CHAPTER XXX
AN OLD ACQUAINTANCE
In the year 1910, a certain large gathering of suffragists occurringin New York, permission was sought and obtained for speaking in UnionSquare. Here and there, beneath the trees, sprang temporary tribunessheathed with bunting the colour of gold; above them banners andbanneroles of the same hue, black-lettered, VOTES FOR WOMEN. Fromeach tribune now a woman was speaking, now a man. About speakers andtribunes pressed the crowd, good-natured, commenting, earnest inplaces. Each speaker had about ten minutes; time up, he or she steppeddown; another took position. Sometimes the crowd laughed at a goodstory or at a barbed shaft skilfully shot; sometimes it applauded;sometimes it indulged in questions. Its units continually shifted;one or more speakers at this stand listened to, it went roaming forpastures new and brought up before the next tribune, whose crowd,roaming in its turn, filled the just vacated spaces. It was a still,pearl-grey mid-afternoon, the pale-brown leaves falling from the trees,the roar of the city softened, the square's frontier lines of tallbuildings withdrawn, a little blurred, made looming and poetic. All wasa picture, lightly shifting with gleams of gold and a woman's voice,earnest, lilting. The crowd increased until there was a great crowd.VOTES FOR WOMEN--VOTES FOR WOMEN--said the banners and the banneroles.
A man and a woman, leaving a taxicab on the Broadway facet of theSquare, stood a moment upon the pavement. "What a crowd!" said the man."There is speaking of some kind." He stopped a boy. "What is going on?"
"Suffragettes! Women speaking. Want ter vote. Ain't got nohusbands.--_I_ wouldn't let 'em! Say, ain't they gettin' too big fortheir places?" The boy stuck out his tongue and went away.
"Young hoodlum!" exclaimed the man with disgust.
"Let us stay and hear them for a while. I never have."
"All right!--I'll pay the cab." He came back to her, and they movedacross and under the trees. "Are you interested?"
"I think I am. I haven't made up my mind. We're so far South that as amovement it's all as yet only a rather distant sound. How do you feelabout it?"
"Why, I think it's an honest proposition. I've never seen why not.We're all human together, aren't we? But building bridges for SouthAmerican Governments has kept me, too, a little out of earshot. I seewhat the papers say, and they're saying a good deal."
"Ours chiefly confine themselves to being scandalized by the EnglishMilitants."
"Then your papers are very foolish. Who ever supposed there weren'tJacobins in every historic struggle for liberty? Sometimes they helpand sometimes they hinder, and sometimes they do both at once. It'srather superficial to see only the 'left,' and not the movement ofwhich it is the 'left.'"
They came beneath the trees upon the fringe of the crowd about one ofthe gold-swathed stands. This was an attentive crowd, not restless butlistening, slanted forward. The man from the taxicab touched a youngworkman upon the arm. "Who is it speaking?" The other turned a pale,tense face. "It's one that can hold them. It's Rose Darragh, speakingfor the working-women."
The two made their way to where they could see and hear. Rose Darragh,speaking with a lifted irony and passion, sent her last Parthianarrow, paused a moment, then cried with a vibrant voice, "Give theworking-woman a vote!" and stepped back and down from the stand. "ByGeorge!" breathed the man from the cab. The crowd applauded--for sucha meeting applauded loudly.
The young man to whom the two had appealed cried out also. "Give theworking-woman a vote! She's working dumb and driven under your factorylaws! Give her the vote!"
A large, bald-headed, stubborn-jawed man who had been making_sotto-voce_ remarks, turned with anger. "And have them striking at thepolls as well as striking in the shop! Doubling the ignorant vote andgetting into the way of business! You'd better listen to what I tellyou! Woman's place is at home--damn her!"
The man next him was a clergyman. "I agree with you, sir, that woman'splace is the home, but I object to your expletive!"
The bald-headed man was willing to be placatory. "Well, Reverend, ifwe're only two words apart--Are you going to stay here? I'm not! Idon't believe in encouraging them--"
"I believe you to be right there, sir. Woman's Sphere--" they went offtogether.
The man from the cab, John Fay by name, with his sister-in-law, LilyFay, who had been Lily Goldwell, moved still nearer the front. Theycould see Rose Darragh pausing for a moment beside the stand before shewent away to another tribune. A woman dressed in wood-brown spoke toher laughing; then, a hand on her shoulder, mounted to the platform.
Two women behind Lily Fay whispered together excitedly, "HagarAshendyne?"
"Yes. I didn't know she was going to speak to-day--but she and RoseDarragh often do speak together. They're great friends.... Somebodyought to tell them who she is--Oh! they know--"
"_Shh!_"
"Oh, she's holding them--"
Lily Fay clutched her companion's arm. "Hagar Ashendyne! I went toschool with her--"
"The writer?"
"Yes. How strange it seems.... Oh, listen!"
Hagar's voice came to them, silver clear as a swinging bell. "Men andwomen--I am going to tell you why a woman like myself finds herselfto-day under a mental and moral compulsion consciously to further whatis called the Woman Movement--"
She spoke for ten minutes. When she ended and stepped from theplatform, there followed a moment of silence, then applause brokeforth. A dark-eyed, breathless girl, a lettered ribbon across her coat,caught her hand. "Hurry! We're waiting for you at the next stand. RoseDarragh is just through--" The two hastened away together, lithe andfree beneath the falling brown leaves. A Columbia man was speaking wellfor the Men's League, but a good proportion of the crowd, John and LilyFay among them, followed the wood-brown skirt.
They followed from stand to stand during the next hour, at the end ofwhich time speaking was over for that day. The crowd broke up; thespeakers, after some cheerful talk among themselves, gathered togethertheir banners and pennants and went their several ways; committeeslooked after the taking-down of the stands.
Lily went over to Hagar Ashendyne standing with Rose Darragh and MollyJosslyn, talking to a little group of friendly people. "I'm LilyGoldwell. Do you remember?"
Hagar put her arms about her. "Oh, Lily, how is your head? Have you gotthat menthol pencil still?"
"My head got better and I threw it away. Oh, Hagar, you are a sightfor sair een!... Yes, I'm Lily Fay, now. I'm on my way to England tojoin my husband. The boat sails next week. I'm at the ----. This is mybrother-in-law, John Fay."
"I've got to be at Carnegie Hall to-night," said Hagar. "And I havesomething to do to-morrow through the day--but the evening's free.Won't you come to dinner with me--both of you? Yes, I want you, wantyou bad! Come early--come at six."
To-morrow was the serenest autumn day. Lily and John Fay walked fromtheir hotel through a twilight tinted like a shell. When they came tothe apartment house and were carried up, up, and left the elevator andrang at the door before them and it opened and they were admitted bya tidy coloured maid, it was to find themselves a little in advanceof their hostess. Mary Magazine explained with slow, soft courtesy."Miss Hagar cert'n'y meant to be home er long time befo' you come,she cert'n'y did. But there's er big strike goin' on--er lot ofsewing-women--an' she went with Miss Elizabeth Eden early this mahnin',an' erwhile ago she telephone if you got heah first, you must 'scuseher anyhow an' make yo'selves at home 'cause she'll be heah presently.She had," Mary Magazine explained further, "to send Miss Thomasine tosee somebody for her in Boston, so there isn't anybody to entertain youtwel she comes. If you'll just make yo'selves comfortable--" and MaryMagazine smiled slowly and disappeared.
The large room had not greatly altered in appearance since Rachel andHagar first arranged it, three years ago. There were more books, a fewmore prints, more signed photographs, a somewhat richer tone of time.It was a good room, quiet and fine, not lacking an air of nobility. Agreat bough of red autumn leaves flamed at one end like a stained-glasswindow. A door opening into a sm
all room showed a typewriter anda desk piled with work. The two visitors, with fifteen minutes ofsole possession before them, strolled to the windows and admired thefar-flung, grandiose view, twilight beginning to be starred with thecity lights; then turned back to the room and its strong charm.
"We've lived through the revolution, I think," said John Fay. "Thesenses move more slowly than the event. We're just taking it in, and wecall it all to make. But it's really made."
"I see what you mean. But they--but we--have all this monstrous amountof hard work yet--"
"Yes. Introducing the revolution to the slow-minded. But I gather it'sbeing done." He moved about the room, looking at the photographs."Artists and thinkers and world-builders, men and women.... Those yearsdown there around the Equator, I could at least take the magazines,and I got each twelvemonth a box of books. I know all these people. Iused to feel quite intimate with them, down there building bridges....Building bridges is great work. I believe in it thoroughly and quiteenjoy doing it.... And these are bridge-builders, too, and I hada fraternal feeling. I've cut their pictures, men and women, fromthe magazines and stuck them up in my hut and said good-morning andgood-evening to them." He had the pleasantest, humorous eyes, and nowthey twinkled. "Sometimes I like them so well that I really kow-towedto them. And I've laid a platonic sprig of flowers before more thanone of these women's pictures. Perhaps I'd better not tell her so, butthere was a picture of Hagar Ashendyne--"
The door opened and Hagar entered. She wore the wood-brown dress ofyesterday--she was somewhat pale, with circles under her eyes. "Ah,I am sorry!" she said, "but I could not help it. The strike ... andthey send the girls to the Island. Two or three of us went to thecourt--oh, the snaky, blind thing we call Justice!" Her eyes filled."Pardon! but if you had been there--" She caught herself up, dashed themoisture from her eyes and said--and looked--that she was glad to seethem. "We'll put the things away that make your heart ache! I'll go andchange, and we'll eat our dinner and have a pleasant, pleasant time!"
In a very little while she was back, dressed in white, amethysts inan old and curious setting about her throat. They had been Maria's,and to-night she looked like Maria, lines of the haunted mind abouther mouth and between her eyes. Only it was not her personal fatethat troubled her, but a wider haunting. At dinner, in the caf? atthe corner table, she told them, when they asked her, a little ofwhere she had been and what she had done during the day, told them ofthis pitiful case and of that. Then after a moment's silence she saidresolutely, "Don't let us talk about these things any more. Let us talkabout happy things. Talk to me about yourself, Lily!"
"There isn't much to tell," said Lily; "I've been quite terriblysheltered. For years I was ill, and then I grew better. I've travelleda little, and I like Maeterlinck and Vedanta and Bergson, and I playthe violin not so badly, and Robert, my husband, is very good to me. Ihaven't grown much, I am afraid, since I was at Eglantine. But more andmore continually I want to grow. Do you remember, at Eglantine--"
Dinner was not long. They came down to the grave and fair room with thescarlet autumn leaves and the books, and here Mary Magazine gave themcoffee. They sat in their deep chairs and drank it slowly. The talkdropped; they sat in a thoughtful mood. John Fay had a long and easyfigure, a bronzed, clean-shaven, humorous face and sea-blue eyes. Lilywas slender as a willow wand, with colourless, strong features. Hereyes were dreamy--Hagar remembered how she sat and looked into the firewhen they read poetry. Like the faintest, faraway strain of a music notaltogether welcome, a line went through her mind,--
"Where the quiet-coloured end of evening smiles Miles and miles--"
Hagar, with her odd, pensive, enigmatical face, drove the strain backto the limbo whence it came. She and Lily talked of the girls solong ago at Eglantine, of Sylvie and Francie and all the rest, theliving and the dead, and the scattered fates. Neither had ever beenback to the school, but she could tell Lily of Mrs. LeGrand's healthand prosperity. "You don't like her," said Lily. "I was so ill andhomesick, I didn't have energy one way or the other, but she was verysmooth, I remember that, ... and we were all to marry, and only tomarry--marry money and social position--especially social position."They talked of the teachers. "I liked Miss Gage," said Hagar, "and Mrs.Lane was a gentle, sweet woman. Do you remember M. Morel?"
"Yes, and Mr. Laydon."
Lily started. "Oh, Hagar, I had forgotten that! But perhaps there wasnothing in it--"
Hagar laughed. "If you meant that at eighteen I sincerely thought Iloved Mr. Laydon--and that he, as sincerely, I do believe, thought thathe loved me--yes, there was that in it! But we found out with fairpromptness that it was false fire.--I have not seen nor heard of himfor many years. He taught at Eglantine for a while, and then he went, Ibelieve, to some Western school.... Lily, Lily! I have had a long life!"
"I have had as long a one in years," said Lily. "But yours has been thefuller. You have a wonderful life."
"We all have wonderful lives," answered Hagar. "One is rich after thisfashion, one after that."
The bell rang. In another moment Denny Gayde came into the big room.The six years since the Nassau month had wrought little outer change.He was still somewhat thin and worn, with a face at once keen andquiet, a little stern, with eyes that saw away, away--He was more lightthan heat, but there was warmth, too, and it glowed and deepened allaround "Onward!" When he said the name of his paper, it was as thoughhe caressed it. He was like a lighthouse-keeper whose whole being hadbecome bent, on a wreck-strewn shore, to tending and heightening thelight, to sending the rays streaming across the reefs.