THE CHURCH OF THE UNITED BRETHREN LOSES ITS PASTOR.
Up at French Cross Miss Gastonguay was playing dominoes with Aurelia
Sinclair, who could never be induced to engage in a game of cards.
Chelda sat at a little distance, her hands folded in her lap, a
far-away look in her eyes.
Presently Miss Gastonguay good-humouredly addressed her. "You appear so
still, child, that I guess you must be restless. Did you expect any one
this evening?"
"No, aunt."
"I thought Mr. Huntington said he would be up," observed Aurelia,
timidly.
One of Chelda's peculiarities was a most Indian-like unsmilingness.
However, at this remark, she favoured her guest with her nearest
approach to an amused contraction of her features.
"What do you want, Prosperity?" asked Miss Gastonguay, pointing a
double-six domino at him as he appeared in the doorway.
"Miss Chelda, ma'am. The old black woman from the parsonage would like
to see her."
Chelda rose, and walked carelessly to a small reception-room off the
hall. She only stayed a short time, and, on coming back, twirled a
small note in her fingers, and sank into her former seat.
"There is no one ill at the parsonage, is there?" asked Miss Gastonguay.
"No, aunt.--Mr. Huntington has gone to Boston. Aurelia was right.
He did speak of coming here this evening, and has written a line to
explain his non-appearance."
"This is surely very sudden," said Miss Gastonguay, curiously. "What
does he say?"
"You may read the note."
"Read it to me, child, I haven't my glasses."
* * * * *
"'DEAR MISS CHELDA:--I am leaving for Boston with Mr. Mercer. I will
write from there and express my regret at not seeing you and your aunt.
"'Yours truly, B. H.'"
* * * * *
"Very abrupt," remarked Miss Gastonguay, "and very much in the nature
of a farewell. Do you suppose he is not coming back? Taking Justin
Mercer with him looks like it. That worthy young man may want to convey
his body around the world by way of doing good to his soul."
Chelda did not venture any supposition of her own. She stared curiously
at Aurelia, whose face had gone from crimson to a deathly pallor.
Miss Gastonguay's anxious and critical attention was diverted from her
niece. "Good gracious!" she exclaimed, "the girl is going to faint."
Before she finished her sentence Aurelia had fainted, and falling
forward crashed the inlaid domino table to the floor, and broke a
portion of its dainty top.
"Here, Prosperity," called Miss Gastonguay, "some water quick,--and
take that table away so she won't see it. Bother the girl, why doesn't
she pray and fast less and eat more, so as to keep strength in her
body."
In a few minutes Aurelia revived, and in a pitiful, trembling voice
apologised for the trouble she had given.
"Fudge and nonsense!" said Miss Gastonguay. "We all have times when
if we don't faint we'd like to. Here, drink this; and, Prosperity, go
telephone to Doctor Sinclair that his daughter is going to stay here
all night. Don't say she doesn't feel well."
"I had rather go home," said Aurelia, feebly.
"You'll stay here. We'll put you to sleep in the Marie Antoinette room
off mine, and I'll call to see how you are through the night. Chelda,
you see to getting her to bed now. I have some letters to write."
Chelda willingly assumed the care of the suffering girl, who had
suddenly become possessed of a peculiar attraction for her. Her black
eyes fastened themselves on the pale face on the sofa cushion. Not a
look, not an action escaped them, and she made not the slightest effort
to control her eagerness as she hung over her guest.
"Your distress is mental, not physical," she murmured, when Miss
Gastonguay and Prosperity had left them. "Tell me about it."
Aurelia, naturally frank, was in her state of exhaustion doubly open to
persuasion, and yet her bloodless lips could not frame the secret of
her distress.
"It is Mr. Huntington," said Chelda, "you are sorry to think he has
gone away."
"Sorry!" and Aurelia made a weak gesture expressive of lack of
appropriateness in the adjective. Then, coaxed and allured by Chelda,
she whispered a tearful tale of a hopeless infatuation for the young
clergyman.
"Did he know it?" asked Chelda.
Aurelia opened wide her innocent blue eyes. "Oh, no, no,--how could he?"
Chelda pressed her handkerchief to her lips. Aurelia herself was the
only person in Rossignol unaware of her childishly open admiration
for the handsome young man. "How could you reconcile it with your
conscience?" she asked, mildly, "to fall in love with a man who never
showed you the slightest attention?"
"I could not--I did not," and Aurelia tried to hide her distressed face
against the back of the sofa. "I knew it was wrong. I have suffered,
oh, how I have suffered! And I prayed about it, but I couldn't seem to
help it. He was so--so attractive, and he was in such trouble."
"Did you ever pray for him?" asked Chelda, in her gently inquisitorial
manner.
"Every day of my life--every hour."
"Did you tell him?"
Aurelia shrank from her. "How could I do that? We never talked about
anything but the Sunday school and the mothers' meetings."
Again Chelda's face contracted with amusement, and, leaving her, she
went away to have a bed made ready for her.
Twice a day a woman from one of the neighbouring cottages was permitted
by Miss Gastonguay to come in and give to Chelda, who was not a
champion for the rights of men, any services that she might require.
But the woman was not allowed to sleep under the roof, and Chelda was
now in haste to find her before she left for the night.
In a short time Aurelia was comfortably installed in bed. Chelda in
morbid curiosity hung over her as long as she could extort a remark
from her. But when the sleeping-draught administered by Miss Gastonguay
began to take effect, the young lady sought her own room, detained
first by Miss Gastonguay, who asked, with determination, "What does
this mean?"
"What, aunt?"
"You know. Mr. Huntington's departure. Are you worrying about it?"
"A little, aunt, not much."
Miss Gastonguay had her glasses on, and she looked straight into
Chelda's eyes. There was no veil over them now. They had never appeared
more clear, more honest, more heart-whole.
"I never understand you," she said, impatiently. "I thought you were
beginning to take an interest in that young man. He seems to have been
dangling about you a good deal lately."
"Well, to tell the truth, I was beginning to like him a trifle, but
this settles it," and she scornfully filliped the note she still held
in her hand. "He does not know his own mind. He is as fickle as the
wind. Really, I do not think I care to marry."
"Child, I would like to see you with a husband and children of your
own. The Gastonguays are dying out."
"What does it matter who comes after us?"
"Well, please yourself, I don't want to get rid of you," and Miss
Gastonguay went thoughtfully to her own room.
Chelda locked her door, picked a disfiguring thread off a delicately
woven rose on the carpet, moved about the room with exceeding quietness
and stealthiness, stopped occasionally before the dark reflection in
her mirror, but in no way gave outward signs of any violent internal
emotion.
After a time she put her hand to her throat as if something choked her.
A turn of her head had entangled a jewelled pin in the lace about her
neck. With infinite patience she detached the pin, then standing with
her eyes fastened on it as they had been fastened on Aurelia's face,
she gently insinuated its point under the velvety olive skin of her
wrist.
One drop of blood came, then another and another, until finally, from
the little slit that she continued lengthening, a soft continuous flow
of crimson fell on the roses of the carpet.
This was barbarous,--a lapse into the torture customs of her
forefathers. It did not hurt her, but her feelings were too fine to
permit the disfigurement of her carpet, and, getting a basin of water,
she went on her knees and carefully removed the stain.
Then walking back on her heels she gazed steadfastly at the reddened
water. The towel fell from her hands, every muscle in her body relaxed.
After the lapse of a few mesmerised minutes she fell heavily to the
floor, her face turned up to the French cupids on her ceiling.
Hour after hour she lay there. The wind blew in through an open window
on her rigid limbs, occasionally a distant bell chimed the hours from
the town, but she neither felt the wind nor heard the bell. She had
not fainted. Her senses were painfully, acutely alive, yet she paid no
heed to any of the sounds of the night, and only stirred when darkness
passed away and morning came, and a knock at her door proclaimed the
arrival of Prosperity on his tour of arousing the family and depositing
the hot water pitchers outside their bedrooms.
She must get up, or her aunt would come to seek her. She gradually
raised herself, stood upright and motionless for a few minutes, then
began a short halting approach to a mirror. One step at a time she
took, and sometimes her reluctant feet carried her backward. The
nearest mirror to her was one set in the wall, and surrounded by a
carved wreath of flowers. It was small, yet it would serve her purpose.
At last she arrived before it. She shut her eyes to put off the
moment for glancing into it. When she did look, when she saw what was
revealed, she struck it sharply with her hand and cracked the oval face
across its delicate curve.
However, the shock was over. Her fertile brain must now plan a way to
shield herself from the outward avowal of her night of repressed mental
anguish.
She went boldly up to a cheval-glass, and pulling the long pins from
her hair, let it fall down over her gown. Its luxuriant masses were
streaked with gray. In front, where it was brushed back from her aching
forehead, it was snow-white. In a few short hours she had added ten
years to her age.
She went to her dressing-table. In a drawer there was a bottle from
which she had been in the habit of taking a few drops daily to spread
over one tiny gray patch that had persistently grown over one temple.
She held the bottle up to the light. There was not much in it, yet she
would see how far it would go. With a steady hand and without wasting
one drop she quickly stained the locks most in need of disguise. There
was not enough left to colour all her length of hair. Seizing a pair
of scissors, she remorselessly cut away the soft gray strands and set
a match to them in the fireplace, and responded calmly to her aunt's
impatient summons. "Presently, aunt, presently, don't wait for me."
"Did you not sleep well?" asked Miss Gastonguay, when she finally made
her appearance at the breakfast-table.
"So soundly that I did not turn on my pillow."
"You look fresh and alert," said Miss Gastonguay, complacently. "How
are you, Aurelia?" and she addressed her still nervously upset guest.
"I am better," said the girl, "but I think I would like to go home,
please."
"Very well, I'll drive you down as soon as we finish breakfast.
Prosperity, order the carriage, the victoria--"
"Aunt," said Chelda, "this coffee is delicious. Will you please give me
another cup?"
"Certainly. I wonder what Derrice Mercer is doing while her husband is
away?"
"Rebecca told me that she is staying at the parsonage," replied her
niece.
"Mrs. Negus has enough to do without taking care of her. Suppose we
have her up here, Chelda?"
"An excellent plan, I should like it above all things," said the young
lady, with unusual sprightliness.
"I'll go ask her this morning," said Miss Gastonguay. "I want you to
know her better, Chelda. Aurelia, you must come up while she is here."
"Thank you," murmured Aurelia, choking over a morsel she was forcing
herself to eat, "but I shall be very busy with church work for some
time to come."
Miss Gastonguay said nothing more at the time, except a warning,
"Moderation, Aurelia, moderation," but when she left the girl at her
own door she whispered, "Keep up a brave heart, you'll get over this in
time; and don't torture yourself. You've done nothing wrong. Half the
girls in town are red-eyed this morning."