XI
It isthree weeks since I have written a word. There’s been too much to do, and sleeping about in chairs and on the foot of beds is not stimulating to the brain. We have had an anxious time, for Lizzie Harris has been desperately ill. Doctor Vanderhoff—that’s the young man’s name—has had no necessity to run to the corner of Lexington Avenue and then wonder which way to go, for he has been in here a good deal of the time. He is a dear, and a clever dear, too, for he has pulled Lizzie back from dreadful dangers. For a while we didn’t think she would ever be herself again. Her heart—but what’s the sense of recapitulating past perils. She’s better, that’s enough, and to-night I’m down in my apartment leaving Miss Bliss in charge.
She’s another dear, poor little half-fed thing, running back from her sittings to post up-stairs, panting and frost nipped, and take her place in that still front room. How still it’s been, with the long motionless body on the bed, that wouldn’t speak and wouldn’t eat, and hardly seemed to breathe. Sometimes themen came up and took a turn at the nursing. The count was no use. The sight of her frightened him and he had to be taken into the kitchen and given whisky. But young Hazard was as good as a hospital graduate, soft-handed and footed, better than Mrs. Phillips, who came up once or twice between her own cases, was very superior and nagged about the sun-dial.
When he could, Mr. Hazard watched for the first half of the night and Dolly Bliss and I went into the kitchen and had supper of tea and eggs. We’ve grown very intimate over these midnight meals. I don’t see how she lives—ten dollars a week the most she has made this winter, and often gaps without work. One night I asked her if she had ever posed for the altogether. Under normal circumstances I would no more have put such a question than I’d have inquired of Mrs. Bushey what she had done with her husband. But with the specter of death at our side, the reticences of every day have dropped away.
She nodded, looking at me with large pathetic eyes.
“Often in the past, but now, unfortunately, I’m not in demand for that. I’m getting too thin.”
In this close companionship I have found her generous, unselfish and honest to the core. Is our modesty an artificial attribute, grafted on us like a bud to render us more alluring? This girl, struggling against ferocious poverty, is as instinctively, as rigorously virtuous as I am, as Betty, as Mrs. Ashworth, yet she does a thing for her livelihood, the thought of which would fill us with horror. I’m going to put it to Betty, but I wouldn’t dare tell her what I really think—that of the two points of view Miss Bliss’ is the more modest.
When we were sure Lizzie was on the up-grade, a new worry intruded—had she any independent means? Nobody knew. Mrs. Bushey was urgent and to keep her quiet I offered to pay the top-floor rent for a month and found that the count had already done it. I, who knew her best, feared she had nothing, and it was “up to me” to get money for her from somewhere.
Of course Betty was my natural prey and yesterday afternoon fate rendered her into my hands. She came to take me for a drive in a hansom, bringing with her her youngest born, Henry Ferguson, Junior, known familiarly as Wuzzy. Wuzzy is three, fat, not talkative and spoiled. He wore a whitebunny-skin coat, a hat with rosettes on his ears, leather leggings and kid mitts tied round his wrists with ribbons. He had so many clothes on that he moved with difficulty, breathing audibly through his nose. When he attempted to seat himself on the prie-dieu, the only chair low enough to accommodate him, he had to be bent in the middle like a jointed doll.
I can not say that I love Wuzzy as much as I do Constance. He is the heir of the Fergusons and the conquering male is already apparent. It is plain to be seen that he thinks women were made to administer to his comfort and amuse him in his dull moments. I have memories of taking care of Wuzzy last autumn at Betty’s country place when his nurse was off duty. I never worked so hard in my life. Half the energy and imagination expended in what the newspapers call a “gainful occupation” would have made me one of those women of whomThe Ladies’ Home Journalprints biographies.
I carried him down-stairs. It was not necessary, for dangling from the maternal hand he could have been dragged along, but there is something so nice about hugging a healthy, warm, little bundle of aboy. As I bent for him he held up his arms with a bored expression, then stiff and upright against my shoulder, looked down the staircase and yawned. It’s the utter confidence of a child that makes it so charming. Wuzzy relinquished himself to my care as if, when it came to carrying a baby down-stairs, I was the expert of the western world.
As we descended I rubbed my cheek against his, satin-smooth, cold and firm. He drew back and gazed at me, a curiously deep look, impersonal, profound. The human being soon loses the capacity for that look. It only belongs to the state when we are still “trailing clouds of glory.”
We squeezed him between us and tooled away toward Fifth Avenue. It was a glorious afternoon and it was glorious to be out again, to breathe the keen sharp air, to see the park trees in a thin purplish mist of branch on branch. Wuzzy, seeing little boys and girls on roller skates, suddenly pounded on us with his heels and had to be lifted to a prominent position on our knees, whence he leaned over the door and beat gently on the air with his kid mitts.
“What a bother this child is,” sighed Betty, boostinghim up, “I only brought him because I had to. Some relation of his nurse is sick and she went out to see them.”
Her only son is the object of Mrs. Ferguson’s passionate adoration, yet she always speaks of him as if he was her greatest cross.
Wuzzy comfortable, his attention concentrated on the moving show, I brought my subject on the carpet.
“Dear me, how dreadful,” Betty murmured, much moved by the expurgated version of Lizzie Harris’ troubles. “Wuzzy, if you don’t stop kicking me with your heels I’ll take you home.”
Wuzzy stopped kicking, throwing himself far over the door to follow the flight of a golden-locked fairy in brown velvet. We held him by his rear draperies and talked across his back.
“It’s a cruel situation,” I answered. “Everything has failed the poor creature.”
“She has no means of livelihood at all?”
“I’m not sure yet, but I don’t think so. As soon as she’s well enough I’ll find out. Meantime there’s this illness, the doctor—”
“Yes, yes,” Betty interrupted, “I know all that. But it needn’t bother you. I’ll attend to it.”
“Dear Betty!” I let go of Wuzzy to stretch a hand across to her.
“Now,don’tbe sentimental, Evie. This is the sort of thing I like doing. If I could find some one—”
The prospects suddenly palled on Wuzzy and he threw himself violently back and lay supine between us, gazing up at the trap.
“Good heavens, why did I bring him,” groaned his mother. “I wouldn’t take care of a child like this for millions of dollars. Whydonurses have sick relations? There ought to be a special breed raised without a single human tie. Get up, Wuzzy.”
She tugged at his arm, but he continued to stare upward, inert as a flour sack.
“What does he see up there?” I said, bending my head back to try and locate the object. “Perhaps it’s something we can take down and give him.”
“You can’t unless you break the hansom to pieces. It’s the trap.”
I felt of it. Wuzzy’s eyes followed my hand with a trance-like intentness and he emitted a low sound of approval.
At that moment, as though fate pitied our helplessness, the trap flew back and a section of red face filled the aperture.
“Is it straight down the avenue I’m to go, Mrs. Ferguson?” came a cheerful bass. “You ain’t told me.”
Wuzzy looked, flinched, his pink face puckered and a cry of mortal fear burst from him. He clutched us with his mitts and wrenched himself to a sitting posture, then, determined to shut out the horrible vision, leaned as far over the door as he could and forgot all about it. Betty gave directions and we sped along into the line of carriages by Sherman’s statue. We had to wait there, and a policeman with gesticulating arms and a whistle caught Wuzzy’s attention. He waved a friendly mitt at him, muttering low comments to himself. His mother patted his little hunched-up back and took up the broken thread:
“What was I saying? Oh, yes—if I could get some one who would hunt up such cases as Miss Harris’ and report them to me I’d pay them a good salary. Those are the people one never hears about, unless in some accidental way like this.”
The policeman whistled and we moved forward. I began to feel uncomfortable. I’d never before told Betty half a story. She went on:
“Of course there’s charity on a large scale, organizedand all that. But the hundreds of decent people who get into dreadful positions and are too proud to ask for aid, are the ones I’d like to help. Especially girls, good, hard-working, honest girls.”
In my embarrassment I fingered Wuzzy’s ear-rosette. He resented the familiarity and angrily brushed my hand away.
“Oh, do let him alone,” said his mother. “You can’t tell how he’ll break out if he gets cross—and I know Miss Harris is all that, in spite of her hat and her looks, or you wouldn’t be so friendly with her.”
“Charity given to her is charity given where it’s needed,” I muttered with a red face.
I felt wretchedly underhanded and mean, and that’s one of the most unbearable feelings for a self-respecting woman to endure. For one reckless moment I thought of telling Betty the whole story. And then I knew I mustn’t. I couldn’t make her understand. I couldn’t translate Lizzie into the terms with which Mrs. Ferguson was familiar. I saw that broken woman emerging from my narrative a smirched and bespattered pariah of the kind that, from time immemorial, ladies have regarded as their hereditary foe.
It would have been indulging my conscience ather expense, and my conscience—well, it had to resign its job for the present. It was odd that with a worthy intention and in connection with one of the best of women, I felt my only course was to deceive. All may have been well with Pippa’s world, but certainly all was not well with mine. I don’t know what was wrong, only that something was. I know I should have been able to tell the truth, IknowI ought not to have been made to feel a coward and a sneak.
Betty enlarged upon her scheme of benefaction and we drove down the avenue, full from curb to curb and glittering in its afternoon prime. Wuzzy was much entertained, leaning forward to eye passing horses and call greetings to dogs on the front seats of motors. Once when he needed feminine attention he turned to me, remarking commandingly, “Wipe my nose.” As I performed this humble service he remained motionless, his eyes raised in abstraction to a church clock. I have heard many people envy the care-free condition of childhood and wish they were babes again. I never could agree with them; the very youthful state has always seemed to me a much overrated period. But as I obeyed Wuzzy’s command it suddenly came upon mehow delightful it would be to be so utterly free of responsibility, so unperplexed by ethical problems, so completely dependent, that even the wiping of one’s nose was left to other hands.
I left Lizzie early that evening. Miss Bliss and Mr. Hazard were with her and I had a fancy they liked being together without me sitting about and overhearing. I pulled a chair up in front of the fire and mused over that question of taking Betty’s money. My discharged conscience was homesick and wanted to come back. In the midst of my musing Roger came in, and presently, he and I sitting one on either side of the grate, it occurred to me that he would be a good person to put in the place of my conscience—get his opinion on the vexed question and not let him know it. I would do it so cleverly he’d never guess and I could abide in his decision. Excellent idea!
“Roger,” I began in a simple earnest tone, “I want to ask you about a question of ethics, and I want you to give me your full attention.”
“Go ahead,” said Roger, putting a foot on the fender. “I’m not an authority, but I’ll do my best.”
“Suppose I knew a woman—no, a man’s better—who was, well, we’ll say a thief, not a habitual thiefbut one who had thieved once, got into bad company and been led away. And I happened to know he wanted help—financial—to tide him over a period of want. Would I be doing something underhanded if I asked some one—let’s say you—to give him the money and didn’t tell you about the thieving?”
I thought I had done it rather well. Roger was interested.
“Are you supposed to know for certain he’d only committed the one offense?”
“Quite sure,” with conviction.
“What made him do it?”
It wasn’t so easy as I thought. Theft didn’t seem to fit the case.
“Well—he was tempted, and—er—didn’t seem to have as strict a moral standard as most people.”
“Um,” Roger considered, then: “This seems to be a complicated case. Was he completely without will, no force, no character?”
“Not at all,” I said sharply. “He had a great deal of will and any amount of character.”
“He sounds like a dangerous criminal—plenty of force and will and no moral standard.”
I felt irritated and raised my voice in a combative note:
“Now, Roger, don’t be narrow-minded. Can’t you imagine quite a fine person who mightn’t think stealing as wrong as you or I think it?”
Roger did not look irritated, but he looked determined and spoke with an argumentative firmness:
“Evie, I’ve always regarded you as an unusually intelligent woman. As such I’d like you to explain to me how a fine person of will and character can steal and not think it as wrong as you or I would think it.”
It wasn’t working out as I expected and because it wasn’t and because Roger was giving it his full attention, I felt more irritated.
“Didn’t I tell you he’d fallen into bad company?”
“You did and I’ve taken it into consideration, but—”
“Roger, this isn’t a legal investigation. You’re not trying to break up the beef trust or impose a fine on Standard Oil. It’s just a simple question of right and wrong.”
“I’m glad you think it’s simple. This person with any amount of character fell under a bad influence?”
“That’s it—he was undermined, and though he was, as I said, a fine person, quite noble in somerespects, he didn’t think stealing was so wicked as the average respectable citizen does.”
Roger put the other foot on the fender and looked at me with increasing concentration.
“I don’t understand at all. Let me try and get to the bottom of it. What did he steal?”
For a moment I stared at him blankly without answering.
He went on. There was no doubt about his giving me his full attention, it was getting fuller every moment.
“If you’ll tell me the nature of his theft and under what provocation and circumstances it was committed maybe I’ll be able to get a better idea of the kind of person he was. What did he steal?”
“But, Roger, this is a hypothetical case.”
“I know it is, but that doesn’t make any difference in the answer. What was the nature of the theft—money, jewels, grafting on a large scale, or taking an apple from the grocer’s barrel?”
I looked around the room in desperation, saw the blank left on the wall by the Marie Antoinette mirror, and said doggedly:
“He stole a mirror.”