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People Like That

<h2 id="id01034" style="margin-top: 4em">CHAPTER XXVI</h2> Many undeserved blessings have come to me in life and have made me temporarily meek and humble, but when punishments come which are unwarranted, meekness and humility (of which I have never possessed a sufficient amount, inasmuch as I am a person without money) disappear, and I am not a lowly-minded lady. I was punished for my part in helping Tom and Madeleine get married by action of Mrs. Swink that was as astounding as it was unexpected. Mrs. Swink is a wily woman. She has little education and large understanding of human nature. She knows when she is beaten. In a woman such knowledge is unusual. The day after our return from Claxon she appeared in my sitting-room in Scarborough Square and, throwing her arms around me, kissed me three times. She attempted a fourth kiss, which I prevented, and followed the kisses with an outburst of tears that was proportionate to her person in volume and abundance. Feeling as one does who is overtaken by a shower when the sun is shining, I made effort to draw away, but my head was again pressed on her broad bosom, and with fresh tears I was thanked for my kindness in chaperoning her daughter on her matrimonial adventure; an adventure which would have subjected her to much criticism had I not been along. Also Mr. Thorne. The unexpectedness of these thanks was disconcerting and, with an expression that was hardly appreciative of the pose she was assuming, I finally rescued myself from her arms and, drawing off, looked at her for explanation. Mrs. Swink is not a person I care to have kiss me. "Oh, my dear, you do not know the anguish of a mother's heart! You couldn't know it unless you were a mother, and when you are one I hope your heart won't be wrung as mine has been wrung! But poor, dear Mr. Swink always said bygones ought to be bygones, and now they're married I suppose it's a bygone and I ought not to let my heart be wrung; but it is, and I've been thinking about poor, dear Mr. Swink all day." She took her seat and, wiping her eyes and nose, began to cry again. "Oh, my dear, you don't know the anguish of a mother's heart!" "Would you like a fresh handkerchief?" I asked. The one in Mrs. Swink's hand was too wet for further use. I started toward my bedroom door, but she shook her head. "I've got two or three, I think. I'm so easily affected when my heart is wrung that I have to keep a good many on hand. But I had to come and thank you. It would have been so dreadful for them to have gone off alone. It makes it very different to have had you and Mr. Thorne along. Yes, indeed—a mother's heart—" What was she up to? Fearing that my face would indicate too clearly that I was not deceived by her change of tactics, I shielded it from the fire by the screen, close to the chair in which I sat, and made effort to wait politely, if not with inward patience, for what I would discover if I only gave her time. Something had happened I did not understand. I had forgotten the letter Selwyn had sent her. "They went away an hour ago on their wedding-trip." A fresh handkerchief was drawn from the heaving bosom for the fresh tears which again flowed. "My poor head is all in a whirl. So many things had to be done, though Madeleine wouldn't take but one trunk and no maid, though I told her she could have Freda, and there are so many things that have got to be attended to before they get back that I don't know where to begin, and I had to come down here right away and thank you the first thing. And of course she will have to have a trousseau, for her poor, dear father wouldn't like it if she didn't have one, and the best that could be bought. He was very particular, her father was, and I know he would thank you, too, if he could. And there will have to be a reception, and it's about that, and a few other things, I felt I must talk to you this morning, being you are responsible, in a way, for the marriage—" "I am nothing of the sort. You are responsible for its being the sort of marriage it was. I went with them because—" "Yes, indeed, I understand! Tom says it was splendid in you and I had to come and thank you. Everybody will take it so differently when they know you and Mr. Thorne were along. I think it was noble in Mr. Thorne when his poor brother wanted so much to marry Madeleine. I feel it was such a narrow escape—her not marrying him. I've been hearing all sorts of sad things about him lately. Real sad. I was deceived in him." "Who deceived you?" I might as well not have asked the question. No attention was paid to it. "He was such a dear boy, Harrie was. So handsome and his family so well known, and he was so in love with Madeleine that I was deceived in him. Yes indeed, I was deceived. A woman is so helpless where men are concerned." "She isn't a bit helpless unless she prefers to be. A great many women do. Had you made any inquiries concerning Harrie's character?" "In my day it wasn't expected of a woman to make inquiries." Mrs. Swink's voice was that of righteous reserve. "It's very hard on a mother to ask questions about character and things like that. I knew of the Thorne family very well, and of the Thorne house, which I thought Harrie would live in until he and Madeleine could build a moderner one, and— Oh no, my child, you don't know the anguish of a mother's heart! You don't know!" Tears not of anguish, but of blighted ambition, caused the flow of words to cease temporarily, and light came to me. Selwyn's letter had done the work. Harrie being eliminated, the fat old hypocrite was trimming her sails with hands hardened from long experience. Her embraces and gratitude were a veer in a new direction. In a measure I was to be held to account for the present situation; in a sense to be social sponsor for Mrs. Thomas Cressy. A homeless Harrie, disapproved of by family and friends, would not have made a desirable son-in-law, and I had been seized upon as the most available opportunity within reach to bring her daughter's marriage desirably before the public. Mrs. Swink had seemingly little understanding of the little use society has for people who do not entertain. I do not entertain. Nothing was due her, but hoping if I promised help she might go away, I suggested the possibility of Kitty's entertaining Tom and Madeleine on their return from their wedding-trip, and at the suggestion the beady little eyes brightened, and immediately I was deluged with details of the reception she had determined to give the bride and groom, implored for help in making out the list of guests to be invited, and begged to be one of the receiving party. The last I declined. When at last she was safely gone I locked the door and sprayed myself with a preparation that is purifying. I was dispirited. There are times when the world seems a weary place and certain of its people beyond hope or pardon. Last night I had a talk with Mrs. Mundy. She had seen the girl I overheard speaking of an ill man who was being nursed by some one she knew, and this girl had admitted that the "some one" was Etta Blake. By another name she had been living in Lillie Pierce's world. For the past two weeks, however, she had been away from it. When Mrs. Mundy told me, something within gave way, and my head went down in my arms, which fell upon the table, and I held them back no longer—the aching tears which came at last without restraint. "The pity—oh, the pity of it!" was all that I could say, and wisely Mrs. Mundy let me cry it out—the pain and horror which were obsessing me. Hand on my head, she smoothed my hair as does one's mother when her child is greatly troubled, and for a while neither of us spoke. I had feared for some time what I knew now was true, and it was not for Etta alone that pity possessed me. Somehow, for all young girlhood, for the weak and wayward, the bold and brazen, the unprotected and helpless, I seemed somehow responsible, I and other women like me, who were shielded from their temptations and ignorant of the dangers to which they were exposed; and Etta was but one of many who had gone wrong, perhaps, because I had not done right. Something was so wrong with life when such things could happen, as through all ages had happened; things which men said were impossible to prevent. Perhaps they are, but women are different from men in that they attempt the impossible. When they understand, this, too, must be attempted— After a while Mrs. Mundy began to tell me what she had learned. It was an old story. The girl who told her of Etta was a friend of the latter's and had been a waitress in the same restaurant in which Etta was cashier. It was at this restaurant that Harrie met her. "She was crazy to think he meant to marry her," the girl had told Mrs. Mundy, "but at first she did think it. For some time he was just nice to her, taking her to ride in his automobile, and out to places where he was not apt to meet any one he knew, and then—then—" "She doesn't blame Harrie, though. That is, at first she didn't. She was that dead in love with him she would have gone with him anywhere, but after a while, when she found out the sort he was, she—cursed him. It was about the child they had a split." "Was it born here?" I was cold and moved closer to the fire. Mrs. Mundy shook her head. "He sent her to a hospital out of town, but when she came back with the child he told her she would have to send it away somewhere, put it in some place, or he'd quit her. He seemed to hate the sight of it. It was on account of the child they had a fuss. Etta wouldn't give it up. She can be a little fury when she's mad, the girl said, and they had an awful row and he went off somewhere and stayed four months. She tried to get work, but each time some one told about her and she was turned off because—of the child. At one place one of the bosses tried to take some liberty with her and she threw an ink-bottle at him and he drove her away. She knew there wasn't any straight way left to her after that unless she starved or went in a rescue place. She tried to get in one and take the baby with her, but it was full, and then, too, she kept hoping she could get work. Then the baby got sick and needed what she couldn't give it, and after a while she gave up. She got a woman to look after the child, promised to pay her well, and went down into Lillie Pierce's world. Since the day she went she has never been out except to see the baby, until two weeks ago, when she moved into a decent place and took two rooms. Harrie had come back to her." "How old is the child?" "Ten months. She never intended it to know anything of its mother. She hoped she would die before it was old enough to understand. It's a little girl. Etta is eighteen." The room grew still and, getting up, Mrs. Mundy put more coal on the fire, made blaze spring from it, warm and red. I waited for her to go on. "It seems like Mr. Harrie can't stay away from her, the girl says. He never sees the child, though. The other woman, who's married and has children of her own, still keeps it for her. She's named Banch." Mrs. Mundy looked up. "I've found where the Banches live. It's only two squares from where Etta is now living." "But Harrie?" I turned off the light behind me. "He is with Etta. He was taken ill on Christmas night. Except the doctor, no one knows he is with her. He would have been dead by now had it not been for Etta, the doctor says. He had pneumonia. Mr. Guard and Mr. Crimm have gone to see him to-night, to see when he can be moved away." "And Etta—what will become of her?" Mrs. Mundy looked into the fire. "What can become of any girl like that but to go back to the old life? She's an outcast forever." "And he—" I got up. All the repression of past ages was breaking into revolt. "He will go home and feed on the leaven of Pharisees and hypocrites, and later he will marry a girl of his world, and the world that will give him welcome will keep Etta in her hell. I wonder sometimes that God doesn't give us up—we who call ourselves clean and good! We are a lot of cowards, most of us women, of 'fraid-cats and cowards!" My hands made gesture, and, going to the window, I looked out, ashamed of my outburst. Beating one's head against the walls of custom and convention accomplished nothing. All sane people agreed concerning the injustice of one person paying the price of the sin of two people; all normal ones admitted that what was wicked in a woman was wicked in a man, but agreement and admission were terms of speech. Translation into action would have meant a bigger price than even sane and normal and righteous people were willing to pay. Men could hardly be blamed, but women should be, for the continuance of old points of view. Women are no longer ignorant or dependent, and the time for silence and acceptance is past. Perhaps the women of Lillie Pierce's world are not so much to be despaired of as some of mine and other sheltered worlds; the soulless, spineless, selfish ones who cannot always justly draw their skirts aside, and yet do draw them with eyebrows raised, and curling lips, and gesture that means much. I, too, have been a coward. I, too, have been long asleep. But there were other women who had been making splendid fight while I was wasting time, and at thought of them came courage, and under my breath I prayed God to make it grow. "You must bring Etta here." I turned from the window. "I want to talk to her, to see if something can't be done. Surely something can be done! She might get some rooms not far from here and take the child to live with her. Mr. Thorne will doubtless make his brother go away. Can you see her to-morrow and bring her here?" Mrs. Mundy got up. "You are dead tired and ought to go to bed. Night before last you didn't sleep two hours, and I heard you up late last night. You mustn't take things too hard, Miss Dandridge." She put her warm hands on my cold ones. "You're young, but for over thirty years I have been looking life in the face, and I've learned a lot that nothing but time can teach. One of the things is that we all ain't made in the same mold, and our minds and hearts ain't any more alike than our bodies. Every day we live we have to get in a new supply of patience and politeness to keep from hitting out, at times, at folks who don't see our way. Some people ain't ever going to look at things they don't want to see, or to listen to what they don't want to hear, but there ain't as many people like that as you think. There's many a woman in this world to-day that God is proud of; in the Homes and places what they're the head of, and on their boards and things they are learning that all women are their kin, and after a while they'll make other women understand. I'll see Etta to-morrow, and if she will come I will bring her to see you. But until Mr. Harrie is gone she won't come—won't leave him. Sometimes it seems a pity he didn't die. Go to bed, Miss Dandridge! you are all tired out." <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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