A Thoughtless Yes Part 12

Mr. John Boler dashed from behind the desk across the street and was back in an incredibly short s.p.a.ce of time, dragging behind him the dignified and wealthy physician whose office faced the hotel.

At this stage of the proceedings he cautioned the employees not to say a word about the matter on pain of instant dismissal. They one and all promised, and then proceeded to tell the first reporter who dropped in that a young lady had committed suicide upstairs and that she had cried out loud for a week. They gave a full description of her and her effects, all of which appeared in the 5 o'clock edition of the paper, duly headlined with her name and certain gratuitous speculations in regard to her motive for self-destruction. In these it was darkly hinted that she was no better than she should be, but now that she was dead "we" (the immaculate young gentlemen of the press) felt disposed to draw a veil of charity over her past and say with the law that her suicide proved her insanity, and that her mental condition might also account for her past frailties.

While these generous young gentlemen were penning their reports the doctor and Mr. John Boler worked over the poor helpless body of the unconscious girl in the dark little room upstairs. Between times they read the letters on the table and learned the old, old story--not of crime, but of misfortune. No work had offered, and she must work or starve--or sell the only value she possessed in the sight of men. One or two of the answers to her advertis.e.m.e.nt had boldly hinted at this, and when her little stock of money had run out and the little stock of misfortune had swelled into a mountain, and the little pile of insults had increased until she felt that she could endure life no longer, she had concluded to brave another world where she was taught to believe a loving Father awaited her because she had been good and true and pure to the last in spite of storms and disappointments and temptations. So she made the wild leap in the dark, confident that the hereafter could hold nothing worse, and believing sincerely that it must hold something better for Her and her kind, even if that better were only forgetfulness.

Up to this point her story was that of thousands of helpless girls who face the unknown dangers of a great city with the confidence of youth, and that ill training and ignorance of the world which is supposed to be a part of the charm of young womanhood. She had not registered her real name, it is true; but this was because she intended to advertise for work and have the replies sent to the hotel, and somehow she thought that it would be easier for her to do that over a name less sacred to her than her mother's, which was also her own. So instead of registering as Fannie Ellis Worth of Atlanta, she had written "Miss Kate Jarvis" and had given no address whatever. This latter fact told strongly against her with the reporters. They located her in a certain house on Thirty-first Street and "interviewed" the madam, who gave them a picture of a girl who had once been there, and a cut of this picture appeared in two of the morning papers with the fuller account of the suicide. A beautiful moral was appended to this history of the girl's life "which had now come to its appropriate ending." But when one of these enterprising young gentlemen of the press called to get the details of the funeral for his paper, he was shocked to learn that the young lady was not dead after all, and that she was now in a fair way to recover.

He was still further disgusted when neither Mr. Boler nor the attending physician would submit to an interview and declined to allow him to send his card to the girl's room.

Then and there he made up his mind that if he had to rewrite that two-column report to fit the new developments in the case, he would, as he expressed it, make John Boler and pompous Dr. Ralston wish that they had never been bom. Incident to this undertaking, he would darkly hint at a number of things in regard to the girl herself and their relations with her. This was not at all to make her wish that she had never been born; but if it should serve that purpose, the young gentleman did not feel that he would be in the least to blame--if, indeed, he gave the matter a thought at all, which he very likely did not.

The article he wrote was certainly very "wide awake" and surprised even himself in its ingenuity of conjecture as to the motive which could prompt two such men as John Boler, proprietor of the Boler House, and Dr. Ralston, "whose reputation had heretofore been above suspicion, to place themselves in so unenviable, not to say dangerous, a position."

He suggested that although the young woman had taken her case out of the jurisdiction of the coroner by not actually dying, this fact did not relieve the affair of certain features which demanded the prompt attention of the police court. The matter was perfectly clear. Here was a young woman who had attempted to relieve herself, by rapid means, of the life which all the social and financial conditions which surrounded her had combined to take by a slower and more painful process. If she had succeeded, the law held that she was of unsound mind--that she was, in short, a lunatic--and treated her case accordingly; but, on the other hand, if she failed, or if, as in this instance, her effort to place herself beyond want and pain was thwarted by others, then the law was equally sure that she was _not_ a lunatic at all, but that she was a criminal, and that it was the plain duty of the police judge to see that she was put with those of her cla.s.s--the enemies and outcasts of society.

It was also quite clear that any one who aided, abetted, or shielded a criminal was _particeps criminis,_ and that unless Mr. John Boler and Dr. Ralston turned the young offender over to the police at once, there was a virtuous young reporter on the _Daily Screamer_ who intended to know the reason why.

It was this article in the _Screamer_ which first made Mr. Winkle aware of the condition of affairs in the room adjoining his own. He had been absent from the hotel for some hours, and had, therefore, known nothing of the sad happenings so near him. He dashed down into the office with the paper in his hand and asked for Mr. Boler; but that gentleman was not visible. It was said that he was in consultation with Dr. Ralston at the office of the latter, whereupon Mr. Winkle re-read the entire article aloud to the imperturbable clerk and expressed himself as under the impression that something was the matter with the law, or else that a certain reporter for the _Screamer_ was the most dangerous lunatic at present outside of the legislature. The clerk smiled. A young man leaning against the desk made a note on a tablet, and then asked Mr.

Winkle what he knew of the case and to state his objections to the law, first saying _which_ law he so vigorously disapproved. The clerk winked at Mr. Winkle, but Mr. Winkle either did not see, or else did not regard the purport of the demonstration, and proceeded to express himself with a good deal of emphasis in regard to a condition of affairs which made it possible to elect as lawmakers men capable of framing such idiotic measures and employing on newspapers others who upheld the enactment.

But before he had gone far in these strictures on public affairs as now administered he espied John Boler and followed him hastily upstairs.

That afternoon Mr. Winkle almost fell from his chair when he saw the evening edition of the _Screamer_ with a three-column "interview" with himself. It was headed, "_Rank Socialism at the Boler House. A Close Friend of the Offending Landlord Lets the Cat out of the Bag. A Dangerous Nest of Law Breakers. John Boler and Dr. Ralston still Defiant. Backed by a Man Who Ought to Know Better. Shameless Confession of one of the Arch Conspirators. The Mask torn from Old Silas Winkle Who Roomed Next to the Would-be Suicide. Will the Police Act Now?_"

When Mr. Winkle read the article appended to these startling headlines, he descended hastily to the office floor and proceeded to make some remarks which it would be safe to a.s.sert would not be repeated by any Sunday-school superintendent--in the presence of his cla.s.s--in the confines of the State of New York. John Boler was present at the time and whispered aside to Mr. Winkle that a reporter for the _Screamer_ and five others from as many different papers were within hearing, whereupon Mr. Winkle became more and more excited, and talked with great volubility to each and every one of the young men as they gathered about him. "_Adds Blasphemy to His Other Crimes_," wrote one of them as his headline, and then John Boler interfered.

"Look here, boys," said he pleasantly, but with a ring of determination in his voice, "you just let Mr. Winkle alone. This sort of thing is all new to him, and he had no more to do with that girl than if his room had been in Texas." (The reporters winked at each other and one of them wrote, _Connived at by the Proprietor_.) "I put her in the room next to his. _I_ helped the doctor to resuscitate her. _I_ positively refuse to give you her real name and present address, although I know both, and Mr. Winkle does not, and if the police court has any use for me it knows where to find me. Have a cigar?" Each reporter took a weed, and three of them went to the office of Dr. Ralston to complete their records as soon as possible.

"I'm sorry all this has happened to you in my house, Mr. Winkle," said John Boler, as they stood alone for a moment. "It is partly my fault, too," he added, in a sudden burst of contrition. "It" had carried his revenge further than he had intended. He knew how the old man's sudden outbreak of righteous indignation would go against him in the newspaper reports that would follow, and John Boler was kind-hearted as well as fearless.

"Good Lord, don't you worry about me, Johnnie!" said the old man, craning his neck to watch the retreating forms from the window. "But those young devils have gone over to the doctor's office and they'll bully him into telling where the girl is, and then they'll bully the police into dragging her into court yet. Dear me, dear me!"

"Now, don't you be scared about that, Mr. Winkle. The doctor and I have made up our minds to fight this thing out. We've found out all about the girl and that it was simply a case of utter despair. It was a question of death by slow or by quick means. Society, law, prescribed the slow method, and the girl herself chose the rapid one. Well, now, as long as she was to be the sufferer in either case, it strikes me that she had about as good a right to a voice in the matter as the rest of us. Dr.

Ralston and I checkmated her. (I can't afford to have that kind of thing happen in the hotel, of course.) But, by gad, we're not going to let them make a criminal of her. All the circ.u.mstances combined to do that before and she chose death. Well, we stopped her efforts in that line too, and now the court proposes to put the finishing touches on society's other inhumanities and send her up for it. Why, good G.o.d, man, just look at it! In substance that girl said, 'I'll die before I'll be forced into a.s.sociation with criminals,' and the court says, 'You shall do nothing of the kind. Science shall doctor you up and we will _send_ you up. Despair is a crime.' That girl tried every way she knew of to live right. She failed. No work that she could do came her way. Well, now, will you just tell me what she was to do? You know what any man on G.o.d's earth would do if _he_ had been situated that way and _could_ have sold his virtue--in the sense we use virtue for women. Well, some women are not built that way. They prefer to die. Life don't mean enough of happiness to them to pay for the rest of it--life as it is, I mean.

Well, since women don't have anything to say about what the laws and social conditions shall be, it strikes me that the situation is a trifle arbitrary, to put it mildly. We make laws for and demands upon women that no man on earth would think of complying with, and then we tell 'em they sha'n't even die to get away from the conditions we impose and about which they are not allowed a word to say. To tell you the bald truth _I'm_ ashamed of it. So when we learned that girl's story we just made up our minds that since we had taken the liberty to keep her from getting out of the world by a shorter cut than the one usually prescribed in such cases--starvation--that we'd just take the additional liberty of keeping her from being hounded to insanity and made a criminal of by legal verdict."

Mr. Winkle gave a snort that startled John Boler, for he had been running on half to himself during the last of his talk and had almost forgotten that the old man was present. When he heard the explosion he mistook its meaning and his conscience gave him another smart twinge.

"Yes, I'm sorry, _very_ sorry, Mr. Winkle, that this trouble has come to you in my house, but who could have foreseen that--a--that is to say--"

"Trouble to _me?_" exclaimed Mr. Winkle. "Trouble to _me?_ Who's said anything about any trouble to me? Do you suppose I care what those young scamps say about me in the papers? Got to make a living, haven't they?

Well, society doesn't object to their making a living by taking what does not belong to 'em, if it happens to be a man's reputation or a woman's chance to ever make an honest living again. Little thefts like that don't count That is not a crime; but dear me, Johnnie, do you suppose I care a tinker's dam about that, so for as _I_ go? G.o.d bless my soul, if the dear boys can sell their three columns of rot about me, and it will keep them off the heels of some poor devil that it might ruin, why, I'm satisfied. All I've got to say to you is, if they arrest you I'll go bail, and if they fine you I'll pay it, and if they jail you--hang it, Johnnie, I'll serve your term, that's all."

Mr. Boler laughed. "My punishment shall all be vicarious then, hey? Good idea, only it won't work in every-day life. The law doesn't let other people serve out your term. But I'm just as much obliged, and--and--to tell you the truth, Mr. Winkle, I'm--that is to say, I hope you will forgive me--the fact is, I forgive you freely for the part you took in helping to addle such brains as I had when I was a child. There is my hand. 'It' went a little too far this time, and--"

Mr. Winkle took off his gla.s.ses and polished them carefully. Then he placed them astride his nose and gazed thoughtfully at his old friend's son for fully a minute before he said a word. Finally he took the extended hand, shook it solemnly, and walked slowly away, wondering to himself if it could be possible that hard-headed old John Boler's son was touched a little in the brain. Mr. Boler noticed his perplexed expression and laughed merrily to himself as he started toward the elevator. Before he reached it he turned and beckoned to Mr. Winkle to follow him. On the third floor they were joined by Dr. Ralston.

"She is so much better now, Mr. Winkle," explained the genial hotel man, "and you are an older man than either the doctor or I, so I thought-- It just struck me that she might feel-- That you might like-- Oh, d.a.m.n it, would you like to go up to see her? We are going now. A clergyman has called, and if she wants to see him we shall not stay but a minute; but as there is no woman about, as she is so alone, I thought perhaps she might like to have an older man come with us, for she seems to be a very sensitive girl. She has been silent about herself so far; but she is better now, and we want to find out what work she can do, and have a place ready for her when she is able to get about. Perhaps she will talk more freely to you."

The old gentleman looked perplexed, but made no reply until they were out of the elevator. Then he took Mr. Boler by the arm and said helplessly, "I--I am a bachelor, you know, Johnnie, and--"

"No!" laughed Mr. Boler. "Well, confound it, you don't look it. Anybody would take you for the proud father of a large brood. She will think you are and it may help her. Come on."

The old gentleman entered the darkened room last and sat down silently in the deepest shadow. The doctor stepped to the bed and spoke in a low tone. A white face on the pillow turned slowly, so that the only band of light that reached in from the open door fell full upon it. Mr. Winkle shuddered as he saw for the first time the delicate, pallid, hopeless face.

"A priest?" she said feebly, in answer to the doctor. "Oh, no. Why should I want to see a priest? You've had your way. You've brought me back to battle with a world wherein I only now acknowledged my defeat."

Her voice trembled with weakness and emotion, but she was looking steadily at the doctor with great wide eyes, in which there burnt the intensity of mental suffering and a determination to free her mind even at the risk of losing the good-will of those who had intended to be kind to her. "A priest! What could he do? _This_ life is what I fear. His mission is to deal with other worlds--of which I know already what he does--and that is _nothing_. Of this life I know, alas! too much. Far more than he. He cannot help me, for I could tell him much he _cannot_ know, of suffering and fort.i.tude and hope laid low at last, without a refuge even in cloistered walls. I know what he would say. His voice would tremble and he would offer sympathy and good advice--and, maybe, alms. These are not what I want or need. I am not very old--just twenty-two--but I have thought and thought until my brain is tired, and what good could it do for him to sit beside me here and say in gentle tones that it is very sad? No doubt that he would tell me, too, how wicked I have been that I should choose to die by my own hand when life had failed me."

She smiled a little, and her wan face lit from within was beautiful still in spite of its pallor. The doctor murmured something about natural sympathy, and Mr. Boler remarked that men who were fortunate would gladly help those who were in distress if only they knew in time.

She did not appear to heed them, but presently went on as though her mind were on the clergymen below waiting to see her.

"To feel that it is sad is only human; but what is to be done? That is the question now. What is to be done for suffering in _this_ world? It is life that is hard to bear, not death. Sympathy with the unfortunate is good. Kind words and gentle tones as your priest recounts their woes are touching. Yes, and when they are drawn to fit the truth would melt a heart of stone; but unless action wings the sympathy and dries the tears, the object of his tenderness is in no wise bettered--indeed, is injured. Why? Because he lulls to sleep man's conscience and thereby gives relief from pangs that otherwise had found an outlet through an open purse. And when I say an open purse I do not speak of charity, that double blight which kills the self-respect in its recipient and numbs the conscience of the 'benevolent' man who grasps the utmost penny _here_ that he may give with ostentation _there_, wounding the many that he may heal the few. All this was safe enough, no doubt, while Poverty was ignorant, for ignorance is helpless always; but now--" There was a pause. She raised her head a little from the pillow and a frightened look crept into her eyes--"but now the poor are not so ignorant that it will long be safe to play at cross purposes with suffering made too intelligent to drink in patient faith the bitter draughts of life and wait the crown of gold he promises hereafter--and wears, meanwhile, himself. A _little_ joy on earth, they think, will not bedim the l.u.s.tre of a life that is to come--if such there be. You see I've thought a little in these wretched days and months just past." She was silent again for a moment. A bitter smile crossed her face and vanished. The doctor offered her a powder which she swallowed without a word. John Boler stepped to the table and poured out a gla.s.s of wine, but when he held it toward her she shook her head and closed her eyes a moment. Then she spoke again as if no break had checked her thought. "Oh, no; I do not care to see your priest. The poor no longer fail to note his willingness to risk the needle's eye with camel's back piled high with worldly gain. If he may enter thus, why may not they with simpler train and fewer trappings? The poor are asking this to-day of prince and priest alike. No answer comes from either. Evasion does not satisfy.

I ask, but no one answers. The day once was when silence pa.s.sed for wisdom. That day is gone. To-day we are asking why? and why? and why? no longer, when? And so the old reply, 'hereafter,' does not fit the query.

Why, not when, is what we urge to-day, and your replies must change to fit the newer, nearer question. When I say _your_ replies, I do not mean you, doctor, nor your friend. You two meant kindly by me. Yes, I know.

I am not claiming that you are at fault, nor they--the fortunate--the prince and priest. I understand. Blind nature took her course and trod beneath her cruel feet the millions who were born too weak to struggle with the foes they found within themselves and in their stronger brothers. I know, I know."

She lay back on the pillow and closed her eyes wearily. Mr. Winkle drew near and stood behind the doctor's chair, still keeping in the shadow, but watching her pale face with an intensity born of a simple nature easy to stir and quick to resolve. The doctor touched her pulse with a light finger and gravely nodded his head as he glanced at his watch. Her heavy eyelids did not lift but her voice broke the silence again. There was a cadence in it that gave a solemn thrill to the three men as they listened, the doctor watching with professional interest the effect of the powder he had given; the other two waited, expecting they knew not what.

"The ignorance and cruelty of all the past, the superst.i.tious fears, the cunning prophecies, the greeds and needs of men, joined hands and marched triumphant. They did not halt to ask the fallen what had borne them down. They did not silence bugle blasts of joy where new-made graves were thick. No silken flag was lowered to warm to life the shivering forms of comrades overcome and fallen by the way. The strong marched on and called themselves the brave. Sometimes they were. But other times the bravest had gone down, plucked at, perchance, by wife or child or friend whose sorrow or distress reached out and twined itself about the strong but tender heart and held it back until the foot lost step, and in the end the eye lost sight of those who only now had kept him company."

She lifted her small white hand and pointed as if to a distant battlefield, but her eyes remained closed. The doctor glanced uneasily at his watch and took her other wrist in his fingers again.

"The next battalion trampled him. The priest bent low and whispered 'over there, hereafter,' and slipped the treasure of the fallen hero beneath his ample robe to swell the coffers of the church, since dead men need no treasures."

Her voice was infinitely sad but she laughed a little and opened her eyes. They fixed themselves upon the silvered head of Mr. Winkle standing behind the doctor's chair.

"Perhaps I shock you. I do not mean to, but I have thought and thought these last few wretched months, and looking at the battlefields of life backward through all the ages, I thought I saw at night, in camp, the priest and conqueror meet beside the campfire and council for the next day's march. I thought I heard the monarch say, 'I go before and cleave my way. You follow me and gather up two things--the spoils I miss and all the arrows of awakened scorn and wrath embedded in the b.r.e.a.s.t.s of those of our own ranks who fall or are borne down, lest they arise and overtake us while we sleep and venge themselves on us. Tell them to wait. Their time will come. Tell them _I_ clear the way for them, and _you_ forgive a hatred which you see is growing up within their wicked b.r.e.a.s.t.s. Quiet, soothe, and shame them into peace. a.s.sure them that _hereafter_ they, not we, shall have the better part. Gain time.

Lay blame to me if need be; but always counsel patience, waiting, acquiescence, peace, submission to the will of G.o.d--_your will and mine_. Your task is easy. No danger lies therein. I take the risk and share with you the glory and the gain.' I heard the priest disclaim all greed of gain and go to do his part as loyal subject and as holy man.

I saw all this and more before I took the last resolve you balked. You meant it kindly, doctor, yes, I know, but I am very tired and what is there ahead for me, or such as I, on battlefields like these?"

No one ventured a reply. She closed her eyes and waited. The doctor took another powder from his case and held it above her lips. She smiled and swallowed it.

"We take our powders very docilely," she said, with a bitter little laugh as the wine-gla.s.s left her hand and Mr. Boler's finger touched her own. He noticed that hers was very cold.

"They used to make us sleep in the good old days of priest and monarch, but our nerves are wrong just now. Our powders only make us think the more and have strange visions."

Dr. Ralston glanced at Mr. Boler and nodded his head mysteriously. The powder was beginning to work, he thought, for she had reverted to the old vision, and talked as if she were in a dream. "That way it was, another way it is, and still another will be," she was saying. "To-day the honest poor, the hampered weak, are defeated, dazed, and some of us are hopeless. Others there are who cling to hope and life and brood on vengeance. That is your danger, gentlemen, for days that are to come.

You will have to change your powders. The old prescriptions do not make us sleep. We think, and think, and think. We strain our nerves and break our hearts, for what? A life as cold and colorless and sad as death itself--to some of us far sadder--and yet you will not even let us die.

Again we ask you, why? There is no place on earth for such as we, unless we will be criminals. That is the hinge whereon the future turns. How many will prefer the crime to want? What dangers lie behind the door that now is swinging open? Intelligence has taught us scorn for such a grovelling lot, has multiplied our needs, and turned the knife of suffering in quivering wounds no longer deadened by the anaesthetics of ignorant content with life or superst.i.tious fear of death. The door is swinging on the hinge. The future has to face creatures the past has made like demons. Some, like myself, behind the door, who do not love mere life, will turn the sharpened dagger on themselves. But there are others--"

Her voice sank. The three men thought that she had fallen asleep at last. The doctor drew a long satisfied breath and consulted his watch for the fourth time, making a mental note for future use in giving the drug whose action he was watching. He started and frowned, therefore, when her voice broke the silence again.

"Others there are, in spite of pain and anguish, in spite of woe and fear, who cling to life--who read in eyes they worship the pangs of hunger, cold, and mental agony. Where will their vengeance go? Who knows?"

She opened her great eyes and looked first at one and then at another, and repeated, "Who knows?"

Again there was no reply. After a long pause Mr. Winkle said gently:

"There is a place in life for girls like you. I shall charge myself with it. You shall find work and joy yet, my child. Now go to sleep. Be quiet. We have let you talk too long. Stop thinking sadly now. You think too much. You _think_ too much."

She closed her eyes quickly and there was a tightening of the lips that left them paler than before. Then a tear rolled slowly down her temple.