Elder Conklin and Other Stories Part 18

She thought intently, while the colour rose in her cheeks; she was eager to help.

"With the students, yes. There's nothing to be done there. The professors--I don't think they like him much; he is too clever. When he came into the cla.s.s-room and talked Latin to Johnson, the Professor of Latin, and Johnson could only stammer out a word or two, I guess he didn't make a friend;" and the girl laughed at the recollection.

"I don't know anything else that could be brought against him. They say he is an Atheist. Would that be any use? He gave a lecture on 'Culture as a Creed' about three months ago which made some folk mad. The other professors are Christians, and, of course, all the preachers took it up. He compared Buddha with Christ, and said--oh, I remember!--that Shakespeare was the Old Testament of the English-speaking peoples. That caused some talk; they all believe in the Bible. He said, too, that 'Shakespeare was inspired in a far higher sense than St. Paul, who was thin and hard, a logic-loving bigot.' And President Campbell--he's a Presbyterian--preached the Sunday afterwards upon St. Paul as the great missionary of Protestantism. I don't think the professors like him, but I don't know that they can do anything, for all the students, the senior ones, at least, are with him," and the girl paused, and tried to find out from her father's face whether what she had said was likely to be of service.

"Wall! I don't go much on them things myself, but I guess somethin'

ken be done. I'll see Prentiss about it: send him to interview this President Campbell, and wake him up to a sense of his duty. This is a Christian country, I reckon," the grey eyes twinkled, "and those who teach the young should teach them Christian principles, or else--get out. I guess it ken be worked. The University's a State inst.i.tution. You don't mind if he's fired out, do you?" And the searching eyes probed her with a glance.

"Oh! I don't mind," she said quickly, in a would-be careless tone, rising and going towards him, "it has nothing to do with me. He belongs to May Hutchings--let her help him, if she can. I think you're quite right to give him a lesson--he needs one badly. What right has he to come and attack you?" She had pa.s.sed to her father's side, and was leaning against his shoulder. Those grey eyes saw more than she cared to reveal; they made her uncomfortable.

"Then I understand it's like this. You want him to get a real lesson? Is that it? You ken talk straight to me, Ida. I'm with you every time. You know that."

The feminine instinct of concealment worked in her, but she knew this father of hers would have plain speech, and some hidden feeling forced her violent temper to an outburst of curiously mingled hatred of the Professor and exultation in her power of injuring him.

"Why, father, it's all the same to me. I've no interest in it, except to help you. You know I never said a word against him till you asked me. But he has no business to come down and attack _you_," and the voice grew shrill. "It's shameful of him. If he were a man he'd never do it.

Yes--give him a _real_ lesson; teach him that those he despises are stronger than he is. Let him lose his place and be thrown out of work, then we'll see if May Hutchings," and she laughed, "will go and help him. We'll see who is--"

Her father interrupted her in the middle of a tirade which would have been complete self-revelation; but it is not to be presumed that he did this out of a delicate regard for his daughter's feelings. He had got the information he required.

"That's all right, Ida. I guess he'll get the lesson. You ken count on me. You've put me on the right track, I believe. I knew if any one could help me, you'd be able to. n.o.body knows what's in you better'n I do.

You're smarter'n any one I know, and I know a few who think they're real smart--"

In this vein he continued soothing his daughter's pride, and yet speaking in an even, impersonal tone, as if merely stating facts.

"Now I've got to go. Prentiss'll be waiting for me at the office."

While driving to the office, Mr. Gulmore's thoughts, at first, were with his daughter. "I don't know why, but I suspicioned that. That's why she left the University before graduatin', an' talked of goin' East, and makin' a name for herself on the stage. That Professor's foolish. Ida's smart and pretty, and she'll have a heap of money some day. The ring has a few contracts on hand still--he's a fool. How she talked: she remembered all that lecture--every word; but she's young yet. She'd have given herself away if I hadn't stopped her. I don't like any one to do that; it's weak. But she means business every time, just as I do; she means him to be fired right out, and then she'd probably go and cry over him, and want me to put him back again. But no. I guess not. That's not the way I work. I'd be willin' for him to stay away, and leave me alone, but as she wants him punished, he shall be, and she mustn't interfere at the end. It'll do her good to find out that things can't both be done and undone, if she's that sort. But p'r'aps she won't want to undo them. When their pride's hurt women are mighty hard--harder than men by far.... I wonder how long it'll take to get this Campbell to move. I must start right in; I hain't got much time."

As soon as her father left her, Miss Ida hurried to her own room, in order to recover from her agitation, and to remove all traces of it. She was an only child, and had accordingly a sense of her own importance, which happened to be uncorrected by physical deficiencies. Not that she was astonishingly beautiful, but she was tall and just good-looking enough to allow her to consider herself a beauty. Her chief attraction was her form, which, if somewhat flat-chested, had a feline flexibility rarer and more seductive than she imagined. She was content to believe that nature had fashioned her to play the part in life which, she knew, was hers of right. Her name, even, was most appropriate--dignified. Ida should be queen-like, stately; the oval of her face should be long, and not round, and her complexion should be pallid; colour in the cheeks made one look common. Her dark hair, too, pleased her; everything, in fact, save her eyes; they were of a nameless, agate-like hue, and she would have preferred them to be violet. That would have given her face the charm of unexpectedness, which she acknowledged was in itself a distinction. And Miss Ida loved everything that conduced to distinction, everything that flattered her pride with a sense of her own superiority.

It seemed as if her mother's narrowness of nature had confined and shot, so to speak, all the pa.s.sions and powers of the father into this one characteristic of the daughter. That her father had risen to influence and riches by his own ability did not satisfy her. She had always felt that the Hutchingses and the society to which they belonged, persons who had been well educated for generations, and who had always been more or less well off, formed a higher cla.s.s. It was the longing to become one of them that had impelled her to study with might and main. Even in her school-days she had recognized that this was the road to social eminence. The struggle had been arduous. In the Puritan surroundings of middle-cla.s.s life her want of religious training and belief had almost made a pariah of the proud, high-tempered girl, and when as a clever student of the University and a daughter of one of the richest and most powerful men in the State, she came into a circle that cared as little about Christian dogmas as she did, she attributed the comparative coolness with which her companions treated her, to her father's want of education, rather than to the true cause, her own domineering temper. As she had hated her childish playmates, who, instructed by their mothers, held aloof from the infidel, so she had grown to detest the a.s.sociates of her girlhood, whose parents seemed, by virtue of manners and education, superior to hers. The aversion was acrid with envy, and had fastened from the beginning on her compet.i.tor as a student and her rival in beauty, Miss May Hutchings. Her animosity was intensified by the fact that, when they entered the Soph.o.m.ore cla.s.s together, Miss May had made her acquaintance, had tried to become friends with her, and then, for some inscrutable reason, had drawn coldly away. By dint of working twice as hard as May, Ida had managed to outstrip her, and to begin the Junior year as the first of the cla.s.s; but all the while she was conscious that her success was due to labour, and not to a larger intelligence. And with the coming of the new professor of Greek, this superiority, her one consolation, was called in question.

Professor Roberts had brought about a revolution in the University. He was young and pa.s.sionately devoted to his work; had won his Doctor's degree at Berlin _summa c.u.m laude_, and his pupils soon felt that he represented a standard of knowledge higher than they had hitherto imagined as attainable, and yet one which, he insisted, was common in the older civilization of Europe. It was this nettling comparison, enforced by his mastery of difficulties, which first aroused the ardour of his scholars. In less than a year they pa.s.sed from the level of youths in a high school to that of University students. On the best heads his influence was magical. His learning and enthusiasm quickened their reverence for scholarship, but it was his critical faculty which opened to them the world of art, and nerved them to emulation.

"Until one realizes the shortcomings of a master," he said in a lecture, "it is impossible to understand him or to take the beauty of his works to heart. When Sophocles repeats himself--the Electra is but a feeble study for the Antigone, or possibly a feeble copy of it--we get near the man; the limitations of his outlook are characteristic: when he deforms his Ajax with a tag of political partisanship, his servitude to surroundings defines his conscience as an artist; and when painting by contrasts he poses the weak Ismene and Chrysothemis as foils to their heroic sisters, we see that his dramatic power in the essential was rudimentary. Yet Mr. Matthew Arnold, a living English poet, writes that Sophocles 'saw life steadily and saw it whole.' This is true of no man, not of Shakespeare nor of Goethe, much less of Sophocles or Racine. The phrase itself is as offensively out of date as the First Commandment."

The bold, incisive criticism had a singular fascination for his hearers, who were too young to remark in it the crudeness that usually attaches to originality.

Miss Hutchings was the first of the senior students to yield herself to the new influence. In the beginning Miss Gulmore was not attracted by Professor Roberts; she thought him insignificant physically; he was neat of dress too, and ingenuously eager in manner--all of which conflicted with her ideal of manhood. It was but slowly that she awoke to a consciousness of his merits, and her awakening was due perhaps as much to jealousy of May Hutchings as to the conviction that with Professor Roberts for a husband she would realize her social ambitions. Suddenly she became aware that May was pa.s.sing her in knowledge of Greek, and was thus winning the notice of the man she had begun to look upon as worthy of her own choice. Ida at once addressed herself to the struggle with all the energy of her nature, but at first without success. It was evident that May was working as she had never worked before, for as the weeks flew by she seemed to increase her advantage. During this period Ida Gulmore's pride suffered tortures; day by day she understood more clearly that the prize of her life was slipping out of reach. In mind and soul now she realized Roberts' daring and charm. With the intensified perceptions of a jealous woman, she sometimes feared that he sympathized with her rival. But he had not spoken yet; of that she was sure, and her conceit enabled her to hope desperately. A moment arrived when her hatred of May was sweetened by contempt. For some reason or other May was neglecting her work; when spoken to by the Professor her colour came and went, and a shyness, visible to all, wrapped her in confusion. Ida felt that there was no time to be lost, and increased her exertions. As she thought of her position she determined first to surpa.s.s her compet.i.tor, and then in some way or other to bring the Professor to speech. But, alas! for her plans. One morning she demonstrated her superiority with cruel clearness, only to find that Roberts, self-absorbed, did not notice her. He seemed to have lost the vivid interest in the work which aforetime had characterized him, and the happiness of the man was only less tell-tale than the pretty contentment and demure approval of all he said which May scarcely tried to conceal. Wild with fear, blinded by temper, Ida resolved to know the truth.

One morning when the others left the room she waited, busying herself apparently with some notes, till the Professor returned, as she knew he would, in time to receive the next cla.s.s. While gathering up her books, she asked abruptly:

"I suppose I should congratulate you, Professor?"

"I don't think I understand you."

"Yes, you do. Why lie? You are engaged to May Hutchings," and the girl looked at him with flaming eyes.

"I don't know why you should ask me, or why I should answer, but we have no motive for concealment--yes, I am."

His words were decisive; his reverence for May and her affection had been wounded by the insolent challenge, but before he finished speaking his manner became considerate. He was quick to feel the pain of others and shrank from adding to it--these, indeed, were the two chief articles of the unformulated creed which directed his actions. His optimism was of youth and superficial, but the sense of the brotherhood of human suffering touched his heart in a way that made compa.s.sion and tenderness appear to him to be the highest and simplest of duties. It was Ida's temper that answered his avowal. Still staring at him she burst into loud laughter, and as he turned away her tuneless mirth grew shriller and shriller till it became hysterical. A frightened effort to regain her self-control, and her voice broke in something like a sob, while tears trembled on her lashes. The Professor's head was bent over his desk and he saw nothing. Ida dashed the tears from her eyes ostentatiously, and walked with shaking limbs out of the room. She would have liked to laugh again scornfully before closing the door, but she dared not trust her nerves. From that moment she tried to hate Professor Roberts as she hated May Hutchings, for her disappointment had been very sore, and the hurt to her pride smarted like a burn. On returning home, she told her father that she had taken her name off the books of the University; she meant to be an actress, and a degree could be of no use to her in her new career. Her father did not oppose her openly; he was content to postpone any decisive step, and in a few days she seemed to have abandoned her project. But time brought no mitigation of her spite.

She was tenacious by nature, and her jealous rage came back upon her in wild fits. To be outdone by May Hutchings was intolerable. Besides, the rivalry and triumphs of the cla.s.s-room had been as the salt of life to her; now she had nothing to do, nothing to occupy her affections or give object to her feverish ambition. And the void of her life she laid to the charge of Roberts. So when the time came and the temptation, she struck as those strike who are tortured by pain.

Alone in her room, she justified to herself what she had done. She thought with pleasure of Professor Roberts' approaching defeat and punishment. "He deserves it, and more! He knows why I left the University; drew myself away from him for ever. What does he care for my suffering? He can't leave me in peace. I wasn't good enough for him, and my father isn't honest enough. Oh, that I were a man! I'd teach him that it was dangerous to insult the wretched.

"How I was mistaken in him! He has no delicacy, no true manliness of character. I'm glad he has thrown down the challenge. Father may not be well-educated nor refined, but he's strong. Professor Roberts shall find out what it means to attack _us_. I hope he'll be turned out of the University; I hope he will. Let me think. I have a copy of that lecture of his; perhaps there's something in it worse than I remembered. At any rate, the report will be proof."

She searched hurriedly, and soon found the newspaper account she wanted.

Glancing down the column with feverish eagerness, she burst out: "Here it is; this will do. I knew there was something more."

"... Thus the great ones contribute, each his part, towards the humanization of man. Christ and Buddha are our teachers, but so also, and in no lower degree, are Plato, Dante, Goethe, and Shakespeare....

"But strange to say, the _Divina Commedia_ seems to us moderns more remote than the speculations of Plato. For the modern world is founded upon science, and may be said to begin with the experimental philosophy of Bacon. The thoughts of Plato, the 'fair humanities' of Greek religion, are nearer to the scientific spirit than the untutored imaginings of Christ. The world to-day seeks its rule of life in exact knowledge of man and his surroundings; its teachers, high-priests in the temple of Truth, are the Darwins, the Bunsens, the Pasteurs. In the place of G.o.d we see Law, and the old concept of rewards and punishments has been re-stated as 'the survival of the fittest.' If, on the other hand, you need emotions, and the inspiration of concrete teaching, you must go to Balzac, to Turgenief, and to Ibsen...."

"I think that'll do," said the girl half-aloud as she marked the above pa.s.sages, and then sent the paper by a servant to her father's office.

"The worst of it is, he'll find another place easily; but, at any rate, he'll have to leave this State.... How well I remember that lecture. I thought no one had ever talked like that before. But the people disliked it, and even those who stayed to the end said they wouldn't have come had they known that a professor could speak against Christianity. How mad they made me then! I wouldn't listen to them, and now--now he's with May Hutchings, perhaps laughing at me with her. Or, if he's not so base as that, he's accusing my father of dishonesty, and I mean to defend him. But if, ah, if--" and the girl rose to her feet suddenly, with paling face.

The house of Lawyer Hutchings was commodious and comfortable. It was only two storeys high, and its breadth made it appear squat; it was solidly built of rough, brown stone, and a large wooden verandah gave shade and a lounging-place in front. It stood in its own grounds on the outskirts of the town, not far from Mr. Gulmore's, but it lacked the towers and greenhouse, the brick stables, and black iron gates, which made Mr. Gulmore's residence an object of public admiration. It had, indeed, a careless, homelike air, as of a building that disdains show, standing st.u.r.dily upon a consciousness of utility and worth. The study of the master lay at the back. It was a room of medium size, with two French windows, which gave upon an orchard of peach and apple-trees where lush gra.s.s hid the fallen fruit. The furniture was plain and serviceable. A few prints on the wall and a wainscoting of books showed the owner's tastes.

In this room one morning Lawyer Hutchings and Professor Roberts sat talking. The lawyer was sparely built and tall, of sympathetic appearance. The features of the face were refined and fairly regular, the blue eyes pleasing, the high forehead intelligent-looking.

Yet--whether it was the querulous horizontal lines above the brows, or the frequent, graceful gestures of the hands--Mr. Hutchings left on one an impression of weakness, and, somehow or other, his precise way of speaking suggested intellectual narrowness. It was understood, however, that he had pa.s.sed through Harvard with honours, and had done well in the law-course. It is, therefore, not to be wondered at that when he went West, he went with the idea that that was the shortest way to Washington. Yet he had had but a moderate degree of success; he was too thoroughly grounded in his work not to get a good practice, but he was not the first in his profession. He had been outdone by men who fought their cases, and his popularity was due to affable manners, and not to admiration of his power or talents. His obvious good nature had got with years a tinge of discontent; life had been to him a series of disappointments.

One glance at Professor Roberts showed him to be a different sort of a man, though perhaps harder to read. Square shoulders and attenuated figure--a mixture of energy and nervous force without muscular strength; a tyrannous forehead overshadowing lambent hazel eyes; a cordial frankness of manner with a thinker's tricks of gesture, his nervous fingers emphasizing his words.

Their talk was of an article a.s.sailing the Professor that had appeared that morning in "The Republican Herald."

"I don't like it," Mr. Hutchings was saying. "It's inspired by Gulmore, and he always means what he says--and something more."

"Except the suggestion that my father had certain good, or rather bad, reasons for leaving Kentucky, it seems to me merely spiteful. It's very vilely written."

"He only begins with your father. Then he wonders what the real motives are which induce you to change your political creed. But the affectation of fairness is the danger signal. One can't imagine Gulmore hesitating to a.s.sert what he has heard, that you have no religious principles.

Coming from him, that means a declaration of war; he'll attack you without scruple--persistently. It's well known that he cares nothing for religion--even his wife's a Unitarian. What he's aiming at, I don't know, but he's sure to do you harm. He has done me harm, and yet he never gave me such a warning. He only went for me when I ran for office.

As soon as the elections were over, he left me in peace. He's eminently practical, and rather good-natured. There's no small vicious malice or hate in him; but he's overbearing and loves a fight. Is it worth your while to make an enemy of him? We're sure to be beaten."

"Of course it isn't worth my while in that sense, but it's my duty, I think, as you think it yours. Remark, too, that I've never attacked Mr. Gulmore--never even mentioned him. I've criticised the system, and avoided personalities."

"He won't take it in that way. He is the system; when you criticise it, you criticise him. Every one will so understand it. He makes all the appointments, from mayor down to the boy who sweeps out an office; every contract is given to him or his appointees; that's how he has made his fortune. Why, he beat me the second time I ran for District Court Judge, by getting an Irishman, the Chairman of my Committee, to desert me at the last moment. He afterwards got Patrick Byrne elected a Justice of the Peace, a man who knows no law and can scarcely sign his own name."

"How disgraceful! And you would have me sit down quietly under the despotism of Mr. Gulmore? And such a despotism! It cost the city half a million dollars to pave the streets, and I can prove that the work could have been done as well for half the sum. Our democratic system of government is the worst in the world, if a tenth part of what I hear is true; and before I admit that, I'll see whether its abuses are corrigible. But why do you say we're sure to be beaten? I thought you said--"

"Yes," Mr. Hutchings interrupted, "I said that this railway extension gives us a chance. All the workmen are Irishmen, Democrats to a man, who'll vote and vote straight, and that has been our weak point. You can't get one-half the better cla.s.ses to go to the polls. The negroes all vote, too, and vote Republican--that has been Gulmore's strength.

Now I've got the Irishmen against his negroes I may win. But what I feel is that even if I do get to be Mayor, you'll suffer for it more than I shall gain by your help. Do you see? And, now that I'm employed by the Union Pacific I don't care much for city politics. I'd almost prefer to give up the candidature. May'll suffer, too. I think you ought to consider the matter before going any further."

"This is not the time for consideration. Like you I am trying to put an end to a corrupt tyranny. I work and shall vote against a venal and degrading system. May and I will bear what we must. She wouldn't have me run away from such adversaries. Fancy being governed by the most ignorant, led on by the most dishonest! It's incomprehensible to me how such a paradoxical infamy can exist."

"I think it'll become comprehensible to you before this election's over.

I've done my best for years to alter it, and so far I've not been very successful. You don't seem to understand that where parties are almost equal in strength, a man who'll spend money is sure to win. It has paid Gulmore to organize the Republican party in this city; he has made it pay him and all those who hold office by and through him. 'To the victors, the spoils.' Those who have done the spoiling are able to pay more than the spoiled--that's all."