The Barrier: A Novel

"You'll have her breaking down," he said.

"There is nothing we can do," Beth answered. "She will keep at it."

"I've warned you," he responded, and took his hat. He was at the front door, when from the dining-room Judith called him to her. "George," she asked, "is six per cent. the legal rate of interest?"

"In this State it is," he answered.

"Then my note to Mr. Ellis is rolling up interest at nine hundred a year?"

"I suppose so."

"Can I ever earn as much?"

"With experience you can."

"And I must earn much more in order to pay anything on the principal?"

"Yes."

She put her hands together in her lap. "I am learning something." As he stood and looked at her, he saw two tears roll out upon her cheeks.

"Judith!" he cried, striding toward her.

But she rose quickly, putting out a hand to keep him away. "I am only tired," she said. "I'm sorry not to be better company. Good-night, George."

He stopped instantly, said "Good-night," and went away. Then suddenly she felt forlorn, and more tears came into her eyes. "He would not have gone if he loved me still."

CHAPTER XXX

Time Begins His Revenges

Political and social undercurrents were slowly working to the surface in the world of Stirling. Though it was barely spring, the mayoralty campaign was well under way, promising a close struggle in the fall. A more immediate matter was the threatened strike, which the men's leaders were urging in the hope that the approaching annual meeting of the stockholders of the street-railway might bring some relief. In these affairs the attitude of Ellis was of importance.

The newspapers called him the Sphinx, since he gave no sign of his purposes. In politics, of course, it was to be assumed that he was on the side of the machine. But against the strike he might take a variety of courses, with a variety of results, all of which were, by the speculative, mapped and calculated in advance. He might yield and avoid the strike, he might defy it, or at the last minute he might by some sudden action entirely change the aspect of affairs and bring himself profit and credit. Just how this last could be done no one seemed to be sure, but since from day to day matters were growing worse and Ellis made no move, it was confidently stated that he had "something up his sleeve."

Otherwise there was no explaining his conduct. His opponents did not dare to believe that he was blinded by self-confidence, and yet his own followers, trust him as they might, were uneasy. His manner showed a steady, almost savage determination to win, and yet he did not "tend to business." There were days when he was absent from his office altogether, refusing to talk with his subordinates except by telephone – and they hated to discuss plans except within four walls. There was even one day when he disappeared altogether, just when the Stirling representatives had come down from the State capital to confer with him on the street-railway bill, the prospects of which, on account of the clause conferring eminent domain, were none too bright. Ellis, when at last his men found him in the evening, said only that he had been at Chebasset. Moreover, his men got little out of him: with an odd new gleam in his eye, he merely listened as they spoke; he gave no directions, and when they begged him to run up to the capital and lobby for himself he thanked them and said he'd think it over. Feeling their journey to have been for nothing, they left him, grumbling among themselves. Something seemed wrong with him.

Something was wrong with him. A man with a pain gnawing at his heart and a ghost always before his eyes cannot attend to his work. It was not the Colonel's ghost that dogged Ellis: he never troubled for his part in Blanchard's death. Judith, splendid in cold anger, haunted him. She spoiled his sleep, she came between him and his work, she tormented him by the vision of what he had lost. There was a steady drain upon him, as from an unhealed wound – or from that inward bleeding which, on the very first day of their acquaintance, he had felt on leaving her. No, he was not himself; his mind was confused, his energies wasted, by the constant alternation of anger and despair.

When realisation swept upon him suddenly, then he shut himself up, refused himself to all, and fought his fury until he had controlled it. That day when he went to Chebasset he had not intended to go, but on his way to his office there suddenly rushed over him the sense of his loss. Possessed by the thought, he took the train to Chebasset and wandered half the day among his grounds, tormenting himself by the recollection that these drives, walks, shrubberies were laid out for Judith, and now she would never live among them. When he took out of his pocket a slip of paper bearing her signature and told himself that she was in his power – in his power! – he found no pleasure in the thought.

In the evening he had not cast off his mood, and when he met his men, sent them away dissatisfied. One, bolder or more foolhardy than the others, lingered a moment. "Say," he asked, "what's wrong?"

"Nothing," answered Ellis.

"Honest I'm telling you," said his henchman, "a strike will kill the bill. And the men on the road are getting ugly."

"Thanks," Ellis replied impatiently. The glow in his eyes suddenly became fierce, and the man took himself off.

All this was extremely irritating to Ellis; he felt more angry with his own men than with his opponents, and was ready to punish them for insubordination without considering the cause of their alarm. It was unfortunate for Mr. Price that he chose to come to Ellis just after his legislators had left him. Price wore the same uneasy air.

"Now, what are you worried about?" Ellis began on him.

It was his street-railway stock, Price explained. The quotations were so continually dropping —

"Only fifteen dollars!" Ellis interrupted scornfully.

"Yes," agreed Price, "but they will soon be down again to where I bought them."

"Bought?" sneered Ellis. "Bought!"

"Well – " hesitated Price.

"What is it to you," demanded Ellis in jarring tones, "where the price of the stock is, up or down? It cost you nothing, it pays you well, it's a sure thing. Just you hold it and send me your proxies."

"But," suggested Price, very much brow-beaten, yet endeavouring to say what he came for, "if it's such a good thing, won't you, perhaps, take it?"

"What!" rasped Ellis. "My God, Price, haven't you the decency to sit still and say nothing?"

"Oh, well," mumbled the jeweller, writhing, "if the stock is so sure – you're sure it's solid?"

"Certainly," Ellis said. "Price, don't be an ass! The other side is just selling itself a share or two, every little while, to make the impression that the value is falling. Don't you be taken in."

"Oh, if that's all!" breathed Price, much relieved. He took his hat.

"There, run along," said Ellis. "You know who are your best friends." He spoke as if directing a child, and Price went away with an irritated sense of his own impotence and meanness.

But Ellis found no relief in scolding his dependents. He missed something; he knew that he needed a place where he might sit quiet and forget the grind and grime of his affairs. The best that was left to him was Mrs. Harmon, but she never could equal Judith, and when he went to see her now she bothered him with her advice.

"I wanted to see you," were her first words. "I have been thinking of telephoning you."

"What is it now?" he asked drearily.

"Stephen," she demanded with energy, "do you realise what is going on? They are all organising against you."

"What can they do?" he snarled.

"Your own men are frightened," she said. "Two of them came to me to-day – no, I won't tell their names. They begged me to tell you there mustn't be a strike. You'll lose your bill, your mayor will be defeated. Can't you see that?"

"No!" he returned.

"The papers are all calling for Mather as street-railway president," she went on. "The men say they would never strike under him. It's all very well for you to say that the travelling public must take what you give them, but people won't – "

"Lydia," he interrupted, "it's very good of you to be interested in my position, but suppose you give your time to your own. It needs it bad enough."

He touched a sore, for Judge Harmon's old friends, remembering his disappointment in his wife, were dropping her. She was irritated, and snapped in return. "You look very badly," she said critically. "Just for a girl, Stephen?"

He glared at her so furiously, at a loss for speech, that she was frightened and begged his pardon. Yet after she had given him tea she returned again to the charge.

"You said, Stephen, that you control a majority of shareholders' votes. You aren't afraid that some of your men will sell out to the other side? I see the stock is down."

"But is it traded in?" he asked. "Only a share or two. You are like Price; he came whimpering to me yesterday about his fifty shares."

"But the balance is pretty even, isn't it?" she inquired. "Mightn't fifty shares just make the whole difference?"

"If you mean whether Price would sell me out," he answered. "He never bought his shares. They came to him through me. He's tied to me."

"I don't see how?" she said doubtfully. "He's not in politics now; he's independent, and he gets his money from the upper people – the other side entirely. But I suppose you know. Still, I wish Abiel had never sold his stock."

"Don't worry," he commanded. "Confound it, I have to supply courage to the whole of you."

His men had need of his courage as day by day matters drifted nearer to a crisis and they saw their enemies organising. Those nervous and eager persons, the reform politicians, had long talks with the men of money, who were not now averse to giving them interviews. The men of money talked together, and the newspapers claimed that at last, after almost a generation, the society leaders were to take a hand in politics. As several of the reformers held railway stock, and as the fashionables could (if they chose) muster many votes for the election, their alliance against Ellis might prove formidable. The reformers grew more cheerful, old Mr. Fenno more grim, Pease more thoughtful as the days went by. The time was near for the annual meeting of the street-railway shareholders, and the strike, if it came at all, would come before that. The whole city was intent upon the event.

And Judith, tired as she was, roused to watch the struggle. Was her sluggish class waking at last? Was Ellis at bay? Was Mather to come forward and lead? Judith read the newspapers, but gleaned only such statements as: "Mr. Fenno and Mr. Branderson at last control a majority of street-railroad votes," or "Mr. Watson has added largely to his holdings of street-railway stock." She knew these reports could not be true: the stock was tied fast long ago, and Ellis would take every pains to maintain his supremacy. But Mather would explain to her the condition of affairs.

Yet he came seldom to the house. She knew that his mind was occupied, he was interviewed and pestered on all hands. Day by day she read in the papers: "Mr. Mather refuses to make any statement." But he might speak to her. His only desire, when he came to call, appeared to be to throw off every care save for her health. She did not like to broach the important topic, yet with repression her interest grew, and she felt deeply disappointed when, the opportunity being given to speak upon it, he was reserved.

He met her in a street-car, and sat by her side. When the conductor came for his fare Mather nodded to him and called him by name. "Good-day, Wilson."

"I've taken Mr. Ellis's fare every day for two years," said the man, "yet I don't think he knows me by sight. Ah, Mr. Mather, if we only had you back there wouldn't be no strike."

Mather smiled. "We were all good friends in those days."

The man went away, and Judith asked as much as she dared. "How does it seem to be so in demand?"

"I'm not so sure how much in demand I am," he replied, and then spoke of other things.

She thought that he was avoiding the subject, and told herself that he did not need her any more. Far away were those days when he sought her advice – and this thought made her sigh occasionally over her work. The tasks grew harder as she felt herself left out; she became eager to do more than merely study, feeling that, with so much going on around her, she was nothing.

One night when Mather came he spoke for a while with Pease privately, then hurried away without waiting to see the others. Judith had put her books away; now she took them again, and went into the dining-room to work. But she could not fix her mind on her figures, and after a while she said aloud in the room: "A month ago when he came to see me I would not stop work to speak with him. Now when he comes I put away my books, but he does not wait."

Then she heard Pease speaking with Beth in the parlour, and heard George's name coupled with Ellis's. So Beth was learning all about the plans! Smothering a sudden jealousy, Judith determined to go and ask what had been said, yet at the door her resolution failed her, and she turned back. Let others know, she would go without – and she applied herself to her figures until her head swam with them. She went unhappily to bed and lay there thinking.

Through her loneliness was rising a dread of Ellis as an overhanging menace; she began to fear that he would defeat Mather a second time. Ellis's sinister force began to oppress her, not only as a cause of general evil, but also as threatening disaster to that friend whose value, even whose excellence, her anxieties were teaching her to acknowledge. As Judith's thoughts dwelt on the man in whom, without brilliance or the stamp of genius, there was nothing false, nothing base or mean, and nothing hidden, Ellis seemed like an enemy who, once successful against herself, was slowly approaching for an attack on Mather – an enemy whose skill she knew, whose resources she feared, and whose mercy she doubted. Dreading thus for Mather, she began to tremble also for herself: she was in Ellis's debt so deep that only a miracle could ever clear her, while every day was rolling up the interest against her. Where would this end?

And through her dread increased her loneliness. Looking for help, she found that she must depend solely upon herself. Day by day she had learned how small were her powers beside the immense energies of the city. The definite fear of Ellis suggested still other calamities, vague, hid in the impenetrable future; there was no misfortune which fate could not bring upon her, no defense which she could interpose. She was alone – and suddenly she began to long for companionship, the fellowship which some one could give, which some one once offered, which then she had refused, but which now seemed more precious than anything in the world.

Thus Judith, in her trouble, was unmindful of the power which still was hers, and ignorant of the revenge which she was to take for all of her misfortunes. For though she felt herself so weak, it was she, and she alone, who brought on Ellis the strike which his supporters were so anxious to prevent.

On a morning, the consequences of whose events were to reach far, going as usual to her school she passed Ellis in the street. Faltering and shocked, he stood still while she passed. He had not seen her since the night of her rejection of him, and the change in her was startling. She was in black, had grown thin and pale, and her spirited carriage had changed to the walk of weariness, yet her beauty of face shone out the clearer, and still she was a picture which men turned to watch. She did not notice Ellis, but passed with face set, eyes looking far away, absorbed in thought. When she had gone from his sight Ellis hurried to his offices and locked himself in the inner room. There for an hour he walked up and down, up and down.

His clerk heard him, and dared not interrupt him for small matters; the routine business of the morning was easily discharged. But about noon came a deputation from the street-railway employees, asking to see Mr. Ellis.

The secretary listened at the door; Ellis was still pacing the room, yet the matter was important. The secretary knocked.

"Men from the union to see you," he said through the door.

"Tell them to come again," answered Ellis.

The secretary went with this answer to the deputation. The spokesman answered: "We have wasted enough time. We must see him now or not at all."

The secretary knocked again at Ellis's door. "They say they must see you now, sir," he said.

"Send them to the devil," Ellis replied. The secretary, without thought of the irony of his interpretation of the order, asked the men to wait. They consulted among themselves and went away.

That morning the cars on the streets had run as usual, but the delegates of the union, returning angrily from Ellis's office, gave the order for the men to strike. As each car returned to the barn its crew left; by one o'clock almost all the cars were housed. Then the supporters of Ellis began to gather in his outer office. Price was there, Daggett was there, a dozen others as well; they consulted anxiously. Not one of them had expected that Ellis would let the trouble go so far.

At last, with pale face and fierce eye, he appeared among them. "Ha," he said sardonically when he saw so many of them. "What has frightened you all?"

They told him of the strike; there was still one day, they reminded him, before the transfer books of the road should close. Some of his men thought he was staggered at the news, and the hastier, Price loudest among them, begged him to conciliate the men.

But the old fighting fire kindled within him, and he stopped them with scorn. "Don't be fools," he said. "Price, you're a coward. The men will hit first, will they? Well, we'll give them all they want!"

He began to give directions how to meet the strike, and his energy was communicated to them all, save one. Even that one applauded with the rest, and outwardly approved.

CHAPTER XXXI

Brings About Two New Combinations

For some time Beth Blanchard had been changing back to her old self. Once unburdened by confession, her heart seemed free again, and Beth began to think of Jim Wayne as a part of a past which could in no way affect her future. Sorry for him as she was, with her pity she mingled shame at those remembered kisses. She found pleasure in the society of Pease, partly because he stood for so much that Jim was not. Solid, sober, incapable of concealment, his qualities gave her satisfaction, and the more because she knew his thoughts to be so much of her. She took to teasing him again, a process to which he submitted with bewildered delight, and to which Miss Cynthia made Judith a party by getting her out of the room whenever Beth and Pease were in it. Under such favouring circumstances, which would have tried the stoicism of any one, Pease was proving himself quite human, and was harbouring new hopes. He could not fail to suspect that Beth mourned her father more than Jim, and what he imagined Miss Pease made sure.

"You've never told me, Peveril," she asked him, "if you lost much by Mr. Wayne?"

"Two weeks' wages of our men," he answered.

"Worth what you get for it?" she asked.

"What do I get?" he inquired.

"Her!" she answered emphatically.

"If you suppose," he said, with an appearance of confidence which was utterly false, "that Miss Blanchard will forget Mr. Wayne, you are quite mistaken."

"You are right," said Miss Cynthia, "she never will forget him." Her cousin's heart sank. "She thinks of him every day" (Miss Cynthia was watching him, and made a purposeful pause) "as something that she has escaped from. And now the way is open for a man that is a man!" Then she smiled as she noted his relief.

The way was indeed open, and the two were progressing along it very fast, when suddenly a position was offered to Beth. Old Mrs. Grimstone had, for the twelfth time, lost her attendant, and some one recommended the younger Miss Blanchard. It was a handsome offer that the old lady made; money was nothing to her, and she had learned that she must pay high for such service as she demanded. For she was, notoriously, the most exacting, crabbed, fractious old woman that ever wore false teeth, and any one who attended her lived a dog's life. Pease was utterly dismayed, and came to Judith to beg her to prevent this calamity.

"But what can I do?" she asked. "Mrs. Grimstone offers a hundred dollars a month – much more than any one else ever pays. How can Beth refuse?"

"Think," Pease adjured her, "of what she will have to bear!"

"I think her disposition is equal to it," Judith said.

"Oh, I don't doubt that," he hurriedly explained. "But Mrs. Grimstone is so rough!"

"Beth seems to think she must go," was all Judith could reply. "She usually knows her own mind, Mr. Pease."

"She does," he admitted mournfully. But he was not subdued, and blazed out with a fitful courage: "I will do my best to prevent it!"

"Do!" said Judith heartily.

Pease did his best; knowing how weak he was against Beth, he spent no time in discussion, but rushing into the subject he declared to Beth that she ought not go to Mrs. Grimstone, and that was all there was to it. Then he stood breathless at his own audacity.

"Ought not?" asked Beth, surprised at such precipitation in one who was usually so slow. "If few persons are willing to go to Mrs. Grimstone, isn't that a very good reason why I should?"

"It isn't that; it isn't that!" he replied, and wished, despairing, that he could voice his thoughts. But Beth's brown eyes, just a little quizzical, took away his courage, and all his impetus was spent. He gasped with vexation.

"Then what is it?" she asked, smiling outright.

"Promise me three days?" was all he could say. "I'm busy now – this street-railway – Oh, don't laugh!" he begged as Beth's smile grew merrier. "Please promise me three days!"

To his delight she promised, and he went and began to draught a letter of such importance that its composition was to take nearly all of the seventy-two hours which she had accorded him. He hoped that what he had to say would not be too sudden – but he need not have worried. A man cannot note a girl's every movement, be solicitous at each little cold, know to a minute the calendar of her engagements, and gradually perfect himself in knowledge of her tastes, without declaring himself, unconsciously, in every sentence.

Upon this pleasant by-play Judith smiled, yet knew that her future would change with Beth's. For if Beth went to Mrs. Grimstone, Judith must find work; she could no longer bear the consciousness that she was not earning. A little envy stirred in her, as she feared that she could not possibly, in spite of all her preparation, earn so much as Beth. In this belief the principal of her school confirmed her when she asked him if he could not find her a position.

"You understand that with your experience your salary will be small?" he asked her.

"Have I not done well since I came?" she inquired.

"I never had a better pupil," he replied. "But a few more months, Miss Blanchard – "

"How much could I earn to begin with?" she persisted.

"Forty dollars a month," he answered.

"So little?" she asked, disappointed.

"Perhaps fifty, if you have luck," he conceded. "But you'd better wait."

"I can't," Judith answered. "Will you tell me of any chance that you hear of?"

He promised that he would, yet gave her no immediate hope of a position. Judith was depressed; more and more it seemed to her that she was nothing, and her debt loomed large before her eyes. It seemed a great weight to carry – alone.

Nevertheless, she maintained her interest in the great combination against Ellis, could not fail to maintain it, for soon came the strike. It was an orderly strike and a good-natured public; people were saying cheerfully that the cars would be running again in a week, when Mr. Mather was president; but believing that no one could be sure of that, and ignorant of her own deep influence, Judith wished for the fiftieth time that she could learn how matters stood. The vagueness and uncertainty were wearing her.

And at last came the information. At the supper table, on the evening of the strike, Pease seemed as untroubled as usual, and as genial. Miss Cynthia broke in upon his calm.