Gulmore, The Boss Part 1

Gulmore, The Boss.

by Frank Harris.

The habits of the Gulmore household were in some respects primitive.

Though it was not yet seven o'clock two negro girls were clearing away the breakfast things under the minute supervision of their mistress, an angular, sharp-faced woman with a reedy voice, and nervously abrupt movements. Near the table sat a girl of nineteen absorbed in a book. In an easy-chair by the open bay-window a man with a cigar in his mouth was reading a newspaper. Jonathan Byrne Gulmore, as he always signed himself, was about fifty years of age; his heavy frame was muscular, and the coa.r.s.e dark hair and swarthy skin showed vigorous health. There was both obstinacy and combative-ness in his face with its c.o.c.ked nose, low irregular forehead, thick eyebrows, and square jaw, but the deep-set grey eyes gleamed at times with humorous comprehension, and the usual expression of the countenance was far from ill-natured. As he laid the paper on his knees and looked up, he drew the eye. His size and strength seemed to be the physical equivalents of an extraordinary power of character and will. When Mrs. Gulmore followed the servants out of the room the girl rose from her chair and went towards the door. She was stopped by her father's voice:

"Ida, I want a talk with you. You'll be able to go to your books afterwards; I won't keep you long." She sat down again and laid her book on the table, while Mr. Gulmore continued:

"The election's next Monday week, and I've no time to lose." A moment's silence, and he let his question fall casually:

"You know this--Professor Roberts--don't you? He was at the University when you were there--eh?" The girl flushed slightly as she a.s.sented.

"They say he's smart, an' he ken talk. I heard him the other night; but I'd like to know what you think. Your judgment's generally worth havin'."

Forced to reply without time for reflection, Miss Gulmore said as little as possible with a great show of frankness:

"Oh, yes; he's smart, and knows Greek and Latin and German, and a great many things. The senior students used to say he knew more than all the other professors put together, and he--he thinks so too, I imagine," and she laughed intentionally, for, on hearing her own strained laughter, she blushed, and then stood up out of a nervous desire to conceal her embarra.s.sment. But her father was looking away from her at the glowing end of his cigar; and, as she resumed her seat, he went on:

"I'm glad you seem to take no stock in him, Ida, for he's makin' himself unpleasant. I'll have to give him a lesson, I reckon, not in Greek or Latin or them things--I never had nothin' taught me beyond the 'Fourth Reader,' in old Vermont, and I've forgotten some of what I learned then--but in election work an' business I guess I ken give Professor Roberts points, fifty in a hundred, every time. Did you know he's always around with Lawyer Hutchin's?"

"Is he? That's because of May--May Hutch-ings. Oh, she deserves him;"

the girl spoke with sarcastic bitterness, "she gave herself trouble enough to get him. It was just sickening the way she acted, blus.h.i.+ng every time he spoke to her, and looking up at him as if he were everything. Some people have no pride in them."

Her father listened impa.s.sively, and, after a pause, began his explanation:

"Wall, Ida, anyway he means to help Hutchin's in this city election.

'Tain't the first time Hutchin's has run for mayor on the Democratic ticket and come out at the little end of the horn, and I propose to whip him again. But this Professor's runnin' him on a new track, and I want some points about _him_. It's like this. At the Democratic meetin'

the other night, the Professor spoke, and spoke well. What he said was popcorn; but it took with the Mugwumps--them that think themselves too high-falutin' to work with either party, jest as if organization was no good, an' a mob was as strong as an army. Wall, he talked for an hour about purity an' patriotism, and when he had warmed 'em up he went bald-headed for me. He told 'em--you ken read it all in the 'Tribune'--that this town was run by a ring, an' not run honestly; contracts were given only to members of the Republican party; all appointments were made by the ring, and never accordin' to ability--as if sich a ring could last ten years. He ended up by saying, though he was a Republican, as his father is, he intended to vote Democratic--he's domiciled here--as a protest against the impure and corrupt Boss-system which was disgracin' American political life. Twas baby talk. But it's like this. The buildin' of the branch line South has brought a lot of Irish here--they're all Democrats--and there's quite a number of Mugwumps, an' if this Professor goes about workin' them all up--what with the flannel-mouths and the rest--it might be a close finish. I'm sure to win, but if I could get some information about him, it would help me. His father's all right. We've got him down to a fine point.

Prentiss, the man I made editor of the 'Herald,' knows him well; ken tell us why he left Kaintucky to come West. But I want to know somethin'

about the Professor, jest to teach him to mind his own business, and leave other folk to attend to theirs. Ken you help me? Is he popular with the students and professors?"

She thought intently, while the colour rose in her cheeks; she was eager to help.

"With the students, yes. There's nothing to be done there. The professors--I don't think they like him much; he is too clever. When he came into the cla.s.s-room and talked Latin to Johnson, the Professor of Latin, and Johnson could only stammer out a word or two, I guess he didn't make a friend;" and the girl laughed at the recollection.

"I don't know anything else that could be brought against him. They say he is an Atheist. Would that be any use? He gave a lecture on 'Culture as a Creed' about three months ago which made some folk mad. The other professors are Christians, and, of course, all the preachers took it up. He compared Buddha with Christ, and said--oh, I remember!--that Shakespeare was the Old Testament of the English-speaking peoples. That caused some talk; they all believe in the Bible. He said, too, that 'Shakespeare was inspired in a far higher sense than St. Paul, who was thin and hard, a logic-loving bigot.' And President Campbell--he's a Presbyterian--preached the Sunday afterwards upon St Paul as the great missionary of Protestantism. I don't think the professors like him, but I don't know that they can do anything, for all the students, the senior ones, at least, are with him," and the girl paused, and tried to find out from her father's face whether what she had said was likely to be of service.

"Wall! I don't go much on them things myself, but I guess somethin'

ken be done. I'll see Prentiss about it: send him to interview this President Campbell, and wake him up to a sense of his duty. This is a Christian country, I reckon," the grey eyes twinkled, "and those who teach the young should teach them Christian principles, or else--get out. I guess it ken be worked. The University's a State inst.i.tution. You don't mind if he's fired out, do you?" And the searching eyes probed her with a glance.

"Oh! I don't mind," she said quickly, in a would-be careless tone, rising and going towards him, "it has nothing to do with me. He belongs to May Hutchings--let her help him, if she can. I think you're quite right to give him a lesson--he needs one badly. What right has he to come and attack you?" She had pa.s.sed to her father's side, and was leaning against his shoulder. Those grey eyes saw more than she cared to reveal; they made her uncomfortable.

"Then I understand it's like this. You want him to get a real lesson? Is that it? You ken talk straight to me, Ida. I'm with you every time. You know that."

The feminine instinct of concealment worked in her, but she knew this father of hers would have plain speech, and some hidden feeling forced her violent temper to an outburst of curiously mingled hatred of the Professor and exultation in her power of injuring him.

"Why, father, it's all the same to me. I've no interest in it, except to help you. You know I never said a word against him till you asked me. But he has no business to come down and attack _you_," and the voice grew shrill. "It's shameful of him. If he were a man he'd never do it.

Yes--give him a _real_ lesson; teach him that those he despises are stronger than he is. Let him lose his place and be thrown out of work, then we'll see if May Hutchings," and she laughed, "will go and help him. We'll see who is--"

Her father interrupted her in the middle of a tirade which would have been complete self-revelation; but it is not to be presumed that he did this out of a delicate regard for his daughter's feelings. He had got the information he required.

"That's all right, Ida. I guess he'll get the lesson. You ken count on me. You've put me on the right track, I believe. I knew if any one could help me, you'd be able to. n.o.body knows what's in you better'n I do.

You're smarter'n any one I know, and I know a few who think they're real smart--"

In this vein he continued soothing his daughter's pride, and yet speaking in an even, impersonal tone, as if merely stating facts.

"Now I've got to go. Prentiss'll be waiting for me at the office."

While driving to the office, Mr. Gulmore's thoughts, at first, were with his daughter. "I don't know why, but I suspicioned that. That's why she left the University before graduatin', an' talked of goin' East, and makin' a name for herself on the stage. That Professor's foolish. Ida's smart and pretty, and she'll have a heap of money some day. The ring has a few contracts on hand still--he's a fool. How she talked: she remembered all that lecture--every word; but she's young yet. She'd have given herself away if I hadn't stopped her. I don't like any one to do that; it's weak. But she means business every time, just as I do; she means him to be fired right out, and then she'd probably go and cry over him, and want me to put him back again. But no. I guess not. That's not the way I work. I'd be willin' for him to stay away, and leave me alone, but as she wants him punished, he shall be, and she mustn't interfere at the end. It'll do her good to find out that things can't both be done and undone, if she's that sort. But p'r'aps she won't want to undo them. When their pride's hurt women are mighty hard--harder than men by far.... I wonder how long it'll take to get this Campbell to move. I must start right in; I hain't got much time."

As soon as her father left her, Miss Ida hurried to her own room, in order to recover from her agitation, and to remove all traces of it. She was an only child, and had accordingly a sense of her own importance, which happened to be uncorrected by physical deficiencies. Not that she was astonis.h.i.+ngly beautiful, but she was tall and just good-looking enough to allow her to consider herself a beauty. Her chief attraction was her form, which, if somewhat flat-chested, had a feline flexibility rarer and more seductive than she imagined. She was content to believe that nature had fas.h.i.+oned her to play the part in life which, she knew, was hers of right. Her name, even, was most appropriate--dignified. Ida should be queen-like, stately; the oval of her face should be long, and not round, and her complexion should be pallid; colour in the cheeks made one look common. Her dark hair, too, pleased her; everything, in fact, save her eyes; they were of a nameless, agate-like hue, and she would have preferred them to be violet That would have given her face the charm of unexpectedness, which she acknowledged was in itself a distinction. And Miss Ida loved everything that conduced to distinction, everything that flattered her pride with a sense of her own superiority.

It seemed as if her mother's narrowness of nature had confined and shot, so to speak, all the pa.s.sions and powers of the father into this one characteristic of the daughter. That her father had risen to influence and riches by his own ability did not satisfy her. She had always felt that the Hutchingses and the society to which they belonged, persons who had been well educated for generations, and who had always been more or less well off, formed a higher cla.s.s. It was the longing to become one of them that had impelled her to study with might and main. Even in her school-days she had recognized that this was the road to social eminence. The struggle had been arduous. In the Puritan surroundings of middle-cla.s.s life her want of religious training and belief had almost made a pariah of the proud, high-tempered girl, and when as a clever student of the University and a daughter of one of the richest and most powerful men in the State, she came into a circle that cared as little about Christian dogmas as she did, she attributed the comparative coolness with which her companions treated her, to her father's want of education, rather than to the true cause, her own domineering temper. As she had hated her childish playmates, who, instructed by their mothers, held aloof from the infidel, so she had grown to detest the a.s.sociates of her girlhood, whose parents seemed, by virtue of manners and education, superior to hers. The aversion was acrid with envy, and had fastened from the beginning on her compet.i.tor as a student and her rival in beauty, Miss May Hutchings. Her animosity was intensified by the fact that, when they entered the Soph.o.m.ore cla.s.s together, Miss May had made her acquaintance, had tried to become friends with her, and then, for some inscrutable reason, had drawn coldly away. By dint of working twice as hard as May, Ida had managed to outstrip her, and to begin the Junior year as the first of the cla.s.s; but all the while she was conscious that her success was due to labour, and not to a larger intelligence. And with the coming of the new professor of Greek, this superiority, her one consolation, was called in question.

Professor Roberts had brought about a revolution in the University. He was young and pa.s.sionately devoted to his work; had won his Doctor's degree at Berlin _summa c.u.m laude_, and his pupils soon felt that he represented a standard of knowledge higher than they had hitherto imagined as attainable, and yet one which, he insisted, was common in the older civilization of Europe. It was this nettling comparison, enforced by his mastery of difficulties, which first aroused the ardour of his scholars. In less than a year they pa.s.sed from the level of youths in a high school to that of University students. On the best heads his influence was magical. His learning and enthusiasm quickened their reverence for scholars.h.i.+p, but it was his critical faculty which opened to them the world of art, and nerved them to emulation.

"Until one realizes the shortcomings of a master," he said in a lecture, "it is impossible to understand him or to take the beauty of his works to heart When Sophocles repeats himself--the Electra is but a feeble study for the Antigone, or possibly a feeble copy of it--we get near the man; the limitations of his outlook are characteristic: when he deforms his Ajax with a tag of political partisans.h.i.+p, his servitude to surroundings defines his conscience as an artist; and when painting by contrasts he poses the weak Ismene and Chrysothemis as foils to their heroic sisters, we see that his dramatic power in the essential was rudimentary. Yet Mr. Matthew Arnold, a living English poet, writes that Sophocles 'saw life steadily and saw it whole.' This is true of no man, not of Shakespeare nor of Goethe, much less of Sophocles or Racine. The phrase itself is as offensively out of date as the First Commandment."

The bold, incisive criticism had a singular fascination for his hearers, who were too young to remark in it the crudeness that usually attaches to originality.

Miss Hutchings was the first of the senior students to yield herself to the new influence. In the beginning Miss Gulmore was not attracted by Professor Roberts; she thought him insignificant physically; he was neat of dress too, and ingenuously eager in manner--all of which conflicted with her ideal of manhood. It was but slowly that she awoke to a consciousness of his merits, and her awakening was due perhaps as much to jealousy of May Hutchings as to the conviction that with Professor Roberts for a husband she would realize her social ambitions. Suddenly she became aware that May was pa.s.sing her in knowledge of Greek, and was thus winning the notice of the man she had begun to look upon as worthy of her own choice. Ida at once addressed herself to the struggle with all the energy of her nature, but at first without success. It was evident that May was working as she had never worked before, for as the weeks flew by she seemed to increase her advantage. During this period Ida Gulmore's pride suffered tortures; day by day she understood more clearly that the prize of her life was slipping out of reach. In mind and soul now she realized Roberts' daring and charm. With the intensified perceptions of a jealous woman, she sometimes feared that he sympathized with her rival.

But he had not spoken yet; of that she was sure, and her conceit enabled her to hope desperately. A moment arrived when her hatred of May was sweetened by contempt. For some reason or other May was neglecting her work; when spoken to by the Professor her colour came and went, and a shyness, visible to all, wrapped her in confusion. Ida felt that there was no time to be lost, and increased her exertions. As she thought of her position she determined first to surpa.s.s her compet.i.tor, and then in some way or other to bring the Professor to speech. But, alas! for her plans. One morning she demonstrated her superiority with cruel clearness, only to find that Roberts, self-absorbed, did not notice her.

He seemed to have lost the vivid interest in the work which aforetime had characterized him, and the happiness of the man was only less tell-tale than the pretty contentment and demure approval of all he said which May scarcely tried to conceal. Wild with fear, blinded by temper, Ida resolved to know the truth.

One morning when the others left the room she waited, busying herself apparently with some notes, till the Professor returned, as she knew he would, in time to receive the next cla.s.s. While gathering up her books, she asked abruptly:

"I suppose I should congratulate you, Professor?"

"I don't think I understand you."

"Yes, you do. Why lie? You are engaged to May Hutchings," and the girl looked at him with flaming eyes.

"I don't know why you should ask me, or why I should answer, but we have no motive for concealment--yes, I am."

His words were decisive; his reverence for May and her affection had been wounded by the insolent challenge, but before he finished speaking his manner became considerate. He was quick to feel the pain of others and shrank from adding to it--these, indeed, were the two chief articles of the unformulated creed which directed his actions. His optimism was of youth and superficial, but the sense of the brotherhood of human suffering touched his heart in a way that made compa.s.sion and tenderness appear to him to be the highest and simplest of duties. It was Ida's temper that answered his avowal. Still staring at him she burst into loud laughter, and as he turned away her tuneless mirth grew shriller and shriller till it became hysterical. A frightened effort to regain her self-control, and her voice broke in something like a sob, while tears trembled on her lashes. The Professor's head was bent over his desk and he saw nothing. Ida dashed the tears from her eyes ostentatiously, and walked with shaking limbs out of the room. She would have liked to laugh again scornfully before closing the door, but she dared not trust her nerves. From that moment she tried to hate Professor Roberts as she hated May Hutchings, for her disappointment had been very sore, and the hurt to her pride smarted like a burn. On returning home, she told her father that she had taken her name off the books of the University; she meant to be an actress, and a degree could be of no use to her in her new career. Her father did not oppose her openly; he was content to postpone any decisive step, and in a few days she seemed to have abandoned her project. But time brought no mitigation of her spite.

She was tenacious by nature, and her jealous rage came back upon her in wild fits. To be outdone by May Hutchings was intolerable. Besides, the rivalry and triumphs of the cla.s.s-room had been as the salt of life to her; now she had nothing to do, nothing to occupy her affections or give object to her feverish ambition. And the void of her life she laid to the charge of Roberts. So when the time came and the temptation, she struck as those strike who are tortured by pain.

Alone in her room, she justified to herself what she had done. She thought with pleasure of Professor Roberts' approaching defeat and punishment. "He deserves it, and more! He knows why I left the University; drew myself away from him for ever. What does he care for my suffering? He can't leave me in peace. I wasn't good enough for him, and my father isn't honest enough. Oh, that I were a man! I'd teach him that it was dangerous to insult the wretched.

"How I was mistaken in him! He has no delicacy, no true manliness of character. I'm glad he has thrown down the challenge. Father may not be well-educated nor refined, but he's strong. Professor Roberts shall find out what it means to attack _us_. I hope he'll be turned out of the University; I hope he will. Let me think. I have a copy of that lecture of his; perhaps there's something in it worse than I remembered. At any rate, the report will be proof."

She searched hurriedly, and soon found the newspaper account she wanted.

Glancing down the column with feverish eagerness, she burst out: "Here it is; this will do. I knew there was something more."

"... Thus the great ones contribute, each his part, towards the humanization of man. Christ and Buddha are our teachers, but so also, and in no lower degree, are Plato, Dante, Goethe, and Shakespeare....

"But strange to say, the _Divina Commedia_ seems to us moderns more remote than the speculations of Plato. For the modern world is founded upon science, and may be said to begin with the experimental philosophy of Bacon. The thoughts of Plato, the 'fair humanities' of Greek religion, are nearer to the scientific spirit than the untutored imaginings of Christ. The world to-day seeks its rule of life in exact knowledge of man and his surroundings; its teachers, high-priests in the temple of Truth, are the Darwins, the Bunsens, the Pasteurs. In the place of G.o.d we see Law, and the old concept of rewards and punishments has been re-stated as 'the survival of the fittest,' If, on the other hand, you need emotions, and the inspiration of concrete teaching, you must go to Balzac, to Turgenief, and to Ibsen...."