indispensable. Up here--"

"If he and I were here alone for one week," she continued
uncompromisingly and aloud to the mountains, "the world would cease to
exist as far as we both were concerned. And I wish he were here and
the Adirondacks adrift in space!"

She sat up suddenly after this wish; but although it had flushed her
face, she had said the words deliberately and made no haste to unsay
them. She looked ahead to the north end of the lake and the dark quiet
aisles above. And when she met him there on Saturday morning, she must
hold down her passion as she would hold down a mad dog. She must look
with bright friendly eyes at the man to whose arms her imagination had
given her unnumbered times. It seemed to her that she was an
independent intellect caught and tangled in a fish-net of traditions.
To violate the greatest of social laws was abhorrent to every
inherited instinct. Her intellect argued that man was born for
happiness and was a fool to put it from him. The social laws were
arbitrary and had their roots in expediency alone; man and his needs
were made before the community. But the laws had been made long before
her time, and they were bone of her bone.

She knew that he would not be the one to break down the barrier, that
he would leave her if she manifested uncontrollable weakness,--not
from the highest motives only, but because he had long since ceased to
court ruin by folly; his self-control was many years older than
herself. Doubtless he would never betray himself to her, no matter how
much he might love her, unless she so tempted him that passion leaped
above reason. And she knew that this was possible. There was no
mistaking the temperament of the man. He was virile and sensual, but
he had ordered that his passions should be the subjects of his brain;
and so no doubt they were.

Betty had no intention of forcing any such crisis, often as she might
toy with the idea in her mind. But for the first time she compelled
herself to look beyond the present, beyond the time when she could no
longer sit in her boudoir and play to him, and shake him lightly by
the hand as he left her. Perhaps she could not even get through this
summer without betraying the flood that shook her nerves. If the
barriers went down she must look into what? She gave her insight its
liberty, and turned white. It seemed to her that the lake and the
forest disappeared and a blank wall surrounded her. She lay down in
the boat and pressed the corner of the cushion against her eyes. A
thousand voices in her soul, for generations dumb and forgotten,
seemed to awake and describe the agony of women, an agony which
survived the mortal part that gave it expression, to live again and
again in unwary hearts.

She sat up suddenly and took hold of the oars. "That will do for this
morning," she said. "It is so true that none of us can stand more than
just so much intensity that I suppose if this dear dream of mine went
to pieces I should have intervals when life would seem brilliant by
contrast with my misery. I might even find mental rest in pouring tea
again for attaches. And there is always the pleasure of assuaging
hunger. I am ravenous."

IV

After breakfast--an almost hilarious meal, for Emory and Sally Carter
were in the highest spirits and sparred with much vigour--Betty and
Harriet went for a walk. There was a long level path about the lake
for a mile or more before they turned into the forest, and Betty noted
that Harriet, although her gait still betrayed indolence, held herself
with an air of unmistakable pride. She had improved in other respects;
her arrangement of dress and hair no longer looked rural, she not only
had ceased to bite her nails, but had put them in vivid order, and the
pronunciation of her words was wholly white.

"She will be a social success one of these days," thought Betty, "or
with that voice and beauty she could doubtless win fame and wealth,
and have a brilliant and enjoyable life. The tug will come when she
wants to marry; but perhaps she won't want to for a long while--or
will fall in love with a foreigner who won't mind."

She longed to ask Harriet if she were happy, if she had forgotten; but
she dreaded reviving a distasteful subject. She would be glad never to
hear it alluded to again.

Harriet did not allude to it. She talked of her studies, of the many
pleasures she had found in Washington, of the kindness of Mr. Emory
and Sally Carter, and of her delight to see Betty again. As she
talked, Betty decided that the change in her went below the surface.
She had regained all the self-control that her sudden change of
circumstances had threatened, and something more. It was not hardness,
nor was it exactly coldness. It was rather a studied aloofness. "Has
she decided to shut herself up within herself?" thought Betty. "Does
she think that will make life easier for her?"

Aloud she said,--"Would not you like to go to Europe for a year or
so? I could easily find a chaperon, and you would enjoy it."

"Oh, yes, I shall enjoy it. I feel as if I held the world in the
hollow of my hand, now that I have got used to gratifying every wish;"
and she threw back her head and dilated her nostril.

"What _have_ I launched upon the world?" thought Betty. "She certainly
will even with Fate in some way." But she said, "I am glad you and
Sally get on well. She has her peculiarities."

"I reckon I could get on with any one; but she doesn't like me, all
the same."

"Are you sure? Why shouldn't she?"

"I don't know," replied Miss Walker, dryly. "Women don't always
understand each other."

Sally's name suggested the housekeeper to Betty.

"I don't want you to be offended with me, Harriet," she said
hesitatingly, "if I ask you not to be familiar with Miss Trumbull. You
have not had the experience with that type that I have had. You cannot
give them an inch. If you treat them consistently as upper servants
when they are in your employ, and ignore them if they are not, they
will keep their place and give you no annoyance; but treat them with
something more than common decency and they leap at once for
equality."

"Well--you must remember that I was not always so fine as I am now,
and Miss Trumbull does not seem so much of an inferior to me as she
does to you. To tell you the truth, it does me good to come down off
my high horse occasionally. I reckon I'll get over that; sometimes I
want to so hard I could step on everybody that is common and second-
class. I don't deny I'm as ambitious as I reckon I've got a right to
be, but old habits are strong, and I'm lazy, and it's lonesome up
here. Your mother and Major Carter talk from morning till night about
the South before the War. Mr. Emory and Sally are always together, and
talk so much about things I don't understand that I feel in the way.
Miss Trumbull knows the private affairs of most every one in her
village, and amuses me with her gossip; that is all."

Betty pricked up her ears at one of Harriet's revelation, and let the
painful fact of her hospitality for vulgar gossip pass unnoticed.

"Do you mean," she asked, "do you think that Mr. Emory is beginning to
care for Sally?"

"One can never be sure. I am certain he likes and admires her."

"Oh, yes, he always has done that. But I wish he would fall in love
with her. I am nearly sure that she more than likes him."

"I am quite sure," said Harriet, dryly. "She would marry him about as
quickly as he asked her. I knew that the first time I saw them
together."

"And she certainly would make him happy," said Betty, thinking aloud.
"She is so bright and amusing and cheerful. She is the only person I
know who can always make him laugh, and the more he laughs the better
it is for him, poor old chap! And I think he is too old now for the
nonsense of ruining his happiness because a woman has more money--
Harriet!"

Harriet had one of those mouths that look small in repose, but widen
surprisingly with laughter. Betty, who had only seen her smile
slightly at rare intervals, happened to glance up. Harriet's mouth had
stretched itself into a grin revealing nearly every tooth in her head.
And it was the fatuous grin of the negro, and again Betty saw her
black. She gasped and covered her face with her hands.

"Oh, never do that again," she said sharply. "Never laugh again as
long as you live. Oh, poor girl! Poor girl!"

"I won't ask you what you mean," said Harriet, hurriedly. "I reckon I
can guess. Thank you for one more kindness."

And the horror of that grin remained so long with Betty that it was
some time before she thought to wonder what had caused it.

V

Betty amused herself for the next day or two observing Jack Emory and
Sally Carter. They unquestionably enjoyed each other's society, and
Sally at times looked almost pretty again. But at the end of the
second day Miss Madison shook her head.

"He is not in love," she thought. "It does not affect him in that
way." And she felt more satisfaction in her discovery than she would
have anticipated. A woman would have a man go through life with only a
skull cap where his surrendered scalp had been. To grow another is an
insult to her power and pains her vanity.

It occurred to Betty that she was not the only observant person in the
house. She seemed always stumbling over Miss Trumbull, who did not
appear to listen at doors but was usually as closely within ear-shot
as she could get. It was idle to suppose that the woman had any
malignant motive in that well-conducted household, and she seemed to
be good-natured and even kindly. Interest in other people's affairs
was evidently, save vanity, her strongest passion. It was the natural
result of an empty life and a common mind. But simple or not, it was
objectionable.

Her vanity, her mistress had cause to discover, was more so. On
Wednesday morning Betty returned home from a long tramp, earlier than
was her habit, and went to her room. Miss Trumbull was standing before
the mirror trying on one of her hats.

"That's real becomin' to me," she drawled, as Miss Madison entered the
room. "I always could wear a hat turned up on one side, and most of
your colours would suit me."

Betty controlled her temper, but the effort hurt her. She would have
liked to pour her scorn all over the creature.

"You may have the hat," she said. "Only do me the favour not to enter
my room again unless I send for you. The maid is very neat, and it
needs no inspection."

The woman's face turned a dark red. "I'm sorry you're mad," she said,
"but there's no harm, as I can see, in tryin' on a hat."

"It is a matter of personal taste, not of right or wrong. I
particularly dislike having my things touched."

"Oh, of course I won't, then; but I like nice things, and I haven't
seen too many of them."

Again Betty relented. "I will leave you a good many at the end of the
summer," she said. And the woman thanked her very nicely and went
away.

"I am glad I was not brutal to her," thought Betty. "Democracy is a
great institution in spite of its nuisances. Still, I admire Hamilton
more than Jefferson."

When, that night, Mrs. Madison had a painful seizure, and Miss
Trumbull was sympathetic and efficient, sacrificing every hour of her
night's rest, Betty was doubly thankful that she had not been brutal.
In the morning she gave her a wrap that matched the hat. Miss Trumbull
tried it on at once, and revolved three times before the mirror, then
strutted off with such evident delight in her stylish appearance that
Betty's smile was almost sympathetic. But she dared not be more
gracious, and Miss Trumbull only approached her when it was necessary.

On Thursday afternoon Betty and Sally were rowing on the lake when the
latter said abruptly,--

"Have you noticed anything between Jack and Harriet?"

Betty nearly dropped her oars. "What--Jack and Harriet?"

Sally nodded. Her mouth was set. There was an angry sparkle in her
eyes. "Yes, yes. They pretend to avoid each other, but they are in
love or I never saw two people in love. I suspected it in Washington,
but I have become sure of it up here. What is the matter? I don't
think she is his equal, if she is our thirty-first cousin, for I would
bet my last dollar there was a misalliance somewhere--but you look
almost horror-struck."

"I was, but I can't tell you why. I don't believe it's true, though.
She is not Jack's style. She hasn't a grain of humour in her."

"When a man's imagination is captured by a beauty as perfect as that,
he doesn't discover that it is without humour till he has married it.
Besides, any man can fall in love with any woman; I'm convinced of
that. You might as well try to turn this lake upside down as to mate
types."

"I don't think she would deceive me," exclaimed Betty, hopefully. "I
cannot tell you all, but I am nearly sure she would never do that."

"Any woman who has a secret constantly on her mind is bound to become
secretive, not to say deceitful in other ways. What is her secret?"
she asked abruptly. "Has she negro blood in her veins?"

"Oh, Sally!" This time Betty did drop the oars, and her face was
scarlet as she lunged after them. She was furious at having betrayed
Harriet's secret, but Sally Carter had a fashion of going straight for
the truth and getting it.

"I thought so," said Miss Carter, dryly. "Don't take the trouble to
deny it. And don't think for a moment, Betty dear, that I am going to
embarrass you with further questions. I could never imagine you
actuated by any but the highest motives. I should consider the whole
thing none of my business if it were not for Jack. Faugh! how he would
hate her if he knew!"

"I am afraid he would. I don't believe he is man enough to love her
better for her miserable inheritance."

"He is a Southern gentleman; I should hope he would not. I am by no
means without sympathy for her. I pity her deeply, and have ever since
I discovered that she loved him. For he must be told."

"Shall you tell him?"

Sally did not answer for a moment, and her face flushed deeply. Then
she said unsteadily: "No; for I could not be sure of my motive. Here
is my secret. I have loved Jack Emory ever since I can remember. It is
impossible for me to assure myself that I would consider interference
in their affairs warrantable if I cared nothing for him. I cannot
afford to despise myself for tattling out of petty jealousy. But you
are responsible for her. You should tell him."

"I will speak to her as soon as we go back. If it is true that they
are engaged, and if she refuses to tell him, I shall. But I'd almost
rather come out here and drown myself."

"So should I."

"You're a brick, Sally, and I wish to heaven you were going to marry
Jack to-morrow. That would be a really happy marriage."

"So I have thought for years! When he got over his attack of you, I
began to hope, although I'd got wrinkles crying about him. I never
thought of any other woman in the case." She laughed, with a defiant
attempt to recover her old spirits. "And I cannot have the happiness
of seeing him one day in bronze, and feeling that he is all mine! For
he hasn't even that spark of luck which so often passes for
infinitesimal greatness, poor dear!"

"How did you guess that she had the taint in her?" asked Betty, as
they were about to land. "She has not a suggestion of it in her face."

"I _felt_ it. So vaguely that I scarcely put it in words to myself
until lately. And I never saw such an amount of pink on finger-nails
in my life."

VI

Betty went in search of Harriet, and found her in a summer-house
reading an innocuous French romance which her professor had selected.
There was no place near by where Miss Trumbull might lie concealed,
and Betty went to the point at once.

"Harriet," she said, "I am obliged to say something horribly painful--
if you want to marry any man you must tell him the truth. It would be
a crime not to. The prejudices of--of--Southerners are deep and
bitter; and--and--Oh, it is a terrible thing to have to say--but I
must--if you had children they might be black."

For a moment Betty thought that Harriet was dead, she turned so gray
and her gaze was so fixed. But she spoke in a moment.

"Why do you say this to me--now?"

"Because I fear you and Jack--Oh, I hope it is not true. The person
who thinks you love each other may have been mistaken. But I could not
wait to warn you. I should have told you in the beginning that when
the time came either you must tell the man or I should; but it was a
hateful subject. God knows it is hard to speak now."

Harriet seemed to have recovered herself. The colour returned slowly
to her face, her heavy lids descended. She rose and drew herself up to
her full height with the air of complete melancholy which recalled one
or two other memorable occasions. But there was a subtle change. The
attitude did not seem so natural to her as formerly.

"Your informant was only half right," she said sadly. "I love him, but
he cares nothing for me. He is the best, the kindest of friends. It is
no wonder that I love him. I suppose I was bound to love the first man
who treated me with affectionate respect. I reckon I'd have fallen in
love with Uncle if he'd been younger. Perhaps--in Europe--I may get
over it. But he does not love me."

Betty rose and looked at her steadily. _What_ was in the brain behind
those sad reproachful eyes? She laid her hand on the girl's shoulder.

"Harriet," she said solemnly, "give me your word of honour that you
will not marry him without telling him the truth. It may be that he
does not love you, but he might--and if you were without hope you
would be unhappy. Promise me."

Down in the depths of those melancholy eyes there was a flash, then
Harriet lifted her head and spoke with the solemnity of one taking an
oath.

"I promise," she said. "I will marry no man without telling him the
truth."

This time her tone carried conviction, and Betty, relieved, sought
Sally Carter.

"Nonsense!" exclaimed Miss Carter, when Betty had related the
interview. "He is in love with her, although for some reason or other
he is making an elaborate effort to conceal it."

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