The Barrier: A Novel

She had thought of him many times since their first meeting, making his achievements a standard to which only Pease and Fenno approximated, and of which Mather fell far short. She had continued to read of Ellis in the newspapers, to watch his slow course of uninterrupted success, and had come to accept the popular idea of his irresistible genius. Feeling this natural admiration of his immense energy and skill, in her heart she made little of the two obstacles which were said to lie in his path. For it was claimed, first, that some day the street-railway would prove too much for him, bringing him as it did in contact with the organised mass of labourers, and with the public which Mather had accustomed to an excellent standard of service. Could Ellis always maintain the present delicate balance between dividends, wages, and efficiency? Again it was said that some day he would come in conflict with Judith's own class, which, when it chose to exert its power, would rise and hurl him down. Judith put no belief in either of these prophesies, considering Ellis able to avoid all difficulties, her caste too flabby to oppose him. So she thought of him as destined always to conquer; he would win his way even among the elect, and might become a friend of hers. For she could help him; they were alike in their loneliness, and their outlook upon life was the same. Therefore when she met him she welcomed him.

A fillip to the wheel of her fate was given as she and Ellis went up the hill. They met Miss Fenno coming down. Now Miss Fenno was the extreme type of the society-bred person, knowing nothing but the one thing. Her interests were so small that they included less than the proverbial four-hundred people; her prejudices were so large that they formed a sort of Chinese wall to exclude any real humanity of soul. And all she did at this juncture was to gaze very superciliously at Ellis, and then to give the coldest of nods to Judith as she passed.

"The Fenno manner," grumbled Ellis to himself.

But Judith flamed with resentment. She brought Ellis up to her own piazza, a few minutes later, with that in her bearing which her father recognised as her panoply of war: quietness, erectness, something of hauteur. The Colonel rose hastily.

"I have brought Mr. Ellis," she said.

"Glad to see him!" exclaimed the Colonel as if he had been spurred. "Mr. Ellis is a stranger in Chebasset."

Ellis had the wisdom to attempt no manner. "I come here seldom," he responded. "You are very kind to welcome me, Colonel."

He wondered if the use of the title were proper in the upper circle, and if he should have answered differently. Moments such as this made the game seem scarcely worth the candle; the nerve and fiber used up were more than a day of business would require. But his qualities asserted themselves. Here he was where he most wanted to be; he meant to win the right to come again.

"What do you think of our view?" the Colonel asked, leading his guest to the edge of the piazza. The hill fell away steeply, the town lay below, and scattered on the farther hillsides were the villas of the well-to-do. The Colonel began pointing out the residences. "Alfred Fenno over there – Alfred, not William, you know; richer than his brother, but not so prominent. And down there is Branderson; he overlooks the river, but he also sees the new chimney, which we miss." The Colonel added, "A good deal of money he has spent there."

"I should think so," agreed Ellis.

"The Dents are over there," Blanchard proceeded. "Rather pretentious the house is, in my opinion, like – " his voice faded away; he had had in mind Ellis's own house in the city. " – Er, gingerbready, don't you think?"

"The elms don't let me see it very well," Ellis was glad to answer. For what was gingerbready? Sticky?

"But much money in it," said the Colonel. "Dent has made a good thing of his mills."

"Very good thing," murmured Ellis. He was interested to hear these comments of an insider.

"Kingston's place is over there," continued the Colonel. "Now, I like, do you know, Mr. Ellis, what Kingston has done with that house. Small, but a gem, sir – a gem! Money has not been spared – and there's lots of money there!" quoth the Colonel, wagging his head.

Ellis began to perceive the monotony of these descriptions. Money, riches; riches, money. And there was an unction to each utterance which might betray the inner man. Judith perceived this also.

"Let us have tea," she said, and going where the tea-table stood, she rang for the maid. But the Colonel continued:

"And William Fenno is over there – a fine house, Mr. Ellis; pure Georgian, a hundred years old if it's a day. A very old family, and a very old family fortune. The West India trade did it, before our shipping declined."

"Long ago," murmured Ellis. He knew very little of those old days. The present and the immediate future concerned him, and as for the causes of industrial changes, he was one himself.

"Come," insisted Judith, "come and sit down, and let us leave off talking of people's possessions."

"Judith! My dear!" remonstrated the Colonel. But the maid was bringing out the steaming kettle, and he took his seat by the table. "My daughter," he said to Ellis, half playfully, "does not concern herself with things which you and I must consider."

Judith raised her eyebrows. "Do you take sugar, Mr. Ellis?" she asked.

"Sugar, if you please," he answered. He was divided in his interest as he sat there, for he had taken from the chair, and now held in his hand, the newspaper which the Colonel had been reading as they arrived. Ellis saw pencillings beside the stock-exchange reports, but though he wished to read them he did not dare, and so laid the paper aside to watch Judith make the tea. This was new to him. Mrs. Harmon had never taken the trouble to offer him tea, though the gaudy outfit stood always in her parlour. He knew that the "proper thing" was his at last, in this detail, but how to take the cup, how hold it, drink from it? Confound the schoolboy feeling!

"It was hot in the city to-day?" asked the Colonel.

"Uncomfortable," answered Ellis. "You are fortunate, Miss Blanchard, not to have to go to the city every day, as some girls do."

"I'm not so sure," she responded. "It's dull here, doing nothing. I sometimes wish I were a stenographer."

"Judith!" exclaimed her father.

"To earn your own living?" asked Ellis.

"I should not be afraid to try," she replied.

"You'd make a good stenographer, I do believe," he exclaimed.

"Thank you," she answered.

His enthusiasm mounted. "I have a situation open!" he cried.

"You wouldn't find her spelling perfect," commented the Colonel grimly. He laughed with immense enjoyment at his joke, and at the moment Beth Blanchard came out of the house and joined them.

Ellis did not see her at first; he was watching the Colonel, and divined that no great barrier separated him from the aristocrat; there had been in Blanchard's manner nothing that expressed repulsion – nothing like Fenno's coolness, for instance, or the constant scrutiny which was so uncomfortable. Blanchard had seemed willing to fill up his idle hours by speech with any one; he was a new specimen, therefore, and Ellis was studying him, when of a sudden he heard Judith speak his name, and looked up to meet the gaze of a pair of quiet eyes. With a little start he scrambled to his feet.

"My sister," Judith was saying.

He bowed and endeavoured to speak, but he felt that the beginning was wrong. Beth was in turn dissecting him; she was something entirely different from Judith, more thoughtful, less headstrong. The idea that here was an adverse influence came into his mind, as he stammered that he was pleased to meet her.

"Thank you, Mr. Ellis," she answered. Judith noticed that Beth on her part expressed no pleasure. The little sister had individuality, with a persistence in her own opinion which sometimes contrasted strongly with her usual softness. But the incident was brief, for Beth's eye lighted as she saw a visitor at the corner of the piazza, hesitating with hat in hand.

"Mr. Pease!" she exclaimed.

The little conventionalities of this new welcome also passed. Mr. Pease had met Mr. Ellis; he was delighted to find the family at home; the others were equally pleased that he had come. But when the pause came it was awkward, for Judith and Ellis were clearly uncongenial with Beth and Pease; it required the Colonel's intervention to prevent a hopeless attempt at general conversation. He drew Ellis away; Judith followed, and Beth sat down to serve Pease with tea.

Then the Colonel himself withdrew, on pretext of the need to catch the mail. He went into the library to write, and Judith turned to Ellis.

"Can we go from here to see the land you spoke of?"

"The old Welton place," he said. "Do you know the way?"

"Certainly," answered Judith. They excused themselves to the others.

As they prepared to go, the Colonel looked at them from his desk; then turned his eyes on Beth and Pease. A thrill of wonder, then a sense of exultation seized him. Attractive girls they both were, and the men were the two richest in the city.

Judith conducted Ellis through shrubbery and across fields, up the hillside to a spot where little trees were growing in an old cellar, while charred timbers lying half buried spoke of the catastrophe which had destroyed the house. "I remember the fire," Judith said. "I was a child then, but I stood at the window in the night, mother holding me, and watched the house burn down. Mr. Welton would neither build again nor sell. But the place is on the market now?"

"He's to marry again, I understand," answered Ellis. They both accepted the fact as explaining any and all departures from previous lines of conduct.

"Would you build on this spot?" she asked him.

"What would you advise?" he returned. She swept the situation with her gaze.

"There are sites higher up, or lower down," she said. "Lower is too low. Higher – you might see the chimney."

Ellis noted with satisfaction the prejudice against Mather's landmark, but he passed the remark by. "Don't you like," he said, "a house placed at the highest possible point? It is so striking."

"Couldn't it be too much so?" she inquired.

He turned his sharp look on her, willing to take a lesson and at the same time make it evident that he welcomed the instruction. "That is a new idea," he said. "It explains why that chimney, for instance, is unpleasant."

"It is so tall and – stupid," explained Judith; "and you never can get rid of it."

"I understand," he said. "Then perhaps this is the best place to build. I could get it roofed in before winter, easily, and have the whole thing ready by next summer. Stables where the barn stands, I suppose. My architect could get out the plans in a fortnight."

"The same architect," queried Judith, "that built your city house?" There was that in her voice which seized Ellis's attention.

"You don't like his work?" he demanded.

"Why," she hesitated, caught, "I – you wouldn't put a city house here, would you?"

"I like the kind," he said. "Stone, you know; turrets, carvings, imps, and that sort of thing. All hand-work, but they get them out quickly. Kind of a tall house. Wouldn't that do here?"

"No, no, Mr. Ellis," she answered quickly, almost shuddering at his description. "Think how out of place – here. On a hill a low house, but a long one if you need it, is proper."

"Oh," he said slowly, thinking. "Seems reasonable. But tall is the kind Smithson always builds."

"I know," answered Judith. Smithson was responsible for a good deal, in the city.

Again Ellis searched her face. "You don't care for my city house?"

She had to tell the truth. "For my taste," she acknowledged, "it's a little – ornate."

"That's ornamental?" he asked. "But that's what I like about it. Don't the rest of my neighbours care for it any more than you do?"

"Some do not," she admitted.

"I guess that most of you don't, then," he decided. "Well, well, how a fellow makes mistakes! One of those quiet buildings with columns, now, such as I tore down, I suppose would have been just the thing?"

"Yes," she said. "But Mr. Ellis, you mustn't think – "

He smiled. "Never mind, Miss Blanchard. You would say something nice, I'm sure, but the mischief's done; the building's there, ain't it?"

"I wish – " she began.

"And really I'm obliged to you," he went on. "Because I might have built a house here just like the other. Now we'll have it right – if I decide to build here at all."

"Then you've not made up your mind?"

"Almost," he said. "The bargain's all but closed. Only it seems so useless, for a bachelor." He looked at her a moment. "Give me your advice," he begged. "Sometimes I think I'm doing the foolish thing."

"Why, Mr. Ellis, what can I – and it's not my affair."

"Make it your affair!" he urged. "This is very important to me. I don't want to sicken these people by crowding in; you saw what Miss Fenno thought of me this afternoon. But if there is any chance for me – what do you say?"

It was the mention of Miss Fenno that did it. She sprang up in Judith's consciousness, clothed in her armour of correctness – proper, prim, and stupid. And in Judith was roused wrath against this type of her life, against her class and its narrowness. She obeyed her impulse, and turned a quickening glance on him.

"Would you turn back now?" she asked.

"That is enough!" he cried, with sudden vehemence.

For a while they stood and said no more. Judith saw that he looked around him on the level space where his house was to stand; then he cast his glance down toward those estates which he would overlook. His eye almost flashed – was there more of the hawk or the eagle in his gaze? Judith thought it was the eagle; she knew she had stirred him anew to the struggle, and was exhilarated. Unmarked at the moment, she had taken a step important to them both. She had swayed him to an important decision, and had become in a sense an adviser.

Yet aside from that, she had stimulated him strangely. Her enthusiasm was communicable – not through its loftiness, for from that he shrank with mistrust, but through its energy and daring. She drew him in spite of her ignorance and misconceptions: dangerous as these might be to him if she should come to learn the truth about his practices, he thought that in her love of action lay an offset to them, while her restlessness and curiosity were two strong motives in his favour. She was fearless, even bold, and that high spirit of hers had more charm for him than all her beauty. He did not see, and it was long before he understood, that something entirely new in him had been roused by contact with her; the most that he felt was that he was satisfied as never before, that she had strengthened his impulse to work and to achieve, and that with her to help him he would be irresistible. Yes, he had chosen well!

CHAPTER IX

New Ideas

A parting shot in conversation sometimes rankles like the Parthian's arrow. So it had been with Pease. Beth had said to him: "How can you think you know life, when you live so much alone?" – words to that effect. He had had no chance to defend himself to her, and in consequence had been defending himself to himself ever since. Truly a serious mind is a heavy burden.

Finally he had come down to Chebasset to get the matter off his mind; at least, such was his real purpose. He coloured it with the intention of "looking in at the mill," and gave Mather a few words at the office. Mather had been working at his desk, as Mr. Daggett, the Harbour Commissioner, had found and left him. Orders, Mather said, were piling in too fast.

Pease smiled. "Enlarge, then."

"Delay in profits," warned Mather. "No dividend this quarter."

"Go ahead just the same," said Pease. "I hoped for this."

Mather began writing. "Come, leave work," invited Pease. "I'm going up to the Blanchards'. Come with me."

"I'm ordering coal and material," said Mather. "We have plenty of ore, but the new work must begin soon."

Pease struck his hand upon the desk. "Do you mean," he demanded, "that you are writing about the enlargements already?"

"Plans were made long ago," answered Mather.

"What do you do for exercise?" cried Pease. "How do you keep well? I'll not be responsible, mind, for your breakdown when it comes."

But he made no impression and went away alone, climbed the hill, and found the Blanchards on their piazza. Ellis was more than he had bargained for, and the Colonel had never been exactly to Pease's taste, but they departed, leaving him alone with Beth. She presently noticed the signs that he was endeavouring to bring the conversation to a particular subject, as one becomes aware of a heavy vessel trying to get under way. So she gave him the chance to speak.

"Miss Blanchard," he said, when he found that he might forge ahead, "you said something the other day – other evening – against which I must defend myself. That I live much alone."

She remembered at once, flashed back in her mind to that whole conversation, and was ready to tease him. Tease him she did as he began his explanation; she refused to be persuaded that he did not live alone. He might enumerate dinners, might point to his pursuits, might speak of the hundred people of all classes with whom he came in close daily contact: she would not acknowledge that she had been wrong.

"You are your mind," she declared, "and your mind is aloof."

He would have grieved, but that he felt again, dimly as before, that she was rallying him. And he was pleased that she did not fear him, nor call him Sir – that title which causes such a painful feeling of seniority. She gave him a feeling of confidence, of youthfulness, which had not been his even in boyhood. He had been "Old Pease" then; he was "Old Pease" to many people still. The respect in which young and old held him was a natural, if very formal atmosphere. This defiance of Beth's came upon him like a fresh breeze, bringing younger life. He threw off his earnestness at last and laughed with her at himself.

"Upon my word!" thought the Colonel, on whose ears such laughter had a new sound. He looked out of the window; Pease was actually merry. "Second childhood," grinned the Colonel, as he returned to his writing.

Beth discovered that Pease was no fossil, and began to enjoy herself less at his expense but more for other reasons. He could never lose the flavour of originality, for his odd manner's sake. Even as he sat and laughed he was upright and precise, though the twinkle was genuine and the noise was hearty. Then she rose from the tea-table, and they went to the piazza's edge together. There they discovered Judith returning with Ellis.

"Come away," said Beth quickly; "there are places where we can go. They have not seen us; take your hat."

This was wonderful, slipping with a girl away from other people, and Pease felt the delight of it. Fleeing by passages he had never seen, in a house he had never before entered, smacked of the youthful and romantic. Beth brought him out behind the house, and thirty seconds put them in shrubbery. She led the way, not suspecting that his mental vision was dazzled by new vistas.

For Pease would have faced Ellis and Judith as a duty, borne with their conversation, and returned home without a sigh for the wasted hour. Such was his conception of life – to take what was sent, nor avoid the unpleasant. It had gone so far that in some matters he did not consult his own feelings at all, but gave his time to others, recognising himself as a trustee for their benefit. The good which can be done in such a way is enormous, in business or professional matters merely; but Pease had carried the habit into his social scheme, and was therefore the sufferer from his own good nature, the victim of every bore. It was a revelation that one could exercise choice, and could flee (losing dignity, but gaining in romance) from the unpleasant. So that boyish thrill came over him, with a manly one besides as he felt the compliment Beth paid him. It put them on a closer footing when, laughing and out of breath, she sat in a garden seat and motioned him to take the place beside her.

"Do you think me foolish?" she asked.

"Not at all!" he answered eagerly.

"But perhaps you wished to stay and meet Mr. Ellis?"

"Not for anything!" he averred.

Then she looked at him soberly. "What do you think of him?" She posed him, for polite vagueness was his desire, and he could not find the words.

"He is – " he hesitated, "very – er, pleasant, of course. Not my – kind, perhaps."

"And you really do not like him," she stated, so simply and confidently that in all innocence he answered "Yes," and then could have bitten his tongue off.

"Neither do I," she acknowledged.

And so those two took the same important step which Judith and Ellis had already taken – of showing true feeling to each other, and breaking rules thereby. For Beth, while not reserved, chose her confidants carefully, after long trial; and Pease's habit had been never to acknowledge personal feeling against any one, least of all a business rival.

"Judith has encouraged him before," said Beth. "People talked of her when she met him; they will do so the more now that she has asked him here. Not that she will care for that, Mr. Pease, but I shall not enjoy it."

"Of course you will not," he agreed.

They hovered on the verge of confidences for a moment, then Beth took the plunge. She looked at Pease with a little distress in her eyes. "Judith is headstrong," she said. "She is discontented, but does not know what she wants. I have sometimes thought that George Mather, if he only knew how, might – "

"Yes," said Pease, filling the pause. "I wish he did. He is not happy himself, poor fellow. They have been intimate?"

"Till within a little while. But they are both too masterful. And yet I sometimes think she has him always in mind, but as if defying him, do you understand?"

"Indeed?" he murmured.

"I hope," said Beth, "that this acquaintance of hers with Mr. Ellis is just a phase of that. If it is not, and if she should – Judith cares so little for people's opinions, you know."

"It would be very – painful," murmured Pease. "But it has not come to anything of that sort yet?"

"No, but I know Judith so well that I don't know what she'll do." And Beth concluded her confidences in order to draw some from Pease. The sort of man Ellis was: could he be called dishonest? He was not of course a gentleman? Pease cast off restraint and answered frankly; she found he had considerable power of defining his thoughts, saying that Ellis had never been proved dishonest, but that his conscience seemed no bar to questionable actions; that he was unrefined, good-natured when he had conquered, rough in breaking his way. What his personal charms might be Pease had never had the chance to determine. Mrs. Harmon seemed to like him – but one must not judge by that, because – and silence fell for a moment, as they looked at each other with understanding.

It seems simple and so commonplace, but this was one of the talks which accomplish, bringing the speakers together as nothing else can do. Such talks build human ties; Pease and Beth formed one now. By the time they saw Ellis going away they had new feelings toward each other, differing in degree and result – for Beth knew friendship well, but to Pease it was altogether astonishing and momentous. When Ellis was well away Pease also took his leave and followed down the winding road.

"Tell Mr. Mather to come," were Beth's last words to him.

So Pease went again to the mill, where Mather was still in the office. Pease had little finesse, and went about his errand directly.

"Miss Jenks," he said, and the stenographer vanished.

"Anything?" asked Mather.

Pease put his hand on his shoulder. "Just a message," he answered. "Miss Elizabeth Blanchard – "

"Oh, Beth, you mean," said Mather.

"Yes," replied Pease. "She told me to tell you to come and see them."

"Indeed?" asked Mather.

"She was particular about it," Pease urged. "She meant something by it."

"Thanks," was all Mather said. "Now these enlargements, Mr. Pease. You meant what you said?"

"Yes, yes," answered Pease impatiently, and closed his hand on the other's shoulder. "And I mean this: Take Miss Blanchard's advice. Good day." He went to the door, and turned. "Ellis was up there this afternoon."