DEFICIENT SAINTS
DEFICIENT SAINTS
A Tale of Maine
BY
MARSHALL SAUNDERS
AUTHOR OF
"BEAUTIFUL JOE," "ROSE À CHARLITTE,"
"THE KING OF THE PARK," ETC.
"Keep who will the city's alleys,
Take the smooth-shorn plain,
Give to us the cedar valleys,
Rocks, and hills of Maine!"
[Illustration]
LONDON
GEORGE BELL AND SONS
1903
TO
THE CITIZENS
OF
BEAUTIFUL BANGOR
THIS STORY IS RESPECTFULLY DEDICATED
BY THE AUTHOR
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER PAGE
I. THE ELECT LADY AND HER DEATH-BOOK 11
II. AN UNEXPECTED DAUGHTER-IN-LAW 24
III. TO HIM THE WORLD WAS GAY 34
IV. A FAVOUR SOLICITED 51
V. A PASTORAL VISIT 62
VI. STERN HER FACE AND MASCULINE HER STRIDE 72
VII. A DRIVE WITH A STRANGE GUIDE 81
VIII. OF MIXED BLOOD 98
IX. TELL ME YOUR SECRETS 111
X. A REFORM IN THE BILL OF FARE 122
XI. IN THE MIDST OF LIFE WE ARE IN DEATH 136
XII. IT IS ALL TRUE 148
XIII. A DINNER-PARTY 162
XIV. UNQUIET HEARTS 178
XV. A FAMILY CEMENTED BY LOVE 191
XVI. A PARTIAL SURRENDER 200
XVII. CAPTAIN WHITE CHOOSES A MONUMENT 217
XVIII. A STEP IN ADVANCE 230
XIX. THE CHURCH OF THE UNITED BRETHREN LOSES ITS PASTOR 243
XX. BURGLARS AT FRENCH CROSS 254
XXI. MISS GASTONGUAY INTERVIEWS HER PRISONER 266
XXII. CRIMINAL RECORDS 280
XXIII. WHEN A MAN'S HAPPY 293
XXIV. AN INVITATION TO A PICNIC 307
XXV. IN THE FRENCH CROSS WOOD 316
XXVI. THE PICNIC AND THE OLD PRISON WELL 322
XXVII. H. ROBINSON AND HIS REVELATION 336
XXVIII. CAPTAIN WHITE'S BALL PLAY 350
XXIX. NEWS OF THE WANDERER 363
XXX. THE RETURN OF THE WANDERER 369
XXXI. H. ROBINSON AGAIN 378
XXXII. A BRANCH CUT OFF 390
XXXIII. THE PURITANS HAVE TRIUMPHED! 406
XXXIV. THE SON OF THE MORNING 418
DEFICIENT SAINTS.
CHAPTER I.
THE ELECT LADY AND HER DEATH-BOOK.
In the dining-room of the old stone Mercer mansion in the town of
Rossignol, Me., Mrs. Hippolyta Prymmer, sanctified vessel and uncommon
saint, charter member of the church of the United Brethren, chief
leader in religious work, and waggishly nicknamed by the ungodly about
her "the elect lady," sat looking earnestly at her death-book.
This death-book was her never-failing source of interest and chastened
entertainment. In it she had enrolled the names of the various friends
of whom she had been deprived by death, and for its enlargement and
adornment she collected photographs, cuttings from newspapers, and
items of information, with an assiduity superior to that of some of
her acquaintances, who prepared scrap-books merely for purposes of
diversion and amusement.
The covers of the book were ornamented with two silver plates engraved
with the names and ages of her two deceased husbands,--Sylvester Mercer
and Zebedee Prymmer. These plates had been taken from the coffins
of the two worthy men before they had been lowered to their graves.
Wedged under each plate were locks of hair shorn from the heads of the
dead men. Sylvester, according to his coffin plate, had been a man in
the prime of life. His lock of hair was soft and brown, while that
of Zebedee Prymmer, whose age was given as sixty-five, was stiff and
grizzled.
Mrs. Prymmer did not quail as her eye ran over these somewhat ghastly
souvenirs. She even sighed gently, and with eyes partly closed,--for
she nearly knew the contents of the book by heart,--repeated softly
some lines addressed to herself, written by Zebedee Prymmer before
death, but worded as if they had been penned after his flight to
regions above.
"Mourn not, oh loved, oh cherished dear,
I have no longer foes to fear,
From here above, far in the sky,
I see the pit wherein they'll lie.
"They digged around me in the dust,
But Providence sustained the Just,
Come soon and join the dear upright,
And triumph over sons of spite."
Mrs. Prymmer, musing enjoyably over these lines, had her attention
distracted by her cat, who was mewing around her feet, turning his
sleek face up to her sleek face, and pretending that he thought it was
breakfast-time instead of bedtime.
"I sha'n't give you any milk," she said, severely, "you had enough for
your supper; go to bed."
The cat fled down-stairs, and Mrs. Prymmer gazed across the room at
the clock. The sight of her round gray eyes was undimmed. All her
bodily faculties were in a good state of preservation, and undeterred
by the mournful fact that she had laid two husbands in the grave, she
was, perhaps, by no means averse to taking a third one. In the course
of time she would probably have another offer, for Rossignol was a
marrying-place, and she was somewhat of a belle among elderly widowers,
being still good-looking in spite of the artificial and unpleasing
compression of her lips, and the two lines up and down the corners of
her mouth.
She began to wonder just how her son would take the news of another
marriage on her part. She was a little afraid of this son, although
she loved him better than any one else in the world. He was the only
living person admitted into her death-book, and drawing his photograph
from between the leaves, she looked at it half lovingly, half
apprehensively. It was a not unstriking face that confronted her. He
was a curious combination, this boy of hers,--half Englishman, half
Yankee. His tall, firmly built figure, his reserve, and his pale face
were a legacy from his father, who was of direct English ancestry; his
business ability and calculating ways, and his granite-coloured eyes,
that so swiftly and unerringly measured his fellow men with respect
to their usefulness or uselessness to him, were direct gifts to him
through his mother from a generation or two of New England traders.
She wondered once more just how he would look and what he would say if
some one were to observe suddenly to him, "So I hear your mother is
going to be married again."
Her plump shoulders quivered nervously, and she looked deeper into his
fathomless eyes. Probably he would be annoyed at first, but in time he
would calm down, and would go on living with her and a third husband
just as he had lived with her and a second one.
"He never liked Zebedee," she reflected, comfortably, "yet he was
always respectful to him. He's a pretty good boy is Justin," and she
passed one hand caressingly over the pale, composed face, and wished
earnestly that he would come home from the long and mysterious journey
that he had undertaken some weeks ago.
The house was very quiet now that he was away. A cousin who boarded
with her was also absent, and her solitary maid servant, who should
have been in bed, was roaming the streets with a sailor lover.
"Half-past ten," said Mrs. Prymmer, in a voice that boded no good to
the loitering maid, "and her hour is ten sharp. There she is,--the
witch," as a ring at the bell resounded through the silent house.
She got up and went quickly through the hall. "Mary!" she said as she
opened the door. "Mary!"
There was something so aggravating in her tone that it checked the
apology on the lips of the belated girl, and made her toss her head
angrily.
"Mary," repeated her mistress, warningly, "if this happens again I
shall consider it my duty to dismiss you without a character."
The maid hurried up-stairs, her back respectful, her face working
vigorously as she made mouths at an imaginary mistress in front of her.
Mrs. Prymmer was about to follow her when her attention was caught by
a sound of sleigh-bells coming from the snowy street. The old stone
house, in common with most of its neighbours, was perched on a bank
some distance from the street, and was approached by several flights of
steps cut into the terraces before it.
A sleigh was drawn up to the pavement below, and slowly descending
from it was her son, whom she had supposed to be in California. She
held her breath with pleasure. She had got him back again, her one
and only child, her son by her first marriage,--young Justin Mercer,
junior deacon in the church of the United Brethren, the hope of the
older members of the flock and the model of the rising generation. In
unbounded pride she noted his firm step, his unruffled appearance, the
uprightness of his figure, and the cool flash of the eye behind the
glasses that he always wore.
Instead of looking like one arriving home from a journey, he had rather
the appearance of one just about to leave home, and as calmly as if he
had seen her a few hours before he bent his tall figure to bestow a
filial embrace upon her.
In a sudden upsurging of maternal affection she responded warmly and
involuntarily, until the remembrance of his abrupt departure made her
draw back and survey him silently.
"Are you not glad to have me back?" he asked, with a slight smile.
"Yes, though your going away was none of the pleasantest," she said, in
an injured voice, while with the tips of her fingers she arranged on
her temples the thick crimped hair slightly disturbed by his caress.
"I am sorry for it, mother," he said, with the same curious smile, "and
I regret to state that, unpleasant as it was, you may find it was not
equal to my return."
"What do you mean?" she said, peevishly, "and why doesn't that man
fetch in your things?"
"I told him to hold his horses until I came back. I have a present for
you," and he turned and went down the steps while his mother returned
to the shelter of the porch.
Suddenly she became as rigid as the door-post behind her. The present
was taking on the shape of all things in the world most hateful to her.
A young girl of medium height was coming up the steps, and bending over
her in a protecting attitude was her son Justin.
They paused for an instant before her. Mrs. Prymmer had a brief
confused vision of a big, beautiful wax doll whose limpid eyes shone
out of a mist of light hair, then her son flashed her a swift glance,
and seeing that he could hope for no response, laid a hand on the
shoulder of the vision and withdrew it.
Mrs. Prymmer, brushing by the cabman who was staggering in under the
weight of a trunk, marched solemnly into the hall, opened the door of
the parlour, and, lighting the gas, sat down in an armchair of imposing
proportions and awaited an explanation.
Her son had conducted his companion to the dining-room. She heard a
few low-spoken words, then his heavy step came through the hall, and,
entering the room, he sat before her.
"I don't know what some women would call this," she said, compressing
her lips till there was nothing but a thin streak of red between them,
"but I call it an insult."
"It is not intended as an insult," he said. "Perhaps if you will wait
till I explain--"
"You can't explain away the fact that that is a woman," replied Mrs.
Prymmer, pointing an accusing finger toward the next room.
No, he could not. With all the words that he could utter, with all the
stock of logic at his command, Justin Mercer could not disprove the
fact that in the room beyond them was a young and uncommonly beautiful
woman.
"What do you mean by saying that she is a present for me?" asked his
discomfited mother. "I have one girl now. I suppose this is some
creature you have picked up on your travels."
Justin Mercer was not a man given to unseemly mirth, yet at this
disdainful remark he made a sound in his throat closely approaching a
laugh. "Did you look at her, mother?"
Mrs. Prymmer for a few instants forgot her vengeance in her curiosity.
It was no servant, but a lady that had passed her in the doorway. The
delicate face, with its clear-cut features and limpid eyes, was a
refined and not a vulgar one.
"Who is she?" she asked, peremptorily.
"She is my wife," he said, quietly.
"Your wife," gasped Mrs. Prymmer, and she half rose from her chair,
then staggered into it again, and laid her hand against the high back
for support, while all the furniture in the room, presided over by her
son's sober face, whirled slowly by her in a distracted procession.
"Shall I get you a glass of water?" he asked, sympathetically.
She made a prohibitory gesture. This was only the reflex action of the
blow struck when first she had seen the young girl accompanying him up
the steps. She knew then that he had brought home a wife. Moistening
her dry lips with her tongue so that she might compass the words, she
articulated, "This is the fruit of disobedience."
Her son did not reply to her, but there was no sign of regret on his
face, no word of apology on his tongue. He had found the fruit sweet,
and not bitter,--he had plucked it in defiance of her well-known
wishes. She had lost the little boy that she had led by the hand
for years,--the young man that had lingered by her side, apparently
indifferent to all feminine society but her own. She had lost him for
ever, and, making a motion of her plump hands as if she were washing
him and his affairs from them, she got up and moved toward the door.
"Don't you want to hear about my journey?" he asked, kindly.
She did indeed want to hear. She was suffering from a burning
inquisitiveness, yet she affected indifference, and said, coldly, "I
do, if you will tell me the truth."
"Did I ever tell you a lie?"
"No, but I daresay you will begin now,--'by their fruits ye shall know
them.' I thought you were never going to get married."
"I never said so."
"You acted it."
"You had better sit down, and I will tell you how it happened," he
said, soothingly.
Mrs. Prymmer hesitated, then, dominated by his slightly imperious
manner and her own ungovernable curiosity, she took on the air of a
suffering martyr, and reseated herself.
There was a large mirror over the mantelpiece, and the young man,
catching in it a glimpse of the contrast between his own pale face and
the ruddy one of his mother, murmured, "You are very fresh-looking for
fifty-five years."
It was not like Justin Mercer to make a remark about the personal
appearance of man, woman, or child. His mother glanced at him in
surprise, then for a brief space of time was mollified by his approval
of her comfortable appearance, although she murmured a stern reference
to gray hairs that are brought down by sorrow to the grave.
"Your face is full," he went on, in his composed voice, "and your hair
is thick and glossy like a girl's, and your eyes are bright,--as bright
as Derrice's there--"
The mention of his wife's name was inopportune. "Is that what you call
her?" asked his mother, with a scornful compression of the lips.
"Yes, Derrice Lancaster."
Mrs. Prymmer's countenance grew purple. "She is not a daughter of that
man?"
"She is."
"Help, Lord, for the godly man ceaseth," murmured the lady, upon whom
these repeated blows were beginning to have the effect of inducing
irrelevancy of Scripture quotations.
"If you like, I will tell you from the first," said her son.
"Do you want her to hear?" asked Mrs. Prymmer, with a glance toward the
sliding doors that divided the two rooms.
The young man's face changed quickly, and muttering, "It would be just
like her to listen,--the little witch," he got up and approached the
doors.
"Hello," said a mischievous voice, and he caught a gleam of bright
eyes and a smiling face at the gaping crack. Hastily opening the doors,
he passed through, and, firmly closing them behind him, stood over the
beautiful but slightly unformed and undeveloped figure sitting on the
sofa, that was drawn close up to the doors.
"Derrice," he said, reprovingly.
"What a trying time you are having with your mamma," she said, saucily.
"I was just about to interrupt. I want to go to bed."
"Very well," he said, submissively, and, preceding her into the hall,
he picked up a small leather bag.
Mrs. Prymmer, peering out of the front room, saw them go by,--her son
with the girl's cloak thrown over his shoulder, his head inclined
toward her, as he talked in a low voice.
"Bewitched!" she exclaimed, furiously, and, creeping to the door-sill,
she listened to their further movements.
Ever since his childhood her son had occupied a large room at the back
of the house overlooking the garden. Mrs. Prymmer heard him open the
door of this room and ask his wife to stand still while he found a
match. Then there was a silence, and she pictured the girl's critical
glance running over the muffled furniture, the covered bed, and the
drawn blinds.
Presently there was the sound of the strange voice in the hall, "I
cannot sleep in that room. It is damp, and the sheets are clammy."
"But, Derrice," said her son's clear tones in remonstrance.
"I am not mistaken," repeated the girl, "where are your other
sleeping-rooms?"
"If Micah is at home we haven't any," he said, decidedly. "Most of our
bedrooms are shut up."
"Then I shall have to sit up all night or go to a hotel," said the
girl, with equal decision.
Mrs. Prymmer felt herself called upon to save the family reputation.
She stepped into the hall, and in a voice choking with wrath called up
the staircase, "Micah isn't home,--put her in his room."
The girl looked over the railing at her. It seemed to Mrs. Prymmer that
her eyes were rolling mischievously. "Thank you," she said, sweetly,
then she retired, and her disconcerted mother-in-law went back to the
parlour.