CHAPTER 12
Mrs. Raleigh didn’t see us as she moved to the platform. She was smiling and beaming radiantly, happy over her victory, all faces alike to her—everyone in the room, to her mind, smiling congratulations. Had she seen us, she would have recognized us, and I can’t tell what would have followed. She had given the police the name of Blanche Moore. How long she had been operating in this wise I do not know; but I do know that while she was playing this game she was also mingling with the deaf freely and attending the club meetings, where, it was evident, she was a very prominent and successful worker, this activity leading to her candidacy and election. She had come to this city the previous year, and had proved her resourcefulness in many ways, at the same time using her masterful deceit and cunning to the utter outwitting of others. But even her enemies here had never suspected her of playing a double role.
Here was a new and awful situation to handle, something very damaging against my people, and when I considered what mischief she had already done, what a clever and perfidious hypocrite she was, my blood boiled. On the other hand, what a lady she had made her followers believe her to be! From what I saw of her in the brief moments following her election she was, indeed, affable and charming. She possessed undoubted personality, an almost magnetic attraction. She appeared to be about forty. It was this personality that attracted the less thoughtful and less scrupulous ones among the local deaf. A shudder of horror passed over me when I contemplated the sort of influence this woman would have over these people if she got long control.
While Mrs. Raleigh’s back was yet turned to me, I made a sign to Dick and Bunny to leave the hall, and we managed to work our way to the door quietly, so that we would not be recognized from the platform. Our fingers flew as we hurried back to our room. We sat up an hour trying to devise a way to sidetrack this woman and end her pretty job. Finally we decided to call on the club’s president and tell him what we knew. It would be two weeks before the installation of the new officers—plenty of time to accomplish something. But I little dreamed what a Bedlam I was to make; I little dreamed what a pickle I was to get myself in.
Hossmer was the name of the club’s president, and to Hossmer’s home we went the next evening. Seated with him we approached the subject cautiously and gradually, finally surprising him with the information that we were the persons named in the newspapers who had helped the police round up the impostors, and that the crooks ’ leader was no other than Mrs. Raleigh, the new president!
“ The devil! ” Hossmer sprang to his feet. “ Do you mean to say Mrs. Raleigh was heading and teaching a gang of impostors? ”
“ Exactly—we saw her at the police station with the gang. ”
“ She’s been the leader of the opposition for nearly a year. I never liked her because of this opposition to our side of the club, but she has always impressed me as a clever woman, and she has been very active among the deaf since she came here a year ago—came from the East somewhere, New York, I think. ”
“ What are you going to do about it—what are you going to do with her? ” I asked.
“ What can I do? She is elected—she’s in power, she’ll brush me aside like a crumb on the table. I can tell the boys the situation and then it will be common knowledge; next will come a fight between Mrs. Raleigh’s side and ours, then the club will bust up again. ”
“ Let her bust up, ” broke in Bunny. “ Get rid of this woman and start a new club. ”
“ We’ve done that thing before, and the rejected member in time gets back and then later on gets things split up again. ”
“ But you’re the boss until Mrs. Raleigh is installed, put forth Dick; and you can do something by a quick move. ”
Hossmer paused a moment to reflect. Then a brilliant idea came forth.
“ Boys, keep out of it. Tackle Mrs. Raleigh and you’ll be tackling a porcupine. Let her alone, and we’ll go and see the minister. ”
Bunny broke out with a kind of forked lightning sign as if he had been insulted.
The minister! What good would it do to see a minister in a case like this? It was a matter for the club to handle—the local deaf in general. Then, as I reflected, I recalled the fact that those crooks had been fined and ordered out of the city. How was it that Mrs. Raleigh was still among us? The next evening I knew.
Bunny finally gave in, calmed his storm of forked lightning, and advised that Dick and I accompany Hossmer on his mission “ to see the minister. ” I had never had much to do with ministers since I was a little fellow back in England. There, my father would often entertain our rector over weekends when he would make our village in his diocesan rounds. He was a beautiful soul, and the impression he made on my young mind had remained with me, that of a gentle, lovely, reverend thing, unworldly, yet bold and brave, his feelings always under control. I never heard a sudden harsh word from him. So now I was confused. I could not associate my ideas—I could not connect this woman of duplicity and a man of spirituality and moral rectitude. I wanted Mrs. Raleigh brought to task before the club. I wanted her punished and put out of our way. Reforming her was not in my mind, just then, anyway. I was something of a spiritual rebel, more of a lawyer in thought than a priest.
The next evening we three were consulting the Reverend Charles Meade, a deaf minister to the deaf.
“ Mrs. Raleigh, my dear friends, ” began the minister, after listening patiently to my story, “ is to be pitied and prayed for. ” (Bunny smiled, sardonically.) “ I fear she does not realize what she does… ” (I fear the same.) “ I am trying to bring her to a sense of realization. That I have succeeded after securing her release from the law is evident by her truly repentant heart. ” (I read “ amen ” as Bunny’s lips moved.) “ As one of my flock and a regular attendant at services, I cannot deal harshly with her. You say she has been elected president of your club. That should bring her face to face with moral obligation, and far from advising you to revoke the ballot, I should encourage her in her work and arouse in her a strong sense of her responsibilities; and so lead her up and onward to better ways and self mastery. ”
My heart sank as I watched his clean and delicate hands, calmly, gently, sweetly, conveying his thoughts. I could not see it as this man had put it; I was in no mood to see Mrs. Raleigh thus pardoned and consoled. I wanted this man to come forth in wrath and handle the case accordingly. But it was plain that the Reverend Charles Meade had no intention of offending one of his flock.
He went on to explain that he had been summoned to the police station to see the prisoner, on her calling for him, thus he was aware of the situation before our visit.
So the minister would do nothing; and Hossmer wanted to let things run awhile to avert a war. I felt that something ought to be done, even if I, a newcomer, had to do it.
We left the rectory.
“ Now you see, Mickey, how it goes. If I did anything that woman would raise the devil and knock us all—she’s got a tongue, and it wags crooked. Rev. Meade won’t do anything—he’s for redemption, and peace among his flock. But I’ll think it all over and try to find a cure. ”
We finally parted, Hossmer going his way and we three ours. Getting back in our room again, we threw off our clothes and went to bed—disgusted.
The next morning I told the boys I would go to the club the following Saturday, ask for the floor and tell the story. That bird should have her feathers plucked. Bunny warned me not to. Dick was strong in remonstration and suggested that we just spread the information among the deaf as we met them, thus putting the job in their hands.
The way the boys looked on the matter was simply born of their larger experience among the deaf; mine was the way of the well- meaning but less informed person, what Homer Lea would call “ the valor of ignorance. ” A tenderfoot will venture where a cowboy will not, and if he succeeds, crown himself with glory in the eyes of the tribesmen, who mistook his folly for daring and bravery; but if he fails he is just plain fool. I didn’t know the ways of the deaf as did my two companions; so I went ahead with my resolve and got myself in a pickle.
The next Saturday night was very stormy, with wind and a hard rain that changed to snow. The change in the weather frustrated our plans, as no meeting of the club was to be thought of. On the other hand this storm was the means of gaining time for Mrs. Raleigh, who, since Hossmer had talked to his friends about her, had got wind of the matter. Then, ready for emergency, as ever, she went to work, and when the next Saturday came, the date for the installation of the new officers, she was on hand, ready for me, and in her own way, armed to the teeth.
Bunny, Dick, and I arrived at the club as Hossmer was about to open the meeting. I asked for the platform before business should begin, and as the president was not on the side that had elected Mrs. Raleigh, he gave me the floor. He had passed me a quick and unobserved warning, that, as I was a newcomer, I should be cautious!
Eight o’clock. The room was called to order. Hossmer announced that Michael Dunmore wished to address the club, and as it was a serious matter he had in mind the request was granted. All was quiet as I took the floor, but throughout that expectant crowd there were no eyes so riveted upon me as those of my friends, Dick and Bunny. They felt the coming hurricane.
I began my talk with a bit of humor about Bunny’s Pullman ride into our city, and so aroused amused interest. I told about the metamorphosis of the “ nigger ”* in the bathtub, how he grew into a respectable white boy. Then I did a little feeling for sympathy, and explained how we had subsisted on short rations back in the circus town until the Mystery Lady helped us out; and how we were treated here, in their own city, by the employers. Now I had them all interested, and sympathetically aroused. I believed I had won friends; I was conscious of unusual attention. It was my psychological moment. I declared myself to be one of those who helped the police expose the impostors, and how it had led to the raid on “ headquarters. ” I expected a commotion from Mrs. Raleigh’s quarters. There was none—all was quiet. Mrs. Raleigh was beaming on me—composed, and quietly waiting. There was handclapping, and I felt encouraged. I paused for it to subside, then I boldly came forth with the astounding information that the leader of the gang of impostors—the “ Blanche Moore ” of the newspapers—was no other than Mrs. Raleigh, whom they had elected president of their club!
As a cannon turns on its pivot, so all those heads in front of me, as one, turned until all eyes rested on Mrs. Raleigh, and shot their gaze of mingled astonishment and anger. And how masterfully that woman met that gaze! Even when the room rose and fingers flew, she was calm. Hossmer called for order, flashing the lights off and on. Soon order was restored, and Mrs. Raleigh asked for the floor.
She did not say one word in self-defense, nor make any expression of apology. She did not mention the impostor business. She was as cool and collected as one might be, fresh from some pleasant task. I saw in this another revelation of her wonderful cleverness and diplomacy. She would disarm her audience without a word and make them believe I had just told a capital story! All evil thoughts about her would thus be instantly dispelled, leaving the minds of her listeners open for a ready reception of what was to follow. Here, indeed, was a character to arouse both admiration and amazement, praise and condemnation.
It was clear that in the two weeks interval following our talk with Hossmer and the minister that Mrs. Raleigh had been duly apprised of the whole situation through her friend, the Reverend Charles Meade, perhaps, or by the way of general whispered gossip whose voice grew stronger as it spread farther. So Mrs. Raleigh got to work to lash me good, and Dick and Bunny, too. By quick communication with friends of hers back in New York state, she had obtained enough twisted information about us to make it a simple matter further to pervert it and put us, me in particular, in a fearful light. According to her I was a cast-out from society, with no family connections. I had been adopted and found to be so evil and unruly that I had to leave; that I had been expelled from school for numerous wrong doings, found drunk on the streets of New York and had served a jail sentence for theft! That I had formed the acquaintance of a notoriously bad companion in the person of Rufus Ford (alas, poor Bunny!) whom she meant to have apprehended for repeatedly stealing rides on the freight trains and going about like a vagrant, thus injuring the deaf! She flayed Dick as a parasite, always seeking and getting and borrowing, never repaying, and never doing any good—that we all were a source of trouble. Then she wound up by startling us all, telling us that during the storm of last Saturday a number of the deaf, her friends, had come to the club, enough to form a quorum, had taken matters into their own hands and installed the new board! The board then and there had outlawed us and declared against our remaining in the club! Furthermore, she threatened to make life unpleasant for us if we didn’t clear out of the city—and stay out!
Whew!
I remember, somewhere in my Cicero, while at college, that a certain Catiline, facing Cicero in the Roman senate, had had the uncomfortable experience of seeing the people move away from him. This is what Bunny, Dick and I experienced. Needless to say there was no further business that night. Near-fights occurred. Ladies left the hall. At last some of the boys came up to us. Dick tried to explain, but could do little; no one knew what to accept and what to reject. I was too shocked and amazed to say anything. Across the room Mrs. Raleigh and her followers were gathered, she was the center of animated discussion. Again and again I caught an angry eye darting at me, an unfriendly look, or a challenging stare. It was time to beat it and we three slipped away and were soon back in our friendly room.
It was Bunny who first spoke when the lights were switched on. Said he, dryly, “ Does either one of you know the address of the local Audubon Society? ”
“ What are you up to now, Bunny? ” was Dick’s reply, eyebrows raised.
“ Oh, nothing—just want to report a new kind of bird—a kind of harpie. ”