Angela's Business Part 14

There must have been a bracing quality in the thought of Mary Wing, for Charles's hot desire to justify himself chilled instantly. Mary had her faults, heaven knew; but she had nothing to do with sofas. In a wink, the young man became staggered at himself. For there was nothing he had been thinking just now that he had not seen clearly for many years past.

What, then? Had his vision of late been blurred in the cheapest way conceivable? When he told himself that he was scientifically commending the supplying of Beauty and Charm, was it possible that he, Charles Garrott, had been subtly allured by La Femme?

From outraged and resentful, Charles became let down and depressed.

Standing and gazing at Mary Wing's bright light, he found his whole point of view s.h.i.+fting. He, of course, was blameworthy, not this soft bit of unthinking femininity. Turned out without a lesson and with but one way of life--what could she do but signify, like her mothers, that she was ready to twine about her oak? So again, Charles saw the girl he had left in tears as a being mysteriously wistful and pathetic. And still she was a type to him, still a symbol of myriads of girls, waiting over the world: Girls brought up by simple parents who a.s.sumed that life was still as simple as they; girls made to stake their whole lives on the vague expectation that, because they are girls, some man or other will be sure to want them some day; a million girls waiting, day by day and year by year, while all they have to offer life fades away under their eyes....

The young authority trailed out of the park feeling much like the cads of Romance, after all. And yet it seemed to be settled now, definitely and positively, that he would not make a Womanly Woman the heroine of his new novel.

A light snow had begun to fall. Other people than Charles Garrott moved homeward from evenings of beauty, charm and pleasure. Motor-cars rolled on Was.h.i.+ngton Street. Emerging from the Green Park, Charles moodily saluted two young men who stood there on a corner; one was his good friend, Talbott Maxon, but the author pa.s.sed him almost like a stranger.

To all intercourse with his kind he felt utterly averse. Nevertheless, when he pa.s.sed the door of the Bellevue Club, presently, he found his privacy ruthlessly invaded.

Down the wide steps between the two columnar lights--exactly as on that other evening when it had all begun--came shambling the loose figure of Uncle Oliver Wing. Only now Uncle Oliver's large face was faintly flushed, his large felt hat was pulled over his eyes, his very large cigar was rakishly uptilted toward the heavens. From which it was concluded that Mr. Wing was not less than five drinks and five dollars the better for _his_ little card-party at the Club.

"Let's see now, Charlie,--what was it you asked me?" said Mr. Wing, catching stride and slipping his arm through the silent young man's.

"Did I believe in this Woman's Movement, wasn't that it?"

Resenting the intrusion, Charles replied coldly: "That was it, I believe."

Mr. Wing appeared no whit abashed. "Well, Charlie, fact is I believe in most any kind of a movement, as I reckon you know, and all I ask about any of 'em is, where's the harm of moving kind of slow, and taking a few good squints around as we go. That'd about give my view that you asked me for," said the money-lender, a known reactionary in theory and practice--"Move slow and squint."

Genially, he took a fresh grip on the arm Charles had almost detached, and therewith went off into an ill-timed long rigmarole. So convivially windy was Mr. Wing that he had talked steadily through two blocks before it came over Charles, with force, that Mary's uncle had had a sharp aim from the beginning.

"Now, you take, for instance, this privilege of work they're all clamoring for, Charlie. Women mustn't be parasites; give us the privilege of work, they say. And that's right, too; give 'em all they'll take's my view. But, Charlie, my observation is that when a woman clamors that way, it's ten to one she's thinking of work like being governor, or a great public speaker maybe, or Miss Jane Addams, out to Hull House there. But if you ask _me_, are they willing to work like men do, just so's not to have you call 'em parasites--well, that's where I say, let's stop and squint around. Of course, now, whenever you see a rich man's daughter refusing to touch her daddy's money, and jumping up mornings by an alarm-clock to catch the 7.42, and when you see her working nine hours a day, winter and summer, at a job it makes her sick to look at, for ten little dollars a week, and no bra.s.s band or fireworks anywhere--why, then you got a right to say, _that_ woman hates being a parasite. But, Charlie, you're so quiet, you don't say anything, I don't guess you're following while I try to answer that question you asked me."

"Oh, I follow you," replied Charles, with annoyance.

Mr. Wing shot one keen glance at the young man's face, and another ahead as if to measure the distance yet remaining to his domicile.

"Well, now, morals, Charlie!" he continued, most agreeably. "Lor', the things our little gals do say nowadays! Make you laugh right out loud.

Ain't it funny how innocent women can keep, now? Up and take their c.o.c.ktails, yes, and smoke their cigarettes, and talk right out, white slave this, and red-light that, and all the time--no more _notion_!...

Why, Charlie, you wouldn't believe the pretty-faced little gal, no more'n twenty-two years old, I heard making a public speech once, and what do you think her subject was? 'My plea,' says she, 'is a single standard of morality for men and women. Whatever man may do,' says she, 'that we claim woman's right to do also.'"

The old gasbag broke off to say, "How-do, Ed," to a pa.s.ser in the filtering snow, knocked the ashes from his cigar with the large hand that was not clutching Charles, and resumed.

"Well, Charlie, I'd been sitting there meek as peaches while that little gal explained to us all about men and women, but when she gets that off, and right away asks if anybody in the audience has got any questions, seemed like I couldn't sit still any longer. 'Excuse me,' I says, standing up, 'but d'ye make a plea for the single standard of physical courage also, miss?' I says. 'What say?' she sings out, pretending not to hear me, while she tries to think what it said in that book she'd been reading. 'It's a little thing, miss,' I says, 'only an old fellow's way of saying if maybe G.o.dalmighty didn't figure a little variety'd be a good thing in this hard world he gave us. When the s.h.i.+p goes down,' I says, 'do you call on your sisters for the single standard of courage, miss, or do you hold by the men's rule of the sea and the land, and hop into the lifeboats with the kids? Excuse a plain old fellow from speakin' up this way, miss,' I says, 'but seems to me maybe G.o.dalmighty might have known what he was doing when he gave women more feeling, and men more fighting strength; when he appointed women to give life and men to guard it; when, as you might put it, he appointed some virtues for both to hold in common, and then some for each of 'em to grow and cultivate specially. And maybe, miss,' I says, 'G.o.dalmighty made the distribution fairer than some of our college gals realize.' Well, Charlie, you ought to have heard the hand the crowd gave me, though there was some hissin' by Suffragettes, I own. And what d'ye think that cute-lookin' little thing does? 'I deny,' she sings out, her voice shaking, 'that G.o.d gave more strength to men. I deny there is a G.o.d,'

she says. And right there she bu'sts out crying, and runs off the stage.... Yes, she did!--first speech in public maybe. Well, Charlie, all I say is, that's the kind of loose talk our gals're hearing all the time nowadays. And that," said Mr. Wing, coming to a halt before his own steps, and glancing hastily over his shoulder toward his door--"that's why I can't help feeling sorry for this little gal here that got into the trouble, and taking sides with her, too, against my public duty and morals. Why, Charlie, _she_ thought all the talk was meant, not seeing it was only half-foolin', like in a play."

Now it was that Charles Garrott's bored eye upon Uncle Oliver suddenly became fixed.

"Taking sides with her?" he said, speaking for almost the first time in the walk. "What do you mean?"

"Well, that's just what I did, the effect was," said Mr. Wing, his own eye wandering, "and against my conscience, too. Why, Charlie, if I wasn't an early retirer by habit, and this snow comin' on, too, I could show you quick enough where all this Single Standard was damfoolishness--unless, of course, you mean Perfect Purity, like I preach myself. And when a woman jumps up and hits a crack at marriage, that the rest of us are sacrificin' ourselves to build up for the good of Society, why, she's a bad woman, you can talk till you're black in the face, that had ought to be punished. Yes, and those that help her, they're lending encouragement to the enemies of the Republic, seems like, and they'd ought to be punished, too. But, shucks," said Mr. Wing, crus.h.i.+ng the fire from the cigar against the iron railing, and putting the stump carefully in his pocket, "blood's thicker'n water, like they say. And I don't regret voting the way I did, though the majority was against me from the start."

The two men stood fronting each other in the silent street, and the young man's face had become rigid. And he was now perfectly aware of the faint gleam in the old man's eye, a gleam of distinctly malicious enjoyment.

"Mr. Wing, what are you talking about?"

"Why, I thought you must have heard, Charlie, you seemed so kind of glum. Why, I thought you must be on your way from Mary's now."

He glanced again at his door, as if to say that he really must not be expected to stop for further conversation at this late hour. And then he said what exploded Miss Angela Flower off the horizon.

"Why, Charlie, you see the School Board fired Mary this afternoon. On account of this little friend of hers, Trevenna, that she--"

"WHAT?"

"Well, transferred's really the word, Charlie," said Uncle Oliver, edging up a step or two. "She's sent over as a teacher to Lee Grammar School, reporting Monday. Johnson Geddie's the new a.s.sistant princ.i.p.al at the High School, commencing Monday, too. Well, Charlie, good--"

Charles seized the burly arm in a grip sufficiently strong for a writer, and threw all his turmoil into three words: "_Who went over?_"

"Creamer and Honeykamp, I guess you mean. Of course, there was right smart feelin' aroused, and it seemed Creamer's got a growin' daughter in the High School, that's got to be protected and all. 'Twas only Mary's good record saved her being dropped entirely, I guess, considering how Mysinger'd worked the case up against her. Well, _good_-night, Charlie."

Wrenching away his arm, Mr. Wing rolled rapidly up the steps and vanished into the dark cave of his hall. But Charles stood still as a snow-man on the sidewalk, feeling as if the skies had fallen.

IX

So Mary Wing's name flared in newspaper headlines once again.

In matters of school politics, the editorial writers of the city were habitually gun-shy, but it was noted next morning that the reporters had treated Mary with marked consideration. "Of all the changes and new appointments ordered by the Board in its three-hour session," wrote the kindly youth on the "Post," "none created such amazement as the demotion of Miss Wing, she having for long been conceded to be possibly the most valued teacher in the city school system. Members of the Board, however, refused to explain their totally unlooked-for action, Chairman Garcin merely claiming that 'All changes were for the good of the schools.'

Charges of politics were freely heard in the lobby, and one well-known citizen, who prefers not to be quoted at just this juncture, said," etc.

Reporters, as everybody knows, must severely repress their personal opinions and stick like mucilage to the bare facts. But which facts are the bare ones? Judicious selection is a wonderful thing.

However, one of Miss Wing's admirers read the "Post's" amiable sentences with no abatement of his burning indignation. Print made the thing immensely concrete, and that was all. In Charles's mind, every hard or critical thought of Mary had fallen instantly in the face of her astonis.h.i.+ng disaster; "I told you so" was not in him. That his old friend's struggle upward had collapsed in sudden disgrace: this was bare fact enough to possess him completely throughout the tutorial day. Here fell a Modern principle from which he had never wavered, the great principle that a woman should have a fair field to work, and fair judgment, without prejudice of s.e.x. All Mary Wing's success had been entwined with that principle; since she was in her teens, she had fought for it, in suns.h.i.+ne and in thunder; and in that town at least the way was smoother for all women henceforward, because of what she had done. And now to break her, after all these years, only because she, a woman, had refused to throw a stone at a mistaken sister ... By Heavens, this could not be endured.

Thus Charles communed with himself, crisply teaching the Elements, French and Sociology. And he snapped his watch at Miss Grace Chorister five minutes ahead of time and, writing forgotten, went rus.h.i.+ng to the support of his "demoted" friend.

But he did not rush by way of the frequented promenade. As he had gone to lunch by street-car to-day, so his journey to the High School was conducted in the same discreet manner. Through all this unimagined disturbance about Mary, the young man had not lost sight of his last night's resolve, formed in the Green Park, as to Mary's so different cousin. Cad he might be; understand it she might not (in view of the kiss); but Charles was clear that it was for the best that he and Miss Angela should meet upon Was.h.i.+ngton Street no more.

The "Post's" story had made one thing certain at least: Mary did not mean to tear up her teacher's certificate and pitch it, with her resignation, in the faces of the School Board. In the still watches, Charles had thought she might be capable of just such reckless repartee; now he divined that she was reserving her resignation, to discharge it, like a bomb, upon her expected election as Secretary of the Education Reform League. That prospect in the Career blurred the situation considerably, without doubt. Still, the secretarys.h.i.+p was three months away, at the worst. And meanwhile the immediate problem thundered for attention, namely, how to get Mary back into the High School at the earliest possible moment? Charles, who as a man considered this problem his own no less than Mary's, arrived at the School with three promising plans in his head.

It was Friday, commonly a late day for Mary, but you could count on nothing on such a day as this. However, when he had dashed into the great building and up the two tall stairways, there sat the late a.s.sistant princ.i.p.al in her little office, hard at work before a regular man's desk. She was discovered deep in the sorting of papers, and swung around at his step with a start and a smile.

"Good-afternoon!--and excuse the mess, please! The notice to move caught me a little unawares, you see.--Don't look so solemn, please!"

Whatever emotions she might have wrestled with last night, when her light shone so bright over the park, it was clear that Mary Wing had put them all down to front the world to-day. Neither did she seem embarra.s.sed by any memories of recent conversations on these topics, of hints dropped and too firmly repulsed. Her manner, her sensitive fine face, were as composed as ever.

It may be that this, at the outset, was slightly upsetting to Charles, who was himself not composed at all.

He scooped a pile of "The New School" from a chair and sat with an elbow upon the writing-leaf of her masculine desk. Dumping papers from pigeon-holes, Mary calmly explained how complete was her overthrow.

Senff, who was known as Mysinger's "personal representative" on the Board, had preferred the charges, she said, recommending her outright dismissal from the schools. The train had been carefully laid; it appeared that Mary had received an official warning from the Superintendent--an obliging man, elderly and weak, whom Mysinger meant to succeed before long--all of two weeks ago. Beyond influence and politication, much weight was attached to the simple fact that Mysinger, as Mary's immediate a.s.sociate and superior, felt this persistent antipathy toward her. All the same, the Board had debated the case a full hour.

"Dangerous ideas," she summarized. "I'm not a suitable person to have authority over the education of--young women and men."

"What they said about Socrates, too--"