Senator North

G >> Gertrude Atherton >> Senator North

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As the footman closed the door of the coupe and she said curtly, "The
Capitol," she knew that her mind had made itself up in the moment that
it had conceived the possibility of a call upon Senator North.

That point settled, she was calm until she reached the familiar
entrance to the Senate wing, and rehearsed the coming interview.

But her cheeks were hot and her knees were trembling as she left the
elevator and hurried down the corridor to the Committee Room which
Burleigh, when showing her over the building one morning, had pointed
out as Senator North's. She never had felt so nervous. She wondered if
women felt this sudden terror of the outraged proprieties when
hastening to a tryst of which the world must know nothing. And she was
overwhelmed with the vivid consciousness that she was actually about
to demand the time and attention of one of the busiest and most
eminent men in the country. If it had not been for a stubborn and
long-tried will, she would have turned and run.

A mulatto was sitting before the door. When she asked, with a
successful attempt at composure, for Senator North, he demanded her
card. She happened to have one in her purse, and he went into the room
and closed the door, leaving her to be stared at by the strolling
sight-seers.

The mulatto reopened the door and invited her to enter a large room
with a long table, a bookcase, and a number of leather chairs. Before
he had led her far, Senator North appeared within the doorway of an
inner room.

"I am glad to see you," he said. "I know that you are in trouble or
you would not have done me this honour. It is an honour, and as I told
you before I shall feel it a privilege to serve you in any way. Sit
here, by the fire."

Betty felt so grateful for his effort to put her at her ease, so
delighted that he was all her imagination had pictured, and had not
snubbed her in what she conceived to be the superior senatorial
manner, that she flung herself into the easy-chair and burst into
tears.

Senator North knew women as well as a man can. He let the storm pass,
poked the already glowing fire, and lowered two of the window-shades.

"I feel so stupid," said Betty, calming herself abruptly. "I have no
right to take up your time, and I shall say what I have to say and
go."

"I have practically nothing to do for the next hour. Please consider
it yours."

Betty stole a glance at him. He was leaning back in his chair
regarding her intently. It was impossible to say whether his eyes had
softened or not, but he looked kind and interested.

"I never have told you that your father was a great friend of mine,"
he said. "You really have a claim on me." In spite of the fact that
the Congressional Directory gave him sixty years, he looked anything
but fatherly. Although there never was the slightest affectation of
youth in his dress or manner, he suggested threescore years as little.
So strong was his individuality that Betty could not imagine him
having been at any time other than he was now. He was Senator North,
that was the rounded fact; years had nothing to do with him.

"Well, I'm glad you knew papa; it will help you to understand. I--But
perhaps you had better read this."

She took the clergyman's letter from her muff, and Senator North put
on a pair of steel-rimmed eyeglasses and read it. When he had finished
he put the eyeglasses in his pocket, folded the letter, and handed it
to her. He had read the contents with equal deliberation. It seemed
impossible that he would act otherwise in any circumstance.

"Well?" he said, looking keenly at her. "What are you going to do
about it?"

"I am ashamed to tell you how I have felt. But we Southerners feel so
strongly on--on--that subject--it is difficult to explain!"

"We Northerners know exactly how you feel," he said dryly. "We should
be singularly obtuse if we did not. However, do not for a moment
imagine that I am unsympathetic. We all have our prejudices, and the
strongest one is a part of us. And for the matter of that, the average
American is no more anxious to marry a woman with negro blood in her
than the Southerner is, and looks down upon the Black from almost as
lofty a height. Only our prejudice is passive, for he is not the
constant source of annoyance and anxiety with us that he is with you."

"Then you understand how repulsive it is to me to have a sister who is
white by accident only, and how torn I am between pity for her and a
physical antipathy that I cannot overcome?"

"I understand perfectly."

"That is why I have come to you--to ask you what I _must_ do. This is
the first time I have been confronted by a real problem; my life has
been so smooth and my trials so petty. It is too great a problem for
me to solve by myself, and I could not think of anybody's advice but
yours that--that I would take," she finished, with her first flash of
humour.

"I fully expect you to take the advice I am going to give you. Your
duty is plain; you must do all you can for this girl. But by no means
receive her into your house until you have made her acquaintance. Take
the ten o'clock B. & O. to-morrow morning and go to St. Andrew; it is
about four hours' journey and on the line of the railroad. Spend
several hours with the girl, and, if she is worth the trouble, bring
her back with you and do all you can for her: it would be cruel and
heartless to refuse her consolation if she is all this old man
describes--and you are not cruel and heartless. And if this drop of
black blood is abhorrent to you, think what it must be to her. It is
enough to torment a high-strung woman into insanity or suicide. On the
other hand, if she is common, or looks as if she had a violent temper,
or is conceited and self-sufficient like so many of that hybrid race,
settle an income on her and send her to Europe: in placing her above
temptation you will have done your duty."

"But that is the whole point--to be sure that _you_ do the right
thing."

"I almost hope she will be impossible, so that I can wipe her off the
slate at once. Otherwise it will be a terrible problem."

"It is no problem at all. There is no problem in plain duty. Problems
exist principally in works of fiction and in the minds of unoccupied
women. If you meet each development of every question in the most
natural and reasonable manner,--presupposing that you possess that
highest attribute of civilization, common-sense,--no question will
ever resolve itself into a problem. And difficulties usually disappear
as the range of vision contracts. If your house takes fire, you save
what you can, not what you have elaborately planned to save in case of
fire. Train your common-sense and let the windy analysis pertaining
to problems alone."

"But how can I ever get over the horror of the thing, Mr. North?"

"You will forget all about it when she has been your daily companion
for a few weeks. If she lacked a nose, you would as soon cease to
remember it. If this girl is worth liking, you will like her, and soon
cease to feel tragic. Leave that to her!"

"I know that you are right, and of course I shall take your advice. I
did not come here to trouble you for nothing. But if I liked her at
first and not afterward--"

"Pack her off to Europe. Europe will console an American woman for
every ill in life. If you take the right attitude in the beginning, it
all rests with her after that. You will have but one duty further. If
she wishes to marry, you must tell the man the truth, if she will not.
Don't hesitate on that point a moment. Her children are liable to be
coal-black. That African blood seems to have a curse on it, and the
curse is usually visited on the unoffending."

"I will, I will," said Betty. She rose, and he rose also and took her
hand in both of his. She felt an almost irresistible desire to put her
head on his shoulder, for she was tired and depressed.

"Your attitude in the matter is the important thing to me," he said.
"That is why I have spoken so emphatically. You are a child yet, in
spite of your twenty-seven years and your admirable intelligence. This
is practically your first trial, the first time you have been called
upon to make a decision which, either way, is bound to have a strong
effect on your character, and to affect still greater decisions you
may be called upon to make in the future. You have only one defect;
you are not quite serious enough--yet."

"I feel very serious just now," said Betty, with a sigh; and in truth
she did, and her new-found sister was not the only thing that
perplexed her.

"One of these days you will be a singularly perfect woman," he added,
and then he dropped her hand and walked to the door. As he was about
to open it, she touched his arm timidly.

"Will you come and see me on Sunday?" she asked. "I shall have been
through a good deal between now and then, and I shall want--I shall
want to talk to you."

"I will come," he said.

"Not before half-past four. My mother will be asleep then, and my
cousin, Jack Emory, have gone home--there will be so many things I
shall want to talk to you about."

"I shall be there at half-past four," he said. "Good-bye. Good-bye."

XI

Betty went home to her room and cried steadily for an hour. She would
not analyze the complex source of her emotions, but addressed a bitter
reproach to her father's shade; and she reassured herself by frankly
admitting that it would give her pleasure to win the approval of
Senator North.

She bathed her eyes and went to her mother's room. The sooner that
ordeal was over, she reflected, the better. Mrs. Madison was reading
an amusing novel and looked up with a smile, then pushed the book
aside.

"Have you been crying, darling?" she asked. "What can be the matter?"

Betty told her story without preamble. Her mother's nerves could stand
a shock, but not three minutes of uncertainty. Mrs. Madison listened
with more equanimity than Betty anticipated.

"I suppose I may consider myself fortunate that I have not had one of
his brats thrust on me before," she remarked philosophically. "What
are we to do about this creature?"

"There is only one human thing to do. It is not her fault, and she is
very wretched at present. And now that I know the truth I suppose I am
as responsible as my father would be if he were alive. I shall go to
see her to-morrow, and if she is presentable and seems good I shall
bring her to Washington. Of course I shall not bring her here without
your permission--it is your house. Let me read you his letter."

"Do you feel very strongly on the subject?" Mrs. Madison asked when
Betty had finished.

"Oh, I do! I do! I will promise not to bring her to Washington at all
if she is impossible, but if she is all I feel sure she must be, let
me bring her here for a few weeks, until we have decided what to do
for her. I know it is a great deal to ask--her presence cannot fail to
be hateful to you--"

"My dear, I have outlived any feeling of that sort, and I have not put
everything on your shoulders all these years to thwart you now, when
you feel so deeply. Moreover, an old memory came to me while you were
reading that letter. When I was a little girl, about eight or ten, I
spent an entire summer with Aunt Mary Eager at her home in Virginia.
She had a house full, and there were five other little girls beside
myself. A brook ran across the foot of the plantation, and we were
very fond of playing there. Directly across was the hut of a freed
slave who had a little girl about our own age. The child was a
beautiful octaroon. I can see her plainly, with her honey-coloured
skin, her immense black eyes, her long straight black hair, and her
stiff little white frock tucked to the waist. Her mother took the
greatest pride in her, and was always changing her clothes.

"Every day she used to come to the edge of her side of the brook and
watch us. We never noticed her, for although we often played with the
little black piccaninnies, the yellow child of a freed slave was
another matter. One day--I think she had watched us for about a week--
she came half-way across the bridge. We stared at each other, but took
no notice of her. The next day she walked straight across and up to
us, and asked us very nicely if she might play with us. We turned upon
her six scarlet scandalized faces, and what we said, in what brutal
child language, I do not care to repeat. The child stared at us for a
moment as if she were looking into the Inferno itself, and I expect
she was, poor little soul! Then she gave a cry, and tore across the
bridge and up the 'pike as hard as she could run. As long as we could
see her she was running, and as I never saw her again--we avoided the
brook after that--it seemed to me for years as if she must be running
still. And for years those flying feet haunted me, and I used to long
as I grew older to do penance in some way. I befriended many a poor
yellow girl, hoping she might be that child. Then life grew too sad
for me to remember the sins of my childhood. But I like the idea of
making penance at this late day and receiving this girl for a few
weeks into my house: it will be a penance, for I do not fancy sitting
at the table with a woman with negro blood in her veins, I can assure
you. But I shall do it. I believe if I did not I should be haunted
again by those little flying feet. There is no chance of this being
her daughter, for she would have been too old to attract your father's
fancy. But that is not the point. I make one condition. No one must
know the truth, not even Sally or Jack. She must pass for a distant
relative, left suddenly destitute." "She would probably be the last to
wish the truth known. But you have taken a weight off my mind, Molly
dear, and I am deeply grateful to you."

XII

The next day Betty left the train a few minutes after two o'clock and
walked up the winding street of a small village to the parsonage. She
passed a number of cottages picturesquely dilapidated, a store in
which a half-dozen men were smoking, and about thirty lounging
negroes. On rising ground was a large house, but the village looked
forlorn, neglected, almost lifeless.

The men in the store came out and stared at her; so did the women from
the cottages. And the negroes stood still. Doubtless they thought her
a wealthy vision; the day was cold, and she wore a brown cloth dress
and a sable jacket and toque.

"What a life for an intelligent woman!" she thought, glancing about
her with deep distaste. "It would be enough to induce melancholia
without the 'taint.'"

She had made a desperate effort in the last twenty-four hours to
overcome her repugnance, but had only succeeded in making sure that
she could conceal it. She had recalled her interview with Senator
North again and again. His indubitable interest gave her courage, and
a desire to use the best that was in her. And she had turned her mind
more often still to those men in the church and the sentiments they
had inspired. The shutters of the parsonage were closed, there was
crape on the door. Betty turned the knob and entered. A number of
people were in a room on the right of the hall. At the head of the
room, barely out-lined in the heavy shadows, was a coffin on its
trestle.

The house smelt musty and damp. Betty pushed back the door and let in
the bright winter sunlight. Some one rose from the group beside the
coffin and came slowly forward. Betty waited, clinching her hands in
her muff, her breath coming shorter. The dark figure in the dark room
looked like the shadow of death itself. But it was not superstition
that made Betty brace herself. In a moment the figure had stepped into
the sunlight beside her.

Betty had imagined the girl handsome; she was not prepared for
splendid beauty. Harriet Walker was far above the ordinary height of
woman, and very slender and graceful. Her hair and eyes were black,
her skin smooth and white, her features aquiline. Hauteur should have
been her natural expression, but her eyes were dreamy and melancholy,
her mouth discontented. Betty, in that first rapid survey, detected
but two flaws in her beauty: her chin was weak and her hands were
coarse.

"You are Miss Madison," she said, with the monotonous inflection of
grief. "Thank you for coming."

"I am your half-sister," said Betty, putting out her hand. And then
the desire to use the best that was in her overcame the repugnance
that made her very knees shake, and she put her arms about the girl
and kissed her.

"You are mighty kind," said the other. "Will you come into my room?"
Betty followed her into a small room, simpler than any in her own
servants' quarter. But it was neat, and there was an attempt at
smartness in the bright calico curtains and bedspread. The furniture
looked home-made, and there was no carpet on the floor.

"Poor girl! poor girl!" exclaimed Betty, impulsively. "Have you ever
been happy--here?"

"Well, I don't reckon I've been very happy, ever; but I've given some
happiness and I've been loved and sheltered. That is something to be
thankful for in this world."

"I am going to take you away," said Betty, abruptly. "Mr. Walker wrote
me that you'd be willing to come."

"Oh, yes, I'll go, I reckon. I told him I would. I want to hold up my
head. Here I never have, for everybody knows. The white men all round
here insulted me until they got tired of trying to make me notice
them. One of the young men up on the plantation fell in love with me,
and they sent him away and he was drowned at sea. He never knew that I
had the black in my blood, and he had asked me to marry him. They did
not tell him the truth, for they feared he would then wish to make me
his mistress."

She spoke without passion, with a deep and settled melancholy, as if
her intelligence had forbidden her to combat the inevitable. Betty
burst into tears.

"Don't cry," said the other. "I never do--any more. I used to. And if
you'll kindly take me away, I know I'll feel as if I were born over.
If there is anything in this world to enjoy, be right sure I shall
enjoy it. I'm young yet, and I reckon nobody was made to be sad for
ever."

"You shall be happy," exclaimed Betty. "I will see to that. I pledge
myself to it. I will make you forget--everything."

Harriet shook her head. "Not everything. Somewhere in my body, hidden
away, but there, is a black vein, the blood of slaves. I might get to
be happy with lots of books and kind people and no one to despise me
for what I can't help, but every night I'd remember _that_, and then I
reckon I'd feel mighty bad."

"You think so now," said Betty, soothingly, and longing for
consolation herself. "But when you are surrounded by friends who love
you for what you are, by all that goes to make life comfortable and--
and--gay; it seems terribly soon to speak of it, but I shall take you
to all the theatres and buy you beautiful clothes, and I shall settle
on you what your father left me: it is only right you should have it
and feel independent. You will travel and see all the beautiful things
in Europe. Oh, I know that in time you will forget. When you are away
from all that reminds, you cannot fail to forget."

Harriet, who had followed Betty's words with an eager lifting of her
heavy eyelids and almost a smile on her mouth, brought her lips
together as Betty ceased speaking, and held out her hand.

"Do you see nothing?" she asked.

Betty took the hand in hers. "What do you mean?" she demanded. "All
that--the roughness--will wear off. It will be gone in a month."

"There is something there that will never wear off. Look right hard at
the finger-nails."

Betty lifted the hand to her face, vaguely recalling observations of
her mother when discussing suspicious looking brunettes seen in the
North. There was a faint bluish stain at the base of the nails; and
she remembered. It was the outward and indelible print of the hidden
vein within. The nails are the last stronghold of negro blood. She
dropped the hand with an uncontrollable shudder and covered her face
with her muff.

"I feel so horribly sorry for you," she said hastily. "It seemed to me
for the moment as if your trouble were my own."

If the girl understood, she made no sign; hers had been a life of
self-control, and she had been despised from her birth.

"Tell me what you wish me to do now," said Betty, lifting her head.
"When can you leave here? Do you wish me to stay with you? Is it
impossible for you to go to-day?"

"I cannot leave him until he is buried. And you couldn't stay here.
This is Tuesday. I'll go Thursday."

Betty thrust a roll of bills into a drawer. "They are yours by right,"
she said hurriedly. "Go first to Richmond and get a handsome black
frock; you will be sure to find what you want ready made, and it will
be better--on account of the servants--for you to look well when you
arrive. Spend it all. There is plenty more. Buy all sorts of nice
things. I will go now. There is a train soon. Telegraph when you start
for Washington and I will meet you. Good by, and please be sure that I
shall make you happy."

Harriet walked out to the gate, and Betty saw that there were fine
lines on her brow and about her mouth. But she was very beautiful,
sombre and blighted as she was. She clung to Betty for a moment at
parting, then went rapidly into the house.

When Betty reached the street, she restrained an impulse to run, but
she walked faster than she had ever walked in her life, persuading
herself that she feared to miss her train. She waited three quarters
of an hour for it, and there were four dreary hours more before she
saw the dome of the Capitol. She arrived at home with a splitting
headache and an animal craving to lock herself in her room and get
into bed. For the time being no mortal interested her, she was
exhausted and emotionless. She described the interview briefly to her
mother, then sought the solitude she craved. And as she was young and
healthy, she soon fell asleep.

XIII

When she awoke next morning she arose and dressed herself at once: in
bed the will loses its control over thought, and she wished to think
as little as possible. But her mind reverted to the day before, in
spite of her will, and she laughed suddenly and went to her desk and
wrote on a slip of paper,--

"Every woman writes with one eye on the page and one eye on some man,
except the Countess Hahn-Hahn, who has only one eye."--HEINE.

"Some day when I know him better I will give him this," she thought,
and put the slip into a drawer by itself.

The load of care had lifted itself and gone. She had done the right
thing, the momentous question was settled for the present, and Betty
Madison had merely to shake her shoulders and enjoy life again. She
threw open the window and let in the sun. There had been a rain-storm
in the night and then a severe frost. The ice glistened on the naked
trees, encasing and jewelling them. A park near by looked as if the
crystal age of the world had come. The bronze equestrian statue
within that little wood of radiant trees alone defied the ice-storm,
as if the dignity of the death it represented rebuked the lavish hand
of Nature.

Betty felt happy and elated, and blew a kiss to the beauty about her.
She always had had a large fund of the purely animal joy in being
alive, but to-day she was fully conscious that the tremulous quality
of her gladness was due to the knowledge that she should see Senator
North within five more days and the light of approval in his eyes.
Exactly what her feeling for him was she made no attempt to define.
She did not care. It was enough that the prospect of seeing him made
her happier than she ever had felt before. That might go on
indefinitely and she would ask for nothing more. Her recent contact
with the serious-practical side of life--as distinct from the serious-
intellectual which she had cultivated more than once--had terrified
her; she wanted the pleasant, thrilling, unformulated part. For the
first time one of her ideals had come forth from the mists of fancy
and filled her vision as a man; and he was become the strongest
influence in her life. As yet he was unaware of this honour, and
she doubtless occupied a very small corner of his thought; but he was
interested at last, and he was coming to see her. And then he would
come again and again, and she would always feel this same glad quiver
in her soul. She felt no regret that she could not marry him; the
question of marriage but brushed her mind and was dismissed in haste.
That was a serious subject, glum indeed, and dark. She was glad that
circumstance limited her imagination to the happy present. She felt
sixteen, and as if the world were but as old. Love and the intellect
have little in common. They can jog along side by side and not
exchange a comment.

"Come down and take a walk," cried a staccato voice. Sally Carter was
standing on the sidewalk, her head thrown back. Betty nodded, put on
her things and ran downstairs. Miss Carter was wrapped in an old cape,
and her turban was on one side, but she looked rosier than usual.

"I've been half-way out to Chevy Chase," she said, "and I was just
thinking of paying poor old General Lathom a visit. He does look so
well in bronze, poor old dear, and all that ice round him will make
him seem like an ogre in fairy-land. He wasn't a bit of an ogre, he
was downright afraid of me."

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