May Iverson's Career Part 20

"I'm startin' early," she explained. "I told the hotel man soon's I come in to have me called at five o'clock. So I'll say good-by now.

An' thank ye both fer all yer kindness," she ended, primly.

Dr. Harland laughed. Then, impulsively, she took both the woman's toil-hardened hands in hers.

"Good-by, then, and G.o.d bless you," she said. "My cure has worked.

I'll comfort myself with that knowledge."

For a moment the eyes of Tildy Mears fell.

"You ben mighty good," she said. "You both ben good. Don't think I ain't grateful." She hesitated, then went on in halting explanation.

"'S long's you ain't married," she said, "an' ain't got nothin' else to do, it's fine to travel round an' talk to folks. But someway sence I see that man to-night, settin' there lookin' like Jim, I realize things is different with us married women."

She drew her small figure erect, her voice taking on an odd suggestion of its ringing platform note.

"Talkin' is one thing," she said, tersely, "livin' is another thing.

P'rhaps you ain't never thought of that. But I see the truth now, an'

I see it clear."

Her peroration filled the little room, and like a swelling organ tone rolled through the open door and down the stairs, where it reached the far recesses of the hall below. Her lean right arm shot upward in her one characteristic gesture, as if she called on high Heaven itself to bear witness to the wisdom of her words in this, her last official utterance.

"Woman's place," ended Tildy Mears, "is in the home!"

X

A MESSAGE FROM MOTHER ELISE

The Authors' Dinner had reached that peak of success which rises serenely between the serving of the dessert and the opening words of the first postprandial speech. Relaxed, content, at peace with themselves and their publisher-host, the great a.s.semblage of men and women writers sipped their coffee and liqueurs, and beamed benignly upon one another as they waited for the further entertainment the speeches were expected to afford. Here and there, at the numerous small tables which flowered in the great dining-room, a distinguished author, strangely modest for the moment, stealthily consulted some penciled notes tucked under his napkin, or with absent eyes on s.p.a.ce mentally rehea.r.s.ed the opening sentences of his address. Even the least of these men was accustomed to public speaking; but what they had said to Chautauqua gatherings or tossed off casually at school commencements in their home towns was not quite what they would care to offer to an audience which included three hundred men and women representing every stage of literary success, and gifted, beyond doubt, with a highly developed sense of humor. A close observer could discover the speakers of the evening by running an eye over the brilliantly decorated tables and selecting those faces which alone in that care-free a.s.semblage wore expressions of nervous apprehension.

At my table, well toward the center of the room, I felt again a thrill of delight at being a part of this unique composite picture. My first book, still an infant in the literary cradle, had won me my invitation; and nothing except the actual handling of the volume, hot from the press, had given me so strong a sense of having at last made a beginning in the work I loved. Save myself, every man and woman of the eight at our table stood on the brow of the long hill each had climbed. Three of them--a woman playwright, a man novelist, and a famous diplomat--were among my close friends. The others I had met to-night for the first time. The Playwright sat opposite me, and over the tall vase of Spanish iris which stood between us I caught the expression of her brown eyes, thoughtful and introspective. For the moment at least she was very far away from the little group around her. Beside her sat the Author, his white locks caressing a suddenly troubled brow. He was one of the speakers of the evening, and he had just confided to his companions that he had already forgotten his carefully prepared extemporaneous address. At my right the grand old man of American diplomacy smiled in calm content. He rarely graced such festive scenes as this; he was over ninety, and, he admitted cheerfully, "growing a little tired." But his Reminiscences, recently published, was among the most widely read literature of the day, and the mind which had won him distinction fifty years ago was still as brilliant as during his days at foreign courts.

Over our group a sudden stillness had fallen, and with an obvious effort to break this, one of my new acquaintances addressed me, her cold blue eyes reflecting none of the sudden warmth of her manner.

"Do you know, Miss Iverson," she began, "I envy you. You have had five years of New York newspaper experience--the best of all possible training. Besides, you must have acc.u.mulated more material in those five years than the average writer finds in twenty."

I had no opportunity to reply. As if the remark had been a gauntlet tossed on the table in challenge, my companions fell upon it. Every one talked at once, the Best Seller and the Author upholding the opinion of the woman with the blue eyes, the rest disputing it, until the Playwright checked the discussion with a remark that caught the attention of all.

"There's nothing new in this world," she said, "and therefore there's nothing interesting. We all know too much. The only interesting things are those we can't understand, because they happen--elsewhere."

The Author looked at her and smiled, his white eyebrows moving upward ever so slightly. "For example?" he murmured.

Almost imperceptibly the Playwright shrugged her shoulders.

"For example?" she repeated, lightly. "Oh, I wasn't contemplating an example. Not that I couldn't give one if I chose." She stopped. Then, stirred by the skeptical look in the Author's eyes, her face took on a sudden look of decision. "And I might," she added, quietly, "if urged."

The Best Seller leaned across the table and laid a small coin on her plate. "I'll urge you," he said. "I'll take a story. We want the thing in fiction form."

The Playwright smiled at him. "Very well," she said, indifferently; "call it what you please--an instance, a story."

"And mind," interrupted the Best Seller, "it's something that didn't happen on this earth."

The Playwright sat silent an instant, intent and thoughtful, as if mentally marshaling her characters before her. "Part of it happened on this earth," she said. "It began two years ago, when a friend of mine, a woman editor, received a letter from a stranger, who was also a woman. The stranger asked for a personal interview. She wished, she said, for the editor's advice. The need had suddenly come to her to make her living. She had had no special training; would the editor talk to her and give her any suggestions she could? The editor consented, naming a day and an hour for the interview, and at the time appointed the stranger called at the other's office.

"She proved to be a beautiful woman, a little over forty, dressed quietly but exquisitely in black, and with the walk and manner of an empress. The editor was immensely impressed by her, but she soon discovered that the stranger was wrapped in mystery. She could learn nothing about her past, her friends, or herself. She was merely a human package dropped from s.p.a.ce and labeled 'Miss Driscoll'--the name engraved on her card. Who 'Miss Driscoll' was, where she had come from, what she had done, remained as much of a problem after half an hour of conversation as at the moment she had entered the editor's room. She wanted work; how could she get it? That was her question, but she had no answers for any questions asked by the editor. When they were put to her she hedged and fenced with exquisite skill. She had a charming air of intimacy, of confidence in the editor's judgment, yet nothing came from her that threw any light on her experience or her qualifications.

"All the time they talked the editor studied her. Then suddenly, without warning, she leaned forward and shot out the question that had been slowly forming in her mind.

"'When did you leave your Order?' she asked.

"The stranger stiffened like one who had received an electric shock.

The next moment she sagged forward in her chair as if something in her had given way. 'How did you know?' she breathed, at last.

"The editor shook her head. 'I did not know,' she admitted. 'I merely suspected. You have one or two habits which suggest a nun, especially the trick of crossing your hands as if you expected to slip them into flowing sleeves. They look like a nun's hands, too; and your complexion has the convent pallor. Now tell me all you can. I cannot help you until I know more about you.'"

Around us there was the sc.r.a.pe of chairs on the polished floor. Some of the dinner-guests were rising and crossing the room to chat with friends at other tables. But the little group at our table sat in motionless attention, every eye on the Playwright's charming face.

"Good beginning," remarked the Best Seller, helpfully. "And, by Jove, the orchestra is giving you the 'Rosary' as an obbligato. There's a coincidence for you."

"Then the story came out," resumed the Playwright, ignoring the interruption. "At least part of it came out. The stranger had been the Mother General of a large conventual Order, which she herself had founded twenty years ago. She had built it up from one convent to thirty. She had established schools and hospitals all over America, as well as in Cuba, Porto Rico, and the Philippines. She was a brilliant organizer, a human dynamo. Whatever she touched succeeded. She did not need to explain this; the extraordinary growth of her Community spoke for her. But a few months before she came to the editor, she said, a cabal had been established against her in her Mother House.

She had returned from a visit to one of her Philippine convents to find that an election had been held in her absence, that she had been superseded, that the local superior of the Mother House had been elected Mother General in her place; in short, that she herself was deposed by her Community.

"She said that she never knew why. There was much talk of extravagance, of too rapid growth; her broadening plans, and the big financial risks she took, alarmed the more conservative nuns. She took their breath away. Possibly they were tired of the pace she set, and ready to rest on the Community's achievements. All that is not important. Mother General Elise was deposed. She could not remain as a subordinate in the Community she had ruled so long. Neither could she, she said, risk destroying the work of her life by making a fight for her rights and causing a newspaper sensation. So she left the Order, taking with her her only living relative, her old mother, eighty-one years of age, to whom for the previous year or two she had given a home in her Mother House."

"I am afraid," murmured the Best Seller, sadly, "that this story is going to depress me."

The Playwright nodded. "At first," she admitted. "But it ends with what we will call 'an uplift.'"

The Best Seller emptied his gla.s.s. "Oh, all right," he murmured.

"Here's to the uplift!"

"The editor listened to the story," continued the Playwright. "Then she advised Miss Driscoll to go to Rome and have her case taken up at the Vatican. Surely what seemed such injustice would be righted there, and without undesirable notoriety for the Community. She introduced the former Mother General to several prominent New York men and women who could help her and give her letters she needed. There were various meetings at the houses of these people, who were all impressed by the force, the magnetism, and the charm of the convent queen who had been exiled from her kingdom. Then Miss Driscoll and her mother sailed for Italy."

The Diplomat leaned forward, his faded eyes as eager as a boy's. "Let me tell some of it!" he begged. "Let me tell what happened in Rome!"

The blue-eyed woman who had started the discussion clapped her hands.

"Let each of us tell some of it," she cried. The Playwright smiled across at the Diplomat. "By all means," she urged, "tell the Roman end of it."

The Diplomat laid down his half-finished cigar, and put his elbows on the table, joining his finger-tips in the pose characteristic of his most thoughtful moments. He, too, took a moment for preparation, and the faces of the others at the table showed that they were already considering the twist they would give to the story when their opportunity came.

"The mother and daughter reached Rome in May," began the Diplomat.

"They rented a few rooms and bought a few pieces of furniture, and, because they were very poor, they lived very frugally. While the daughter sought recognition at the Vatican the old mother spent her days pottering around their little garden and trying to learn a few words of Italian from her neighbors. It was hard to be transplanted at eighty-one, but she was happy, for she was with the daughter she had always adored. She would rather have been alone with her in a strange land than in the highest heaven without her.

"One of the Cardinals at the Vatican finally took up the case of Miss Driscoll. It interested him. He knew of the splendid work she had done as Mother General Elise. He began an investigation of the whole involved affair, and he had acc.u.mulated a great ma.s.s of doc.u.ments, and was almost ready to submit a formal report to the Holy Father, when he fell ill with pneumonia and died a few days later.

"That was a crus.h.i.+ng blow for Mother Elise. Under the shock of the disappointment she, too, fell ill, and was taken to what we will call the Hospital of the White Sisters. Her mother went with her, because an old lady of eighty-two could not be left alone."