Kitabı oku: «Her Infinite Variety», sayfa 5

X

VERNON went down to breakfast the next morning wearing the new summer clothes his tailor had sent to him from Chicago the day before. He had a flower in his buttonhole; a red rose, indeed, showing his colors for the final triumphant day.

The rotunda of the hotel, swept of the litter of the night before, was clean and cool, and the morning air of a perfect day came in refreshingly at the open doors. The farmer members, confirmed in the habit of early rising, were already sauntering aimlessly about, but otherwise statesmen still slumbered, tired out by their labors of the night before.

Vernon, in the nervous excitement which arouses one at the dawn of any day that is to be big with events, had risen earlier than was his wont. He hastened into the dining-room, and there, at the first table his eye alighted on, sat Maria Burley Greene. She saw him at once, for she faced the door, and she greeted him with a brilliant smile. With springing step he rushed toward her, both hands extended in his eagerness. She half rose to take them; their greeting silenced the early breakfasters for an instant. Then he sat down opposite her and leaned over with a radiant face as near to her as might be, considering the width of table-cloth and the breakfast things between.

“And so you’re here at last!” he exclaimed.

His eyes quickly took in her toilet; remarkably fresh it was, though it had been made on the Springfield sleeper. It gave none of those evidences of being but the late flowering of a toilet that had been made the night before, as do the toilets of some ladies under similar circumstances. She wore this morning a suit of brown, tailored faultlessly to every flat seam, and a little turban to match it. Beside her plate lay her veil, her gloves, and a brass tagged key. And her face, clear and rosy in its rich beauty, was good to look upon. The waiter had just brought her strawberries.

“Send John to me,” said Vernon to the waiter. “I’ll take my breakfast here. May I?” He lifted his eyes to Miss Greene’s.

“Surely,” said she, “we’ll have much to discuss.”

“And so you’re here again at last,” repeated Vernon, as if he had not already made the same observation. He laid, this time, perhaps a little more stress on the “at last.” She must have noted that fact, for she blushed, red as the strawberries she began to turn over with a critically poised fork.

“And did you come down alone?” Vernon went on.

“No, not exactly,” said Miss Greene. “Mrs. Overman Hodge-Lathrop, and, I believe, several—”

“Mrs. Overman Hodge-Lathrop!”

“I think,” said Miss Greene, “that she sits somewhere behind.” There was a twinkle in the eyes she lifted for an instant from her berries.

Vernon scanned the dining-room. There was Mrs. Overman Hodge-Lathrop, in all her—and yes, beside her, sheltered snugly under her all-protecting wing, was Amelia Ansley! They were at a long table, Mrs. Overman Hodge-Lathrop at the head, and with them half a dozen women, severe, and most aggressively respectable. They sat—all of them—erect, pecking at their food with a distrust that was not so much a material caution as a spiritual evidence of their superiority to most of the things with which they were thrust in contact every day. Their hats scarcely trembled, such was the immense propriety of their attitudes; they did not bend at all, even to the cream.

Vernon, who was taking all this in at a glance, saw that Mrs. Overman Hodge-Lathrop was severer than he had ever imagined it possible for women to be—even such a woman as she. He would not have been surprised had he suddenly been told that her name had acquired another hyphen; certainly her dignity had been rehyphenated. There she sat, with her broad shoulders and ample bust, her arms jeopardizing the sleeves of her jacket.

It was the most impressive breakfast table he had ever seen. It might have given him a vision of the future, when he should have secured for women all their civil and political rights, and the nation had progressed to female lieutenant-generals, who would be forced at times to dine in public with their staffs. But he had no such vision, of course; the very spiritual aversion of those women to such a thought would have prevented it, occultly.

In point of fact, his regard in an instant had ceased to be general and had become specific, having Amelia for its objective. She sat on the right of her commander, a rather timid aide; and she seemed spiritually to snuggle more closely under her protecting shadow with each passing moment. She seemed to be half frightened, and had the look of a little girl who is about to cry. Her gray figure, with its hat of violets above her dark hair, was, on the instant, half pathetic to Vernon. She sat facing him, her face downcast.

There was no conversation at that table; it was to be seen at a glance indeed that among those ladies there would be need for none, all things having been prearranged for them. Vernon noted that Amelia seemed to him more dainty, more fragile than she had ever been before, and his heart surged out toward her. Then she raised her eyes slowly, and held him, until from their depths she stabbed with one swift glance, a glance full of all accusation, indictment and reproach. The stab went to his heart with a pain that made him exclaim. Then perceiving that the complicating moments were flying, he rose hastily, and with half an apology to Miss Greene, he rushed across the dining-room.

XI

NONE of the ladies relaxed at Vernon’s approach, Mrs. Overman Hodge-Lathrop least of all. On the contrary she seemed to swell into proportions that were colossal and terrifying, and when Vernon came within her sphere of influence his manner at once subdued itself into an apology.

“Why, Amelia—Mrs. Hodge-Lathrop!” he cried, “and Mrs. Standish, Mrs. Barbourton, Mrs. Trales, Mrs. Langdon—how do you do?”

He went, of course, straight to Mrs. Overman Hodge-Lathrop’s side, the side that sheltered Amelia, and he tried to take the hands of both women at once. Amelia gave him hers coldly, without a word and without a look. He grew weak, inane, and laughed uneasily.

“Delightful morning,” he said, “this country air down here is—”

“Morley,” said Mrs. Overman Hodge-Lathrop, severely, “take that seat at the foot of the table.”

He obeyed, meekly. The ladies, he thought, from the rustle of their skirts, withdrew themselves subtly. The only glances they vouchsafed him were side-long and disapproving. He found it impossible to speak, and so waited. He could not recall having experienced similar sensations since those menacing occasions of boyhood when he had been sent to the library to await his father’s coming.

“Delightful morning, indeed!” Mrs. Overman Hodge-Lathrop said, in her most select tones. “Delightful morning to bring us poor old ladies down into the country!”

“I bring you down!” ejaculated Vernon.

“Morley,” she said, “I don’t wish to have one word from you, not one; do you understand? Your talent for speech has caused trouble enough as it is. Lucky we shall be if we can undo the half of it!”

Vernon shrank.

“Morley Vernon,” Mrs. Overman Hodge-Lathrop continued, “do you know what I have a notion to do?”

“No, Mrs. Hodge-Lathrop,” he said in a very little voice.

“Well, sir, I’ve a notion to give you a good spanking.”

Vernon shot a glance at her.

“Oh, you needn’t look, sir,” she continued, “you needn’t look! It wouldn’t be the first time, as you well know—and it isn’t so many years ago—and I have your mother’s full permission, too.”

The chain of ladylike sympathy that passed about the table at this declaration was broken only when its ends converged on Vernon. Even then they seemed to pinch him.

“Your poor, dear mother,” Mrs. Overman Hodge-Lathrop went on, “insisted, indeed, on coming down herself, but I knew she could never stand such a trip. I told her,” and here Mrs. Overman Hodge-Lathrop paused for an instant, “I told her that I thought I could manage.”

There was a vast significance in this speech.

The waiter had brought the substantials to the ladies, and Mrs. Overman Hodge-Lathrop began eating determinedly.

“It was, of course, just what I had always predicted,” she went on, in a staccato that was timed by the rise of her fork to her lips, “I knew that politics would inevitably corrupt you, soon or late. And now it has brought you to this.”

“To what?” asked Vernon, suddenly growing bold and reckless. Amelia had not given him one glance; she was picking at her chop.

Mrs. Overman Hodge-Lathrop, raising her gold glasses and setting them aristocratically on the bridge of her nose, fixed her eyes on Vernon.

“Morley,” she said, “we know. We have heard and we have read. The Chicago press is an institution that, fortunately, still survives in these iconoclastic days. You know very well, of course, what I mean. Please do not compel me to go into the revolting particulars.” She took her glasses down from her nose, as if that officially terminated the matter.

“But really, Mrs. Hodge-Lathrop,” said Vernon. He was growing angry, and then, too, he was conscious somehow that Miss Greene was looking at him. His waiter, John, timidly approached with a glance at the awful presence of Mrs. Overman Hodge-Lathrop, and said:

“Yo’ breakfus, Senato’, is gettin’ col’.”

“That may wait,” said Mrs. Overman Hodge-Lathrop, and John sprang back out of range.

Vernon was determined, then, to have it out.

“Really, Mrs. Hodge-Lathrop, jesting aside—”

“Jesting!” cried Mrs. Overman Hodge-Lathrop, “jesting! Indeed, my boy, this is quite a serious business!” She tapped with her forefinger.

“Well, then, all right,” said Vernon, “I don’t know what I’ve done. All I have done has been to champion a measure—and I may add, without boasting, I hope, with some success—all I have done has been to champion a measure which was to benefit your sex, to secure your rights, to—”

“Morley!” Mrs. Overman Hodge-Lathrop said, cutting him short. “Morley, have you indeed fallen so low? It is incomprehensible to me, that a young man who had the mother you have, who had the advantages you have had, who was born and bred as you were, should so easily have lost his respect for women!”

“Lost my respect for women!” cried Vernon, and then he laughed. “Now, Mrs. Hodge-Lathrop,” he went on with a shade of irritation in his tone, “this is too much!”

Mrs. Overman Hodge-Lathrop was calm.

“Have you shown her any respect?” she went on. “Have you not, on the contrary, said and done everything you could, to drag her down from her exalted station, to pull her to the earth, to bring her to a level with men, to make her soil herself with politics, by scheming and voting and caucusing and buttonholing and wire-pulling? You would have her degrade and unsex herself by going to the polls, to caucuses and conventions; you would have her, no doubt, in time, lobbying for and against measures in the council chamber and the legislature.”

Mrs. Overman Hodge-Lathrop paused and lifted her gold eye-glasses once more to the bridge of her high, aristocratic nose.

“Is it that kind of women you have been brought up with, Morley? Do we look like that sort? Glance around this table—do we look like that sort of women?”

The ladies stiffened haughtily, disdainfully, under the impending inspection, knowing full well how easily they would pass muster.

“And, if that were not enough,” Mrs. Overman Hodge-Lathrop went on inexorably, “we come here to plead with you and find you hobnobbing with that mannish thing, that female lawyer!”

She spoke the word female as if it conveyed some distinct idea of reproach. She was probing another chop with her fork. She had sent the pot of coffee back to the kitchen, ordering the waiter to tell the cook that she was accustomed to drink her coffee hot.

“And now, Morley Vernon, listen to me,” she said, as if he were about to hear the conclusion of the whole matter. “If you have any spark of honor left in you, you will undo what you have already done. This resolution must be defeated in the Senate to-day; I am down here to see that it is done. We go to the State House after breakfast, and these ladies will assist me in laying before each member of the Senate this matter in its true and exact light. As for our rights,” she paused and looked at him fixedly, “as for our rights, I think we are perfectly capable of preserving them.”

Her look put that question beyond all dispute.

“And now,” she resumed, “you would better take a little breakfast yourself; you look as if you needed strength.”

Vernon rose. He stood for an instant looking at Amelia, but she glanced at him only casually.

“I suppose, Amelia, I shall see you later in the morning?”

“I suppose so, Mr. Vernon,” she said. “But pray do not let me keep you from rejoining your companion.” She was quite airy, and lifted her coffee-cup with one little finger quirked up higher than he had ever seen it before.

He went back to where Miss Greene sat, and where his breakfast lay.

“My goodness!” he said, seating himself. “I’ve had a time!”

“I should imagine so,” said Miss Greene.

She was just touching her napkin to her lips with a final air. She carefully pushed back her chair, and rose from the table.

“I beg your pardon,” he stammered, getting up himself, “I’ll see you after breakfast.”

Miss Greene bowed. Then she left the dining-room.

XII

MORLEY VERNON came out of the dining-room in a temper far different from that he had worn when he went in. His breakfast, after so many vicissitudes, was sure to be a failure, though John, striving against fate, had tried to restore the repast to its original excellence by replacing each dish with a fresh one. He affected a heroic cheerfulness, too, but the cheer was hollow, for his experience of men and of breakfasts must have taught him that such disasters can never be repaired.

Vernon, however, had heavier things on his mind. In his new position as knight-errant of Illinois womankind, he had looked forward to this day as the one of triumph; now, at its beginning, he found himself with two offended women on his hands, and two hopelessly irreconcilable mistresses to serve. He began to see that the lot of a constructive statesman is trying; he would never criticize leaders again.

The lobby of the hotel was filling rapidly, and men with their hair still damp from the morning combing were passing into the breakfast room with newspapers in their hands. In the center of the lobby, however, he saw a group of senators, and out of the middle of the group rose a dark bonnet; the flowers on the bonnet bobbed now and then decisively. Around it were clustered other bonnets, but they were motionless, and, as it were, subordinate.

“Can you tell me who that is?” asked Brooks of Alexander, jerking his thumb at the group.

“Yes,” said Vernon, “that’s General Hodge-Lathrop. She’s on her way to the front to assume command.”

“Oh!” said Brooks. “I saw something in the papers—” And he went away, reading as he walked.

Vernon looked everywhere for Miss Greene, but he could not find her. The porter at the Capitol Avenue entrance told him that she had driven over to the State House a few minutes before. Vernon was seized by an impulse to follow, but he remembered Amelia. He could not let matters go on thus between them. If only Mrs. Overman Hodge-Lathrop were not in command; if he could get Amelia away from her for a while, if he could see her alone, he felt that explanations would be possible.

He looked at his watch; it was half-past nine; the Senate would convene at ten; the resolution would not be reached before half-past ten at any rate; and so he determined to brave Mrs. Overman Hodge-Lathrop again. He turned back into the lobby; there she was, hobnobbing with men; she did not pass from group to group, after the manner of any other lobbyist, but by some coercion he wished he might be master of, she drew them unerringly to her side. Now she had Braidwood, the leader of the House, and chairman of the steering committee, and Porter, the leader of the Senate. She appeared to be giving them instructions.

She had set her committee on less important game; the ladies were scattered over the rotunda, each talking to a little set of men. When Mrs. Overman Hodge-Lathrop saw Vernon coming, she turned from Braidwood and Porter and stood awaiting him. Strangely enough Braidwood and Porter stayed where they were, as if she had put them there. And Vernon reflected that he had never known them, as doubtless no one else had ever known them, to do such a thing as that before.

“Where’s Amelia?” he asked before she could speak.

“I have sent her upstairs,” said Mrs. Overman Hodge-Lathrop, “poor child!”

Vernon wondered why “poor child.”

“It’s really too bad,” Mrs. Overman Hodge-Lathrop continued.

“What is too bad?” demanded Vernon. He had grown sulky.

Mrs. Overman Hodge-Lathrop looked at him pityingly.

“Morley,” she said in a vast solemn tone that came slowly up from her great stays, “I can make allowances, of course. I know something of the nature of man; I will admit that that Greene woman is remarkably handsome, and of her cleverness there can be no doubt. I don’t altogether blame you.”

She paused that Vernon might comprehend to the fullest her marvelous magnanimity.

“But at the same time it has been hard on poor little Amelia. I saw no other way than to bring her down. You must go to her at once.”

She turned toward Braidwood and Porter, still standing where she had left them.

“When you have done, I’ll see you with reference to this miserable resolution; but that can wait till we are at the Capitol. This other matter comes first, of course.”

She smiled with a fat sweetness.

“And Morley,” she said, “order two carriages for us at ten o’clock. You may drive to the Capitol with us.”

And she went away.

Vernon ordered the carriages, and in turning the whole matter over in his mind he came to the conclusion that he must deal with these complications one at a time; Miss Greene, as events now had shaped themselves, would have to wait until he got over to the State House.