they did not move for the reason that maisie did. not for forty-eight hours did tom learn of her departure. as mrs. danker kept not a boarding house but a rooming house, and her guests went days at a time without seeing their landlady, he had no sources of information when maisie, as she sometimes did, kept herself out of sight. watching for her on the monday and the tuesday following his sunday night talk with honey, he thought it strange that she never appeared in the hallway, though he had no cause to be alarmed. he was going to leave honey, get a job, and be independent. when he had added a little more to his fund in new york, he would propose to maisie, and marry her if she would take him. he would be eighteen, perhaps nineteen by the time he was able to do this, an early, but not an impossible, age at which to be a husband.
on both these days he had gone to school from force of habit, but on the wednesday he was surprised by a letter. though he had never seen maisie's writing, the postmark said nashua. before tearing the envelope he had a premonition of her flight.
a telegram on monday morning had bidden her come home at once, as her stepmother was dying. she had died. till her father married again, which she supposed would be soon, she would have to care for
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the four little brothers and sisters. that was all. on paper maisie was laconic.
since his mother's death no revolution in his inner life had upset the boy like this. the tollivant experience had only left him a little hard and skeptical; that with the quidmores had passed like the rain and the snow, scarcely affecting him. with honey his need for affection had always been unfed, and for reasons he could not fathom. maisie had made the give and take of life easy, natural. she had her limitations, her crude, and sometimes her cruel, insistences; but she liked him. he loved her. he was ready to say it now, because of the blank her loss had hollowed in his life. for the unformed, growing hot-blooded human thing to have nothing on which to spend itself is anguish. sitting down at his deal table, he wrote to her out of a heart fuller and more passionate than poor maisie could ever have understood.
all he had been planning in rebellion against fate he poured out now as devotion. he had meant to cut loose, to go to work, to live on nothing, to save his money, and be ready to marry her in a year or two. and yet, on second thoughts, if he went through college, their position in the end would be so much better that perhaps the original plan was the best one. he thought only of her, and of what would make her happiest. he loved her—loved her—loved her.
maisie wrote back that she saw no harm in their being engaged, and she wouldn't press him for a ring till he felt himself able to give her one. for herself she didn't care, but if she told the girls she was
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engaged to a fellow, and had no ring to corroborate her word, she wouldn't be believed. in case he ever felt equal to the purchase she was sending him the size in the circlet of thread inclosed.
tom was heroic. he had never thought of a ring, and a ring would mean more money. be it so! he would spend more money. he would spend more money if he mortgaged his whole future to procure it. maisie should not be shamed among her friends in nashua.
giving all his free hours to wandering about and pricing rings, he found them less expensive than he feared. maisie having once confided to him her longing for a diamond, a diamond he meant to make it if it cost him fifty dollars. but he found one for twenty, as big as a small pea, and flashing in the sunshine like a lighthouse. the young jew who sold it assured him that it would have cost a hundred, except for a tiny flaw which only an expert could detect. on its reception maisie was delighted. he felt himself almost a married man.
the rest of the winter went by peaceably. with honey he declared a truce of god. he would go to college, and live up to all that had been planned; but honey must look on his own self-sacrifice as of the nature of a loan which would be repaid. honey was ready to promise anything, while, in the hope of getting through college in three years instead of four, tom worked with increased zeal. then, one day, when spring had come round, he stumbled on guy and hildred ansley.
it was in louisburg square, as usual. having
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arrived from the south the night before, they were sailing soon for europe.
"rotten luck!" the fat boy complained. "got to trail a tutor along too, so that i shan't fall down on the harvard exam when it comes. wish i was you."
"if you were mr. whitelaw, guy," his sister reminded him, "you'd find something else to worry you. we all have our troubles, haven't we, mr. whitelaw?"
"she's got nothing to worry her," the brother protested. "if she was me, with mother scared all the time that i'll be too hot or too cold or too tired or too hungry, or that some damn thing or other'll make me sick...."
"all the same," tom broke in, "it's something to have a mother to make a fuss."
the girl looked sympathetic. "you haven't, have you?"
"oh, i get along."
"guy says you live with a guardian."
"you may call him a guardian if you like, but the word is too big. you only have a guardian when you've something to guard, and i haven't anything."
"yes, but how did you ever ...?"
once more tom said to himself, "it's the way she looks at you." he knew what she was trying to ask him, and in order to be open and aboveboard, he gave her the few main facts of his life. he did it briefly, hurriedly, throwing emphasis only on the point that, to keep him from becoming a state ward the second time, his stevedore friend had brought him to boston and sent him to school.
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"he must be an awfully good man!"
he was going to tell her that he was when the brother gave the talk another twist.
"what are you going to do in your holidays?"
"work, if i can find a job."
"what kind of job?"
he explained that for the last two summers he had worked round the quincy and faneuil hall markets, but that he had outgrown them. a two-fisted, he-man's job was what he would look for now, and had no doubt that he would get it.
"after you've left harvard what are you going to be?"
"banking's what i'd like best, but most likely i'll have to make it barbering. what are you going to be yourself?"
"oh, i've got to be a corporation lawyer. my luck! just because dad'll have the business to take me into."
"but what would you like better?"
the piggy face broke into one of its captivating grins. "hanged if i know, unless it'd be an orphan and an only child."
the meeting was important because of what it led to. a few days later tom heard the wheezy girlish voice calling behind him in the street: "tom! tom!"
he turned and walked back. during the winter the fat boy had expanded, not so much in height as in girth and jelliness. he came up, puffing from his run.
"can you drive a car?"
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tom hesitated. "i don't know that you'd call it driving a car. i can drive—after a fashion. mr. quidmore used to let me run his ford, when we were alone in it, and no one was looking. since then i've sometimes driven the market delivery teams for a block or two, nothing much, just to see what it was like. i know i could pick it up with a few lessons. i'm a natural driver—a horse or anything. why?"
"because my old man said that if you could drive, he might help you get your summer's job."
"where? what kind of job?"
"i don't know. he said that if you wanted to talk it over to come round to our house this evening at nine o'clock."
at nine that evening tom was shown up into another of those rooms which marked the gulf between his own way of living and that of people like the ansleys, and at the same time woke the atavistic pang. his impression was only a blurred one of comfort, color, shaded lights, and richness. from the many books he judged that it was what they would call the library, but any judgment was subconscious because the human presences came first. a man wearing a dinner jacket and scanning an evening paper was sunk into one deep armchair; in another a lady, demi-décolletée, was reading a book. it was his first intimation that people ever wore what he called "dress-clothes" when dining only with their families.
he was announced by pilcher, who had led him upstairs. "this is the young man, sir."
having reached something like friendly terms with
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the son and daughter, tom had expected from the parents the kind of courtesy shown to strangers when you shake hands with them and ask them to sit down. mr. ansley only let the paper drop to his knees with an "oh!" in response to the butler, and looked up.
"you're the young fellow my son has spoken of. he tells me you can drive a car."
repeating what he had already said to guy as to his experience with cars, tom expressed confidence in his ability to obtain a license, if it should become worth his while.
"it wouldn't be difficult driving such as you get in the crowded parts of a city. it would be chiefly station work, over country roads."
he explained himself further. in the new hampshire summer colony where the ansleys had their place, the residents were turning a large country house into an inn which would be like a club, or a club which would be like an inn. it would not be open to ordinary travelers, since ordinary travelers would bring in people whom they didn't want. the guests would be their own friends, duly invited or introduced. he, mr. ansley, was chairman of the motor-car committee, but as he was going to europe he was taking up the matter in advance. on general grounds he would have preferred an older man and one with more experience, but the inn-club was a new undertaking and not too well financed. more experienced men would cost more money. for the station work they could afford but eighty dollars a month, with a room in the garage, and board. moreover, the jobs they could offer being only for the summer,
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the promoters hoped that a few young men and women working for their own education might take advantage of the scheme.
eighty dollars a month, with a room to himself, even if it had only been in a stable, and board in addition, glittered before tom's eyes like aladdin's treasure house. having thanked mr. ansley for the kind suggestion, he assured him he could give satisfaction if taken on. all the chauffeurs who had let him have a few minutes at the steering-wheel had told him that he possessed the eye, the nerve, and the quickness which make a good driver, in addition to which he knew that he did himself.
"how old are you?"
it was a question tom always found difficult to answer. he could remember when his birthday had been on the fifth of march; but his mother had told him that that had been gracie's birthday, and had changed his own to september. later she had shifted to may, to a day, so she told him, when all the nurses had had their children in the park, and the lilacs had been in bloom. he had never asked her the year, not having come to reckoning in years before she was taken from him. though latterly he had been putting his birthday in may, he now shifted back to march, so as to make himself older.
"i'm seventeen, sir."
mrs. ansley spoke for the first time. "he looks more than that, doesn't he?"
tom turned to the lady who filled a large armchair with a person suggesting the quaking, flabby
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consistency of cornstarch pudding. "i suppose that's because i've knocked about so much."
"the hard school does give you experience, doesn't it, but it's a cruel school."
he remembered his promise to guy, if ever he got the opportunity. "boys can stand a good deal of cruelty, ma'am. nine times out of ten it does them good."
"still there's always a tenth case."
he smiled. "i think i ought to have made it ten times out of ten. i never saw the boy yet who wasn't all the better for fighting his way along."
mrs. ansley's mouth screwed itself up like guy's when it looked as if he were going to cry. "fight? why, i think fighting's something horrid. why can't boys treat each other like gentlemen?"
"i suppose, ma'am, because they're not gentlemen."
the cornstarch pudding stiffened to the firmness of ice-cream. "excuse me! my boy couldn't be anything but a gentleman."
"he couldn't be anything but a sport. he is a fighter, ma'am—when he gets the chance."
"then i hope he won't often get it."
"but, sunshine," mr. ansley intervened, "you don't make any allowance for differences in standards. you're a woman of forty-five. guy's a boy of sixteen—he's practically seventeen, like whitelaw here—your name is whitelaw, isn't it?—and yet you want him to have the same tastes and ways as yourself."
"i don't want him to have brutal tastes and ways."
"it's a pretty brutal world, ma'am, and if he's going
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to take his place he'll have to get used to being hammered and hammering back."
"which is what i object to. if you train boys to be courteous with each other from the start...."
"they'll be quite ladylike when they get into the stock exchange or the prize ring. look here, sunshine! the country's over feminized as it is. it's run by women, or by men who think as women, or by men who're afraid of women. congress is full of them; the courts are full of them; the churches—the churches above all!—are full of them; and you'd make it worse. if guy hadn't the stuff in him that he has...."
mrs. ansley was more than ever like a cornstarch pudding, quivering and undulating, when she rose. "you make it very hard for me, philip. i was going to ask whitelaw, here, if when he's anywhere where guy is—i know guy will have to go among young men, of course—he'd keep an eye on him, and protect him."
"he doesn't need protection, ma'am. he can take his own part as easily as i can take mine. if there's a row he likes to be in it; and if he's licked he doesn't mind it. if he only had a chance...."
she raised her left hand palm outward, in a gesture of protest. "thank you! i'm not asking advice as to my own son."
sailing from the room with the circumambient dignity of ladies when they wore the crinoline, she left tom with the crestfallen sense of presumption. half expecting to be ordered from the room, he turned toward his host, who, however, simply reverted to
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the subject of the summer. he told tom where he could have lessons in driving, adding that he would charge them to club expenses, as he would the uniform tom would have to wear. when mr. ansley picked up his paper the young man knew the interview was over. with a half-articulate, "good-night, sir," to which there was no response, he turned and left the room.
the occasion left him with much to think of, chiefly on his own account. it marked his status more clearly than anything that had happened to him yet. he had not been shaken hands with; he had not been asked to sit down. he had not been greeted on arriving; his "good-night" had not been acknowledged when he went away. mr. ansley had called him whitelaw, which was all very well; but when mrs. ansley did it, the use of the name was significant. this must be the way in which rich people treated their servants.
here he had to reason with himself as to what he had been looking for. it was not for recognition on a footing of equality. of course not! he had no objection to being a servant, since he needed the money. he objected to ... and yet it was not quite tangible. he didn't mind standing up; he didn't mind the absence of a greeting; he didn't mind any one thing in itself. he minded the combination of assumptions, all fusing into one big assumption that he was in essence their inferior. having this assumption so strongly in their minds, they couldn't but betray it when they spoke to him.
with his tendency to think things out, he mulled
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for the next few days over the question of inferiority. why was one man inferior to another? what made him so? did nature send him into the world as an inferior, or did the world turn him into an inferior after he had come into it? did god have any part in it? was it god's will that there should be a class system among mankind, with class animosities, class warfares?
of the latter he was hearing a good deal. in grove street, with its squirming litters of idealistic jews and slavs, class warfare was much talked about. sometimes tom heard the talk himself; sometimes honey brought in reports of it. it was a rare day, especially a rare night, when some wild-eyed apostle was not going up or down the hill with a gospel which would have made old boston, only a few hundred yards away, shiver in its bed on hearing it. to a sturdy american like tom, and a sturdy englishman like honey, these whispered prophecies and plans were no more than the twitter of sparrows going to roost. but now that the boy was working toward man's estate, and had always, within his recollection, been treated as an inferior, he found himself wondering on what principle the treatment had been based. he would listen more attentively when the jew tailor next door to mrs. danker began again, as he had so often, to set forth his arguments in favor of dragging the upper classes down. he would listen when honey cursed the lor of proputty. he had long been asking himself if in some obscure depth of honey's obscure intelligence there might not be a glimmer of a great big thing that was right.
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he had reached the age, which generally comes a little before the twenties, when the right and wrong of things puzzled and disturbed him. no longer able to accept rights and wrongs on somebody else's verdict, he was without a test or a standard of his own. he began to wander among churches. here, he had heard, all these questions had been long ago threshed out, and the answers reduced to formulæ.
his range was wide, hebrew, catholic, protestant. for the most part the services bewildered him. he couldn't make out why they were services, or what they were serving. the sermons he found platitudinous. they told him what in the main he knew already, and said little or nothing of the great fundamental things with which his mind had been intermittently busy ever since the days when he used to talk them over with bertie tollivant.
but one new interest he drew from them. the fragments of the gospels he heard read from altar or lectern or pulpit roused his curiosity. passages were familiar from having learned them at the knee, so to speak, of mrs. tollivant. but they had been incoherent, without introduction or sequence. he was surprised to find how little he knew of the most dominant character in history.
on his way home one day he passed a shop given to the sale of bibles. deciding to buy a cheap new testament, he was advised by the salesman to take a modern translation. that night, after he had finished his lessons, and honey was asleep, he opened it.
it opened at a page of st. luke. turning to the beginning of that gospel, he started to read it through.
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he read avidly, charmed, amazed, appeased, and pacified. when he came to an incident bearing on himself he stopped.
"now one of the pharisees repeatedly invited him to a meal at his house. so he entered the house and reclined at the table. and there was a woman in the town who was a notorious sinner. having learnt that jesus was at table in the pharisee's house she brought a flask of perfume, and standing behind, close to his feet, weeping, began to wet his feet with her tears; and with her hair she wiped the tears away again, while she lovingly kissed his feet, and poured the perfume over them.
"noticing this the pharisee, his host, said to himself:
"'this man, if he were really a prophet, would know who and what sort of person this is who is touching him, for she is an immoral woman.'
"in answer to his thoughts jesus said to him: 'simon, i have a word to say to you.'
"'rabbi, say on,' he replied.
"'do you see this woman? i came into your house. you gave me no water for my feet; but she has made my feet wet with her tears, and then wiped the tears away with her hair. no kiss did you give me; but she, from the moment i came in, has not left off tenderly kissing my feet. no oil did you pour even on my head; but she has poured perfume on my feet. this is the reason why i tell you that her sins—her many sins—are forgiven—because she has loved much."
he shut the book with something of a bang. "so
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they used to do that sort of thing even then!... the water for the feet, and the kiss, and the oil, must have corresponded to our shaking hands and asking people to sit down.... and they wouldn't show him the courtesy.... he was their inferior.... i wonder if he minded it.... it looks as if he did because of the way he had it in his mind, and referred to it.... if the woman hadn't turned up he would probably not have referred to it at all.... he would have kept it to himself ... without resentment.... the little disdains of little people were too petty for him to resent.... he could only be hurt by them ... but on their account."
he sat late into the night, thinking, thinking. suddenly he thumped the table, and sprang up. "i won't resent it. they're good people in their way. they don't mean any unkindness. it's only that they think like everybody else. honey would call them orthodocks. they're courteous among themselves; they only don't know how far courtesy can be made to go. they're—they're little. i'll be big—like him."
