The Fincherie Christmas tree had been a great success with a Mrs. Santa
Claus in a foam of tulle and lace instead of an apple-dumpling gentleman
in a red jerkin and leather boots.
Every one had everything, so the rumor went, and Thurley sang carols
until she repeated “God Rest Ye, Merry Gentlemen” for the third time and
fled in self-defence.
Bliss Hobart had come into the Corners unexpectedly that morning and,
after Thurley’s exit, he stood up to suggest three cheers for the
Fincherie gray angel, which were given by a happy, well fed community who
began to think about the joys of sleep.
Ali Baba, who had always placed Hobart high in personal esteem, tramped
over to inform him that Thurley was in the little breakfast room of the
original Fincherie.
Hobart moved in that direction with alacrity. He found Thurley sorting
over a bundle of letters.
“If you hadn’t come to the Fincherie,” she began, “I should have come to
New York to ask you what to do with these people?” She held out some of
the letters.
He glanced at them. “Oh, managers will badger any one who has been a
gold mine—that’s to be expected. I, myself, was to make a faint protest
about too much retirement, but when Mrs. Santa Claus has been a real joy
spreader, it isn’t fair to harass her, is it?”
“None of you can bother me overly much. I’m resolved to sing just enough
to make people always want me, and _live_ enough to be able to sing my
best. There!”
“May you follow that advice! But let’s talk about sentimental things. I
always find myself slipping this time of the year.” He sat beside her.
“Stoical dreamer! I’m just beginning to understand you.”
“You didn’t give me a Christmas present.”
“You didn’t give me one,” she began.
But he drew a small box from his pocket and presented it.
“Why, Bliss!” She was too pleased to conceal her delight. She opened it
to find a locket of palest gold with a fine, shining chain. The locket
yielded to the pressure of her thumb and within was space for some loved
one’s face, while on the other side was made in bas relief an enamelled
violet crown.
“You think I—really—have—” she began.
“I do, and I think I really want you to marry me,” he said very
positively. “I don’t want you to answer by quoting a half mad woman’s
request made to an untutored girl. Will you marry me, Thurley, battered
old dreamer of nearly forty who hadn’t the courage to put into execution
what he thought, who had to tell it to a gray angel who went and did?
Will you?”
“Let’s talk about Ernestine and Caleb’s new book; or Collin’s statue of
Polly that is so marvellous, or Mark,—did you know he really is on the
road to right? Let me tell about Dan, how invaluable he has become to
every one in the town, saying just the right, ‘Steady, mates,’ to the
boys up here, going on in his business, loving Lorraine a trifle harder
than ever and keeping a weather eye out for town improvements. And did
you hear about Hortense Quinby? She has killed herself—”
“I can wait an additional ten minutes,” he conceded; “what about
Hortense?”
“The boy she fancied was in love with her married his own sweetheart
without delay and Hortense ended it in a foolish, mad fashion! You know
how she was—how such women are—”
“Better out of the game,” Hobart commented grimly.
“It touches me, not the tragedy itself, but the wasted life....
Bliss, do you know that nearly anything under the sun can be
readjusted satisfactorily if people will only be honest regarding the
facts concerning it? You call fame the violet crown and I call the
stay-at-homes the gray angels; you say true artists are a vanguard—fine
sounding names! But there is nothing new about it, is there? The
idea of substituting one idea, theory or name for another to act as
a rejuvenation of the brain and keep inspiration of the heart aglow
began before the days of the pyramids! It is necessary to keep interest
top hole and while the basis of it is almost hallucination and it
may tend towards madness, the advantages do outweigh the tendencies.
The name—the violet crown,” she caressed the locket with her hands,
“spurs me on to be a gray angel and that name has comforted Polly,
Lorraine, Ernestine—and will many others. To belong to the vanguard of
civilization—what strange intoxication is there in the title!—to battle
with art-intrigues,—romantic phrase! I could never be without it. Bliss,
what oddities human beings are—”
“And now, will you marry me?” he asked meekly.
“Lissa has failed to find a duke and the Hotel Particular is for sale;
she staked everything on winning a title or a patroness. What will become
of her?”
“Unfortunately life travels so much more swiftly than justice, I am
afraid she may find another loophole of escape ... such people often
do.... But will you marry me?”
“And I find myself growing as particular as Dorothy, wife of Sir Thomas
Brown, who wished her ‘shewes to be eythar pinke or blewe,’” she
continued, “for I cannot—”
“I will not be cheated of another moment—answer me.”
“You love me, that way?” she asked gravely.
“All ways. Surely, Miss Clergy’s promise—”
“It is not that,” she admitted, “for when she died she left me the
message, ‘Tell Thurley to use her own judgment.’ It is not that.”
“Then what—unless you don’t love me?”
“A great disillusionment waits for you,” she said honestly. “I am only a
womanly hypocrite. I am not worthy of the violet crown nor the vanguard.
I’m as simple hearted as Lorraine and far more stupid when you come to
know the real me.... I have always loved you. I flirted only to see if
it would not rouse the man of you to protest. I let Lissa influence me,
harm my voice, color my notions, to see if you would not speak out as
‘my man,’ not my singing teacher, my master critic.... I tried in every
avenue I could, Bliss, to make you care. Finally, you told me your vision
and the greatest joy of it was not the vision but the thought you were
sharing it with me. I told myself, ‘at last I have something to work for,
something with which I can tempt his interest—bait for his affection’—you
see? So I set to work to live according to your ideals, not that I did
not believe it, but because you, your own self, had told me of it and it
was your fondest wish to see it realized.... Miss Clergy’s death brought
me the fortune ... the glorious ending of the war my opportunity ... and
so on. Now you say you love me. And I love you. But I warn you that all
your visions and ideals mattered not so much as the fact of your sharing
them with me, the nearest I had ever come to being essential to some one,
belonging to some one—as I fancied in the old circus days when I played
the bearded lady was my mother and the animals my brothers and sisters.
F-funny, isn’t it? Well, am I altogether too disappointing—clay toes
will peep out but it is better you should see them now—not later.” She
waited his verdict, her head tilted defiantly and the glorious, blue eyes
smiling bravely.
He did not hesitate. “Do you know a man’s greatest joy is to discover
the one he loves best of every one is not all gray angel, that he will
not have to exist on the heights, even though he is prepared to break
masculine precedent and do so, but a real woman with adorable weaknesses
and amusing faults, spasms of ‘intuition’ and bothers about becoming hats
and concern as to the said man’s habit of not wearing overshoes—that
she will not scorn a broad shoulder to weep on if the cook leaves
unceremoniously, nor a bit of domination when it comes to selecting the
right school for the boy or the number of frocks for the girl’s coming
out? Now, I’ve matched clay toes with you, most delightful lover’s game
in the world.... Let me whisper something else, Thurley; I was growing
afraid of you. I thought I had better capture you while you were content
to be merely a gray angel lest you become the shining, white spirit of
the vanguard and such a happening be made impossible.”
Without waiting for her approval, he took her in his arms.
Making the nightly rounds to see if the windows were properly fastened,
Ali Baba paused in the offing. He glanced up at the mistletoe under which
he had happened to halt and smiled with sentimental satisfaction.
“Land sakes and Mrs. Davis,” he chuckled, “I guess Miss Abby was dead to
rights when she left it to Thurley’s judgment!”