Hagar 49

Hagar 49

A quality of Rose Darragh's came out. She observed and deduced, to the

amusement of herself and of others, with the swiftness and accuracy

of M. Dupin or of Mr. Sherlock Holmes. They had a small corner table

commanding the long, bright room. "Twenty tables," she said. "Men and

women and a fair number of children. Not proportionately so large a

number as once there would have been, and that is well, the bawlers of

race-suicide to the contrary!--I'm interested in the women just now.

Man's had the centre of the stage for so long!--and, of course, we know

that this is the Century of the Child--see cotton-mills, glass-works,

and canneries. But Woman--Woman's just coming out of the wings....

There's rather an interesting collection here to-night. Do you know any

of them?"

 

"I have spoken casually to several. I have been here, you know, only

the shortest time."

 

"There's a woman over there who has a wonderful face--brooding and

wise.... A teacher isn't she? I should say she was not married."

 

"Yes; she is a teacher, and single."

 

"There's a woman who is a nurse."

 

"Yes. There's a sick child in that family. But she is not in uniform

to-night."

 

"I know her all the same. She's a good nurse. There are those who are

and those who aren't. But she's got strength and poise and knows what

she is about and is kind.--Those two women over there--"

 

"Yes. What do you make of them?"

 

"There's such a glitter of diamonds you can't see the women. Poor

things!--to be beings of a single element--to live in a world of pure

carbon--to be the hardest thing there is, and yet be so brittle too!...

The woman next them is good ordinary: nothing remarkable, and yet

pleasant enough. The worst that can be said of her is that she doesn't

discriminate. If the broth lacks salt, she never knows it."

 

"And the two over there with the stout man?"

 

Rose Darragh gazed a moment with eyes slightly narrowed. "Oh, those!"

she said. "Those are our adapted women--perilously near adapted, at

any rate. That's a sucking wife and daughter. Take your premise that

in the divine order of things the male opens the folds of his being,

surrounds, encloses, 'shelters' and 'protects' and 'provides for' your

female in season and out of season, when there is need, and when there

is certainly none, and your further premise that the female is willing

and ruthlessly logical--and behold the supremely natural conclusion!...

Daughters of the horse leech--and perfectly respectable members of

society as constituted! Faugh!--with their mouths glued to that fat

man's pocket. He looks haggard, and at the moment he's probably

grinding the faces of no end of men and women,--not because he's got a

bad heart and really wants to,--but because he's got to 'provide' for

those two perfectly strong and healthy persons in jewelry and orchids!

He's cowed by tradition into accepting the monstrous position, and he's

weak enough to let them define what is 'provision.' He's got to keep

filling and filling the pocket because they suck so fast."

 

"Do you think they can change?"

 

"They can be forced to change. They don't want to change, any more than

the copepod wants to change. And logically, while he persists in his

present attitude, the man can't ask them to change. He can't keep his

cake and eat it too." She drank her coffee. "That very stout gentleman

who is being driven to bankruptcy, or to ways that are queer, is just

the kind to strike the table with his fist and violently to assure

you that God meant Woman, lovely Woman! to be dependent upon Man, and

that it is with deep regret that he sees woman crowding into industry

and beating at the doors of the professions--Woman, Wife and Mother,

God bless her! Do you notice how they always put Wife first? If the

Association Opposed to the Extension of the Franchise to Women asked

him to-night for a contribution, they'd probably get it."

 

"How numerous do you think are those women?"

 

"The copepods? Numerous enough, pity 'tis! But not so numerous as,

given the System, you might fairly expect: numerous positively, but not

relatively. And a lot of them have simply succumbed to environmental

pressure. Given a generation or two of rational training and a nobler

ideal of what befits a human being, and the copepod will yet succour

herself.... Denny and I see more of the other kind. The drudges

outnumber the copepods, and neither need be.... There's a girl over

there I like--the one with the braided hair. Many of the young girls of

to-day are rather wonderful. It's going to be interesting to see what

they'll do when they're older, and what their daughters will do. She's

got a fine head--mathematics, I should think."

 

They went down together.

 

In the large and comfortable half study, half drawing-room with the

shaded lights, with the sea-like sound of the city without the windows,

with the books and pictures, they walked a little to and fro together,

and at last paused before a window and looked forth--the firmament

studded with lights above and the city studded with lights below.

"There's a noble word called Work," said Rose Darragh, "and we have

degraded it into Toil, on the one hand, and it has a strong enemy

called False Ideals, on the other. What I ask of Life is that I may be

one of the helpers to save Work from Toil and False Ideals."

 

They watched the lights in silence, then turned back to the soft

glowing room. When each had taken a deep chair on either side of the

great library table, they still kept silent. Rose Darragh sat erect,

lithe, strong, embrowned, a wine red in her cheeks. As in the picture

that Hagar remembered, her strong throat rose clear from a blouse of

the simplest make, only a soft dark silk instead of wool in honour

of the evening. Her skirt was of dark cheviot. She wore no stays,

it was evident, and needed none. Her hair, of a warm chestnut, wavy

and bright, was cut to about the length worn by Byron and Keats and

Shelley.... To a marked extent she was interest-provoking; there was

felt a powerful nature, rich and indomitable.

 

Presently she spoke. "Denny will be home next week. Don't you want me

to take you one day to see the shrine where he keeps his idol and watch

him providing acceptable sacrifice? It's rich--the editorial room of

'Onward!'"

 

"Yes, I should like it very much."

 

"Then we'll go down some morning soon. There's a place near the temple

where they give you a decent omelette and cheese. We'll all three go

there for luncheon.... Denny's fine."

 

"I'm very sure of that."

 

"Yes, warp and woof, he's sincere--and that's what I worship,

sincerity! And he's able. He strikes more narrowly than I do, but he

strikes deep. We've lived and worked together now eight years. We've

seen hard times together. We've nearly starved together. We've made a

name and come out together. And, bigger than our own fates, we've seen

our Cause bludgeoned and seen it lift its bleeding head. We've known

together impersonal sorrow and joy, humbling and pride, fear and faith,

despair and hope. Denny and I are the best friends. We've been lovers

in the flesh, but there's something better than that between us." She

turned square to the light and Hagar. "That's the truest truth, and yet

I want to tell you that I think you've always been to him a kind of

unearthly and spiritual romance. He's kept you lifted, moving above him

in the clouds, beckoning, with a light about you. And I want to tell

you that I have not grudged that--"

 

"I spoke to you as I did the other day," said Hagar, "because, somehow,

I had that impulse. It was not necessary that I should do so; that of

which I spoke had long passed." She rose and walked slowly back and

forth in the room. "When I bethought myself, that month in Nassau,

of where I--not he--was drifting ... I was able then to leave that

current, and leave it not to reënter. That was three years ago. I beg

you to believe that that temptation, if it was a temptation, is far

behind me. My soul will not return that way, cannot return that way....

And now I simply want to be friends."

 

"I'll meet you there. I like you too much not to want to. You seem to

me one of those rare ones who find their lamp and refuge in themselves."

 

"And I like you, extraordinarily. I should like to work with you."

 

"There is nothing," said Rose Darragh, "any easier to arrange than

that."

 

 

 

 

CHAPTER XXX

 

AN OLD ACQUAINTANCE

 

 

In the year 1910, a certain large gathering of suffragists occurring

in New York, permission was sought and obtained for speaking in Union

Square. Here and there, beneath the trees, sprang temporary tribunes

sheathed with bunting the colour of gold; above them banners and

banneroles of the same hue, black-lettered, VOTES FOR WOMEN. From

each tribune now a woman was speaking, now a man. About speakers and

tribunes pressed the crowd, good-natured, commenting, earnest in

places. Each speaker had about ten minutes; time up, he or she stepped

down; another took position. Sometimes the crowd laughed at a good

story 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 for

pastures 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 tall

buildings withdrawn, a little blurred, made looming and poetic. All was

a 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 the

Square, 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 no

husbands.--_I_ wouldn't let 'em! Say, ain't they gettin' too big for

their places?" The boy stuck out his tongue and went away.