Thanksgiving of the year of our Lord 1919 saw many changes. It saw,
slowly emerging from the chaos of war, new nations, like children,
taking their first feeble steps. It saw a socialism which, born at full
term might have thrived, prematurely and forcibly delivered, and making
a valiant but losing fight for life. It saw that war is never good,
but always evil; that war takes everything and gives nothing, save that
sometimes a man may lose the whole world and gain his own soul.
It saw old Anthony Cardew gone to his fathers, into the vast democracy
of heaven, and Louis Akers passed through the Traitors' Gate of eternity
to be judged and perhaps reprieved. For a man is many men, good and bad,
and the Judge of the Tower of Heaven is a just Judge.
It saw Jim Doyle a fugitive, Woslosky dead, and the Russian, Ross,
bland, cunning and eternally plotting, in New England under another
name. And Mr. Hendricks ordering a new suit for the day of taking
office. And Doctor Smalley tying a bunch of chrysanthemums on Annabelle,
against a football game, and taking a pretty nurse to see it.
It saw Ellen roasting a turkey, and a strange young man in the Eagle
Pharmacy, a young man who did not smoke a pipe, and allowed no visitors
in the back room. And it saw Willy Cameron in the laboratory of the
reopened Cardew Mills, dealing in tons instead of grains and drams,
and learning to touch any piece of metal in the mill with a moistened
fore-finger before he sat down upon it.
* * * * *
But it saw more than that.
On the evening of Thanksgiving Day there was an air of repressed
excitement about the Cardew house. Mademoiselle, in a new silk dress,
ran about the lower floor, followed by an agitated Grayson with a cloth,
for Mademoiselle was shifting ceaselessly and with trembling hands vases
of flowers, and spilling water at each shift. At six o'clock had arrived
a large square white box, which the footman had carried to the rear and
there exhibited, allowing a palpitating cook, scullery maid and divers
other excitable and emotional women to peep within.
After which he tied it up again and carried it upstairs.
At seven o'clock Elinor Cardew, lovely in black satin, was carried down
the stairs and placed in a position which commanded both the hall and
the drawing-room. For some strange reason it was essential that she
should see both.
At seven-thirty came in a rush:
(a)--Mr. Alston Denslow, in evening clothes and gardenia, and feeling in
his right waist-coat pocket nervously every few minutes.
(b)--An excited woman of middle age, in a black silk dress still faintly
bearing the creases of five days in a trunk, and accompanied by a
mongrel dog, both being taken upstairs by Grayson, Mademoiselle,
Pink, and Howard Cardew. (“He said Jinx was to come,” she explained
breathlessly to her bodyguard. “I never knew such a boy!”)
(c)--Mr. Davis, in a frock coat and white lawn tie, and taken upstairs
by Grayson, who mistook him for the bishop.
(d)--Aunt Caroline, in her diamond dog collar and purple velvet, and
determined to make the best of things.
(e)--The real bishop this time, and his assistant, followed by a valet
with a suitcase, containing the proper habiliments for a prince of the
church while functioning. (A military term, since the Bishop had been in
the army.)
(f)--A few unimportant important people, very curious, and the women
uncertain about the proper garb for a festive occasion in a house of
mourning.
(g)--Set of silver table vases, belated.
(h)--Mr. and Mrs. Hendricks, Mayor and Mayoress-elect. Extremely
dignified.
(i)--An overfull taxicab, containing inside it Ellen, Edith, Dan and
Joe. The overflow, consisting of a tall young man, displaying repressed
excitement and new evening clothes, with gardenia, sat on the seat
outside beside the chauffeur and repeated to himself a sort of chant
accompanied by furious searchings of his pockets. “Money. Checkbook.
Tickets. Trunk checks,” was the burden of his song.
(j)--Doctor Smalley and Annabelle. He left Annabelle outside.
* * * * *
The city moved on about its business. In thousands of homes the lights
shone down on little family groups, infinitely tender little groups. The
workers of the city were there, the doors shut, the fires burning. To
each man the thing he had earned, not the thing that he took. To all
men the right to labor, to love, and to rest. To children, the right
to play. To women, the hearth, and the peace of the hearth. To lovers,
love, and marriage, and home.
The city moved on about its business, and its business was homes.
* * * * *
At the great organ behind the staircase the organist sat. In stiff rows
near him were the Cardew servants, marshaled by Grayson and in their
best.
Grayson stood, very rigid, and waited. And as he waited he kept his eyes
on the portrait of old Anthony, in the drawing-room beyond. There was a
fixed, rapt look in Grayson's eyes, and there was reassurance. It was as
though he would say to the portrait: “It has all come out very well, you
see, sir. It always works out somehow. We worry and fret, we old ones,
but the young come along, and somehow or other they manage, sir.”
What he actually said was to tell a house maid to stop sniveling.
Over the house was the strange hush of waiting. It had waited before
this, for birth and for death, but never before--
The Bishop was waiting also, and he too had his eyes fixed on old
Anthony's portrait, a straight, level-eyed gaze, as of man to man, as of
prince of the church to prince of industry. The Bishop's eyes said:
“All shall be done properly and in order, and as befits the Cardews,
Anthony.”
The Bishop was as successful in his line as Anthony Cardew had been in
his. He cleared his throat.
The organist sat at the great organ behind the staircase, waiting. He
was playing very softly, with his eyes turned up. He had played the
same music many times before, and always he felt very solemn, as one who
makes history. He sighed. Sometimes it seemed to him that he was only an
accompaniment to life, to which others sang and prayed, were christened,
confirmed and married. But what was the song without the music? He
wished the scullery maid would stop crying.
Grayson touched him on the arm.
“All ready, sir,” he said.
*****
Willy Cameron stood at the foot of the staircase, looking up.
End of Project Gutenberg's A Poor Wise Man, by Mary Roberts Rinehart