Youth Challenges Part 22

Cuddle her, or something. I've done a sweet job of it.... Miss Frazer, this is my daughter. Er--I'm going away from here." And he went, precipitately.

There was a brief silence; then Hilda laid her hand on Ruth's head.

"What's dad been doing to you?" she asked. "Scare you? His bark's a heap sight worse than his bite."

"He--he's good," said Ruth, tearfully. "He was trying to be good to me.... I'm just upset--that's all. I'll be--all right in a moment." But she was not all right in a moment. Her sobs increased. The strain, the anxiety, a sleepless night of suffering--and the struggle she had undergone to find the answer to Bonbright's question--had tried her to the depths of her soul. Now she gave quite away and, unwillingly enough, sobbed and mumbled on Hilda Lightener's shoulder, and clung to the larger girl pitifully, as a frightened baby clings to its mother.

Hilda's face grew sober, her eyes darkened, as, among Ruth's broken, fragmentary, choking words, she heard the name of Bonbright Foote. But her arm did not withdraw from about Ruth's shoulders, nor did the sympathy in her kind voice lessen.... Most remarkable of all, she did not give way to a very natural curiosity. She asked no question.

After a time Ruth grew quieter, calmer.

"I'll tell you what you need," said Hilda. "It's to get away from here.

My electric's downstairs. I'm going to take you away from father. We'll drive around a bit, and then I'll run you home.... You're all aquiver."

She went out, closing the door after her. Her father was pacing uneasily up and down the alley between the desks, and she motioned to him.

"She's better now. I'm going to take her home.... Dad, she was muttering about Bonbright. What's he got to do with this?"

"I don't know, honey. Nothing--nothing ROTTEN.... It isn't in him--nor HER."

Hilda nodded.

"Bonbright seems to have disappeared," her father said.

"DISAPPEARED?"

"His father's hunting for him, anyhow. Hasn't been home all night."

"I don't blame him," said Hilda, with a flash in her eyes. "But what's this girl got to do with it?"

"I wish you'd find out. I was trying to--and that blew up the house."

"I'll try nothing of the kind," she said. "Of course, if she WANTS to tell me, and DOES tell me, I'll listen.... But I won't tell you. You run your old factory and keep out of such things. You just MESS them."

"Yes, ma'am," he said, with mock submissiveness, "it looks like I do just that."

Hilda went back into the room, and presently she and Ruth emerged and went out of the building. That day began their acquaintance, which was to expand into a friendship very precious to both of them--and one day to be the rod and staff that sustained Ruth and kept her from despair.

CHAPTER XV

Hilda Lightener represented a new experience to Ruth. Never before had she come into such close contact with a woman of a cla.s.s she had been taught to despise as useless and worse than useless. Even more than they hated the rich man Ruth's cla.s.s hated the rich man's wife and daughter. Society women stood to them for definite transgressions of the demands of human equality and fairness and integrity of life. They were parasites, wasters, avoiding the responsibilities of womanhood and motherhood. They flaunted their ease and their luxuries. They were arrogant. When their lives touched the lives of the poor it was with maddening condescension. In short, they were not only no good, but were flagrantly bad.

The zealots among whom Ruth's youth had lain knew no exceptions to this judgment. All so-called society women were included. Now Ruth was forced to make a revision.... All employers of labor had been malevolent. Experience had proven to her that Bonbright Foote was not malevolent, and that a more conspicuous, vastly more powerful figure in the industrial world, Malcolm Lightener, was human, considerate, respectful of right, full of unexpected disturbing virtues.... Ruth was forced to the conclusion that there were good men and good women where she had been taught to believe they did not exist.... It was a pin-p.r.i.c.k threatening the bubble of her fanaticism.

She had not been able to withhold her liking from Hilda Lightener.

Hilda was strongly attracted by Ruth. King Copetua may occasionally wed the beggar maid, but it is rare for his daughter or his sister to desire a beggar maid's friendship.

Hilda did not press Ruth for confidences, nor did Ruth bestow them. But Hilda succeeded in making Ruth feel that she was trustworthy, that she offered her friendship sincerely.... That she was an individual to depend on if need came for dependence. They talked. At first Hilda carried on a monologue. Gradually Ruth became more like her sincere, calm self, and she met Hilda's advances without reservation.... When Hilda left her at her home both girls carried away a sense of possessing something new of value.

"Don't you come back to the office to-day," Hilda told her. "I'll settle dad."

"Thank you," said Ruth. "I do need--rest. I've got to be alone to--think." That was the closest she came to opening her heart.

She did have to think, though she had thought and reasoned and suffered the torture of mental conflict through a nearly sleepless night. She had told Bonbright to come on this day for her answer.... She must have her answer ready. Also she must talk the thing over with Dulac. That would be hard--doubly hard in the situation that existed.

Last night she had not spoken of it to him; had scarcely spoken to him at all, as he had been morosely silent to her. She had been shocked, frightened by his violence, yet she knew that his violence had been honest violence, perpetrated because he believed her welfare demanded it. She did not feel toward him the aversion that the average girl might have felt for one who precipitated her into such a scene.... She was accustomed to violence and to the atmosphere of violence.

When she and Dulac arrived at the Frazer cottage, he had helped her to alight. Then he uttered a rude apology, but a sincere one--according to his lights.

"I'm sorry I had to do it with you watching," he said. Then, curtly, "Go to bed now."

Clearly he suspected her of no wrongdoing, of no intention toward future wrongdoing. She was a VICTIM. She was a pigeon fascinated by a serpent.

Now she went to her room, and remained there until the supper hour.

When she and her mother and Dulac were seated at the table her mother began a characteristic Jeremiad. "I hope you ain't coming down with a spell of sickness. Seems like sickness in the family's about the only thing I've been spared, though other things worse has been aplenty.

Here we are just in a sort of a breathing spell, and you begin to look all peeked and home from work, with maybe losing your place, for employers is hard without any consideration, and food so high and all.

I wasn't born to no ease, nor any chance of looking forward like some women, though doing my duty at all times to the best of my ability. And now you on the verge of a run of the fever, with n.o.body can say how long in bed, and doctors and medicines and worry...."

"I'm not going to be ill, mother," Ruth said. "Please don't worry about me."

"If a mother can't worry about her own daughter, then I'd like to know what she can do," said Mrs. Frazer, with the air of one suffering meekly a studied affront.

Ruth turned to Dulac. "Before you go downtown," she said, "I want to talk to you."

Dulac had not hoped to escape a reckoning with Ruth, and now he supposed she was demanding it. Well, as well now as later, if the thing had to be. He was a trifle sulky about it; perhaps, now that his blind rage had subsided, not wholly satisfied with himself and his conduct.

"All right," he said, and went silently on with his meal. After a time he pushed back his chair. "I've got a meeting downtown," he said to Ruth, paving the way for a quick escape.

"Maybe what I have to say," she said, gravely, "will be as important as your meeting," and she preceded him into the little parlor.

His att.i.tude was defensive; he expected to be called on for explanations, to be required to soothe resentment; his mental condition was more or less that of a schoolboy expecting a ragging.

Ruth did not begin at once, but walked over to the window, and, leaning her elbow against the frame, pressed her forehead against the cool gla.s.s. She wanted to clear and make direct and coherent her thoughts.

She wanted to express well, leaving no ground for misunderstanding of herself or her motives, what she had to say. Then she turned, and began abruptly; began in a way that left Dulac helplessly surprised, for it was not the attack he expected.

"Mr. Foote asked me to marry him, last night," she said, and stopped.

"That is why he took me out to the lake.... I hadn't any idea of it before. I didn't know... He was honest and sincere. At first I was astonished. I tried to stop him. I was going to tell him I loved you and that we were going to be married." She stopped again, and went on with an effort. "Then something came to me--and it frightened me. All the time he was talking to me I kept on thinking about it... and I didn't want to think about it because of--you.... You know I want to do something for the Cause--something big, something great! It's hard for a woman to do such a thing--but I saw a chance. It was a hard chance, a bitter chance, but it was there.... I'm not a doll. I think I could be strong. He's just a boy, and I am strong enough to influence him....

And I thought how his wife could help. Don't you see? He will own thousands of laboring men--thousands and thousands. If I married him I could do--what couldn't I do?--for them. I would make him see through my eyes. I would make him UNDERSTAND. My work would be to make him better conditions, to give those thousands of men what they are ent.i.tled to, to give them all men like you and like my father have taught me they ought to have.... I could do it. I know. Think of it--thousands of men, and then--wives and children, made happier, made contented, given their fair share--and by me!... That's what I thought about--and so--so I didn't refuse him. I didn't tell him about you....

I told him I'd give him my answer--later...."

His face had changed from sullenness to relief, from relief to astonishment, then to black anger.

"Your answer," he said, pa.s.sionately. "What answer could you give but one? You're mine. You've promised me. That's the answer you'll give him.... You THOUGHT. I know what you thought. You thought about his money--about his millions. You thought what his wife would have, how she would live. You thought about luxuries, about automobiles, about jewels.... Laboring men!... h.e.l.l! He showed you the kingdoms of the earth--and you wanted them. He offered to buy you--and you looked at the price and it was enough to tempt you.... You'll give him no answer.

I'll give it to him, and it'll be the same kind of answer I gave him last night.... But this time he won't get up so quick. This time..."

"Stop!... That's not true. You know it's not true.... I've promised to marry you--and I've loved you. Yes, I've loved you.... I'm glad of that. It makes the sacrifice real. It makes all the more I have to give.... Father gave his life. You're giving your life and your strength and your abilities.... I want to give, too, and so I'm glad, glad that I love you, and that I can give that.... If I didn't love you, if I did care for Mr. Foote, it would be different. I would be afraid I was marrying him because of what he is and what he has. ...