Senator North
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Gertrude Atherton >> Senator North
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"Well, I am suppressed and will say no more. I suppose I shall have a
mob to-day. If anything, people are paying more calls than ever, for
they can't stay indoors for twenty-five minutes with no one to talk
to. It is getting monotonous. I wish that the President and the Senate
would begin to play, but they look as impassive as the statues in the
parks."
The rooms filled quickly. By five o'clock the usual crowd was there,
and if it had its dowdy battalion as ever, there was no evidence that
the more fortunate had lost their interest in dress, despite the
warlike state of their nerves. Not that all were for war, by any
means. Many were clinging to a forlorn hope, but they could talk of
nothing else.
Betty had just listened to the twenty-eighth theory of the cause of
the Maine's destruction when she turned in response to a familiar
drawl.
"Why, howdy, Miss Madison, I'm real glad to run across you at last."
Betty was so taken aback that she mechanically surrendered her hand to
the limp pressure of her former housekeeper. But she was not long
recovering herself.
"Miss Trumbull, is it not? I was not aware that you were an
acquaintance of Lady Mary Montgomery's."
"Well, I can't say as I know her real intimate yet, but I guess I
shall in time, as we're both wives of Congressmen."
"Ah? You are married?" Betty experienced a fleeting desire to see the
man who had been captivated by Miss Trumbull.
"Ye--as. I went out West to visit my sister after I left you and was
married before I knew it--to Mr. George Washington Mudd. He's real
nice, and smart--My! I expect to be in the White House before I die."
"It is among the possibilities, of course. I hope you are happy, and
that meanwhile he is able to take care of you comfortably." Mrs. Mudd
glistened with black silk and jet, but the cut of her gown was of the
Middle West.
"Well, I guess! He's a lawyer and can make two hundred dollars a month
any day. Of course I can't set up a house in Washington, but I live at
the Ellsmere, and three or four of us Congressional ladies receive
together and share carriages. I'll be happy to have you call--the
first and third Tuesdays; but we always put it in the Post."
"I have little time for calling. I am very busy in many ways."
"Well, I'm sorry. You don't look as well as you did up in the
mountains; you look real tired, come to examine you. But your dresses
are always so swell one sees those first. I always did think you had
just the prettiest dresses I ever saw."
Betty did not turn her back upon the woman; it was a relief to talk on
any subject that stood aloof from war. Mrs. Mudd rambled on.
"I suppose you're engaged to Senator Burleigh by this time? He's our
Senator, you know, but I don't know as he's likely to be, long. We
want silver, and I guess we've got to have it."
"I suppose you take quite an interest in politics now," said Betty,
looking at the woman's large self-satisfied face. So far, matrimony
had not been a chastening influence. Mrs. Mudd looked more conceited
than ever.
"Well, I guess I always knew as much about them as anybody; and now
I'm in politics, I guess the President couldn't give me many points.
If he don't declare war soon, I'll go up to the White House and tell
him what I think of him."
"Suppose you make a speech from the House Gallery. It is Congress that
declares war, not the President."
Mrs. Mudd's face turned the dull red which Betty well remembered. "I
guess I know what I'm talking' about. It's the President--"
But Betty's back was upon her, and Betty was listening to the agitated
comments of one of the year's debutantes upon the destruction of the
Maine.
"Was night ever so welcome before?" thought Betty, as she settled
herself between the four posts of her great-aunt's bed, a few hours
later. "Here, at least, not an echo of war can penetrate, and if I
think of other things that scald my pillow, it is almost a relief."
X
On the following evening she went with the Montgomerys to the Army and
Navy reception at the White House. Lady Mary had but to express a wish
for a card to any function in Washington; and her popularity had much
to do with her love for her adopted country.
It was the first time Betty ever had entered the historic mansion, and
as she waited for twenty minutes in the crush of people on the front
porch, she reflected that probably it was the last.
But when she was in the great East Room, which was hung with flags and
glittered with uniforms, and was filled with the strains of martial
music, she thrilled again with the historical sense, and almost wished
there was a prospect of a war which would compel her to patriotic
excitement.
They remained in the East Room for some time before going to shake
hands with the President, that the long queue of people patiently
crawling to the Blue Room might have time to wear itself down to a
point. As Betty stood there eagerly watching the scene, and talking to
first one and then another of the Army men who came up to speak to
her, she became deeply impressed with the fact that this was the
calmest function she had attended in Washington during the winter.
There was no excitement on the faces of these men in uniform, and they
said little and hardly mentioned the subject of war. They looked stern
and thoughtful; and Betty felt proud of them, and wished they were
doing themselves honour in a better cause.
She went down the long central corridor after a time, past the crowd
wedged before the central door, gaping at the receiving party, to a
room where she and the Montgomerys joined the diminished queue
extending from a side entrance to the Blue Room. She was not surprised
to see Mrs. Mudd in front of her, for although the Representative's
wife should have received a card for another evening, she was quite
capable of forcing her way in without one; as doubtless a good many
others had done to-night. She wore her black silk gown and her bonnet,
and although most of the women present were in brilliant evening
dress, Mrs. Mudd had several to keep her in countenance. She glanced
wearily over her shoulder during the slow progress of the queue, and
caught sight of Betty. Her place was precious, but she left it at once
and came down the line.
"I'll go in along with you," she said. "George couldn't come and I've
felt kinder lonesome ever sense I got here. And we've been three
quarters of an hour getting this far. It's terrible tiresome, but as
I've found you I guess I can stand the rest of it."
Betty detected the flicker of malice in her former housekeeper's
voice. They were on equal ground for once, and Miss Madison and Mrs.
Mudd would shake hands with their President within consecutive
moments. She smiled with some cynicism, but was too good-natured to
snub the native ambition where it could do no harm.
"I saw Senator North to-day," observed Mrs. Mudd, "and he looked
crosser 'n two sticks. He's mad because they'll have war in spite of
him. I call him right down unpatriotic, and so do lots of others."
"That disturbs him a great deal. He is much more concerned about the
country making a fool of itself."
"This country's all right, and we couldn't go wrong if we tried. Them
that sets themselves up to be so terrible superior are just bad
Americans, that's the long and the short of it, and they'll find it
out at the next elections. If Senator North should take a trip out
West just now, they'd tar and feather him, and I'd like to be there to
see it done. They can't say what they think of his setting on
patriotic Senators loud enough. And as for the President--"
"Well, don't criticise the President while you are under his roof. It
is bad manners. Here we are. Will you go in first?"
"Well, I don't see why I shouldn't. I'll hurry on so they can see your
dress; it's just too lovely for anything."
Betty wore a white embroidered chiffon over green; she shook out the
train, which had been over her arm ever since she entered the house.
Her name was announced in a loud tone, and she entered the pretty
flowery Blue Room with its charmingly dressed receiving party standing
before a large group of favoured and critical friends, and facing the
inquisitive eyes in the central doorway. The President grasped her
hand and said, "How do you do, Miss Madison?" in so pleased and so
cordial a tone that Betty for a fleeting moment wondered where she
could have met him before. Then she smiled, made a comprehensive bow
to his wife and the women of the Cabinet, and passed on. Mrs. Mudd,
who had shaken hands relentlessly with every weary member of the
receiving party, reached the door of exit after her and clutched her
by the arm.
"Say!" she exclaimed with excitement, although her drawl was but half
conquered. "Where _do_ you s'pose I could have met the President
before? I know by the way he said 'Mrs. Mudd,' he remembered me, but I
just can't think, to save my life. My! ain't he fascinating?"
Betty had laughed aloud. "I am sorry to hurt your vanity," she
replied, "but the President is said to have the best manners of any
man who has occupied the White House within living memory."
"What d'you mean?" cried Mrs. Mudd, sharply. "D' you mean he didn't
know me? I just know he did, so there! And he can pack his clothes in
my trunk as soon as he likes."
"Good heaven!"
"Oh, that's slang. I forgot you were so terrible superior. But you've
got good cause to know I'm virtuous. Lands sakes! I guess nobody ever
said I warn't."
"I don't fancy anybody ever did."
They were in the East Room again, with the stars and stripes, the
moving glitter of gold, the loud hum mingled with the distant strains
of martial music.
"It's really inspiring," said Lady Mary. "I wish I could write a war
poem."
"I hope there is nothing coming to inspire war doggerel; the prospect
of a new crop of war stories and war plays is too painful. We were all
brought up on the Civil War and are resigned to its literature. But
life is too short to get used to a new variety."
"Betty dear, ennui has embittered you, and I must confess that I am a
trifle weary of the war before it has begun, myself. Randolph, I think
I prefer you should vote for peace."
"I'm afraid we'll have no peace till we've had war first," said Mr.
Montgomery, grimly.
"Oh, we're goin' to have war," drawled Mrs. Mudd. "Just don't you
worry about that. Now don't blush," she said in Betty's ear. "Senator
North's makin' straight for you. I suspicion you like him better 'n
Burleigh--"
Betty had turned upon her at last, and the woman tittered nervously
and fell back in the crowd.
Senator North and Miss Madison shook hands with that absence of
emotion which is one of the conditions of a crowded environment, and
Lady Mary suggested they should all go to the conservatory, where it
was cooler.
Betty told Senator North of the impression the Army and Navy men had
made on her, and he laughed.
"Of course they are not excited and say little," he said. "They will
do the acting and leave the talking to the private citizens. The only
argument in favour of the war and the large standing army which might
be its consequence is that several hundred thousand more men would
have disciplined brains inside their skulls."
"That dreadful housekeeper I had in the Adirondacks is here, married
to a Representative named George Washington Mudd."
"I never heard of him, but I am sorry she has come here to remind you
of what I should like to have you forget for a time. I do believe a
specimen of every queer fish in the country comes to this pond."
They passed one of the bands, and conversation was impossible until
they entered the great conservatory with its wide cool walks among the
green. It was not crowded, and although there was no seclusion in it
at any time, its lights were few and it had a sequestered atmosphere.
Betty and Senator North involuntarily drew closer together.
"In a way I am happy now," she said. "It is something to be with you
and close to you. I will not think of how much this may lack until I
am alone again and there is no limit to my wants."
"I feel the reverse of depressed," he said, smiling. "Are you quite
well? You look a little tired."
"I am tired with much thinking; but that is inevitable. One cannot
love hopelessly and look one's best. I always despised the heroines of
romance who went into a decline, but Nature demands some tribute in
spite of the strongest will."
He held her arm more closely, but he set his lips and did not answer.
She spoke again after a moment.
"Since that night I have not been nearly so unhappy, however. I even
feel gay sometimes, and my sense of humour has come back. It would be
quite dreadful to go through life without that, but I thought I had
lost it."
He had turned his eyes and was regarding her intently; but much as she
loved them she felt as helpless as ever before their depths. They
could pierce and burn, but they never were limpid for a moment.
"You do not misunderstand that?" she asked hurriedly. "It does not
mean that I love you less, but more, if anything. And I am not
resigned! Only, I feel as if in some way I had received a little help,
as if--I cannot express it."
"I understand you perfectly. We are a little closer than we were, and
life is not quite so grey."
"That is it. And I would supplement your bare statement of the fact,
if I dared."
"If you do, I certainly shall kiss you right here in the crowd," he
said, and they smiled into each other's eyes. There was little need of
explanations between them.
"That would form a brief diversion for Washington. And as for Mrs.
Mudd--By the way, I hope I am not going off. You are the second person
who has told me that I am not looking well."
"You are improved as far as I am concerned. And if you ever faded,
happiness would restore you at once. If happiness never came, perhaps
you would not care--would you?"
She shrugged her beautiful shoulders and smiled quizzically.
"I don't know. _Je suis femme_. I think I might always find some
measure of consolation in the mirror if it behaved properly."
"Your sincerity is one of your charms. So walk and eat and live in the
world, and think as little as you can."
"This conservatory is fearfully draughty," remarked Lady Mary, close
to Betty's shoulder. "I don't want to stay all night, do you?"
"I am ready," said Betty; but she sighed, for she had been almost
happy for the hour.
XI
If the reception at the White House had been calm, Betty's _salon_ on
the following evening was not. On Tuesday the House, after duly
relieving its feelings by an hour and a half of war talk, flaming with
every variety of patriotism, passed the bill appropriating $50,000,000
for the national defence. On Wednesday the bill passed the Senate
without a word beyond the "ayes" of its members. On the morrow the War
Department would begin the mobilization of the army; and although the
_Maine_ Court of Inquiry had not completed its labours, the New York
World, in the interest of curious humanity, had instituted a submarine
inquiry of its own and given the result to the country. Even Senator
North regarded war as almost inevitable, although the controvertible
proof of explosion from without only involved the Spanish by
inference.
The women who were privileged to attend the now famous _salon_ wore
their freshest and most becoming gowns, and most of the Senators would
have been glad to have frivoled away the evening in compliments, so
refreshing was the sight of an attractive face after a long and
anxious day. But the eyes of the women sparkled with patriotic fire
only. One burst into tears and others threatened hysterics, but got
through the evening comfortably. Mrs. Madison sat on a sofa and fanned
herself nervously; Senator Maxwell and Senator North at her request
kept close to her side.
"They were not so excited during the Civil War," she exclaimed, as a
shrill voice smote her ear. "I suppose we have developed more nerves
or something."
"The mind was possessed by the Grim Fact during the Civil War," said
Senator Maxwell. "This is a second-rate thing that appeals to the
nerves and not to the soul."
Betty, who understood the patient longing of her statesmen for
variety, had imported for the evening several members of the troupe
singing at the Metropolitan Opera House. Conversation consequently was
interrupted six or seven times, but it burst forth with increased
vigour at the end of every song; and when the Polish tenor with
mistaken affability sang "The Star Spangled Banner," the women and
some of the younger men took it up with such vehemence that Mrs.
Madison put her fingers to her ears. When one girl jumped on a chair
and waved her handkerchief, which she had painted red, white, and
blue, the unwilling hostess asked Senator North if he thought Betty
would be able to keep her head till the end of the evening, or would
be excited to some extraordinary antic.
"There is not the least danger," he replied soothingly. "Miss Madison
could manage to look impassive if a cyclone were raging within her. It
is a long while since the Americans have had a chance to be excited.
You must make allowances."
Betty for some time had suppressed her Populist with difficulty. He
was one of those Americans to whom a keen thin face and a fair
education give the superficial appearance of refinement. In a country
as democratic as the United States and where schooling and
intelligence are so widespread, it is possible for many half-bred men
to create a good impression when in an equable frame of mind. But
excitement tears their thin coat of gentility in twain, and Betty
already regretted having invited Armstrong to her salon. He had not
missed a Thursday evening, for he not only appreciated the social
advantage of a footing in such a house, but his clever mind enjoyed
the conversation there, and the frankly expressed opinions of well-
bred people who argued without acerbity and never called each other
names. With his slender well-dressed figure and bright fair sharply
cut face, he by no means looked an alien, and if he could have
corrected the habit of contradicting people up and down--to say
nothing of his occasional indulgence in the Congressional snort--his
manners would have passed muster in any gathering. He was a good
specimen of the ambitious American of obscure birth and clever but
shallow brain, quick to seize every opportunity for advancement. But
politics were his strongest instinct, and exciting crises stifled
every other.
He was very much excited to-night, for he had, during the afternoon,
tried three times to bring in a war resolution, and thrice been
extinguished by the Speaker. When the tenor started "The Star-Spangled
Banner," he braced himself against the wall and sang at the top of his
lungs; and the performance seemed to lash his temper rather than
relieve it. He twice raised his voice to unburden his mind, and was
distracted by Betty, who kept him close beside her. Finally she
attempted to change the subject by chatting of personal matters.
"I went to the White House last night," she said, "and was delighted
to find that the President had the most charming manners--"
"What's a manner?" interrupted Armstrong, roughly. "You women are all
alike. I suppose you'd turn up your nose at William J. Bryan because
he ain't what you call a gentleman. But if he were in the White House
instead of that milk-and-water puppet of Wall Street, we'd be shooting
those murderers down in Cuba as we ought to be. The President and the
whole Republican party," he shouted, "are a lot of hogs who've chawed
so much gold their digestion won't work and their brains are torpid;
and there's nothing to do but to kick them into this war--the whole
greedy, white-livered, Trust-owned, thieving lot of them, including
that great immaculate Joss up at the White House with his manners.
Damn his manners! They come too high--"
"Armstrong," said Burleigh soothingly, but with a glint in his eye, "I
have an important communication to make to you. Will you come out into
the hall a moment?" He passed his arm through the Populist's, and led
him unresistingly away.
Betty glanced at her mother. Mrs. Madison was fanning herself with an
air of profound satisfaction. As she met her daughter's eyes, she
raised her brows, and her whole being breathed the content of the
successful prophetess. Senator North looked grimly amused. Betty
turned away hastily. She felt much like laughing, herself.
Burleigh returned alone. "I took the liberty of telling him to go and
not to come again," he said. "That sort of man never apologizes, so
you are rid of him."
Betty smiled and thanked him; then she frowned a little, for she saw
several people glance significantly at each other. She knew that
Washington took it for granted she would marry Burleigh.
They went in to supper a few moments later, and in that admirable meal
the weary statesmen found the solace that woman denied him. And the
flowers were fragrant; the candlelight was grateful to tired eyes, and
the champagne unrivalled. Until the toasts--which in this agitated
time had become a necessary feature of the _salon_--the conversation,
under the tactful management of Betty and several of her friends, and
the diverting influence of the great singers, was but a subdued hum
about nothing in particular. When at the end of an hour Burleigh rose
impulsively and proposed the health of the President, even the
Democrats responded with as much warmth as courtesy.
"You manage your belligerents very well," said Senator North, when he
shook her hand awhile later. "Yours has probably been the only amiable
supper-room in Washington to-night."
XII
"Now!" exclaimed Sally Carter, who was sobbing hysterically, "I hope
they will impeach the President if he delays any longer with the
_Maine_ report and if he doesn't send a warlike message on top of
it. After that speech I don't see why Congress should wait for him at
all."
It was the seventeenth of March, and she and Betty were driving home
from the Capitol after listening to the Senator from Vermont on the
situation in Cuba,--to that cold, bare, sober statement of the result
of personal investigation, which produced a far deeper and more
historical impression than all the impassioned rhetoric which had rent
the air since the agitation began. He appeared to have no feeling on
the matter, no personal bias; he told what he had seen, and he had
seen misery, starvation, and wholesale death. He blamed the Spaniards
no more than the insurgents, but two hundred thousand people were the
victims of both; and the bold yet careful etching he made of the Cuban
drama burnt itself into the brains of the forty-six Senators present
and of the eight hundred people in the galleries.
"I cannot bring myself to think that death is the worst of all evils,"
said Betty, "and I do not think that we have any right to go to war
with Spain, no matter what she chooses to do with her own. Besides,
she is thoroughly frightened now, and I believe would rectify her
mistakes in an even greater measure than she has already tried to do,
if the President were given time to handle her with tact and
diplomacy. If the country would give him a chance to save her pride,
war could be averted."
"You are heartless! Don't argue with me. I hate argument when my
emotions feel as if they had dynamite in them. I could sit down on the
floor of the Senate and scream until war was declared. I hate Senator
North. He never moved a muscle of his face during that entire terrible
recital. He hardly looked interested. He is a heartless brute."
"He is not heartless. He fears everlasting complications if we go to
war with Spain, the expenditure of hundreds of millions, as one result
of those complications, and danger to the Constitution. The statesman
thinks of his own country first--"
"I won't listen! I won't! I won't! Oh, I never thought I could get so
excited about anything. I believe I'm going to have nervous
prostration and I sha'n't see you again till war is declared. So
there!"
The carriage stopped at her house, and she jumped out and ran up the
steps. She kept her word, and it was weeks before Betty saw her to
speak to again.
"If intelligent people get into that condition," thought Betty, "what
can be expected of the fools? And the fools are more dangerous in the
United States than elsewhere, because they are just bright enough to
think that they know more than the Almighty ever knew in His best
days."
A few days later she was crossing Statuary Hall on her way back from
the House Gallery; whither she had gone during an Executive Session of
the Senate, when she met Senator North. His face illuminated as he saw
her, and they both turned spontaneously and went to a bench behind the
immortal ones of the Republic, who in dust and marble were happier
than their inheritors to-day.
"I am thinking of coming down here to live, renting a Committee Room,"
said Betty. "It is the only place where I do not have my opinion asked
and where I do not quarrel with my friends. Molly is sure I shall be
taken for a lobbyist, and if people were not too absorbed to notice
me, I think I should engage a companion; but as it is, I believe I am
safe enough. I have had this simple brown serge made, on purpose."
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