A Speckled Bird Part 14

CHAPTER XI

"Miss Kent, it is quite evident that you do not approve of us."

"Will you be so kind as to explain to whom 'us' refers?"

"Our great social world, including government, congressional and diplomatic circles, club life, and all that 'progress' stands for.

Instead of moving abreast with the 'advance' current, you have drifted aside into an eddy as contracted, as pitiably narrow as--pardon me, we emanc.i.p.ated new women dare now to speak the brazen truth--as narrow as the hands and feet you Southerners boast as sign of aristocratic blood."

Eglah lifted her grey-gloved hand, examined its outlines critically, and placed it within a few inches of the broad, thick palm which Ethelberta Higginbottom had laid on her own lap as she sat in the gallery of the Senate chamber.

"Thank you very much, Miss Higginbottom. It is traditional in my family to admire slender fingers, but we are not so intolerant as to deny others the privilege of occupying as much s.p.a.ce as their digits can cover, and we never brand people as absolutely disreputable because they wear number six shoes and number seven-and-a-half gloves. If degrees of lat.i.tude determine the height of insteps, what manifest injustice has been meted out to longitudinal lines that you Westerners so proudly claim? Probably you have forgotten that my father is from New England, and he owns a silver caddy--two hundred years old--that was empty at one time because 'fish drank tea in Boston harbor.'"

"Oh, but your mother was Southern and you represent not heredity, but sheredity, a sociological factor of immense potency, which must be reckoned with, let me tell you, in the near future, when women fully emanc.i.p.ated come to enjoyment of all the rights so long withheld from them. Then mothers, and not fathers will wield the destiny of this great country; and already female colleges are fast spreading the blessed gospel of free and equal rights. Last week some one a.s.serted that you were a graduate of ---- College, but I contradicted it flatly, as impossible and absurd."

"I am sorry I do my dear _Alma Mater_ such lamentable discredit; but, unfortunately, we were not taught to wear our diplomas on our hats as advertis.e.m.e.nts of scholarship."

"You certainly amaze me!"

"Perhaps you will excuse my frankness in a.s.suring you that sensation at least is mutual."

"With your educational advantages, to lock up your mind in a stockade of provincialism! Desectionalize yourself!"

"May I ask whether you spell your last verb with an x or a ct? I should prefer first to ascertain which process is demanded of me."

"Your Southern bigotry is a mill-stone around your neck. The very word 'emanc.i.p.ation' is a red rag to old slaveholders and their progeny. You never can forgive us for breaking the shackles of groaning millions held in bondage."

Eglah laughed.

"Pardon me, but it certainly is ludicrous that one possessing your 'broad culture and desectionalized' horizon of thought should really believe in that old worn-out 'raw-head and b.l.o.o.d.y-bones' figure of speech which has done duty so long. It surely is ent.i.tled to decent interment where all dilapidated scarecrows cease from troubling. We Southern people no more want our negroes back as slaves than you desire the return of hordes of Indians whom you so completely dispossessed of their native lands in your 'wild and rapacious West,' and whom a 'white, fatherly' government is rapidly reducing to extinction by its beneficent agencies. The white South is 'emanc.i.p.ated' from the moral responsibility of elevating the black race now so happy in 'national' tutelage, where their guardians taught them the system of bookkeeping and all the subtle processes of the 'Freedmen's Bureau.'"

"How lonely you must feel in Washington. You have no more regard for the rights of your own s.e.x than for--" She stammered and coughed.

"Indeed, I have the most affectionate and jealous regard for every right that inheres in my dower of American womanhood. I claim and enjoy the right to be as cultured, as learned, as useful, and--if you please--as ornamental in society and at home as my individual limitations will permit. I have no wrongs, no grievances, no crying need to usurp lines of work that will break down the barriers G.o.d set between men and women.

I am not in rebellion against legal statutes, nor the canons of well-established decency and refinement in feminine usage, and, finally, I am so inordinately proud of being a well-born Southern woman, with a full complement of honorable great-grandfathers and blue-blooded, stainless great-grand-mothers, that I have neither pretext nor inclination to revolt against mankind."

"Miss Kent, you have rather pretty eyes, but you are so steeped in Southern--what do you call it--_dolce far niente_, or _laissez faire_, or semi-stagnation of soul that you are too lazy to open them wide enough to see the thrilling vista of woman's triumph that illumines----"

"Thank you; my much flattered eyes are sufficiently open at this moment to perceive the behavior of that nondescript creature in feminine garments who is flirting so undisguisedly with Senator Smallweed yonder, on your right; one of the early emanc.i.p.ated--an advanced lobbyist."

"You mean that piquant, charming little Mrs. Morrison? Dear soul! She is a pathetically tragic object lesson. Had to get a divorce from a brutal husband and become a bread-winner. Why should not women lobby? They are so nimble witted, nature fitted them admirably for such work."

"And gave them the adroitly nimble fingers to fit the pockets they pick."

"That is some cowardly man's cruel slander. My creed is always to defend my own s.e.x; it is only Christian charity and genuine feminine justice."

"Provided it be not merely lax morality. Sometimes the distinction is not clear to very 'advanced,' zealous people."

"At least your father does not share your narrow harshness. He and Mrs.

Morrison are quite 'chummy,' and I happen to know he sees her often."

"How could he avoid it? Shoals of sharks swim in Washington, and since your friend belongs to the 'emanc.i.p.ated' variety, doubtless she indulges an 'elective affinity' for the largest senatorial prey in sight, and hungrily shadows him. Yesterday that 'Bison Head' bill she is working for came to grief in committee, and will be buried to-day. Even sharks occasionally miss a meal."

"Oh, you are not up to date! Before the decision was announced one of the committee weakened, asked for reconsideration; another hurried meeting was held last night, and the bill will not be reported this session. Not killed you understand, just tenderly pigeon-holed, securely wrapped up in parliamentary camphor to scare away opposition moths, and allowed to sleep while its pretty guardian angel has another session in which to smooth the way for its final pa.s.sage."

At this moment a messenger boy brought a note to Miss Higginbottom, and Eglah rose.

"You do not suspect who the _weakening_ member was?"

"If I cared to ask, I dare say your fair _divorcee_ friend would be able to enlighten me, but the petty political schemes engineered by lobbyists do not interest me."

"One moment, Miss Kent. You did not come to my _musicale_. I have only one olive twig left. We entertain a few friends to-morrow night in honor of a famous Western woman, who will lecture next season on 'Civic Problems,' for the purpose of raising money to build a vast, up-to-date club temple, where women can proclaim their views on female right to suffrage and expansion. May I have the pleasure of presenting you?"

"You are very kind, Miss Higginbottom, but as we leave Washington at the end of the week, I regret that I shall not have time for any new engagements. Pray accept my thanks for several courtesies."

"I used to wonder why you are so unpopular, but it soon ceased to be a mystery, and it will be no sacrifice to you to give up Washington, in retiring from public life. When Senator Kent formally resigns--as is the burden of a little bird's song that utters no false notes--he will, doubtless, consign you to a more congenial circle of friends."

"In saying good-bye, I shall find some solace in the a.s.surance that at least you will not mourn inconsolably because of my final departure.

Please present my best wishes to Mrs. Higginbottom, who has shown me much kindness, and whom I may not be able to see again. Good-bye."

She stood a few seconds, smiling mischievously into the florid face of the large-featured woman of most certain age, whose light-yellow eyes flashed back unmistakable malice, then, amid the roar of applause that greeted the peroration of a white-haired senator in the chamber below, she quietly stole out of the Capitol, and sought a favorite corner of the Smithsonian grounds.

Walking slowly, she asked in a spirit of self-chastis.e.m.e.nt why she had allowed waspish stings to provoke a retaliatory tone, at variance with that cool repose of well-bred urbanity and imperturbable courtesy on which she prided herself; and was not the condescension of retort an unladylike and mortifying weakness?

Now and then come radiant days when a noon sun shines hot, and no faintest film flecks the stainless blue, yet one grows vaguely conscious of waning brightness, and gradually the horizon blanches to a deadly grey, while leaden clouds creep into view like spectral fingers of some vast hand groping across the sky to smother the sun. Shadows projected by the invisible unnerve natures that fearlessly face tangible, well-defined danger, as 'the sallow, weird light preceding an eclipse is more menacing than its total darkness, where friendly stars still shine.' For Eglah, the clock of fate had begun to chime that _mauvais quart d'heure_ which Mrs. Maurice had known would inevitably overtake her, and the preliminary whirring of the hidden cogs had found her unprepared. Blind faith in her father's sagacity, political steadfastness, and incorruptibility, had built a pedestal from which he smiled down benignantly upon her, making life a festival; but when the needle of doubt p.r.i.c.ked the fine veil love spun across her vision, and she dared allow herself to question, a shivering and nameless dread shook her happy young heart, as unexpectedly blighting as a shower of sleet on an August pa.s.sion-flower. When Jove nods his worship wanes.

Since the night of the cotillon, several inexplicable circ.u.mstances, comparatively slight yet c.u.mulative, had perplexed this fond and loyal daughter, who began to find the maze of Senator Kent's political methods too tortuous for her exploration.

Startled by his abrupt reversal of judgment on more than one important question involving party allegiance, she had sought an explanation, which he laughingly evaded, and, when she pressed the matter, his avoidance was marked by an irritability of speech and gesture hitherto unknown in the domestic circle. The undisguised graciousness of his demeanor toward Mrs. Morrison had surprised and annoyed her, and she was painfully astonished by his efforts to conciliate Senator Higginbottom, who belonged to the opposite party, and was a loud, aggressive, and hirsute apostle of the silver gospel so dear to his const.i.tuency, and so conducive to his individual interest as a mine owner. Mrs. Higginbottom, a plain, kind-hearted, motherly old woman, who knew much more of sheep-shearing and beehives than of fashionable etiquette and diplomatic technicalities, Eglah had found it possible to receive cordially, but the daughter, Ethelberta, was an intolerable offence to all her feminine instincts, and when Judge Kent insisted, with some asperity, that the "Higginbottoms must be cultivated," the ordeal of playing hostess to this "advanced and emanc.i.p.ated new woman" proved peculiarly unpleasant.

A certain watchful restlessness in her father's manner did not escape her notice, nor the recent accession of sphinx-like non-committalism in Mr. Metcalf, and she pondered uneasily a question of Mrs. Mitch.e.l.l's:

"Dearie, did it ever occur to you that in some way Judge Kent seems rather afraid of Mr. Herriott, or perhaps I should say is always so guarded in his presence?"

"Never! Impossible and absurd. He has supreme confidence in him, and once, not long ago, he scolded me sharply because I could not consider him head and shoulders above all other men."

The session of Congress was within two days of its close, and that morning, as Senator Kent rose from an untasted breakfast, he astounded Eglah and Eliza by the e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.n, "G.o.d knows, I shall be glad to get out of this grind!"

Fearing sickness had robbed him of his appet.i.te, Eglah followed him to the library, but he waved her back.

"Metcalf is waiting to show me a paper, and I must not be interrupted.

My dear, my time is not my own--even for you."

Hitherto she had never been an interruption, and it seemed as if some iron door was shut suddenly between her life and his. "The Bison Head"

purchase bill, for which Mrs. Morrison flitted to and fro, had been fought by Senator Kent in committee room, where the contest was close, but Senator Higginbottom was chairman, and when Miss Ethelberta announced that a member had "weakened" and the bill might be saved by postponement, Eglah knew who had changed front, and she began to realize how ancient pilgrims felt when, at Delphi, the oracle said no to-day and yes to-morrow. Idolatrous habit was strong; the pedestal trembled, but it was a far cry to its overthrow, and she wrestled stubbornly to defend inconsistencies that humiliated and staggered her. Time, the master magician, would perhaps show her the Senator's reasons woven into a crown of laurel--as unexpected as the garland of glowing roses that spring out of a naked sword blade, at the gesture of a juggler. To-day she recalled her grandmother's softened face with eyes of tender compa.s.sion on that morning when the news of the second marriage had been brought to Nutwood. After all, was there just cause for the old lady's contempt and aversion, and were the rumors rife in Y---- shadows of grim and disgraceful facts that must cling to her father's name, fateful as the philter of Nessus? The thought stifled her, and she put her hand to her throat with the old childish habit that always betrayed intolerable pain. She could not go home--must not meet Eliza's eyes until she strangled this crouching horror. Through the Smithsonian she wandered, apparently examining its treasures, but now she saw only the pitying countenance of her grandmother, and now the malicious triumph in Miss Higginbottom's eyes, as she exulted in some impending misfortune.

"Formal resignation"--adumbrated by more than one innuendo--portended the summary collapse of a political career that she had believed would culminate in elevation to a Cabinet seat during the next administration.