Part 9

But, ever depreciating himself and knowing absolutely nothing of the heart of woman, he turned abruptly away, bringing Salome back to herself with a hasty “good-evening.” And then he strode away to the outer air, asking himself, savagely, why he was so weak and boyish because a pretty woman happened to touch his hand.

XVI.

All through the winter months, Geoffrey Burnham and Marion Shaw were constantly meeting. As Burnham had intimated to Villard, he had taken only a superficial interest in the philanthropic or ethical side of mill-economy. But he was often at the Hall of an evening; and upon pleasant nights, when the ladies walked over from the Shepard mansion, he accompanied them home after the evening’s engagement. If it were early, as on ordinary occasions, he went in and sat chatting with them for an hour or two. Mrs. Soule always welcomed him, and although she never went to the Hall, she found ample opportunities of telling him how many lonely hours it caused her.

“I often wish Salome cared half as much,” she used plaintively to say on these occasions, “for a living aunt as for a dead grandfather.”

Often, Burnham sang to Salome’s accompaniment, his rich tenor voice lending pathos, and his ardent glances a meaning, for Marion in the love-songs he sang so well. The latter sat silent at such times, a quiet content wrapping her round, forgetting the past, ignoring the future.

“A blind man’s paradise,” she told herself it was, as the weeks rolled by, and the glamour of a scarcely hinted but very evident passion waited in vain for more than the vaguest expression.

Sometimes the two were left alone for a while, when the conversation took a fitful tone, as if uncertain whether to be light and frivolous, or tender and deep. Several times Burnham had seized Marion’s unresisting hand and kissed it passionately; and, finally, one evening when they were alone, he had put his arm about her waist and drawn her close to him.

“Why have we not had each other all these years?” he asked, looking into her sweet, confused eyes. “What cruel fate has kept you from me?”

“It does not matter, does it, so long as we have each other now?” Marion had asked in reply. And then he had bent and kissed the pure white brow and the clustering rings of hair.

After this, every night, Marion, kneeling by her bedside alone, thanked God for the love that had come to brighten her bereaved life.

And Burnham? Did he realize what he might be doing when he won this true and loyal woman’s heart? At first, he, too, was happy in the present. The past held nothing which he was proud to remember; and into the future he stubbornly refused to look. He had, for years,—“since his days of adolescence,” he told himself,—had no interest in women, although he knew that, in a place like Shepardtown, he was the object of several fond mammas’ machinations, and the admiration of most of the village girls. He had never met Marion’s counterpart. She interested and fascinated him. Simple and childish in many ways, she was grave and dignified in others. Her life, he could see, would be spent for others. She was one of those women who are a constant sacrifice to the world around them; who give openly and always of their best, asking and expecting little in return. In short-Burnham knew it as well as any one could—she was a woman whose life and love and utmost service would be absorbed by a selfish man, only to be as unappreciated as they were undeserved on his part. And yet, ever since their first meeting, months before, there had been that subtle consciousness of each other drawing them on, that wave of feeling on meeting, that positive yearning when they were separated.

After Villard’s pointed questioning regarding Marion, Burnham began to question himself seriously. At first, when thoughts of the future had intruded into his calm moments, he thought of her as his wife; of himself as settled down in a house of his own; he even expected to be happy. But he did not put his thoughts into words. When he was with Marion, he avoided—not so much from intention perhaps as from a reluctance to break the spell of romance which hung over them—any mention of different relations in the future.

It was April before he brought himself to face about and look at the subject, calmly and seriously. Just where was he drifting with Marion?

One day he allowed himself to let fall some remark about her to Villard,—not in any way implying their peculiar relations, but yet speaking of her in such a way that Villard drew himself up to his straightest, and looked him in the eye a full moment. Not a word was said, but at that instant, Burnham felt the disagreeable consciousness of being a scoundrel.

He went home that evening and tried to read. Then he tried to smoke. Then he thought of going over to the Shepard mansion. He finally decided on sitting down and squarely meeting an issue that should have been faced six months before.

Geoffrey Burnham was thirty-seven years old. He had considered only his own taste and desires ever since he was born. When he was a boy, if he had wanted anything, he had it. If his father did not grant his every wish his mother would. And she, poor woman, had fostered in him the idea that all his personal, imperious desires were meant, always, to be immediately granted. The conquering of Self had been no part of his early discipline.

His father died when he was in Europe. When he came home, and entered the mills,—an arrangement the father effected just before his decease,—his pretty, white-faced mother had come to Shepardtown to be near her son. For him she lived and would die. Yielding weakly in everything to him, she avenged her position by setting herself against all other women. Salome had called upon her, and had invited her to her house, but in vain. Mrs. Burnham went nowhere, and wanted to see no one. Her son was all in all to her. And but for the constant fear that he would marry the handsome Miss Shepard, who, with all her wealth, she felt sure, would crowd her completely out of her son’s heart and home, she would have been a comparatively happy woman. Incredible to larger-hearted women, as it seems, there are women so selfish in their devotion to an only son, as to wreck his life, so far as its being of any practical value to himself and others is concerned, by the strength of their own weak persistence.

Burnham thought of his mother. He remembered the comfortable habits he had settled into; he wondered if any other woman would ever let him smoke in the best room in the house, or submit to his will when he chose, as he often did for days together, to speak only in monosyllables in his own house. He felt that, should he marry, his habits would all have to be changed; that the solitude which he prized, when he felt so inclined, might be absolute no longer. He remembered his mother’s peculiarities, and said to himself that there would be a devil of a row, should he undertake to bring a wife home. There might be constant bickerings, and that he never could abide. No; better let women alone.

Then he thought of Marion and sighed. Her tender eyes, when he parted from her two nights before, came up before him.

“Hang it,” he asked himself; “just how far have I gone with her, anyway?”

He felt himself a scoundrel again, to his credit be it written. But then, there were the habits of a lifetime, and his mother to be remembered. Could he overthrow all his established convictions?

And yet, just what might Marion be expecting of him? No, he had given her no definite encouragement in words. Still, one never can tell how a good, pure woman is going to take these things.

Burnham went out under the April sky and walked up and down the concrete walk bareheaded, until his mother, from her window, reminded him for the third time that he would certainly get cold out there; and shouldn’t she make him a cup of hot negus? Then he came in and renewed the conflict.

“I’ve let the thing run too long,” he said to himself, as he gazed into the open wood-fire, having refused the decoction his mother had patiently brought him. “I’ll have a reckoning with myself to-night, and decide this thing once for all.”

Burnham was a decided man, and, once determined, seldom changed his mind. He boasted, sometimes, of that quality, forgetting that it is only an ignorant or an unprogressive soul which will never acknowledge itself in the wrong, or change its course from the one marked out, perhaps in obstinacy or error.

Until midnight he argued with himself, although, unconsciously, his mind had been secretly made up at the start. When the clock struck twelve he rose and got together his writing materials.

He had fully decided that it would be folly for him to marry Marion Shaw. She was a rarely devoted, unselfish woman, and a most lovable one; but he knew himself, he said, and if she married him she would do so only to be unhappy in the end. She could not be otherwise, living with him and his mother.

But how was he to withdraw from the delicate situation in which he had foolishly placed himself? There was, he decided, but one way.

For a year, now, Salome Shepard had been making a deep and practical study of the mills and their operation. She had proved a wonderfully apt scholar, her womanly intuition often grasping, in a few minutes, details which he had been months in learning. He doubted if, should occasion require it, she could not run the mills alone. With Villard—honest, faithful soul!—to help her, Burnham felt that there was no longer any need of his services at the Shawsheen Mills. There was another superintendency in a mill at Lowell which stood open to him, whenever he chose to take it. There were some things about it that he would not like; but he must not remain on dangerous ground. He took great credit to himself as he reflected that honor required him not to trifle with Marion’s feelings another day. He virtuously decided to take himself out of her way. Once gone from her she would cease to feel his attraction and forget the tender scenes between them. He would resign his connection with the Shawsheen Mills.

He sat down and wrote the letter of resignation. Then he went to bed and slept. He, like Villard, had kept awake hours for a woman. But he was not the man to conquer his selfish nature, or to grow stronger by fighting himself.

* * * * *

The next morning Salome found Villard alone in the inner office of the mills. A note lay on her desk. It was Burnham’s resignation.

She uttered an exclamation of surprise, and turned to Villard.

“Did you know about this?” she asked, handing him the note.

Villard looked as astonished as though a dynamite bomb had exploded in the mill-yard.

“Not a word,” he said. “But stay, he did hint at something, months ago; but I never gave it a second thought. ‘Decided that he is no longer needed on the works, and an opportunity having offered to better his condition.’ H’m! Those are his reasons? Strange he hadn’t mentioned the matter to me although it _was_ his own business.”

“But what are we going to do? Can’t we get him back?” asked Salome.

“We can try,” was the reply, “but Burnham is a pretty determined fellow when he fairly makes up his mind. Shall I go over and see him?”

“If you please. Tell him to come back with you; I want to persuade him to stay if I can.”

Villard went over to Burnham’s house, but he had already gone to Lowell to complete arrangements to enter the new position. Mrs. Burnham knew nothing of either this plan or her son’s sudden resignation. Villard returned to Salome.

“What are we going to do,” she asked, “supposing he refuses to come back—even at an increased salary?”

“Don’t you think you and I can run the business alone for a while?” returned Villard, “at least until we can find a good man. Good superintendents don’t grow on every bush.”

“Do you think I am capable of taking his place—with your help, of course?” Salome looked earnestly at him.

“I think you are quite capable of doing anything noble and great,” he answered, fervently.

“With your help,” she said, in a low tone. “Of course I will do anything, and shall be only too proud,” she hastened to add, “if I have succeeded in learning enough of the business to be of any use.”

Villard looked again at her averted eyes, and checked an impulse to say something more. Had he known a tenth as much of women as of cotton factories, his fortune and happiness had been in his own hands. But he honestly thought she had turned away her eyes and spoken the last sentence to turn him away from saying more; while she was saying to herself as she turned to her desk again:

“Will he never, never speak? It will come, some time, I am sure, but will he never dare?”

XVII.

Burnham returned to Shepardtown only to tell his mother that he should go to Lowell immediately. He had accepted the standing offer there, and expected to begin at once.

In vain Salome offered him an increase of salary. And as he was evidently bent on going, she would not urge him to remain in her employ. But both she and Villard could assign but one reason for his sudden determination. Both felt sure that he had offered himself to Marion and that she had refused him.

Intimate as Salome and Marion were, no discussion of love-matters ever entered their conversation. With each, love was too high and sacred a thing to be bruited about, even in a conversation between friends. In their younger days, when Marion had shyly announced her engagement to a young law-student, there had been no silly or sentimental waste of words between them on the subject. And now, perhaps because both women felt the stirrings of a deep passion in their inmost heart, no reference to the subject was ever made.

When Salome went home to lunch, she told Marion of Burnham’s resignation; but beyond a momentary look of blank astonishment Marion’s face gave no sign. And Salome’s feeling for her friend was too deep and too delicate, to ask for what she did not choose to tell voluntarily.

Burnham would have been glad to leave town without risking himself in Marion’s presence again.

He feared to trust himself with her, in the presence of the strange attraction she had held for him. But common courtesy demanded that he should call at the Mansion to leave his good-byes.

Marion heard the news of his resignation with a strange sinking of the heart. Something told her that this was the end of her foolish, happy dream. And although she loyally refused to acknowledge her doubts, the strange presaging which was something more than presentiment lurked in her heart all day, and kept her uneasy and restless. She half expected Burnham to come in and by a few words settle the question of their relations. She even asked herself, how she could best leave Shepardtown if he insisted upon taking her to Lowell.

But he did not come until evening. Then it happened, as events will in this strange world, that she was with her classes at the Hall. Salome was unusually tired that evening and had remained quietly at home. Burnham dropped in about eight o’clock, sat for half an hour with her and Mrs. Soule, and then bade them good-bye, leaving his adieu for Marion. He did not go to the Hall, although she half expected him all through the long evening. The next morning he took an early train for Lowell.

When Marion came home she heard in amazement that Burnham had been there and gone. Salome gave her his word of parting.

“And was that all?” Marion asked, with strained voice and blazing cheeks.

“That was all. Tell me, dear,” asked Salome, for the first time, “was there any trouble between you? Had you anything to do with his going?”

“No, nothing,” and Marion was gone to her room.

On the first day of May, the experiment of profit-sharing was put into effect for the first time at the Shawsheen Mills. In spite of the strike, and the enforced idleness of several months which had followed, previous to the year just passed, this had been a successful one, and when the divisions for capital, machinery and reserve fund had been set aside, there still remained a surplus which gave a dividend of four and a half per cent. In some cases, this dividend on wages made a very considerable sum, and in all cases the operatives felt a new sensation of direct responsibility and connection with the mills. Besides the addition of this money to their wages, the feeling of brotherhood and ownership it engendered was, Villard declared, quite worth the experiment.

Another circular was sent out, urging the operatives to increased care in saving and painstaking in order that the dividend might be larger another year. And the good results of the plan were directly manifest in the work of nearly every employe.

A little incident which occurred soon after this did much to convince the men of the changed relations in which they now stood towards their employers.

An overseer had been tyrannizing over the spinners until they would endure it no longer. In Mr. Greenough’s day, it is more than probable that the matter would have culminated in a lock-out or a strike.

But with the new order of things came a greater feeling of confidence in Villard. Five of the spinners, therefore, with the consent of the others, went personally to the superintendent.

After hearing their story, Villard promised to settle their grievance, and quite a discussion of economic questions concerning Capital _versus_ Labor followed.

“You men have labor to sell,” said Villard, “and we buy it. We have the products of your labor to sell, and the commission merchants and others buy it. As much courtesy and fair dealing should exist between us, as I like to have between us and the men to whom we sell. We would not take insolence from a broker’s clerk; you need not put up with the tyranny of an overseer.”

These words, repeated to the other employes, were the most powerful preventive against strikes ever tried in the Shawsheen Mills.

As the summer advanced, other new cottages were built on the hill to accommodate the growing demand from the operatives. All those built the previous year were occupied, and many of them had been bought on the installment plan. Although the community around the Shawsheen factories, as it now existed, had come suddenly into its new relation, it already represented almost an ideal one. It was already a practical lesson in social economics, which many a reformer and many a capitalist would do well to study. To be a capitalist even in a small way is to learn to respect capital. The fact that these men owned their small plots of ground and their cottages (even if they were mortgaged for the greater part of their value) was already dignifying the laborer by the tangible proof of his own value.

By this time, Salome had come to know every family who were in the employ of the mills. Was there trouble coming to any household, was there sickness, was there affliction among them, they all turned to her for help and sympathy, encouragement or congratulation. The smallest events—the birth of a baby, the progress of measles, the love affairs of the young, the querulous complaints of the old—were all of interest to her; and they, in return, appreciated her kindness and returned it with a loyalty of service that did her soul good.

Salome often declared, laughingly, that her relations to them were truly patriarchal. An atmosphere of content and friendliness prevailed where there had been jealousy and bickering.

The popular entertainments were kept up during the summer. There were concerts, at which local talent (often some operative who possessed the faculty of singing a song) appeared. Salome, herself, often presided at the piano, and Marion frequently lent her voice; their theory being that young people who took little or no vacation in summer needed some sort of recreation in summer as in winter.

Towards the close of the summer, as Salome came out of the Hall one evening, one of the young men came up to her side, and asked if he might speak to her alone.

“Certainly,” she said; “Mr. Fales, will you walk ahead with Marion, while O’Donovan walks home with me?”

She remembered the young fellow perfectly. She had seen him first during the strike, a handsome young dare-devil who seemed, in fact, to be one of the ringleaders among the younger men. When the mills had re-opened, she had taken an uncommon interest in him. He was a faithful and industrious man, and when, after a few weeks of sneering at the “new-fangled notions,” he had settled into harmony with the strange atmosphere, he had tried to improve himself in many ways. When Villard took charge of the evening school, he had held aloof for a few weeks, but at last joined one of Fales’ classes. In their entertainments and dances, he had taken leading parts; and that day, Villard had offered him the post of overseer in one of the minor departments at the mills. It was quite a step up for the young man, and Villard had been surprised at his hesitation in accepting the offer.

Salome knew all this; and as she heartily liked the fellow, she determined to influence him for his own interest.

O’Donovan was silent for some moments, after they started, doubtless being unaccustomed to escort ladies of her degree in that friendly way. But Salome soon put him at his ease by her kind and easy manner.

“And so you’re going to be promoted,” she said, after a little. “I hope you like that?”

“Miss Shepard,” he blurted out in confused speech, “that’s what I want to talk about. There’s something—I mean, I want to tell—I _ought_ to tell you something, Miss Shepard.”

“Very well. It oughtn’t to be very difficult to do that,” and her tone was cordial and encouraging.

“I don’t think I ought to take the position—unless you say so. But I expect you’ll put me in irons, if I tell you. Only—well, the other fellows would say I was a blasted fool—barrin’ your presence, miss.”

“Why, John,” exclaimed Salome wonderingly. For the young man was in a great state of excitement. “What can it be? Surely, you know you need not be afraid of me?”

“You remember the night some one tried to blow up the mill—and Mr. Greenough—and Mr. Villard——” Salome stood still and gazed through the summer moonlight at her strange escort. He did not look up, but stood like a culprit before her.

“I don’t know how you managed to find out and save ’em,” he went on. “Miss Shepard—it was me.”

“You? John O’Donovan!” For an instant there was silence.

“Go on,” she said, when she could command her voice. “Tell me all.”

“It was John Ross that planned it and put me up to it. When he died, I wondered if he hadn’t told you or Mr. Villard. Ever since then, I’ve been trying to, but somehow I couldn’t—tell Mr. Villard—nor you neither.—It was John Ross that planned it. He called me a coward and a scab—and, finally, well—you know I was a crazy fool then, with the rest of ’em.—It ain’t no use talkin’, miss, but we all discussed and brooded over things until we were half out of our heads. If any one of us had weakened first, we’d all give up, and the strike would have bu’st; but—well, ’tain’t no use talkin’, I s’pose. I’ve confessed, and you can have me put in irons, if you want to.”

“How did you come to want to tell me, John?” Salome said softly.