The Madonna of a day. A study

Chapter I. Ww He

station of the Canadian Pacific Railway in the town of Vancouver is a rather handsome building-. At its entrance, on a certain afternoon in late December, an omnibus from the principal hotel arrived with quite a crowd of people. Its occupants were nearly all men — young men ; they were sitting upon one another's knees, and standing in the middle, for they filled it to overflowing. They were all laughing hilariously, and the person who was making them laugh was the younger of the only two women in the omnibus. When the horses stopped, the men— some younger, some older — alighted without any abatement of their jovial state. Then they handed out the two women, and all the rugs and bags and umbrellas which belonged to them. It seemed that the women only were the travellers, for the men had no luggage.

The sky overhead was a dull soft grey ; in the street a layer of snow lay upon every thing, but it was not deep, and the air was soft rather than cold. The two women stood together upon the pavement in front of the entrance. The older was tall, and very plainly dressed. She was clever, she was sad, she was not given to interfering with others — all this was written on her face ; she had reached that maturity in which character and expression are fixed. The younger woman was a plump blithe creature ; she would have been perfectly fresh and delightful if it had not been for a certain subtle spirit of unrest that peeped out, as it were, from behind her bright black eyes and from the corners of her red lips with hardening effect. She was young ; as yet nothing was imprinted very clearly upon her face.

She was dressed more richly than the other, but with sturdy good sense. She was as alert and alive to what was going on around her as a chicken when its wings are all fluffy with excitement. She looked upon herself as a person of great importance, and took a vivid interest in every one about her. For the moment there happened to be no porter to unlade the trunks from the top of the omnibus. " Now," cried the young woman, " 111 bet a dollar to each, that you men, with all your miraculous vows of everlasting friendship, won't haul down the boxes and carry them in on your backs." She raised her voice to a delighted scream. " On your backs, my dear boys ; I shan't lose my dollars on false pretences." She escaped vulgarity. There was just enough of what was well-bred in accent and aspect to make her loudness an interesting eccentricity rather than a loathsome com monplace.

She gave way to immoderate and delighted laughter as the group of men charged upon the omnibus, and with unaccustomed awk wardness hauled and pulled at the boxes strapped upon it. "We shall be too late," said the older woman to the younger, speaking in a dry dissatisfied way. " All right, my pet," was the answer ; " I'll pay your hotel bill for the extra day." Then in exclamation, " Hang me if those fellows don't knock off one or two of their heads ! Oh, what heavenly fun it would be to have to take one or two of them back to the hotel in an ambulance, and have to stop and nurse them !" " Speak for yourself," said the other one, with an air aloof and placid. By this time such servants of the station as should have done the work were standino* aside, grinning widely. The men who had taken down the boxes were wrestling, each to obtain a box or a part of a box on his own shoulders.

The fact that it was in some cases difficult for two men to get under one box made some moments' delay. The plump girl clapped her hands, and gave a little dance of hilarity. " Run, my dear fellows, run ! or we shall lose the train as sure as death." She gave little shrieks of delighted laughter between her sentences. "And there's that infernal checking business to be gone through." The men in rollicking procession ran into the station, the girl beside them breathless with glib comments, small bits of mild pro fanity, and the very freshest gayest laughter imaginable. Her companion followed, swift and sedate. The train, about to start, shut in the long platform at one side. Its engine and carriages looked very large to eyes unaccustomed to American travel. "Have mercy on us!" cried the girl.

" What a huge way of spinning across the continent !" The trunks having been checked, were carried on the backs of the hilarious cavaliers to the luggage car. Every one upon the platform or at the windows of the train was interested in the performance. The lively little lady who had instigated it stood at the steps of the drawing-room car into which she was about to enter, and clapped her hands, laughed, and swore that it was the most amusing sight which she had ever witnessed. It was a piece of rather strong language she used this time ; it came out evidently just to shock and interest two of the men of her party who had by this time gained her side. The ladies were helped to ascend into the car, all their friends accompanying them through its first narrow passage-way into its main portion.

Most of the men were still boisterous ; one or two had assumed a pensive expression by this time. This expression was the most pronounced in the case of a slight fellow with a light moustache, who was called by the ladies, " Charlie." The girl patted Charlie upon the back. " Cheer up, dear old boy," she cried. " It's enormously pretty to see you so down in the mouth, you know, but it's no go. Let us meet, part, and be merry, for to morrow we die ! — that, I think, comes out of the Vedas or some other ancient literature." She was the central figure of the group ; The Madomia of a Day. 7 the older woman counted for very little, for though both in feature and figure she was much the handsomer, she was not happy, and the younger was radiantly happy. Happiness by its infection always attracts. Moreover, the younger was rich ; her purse was full, a large diamond sparkled on her hand.

She had already taken out her purse with a demonstration of business. " I hope I have enough of these vile bits of green paper to pay you in single dollars," she cried. The first man to whom she presented a bank-note put his hands behind his back. Her whole being was swiftly transformed into a very personification of petty indignation. "What is this? What does it mean? Is it an insult ?" Then she demanded of the others with flashing eyes, " What does he mean ? Does he take me for a ' young lady ' ? Does he imagine that, when I lose a bet, I would fail to hand over the coin like any other man ? " Her impetuousness was such that each man received his dollar. One of them, as spokes man for the rest, began to protest that they would each purchase a charm for their watch-chains, but she scornfully told him not to be a "blethering idiot."

She was evidently a new variety of woman to most of these men. Hasty as the leave taking was, they watched her up to the last moment with eyes greedy to drink in every one of her unexpected glances and words. " Poor Charlie ! " she cried, " but he's my cousin, you know, and kin is kin all the world over. Come now, you must all go out, and I'll give him a cousinly kiss behind the door." The small company of men left the train after it began to move ; they jumped from it with the same boisterous hilarity, with the exception of Charlie, who, after having been patronizingly kissed, reached the platform looking much depressed. The lively girl, who had driven them along the small corridor as if they had been a flock of sheep, stood upon the rear platform of the car waving her hands and shouting and laughing as long as communication was possible.

Chapter II

j|f§||HE evening descended upon the train SH as it passed through plain and canyon on its way eastward, towards the great mountains. The land, the rocks, the broad placid surface of the valleys, were white with snow ; only the tremulous lakes were grey ; the tumultuous rivers still ran with dark grey stream, and the firs made dark the hill sides which they clothed. Night fell ; snow blew against the windows of the cars : inside the palace sleeping-car the gorgeous lamps, inlaid woodwork, mirrors and bright curtains, were cheerful enough. At one end of this car the two young women who had entered it at Vancouver were in talk with a fellow-traveller. The man was a missionary, but being a real person and not a play-actor, there was nothing very typical about him, nothing in his dress and manner that on the stage would have been recognized as denoting the species "missionary."

He was a tall man, grey-haired, with a handsome clear-cut face ; he looked as if he had his fair share of common sense ; his dress was not more re markable than is usually the case when travellers return to Western civilization after a long sojourn in the East. The missionary bent forward, his hands upon his knees, a good-natured look of pene trating shrewdness upon his face. " Now I know," he said, " what you young ladies are doing. You have said to one another, 1 There is an old fogey of a missionary ; we will make up all sorts of stories, and amuse ourselves by shocking him.' " The elder leaned back in her corner with a languid smile. " We are extremely sorry if you are shocked," she said ; " it is the last thing that we desired." She looked out of the window at the darkness flecked with white.

The other made her disclaimer in the freshest, most good-natured fashion in the world. " You are entirely mistaken ; we were saying that we thought that you were a rather jolly fellow, and we think so yet. We haven't told you anything but what was perfectly Biblical in the way of truth — or rather, much more truthful than what is Biblical, because we were dealing with facts ; we've been ' speaking the truth in love,' I do assure you. We are women journalists. We are going round the world. You are very much behind the times if you think English girls over twenty-one need any one to take care of them. Why, you know, we have been in all sorts of out-of-the-way places. Of course it was often dangerous, but that made something to write to the papers about. I bought an enormously precious stone in the East.

I carry it with me. I expect to be murdered for it before I get home — that will be the denouement." Her eyes sparkled with vivacity. "And in London," said the missionary, " I gather that you live in ' chambers ' all alone, and go about at night quite freely." There was a genial interest in his tone. " Oh dear, yes ; why should, I not ? The London police are quite efficient. I couldn't be murdered or anything. My friend here runs about Fleet Street at two and three o'clock in the morning, getting off telegrams to the provincial newspapers. I don't do that just because I don't happen to be in that line of work." " Or rather, because you are too rich to need to do it." The elder woman made this dry comment. " There is nothing that would amuse me more than to do that sort of thing." " Therein you show a more debased taste than I, for I would not do it if it were not my daily bread."

"We used to think that our American women were more independent than the English," said the missionary. He con tinued to look at the young girl much as one would look at a pretty and interesting child. " Oh dear, no ; I consider your American women quite behind the age. Why, now, for instance, just yesterday at Vancouver I gave a little dinner in the hotel. Well, I had to do it in common honesty. I happened to have a cousin in Vancouver, and he had brought some of his friends to call. I had been there a week ; they had treated me ; I had, of course, to do something in return : but some Americans in the hotel were quite shocked. The hotel people were wonderfully decent about the dinner, and let me have it uncommonly cheap too. Waiters and hotel clerks are always tremendously nice to me. I don't know why it is, but I always find it that way.

I showed the bill to one of the men, a very nice fellow that I had got to know quite well, and he said a man would never have got it so cheap." " What did you have for dinner ? " asked the missionary, " and what was the price ? " She was not talking for effect ; she was quite carried away with the interest of what she was relating. It is usually the thing we like to talk about that we can talk about best ; she succeeded in absorbing his at tention. "Well, I'll tell you. There were eight of us — my friend here, my cousin Charlie, and five other men. I talked to them tre mendously at the hotel beforehand, so that they really gave us everything very good — that is to say, good for Vancouver. We had ten courses. Well, I didn't have cham pagne. Champagne is tremendously dear, you know, here, and not very good ; but I had sherry and a very good Burgundy.

Of course I didn't get cigarettes from the hotel ; I always carry my own. But now, what do you think the bill, including the wine, came to?" " I have no idea," said the missionary, quite truly. " Only four pounds ! I was quite taken aback when I saw it ; but of course I paid it, and didn't ask any questions. I just smiled upon the clerk who took the money ; but, as I say, I showed it to a friend after wards, and we chuckled over it together. I have often noticed that they favour me at hotels. I always make a point of talking in a friendly way to the clerks and the waiters ; they like it, and it doesn't do me any harm." " Now that I think of it," the missionary spoke meditatively, " I have seen your name in the papers. I have read a description of you." She brightened visibly ; an obvious thrill of pleasure went through her frame.

"Oh, I dare say ; I write a good deal, you know, in various journals, and several of my friends who do interviewing have threatened to publish a sketch of me. What was the name of the paper ? When one is flying round the world one can't keep up to date with these things." " I do not know that your friends have been so personal as you suppose. I merely meant that even at a remote mission station I have read paragraphs concerning the ' New Woman.' " She was disappointed, and she was still so young and full of life that she had not the heart to conceal it, but in a moment she took up the new theme with all her former zest. "And being in a remote mission-station, I suppose you believed the idiotic and transcendent rubbish that is written about her. Now, I'll tell you what it is, and you may believe me.

I have been three years at Girton, and I've lived in town for a year or two, and I've travelled round the world, and I can assure you that the ' New Woman ' is a pure myth. She is a ridiculous and horrid phantasm, evolved out of the brains of a few authors who did not know what else to interest the public with, and believed in only by the simple and credulous, who unfortunately, however, go to make up the greater portion of every community. Oh, she's been a great scare, I admit, but there's absolutely nothing in it." " I beg your pardon," said the missionary. " I thought that I had classified you." " Well, as you've come from the Pacific Ocean I won't be offended. I am not thin skinned any way ; I can always get on with a man who says what he thinks. I adore plain downright dealing." " What are the mythical attributes ?

" he asked. " The characteristics of the myth ? Well, in the first place, she has no principle. Now why, in the name of heaven, I ask you, should woman at the end of the nineteenth century be supposed to have less principle than she had in all the other centuries ? She may live in a different way ; she may be happy and live in a flat, and have a latchkey, instead of sitting snarling over the fire at her brother's wife who doesn't want her. She may earn her own living instead of insisting that some man should pay her bills. She may make good, downright honest friendships with men instead of merely flirt ing with them in a ballroom ; and if she doesn't believe in religion she can stay at home from church instead of continuing to keep up a respectable sham. Do these things necessarily take away her principle ?

I tell you, the men and women that go about saying that a woman does not believe in anything because she does not believe in shamming, prove themselves to be far more unprincipled than the modern women I have met." She was very young ; she had her enthusiasms, and this was evidently one of them. She looked at the missionary with bright red cheeks, but she was not abusing him ; she was rather appealing to him. "All that may be quite true," said the missionary, — " you have, as you say, a very fair right to judge ; but why do you proclaim your opinion to me in the name of heaven ? Why heaven ? " " Did I say in the name of heaven ? " She laughed. "Well, then, in the name of the sky — it is all one to me — -in the name of the blue distance, in the name of the ether, why should I be supposed to be unprincipled because I drink plenty of wine and smoke cigarettes ?

If you saw a man taking wine and smoking just as I do, would you argue that he would tell lies, and break vows, and be indifferent as to his personal dignity and moral worth ? I suppose that if you are a rabid teetotaler and an anti-tobacconist you do argue that way ; but the facts would not bear you out." " I am not a tobacconist of any sort," said the missionary, smiling. She laughed the blithest happiest laugh. "Another characteristic of the myth," she said, " is that she has no heart ; she does not care for the young or the aged. Now, do you suppose that evolution has suddenly come to a standstill, and that a new thing has been created ? Heretofore women have always been known to be tender-hearted ; men are supposed to have a soft corner in their hearts also : but now there is suddenly a break in all the laws of heredity, and a race of girls has sprung up that possesses none of the softer sentiments.

Because they live in flats and have latchkeys, or do something else typical, whatever it may be, they are supposed to kick aside anything that is weak or ailing without the slightest compunction. What I want to know is, where this race of women has come from. It isa very bad compliment to the very mothers who are weeping over the revolt of their daughters to suppose that their children have got made up in some way without any heart." The missionary with strong sagacious face was still observing her benignly. " I see " — he joined the points of his fingers together as he spoke — " you are not unprincipled, and you are not unfeeling." "You have only my word for it," she laughed. " I am old enough," said the missionary, " to know whom to believe. I believe you. I regret that in using the term I applied to you I should have appeared to make an accusation " " Oh ! not at all ; don't apologize.

I always gird up my loins and experience a holy joy when I hear the ' New WToman ' mentioned, for I love to defend my sex." He made a courteous inclination of the head. "What sort of joy? " " Holy joy," she repeated boisterously " Your good principle and your good feeling we have admitted" — he was speaking in a pleasant argumentative way, — " but why characterize your sentiments as holy ? " " Well, I think I had been using a Bible quotation "—she laughed, — " and of course in your estimation anything whatever con nected with the Bible makes the word appropriate." " Not in the least," he replied with un ruffled courtesy ; " for example, a man who takes his oath upon the Bible and perjures himself does not do a holy thing." She laughed immensely at the retort, and liked him better for it. She protested, " If you admit that I am affectionate and good-principled, I don't mind in the least what else you accuse me of.

But now I want to get clearly into your mind the point that I make ; I always in struct everybody on the subject. One hears about this ' new woman,' and the 'girl of the period,' and the 'fin de siecle woman ; ' now I wish you to bear witness that I think I am as fair a specimen of the class abused as you can have. I am ' emancipated,' I am ' ad vanced,' in fact, I am the ' new woman,' so far as she is not a myth. Of course there is no class of people, either men or women, that has not its black sheep, and its saints, too, for that matter. I don't claim to be either one or the other ; I am simply an average specimen of the class of women that are often called 'fast.' Well, now, I maintain that I am just as sound in heart and morals as if I spent my life moping by a sitting-room fire. I can prove it to you, too."

She finished with a little nod of her head, and paused a moment. There was a certain self-conscious twitching about the muscles of her youthful mouth which suggested that something interesting concerning herself was to be revealed. He continued to listen with the same benign look of keen observation. " I don't mind telling you — in fact, I've told people before ; I don't see why I should mind. Several years ago I fell very much in love myself. A very nice fellow used to come and see me sometimes ; we neither of us intended it, and before we either of us knew what was up, we were both in love. It wasn't our fault, but there we were, you see. It was Nature that made the world, not we, and, as I understand it, you believe that the Almighty is at the back of Nature. Of course I don't know anything about that ; Nature is enough for me : but, as I say, it wasn't our fault.

Well, he was engaged to another girl before he ever saw me. What did we do ? Did we act in an un principled manner ? We agreed that she was weak and poor, and needed protection, and that he would be a rascal if he did not go on with the marriage. Well, now, I live in the same place as that man ; I know quite well that his marriage to her has not altered the fact that he preferred me ; but I never have any dealings with him except through his wife. I would not do such a shabby thing, and at the same time pretend to be a friend to her ; but I know lots of women who would do it who look upon me as quite an outcast from society. Now, I have an immense amount of affection for that man. I'd give all that I possess at any time to help him out of a difficulty ; but I should not care for him at all — I should absolutely despise him, if he came philandering after me when his poor little affectionate wife is slaving all day over his dinner and his babies."

It is often difficult to estimate the pitch of one's own voice in the rattle of a train. She was perhaps not to be blamed if, in the interest of her theme, her voice was a little louder than was necessary ; but the missionary looked round apprehensively to see if any of their fellow-travellers could have overheard. " Now," she cried, " what do you think of that ? Can you say that my conduct in the matter has not been perfectly 'womanly ' ?" " You certainly acted on principle " Instead of finishing, he obviously hesitated, then added, "Although you adore candour — I think that is all that I had better say." " What else have you to say ? " she asked with great curiosity. He looked down at the points of his fingers, which, elbows on his knees, he was still care fully matching together. " My idea of what is perfectly womanly is perhaps derived from a character who did not discuss the deep things of her life, but pondered them in her heart."

Then he looked up. " I am preaching to you, you see. I hope you will excuse my sermon." " Oh, certainly," — with good nature. " I never go to hear sermons, so I should be thankful when they are given me without that effort." " I thought perhaps your feelings would be hurt," he said. She was quick enough to see that look and tone were meant to suggest that had she appreciated his meaning she would have felt offence. She hid this under an air of amused good nature. " I have a holy horror of touchiness," she persisted. He rose to say good night. " An old man who has conceived a hearty respect for you would feel it an honour to shake hands," he said. " Honest Injun ? or is it sarcasm ? " In a moment his benign aspect answered for itself. She entered into the hand-shaking heartily. "And yet," he said, "I think you had better not use the word ' holy ' to describe your own emotions." " Oh, really ! upon my word ! Why not ? " " It betrays a lack of literary perception. It is neither amusing nor appropriate."

Chapter III

"IHH DON'T see why you should trouble Si yourself to chatter to people who despise you, Polly," said the discontented journalist. " Because I don't affect, like you, to be Shelley's Moon, and find no object in heaven or earth worthy my attention. Pessimism and despair may suit your style of beauty ; it would look idiotic upon me." " It is such a ghastly season of the year to be travelling. I think the Christmas holiday is the most odious of seasons in all parts of the world." " I would rather spend Christmas Day in ten railway trains than at home, where one is expected to go to church, and visit the poor, and be bored." " If it continues to snow in the mountains we may have to spend New Year's Day as well in this train, before we get to Montreal." The other looked out of the window. " It would be beastly cold to be turned out upon the snow somewhere among the Rockies," she said.

" If it came to that it would remind me of a time once when I was about fourteen and walked out of the house in winter in my sleep. How my father did row me about it the next day, to be sure ! The old fellow seemed to think that I was responsible for my actions." " How far did you go ? " — with languid interest. " Oh ! not farther than halfway down our garden, happily. But I used frequently to find myself wandering about the passages. I was quite a crack somnambulist." " I did not know that you had ever done anything so interesting. Have you outgrown the talent ? " " Rather ! " — here a sudden thrilling laugh of great amusement—" or I should not have travelled round the world so easily. Hang it ! what magnificent messes one could get one's self into that way." They began now the process of what might be called undressing for the night, but what was in reality exchanging one set of outside wraps for another.