Boston a novel
that if I raise fifty thousand dollars and pay it to these politicians,
I can have the case against our two boys dropped?”
“I mean exactly that. And there’s another moral problem for a
blue-blood lady who has lived a sheltered life, and listened to
her husband, the governor, make fine speeches about their noble
Commonwealth!”
X
The telephone rang; Betty calling. She and Joe had had a successful
time at the carpenters’ union, had got a twenty-five dollar
contribution. Now Betty was going somewhere else. She could not explain
over the phone, but she would be late, and Grannie was not to wait up
for her. Go to sleep. She hung up, and Lee Swenson took his departure,
saying that he had put enough burdens upon her mind for one evening. He
would not ask anything definite, she would need time to think matters
over. Cornelia thanked him.
She did not go to sleep, but sat in the Morris chair which the lawyer
had vacated, and moral whirlwinds seized her thoughts and flung them
this way and that. She, Cornelia Thornwell, widow of the sternest
governor that Massachusetts had had for a century, the most ruthless
punisher of lawbreakers and corruptionists--she had sat in this room
and listened to a proposition that she should conspire to commit
perjury! Yes, that was it, no use mincing words. She had heard, and
from now on would be accessory before the fact to whatever might be
done! She had not risen and denounced the proposer and ordered him from
her home; no, she had hesitated--which in itself was guilt--and when he
had told her it was confidential, she had assented, which was double
guilt!
Punishment for Cornelia Thornwell, feminist and suffragist! Now she
knew what the wise men had meant when they told her that woman’s place
was the home! Woman’s place was the Sewing Circle, where they made
long flannel petticoats which the poor would not wear! Woman’s place
was the Parish House of Trinity Church in the City of Boston, where
perfect ladies gathered to arrange for visitation of the sick and care
of widows and orphans! If a lady insisted on going out into the harsh
and wicked world, this was what she ran into--perjury, subornation of
perjury, conspiracy to commit perjury! Cornelia saw these awful phrases
in the headlines of all the newspapers of Boston.
The soul of Bartolomeo Vanzetti came to keep watch with her, and share
her worries. Bart did not sleep soundly in his prison cell; he lay
awake and brooded over the case, and thought of letters to write, and
suggestions to make to friends and lawyers. So now he came in spirit,
and Cornelia asked him all those questions she would never ask in the
flesh. What did he want her to do? What would best serve his cause, the
“joostice” for which he lived?
She questioned her own soul. What was right, what was wrong? To stand
by the stern moral code of Puritan Boston--which all of them preached,
and some of them practiced? Say that the law was sacred, and an oath
was binding before God, and it was better for men to die than to break
God’s law? Easy to say that, when it concerned yourself; something in
you would take pleasure in dying for a code. But when it was some other
man’s life, did you have the right to force your code upon him?
Vanzetti had proved that he did not subscribe to that code, because he
had told lies to the police. But then, he faced the same problem as
Cornelia; it wasn’t for himself that he lied, but for others. Sometime
previously Cornelia had put to him a very grave question. There
appeared to be much more evidence against Sacco than against him, so it
might be wise to demand separate trials, and save at least one of them.
But Bart had turned the idea down without a moment’s hesitation. “Save
Nick, he got the wife and kids!” That was his attitude, from first to
last.
Something easy to understand--to lie for a wife and kids! In contrast
with that, Cornelia’s ideal seemed far-off, cold and aloof. In this
world truth was a luxury, denied to all but the fastidious, the
ivory-tower personalities, who had no hearts and no sympathies! Who
were good at shutting their eyes and refusing to know uncomfortable
facts!
Cornelia thought over Lee Swenson’s statement, that her life had been
lived among people who were not accused of crimes. A careful and
lawyer-like phrase! Not those who did not commit crimes, but those who
were not accused! Cornelia searched her memory, and forced herself to
face reality. Did her sort of people really refuse to lie? The case of
Jerry Walker leaped to her mind, because she had just been talking to
her son-in-law about it. Had Rupert and Henry lied to Jerry Walker, in
order to get his property away from him? Of course they had! Henry had
even lied to Cornelia, and treated it as a matter of course. They had
lied to their associates, and their associates were now accusing them
of it--so Cornelia had learned from family gossip.
Sooner or later Rupert and Henry were going upon the witness-stand, to
be cross-questioned as to what they had done. Were they going to admit
their conspiracy to take ten million dollars’ worth of property from
Jerry Walker? Were they going to say that the law was sacred, and that
an oath was binding before God? Of course they were not! What they were
going to do was to follow the Lee Swenson formula--sit down with their
lawyers and frame up an elaborate story, learn every detail of it by
heart, and go upon the witness-stand and lie like troopers--or, in the
modern equivalent, like policemen who know that it is part of their job
to swear to whatever the chief tells them! Rupert and Henry would do
that, and all State Street would know they were doing it, and take it
as a good joke, nothing worse.
XI
A world of lies, a world run on the basis of lies, so that when you
talked about truth-telling you were a Utopian and a dreamer; worse yet,
a traitor to your friends, to your business associates, your family,
your class! A fastidious person, an ivory-tower esthete, preferring
your own peace of mind to the rights of those who had taken you into
their confidence, assuming that you would play the game as everybody
else played it, for your profit and comfort as well as their own!
Lies! Lies! It was the autumn of the year 1920, and a great political
campaign was at its climax; America had ceased to be a republic, it
was an absolute monarchy, its ruler the Prince of Lies! That little
man, “Silent Cal,” whom Cornelia knew so well as governor of the
Commonwealth, was being elected vice-president of the United States by
a lie! He who had run away from the police-strike was being rewarded
for breaking the police-strike! His backers had managed to suppress
the report of the citizens’ committee, which had worked so hard to
avoid a strike, and had told the whole truth; instead, they had made
a nursery-legend, such as the pious Parson Weems had invented about
George Washington and the cherry-tree!
And worse yet, look at the man they were making president! Cornelia’s
mind was a witch’s caldron, with the tales Joe Randall brought home;
for Joe knew the newspaper men, and picked up the gossip which could
not be printed, and used it to spice the meals he ate in the little
apartment. Joe’s mind had turned rancid, after four months’ contact
with American morals and American justice; he found his pleasure
in believing the most shocking things about the great and noble
persons of the land. This Senator Harding, who was to be the next
president, had been picked out by the oil-men, who were planning to
loot the oil-reserves of the nation; he was handsome and dignified,
a magnificent statesman, when you read about him in the capitalist
newspapers--but Joe called him an old booze-fighter, a small-town rake,
whose idea of entertainment was to sit in his shirt-sleeves and chew
tobacco and play poker all night with his cronies, “the Ohio gang.” His
managers had had to get a newspaper man to write his speeches for him,
because, when he was turned loose for himself, he used polysyllables
like a Negro preacher, with no idea what they meant.
And worse yet, he traveled round the country with a young girl who was
his mistress! He stayed in rooms in various cheap hotels with her, and
when the house-detectives ventured to object, he would present them
with his card! It was something entirely new in American history, and
Joe Randall turned his fancy loose to play with the theme; some day, he
said, the American people would build a memorial to this oil-statesman,
and when the radicals came into power they would carve an inscription
across the front of it, and set it with flaming red rubies: “Nan
Britton’s Boy!”
XII
A cruel, cruel world! Impossible to live in a place where such
wickedness was done! A sudden weariness seized Cornelia, a failing of
the heart; it was time for her to quit, to move on and leave the world
to a new generation, which had stronger nerves and could face such
issues. The runaway grandmother would run back to shelter.
The fire in the grate had burned nearly out, and the room was growing
cold, the chill creeping into the bones of the old woman sitting in
the chair. She looked at the clock; it was after two in the morning,
and suddenly she realized that Betty had not come home. What could the
child be doing at that hour?
Lee Swenson had asked her not to tell Betty about these problems. But
that was hardly fair. Betty had come to be her mainstay--she realized
it all of a sudden. Betty was young, Betty was not afraid, Betty could
face any facts there were! To try to hide anything from her would be
one more deception, in a world which seemed to be made of nothing else.
There was a sound in the hall, and Cornelia turned her head. A key in
the latch, and the door opened. There was Betty, rosy, shining from a
walk in the chill night air. “Why, Grannie! You waited up for me! You
shouldn’t have done that!” She closed the door, and came to Cornelia,
brimming over with affection and concern. “You poor dear, you let the
fire die down, you are cold!”
Betty herself was warm; the blood flooded her cheeks and throat, it
came and went, like northern lights in the winter sky, a lovely thing
to watch. Her eyes shone--something must have happened to-night, they
were so much alive. Such an eager face, a smile with two rows of white
teeth, even and smooth, almost translucent. She wore a soft brown
coat, with a neckpiece of fur, matching her hair, her eyes--a picture
that people turned to look at on the street. So delicate, so quick and
sensitive--and she knew about this wickedness, she could face it and
not quail from it, not feel old and chilly, ready to die!
“Grannie dear, what is it? You’re worried about something!” She could
read Cornelia’s mind as if she entered it. “What is bothering you? Has
Lee Swenson been telling you something discouraging?” Then quickly,
“Don’t let him frighten you, my dear! We’re going to get those boys
off! Is he afraid about them?”
“No, dear--”
“Then what did he say? Tell me, what?”
“We talked about many things, this case and others. It is a terrible
world, Betty dear.”
“Yes, they frame people; and then sometimes, people have done
something, too! It’s hard to tell which is which, and your poor dear
head is addled with trying to know it all! Is that it?”
“Mr. Swenson didn’t want me to talk--”
Betty laughed gayly. “The old rascal! He thinks he’s going to keep
secrets from Joe and me! I know, it’s very dangerous, and we mustn’t
whisper. But you tell him, I know what’s in your head before you do,
and he can’t run this case without Joe and me. This is a young folk’s
job, believe me!”
Betty shed her coat, and the little brown bowl of a hat trimmed with
fur, and knelt down and put her warm cheek against her grandmother’s