The Unhallowed Harvest/Chapter 4
When Barry Malleson left the house of Mrs. Bradley he left it with his head in a rose-cloud. The woman had fascinated him. Plainly and cheaply garbed as he had seen her, plain and cheap as her environment was, devoid, as she must be, of all social standing and of all the social graces, she had, nevertheless, fascinated him. Not that he permitted himself, under the circumstances, to think of making love to her; that would have been incongruous and inexcusable. But she had surrounded him with an atmosphere pervaded and enriched by her own personality, and from that atmosphere he could not, nor did he try to, escape.
He did not overtake the Reverend Mr. Farrar on his way back to the city, but he did overtake Miss Chichester. She was walking along hurriedly in an unattractive suburb; she was alone, and dusk was falling, and the only decent thing for him to do was to pull up to the curb and ask her to ride into the city. She was not loath to accept his invitation. It pleased her, not alone because the acceptance of it would help her on her way, but because also it would give her, for a brief time, the exclusive companionship of Barry Malleson. There was no just reason why Miss Chichester should not desire the companionship of Barry, nor why she was not entitled to it. They had known each other from childhood. She was a member of his social set; she belonged to the church which he attended; she was not far from his own age; she was fairly prepossessing in appearance; and she was, so far as any romantic connection was concerned, entirely unattached. Moreover, she admired Barry. Perhaps Barry did not know it, but if he did not it was no fault of Miss Chichester's. While maidenly modesty would not permit her to make open love to him, there are a thousand ways in which a young woman may manifest her preference for a man with the utmost propriety. Miss Chichester exercised all of them. But, so far, they had been without avail. Easily impressed as Barry was with feminine charms, he had not been impressed with those of Miss Chichester. Therefore he had been unresponsive. Not that he was entirely unaware of her preference for him—dull as he may have been, he could not have failed to understand something of that—but he simply ignored it. The strenuousness of his duties as vice-president of the Malleson Manufacturing Company left him no time to bestow on a love affair in which he was not especially interested. It was, therefore, with no great amount of enthusiasm that he asked Miss Chichester to ride with him this day. Besides, he had something to think about, and he would have preferred to be alone. But he handed her into his car with as much courtesy as though she had been his wife or his sweetheart.
"You're a long way from home, Jane?" he said, inquiringly.
"Yes," she replied, "I've been down on the south side to visit a poor family in which the guild is interested, and it got late before I realized it. I was hurrying along to get out of this section of the city before dark. It was so good of you to pick me up."
"It's a pleasure to have the opportunity."
"Thank you! Now that I've told you where I've been, it's only fair that you should tell me where you've been. Let's exchange confidences."
"By all means! I've been up to Factory Hill to call on a widow."
"Mr. Pickwick was advised to beware of widows."
"Well, I'm not Mr. Pickwick, and, besides, this one isn't dangerous."
"But is she fascinating, Barry? You know widows are usually described as fascinating."
"Fascinating! Well, now, why do you want to know?"
"Oh, just to find out if you were making love to her."
"Making love to her! Good Lord! With her dead husband lying in the next room!"
"Oh, Barry!"
"If he'd been a live one I might have done it. She was handsome enough to provoke any man into it. But a dead one! Deliver me from dead husbands!"
"That's awfully interesting—and gruesome. Tell me about it, do!"
So Barry told her about his errand to Mrs. Bradley, the purport of it and the result of it. They were rolling up the Main Street of the city. Miss Chichester was not so absorbed in Barry's story that she failed to bow and smile to people on the pavement whom she knew. It was something to be seen at dusk, alone with Barry Malleson, in his car.
"And are you going again to see her, and urge her to take the money?" inquired Miss Chichester when Barry had completed the account of his visit.
"Sure! I'm going again."
"Let me go with you."
"Eh? You go with me? What for?"
"Oh, just to see how such a remarkable woman acts and talks."
"I—I'm afraid I couldn't do as much with her if you were present."
"I'd help you. I'd tell her it was her duty to take the money."
"She doesn't like to be dictated to."
"Then I'd plead with her to take it."
"I—I think I could do better with her alone."
"Barry Malleson, I believe you're on the verge of falling in love with that woman. That's why you don't want me to go."
"Preposterous!"
"Then take me along."
"All right! You may go."
Barry knew that she would have her own way about it eventually, and that he might as well yield first as last.
They had left Main Street and were bowling along up the avenue toward Fountain Park, the exclusive residence district in which they both lived. It was a very mild and beautiful September evening. The balmy air, the shadowy twilight, the moving car, the overhanging trees, were all suggestive of romance. And Miss Chichester was not averse to romance—under proper auspices.
"I think," she said, "that I caught a glimpse of the new moon just beyond the tower of Christ Church as we turned the corner. Did you see it, Barry?"
"No." Barry did not intend to be abrupt, but his mind was occupied just then by the vision of another woman's face.
"Don't you want to look at it?" she asked. "It must be back of us somewhere. We're far enough up the hill now to see it plainly."
"If I turn around I'll have to stop the car."
"Then stop it. It's worth while."
Barry stopped the car and started to turn his head.
"Don't look yet!" exclaimed Miss Chichester. "Over which shoulder must you see it in order to have good luck?"
"Blessed if I know!"
"Neither do I. I'll tell you what we'll do, Barry. You look at it over your right shoulder, and I'll look at it over my left; then one of us two will have good luck anyway. It really doesn't matter which one."
"All right!"
Miss Chichester turned her head slowly to the left, while Barry turned his slowly to the right, and so they faced each other. Now, when a susceptible young man, and a like-minded young woman, sitting side by side in a car, in the gloaming, turn toward each other to look over their respective shoulders at a new moon, the tender light of which falls on their upturned faces, the situation becomes such that Cupid is more than likely to kick up his pudgy heels in glee. But on this occasion he never moved a muscle. It was Barry's fault. He simply did not appreciate his privileges and opportunities. In the most matter-of-fact way he turned back, after gazing for a moment on the glimmering crescent, restored the power to his car, and as it shot ahead he quietly remarked:
"I wonder if the moon is really made of green cheese."
"Oh, Barry!" said Miss Chichester. "You impossible man!"
The funeral of John Bradley was conducted in accordance
with the will of his widow. There was no
clergyman there. Nor did any one read the service for
the burial of the dead as authorized by any Church.
Religion had absolutely no part in this final chapter of
the story of a workingman's life and death. It was
Sunday afternoon, the dead man's fellow-workmen
were free to come, and they gathered in large numbers
to pay their tribute to his memory. But this was not
the only purpose of their coming. They desired also
by their presence to manifest their sympathy with his
widow, to emphasize their disapproval of the treatment
he had received from his corporate employer, and from
the court that had sent him away empty handed from
the only tribunal that was supposed to do justice between
man and man. There were few toilers in the
city who had not heard of the misfortunes of the man
now dead, and few who did not believe him to have
been a victim of corporate greed and of a gross miscarriage
of justice.
It was largely in demonstration of their belief that they came to attend the funeral. One by one they passed by his coffin, men of his own walk in life, and looked down on his dead face. They were sober, sympathetic and silent as they looked. Some of them, who had known him well in his lifetime, were moved to tears. Not that he had been a leader among them, nor that he had been a favorite with them, nor that they had respected or cared more for him than they had for a hundred others who worked nine hours a day, smoked an ill-smelling pipe, drank a few glasses of beer of an evening, and in general lived a monotonous, unambitious, unintellectual life. So that whatever emotion they manifested beyond that ordinarily caused by the mere fact of death was due wholly to the injustice of which they believed he had been a victim, and to the unusual manner of his taking off.
Bradley's widow, sitting near the head of the coffin with veil thrown back, watched them as they came and went. Whether or not others in the gathering marked the significance of the outpouring, she, at least, did not fail to do so. She sensed the spirit of the crowd. She saw in it a complete justification of her attitude toward the social forces that had kept her submissive and submerged, toward the power of wealth that had overridden her, toward the courts that had failed to give her justice.
She was not overwhelmed by grief. Why should she be? Bradley had never been a man to be ardently loved by any woman, much less by a woman of her mental capacity and attainments. Why she had married him was still a mystery among those who knew her. With her education, her quality of mind, her exceptional beauty, she might have had in marriage the most promising man in her circle who worked in any capacity for wages; she might, indeed, have had one of still higher social and business grade. But she chose to marry John Bradley. The reasons that govern the matrimonial choice are often inscrutable, and women are protected, by the very fact of their sex, from ever being called upon to make them known. But if Mary Bradley had, at any time, repented her choice of a husband, no one had ever heard her express such a thought. She had remained absolutely faithful and helpful to him from the beginning to the end. And, in a crude, undemonstrative way, he had appreciated her and had been good to her. He had never abused her by word or deed, not even on those infrequent occasions when he had come home in his cups. He had turned over to her his weekly wages; he had never crossed her will; he had given her of his unimportant best. What more could she have asked? So, dispassionately, superficially perhaps, she sorrowed at his death. She felt no such pangs of grief as tore her heart when her girl baby died. That death had cut into the core of her being. But the passing of any soul that one has seen familiarly, illuminating a living body however dimly, cannot fail to arouse at least some semblance of sorrow in the normal human heart. And the demonstration made by her husband's fellow-workers touched her also. Glancing out through the open doorway she saw that the street in front of her house was full of them. Stephen Lamar came to her and asked her permission to address the people from her porch. She gave her consent willingly. Lamar was the protagonist of the workingmen of the city. He was their leader in the social revolt which was eventually to free them from the chains of capitalism, and restore to them their natural rights. Somewhere, somehow, he had become learned in the things that pertained to the struggle between the classes, he was gifted with a crude eloquence that made his speeches popular, and whenever he spoke to them, the workers heard him gladly. Now, as they saw him come out onto the porch and stand, with bared head, facing them, a murmur of approval ran through the crowd. He addressed them as "Comrades in Toil." No one remembered ever to have seen Lamar engaged in any kind of manual labor; but, doubtless, he was doing vastly more for the workingmen by the activity of his brain and the eloquence of his tongue than he could possibly do by the labor of his hands. Moreover, as he himself reminded them occasionally, he had at one time been a day-laborer in a mill. So he had a right to address them as "Comrades in Toil."
He said: "I have just stood by the coffin of our departed fellow-worker; and I have been permitted by his widow to express to you a thought that came to me while looking on his dead face. As he lies there to-day, so any one of you may lie to-morrow, crushed and killed by the power of capitalism and the tyranny of the courts. But, you know, in the eyes of the capitalist, toil is nothing if it is you who toil, suffering is nothing if it is you who suffer, death is nothing if it is you who die. Why should the workingman have only toil and suffering and death, while his employers may treat themselves to all the soft comforts and luxuries that money can buy, and burden their women with silks and laces and jewels beyond price? It's wrong, my friends. How many diamonds did John Bradley's wife ever have? How many silks? How many jewelled ornaments? Was she not as much entitled to them, let me ask you, as the pampered wives of millionaires? Would not her beauty set them off as well? Has not she, by her woman's work, earned them a thousand times more than have the idle daughters of the rich? Did not John Bradley do his share of the world's work as well and faithfully as any plutocrat that ever breathed? and was he not therefore entitled to a just reward for his labor—a fair share of the profits of the world's business? And what did he receive? I'll tell you what. He received the right to work nine hours a day at paltry wages, in order that his capitalist employer might roll in wealth. He received, before he had reached his prime, a crushed body and a darkened mind. Those responsible for his awful injuries refused him just compensation, and his faithful wife had the privilege of hearing the honorable court declare that the law provides no recompense for the poor. My friends, John Bradley lies there to-day, the victim of capitalist greed. Look on his dead face and ask yourselves how long you, who have the power to change this brutal system of exploitation of the toiler, will suffer yourselves to remain the passive instruments of your own undoing."
He paused, flung back a lock of his dark hair, and then, like a true Marc Antony, with deprecatory gesture and pleading tone he went on: "Pardon me, my friends! I did not intend, in this solemn hour, to rouse your passions or stir up hatred for your masters. But the contemplation of such a crime as has been committed here leads me into speech that, however unwise it may be, is the true expression of the feeling of my heart. I have but one word more to say. You have observed that there is no religious service here to-day. This is as it should be. It is not fitting that the body of our dead comrade should be committed to the earth under the forms and auspices of a Church controlled by capitalism and made pompous by wealth. Do not misunderstand me. With true piety I have no quarrel. Worship God if you want to; but not the God set up by the plutocrat in his costly temple into which the proletariat may hardly dare to set their feet. I tell you that when this social house of cards that the money kings have built up shall topple—as it will—to its fall, their soulless, bloodless, godless Church will join it in the wreck. That is all, my friends. I beg you to hold these things in your hearts as you fight for liberty, and some glorious morning you shall wake up free."
With the plaudits of his hearers ringing in his ears, he stepped back into the room where Mary Bradley sat.
"I heard you," she exclaimed, "and it was well said. I wish I could have said it myself."
Her commendation was sweeter to him than the crowd's applause.
"I'm glad you liked it," he replied. "I had a chance to stir those fellows up, and I took it. I know John would have been willing, and I'm sure you were."
"I'm willing to have anything done that will tend to bring this capitalistic crowd to their knees."
"Good! And what are you willing to do yourself?"
"Anything that I can."
"Good again! I have a little plan in mind by which you can be of vast help to us."
"I have my living to earn."
"You shall earn it. We will give you the opportunity. We need the assistance of a woman of your ability, in strong sympathy with the working classes."
"I am in sympathy; but, frankly, the strongest feeling in my mind at present is a desire for revenge."
He smiled and held out his hand to her. "You shall have it," he said. "I promise you."
"Then you may depend on me."
"When shall I come and talk it over with you?"
"Any day you choose."
"To-morrow?"
"Yes."
He released her hand and went back among the bearers.
But he did not cease to look on her. Few women are beautiful when dressed in deep mourning. Nor would Mary Bradley have been beautiful had she not stood erect, with veil thrown back, with white teeth gleaming at her parted lips, with flashing dark eyes showing forth her woman's determination. As it was, Lamar thought that he had never seen a picture more fascinating. And if his plan did not fail, she would work every day, side by side with him, in the interest of labor. If his deeper plan did not fail Lamar was not so fastidious as Barry Malleson had been about shutting out from his mind and contemplation the idea of making love to a woman who was at that moment sitting on one side of the coffined body of her husband while he sat on the other.
That afternoon, as the rector of Christ Church was
returning from a service held by him in a mission
chapel maintained by his church, he saw a funeral procession
winding up a hill toward a suburban cemetery.
The rest of his party had driven back to the city, but
he had preferred to walk home alone. Of a man who
stood at the curb he inquired whose funeral it was,
and he was told that it was the funeral of John
Bradley.
"The man that got smashed up in the Malleson mill," added his informant, "and they wouldn't give him no damages."
"Yes, I know about the case."
"And his wife went into court with a suit and got throwed out."
"I was in court at the time."
"That so? You're a preacher, ain't you?" looking at the clerical cut of his garments.
"Yes, I'm a preacher."
"Well, now, do you think that was a square deal?"
"No, frankly, I do not."
The man, he was evidently a laborer, reached out a hard hand and grasped the hand of the rector.
"You're all right!" he exclaimed. "But you're the first preacher I ever heard say as much as that. Most of 'em side the other way; or else they hedge, and won't say nothin'. Where do you preach?"
"At Christ Church."
"Oh, I've heard about you. I don't go to church much myself, but I'm comin' some Sunday to hear you preach. They say you ain't a bit afraid to give the devil his due, so far as the rich is concerned."
"I try to preach a straight gospel, whether it affects the rich or the poor."
"That's right. If more of 'em would do that the laborin' men might git their rights some day, and a little religion besides."
"You think more of them would come to church?"
"Sure they would. All they want is to have the Church take as much account of the poor as it does of the rich. I'm comin' to hear you preach though, anyway; and I'll bring some of the boys along. Goodbye! I'm goin' up the hill now, with the funeral."
"I'll go with you if I may."
"Glad to have you. Come on."
A sudden desire had seized the clergyman to see the end of this grim, industrial tragedy that had stirred his heart.
The hearse was already half-way up the hill. It was followed by two coaches. Behind the coaches, in orderly procession, marched two hundred toilers; men who had been present at the Bradley house and had heard Lamar's speech, and who, in the exercise of class consciousness, had been glad, on their day of rest, to march two miles to the cemetery to see the body of their fellow-laborer consigned to earth.
Mr. Farrar and his newly-found friend fell in at the end of the procession, and followed it to the grave.
When Mary Bradley descended from the coach to take her place near the head of the coffin, where it lay, supported by cross-sticks, over the open pit, her eyes fell upon the rector of Christ Church.
One of those sudden impulses that overtake most women in times of stress, regardless of their walk in life, came upon her in that moment, and she acted upon it without further thought.
She turned to one of the bearers, standing near, and requested him to ask the Reverend Mr. Farrar to come to her. The man looked at her in astonishment and did not move.
"Did you hear me?" she said. "I want that preacher to come here."
This time there was no mistaking the meaning of her request. The man went at once upon his errand, and the clergyman responded promptly to the summons.
She put aside her veil that he might see her face and know that she was in earnest. The bearers, waiting to perform their final service for John Bradley, looked at her in amazement. Others stared and wondered. Stephen Lamar, standing at the side of the grave, scowled in open disapproval.
Was she, after all, to belie his eloquent defense of a churchless funeral, yield to unreasoning custom, and have a preacher commit her husband's body to the earth? It was unbelievable.
"I have changed my mind," she said to the minister. "I wish you to speak at this burial, not as a preacher, but as a friend of John Bradley's and mine. I don't want anything said that's religious; just something that's comforting, that I can take home with me."
It was a strange request. How could a minister of the Church, with the inheritance of nineteen centuries upon him, stand by an open grave and commit the body of a human being to its shelter, and avoid all reference to that which alone had power to rob death of its sting and the grave of its victory? But the rector of Christ Church was quick in emergencies. He did not hesitate now, in either thought or deed. He directed the bearers to proceed with their task, and, as the coffin descended, he gathered up a handful of fresh earth from the mound at his side and scattered it into the open pit.
"Earth to earth—ashes to ashes—dust to dust."
As the last word left his lips the coffin found its resting place on the bed of the grave. He held up his hand while the people around him stood awed and expectant. His voice was clear and resonant as he spoke: "In that day when the earth shall give up its dead, and when the spirits of those that were in prison shall be free, may we know that the unfettered soul of this our brother has attained the fulfilment of the joys that were denied him here, but which, through all the ages, have awaited his coming into that sweet and blessed country where labor and patience and a conscience void of offense shall have their just and reasonable reward. Amen!"
He stepped aside, the lowering straps were pulled harshly up, and the first spadeful of earth fell, with that hollow and gruesome sound which is like none other, on the narrow house in which the body of John Bradley lay.
Up to this moment, whatever her sorrow at her husband's death may have been, no one had seen Mary Bradley weep. But she was weeping now. Something in the preacher's words, or in his voice or manner, had touched the well-spring of her emotion, and had brought to her eyes tears which she made no effort to restrain.
She reached out her hand to the clergyman in a grateful clasp, but she said nothing, and, before he could speak to her a single word of comfort or consolation, she entered her coach and was driven away.
"It was a decent funeral," commented one of the toilers, as he shuffled slowly down the path leading to the cemetery gate.
"It was that," responded the fellow-worker at his side. "A labor-leader at the house and a preacher at the grave. What more could the man ask?"
"An' not too much religion in it either. Religion don't fit the workin' man; an' this priest seemed to sense it an' cut it out, more credit to him. They say he's a devilish good preacher, too, an' stands up great for labor. I've a mind I'll go hear him next Sunday."
"I'll go with ye, Thomas."
"Come along. We'll go together."