Knowing that Phillida was a precipice inaccessible on the side of what
she esteemed her duty, Mrs. Hilbrough was almost sorry that she had
promised to attempt any persuasions. But she dispatched a note early
Tuesday morning, begging Phillida's company at luncheon, assigning the
trivial reason, for want of a better, that she had got some winter-grown
strawberries and wished a friend to enjoy them with her. Phillida,
fatigued with the heart-breaking struggle between love and duty, and
almost ready sometimes to give over and take the easier path, thought to
find an hour's intermission from her inward turmoil over Mrs.
Hilbrough's hothouse berries. The Hilbrough children were fond of
Phillida, and luncheon was a meal at which they made a point of
disregarding the bondage of the new family position. They seasoned their
meal with the animal spirits of youth, and, despite the fact that the
costly winter berries were rather sour, the lunch proved exceedingly
agreeable to Phillida. The spontaneous violence which healthy children
do to etiquette often proves a relish. But when the Hilbrough children
had bolted their strawberries, scraped the last remainder of the sugar
and cream from the saucers, and left the table in a hurry, there came
an audible pause, and Mrs. Hilbrough approached the subject of
Phillida's faith-healing in a characteristically tactful way by giving
an account of Mrs. Maginnis's call, and by approving Phillida's
determination not to take money. It was a laudable pride, Mrs. Hilbrough
said.
"I can not call it pride altogether," said Phillida, with the innate
veracity of her nature asserting itself in a struggle to be exactly
sincere. "If I were to take pay for praying for a person, I'd be no
better than Simon, who tried to buy the gift of the Holy Ghost from
Saint Paul. I couldn't bring myself to take money."
"And if you did, my dear, it would mortify your family, who have a right
to be proud, and then there is Mr. Millard, who, I suppose, would feel
that it would be a lasting disgrace." These words were spoken in a
relaxed and indifferent tone, as though it was an accidental commonplace
of the subject that Mrs. Hilbrough was settling.
Phillida said nothing. Here she was face to face with the old agony. If
her faith-healing were only a matter of her own suffering she need not
hesitate; she would take the cross with all her heart. But Mrs.
Hilbrough's words reminded her again that her sense of duty forced her
to bind Charley Millard for the torture. A duty so rude to her feelings
as the half-publicity of it made faith-healing, ought to be a duty
beyond question, but here was the obligation she owed her lover running
adverse to her higher aspirations. The questions for decision became
complex, and she wavered.
"Your first duty is to him, of course," continued Mrs. Hilbrough, as she
rose from the table, but still in an indifferent tone, as though what
she said were a principle admitted beforehand. This arrow, she knew,
went straight to the weakest point in Phillida's defense. But divining
that her words gave pain, she changed the subject, and they talked again
on indifferent matters as they passed out of the room together. But when
Phillida began her preparations for leaving, Mrs. Hilbrough ventured a
practical suggestion.
"I suppose you'll forgive an old friend for advising you, Phillida dear,
but you and Mr. Millard ought to get married pretty soon. I don't
believe in long courtships. Mr. Millard is an admirable person, and
you'll make a noble wife."
"We have long intended to have the wedding next spring. But as to my
making a noble wife, I am not sure about that," returned Phillida. "I am
engaged with my work, and I shall be more and more talked about in a way
that will give Charley a great deal of suffering. It's a pity--"
She was going to say that it was a pity that Charley had not chosen some
one who would not be a source of humiliation to him, but she could not
complete the sentence. The vision of Millard married to another was too
much even for her self-sacrifice. After a moment's pause she reverted to
Mrs. Hilbrough's remark, made at the table, which had penetrated to her
conscience.
"You said a while ago that my first duty is to Charley. But if I am
wrong in trying to heal the sick by the exercise of faith, why have I
been given success in some cases? If I refused requests of that kind
would I not be like the man who put his hand to the plow and looked
back? You don't know how hard it is to decide these things. I do look
back, and it almost breaks my heart. Sometimes I say, 'Why can't I be a
woman? Why am I not free to enjoy life as other women do? But then the
poor and the sick and the wicked, are they to be left without any one to
care for them? There are but few that know how to be patient with them
and help them by close sympathy and forbearance. How can I give up my
poor?'"
Her face was flushed, and she was in a tremor when she ceased speaking.
Her old friend saw that Phillida had laid bare her whole heart. Mrs.
Hilbrough was deeply touched at this exhibition of courage and at
Phillida's evident suffering, and besides, she knew that it was not best
to debate where she wished to influence. She only said:
"It will grow clearer to you, dear, as time goes on. Mr. Millard would
suffer anything--I believe he would die for you."
Phillida was a little startled at Mrs. Hilbrough's assumption that she
knew the exact state of Millard's feelings.
"Have you seen him lately?" she asked.
"Yes; he called here after four o'clock on Sunday afternoon, and he
spoke most affectionately of you. I'm sorry you must go so soon. Come
and spend a day with me some time, and I'll have Mr. Millard take dinner
with us."
As Phillida rode downtown in the street car she reasoned that Charley
must have gone straight to Mrs. Hilbrough's after his conversation with
her. When she remembered the agitation in which he had left her, she
could not doubt that he went uptown on purpose to speak with Mrs.
Hilbrough of his relations with herself, and she felt a resentment that
Millard should discuss the matter with a third person. He had no doubt
got Mrs. Maginnis's story from Mrs. Hilbrough, and for this she partly
reproached her own lack of frankness. She presently asked herself what
Charley's call on Mrs. Hilbrough had to do with the luncheon to which
she had just been invited? The more she thought of it, the more she felt
that there had been a plan to influence her. She did not like to be the
subject of one of Mrs. Hilbrough's clever manoeuvers at the suggestion
of her lover. The old question rose again whether she and Charley could
go on in this way; whether it might not be her duty to release him from
an engagement that could only make him miserable.
He called that evening while the Callenders were at six o'clock dinner.
He was in evening dress, on the way to dine at the house of a friend,
and he went straight to the Callender basement dining-room, where he
chatted as much with Mrs. Callender and Agatha as with Phillida, who on
her part could not show her displeasure before the others, for lovers'
quarrels are too precious to be shared with the nearest friend. He left
before the dinner was over, so that Phillida did not have a moment alone
with him. The next evening she expected him to call, but he only sent
her a bunch of callas.
That night Phillida sat by the fire sewing after her mother and Agatha
were asleep. During the past two days she had wrought herself up to a
considerable pitch of indignation against Millard for trying to
influence her through Mrs. Hilbrough, but resentment was not congenial
to her. Millard's effort to change her purposes at least indicated an
undiminished affection. The bunch of flowers on the table was a silent
pleader. If he did wrong in going to Mrs. Hilbrough for advice, might it
not be her own fault? Why had she not been more patient with him on
Sunday afternoon? The callas were so white, they reminded her of
Charley, she thought, for they were clean, innocent, and of graceful
mien. After all, here was one vastly dearer to her than those for whom
she labored and prayed--one whose heart and happiness lay in her very
palm. Might she not soften her line of action somewhat for his sake?
But conscience turned the glass, and she remembered Wilhelmina, and
thought of the happiness of little Hilda Maginnis and her mother. Was it
nothing that God had endowed her with this beneficent power? How could
she shrink from the blessedness of dispensing the divine mercy? Her
imagination took flame at the vision of a life of usefulness and
devotion to those who were suffering.
Then she raised her head and there were the white flowers. She felt an
impulse to kiss her hand in good-night to them as she rose from her
chair, but such an act would have seemed foolish to one of her
temperament.
She went to bed in doubt and got up in perplexity. She could not help
looking forward to Mrs. Frankland's Bible-reading that afternoon with
expectation that some message would be providentially sent for her
guidance. The spirit perplexed is ever superstitious. Since so many
important decisions in life must be made blindly, one does not wonder
that primitive men settled dark questions by studying the stars, by
interpreting the flight of birds, the whimsical zigzags of the lightning
bolt, or the turning of the beak of a fowl this way or that in picking
corn. The human mind bewildered is ever looking for crevices in the
great mystery that inwraps the visible universe, and ever hoping that
some struggling beam from beyond may point to the best path.