Senator North
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Gertrude Atherton >> Senator North
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Her mind being at rest, she arose at four on the morning of Saturday.
She rowed across the lake this time and picked up Senator North about
a half-mile from the hotel. His hands were full of fishing-tackle.
"Will you take me fishing?" he said. "Can you give me the whole
morning? I hear there is better fishing in the lake above, and a
farmhouse where we can get breakfast. Do you know the way?"
She nodded, and he took the oars from her and rowed up the lake.
"My wife always sleeps until noon," he said. "We can have seven hours
if you will give them to me."
"Of course I'll give them to you. I may as well admit that I intended
to have them. I made an elaborate disposition of my household to that
end."
They were smiling at each other, and both looked happy and free of
desire for anything but seven long hours of pleasant companionship.
The morning, bright and full of sound, mated itself with the
superficial moods of man, and was not cast for love-making.
"Well, what have you been doing?" he asked. "I have had you in a
permanent and most refreshing vision, floating up and down this lake,
or flitting through the forest, in that white frock. I know that
Burleigh was here--"
"I did not wear white for him."
"Ah! He has looked very vague, not to say mooning, since his return. I
am thankful he is not seeing you exactly as I do. How is the lady of
the shadows?"
"Sally's Southern gorge rose so high, after she discovered the taint,
that she left precipitately. She couldn't sit at the table with even a
hidden drop of negro blood."
"You Southerners will solve the negro problem by inspiring the entire
race with an irresistible desire to cut its throat. If a tidal wave
would wash Ireland out of existence and the blacks in this country
would dispose of themselves, how happy we all should be! What else
have you been doing?"
"I have read the Congressional Record every day, and the _Federalist_
and State papers of Hamilton; to say nothing of the monographs in the
American Statesmen Series. Mr. Burleigh insisted that I must acquire
the national sense, and I have acquired it to such an extent that half
the time I don't know whether I am living in history or out of it.
Even the Record makes me feel impersonal, and as 'national' as Mr.
Burleigh could wish."
"Burleigh intends that his State shall be proud of you."
Betty flushed. "Don't prophesy, even in fun. I believe I am
superstitious. His idea is that politics are to become a sort of
second nature with me before I start my _salon_--Why do you smile
cynically? Don't you think I can have a _salon?_" "You might build up
one in the course of ten years if you devoted your whole mind to it
and made no mistakes; nothing is impossible. But for a long while you
merely will find yourself entertaining a lot of men who want to talk
on any subject but politics after they have turned their backs on
Capitol Hill. They will be extremely grateful if you will provide
them with some lively music, a reasonable amount of punch, and an
unlimited number of pretty and entertaining women. But don't expect
them to invite you down the winding ways of their brains to the
cupboards where they have hung up their great thoughts for the night.
I do not even see them standing in groups of three, their right hands
thrust under their coat fronts, gravely muttering at each other. I see
them invariably doing their poor best to make some pretty woman forget
they could be bores if they were not vigilant."
"The pretty women I shall ask will not think them bores. The thing to
do at first, of course, is to get them there."
"Oh, there will be no difficulty about that. Why do you want a
_salon_? Are you ambitious?"
Betty nodded. "Yes, I think I am. At first I only wanted a new
experience. Now that I have met so many men with careers, I want one
too. If I succeed, I shall be the most famous woman in America."
"You certainly would be. Very well, I will do all I can to help you.
It is possible, as I said. And you have many qualifications--"
"Ah!" Betty's face lit up. "If there is war with Spain, they will talk
of nothing else--Don't frown so at me. I'm sure I don't want a war if
you don't. Those are my politics. Here is the water lane between the
two lakes. I almost had forgotten it. I hope it isn't overgrown."
She spoke lightly, but more truly than she was wholly willing to
admit. Women see political questions, as they see all life, through
the eyes of some man. If he is not their lover, he is a public
character for whom they have a pleasing sentiment.
Senator North pulled into the long winding lane of water in a cleft of
the mountains. It was dark and chill here they were in the heart of
the forest; they had but to turn their heads to look straight into the
long vistas, heavy with silence and shadows.
He rowed for some moments without speaking. He felt their profound and
picturesque isolation, and had no desire to break the spell of it. She
recalled her wish that the Adirondacks would swing off into space, but
smiled: she was too happy in the mere presence of the man to wish for
anything more. He let his eyes meet hers and linger in their depths,
and when he smiled at the end of that long communion it was with
tenderness. But when he spoke he addressed himself to her mind alone.
"No, you must not wish for war with Spain. If we ever are placed in a
position where patriotism commands war, I shall be the last to oppose
it. If England had not behaved with her calm good sense at the time of
the Venezuela difficulty, but had taken our jingoes seriously and
returned their insults, we should have had no alternative but war,--
the serious and conservative of the country would have had to suffer
from the errors of its fools, as is often the case. But for this war
there would be no possible excuse. Spain at one time owned nearly two-
thirds of the earth's surface. She has lost every inch of it, except
the Peninsula and a few islands, by her cruelty and stupidity. Her
manifest destiny is to lose these islands in the same manner and for
the same reasons. And brutal and stupid as she is, we have no more
right to interfere in her domestic affairs than had Europe to
interfere in ours when we were torn by a struggle that had a far
greater effect on the progress of civilization than the trouble
between dissatisfied colonists and decadent Spaniards in this petty
island. God only knows how many intellects went out on those
battlefields in the four years of the Civil War, which, had they
persisted and developed, would have added to the legislative wisdom of
this country. We knew what we were losing, knew that the longer the
struggle lasted the longer would our growth as a nation be retarded,
and the horrors of our battlefields were quite as ghastly as anything
set forth in the reports from Cuba. And yet every thinking man among
us, young and old, turned cold with apprehension when we were
threatened with a European interference which would have dishonoured
us. That Spain is behaving with wanton brutality would not be to the
point, even if the reports were not exaggerated, which they are,--for
the matter of that, the Cubans are equally brutal when they find the
opportunity. The point is that it is none of our business. The Cubans
have rebelled. They must take the consequences, sustained by the
certainty of success in the end. Moreover, we not only are on friendly
terms with Spain, we not only have no personal grievance as a nation
against her, but we are a great nation, she is a weak one. We have no
moral right, we a lusty young country, to humiliate a proud and
ancient kingdom, expose the weaknesses and diseases of her old age to
the unpitying eyes of the world. It would be a despicable and a
cowardly act, and it horrifies me to think that the United States
could be capable of it. For Spain I care nothing. The sooner she dies
of her own rottenness the better; but let her die a natural death. My
concern is for my own country. I don't want her to violate those
fundamental principles to whose adherence alone she can hope to reach
the highest pitch of development."
Betty smiled. "Mr. Burleigh says that Washington had a brain of ice,
and that his ideal of American prosperity was frozen within it. I
suppose he would say the same of you."
"I have not a brain of ice. I know that the only hope for this
Republic is to anchor itself to conservatism. The splits in the
Democratic party have generated enough policies to run several virile
young nations on the rocks. The Populist is so eager to help the
farmer that he is indifferent to national dishonour. The riff-raff in
the House is discouraging. The House ought to be a training-school
for the Senate. It is a forum for excitable amateurs. The New England
Senators are almost the only ones with a long--or any--record in the
House."
"They are bright, most of those Representatives--even the woolly ones;
as quick as lightning."
"Oh, yes, they are bright," he said contemptuously. "The average
American is bright. If one prefixes no stronger adjective than that to
his name, he accomplishes very little in life. Don't think me a
pessimist," he added, smiling. "All over the country the Schools and
colleges are instilling the principles of conservatism and practical
politics on the old lines, and therein lies hope. I feel sure I shall
live to see the Republic safely past the dangers that threaten it now.
The war with Spain is the worst of these. No war finishes without far-
reaching results, and the conscience of a country, like the conscience
of a man, may be too severely tried. If we whip Spain--the 'if,' of
course, is a euphemism--we not only shall be tempted to do things that
are unconstitutional, but we are more than liable to make a laughing-
stock of the Monroe doctrine. For reasons I am not going into this
beautiful summer morning, with fish waiting to be caught, we are
liable to be landed in foreign waters with all Europe as our enemy and
our second-rate statesmen at home pleading for a new Constitution--
which would mean a new United States and unimaginable and interminable
difficulties. Have I said enough to make you understand why I think
we owe a higher duty to a country that should and could be greater
than it is, than even to two hundred thousand Cubans whom we should
but starve the faster if we hemmed them in? Very well, if you will
kindly bait that hook I will see what I can get. The rest of the world
may sink, for all I care this morning."
They had entered another lake, smaller and even wilder in its
surroundings, for there was no sign of habitation.
"Few people know of this lake, I am told," said Senator North,
contentedly; "and we are unlikely to see a living soul for hours,
except while we are discovering that farmhouse. Are you hungry?"
"Yes, but catch a lot of fish before we go to the farmhouse--I know
where it is--for I detest bread and milk and eggs."
The fish were abundant, and he had filled his basket at the end of an
hour. Then they tied up their boat and went in search of the
farmhouse. It was a poor affair, but a good-natured woman fried their
fish and contributed potatoes they could eat. Betty was rattling on in
her gayest spirits, when her glance happened to light on a photograph
in a straw frame. She half rose to her feet, then sank back in her
chair with a frown of annoyance.
"What is it?" he asked anxiously.
"A photograph of my housekeeper, a woman who is all curiosity where
her brain ought to be."
"Well, it is only her photograph, not herself, and this woman does not
know my name. You are not to bother about anything this morning."
They went back to the lake. He caught another basket of fish, and then
they floated about idly, sometimes silent, sometimes talking in a
desultory way about many things that interested them both. Betty
wondered where he had found time to read and think so much on subjects
that belong to the literary wing of the brain and have nothing to do
with the vast subjects of politics and statesmanship, of which he was
so complete a master. She recalled what her mother had said about
her brain being her worst enemy when she fell in love. It certainly
made her love this man more profoundly and passionately, for her own
was of that high quality which demanded a greater to worship. And if
she loved the man it was because his whole virile magnetic being was
the outward and visible expression of the mind that informed it. It
was almost noon when they parted, pleased with themselves and with
life. They agreed to meet again on the following morning.
XIV
As Betty ascended the terrace, she was amazed to see Jack Emory
sitting on the veranda. He threw aside his cigarette and came to meet
her.
"Anderson had gone to the other end of Long Island--Sag Harbor," he
said; "and as I did not like to follow him into his home on a matter
of business, I came back. New York is one vast oven; I could not make
up my mind to wait there. I'd rather take the trip again."
Betty concealed her vexation, and replied that she was sorry he had
had a disagreeable journey for nothing, while wondering if her
conscience would permit her to absent herself for seven hours on the
morrow.
But Harriet had read one novel through and begun another. It was
evident that she had not left Mrs. Madison's side, and Jack had been
home for two hours. Betty lightly forbade her to tire herself further
that day, and after luncheon they all went for a drive. When Mrs.
Madison retired for her nap at four o'clock, Betty, who longed for the
seclusion of her room and the delight of re-living the morning hours,
established herself in the middle of the veranda, with Harriet beside
her and Jack swinging in a hammock at the corner. "Thank heaven she
wants to go to Europe in September," she thought. "If I had to be
duenna for six months, I should become a cross old-maid. I'll never
forgive Sally for deserting me."
She could have filled the house with company, but that would have
meant late hours and the sacrifice of such solitude as she now could
command. She had always disliked the burden of entertaining in summer,
never more so than during this, when her loneliest hours were, with
the exception of just fifteen others and twenty-one minutes, the
happiest she ever had known.
Jack and Harriet manifested not the slightest desire to be together,
and Betty went to bed at nine o'clock, wondering if she were not
boring herself unnecessarily.
She was deep in her first sleep when her consciousness struggled
toward an unaccustomed sound. She awoke suddenly at the last, and
became aware of a low, continuous, but peremptory knocking. She lit a
candle at once and opened the door. Miss Trumbull stood there, her
large bony face surrounded by curl-papers that stood out like horns,
and an extremely disagreeable expression on her mouth. She wore a grey
flannel wrapper and had a stocking tied round her throat. Betty
reflected that she never had seen a more unattractive figure, but
asked her if she were ill--if her throat were ailing--
Miss Trumbull entered and closed the door behind her.
"I'm a Christian woman," she announced, "and an unmarried one, and I
ain't goin' to stay in a house where there's sech goin's on." "What
do you mean?" asked Betty coldly, although she felt her lips turn
white.
"I mean what I say. I'm a Christian--"
"I do not care in the least about your religious convictions. I want
to know what you wish to tell me. There is no necessity to lead up to
it."
"Well--I can't say it. So there! I warn't brought up to talk about
sech things. Just you come with me and find out for yourself."
"You have been prying in the servants' wing, I suppose. Do I
understand that that is the sort of thing you expect me to do?"
"It ain't the servants' wing--where I've been listenin' and watchin'
till I've made sure--out of dooty to myself." She lowered her voice
and spoke with a hoarse wheeze. "It's the room at the end of the
second turning."
Betty allowed the woman to help her into a wrapper, for her hands were
trembling. She followed Miss Trumbull down the hall, hardly believing
she was awake, praying that it might be a bad dream. They turned the
second corner, and the housekeeper waved her arm dramatically at
Harriet's door.
"Very well," said Betty. "Go to your room. I prefer to be alone."
Miss Trumbull retired with evident reluctance. Betty heard a door
close ostentatiously, and inferred that her housekeeper was returning
to a point of vantage. But she did not care. She felt steeped in
horror and disgust. She wished that she never had felt a throb of
love. All love seemed vulgar and abominable, a thing to be shunned for
ever by any woman who cared to retain her distinction of mind. She
would not meet Senator North to-morrow. She did not care if she never
saw him again. She would like to go into a convent and not see any man
again.
She never ceased to be grateful that she was spared hours of musing
that might have burnt permanently into her memory. She had not walked
up and down the hall for fifteen minutes before the door at the end of
the side corridor opened and Emory came out.
Betty did not hesitate. She advanced at once toward him. He did not
recoil, he stood rigid for a moment. Then he said distinctly,--
"We have been married three months. Will you come downstairs for a few
moments?"
She followed him down the stair, trembling so violently that she could
not clutch the banisters, and fearing she should fall forward upon
him. But before she had reached the living-room she had made a
desperate effort to control herself. She realized the danger of
betraying Harriet's secret before she had made up her mind what course
was best, but she was not capable of grappling with any question until
the shock was over. Her brain felt stunned.
Emory lit one of the lamps, and Betty turned her back to it. He was
very white, and she conceived a sudden and violent dislike to him. She
never before had appreciated fully the weakness in that beautiful
high-bred intellectual face. It was old-fashioned and dreamy. It had
not a suggestion of modern grip and keenness and determination.
"I have deceived you, Betty," he began mournfully; but she interrupted
him.
"I am neither your mother nor your sister," she said cuttingly. "I am
only your cousin. You were under no obligation to confide in me. I
object to being made use of, that is all."
"I am coming to that," he replied humbly. "Let me tell you the story
as best I can. We did not discover that we loved each other until
after you left. It had taken me some time to realize it--for--for--I
did not think I ever could change. I was almost horrified; but soon I
made up my mind it was for the best. I had been lonely and miserable
long enough, and I had it in my power to take the loneliness and
misery from another. I was almost insanely happy. I wanted to marry at
once, but for a few days Harriet would not consent. She wanted to be
an accomplished woman when she became my wife. Then she suggested that
we should be married secretly, and the next day we went over into
Virginia and were married--in a small village. She begged me not to
tell you till you came back. When you returned, her courage failed
her, for after all you were her benefactor and she had deceived you.
She protested that she could not, that she dared not tell you. It has
been an extremely disagreeable position to me, for I have felt almost
a cad in this house, but I understood her feeling, for you had every
reason to be angry and scornful. So we agreed to go to Europe in
September and write to you from there. She wanted to go at once--soon
after you returned; but I must wait till certain money comes in. I
cannot live on what you so generously gave her. She would not go
without me, and in spite of everything, I am almost ashamed to say, I
have been very happy here--"
"Is that all? I will go to my room now. Goodnight." She hurried
upstairs, wishing she had a sleeping powder. As she closed the door of
her room, the tall sombre figure of Harriet rose from a chair and
confronted her. Betty hastily lit two lamps. She could not endure
Harriet in a half light,--not while she wore black, at all events.
"He has told me," she said briefly, answering the agonized inquiry in
those haggard eyes. "I told him nothing."
Harriet drew a long breath and swayed slightly. "Ah!" she said. Ah!
Thank the Lord for that. I hope you will never have to go through what
I have in this last half-hour." She seemed to recover herself rapidly,
for after she had walked the length of the room twice, she confronted
Betty with a tightening of the muscles of her face that gave it the
expression of resolution which her features always had seemed to
demand.
"This is wholly my affair now," she said. "It is all between him and
me. It would be criminal for you to interfere. When I realised I loved
him, I made up my mind to marry him at once. I knew that you would not
permit it, and although I hated to deceive you, I made up my mind that
I would have my happiness. I intended to tell you when you got back,
but after what you said to me that day I was scared you'd tell him. If
you do--if you do--I swear before the Lord that I'll drown myself in
that lake--"
"I have no intention of telling him. As you say, it is now your own
affair."
"It is; it is. And although I may have to pay the price one day, I'll
hope and hope till the last minute. I shall not let him return to
America, and perhaps he will never guess. Somehow it seems as if
everything must be right different over there, as if all life would
look different."
"You will find your point of view quite the same when you get there,
for you take yourself with you. I'd like to go to bed now, Harriet, if
you don't mind. I'm terribly tired."
"I'll go. There is only one other thing I want to say. I shall have no
children. I vowed long ago that the curse I had been forced to inherit
should not poison another generation. Your cousin's line will die,
undishonoured, with him. The crimes of many men will die in me. No
further harm will be done if Jack never knows. And I hope and believe
he never will. Good-night."
XV
Betty slept fitfully, her dreams haunted by Miss Trumbull's expression
of outraged virtue surrounded by curl-papers. She rose at four, almost
mechanically, rather glad than otherwise that she had some one with
whom to talk over the events of the night. But although she admired
Senator North the more for his distinguished contrast to Jack Emory,
she felt as if all romance and love had gone out of her. Harriet's
case was romantic enough in all conscience, and it was hideous.
She met Miss Trumbull in the lower hall. Outraged virtue had given way
to an expression of self-satisfied importance. "Well, I'm real glad
they're married," she drawled. "It warn't in human nature not to
listen, and I did--I ain't goin' to deny it, but I couldn't have slept
a wink if I hadn't. Ain't you glad I told you?"
"I certainly am not glad that you told me, and I wish I had dismissed
you three weeks ago. When I return I shall give you a month's wages
and you can go to-day."
She hurried down to the lake and unmoored her boat. Her conscience was
abnormally active this morning, and she reflected that she too was
going to a tryst of which the world must know nothing. True, it was
kept on the open lake and was as full of daylight as it was of
impeccability, but it was not for the world to discover, for all that.
She made no attempt to smile as Senator North stepped into the boat,
and he took the oars without a word and pulled rapidly up the lake.
When they were beyond all signs of human habitation, he brought the
boat under the spreading limbs of an oak and crossed his oars.
"Now," he said, "what is it? Something very serious indeed has
happened."
"Jack Emory and Harriet have been married three months." She filled in
the statement listlessly and added no comment.
"And your conscience is oppressed and miserable because you feel as if
you were the author of the catastrophe," he replied. "What have you
made up your mind to do?" It was evident that her attitude alone
interested him, but he understood her mood perfectly. His voice was
friendly and matter-of-fact; there was not a hint of the sympathizing
lover about him.
"It seems to me that as I did not act at the right time I only should
make things worse by interfering now. As she said, it is a matter
between her and him."
"You are quite right. Any other course would be futile and cruel. And
remember that you have acted wisely and well from the beginning. You
have nothing to reproach yourself for. You brought the girl to your
house for a period, because justice and humanity demanded it. The same
principles demanded that you should keep her secret--for the matter of
that your mother made secrecy one of the conditions of her consent. I
had hoped that you would get rid of her before she obeyed the baser
instincts of her nature. For she was bound to deceive some man, and
her victim is your cousin by chance only. Have you noticed in
Washington--or anywhere in the South--that a negro is always seen with
a girl at least one shade whiter than himself? The same instinct to
rise, to get closer to the standard of the white man, whom they
slavishly admire, is in the women as well as in the men. They are the
weaker sex and must submit to Circumstance, but they would sacrifice
the whole race for marriage with a white man. If you had left this
girl to her fate, she would have gone to the devil, for a woman as
white as that would have starved rather than marry a negro. If you had
given her money and told her to go her way, she would have established
herself at once in some first-class hotel where she would be sure to
meet men of the upper class. And she would have married the first that
asked her and told him nothing. I am sorry that your cousin happens to
be the victim, because he is your cousin. But if you will reflect a
moment you will see that he is no better, no more honourable or worthy
than many other men, one of whom was bound to be victimized. I don't
think she would have been attracted to a fool or a cad; I am positive
she would have married a gentleman. These women have a morbid craving
for the caste they are so close upon belonging to."
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