CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE
The machinery of the house on Grove Street moved smoothly and Jean was more physically comfortable than she had been at any time since Martha's death. And although, at first, she sensed very keenly in the lives of these women the undercurrent of loneliness that had drawn them together, and the accidental nature of their intimacy, in time, she accepted it without analysis. It would have been tragic if they had been conscious of it, but Jean was sure that Catherine alone ever felt a quality of chill in this perfect freedom of which they were so proud, and without definitely wording it, felt, in this perfection of adjustment, the harmony of indifference.
Philip came often to dinner, and soon Jean accepted his boisterous manner. It so fitted the man's nature that it was perfect in its way, like the capers of a puppy. It was only when Philip, in his unconsciousness of the fitness of things, capered before others, as he had on the night of her arrival, that one objected to his clambering over strangers. Jean saw nothing humorous in Philip's performances, but when she could, pretended an amusement that delighted Nan. Still, she always felt that in these moments Catherine was watching and was never quite deceived. Nor was she sure that her kindly tolerance of his horseplay deceived Philip. Often, before a more than usually outrageous effort, Philip seemed to single her out with a defiant glance as if to say, "There goes your stupid pretense of dignity. It isn't worth keeping." He was always talking about the "big, simple realities" and urging marriage and babies, but he knew no women outside the household and seemed quite content. He laughed at Catherine's affection for Tony, a musical protégé of recent discovery, thereby annoying Jean greatly, until she discovered him making Tony promise not to tell who had given him the new suit. He did not want Tony to tell, but he would have liked the house to find out. He often did things like this and then resented it when no one knew. He annoyed Jean without interesting her, but at the end of a month she found she had summed him up more definitely than any other member of the house—he had big impulses, small thoughts and no will at all. After Jean had reached this decision her manner changed toward him. She treated him with greater patience and at times with respect.
In the evenings, Jean had many appointments to organize working women's associations or speak at meetings. The idea of a national Congress of women, which after attaining the dimensions of a group of civic leagues, had lain dormant in the bitter loneliness of Jean's personal life, woke again. A certain quality of excitement and vigor was gone from Jean's conception of it but she accepted the change. She knew that no plan would ever have the same keenness as in the days before Gregory's going. Something had gone out of her then, and now all purpose was calm and subdued, like the staid friendships of middle life against the idealization of youth. She never willingly looked back to Gregory's letter. But she no longer viewed it as a terrible pit into which her life had dropped. It was a wall dividing the past from the present; turning her back upon it Jean faced the future. And the surest measure she had of her reward was the feeling that came again into the earth and sky and hills. Now, on the out-of-town trips she had sometimes to take, she found the old, living, personal spirit in the earth come back. It was as if, in the days of her loving, the earth had withdrawn its unneeded comfort. Now, the old, old earth, kind and understanding, came back into its own.
On Sundays, Jean took long walks, most often alone, sometimes with Nan when she could not refuse. But at forty-two, freed from dependent relatives for the first time in her life, Nan had an excited childish exuberance about her that rather bored Jean. She often wanted to urge Nan to snatch at life before it was too late, grasp some reality besides her love and admiration for the clumsy, capering Philip. But when she thought about it seriously, she did not know what it was she would urge Nan to snatch. The knowledge and disillusion of experience, where now Nan had curiosity and, perhaps, hope?
Catherine, Jean rarely saw except at meals, and Beth's engagements with men, mostly younger than herself, kept her away a great deal. But, on the few evenings that Jean was home, it came to be the custom for Gerte to drop in to the attic. And no matter what the subject, Gerte soon led it to her own work, burbling on about her plots, clothing the meager incidents in long words. Jean often wondered why Gerte wrote or how she sold what she did, she had so little insight, no imagination, and was so empty of any deep experience of her own. At thirty-two, Gerte was pitifully curious about love and sex and marriage, and Jean was sure that she thought almost constantly about these things. She pitied Gerte but never quite liked her.
Twice Jean had dinner at the old Stuart farmhouse on Staten Island, and these evenings stood out from all other evenings in a warm glow. She and Jerome united to tease Alice, so sure of herself and so untried, but she was almost as glad as Jerome of the girl's indestructible optimism. Sometimes she and Jerome referred to it afterwards in the office, and this happy comradeship between the quiet man and the big, blonde girl, seemed to Jean one of the most beautiful things she had ever seen. It made her feel nearer to Jerome Stuart than the successful accomplishment of any plan and softened the resentment toward her own bleak girlhood. She often wondered how Jerome would stand the loneliness of Alice's marriage and sometimes, for a moment, Alice's going so eagerly out to the happiness Jerome's loving care had made possible, seemed cruelly selfish, until Jean thought of Martha and smiled. How imperceptibly one's viewpoint glided from youth to age, and how alike was all youth and how alike all age. In middle life the wandering paths of youth met, and when one reached that spot, one picked up the waiting burden of loneliness and understanding and staggered away with it, groaning or smiling according to one's pride. She rather thought that Jerome would smile.
Early in April she and Jerome began to plan a summer campaign against the cheap dance-halls and mediocre concerts on the piers that furnished the principal recreation of the poor in summer. Sometimes Jerome got quite violent about it.
"There's no reason there shouldn't be something worth while and we'll give it to them."
"We will that—whether they want it or not."
Jerome laughed. "When you take that tone you make me think of Alice planning Sidney's future. I always feel so heavy and masculine and unnecessary. You make me feel as if my greatest privilege will be to trail along behind such energy."
"And when you take that note, you make me feel flippant and feminine and superficial."
"Not a bit of it. You just feel Machiavellian and subtle. I know."
"Solomon! Well, no matter what your feelings are, you're not going to shift any responsibility because of them."
"I don't want to. I'm perfectly willing, eager even, to pilot the way from pier to pier, dance-hall to dance-hall. I may even make small, tentative suggestions, which will tickle me to death to have considered." Jerome Stuart's eyes twinkled in a way that had once reminded Jean of Gregory, and had hurt. Now she liked it.
The teas, dreaded by Jerome, Jean easily escaped. No one took offense at her preference nor made a personal matter of it. If there was no consideration of each other in this scheme of freedom, neither was there any claim. It was not until late in April that Catherine put the matter of the last tea as a personal request.
"It's the yearly Round-up," she explained, "and is really a matter of business. This year it's specially important to me, I have several protégées I want to launch and now I've got the woman who can do it. Mrs. J. William Dalton——"
"Who!"
"Exactly, if she makes you feel like that. There could not be two. Besides, I hear that hers used to be The Poor. Now it's Art, but when she gets them both combined, she just runs amuck. That's what I intend her to do. Tony Rimaldi is fourteen, the oldest of ten in a Mott Street tenement, and if you had come to the other teas you would know that Tony is a genius. He plays the violin so that even I get woozly inside, and Philip has been known to cry. Peter Poloff's nineteen, and although he will never equal Tony, he has enough of the real thing to make him a worth-while pianist, and he's never had a chance. Dalton's going to be the motif of this round-up and afterwards she's going to sponsor a concert for my prodigies and,zip, their future's settled! But every one of you has got to help. Dalton simply can't function without a back-drop, and we're going to give her one."
"Willingly, but what can I do?"
"Come. She hasn't forgotten her sociological days yet and, besides, the publicity you and Stuart are creating about legalizing illegitimate children hasn't escaped her. He has to come too. We'll give her the whole shooting match, sociology, art, pedagogy, science, society,anythingwe can get our fingers on. You will, won't you?"
"Certainly."
"And that Stuart hermit? His daughter can't persuade him, but perhaps you can."
Jean laughed. "What Alice can't do with her father hasn't much hope for any one else. But I'll try."
And for the next ten days Jean tried to think of some way to trap Jerome into promising. But Jean's social tact was most unsubtle and she could think of nothing but a point-blank request. To her relief, Jerome brought up the subject himself. It was only a few days before the tea, when he said, with a mischievous grin:
"Well, how's the Round-up coming on?"
"Famously. The branding irons are heating. We've got you all corralled."
"Not a loophole in the stockade. I know that."
"Not a wire loose. Don't try to find one."
"I haven't the least intention. I wouldn't miss it for the world."
"What!"
"To tell you the truth, it's no longer the distinction it was to have no opinion on Tony's genius. You haven't heard him either, have you?"
Jean leaned back in her chair and they laughed together in the way that had come to make them both feel that somehow they had outwitted the world together.
"And I was commissioned to gag and bind you and drag you there! I feel cheated. I must do something. How about that person with the theory on The Concentration of the Point of Interest, who did those weird wall paintings for the Educational Exhibit? And that psycho-analyst? I don't think Dalton's got to psycho-analysis yet and it would tickle her to death. Could you get them?"
"Perhaps. All right. I promise. Only you must promise that Dalton won't get at them too heavily. I like the men, both of them, and I don't want to spend the rest of my life paying up the obligation of this tea."
"I'll rescue them personally, if I see them in danger. I can't promise more."
"That will do. Only don't neglect me in your kind offices. I still labor under the delusion, in spite of Alice, that the main interest of a tea is the food."
"Don't worry. I'll watch over you and your digestion, too; the refreshments are going to be a wonder."
"On those conditions I expect to enjoy myself." And with the Gregory-grin Jerome went back to his own office.
But on the following Sunday, when Jean entered the already crowded rooms, she saw only Alice and Sidney in the group gathered about Tony. Jerome was nowhere in sight. Jean had deliberately waited until she had heard Tony tuning up, so that now, as the room rustled to expectant silence, she slipped into the shadow of the heavy curtains drawn to assist the candle-light and took in the scene with quiet amusement. They all looked so different somehow: Gerte in a slithery green thing that would have delighted The Tiger; Nan like a lovely duchess in palest lavender and Catherine in severe and expensive black. Jean recalled Mary's "humans functioning socially" and she felt as if she were watching some distinct psychological process.
"Fine show, isn't it?" Philip stepped from the deeper shadow of the curtains unexpectedly, but the understanding in his eyes merged so with Jean's own thoughts that his being there did not surprise.
"Really, clothes are ridiculous," she whispered back, feeling a comradely nearness to him in this identity of impression. "Perfectly harmless material cut and slashed into the wildest shapes. Take any one of those gowns and look at it long enough and it gets screamingly funny. Look." In her own interest and Philip's understanding, Jean laid a hand on his arm, turning him slightly toward a friend of Gerte's, a red-haired, slender girl in a tunic embroidered in green and gold dragons, fastened with cords and blobs of coral beads. "Now, why is that rig necessary because she sculps, and what, in Heaven's name, did it start out in life to be?"
Philip looked as Jean directed, but his eyes moved independently, for the rest of his body was concentrating at the point where Jean's fingers rested lightly on his arm.
"Li Hung Chang's combing jacket," he offered after a moment, when Jean had removed her hand. Jean laughed and was just going to ask him what he thought of some one else, when Tony began to play.
Jean still stood close to Philip, almost touching him, but after a few bars she forgot him, the crowded rooms, the too strong fragrance of expensive flowers. She forgot that she did not really like Tony, petted and spoiled by over-attention. She did not see the look of satisfied accomplishment on Catherine's face, nor Felix Arhn scowling his deepest foreign scowl of approval; nor Mrs. Dalton sitting quietly, her jeweled hands in her lap. She did not even hear the music distinctly. It created about her a medium into which she dissolved in feeling; and when her brain registered, it was not notes or present impressions, but memories of the first happy days with Herrick, and deep moments of love with Gregory. Her face softened, so that Philip, stealing glances, felt his throat tighten, and his eyes were hot and moist. He wanted the music to go on forever, to keep Jean close with that look on her face. And he ached for it to stop, before his hands should reach to her. When it stopped, Jean would be again the hard, clear-headed woman who scorned him and tried so hard sometimes not to show it. He had hated her often for her conceited assumption of superiority, but he knew now that he could never hate her again. That slightly quivering mouth had taken his weapons from him.
The music ended. Philip turned to Jean, but she was acknowledging the efforts of a tall man with gray hair and smiling eyes to negotiate the buzzing groups and reach her. In another instant Jean was introducing him.
"Mr. Fletcher, let me present Jerome Stuart."
As they shook hands, Philip felt Jerome size him up and dismiss him. For a few moments Philip stood where he was and then, unnoticed either by Jean or Jerome, moved away.
Tony played twice more and when he laid aside his violin, Jean and Jerome looked quietly at each other.
"It makes me feel like two cents," Jerome whispered and Jean nodded.
"It's usually the way, isn't it?"
"Nearly always, I haven't enough conceit left even to tease Alice. I shall confess."
"Come and do it now. I should like to hear you——"
But, before they could reach Alice, Mrs. Dalton spied Jean and billowed down upon her. In vain Jean tried to insert Jerome between them, dragging in every public effort in which he had been concerned for the last year. Mrs. Dalton heard none of it. Catherine was right. She had not forgotten her sociological days.
"It had such definite results," she cascaded, quite lost in this renewal of acquaintance with the head of the Women's Civic Leagues. "Such definite, concrete results, don't you know. While this other—heredity is such a factor, don't you think? One never knows what strange strain will crop out. Genius has so many strands intermingled. Now, take our own little Tony.Whatare we going to do about that impossible family of his? Wemustrescue him. We simply can't let him smother there in those hideous rooms."
"They are pretty impossible," Jean conceded with a frown. "But it's the very best possible thing for him at present. How long it will be, I don't know, and in the end, of course, he will go. He would, even if no one did anything for him. But now, he is just one quivering plate for impressions and, although he may never realize it himself, it will mean a lot—the hot, crowded rooms, the crying babies, the fierce fight for life and the inherent joyousness of his people that nothing can quite kill. Out of this jumble Tony ought to draw into himself something that nothing else could give. He comes from the People and he ought to give his gift back to them."
"Oh," Mrs. Dalton gasped, but Jean went on impatiently: "There's such a lot of talk these days about The People and their Power and most of us don't know what we mean by it. We hear such a lot about the Will of the People, and the Spirit of the People, and the Literature and Soul of the People, and we are beginning to hear about Music of the People. But here in America it seems to mean negro melodies or Indian lyrics, the plaints of a dying race. Why shouldn't there be modern, industrial music, not the blaring of factory whistles, but the spirit of industrialism, the life of the immigrants, the economic fight, the whole struggle of this great Melting Pot—sound etchings, like Pennel's skyscrapers and bridges. Tony ought to be able to do it. He has the genius, the heritage and the environment."
"Oh, my dear Mrs. Herrick, you must come and talk to the Lost Art. You put it all so vividly, but then you always did. Do you remember, in the old days——"
"Pardon me," Jean interposed hastily, "but Miss Lee is signaling me," and, feeling that she was not playing fair, Jean escaped. A few moments later she looked back and saw Jerome, whom Mrs. Dalton had at last connected with the Sweat Shop law, being drowned under a similar cataract, to the great amusement of Alice, who stood by, making not the slightest effort to save him.
It was Catherine who released him at last. The next moment, Jean was barricaded between two tea trays and Jerome was looking at her in real reproof.
"Well, have you any decent excuse? Is that the way you keep a promise?"
"Promise? Did I make a promise?"
"You certainly did. You let me suppose that I was not to be thrown to the lions without a saving effort on your part. And then you went and threw me yourself."
"But she would have gotten you in a little while, anyhow."
"You can't prove it. I've dodged that kind for many years now, long before you knew what a Civic League was."
"I thought this was your first tea," Jean parried.
"All the more reason for seeing that I enjoyed it. I may come to others."
"You know you're safe on that score. This is the last."
"Well, you've got to atone, in some way, for that performance. Will you come to supper?"
"Supper!"
Jerome smiled. "I don't care if you've eaten a whole cake. I hope you have. Your punishment will be no worse than mine. I promised Alice that I would trot along with her and Sidney to a little joint they always go to after these functions. How much longer will this last? The music is over, isn't it?"
"It is. But this may dribble along till almost eight and there are always a few to stay and eat the scraps. I believe Catherine expects you and Alice and Sidney to be among the chosen few."
"Don't tell Alice; I rather fancy the little joint." Jerome's raised brows indicated Mrs. Dalton, and Jean nodded.
"How soon can you slip away? In ten minutes?"
"I'll try. Go over and keep Dalton anchored where she is and I'll start my escape."
Jerome obeyed and Jean began to make her way out, stopping only when she was forced to. Once she was halted close to where Philip Fletcher stood, apart, silent, his mouth drawn downward like a hurt child's. As Jean passed close, he moved toward her, but some one else claimed her attention, and Philip went on into the hall. He watched for Jean but she went upstairs by a back way, and when she came down he saw she was ready to go out.
"Will you tell Catherine that I'm going out to supper? I tried to get at her but she is too busy."
"If I see her," Philip replied and knew that Jean, already joined by Jerome Stuart and Alice and Sidney, did not hear. They left the house together and Philip stood staring at the door Jean had closed so quietly, like a child slipping away on an adventure. Across the threshold of the living-room, Catherine caught the look on Philip's face, broke off a sentence in the middle, then grasped the thread almost instantly, and went on.
When the household and the Chosen Few sat down to the scraps, there was much speculation on Gerte's part as to what had become of Philip. But Catherine said nothing.