CHAPTER V
MARY AND THE "BIG OPPORTUNITY"
The cheerful frame of mind came soon, but it was nearly a month beforethat letter was written. Unlike the others which preceded it, this onewas not thrust under the rubber band that held the many missives from"The Little Vicar." It was slipped into Phil's pocket; for the package,with all the rest of the contents of the private drawer in his desk,reposed in the bottom of his trunk. His work in Mexico was done and hewas starting back to the States.
He had expected to buy his ticket straight through to New York, andretrace his steps as far as Lloydsboro Valley later. Rob Moore hadwritten him that Lloyd was arranging for a house-party during theThanksgiving holidays, and that he and Alex Shelby and Mary Ware were tobe included among the guests, and for him to make his plans accordingly.
Mary's letter also mentioned this house-party. She had been invited butcould not accept. She had been too extravagant the month before, shetold him in a joking way.
"I have squandered my princely income on paltry trifles, and now mustpay the penalty. I must see the door of Paradise slam in my face andshut me away into outer darkness. But, seriously, even if I could affordthe trip, I could not take so much time. Mrs. Blythe needs me. We arestraining every nerve to accomplish certain things before the nextsession of the Legislature, when the bill for better housing is to bebrought up. Oh, I am sure that you understand, knowing how I love theValley and the blessed people in it, that a house-party at Oaklea, justthat alone, would be little short of heaven for me. But to meet the BestMan there, and Kitty Walton and Katie Mallard and all the rest--well, Ican't talk about it calmly. The thought of missing it is too grievous tomention in public. Enough said. Only the lonely pillow and the midnighthour shall hear my plaint.
"I couldn't possibly bear the disappointment if we were not so busy.Mrs. Blythe is massing her forces like a major-general, and I am toodeeply interested in the fight to let my personal affairs stand in theway. Three months ago, in my innocence and ignorance, I could not havebelieved that any fight would be necessary. I would have taken it forgranted that all one had to do was to put the plain facts before thepublic and show what a danger and disgrace such houses are to acommunity, and it would rise up of its own accord to change conditions.I was utterly amazed when I found that there are respectable men who notonly will do nothing to help, but will throw all their weight on theother side, and spend hundreds of dollars to prevent the passage of sucha law.
"And I've learned a lot about politics, too. I've come to see that it'sjust a great, greedy hand, reaching out to get the best of everythingfor itself. You don't see how it _could_ want to interfere with anythinglike giving people decenter houses to live in, and wiping the causes ofdisease out of the world, but it does, and it dips in just where you'dleast expect it. That is why Mrs. Blythe is so anxiously watching theresults of the city election, which is to be held next week.
"Mr. Stoner, the owner of Diamond Row, is one of the candidates foroffice, and if he gets in he'll have it in his power to pull lots ofwires against us in the Legislature. There is almost no hope ofdefeating him. Don't think that Mrs. Blythe has gone in personally forpolitics or anything like that, because she hasn't. But she has waked upa lot of influential people to work for her cause, and induced one ofthe foremost men in the senate to introduce the bill. Also she hasmanaged to get an invitation to explain it all to a big audience thatwill be in the Opera House next week, before the election.
"We are so excited over that, for it is one of the Big Opportunitiesthat we hope will count for a great deal. She has a love of a new gownto wear, and a big black hat with plumes, and her speech is certainlysoul-stirring. I wish you could hear her. It's nothing but 'the shortand simple annals of the poor,' but when she gets done there won't be 'adry eye in the house.' That's the highest praise that the Riverville_Herald_ can give, and it gives it to her so often that it has become ahousehold joke at the Blythes."
When Phil slipped this letter into his pocket he had changed his mindabout buying a ticket to New York. He had decided to take a roundaboutroute by way of Riverville, with the privilege of a short stop-over. Heintended that Mary should be one of the guests at the house-party, andhe knew that the only way to persuade her was to go in person andanswer each objection as it was raised. She had written jokingly of herdisappointment, but her very effort to make light of it seemed patheticto him, and showed him how deeply she felt it.
All the way up from Mexico his thoughts kept drifting back to her. Hewondered if he would find her greatly changed. She had passed through somuch in the time he had been away, yet he was sure that he would findher the same sturdy, valiant little soul that had challenged hisadmiration when she was a child. He wondered what effect her mother'sdeath had had upon her, and what had been the outcome of her associationwith a woman like Mrs. Blythe, one who made addresses in public. Hehoped that Mary wouldn't imbibe any strong-minded, women's rightsnotions to detract from her feminine charm. He was glad she hadmentioned so enthusiastically the "love of a gown, and the big, blackplumed hat" that Mrs. Blythe was to wear.
It would take a great deal to eradicate Mary's love of pretty clothes.That trait of hers had always amused him. He recalled more than oneSunday at Ware's Wigwam when she insisted on putting on her "rosebudsash" to wear walking on the desert, when there was nothing but theowls and the jack-rabbits to take notice. And he recalled the bighat-box she had squeezed into the automobile that day in New York, whenhe took the girls out to the Wayside Inn, and how blissfully she peepedat the lilac-trimmed concoction within from time to time.
A hot box delayed Phil's train awhile on the first day of his journey,and a disabled engine on another, so that he missed the St. Louisconnection, and was a day late getting into Riverville. It happened mostunfortunately for his plans and the limited time he had to spare, thatit was the very day of the "Big Opportunity," when Mrs. Blythe was tospeak in the Opera House, to a crowd which would assemble to hearseveral other speakers, one of national importance.
Phil did not discover this until after he had reached the hotel. Hawanted his meeting with Mary to be as great a surprise to her as it hadbeen the day he met her coming across the field of blue-bonnets inBauer. But he also wanted to be sure of finding her at home when hecalled. So while he waited for his late luncheon to be served, he walkedinto the telephone booth and called up the boarding-house. Mrs. Crumtook his message, with the answer that Miss Ware had not been at thehouse for over a week. She had been so busy that she was spending hernights as well as her days with Mrs. Blythe, and probably would notreturn to her room for another week. She advised him to call up Mr.Dudley Blythe's residence.
The maid answered his ring at that place, and asked that he leave amessage for Mrs. Blythe, who was resting and could not be disturbed, asshe was to speak at the Opera House in a little while. Miss Ware? No,the maid could not say where she was, but had heard her say somethinghad happened which called her down on Myrtle Street. She knew that Mrs.Blythe had arranged to meet her there in her auto on her way to theOpera House. Probably they would be back about six o'clock.
Phil hung up the receiver impatiently. He hadn't come all the way fromMexico to listen to a speech on housing reform, but, under thecircumstances, he had no other choice if he was to find Mary beforedark. Then he laughed outright, thinking of her amazement if she shouldhappen to catch sight of him in the audience. He supposed she wouldnaturally sit near the front, and he could easily locate her. He didn'tdare run the risk of suddenly sitting down beside her. One never knewwhat Mary would say or do when very much surprised. It would be betterto send an usher with a note, asking her to meet him at the entrance andthen--well, Mary should decide how and where they should spend the restof the afternoon together. It was a chilly, gray day in early November,a trifle cold either for an auto spin or a ride on the river. But theymust go to some place where they could have a long, uninterrupted talk,and he could tell her all he had come to Riverville to say.
With his pulses quic
kening at the thought, he left the hotel for a briskwalk along the river, until time to go to the place of meeting.
Meanwhile Mary was having an exciting experience down at Diamond Row. Amessage had called her there just as they arose from the lunch-table.
"Oh, why couldn't it have come sooner," she mourned, "before I was alldressed up so spick and span for your grand speechifying occasion? Ialways feel as if I ought to be fumigated when I come back from there.More than likely it's just another complaint that old Mrs. Donegan wantsto lodge against the universe. She seems to think lately that it owesher a special grudge, and that my ears are Heaven-ordained funnels forher to pour her troubles into."
But it was not Mrs. Donegan's troubles this time which summoned her,although that excitable old woman met her, crying and wringing herhands. It was for a neighbor's misfortunes that she invoked Mary's aid.Dena Barowsky, a frail girl in the room above hers, who supported afamily by her work in the factory, had had a bad fall.
"Both legs broken and all hurted inside she is!" wailed Mrs. Donegan,eager to be the first to tell the bad news.
"Where is she?" asked Mary. "Where did it happen? At the factory?"
Half a dozen eager voices interrupted each other to tell her. It seemedas if all the inmates of the tenement had gathered on the stairs and thelanding to discuss the accident in sympathizing little groups. It wassomething which might have happened to any one of them. Dena Barowskyhad come home from the factory at noon to fix a bite and sup for her oldfather, who was worse than usual, and while going down the ricketystairs to the cellar for some reason, had fallen. A loose board hadtripped her, so that she pitched against the bannister, which was sorotten that it broke under her weight, and she fell headlong into thecellar.
A doctor was in the room with her now, examining to find how badly shewas hurt, Mrs. Donegan explained. The saints only knew what would becomeof the family if it should be so that she was laid up long. Her fatherwas bedridden, and her mother so queer in her head that she did nothingbut sit in a corner and mutter to herself all day long. Luckily therewasn't more than a foot of water in the cellar, and they got her outright away. It had been half full when little Terence Reilly fell in,for that was the time of the backwater in the spring freshets.
Following half a dozen self-appointed guides, Mary picked her way to thestairway and looked down. The broken piece of rotten timber, the gapinghole in the splintered bannister, the dark gleam of the water beneath,told their own story. One long, horrified look was enough for Mary. Theothers hung over the spot as if it held some unexplainable fascination,pointing out the step which tripped her first, the rusty nail to whichstill clung a shred of her dress torn out in falling, the jaggedsplinter that must have been the one which made the gash in her face.
With a shudder Mary turned away and asked to be taken to Dena's room. Atthe opening of the door a strong odor of anaesthetics rose above themouldy smell of the unventilated apartment, which was made still closerby the inquisitive neighbors whom the doctor's orders had not been ableto bar out. Despite his sternness they gathered in the corners, watchingthe white-faced girl on the bed. She was moaning, though unconscious.This was not the first time Mary had met the young doctor in suchplaces. He looked up with evident relief at her entrance.
"It's a case for a district nurse," he said, when he had explainedbriefly in a low tone the seriousness of the injuries. He spokepurposely in medical terms so that the old father, sobbing childishly onthe opposite bed, could not understand the gravity of the situation.
"I'll find the nurse at once and send her just as soon as possible,"promised Mary. "I can telephone from the corner grocery."
She hurried out, thankful for the Organized Charities which made suchhelp possible, and remembering with a queer mixture of resentment andgratitude that it was the owner of this disgraceful Diamond Row, Mr.Stoner himself, who had made such a generous contribution to theAssociation that they were able to hire an extra nurse for this part oftown.
"If he had only gone at the root of the matter," wailed Mary, inwardly,"and used the 'ounce of prevention,' there would have been no need forthis great 'pound of cure.' There wouldn't have been this dreadfulaccident."
At the foot of the landing she was halted again by old Mrs. Donegan, whowas haranguing an interested crowd while she waited for Mary'sappearance. She was waving a time-yellowed and tattered newspaper intheir faces, and calling attention to the headlines and pictures on thefront page.
"We want you should take it to Mrs. Blythe, and let her put it in thegreat speech she'll be after making this day. The whole town ought toknow what happened this ten years gone on account of that same stairway.Mrs. Reilly didn't want to let the paper go. She couldn't bear thethought of losing that picture of little Terence. But I took it fromher, and told her you'd never let it out of your hands till you broughtit back safe to her. That it was for the good of us all you'd be usingit."
The telephone was in use when Mary entered the grocery, and while shewaited for her turn, she glanced through the paper that Mrs. Donegan hadthrust into her hands. She had already seen the marked account of thefuneral on one of her visits to old Mrs. Reilly, for she had been askedon that trying occasion to read it aloud; but she had not read until nowthe article on the opposite page, which gave a graphic description ofthe tenement in which the accident occurred, and which indignantlycalled attention to the criminal negligence which had caused the deathof a tenant. No names were given, but Mary knew that Burke Stoner ownedthe premises then, and that in the ten years he had collected nearlyfifty thousand dollars in rents from the inmates of Diamond Row. She hadbeen busy collecting statistics as well as other kinds of informationsince her first interview with his agent, and the recording angel wasnot the only one who had a long list of black figures set down againsthis name. Mary kept hers on a page by itself in a neat little memorandumbook, biding her time to sound the promised trumpet before him.
It was a very grim and determined Mary who came out of the cornergrocery five minutes later. She had been able to locate the nurse muchsooner than she expected to, and was on her way back to Dena's room toreport that help was coming. And when a little later the honk of Mrs.Blythe's machine sounded at the curbstone in front of Diamond Row, sheclimbed into her seat beside her friend without a glance at the new gownand the picture hat she was wearing for the first time. That omission initself showed Mrs. Blythe that something was wrong, for usually Mary waskeenly interested in her appearance, and never failed to express heradmiration of anything which she especially admired.
"What's gone wrong?" asked Mrs. Blythe, as they whirled around a cornerand turned into a pleasanter part of the town.
For once Mary waited before speaking, taking a deep breath and pressingher lips tightly together. Then she answered in a tense way:
"I feel as if I'd witnessed a murder! I can't get poor Dena's moans outof my ears, nor the sight of that broken stairway with the waterunderneath out of my mind!" Then reminded by the perplexed expression ofMrs. Blythe's face that she was talking in riddles, she gave an accountof the accident, and repeated old Mrs. Donegan's plea that the story ofthe staircase with its double tragedy be told that afternoon, in orderthat public sentiment might be aroused in behalf of the people of thetenements.
"I wish it had been Mr. Stoner himself who fell through those rottenstairs!" stormed Mary, her face white with indignation and her eyesblazing angrily. "I never felt such a mighty wrath rise up in me before!I could stop right here on the street corner and call out his name soall the town could hear. I'd like to shout 'Here's your model citizen!Here's the kind, benevolent man who buys your praise with his gifts tothe poor. Look what he has done for the Reillys and for Dena!' It isn'tas if he didn't know what condition the place is in. He'd been warnedthat the steps were unsafe, even before the first accident. And to thinkhe let it go on ten years after it had been condemned and cost onelife--"
She stopped abruptly, finding words futile to express her feelings, andMrs. Blythe, taking the cru
mpled sheet, hastily scanned it. They wereturning into Main Street when she finished, and with a glance at theclock in the front of the car she told the chauffeur to go around by Mr.Blythe's office.
"It may make us a little late for the first speech," she said, "but Imust ask Mr. Blythe's advice. I shall tell this story of the twoaccidents of course. It will illustrate one point I am trying to makebetter than anything else I could say. But I don't know how personal Iought to make it. It would be a centre shot at the enemy, and _might_help to defeat Stoner in the election day after to-morrow if I couldmention him by name, and emphasize the big rents he collects from thoseworking girls and factory men, but it may not be wise for me to do it,in the interest of the bill. It might antagonize all his party, as he isone of the most influential of the local bosses. I must ask Mr. Blythejust how far I can go."
Two minutes later they stopped at the office, and Mary, watching fromher seat in the car, saw Mrs. Blythe go in and the stenographer risehurriedly from her desk beside the big front window, and come forward.Evidently what she was telling Mrs. Blythe was very unexpected andagitating, for she came out looking pale and frightened, and spoke onlythe one word, "Home," as she sank back limply in her seat.
"Dudley was taken suddenly ill a little while ago," she explained inhurried gasps. "Miss Nellie says it was something like an apoplecticstroke. They have been telephoning everywhere to find me. It must havehappened just as I left the house. They have taken him home in anambulance. Hurry, Hardy!"
Except for Mary's shocked exclamation of sympathy and alarm, no word wasspoken until the house was reached. Mary ran up the stairs with Mrs.Blythe, stood a moment in the upper hall when the other left her, andthen went on to the alcove at the end, which had been fitted up as alittle office. There she sat down to wait. Three physicians, personalfriends of Dudley Blythe, were in the room with him. The housemaid wasrunning back and forth getting what was necessary, and the next doorneighbor had come in.
There was nothing that Mary could do, and the moments of waiting seemedendless. A programme of the afternoon's meeting lay on the desk, andfrom time to time she glanced at it nervously, and then at the clock.The time for the first speech passed. The second one must have been wellunder way when Mrs. Blythe came out into the hall and saw her sitting inthe alcove. Mary started up and went towards her impulsively, both handsout.
"Oh, isn't there something I can do?" she whispered.
"Not in there," was the answer in a low tone. "The doctors give meevery encouragement to believe that he will come out of this all right,but I don't know--I'm so frightened and upset."
She passed her hand across her eyes, as if trying to remember something,then exclaimed, "It's just come to me! I had forgotten about thatmeeting. It's almost time for me to go on to speak, but, of course, Ican't do that now. I couldn't leave him in the critical condition he isin, no matter what is at stake. There's only one thing to do, and thatis to send you in my place. _You'll_ have to go, Mary, and tell them whyI couldn't come, and explain what it is that--"
"Oh, Mrs. Blythe!" interrupted Mary, aghast. "I _couldn't_! I couldn'tpossibly! There's not a moment to prepare for it!"
"But you _must_," was the answer in a tone so firm and compelling thatit brooked no denial.
"There's no other way out--you know every phase of the situation. You'veexplained it over and over in your letters and to small audiences. Yoursympathies have just been worked up to white heat by Dena's accident--Oh, you're _splendidly_ prepared, and you can't fail me now, Mary. Notat a time like this!"
Her voice broke and the tears came into her eyes, at which sight Marydrew one deep breath and surrendered.
"Well--I'll do the best I can," she promised, "but I've barely time toget there."
With one squeeze of the hands which she had caught in hers, Mrs. Blythereleased her, saying gratefully, "Oh, I knew you wouldn't fail me!Go--and Godspeed!"
Breathless, speechless, Mary found herself climbing into the automobile,with a dazed feeling, as if some one had sounded an alarm of fire andshe was blindly fumbling her way through smoke. In a vague way she wasconscious that she was facing one of the big moments of her life, andshe wondered why, when she needed to centre all her thoughts on theordeal that confronted her, they should slip backward to a trivial thingthat had happened years ago at Lloydsboro Valley.
It was at the tableau at The Beeches, when the curtain was rising on thescene of Elaine the Lily Maid, lying on her funeral barge, in her righthand the lily, in her left the letter. Miss Casey, the reader, had losther copy of the poem, and everything was going wrong because there wasno one to explain the tableau, and Mary sprang to the rescue. She couldhear her own voice ringing out, beginning the story: "And that daythere was dole in Astalot!" And she could feel the Little Colonel's armsaround her afterward, as she cried, "You were a perfect darling to savethe day that way." And Phil had come up and called her a brick and theheroine of the evening. Now she wondered why that scene in detail shouldcome back so vividly, until something seemed to tell her she was to takeit as a sort of prophecy that she was to be as successful in her secondrising to meet an emergency as she was in her first.
When she entered the side door of the hall, the speaker whose place onthe programme immediately preceded Mrs. Blythe's had just taken his seatin the midst of hearty applause, and the orchestra had begun a shortselection. In the shelter of some large palms at the side of the stageshe gave the chairman Mrs. Blythe's message, and sat down to wait. Theorchestra sounded as if it were miles away. She had often used theexpression, a sea of faces. As she looked across the expanse of thoseupturned before her now, they seemed indeed a sea, and took on awave-like motion that made her dizzy. Then she happened to glance downat the little signet ring she always wore. "By the bloodstone on herfinger" she must fail not in proving that undaunted courage was thejewel of her soul.
When she looked out again, through the screen of palms, she coulddistinguish individual faces in the great mass. There was Judge Brownand Senator Ripley and Doctor Haverhill. And down in front, at thereporters' table, was Orphant Annie. She couldn't help smiling as sheanticipated his surprise when he should see her taking Mrs. Blythe'splace. He was so close that he had already caught sight of her, and hispale, prominent eyes were gazing at her with a solemn, quizzicalexpression which made her smile. The thought of the surprise in storefor him steadied her nerves, and as she began to enjoy the humor of thesituation, gradually the loud knocking at her heart quieted. The buzzingin her ears stopped. Her icy cold hands, which she had been holdingclenched, relaxed and grew warm again, and she came consciously out ofwhat seemed to be a waking dream.
Then the call of the hour marshalled all the forces of her mind inorderly array. The vital words to say, the vital thing to do stoodclearly before her. With her fear all gone she looked out across thehouse waiting for her summons to speak. When she rose it was with Mrs.Blythe's "Godspeed" giving her courage. When she went forward, it waswith the exalted feeling of a soldier into whose hand a falling generalhas thrust a sword, and commanded him to take a rampart. She would do itor die.