Senator North

G >> Gertrude Atherton >> Senator North

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Mrs. Madison, who had been staring at Sally Carter, replied with an
evident attempt to be agreeable, "Of course I always find it
interesting to hear people talk about what they understand best."
"Politics are what I should like to understand least. Since I have
come to the Senate I have endeavoured to forget all I ever knew about
them. I rely upon my friends to keep me in office while I am making a
desperate attempt to become a fair-minded legislator."

He spoke lightly. Betty could not determine whether he was posing or
telling the simple truth to people who would be glad to take him at
his word. There was a twinkle of amusement in his eye; but he looked
too impatient for even the milder sort of hypocrisy.

Mrs. Madison thawed visibly. "You younger men should try to restore
the old ideals," she said.

"Ah, madam," he replied, "if you only knew what the censors said about
the old ideals when they were alive! If Time will be as kind to us, we
can swallow our own dose with a reasonable amount of philosophy. John
Quincy Adams arraigned the politics of his day in the bitterest
phrases he could create; but to-day we are asked to remember the
glorious past and hide our heads."

The Montgomery's entered the room. Randolph, who was as tall as
Senator Burleigh and very slender, looked so distinguished that Mrs.
Madison immediately decided to remember only that his family was as
old as her own. He had lost none of the repose he had found during his
three years' residence in Europe, but the effort to keep it in the
House had made his handsome face thin and touched his mouth with
cynicism. His hair was still black, and there were no lines about his
cool gray eyes.

"Blessed day of rest!" exclaimed his wife. "I got up just one hour
ago. Do you know, Miss Madison, I paid twenty-six calls on Thursday,
eighteen on Friday and twelve on Saturday? Never marry into political
life."

Senator Burleigh, who had been talking to Miss Carter, turned round
quickly. "Some women are so manifestly made for it," he said, "that it
would be folly for them to attempt to escape their fate."

IX

A month passed. Betty received with Lady Mary on Tuesdays, and under
that popular young matron's wing called on a number of women prominent
in the official life of the dying Administration, whom she received on
Fridays. They were very polite, and returned her calls promptly; but
they did not always remember her name, and her personality and
position impressed but a few of these women, overwhelmed with social
duties, visiting constituents, and people-with-letters. Most of them
paid from fifteen to twenty calls on six days out of seven, and had
filled their engagement books for the season during its first
fortnight. Betty was chagrined at first, then amused. Moreover, her
incomplete success raised the political world somewhat in Mrs.
Madison's estimation; she had expected that her house would be
besieged by these temporary beings, eager for a sniff at Old
Washington air. Betty realized that she must be content to go slowly
this winter, and begin to entertain as soon as the next season opened.
Lady Mary took her to four large receptions, and she was invited to
two or three dinners of a semi-official character; for several women
not only fancied her, but appreciated the fact that the official were
not the highest social honours in the land, and were glad to further
her plans.

Senator Burleigh called several times. One day he arrived with a large
package of books: Bryce's "American Commonwealth," a volume containing
the Constitution and Washington's Farewell Address, and several of the
"American Statesmen" monographs.

"Read all these," he said dictatorially. ("He certainly takes me very
seriously," thought Betty. "Doubtless he'll stand me in a corner with
my face to the wall if I don't get my lessons properly.") "I want you
to acquire the national sense. I don't believe a woman in this country
knows the meaning of the phrase. Study and think over the characters
of the men who created this country: Washington and Hamilton,
particularly. You'll know what I mean when you've read these little
volumes; and then I'll bring you some thirty volumes containing the
letters and despatches and communications to Congress of these two
greatest of all Americans. I don't know which I admire most. Hamilton
was the most creative genius of his century, but the very fact that he
was a genius of the highest order makes him hopeless as a standard.
But all men in public life who desire to attain the highest and most
unassailable position analyze the character of Washington and ponder
over it deeply. There never was a man so free from taint, there never
was such complete mental poise, there never was such cold, rarified,
unerring judgment. The man seems to us--who live in a turbulent day
when the effort to be and to remain high-minded makes the brain ache--
to have been nothing less than inspired. And his political wisdom is
as sound for to-day as for when he uttered it; although, for the life
of me, I cannot help disregarding his admonition to keep hands out of
foreign pie, this time. I want the country to go to the rescue of
Cuba, and I'll turn over every stone I can to that end."

Betty had listened to him with much interest. "Would Washington have
gone?" she asked. "Would he advise it now, supposing he could?"

"No, I don't believe he would. Washington had a brain of ice, and his
ideal of American prosperity was frozen within it. He would fear some
possible harm or loss to this country, and the other could be left to
the care of an all-merciful Providence. I love my country with as
sound a patriotism as a man may, and I revere the memory of
Washington, but I have not a brain of ice, and I think a country, like
a man, should think of others besides itself. And the United States
has got to that point where almost nothing could hurt it. A few
months' patriotic enthusiasm, for that matter, would do it no end of
good. If you care to listen, I'll read the Farewell Address to you."

He read it in his sonorous rolling voice, that must have done as much
to make him a popular idol in his State as his more distinguished
gifts for public life. Betty decided that the more senatorial he was
the better she liked him. She knew that he was a favourite with men,
and had a vague idea that men, when in the exclusive society of their
own sex, always told witty anecdotes, but she could not imagine
herself making small talk with Senator Burleigh. Her day for small
talk, however, she fervently hoped was over.

She had seen Senator North again but once. Lady Mary Montgomery gave a
great evening reception, as magnificent an affair of the sort as Betty
was likely to see in Washington. It was given in honour of a
distinguished Englishman, who, rumour whispered, had come over in the
interests of the General Arbitration Treaty between the United States
and Great Britain, now at the mercy of the Committee on Foreign
Relations. There was another impression, equally alive in Washington
that Lady Mary aspired to be the historic link between the two
countries. Certain it was that the Secretary of State, the British
Ambassador, and the Committee on Foreign Relations dined and called
constantly at her house. The Distinguished Guest had called on her
every day since his arrival.

Betty knew what others divined; for the friends were inseparable, and
Mary Montgomery was very frank with her few intimates. "Of course I
want the treaty to go through," she had said to Betty, only the day
before her reception; "and I am quite wild to know what the Committee
are doing with it. But of course they will say nothing. Senator Ward
kisses my hand and talks Shakespeare and Socrates to me, and when I
use all my eloquence in behalf of a closer relationship between the
two greatest nations on earth--for I want an alliance to follow this
treaty--he says: _'Ma belle dame sans merci,_ the American language
shall yet be spoken in the British Isles; I promise you that.' He is
one of the few Americans I cannot understand. He has eyes so heavy
that he never looks quite awake, and he is as quick as an Italian's
blade in retort. He has a large and scholarly intellect, and it is
almost impossible to make him serious. You never see him in his chair
on the floor of the Senate, although he sometimes drifts across the
room with a cigar in the hollow of his hand, and he is admittedly
one of its leading spirits, and the idol of a Western State--of all
things! Senator North is the reverse of transparent, but sometimes he
goes to the point in a manner which leaves nothing to be desired. He
is not on the Committee of Foreign Relations, so I asked him point
blank the other day if he thought the treaty would go through and if
he did not mean to vote for it. He is usually as polite as all men who
are successful in politics and like women, but he gave a short and
brutal laugh. 'Lady Mary,' he said, 'when some of my colleagues were
cultivating their muscles on the tail of your lion in the winter of
1895, I told them what I thought of them in language which only
senatorial courtesy held within bounds. If the Committee on Foreign
Relations--for whose members I have the highest respect: they are
picked men--should do anything so foolish and so unpatriotic as to
report back that treaty in a form to arouse the enthusiasm of
the British press, I fear I should disregard senatorial courtesy. But
the United States Senate does not happen to be composed of idiots, and
the President may amuse himself writing treaties, but he does not make
them.'

"Then I asked him if he had no sentiment, if he did not think the
spirit of the thing fine: the union of the great English-speaking
races; and he replied that he saw no necessity for anything of the
sort: we did very well on our separate sides of the water; and as for
sentiment, we were like certain people,--much better friends while
coquetting than when married. He added that the divorce would be so
extremely painful. I asked him what was to prevent another lover's
quarrel, if there were no ring and no blessing, and he replied: 'Ah
that is another question. To keep out of useless wars with the old
country and to tie our hands fast to her quarrels are two things, and
the one we will do and the other we won't do.'

"That is all he would say, but fortunately there is a less
conservative element in the Senate than his, although I believe they
all become saturated with that Constitution in time. I can see it
growing in Senator Burleigh."

All elements had come to her reception to-night. Ambassadors and
Envoys Extraordinary were there in the full splendour of their
uniforms. So were Generals and Admirals; and the women of the Eastern
Legations had come in their native costumes. The portly ladies of the
Cabinet were as resplendent as their position demanded, and the
aristocracy of the Senate and the women of fashion were equally fine.
Other women were there, wives of men important but poor, who walked
unabashed in high-neck home-made frocks; and their pretty daughters,
were as simple as themselves. One wore a cheese-cloth frock, and
another a blue merino. The dames of the Plutocracy were there, blazing
with converted capital,--Westerners for the most part, with hogsheads
of money, who had come to the City of Open Doors to spend it. It was
seldom they were in the same room with the Old Washingtonians, and
when they were they sighed; then reminded themselves of recent dinners
to people whose names were half the stock in trade of the daily press.
Sally Carter, who regarded them through her lorgnette with much the
same impersonal interest as she would accord to actors on the boards,
wore a gown of azure satin trimmed with lace whose like was not to be
found in the markets of the world. Her hair was elaborately dressed,
and her thin neck sufficiently covered by a curious old collar of
pearls set with tiny miniatures. Careless as she was by day, it often
suited her to be very smart indeed by night. She looked brilliant; and
Jack Emory, who had been commanded by Betty to accept Lady Mary's
invitation, did not leave her side. And she snubbed her more worldly-
minded followers and devoted herself to his amusement.

All the men wore evening clothes. It seemed to be an unwritten law
that the politician should have his dress-suit did his wife wear serge
for ever. Consequently they presented a more uniformly fine appearance
than their women, and most of them held themselves with a certain look
of power. Their faces were almost invariably keen and strong. Few of
the younger members of the House were here to-night, only those who
had been in it so many years that they were high in political
importance. Among them the big round form and smooth round head of
their present and perhaps most famous Speaker were conspicuous: the
United States was moving swiftly to the parting of the ways, and there
are times when a Speaker is a greater man than a President.

What few authors Washington boasts were there, as well as Judges of
the Supreme Court, scholars, architects, scientists, and journalists.
And they moved amid great splendour. Lady Mary had thrown open her
ball-room, and the walls looked like a lattice-work of American Beauty
roses and thorns. Great bunches of the same expensive ornament swung
from the ceiling, and the piano was covered with a quilt of them
deftly woven together. The pale green drawing-room was as lavishly
decorated with pink and white orchids and lilies of the valley. Lady
Mary felt that she could vie in extravagance with the most ambitious
in her husband's ambitious land.

Betty was entertaining four Senators, the Distinguished Guest, and the
Speaker of the House when she caught a glimpse of Senator North. She
immediately became a trifle absent, and permitted Senator Shattuc, who
liked to tell anecdotes of famous politicians, to take charge of the
conversation. While he was thinking her the one woman in Washington
charming enough to establish a _salon_, she was congratulating
herself that she should meet Senator North again when she looked her
best. She wore a wonderful new gown of mignonette green and ivory
white, and many pearls in her warm hair and on her beautiful neck. She
looked both regal and girlish, an effect she well knew how to produce.
Her head was thrown back and her eyes were sparkling with triumph as
they met Senator North's. He moved toward her at once.

"I should be stupid to inquire after your health," he said as he shook
her hand. "You are positively radiant. I shall ask instead if you
still find time to come up and see us occasionally, and if we improve
on acquaintance?"

"I go very often indeed, but I have seen you only three times."

"I have been North for a week, and in my Committee Room a good deal
since my return."

Betty was determined not to let slip this opportunity. She resented
the platitudes that are kept in stock by even the greatest minds, and
wished that he would hold out a peremptory arm and lead her to some
quiet corner and talk to her for an hour. But he evidently had a just
man's appreciation of the rights of others, for he betrayed no
intention to do anything of the kind. His eyes dwelt on her with frank
admiration, but Washington is the national headquarters of pretty
women, and he doubtless contented himself with a passing glimpse of
many. And this time Betty felt the full force of the man's magnetism.
She would have liked to put up a detaining hand and hold him there for
the rest of the evening. Even were there no chance for conversation,
she would have liked to be close beside him. She forgot, that he was
an ideal on a pedestal and shot him a challenging glance. "I have
hoped that you would come up to the gallery and call on me," she said
pointedly.

He moved a step closer, then drew back. His face did not change.

"I certainly shall when I am so fortunate as to see you up there," he
said. "But the fourth of March is not far off, and the pressure
accumulates. I am obliged to be in my Committee Room, as well as in
other Committee Rooms, for the better part of every day. But if I can
do anything for you, if there is any one you would care to meet, do
not fail to let me know. Send word to my room, and if possible I will
go to you."

Betty looked at him helplessly. She wanted to ask him to call at her
house on Sunday, but felt a sudden diffidence. After all, why should
he care to call on her? He had more important things to think of; and
doubtless he spent his few leisure hours with some woman far more
brilliant than herself. Her head came down a trifle and she turned it
away. He stood there a moment longer, then said,--

"Good-night," and, after a few seconds' hesitation, and with
unmistakable emphasis: "Remember that it would give me the greatest
possible pleasure to do anything for you I could." Immediately after,
he left the room.

When she was alone an hour later, she anathematized herself for a
fool. Diffidence had no permanent part in her mental constitution. She
was sure that if she could talk with him for thirty consecutive
minutes she could interest him and attach him to her train. Her pride,
she felt, was now involved. She should estimate herself a failure
unless she compelled Senator North to forget the more experienced
women of the political world and spend his leisure hours with her.
She had been a brilliant success in other spheres, she would not fail
in this.

But two more weeks passed and she did not see him. He came neither to
the floor of the Senate within her experience of it, nor to the
gallery. Nor did he appear to care for Society. Few of the Senators
did, for that matter. They did not mind dining out, as they had to
dine somewhere, and an agreeable and possibly handsome partner would
give zest to any meal; but they were dragged to receptions and escaped
as soon as they could.

X

Betty rose suddenly from the breakfast-table and went into the
library, carrying a half-read letter. She had felt her face flush and
her hand tremble, and escaped from the servants into a room where she
could think alone for hours, if she wished.

The letter ran as follows:--

THE PARSONAGE, ST. ANDREW, VIRGINIA.
To MISS ELIZABETH MADISON:

DEAR MADAM,--I have a communication of a somewhat trying nature to
make, and believe me; I would not make it were not my end very near.
Your father, dear madam, the late Harold Carter Madison, left an
illegitimate daughter by a woman whom he loved for many years, an
octaroon named Cassandra Lee. Before his death he gave poor Cassie a
certain sum of money, and made her promise to leave Washington and
never return. She came here and devoted the few remaining years
of her life to the care of her child. I and my wife were the only
persons who knew her story, and when she was dying we willingly
promised to take the little one. For the last ten years Harriet has
lived here in the parsonage and has been the only child I have ever
known,--a dearly beloved child. She has been carefully educated and is
a lady in every sense of the word. I had until the last two years a
little school, and she was my chief assistant. But the public school
proved more attractive--and doubtless is more thorough--and this
passed from me. Last year my wife died. Now I am going, and very
rapidly. I have only just learned the nature of my illness, and I may
be dead before you receive this letter. I write to beg you to receive
your sister. There is no argument I can use, dear lady, which your own
conscience will not dictate. You will not be ashamed of her. She shows
not a trace of the taint in her blood. The money your father gave
Cassie has gone long since, but Harriet asks no alms of you, only
that you will help her to go somewhere far from those who know that
she is not as white as she looks, and to give her a chance to earn her
living. She is well fitted to be a governess or companion, and no
doubt you could easily place her. But she is lonely and frightened and
miserable. Be merciful and receive her into your home for a time.

"I dare not write this to your mother. She has no cause to feel warmly
to Harriet. But you are young, and wealthy in your own right. Her
future rests with you. Here in this village she can do absolutely
nothing, and after I am buried she will not have enough to keep her
for a month. Answer to her--she bears my name."

I am, dear lady,
Your humble and obd't servant,
ABRAHAM WALKER.

P. S. Harriet is twenty-three. She has letters in her possession which
prove her parentage.

Betty's first impulse was to take the next train for St. Andrew. Her
heart went out to the lonely girl, deprived of her only protector,
wretched under the triple load of poverty, friendlessness, and the
curse of race. She remembered vividly those two men in the church
whose bearing expressed more forcibly than any words the canker that
had blighted their manhood. And this girl bore no visible mark of the
wrong that had been done her, and only needed the opportunity to be
happy and respected. Could duty be more plain? And was she a chosen
instrument to right one at least of the great wrongs perpetrated by
the brilliant, warm-hearted, reckless men of her race?

But in a moment she shuddered and dropped the letter, a wave of horror
and disgust rising within her. This girl was her half-sister, and was,
light or dark, a negress. Betty had seen too much of the world in her
twenty-seven years to weep at the discovery of her father's weakness,
or to shrink from a woman so unhappy as to be born out of wedlock; but
she was Southern to her finger-tips: the blacks were a despised, an
unspeakably inferior race, and they had been slaves for hundreds of
years to the white man. To be sure, she loved the old family servants,
and rarely said a harsh word to them, and it was a matter of
indifference to her that they had been freed, as she had plenty of
money to pay their wages. But that the negro should vote had always
seemed to her incredible and monstrous, and she laughed to herself
when she met on the streets the smartly dressed coloured folk out for
a walk. They seemed farcically unreal, travesties on the people to
whom a discriminating Almighty had given the world. To her the entire
race were first slaves, then servants, entitled to all kindness so
long as they kept their place, but to be stepped on the moment they
presumed. She recoiled in growing disgust from this girl with the
hidden drop of black in her body.

But her reasoning faculty was accustomed to work independently of her
brain's inherited impressions. She stamped her foot and anathematized
herself for a narrow-minded creature whose will was weaker than her
prejudices. The girl was blameless, helpless. She might have a mind as
good as her own, be as well fitted to enjoy the higher pleasures of
life. And she might have a beauty and a temperament which would be her
ruin did her natural protectors tell her that she was a pariah, an
outcast, that they could have none of her. Betty conjured her up, a
charming and pathetic vision; but in vain. The repulsion was physical,
inherited from generations of proud and intolerant women, and she
could not control it.

She longed desperately for a confidant and adviser. Her mother she
could not speak to until she had made up her mind. Emory and Sally
Carter would tell her to give the creature an allowance and think no
more about her; and the matter went deeper than that. The girl had
heart and an educated mind; her demands were subtle and complex.
Senator Burleigh? He would laugh impatiently at her prejudices, and
tell her that she ought to go out and live in the free fresh air
of the West. They probably would quarrel irremediably. Mary Montgomery
would only stare. Betty could hear her exclaim: "But why? What? And
you say she is quite white? I do not think that negroes are as nice as
white people, of course; but I cannot understand your really tragic
aversion."

There was only one person to whom it would be a luxury to talk,
Senator North. She knew that he would not only understand but
sympathize with her, and she was sure he would give her wise counsel.
She regretted bitterly that she had not been able to make a friend of
him, as she had of several of his colleagues. She would have sent for
him without hesitation.

She glanced at the clock; it pointed to ten minutes past ten. He was
doubtless at that moment in his Committee Room looking over his
correspondence. She knew that Senators received letters at the rate of
a hundred a day, and were early risers in consequence. If only she
dared to go to him, if only he were not so desperately busy. But he
had intimated that he had leisure moments, had taken the trouble to
say that it would give him pleasure to serve her. Why should he not?
What if he were a Senator? Was she not a Woman? Why should she of all
women hesitate to demand a half-hour's time of any man? She needed
advice, must have it: a decision should be reached in the next twenty-
four hours. Not for a second did she admit that she was building up an
excuse for the long-desired interview with Senator North. She was a
woman confronted with a solemn problem. Her coupe was at the door; she
had planned a morning's shopping. She ran upstairs and dressed herself
for the street, wondering what order she would give the footman. She
changed her mind hurriedly twenty times, but was careful to select the
most becoming street-frock she possessed, a gentian blue cloth trimmed
with sable. There were three hats to match it, and she tried on each,
to the surprise of her maid, who usually found her easy to please. She
finally decided upon a small toque which was made to set well back
from her face into the heavy waves of her hair. She was too wise to
wear a veil, for her complexion was flawless, her forehead low and
full, and her hair arranged loosely about it; she wore no fringe.

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