VIII
LYDIA
One evening in the latter part of September, Floyd returning from his work found a letter awaiting him on the table in Mrs. Bell's hall. It was a small blue envelope, with his name and address written across it in an ardent, uneven hand; and because he guessed at once from whom it came he picked it up gingerly in his dirty fingers and laid it unopened on the table in his room. Then he hurried down to his bath, where he was more brief than usual with his splashing and whistling; after which, with clean hands that would not deface the little note, he opened it and smiled at the first words. "Dear Floyd," it began, and he knew from his pleasure that he had feared Lydia would address him more formally,—"I am back in Avalon and I want to see you very much. Papa says you will hardly be able to come over for an (evening; but can't you come to luncheon with us next Sunday at one and stay for tea? Do say you will."
Floyd posted his answer before he sat down to Mrs. Bell's supper that evening. His flow of spirits during the meal delighted the landlady, and afterwards, when he insisted on Letty's teaching him to sing, Mrs. Bell sat in the parlor and grew hysterical over his efforts. "Oh, you think it's a bad job, my trying to sing," Floyd cried to them when they were quite speechless with laughter. And he started out boldly upon "Fair Harvard," and in the middle of the second line, Letty broke in upon him,—"Oh, Mr. Halket, that can't be right; you're away off," while her mother rocked and rocked, red in the face, unable longer to laugh audibly. "Look at mother; you'll be the death of her," said Letty; and Floyd pretended to be quite petulant and said that everybody was always trying to discourage him. Letty and her mother wondered together that evening what could have happened to make him so gay, and shrewdly decided that the blue letter must have had something to do with it. For they always examined his mail—Mrs. Bell especially—with a respectful curiosity; they were as familiar by this time with Colonel Halket's superscription and that of Mrs. Halket as Floyd was himself; and frequently Mrs. Bell would pick up the letters from these persons for the mere pleasure of holding them in her hand.
When Floyd presented himself the next Sunday at the Dunbars', he was ushered into the room where Lydia sat alone. She was on her feet, waiting for him, and ran forward, crying, "Oh, Floyd, I'm so glad to see you again!" and took his big hand. Then she fell back a step or two, gazing at him and laughing—"You've grown so awfully strong and—manly looking," she said. "Sit down and tell me all about yourself."
That was done in a few words—wandering and dull they were, too, for Floyd, sitting on the edge of his chair, was gazing at her and had no other thoughts. He wished that he had the power to make her temporarily inanimate, so that he could stare at her as long as he liked and touch her and walk round and round and examine her. She laughed at him kindly. "You're ever so much more interesting than that," she said. Brown and strong from exposure to the summer sun and winds, she seemed to have developed a new loveliness; her figure that he remembered as girlishly slender had matured, her gray eyes shone with an eager friendly spirit; but that which caught Floyd more than all else with its enchantment was the intermittent quiver of humor over her face—like a light flickering up from lips to temples; it made her seem to him kind and sympathetic and alert with every feminine charm. It was as if the spirit of laughter made quick, frolicsome excursions from the lips where he abode, yet always darted back to them to lie there and look out. Floyd's imagination was touched even by watching her, even by noticing the little details of her dress, the red ribbon against her clear brown throat, the peeping tip of her slipper. At luncheon new sides of her character appeared to him; though he knew instinctively how high her spirit was, he caught, too, a vague perception of her docility, of her innocent, simple humble-mindedness; she sat—and again Floyd's imagination was stirred—through her father's stories with the spirit of laughter lying comfortably in his gateway, issuing spontaneously now to glorify a stupid joke, now to cover the retreat of a crippled one. This last service Floyd felt the more acutely when he bungled in telling something that he had hoped to make amusing.
"Oh, Floyd, have you heard about Stewart?" she cried to him. "You have n't, I'm sure, for my letter came only yesterday. He's got into the Beaux Arts right off; is n't he the cleverest thing!"
"But I thought it took years and years!" exclaimed Floyd.
"Oh, it does often; indeed Stewart never expected to get in the first year anyway. But he did,—one of the first ten. Of course he calls it luck—but I knew he was patting himself on the back a good-deal, so I wrote to him not to get too vain. But just between ourselves—now that he can't hear—is n't he the cleverest thing?"
"I always thought so," said Floyd.
"And I'm sure you'll be glad of this; he really does think now he'll come here to live—imagine, a Bostonian leaving Boston and coming to Avalon!"
"The inducement would bring the most conservative Bostonian," Floyd declared gallantly.
"Oh," she laughed, "I'm not the inducement; he's quite too lordly for that. No, indeed; I'm afraid he's found out how meek I really am. But he has an idea that all the people out here live in wigwams and log cabins, and that they die off by thousands every year because they never heard of open plumbing. And being a Bostonian he has a very strong sense of public duty and is interested in the spread of civilization. And he thinks that architecturally Boston is the last cry of beauty in this country, and that there's not much chance there for a new man to put his stamp on the city the way there is in one of the cruder towns. So if everything goes well, he'll be here in about two years to wage war on the cupola and the mansard roof."
"Yes," said Mrs. Dunbar. "And while he's studying, Lydia is to go about here and say to everybody, 'Of course you don't know, but your house is a perfect fright and all wrong, and you ought to have it torn down and rebuilt, in order to help beautify the city. And if you will put this in the hands of the only competent man for the purpose, it will help him and me so much towards building a nice attractive house of our own.'"
"That's our scheme," said Lydia. "Don't you think you could persuade your grandfather, Floyd, to have his house torn down and let—oh—" and she flushed with embarrassment—"I—I did n't mean what that sounds like—honestly I did n't."
Floyd only laughed, and then she joined him merrily.
Mr. Dunbar gazed at her with an assumption of severity. "When you and your mother get frivolous, Lydia,"—he began.
"Mamma, be serious at once," Lydia commanded. "Wait, I'll sober you; I've thought of a joke. Floyd, does pig-iron, when it's made into chains, become sausage?"
"Not legally," Floyd answered. "That would he forging a name," and he felt quite elated because this far-fetched effort seemed to amuse Mr. and Mrs. Dunbar and drew a distressed groan from Lydia.
"Dear me!" she said, "to think such brightness is being wasted on the people of New Rome!" And then she cried quite seriously, "Oh, Floyd, it must be awfully forlorn for you out there. Why don't you cut it often and come in here to us? You must be able to do as you please."
"Is anybody?" Floyd asked. "Just think how much more fortunate I am than Stewart. I'll be entering upon what I consider civilization about the time he's quitting his idea of it. When one has to live in Avalon, maybe a term in New Rome is a better preliminary than one in Paris."
"But Stewart will love to be a civilizing influence," said Lydia, laughing. And then she added, "How different you two are! I can't imagine Stewart working out there at New Rome the way you're doing. Tell me, do you really like it?"
"Not altogether," Floyd confessed.
"I never could understand," said Lydia, "why men don't always do the thing they like—when they can. Stewart's doing it; why don't you?"
"Lydia, my dear," interposed her mother, "don't ask impertinent questions."
"Oh, I don't mind answering," Floyd said. "Only, I'm not sure that I've thought out the answer."
"Well, don't bother with it now, for goodness' sake," Lydia urged. "I certainly did n't mean to get you down here to brood on life.—What do you say to a walk this afternoon,—or a ride?"
"I have a new saddle horse that I'd be glad to have you try," said Mr. Dunbar.
"I'm hardly dressed for riding," Floyd answered. "But if you'd just as soon walk—"
"Yes, that's better," Lydia agreed. "Besides, I don't think Mamma quite approves of my riding on Sunday when we 're in town."
"Lydia has such nice afterthoughts," said Mrs. Dunbar mildly.
It was a very genial family, Floyd thought; they all liked to tease one another and to be teased, they all seemed in spirits to be of the same age—and that was Lydia's. Mrs. Bell and Letty had good times together, which Floyd had shared, but he thought of them now compassionately,—"What a pity everybody can't be happy like these people!"
In the afternoon he and Lydia walked along familiar streets; in the grounds about the houses the maples were turning yellow, and the early autumn flowers were in bloom. But Floyd did not notice much along the way. He was absorbed in his consciousness of Lydia—delighting in the fact that she seemed to be revealing herself to him with the freedom of intimacy, delighting, too, in the personality that she revealed. When his eyes were not fixed on her, laughing and admiring, they were directed at the ground, while he mused pleasantly over the always fresh knowledge that they had acquired.
"I hope," she said doubtfully, "you did n't think I was very flippant, speaking of Stewart as I did at luncheon, and laughing a little about his Bostonian ideas?"
"No; of course it's perfectly true," Floyd answered.
"It's just the way I talk to Stewart himself; I feel I can talk about him to you almost as I could to him," she explained. "The—the relations are so—so queer, you know; I must always associate you with him so closely as long as I live.—But you two are very unlike, are n't you? I wish"—she spoke a little timidly—"I wish you would n't always be so heroic, Floyd."
The remark stung him even while he did not understand it.
"What do you mean?" he asked.
"Just what we were speaking of at luncheon," she answered. "I'm sure you're not doing what you want to do. You're being heroic, day after day, up there at New Rome. Why is n't it better to have a good time working, the way Stewart will do, than—oh, you don't mind my talking to you this way, Floyd?"
"But what makes you think I don't have a good time?" he asked her, and there was something of a challenge in his voice.
"The way you look—something in your face—you've changed since I last saw you," said Lydia. "I think feel things about some people, and—you're one."
They walked on in silence for a few moments.
"The trouble is," Floyd said abruptly, "most young fellows have nothing particular they want to do, or if they have, it's not worth doing. Now," and he laughed a little, "I've always been fonder of doing stunts in athletics than anything else—but you would n't want me to go in for that, would you?"
"That's not the only thing," Lydia insisted. "Stewart's told me that you're a wonder in chemistry."
"It's good fun playing in a laboratory," Floyd said. "But some time I can have my own laboratory out at the works and do as I please with that.—No," he broke out suddenly, "I won't pretend I'm doing just what I most like. But it's a responsibility I can't dodge. The works are there and I must be trained up to take charge of them some day."
"But why—if you don't want to? Why can't you sell them?—why can't you turn them over to somebody else to run? Why can't you just drop the whole business of steel and become a great chemist, or a college professor, or whatever you want to be?"
"Because there are ten thousand people in New Rome who depend for their living on the Halket works," Floyd answered. "The business has been conducted in a certain way, the men have grown accustomed to expect a certain kind of treatment, perhaps there has been all along an attempt to keep on friendly terms with the men and to do things for their comfort—more than would be done in other places,—and it's a matter not only of pride to me, but of justice to them that there should n't be a change. Sell out and there's bound to be a change. A few days ago I heard a labor agitator talking to some of the men, talking about my grandfather. 'He may be wanting to do for labor more than labor wants to do for itself,' said the man. 'But some day, when he's no longer with us, there may he somebody come in who won't want to do for labor more than it wants to do for itself,—but who will want to get out of labor all that it can give for as little as he can give.' I can't blame the men for dreading something of that kind. I'd dread it in their place. It must be worth while to stay and study and work to prevent a change, when so many people are dependent on you. And if it is n't what I'd most like to do, I'd better learn to like it—and I suppose I shall.—How did we happen to get so serious, anyway?"
Lydia did not answer for a moment; her face under her broad blue hat remained serious.
"Oh, I don't see why the nice people who deserve a good time and could do so much good just having it must be saddled with big responsibilities that they don't want," she exclaimed at last. "But I suppose the rest of us would n't admire them half so much if they did n't do such things. And I think you re fine, Floyd, to take it as you do. I like to play and frivol and have fun in life; I'm afraid that's all it means to me."
"So long as you make it mean so much more to somebody else, you need n't worry," said Floyd with a laugh. "And if you'd play with me once in a while, when I can get away from my job—"
"Oh, always " she cried, and her face lighted up quite eagerly. "That's a promise: you'll come here whenever you can; do get off some Saturday afternoon before long, and we can go for a ride out in the country."
"I'll strike for next Saturday," declared Floyd.
"Splendid!" and she clapped her hands. "I'm glad to see you're willing to be something else than heroic all the time."
She chatted then gayly about the people at Chester whom he knew; some of his classmates had been there this summer and had said nice things about him to her, which she now repeated,—to his pleasure and embarrassment. "You don't know," he said to her, "how good it is to hear from that part of the world again."
When they returned to the house, the afternoon light was growing dim; Mr. and Mrs. Dunbar were just coming out for a romp with two small cousins of Lydia's who had arrived a few minutes before, "Who's going to play 'Follow my Leader'?" cried Mr. Dunbar, and the small visitors screamed with delight when Lydia said, "Why, all of us, of course." "They think Papa and Mamma are the most enchanting things," she explained to Floyd; "they wear themselves to a gasp running round with them." The game took place behind the house, where the lawn sloped away from the street, and there was no danger of shocking passers-by. "Now, you must fall in line and all do as I do," said Mr. Dunbar. "Lydia first and then Laurie and then Aunt Elinor and then Teddy and last of all Mr. Halket."
"Indeed," cried Mrs. Dunbar, laughing, "you don't get me into this game."
"Oh, but you always play. Aunt Elinor," exclaimed Teddy; and Mr. Dunbar said, "Why, of course; Floyd won't be shocked, will you, Floyd? Fall in line, now; all ready? We're off—sneaking Indians."
And he led them, all crouching and taking long slow strides; they circled twice round a bench, three times round a tree, and then trailed about the lawn, ejaculating "Hist!" with every two steps, because that was what the leader was doing. Floyd, from his position at the end of the line had a view of the procession as it swung and turned; Mr. Dunbar, Lydia, her mother, and the two little boys were all doing their part with the utmost seriousness. "Hop-Skip!" cried the leader, straightening up, and at that they all straightened up and hop-skipped, zigzagging about and again circling the bench twice. "Go faster, Aunt Elinor!" cried Teddy, pounding his small fist on his aunt's stout, tight back. "I can't!" she protested, and threw a deprecating glance at Floyd. Lydia, light of foot and graceful in every movement, pranced on, laughing back now at her mother, now at Floyd, who grinned and enjoyed the spectacle; the two small boys were now giggling, and Mr. Dunbar was the only one who remained serious and earnest, going through the motions with a dignified rhythm.
"Positively not another step," gasped Mrs. Dunbar, dropping out of the line, which her husband instantly led round and round her in a derisive circle. Then they all stopped, out of breath and laughing.
"Grreat exercise," said Mr. Dunbar to Floyd. "I'm not so much winded, am I, for a man of my age and weight; that's because I do dumb-bells every night and morning."
"You didn't jump up on the bench," complained Laurie. "You did n't make Aunt Elinor jump up on the bench the way you always do."
"Aunt Elinor's getting too old and fat for such things," Mrs. Dunbar said to him. "I can't let your uncle drag me round much longer as he's done to-day."
"Your aunt needs training," Mr. Dunbar said. "You boys must come oftener and we'll limber her up again."
"You ought to let Floyd or me lead the procession," said Lydia. "I guess we would wear the kids out."
"Ho! I guess you would n't," cried Teddy. "You're nothing but a girl."
She "tagged" him and fled laughing, and he pursued her vainly, while she dodged round a tree and then round Floyd, and then caught Laurie and held him in front of her for defense.
"I think," said Mrs. Dunbar, "this is almost worse for Sunday afternoon than horseback riding. Let's go into the house."
Floyd stayed so late that evening that he had had much less than his usual eight hours of sleep when Letty knocked on his door at half-past five the next morning. He woke to a day of fog; through that week a heavy fog hung in the valley, growing thicker and thicker with each new day of breathless atmosphere, depressed and blended with the weight and filth of smoke. At mid-day the sun was only a pale white disk overhead at which one might stare as harmlessly as at the moon. In the morning Floyd groped his way down the hill toward a void of clamor and sound; at nightfall, when he climbed the hill, the flames and illuminations that gave usually a splendor to New Rome, compensating for the squalor of its day, were blotted out by the damp murkiness, and again out of the invisible rang the harsh noises of the mills. These were more piercing, more continuous than ever; the locomotives, pushing or pulling their little trains with a slow caution, were sending up always their shrill whistles—in spite of which warnings there were two accidents during the week, two Italian laborers caught and run down between trains. An accident always caused a feeling of sullenness in the works; this was now intensified by the gloom of the weather and the increased discomfort of the conditions; the thick and acrid smoke that would not rise, the floating particles of grime that clogged one's breathing-passages, the chill dampness, worse than wind, worse than rain, that greeted the man who went sweating from his furnace to draw a breath of air. But worst of all was the oppression caused by the strange, imperfect sun in the sky, appearing hazily day after day, only to disappear vanquished by the clammy night. Some of the ignorant and superstitious foreigners found portents in this feeble inability of the sun, and stopped work; others went about their tasks cowed and afraid. Among the intelligent there was sullenness without fear, rebellion without animus, a hatred of the work itself, divorced, it seemed, from any feeling against their superiors or against the necessity that compelled them to such work. And in these days and nights the movement to "unionize" the mills advanced as it had not done in a whole month of summer.
Floyd was aware of the changing spirit; the men with whom he worked made no effort to conceal it from him; Shelton, already a member of the union and its advocate, would discuss it with him in the intermissions, while Tom and Bill and others of the men would sit and listen. Floyd disavowed hostility, but tried to present such arguments as should cause them to hesitate. The day the second Italian was killed, Shelton said to him,—
"It's well enough so long as we all know that if we're hurt or killed at our work the company pays the expense. But supposing the company don't always do that? We want an organization that will—"
"The company will always do it; I can promise that," said Floyd.
"Well," Shelton grumbled, "maybe so. But even so—it might be better for us to feel more independent—"
"You think that joining the union makes men independent?"
"Yes, of some things."
"The generosity of their employers, and what else?"
"Well, even supposing we was to let it go at that. Would n't it be more self-respecting?"
"Oh, shucks!" said Floyd with a laugh. "Come and let's pitch quoits."
He never went far in these arguments with any of the men; he admitted to them quite frankly that his inexperience in the subject qualified him to listen rather than to speak. They seemed not to disguise their sentiments in talking before him, and this pleased him. So far as he could judge, even those most outspoken for "organization" had no grievance that they wished redressed, no definite end that they hoped by organizing to accomplish; their argument was simply that they would be putting themselves in a better position to lay complaints, to defend themselves against aggression, to command the granting of their utmost rights. It interested Floyd to learn that Tustin, the grim, silent man with the crooked smile, who was Mrs. Bell's next-door neighbor, was one of the most active and able organizers. But he did not himself come into contact with Tustin.
Floyd was summoned one day to lunch with the company officials in their private room at the New Rome Hotel. Some of the superintendents were there and reported the state of mind prevailing in their mills. Most of them were disposed to regard lightly the union agitation. "There's no real disaffection among the men," said the superintendent of Open-Hearth Number One. "This is one of those periodic simmerings; we've had them before. The union has several times got a foothold here; but it's never been for long."
"I think they mean business now," said Gregg slowly. "The union agents have been working systematically the past two months. Mr. Halket, what is your opinion, from what you see among the men?"
"The men are joining the union a good deal more readily than they were a month ago," Floyd answered. "But it does n't seem to be with any particular end in view."
"There never yet was a beginning but what some end grew out of it," remarked one of the superintendents pessimistically. "I'd fight the movement and choke it before it gets under way."
"That," said Gregg, stroking the prongs of his beard, "is something to consider.—Your grandfather will be back the latter part of the week, Mr. Halket?"
"Yes," said Floyd.
"I guess," observed Gregg, "we'll get an opinion from him before we take steps. Mr. Sharp, has n't Mr. Halket here learned all there is to know about making steel?"
"I was just going to suggest," replied the superintendent of Open-Hearth Number Two, "that he might go on to something else pretty soon. Don't you think so, Mr. Halket?"
"Why," said Floyd, "I feel that I've learned something; if you think it's enough, I'm ready any time for a change."
"Yes," said Gregg. "Next Monday you'd better report at Rod-Mill Number Three. And,"—he smiled cheerfully,—"you'd better take a holiday on Saturday to get ready; I guess Mr. Sharp will spare you."
"Thank you," Floyd answered; and he was quite elated at the idea of a holiday—and at not having to ask for the Saturday afternoon which he had promised himself with Lydia.
He went back through the fog to his work with a light step; promotion—or transfer—to the Rod-Mill was his first distinct achievement. It was in Rod-Mill Number Three that Hugh Farrell worked, and Floyd wondered if he would be put on the same turn with him. He hoped so; for in spite of the coolness with which he had treated Farrell since the night when they had separated at the dance-hall, he could not help liking the fellow—both for the merry nature he showed in his relations with Letty and her mother and for the quiet indifference with which he accepted Floyd's coolness.
The men in Floyd's heat at the open-hearth mill seemed honestly sorry to hear that he was leaving them.
"But," cried Shelton, "you and me was such a team with the quoits!"
"I know it," said Floyd regretfully. "Well, we'll have to find new partners and lick each other."
"’T ain't hardly the same thing," Shelton said.
"No," said Tom and Bill, "’t ain't."
They were always men of few words.
On Friday a north wind came down from the hills and cleared away the fog; the sun emerged in a sudden autumnal brilliancy, and Floyd went light-heartedly about his last work at the furnace. He had not been much affected by the general depression; he was getting on with his apprenticeship, his family were soon to be back in Avalon, and he would have a home to go to on Sundays; he looked forward to the ride with Lydia; indeed, he thought of Lydia whenever he had time to think at all; and not in the wistful, melancholy way that he had done before seeing her. Now it was with a certain courageous gladness; for a time at least there might be no Stewart at hand to dispute his devotion, to reduce him to silence and retirement; for a time she would be his frank and glad companion. Now on this last Friday, with the north wind blowing down the promise of fine weather for his holiday, his face must have shown his joyousness, for Shelton would often glance at him wistfully, and Floyd, intent upon his work, or possibly his anticipations, did not notice. When the six o'clock whistle blew, the men gathered round Floyd and shook hands with him, bidding him good-by, and then hurried away, lest they might say too much. But Shelton hung round till the last and walked with Floyd across the bridge. Then, as they were to separate, he said awkwardly,—
"I don't blame you for bein' glad to quit us; I seen it in your face all day."
"No, Shelton," Floyd said, "if I've looked glad, that's not the reason; honestly, it's not. I want to thank you and the other fellows for the way you've treated me."
"Hell!" said Shelton, "’t was nothing. I'm proud to know you, Mr. Halket,—and some day I'll be proud to work for you."
He turned abruptly and walked off; Floyd stood quite speechless. Then his face lighted up and he called, "Shelton! O Shelton!" The man turned back, and they advanced towards each other; Floyd came up and put his hand on Shelton's shoulder.
"There was just one thing I felt I ought to say," he began earnestly. "Now that I'm going away, I can't help having it on my mind. I want you to promise me that you will be very, very careful about the fumes."
Shelton stared into his solemn face and burst into a loud laugh. Then he slapped his hand into Floyd's. "Good-by," he said. "Good-by." And so they parted.