[Transcriber's Note: Bold text is surrounded by =equal signs= and
italic text is surrounded by _underscores_.]
[Illustration: Louis and Alice Ansted call on Claire. p. 206]
INTERRUPTED
BY
PANSY
AUTHOR OF "AN ENDLESS CHAIN," "MRS. SOLOMON SMITH LOOKING
ON," "CHRISTIE'S CHRISTMAS," "A HEDGE FENCE," "ESTER
RIED YET SPEAKING," "THE HALL IN THE GROVE,"
"CHAUTAUQUA GIRLS," "RUTH ERSKINE'S
CROSSES," "THE MAN OF THE HOUSE,"
ETC., ETC.
[Illustration]
BOSTON
LOTHROP PUBLISHING COMPANY
COPYRIGHT, 1885,
BY
D. LOTHROP AND COMPANY.
_All rights reserved._
PANSY
TRADE-MARK REGISTERED JUNE 4, 1895.
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER I.
REACHING INTO TO-MORROW 7
CHAPTER II.
WHY? 22
CHAPTER III.
OUT IN THE WORLD 36
CHAPTER IV.
AN OPEN DOOR 51
CHAPTER V.
TRYING TO ENDURE 65
CHAPTER VI.
LIFTED UP 79
CHAPTER VII.
"OUR CHURCH." 93
CHAPTER VIII.
MAKING OPPORTUNITIES 108
CHAPTER IX.
OUTSIDE THE CIRCLE 123
CHAPTER X.
AN OPEN DOOR 138
CHAPTER XI.
A "FANATIC." 153
CHAPTER XII.
LOGIC AND LABOR 168
CHAPTER XIII.
INNOVATIONS 183
CHAPTER XIV.
BLIND 200
CHAPTER XV.
STARTING FOR HOME 218
CHAPTER XVI.
LOST FRIENDS 235
CHAPTER XVII.
SPREADING NETS 254
CHAPTER XVIII.
BUD IN SEARCH OF COMFORT 271
CHAPTER XIX.
COMFORTED 287
CHAPTER XX.
BUD AS A TEACHER 303
CHAPTER XXI.
ONE OF THE VICTIMS 318
CHAPTER XXII.
NEW LINES OF WORK 332
CHAPTER XXIII.
UNPALATABLE TRUTHS 347
CHAPTER XXIV.
RECOGNITION 362
CHAPTER XXV.
DANGERS SEEN AND UNSEEN 376
CHAPTER XXVI.
AN ESCAPED VICTIM 391
CHAPTER XXVII.
THE SUMMER'S STORY 408
CHAPTER XXVIII.
A FAMILY SECRET 423
INTERRUPTED.
CHAPTER I.
REACHING INTO TO-MORROW.
FROM the back parlor there came the sound of fresh young voices
brimming with energy. Several voices at once, indeed, after the
fashion of eager young ladies well acquainted with one another, and
having important schemes to further. Occasionally there were bursts of
laughter, indicating that freedom of speech and good fellowship reigned
among the workers.
The committee, or the society, or the association, whatever it was, was
breaking up, for the door was ajar, one young lady standing near it,
her hand out as if to open it wider, preparatory to departure, while
she waited to say another of the many last things. Others were drawing
wraps about them, or donning furs and overshoes, and talking as they
worked. Their voices, clear and brisk, sounded distinctly down the long
hall.
"And about the Committee on Award; you will attend to that, Claire,
will you not?"
"Oh, and what are we to do about Mrs. Stuart?"
"Why, Claire promised to see her. She is just the one to do it. Mrs.
Stuart will do anything for her."
"And, Claire, you must be sure to see the Snyders before the judge
starts on his Southern trip! If we don't get his positive promise, we
may have trouble."
"Claire Benedict, you promised to help me with my Turkish costume, you
know. I haven't the least idea how to get it up."
Then a younger voice:
"Miss Claire, you will drill me on my recitation, won't you? Mamma says
you are just the one to show me how."
"And, oh! Claire, don't forget to see that ponderous Doctor Wheelock
and get his subscription. It frightens me to think of going to him."
In the sitting-room opposite stood Claire's younger sister, Dora
Benedict. She had just come in from the outer world, and with part of
her wraps still gathered about her, stood watching the falling snow,
and listening to the voices in the back parlor. At this point she spoke:
"Mamma, just hear the girls! They are heaping up the work on Claire,
giving her the planning and the collecting and the drilling, and the
greater portion of the programme to attend to, and she calmly agrees to
do it all."
"Your sister has a great amount of executive ability, my dear, and
is always to be depended on. Such people are sure to have plenty of
burdens to carry."
Mrs. Benedict said this in a gently modulated, satisfied voice, and
leaned back in her easy chair and smiled as she spoke. She delayed a
stitch in her crimson tidy, while she listened a moment to the sound of
Claire's voice, calmly and assuringly shouldering the burdens of work;
promising here, offering there, until the listeners in the sitting-room
were prepared to sympathize with the words spoken in the parlor in a
relieved tone of voice:
"I declare, Claire Benedict, you are a host in yourself! What we should
do without you is more than I can imagine."
"I should think as much!" This from the girl in the brown-plumed hat,
who listened in the next room. "You couldn't do without her! that is
just all there would be about it! Two thirds of your nice plans, for
which you get so much credit, would fall through. Mamma, do you think
Claire ought to attempt so much?"
"Well, I don't know," responded the gentle-faced woman thus appealed
to, pausing again in her fancy work to consider the question. "Claire
has remarkable talent, you know, in all these directions. She is a born
organizer and leader, and the girls are willing to follow her lead. I
don't know but she works too hard. It is difficult to avoid that, with
so many people depending on her I don't myself see how they would
manage without her. You know Doctor Ellis feels much the same. He was
telling your father, only last night, that there was not another young
lady in the church on whom he could depend as he did on her. Your
father was amused at his earnestness. He said he should almost feel
like giving up his pastorate here, if he should lose her. Claire is
certainly a power in the church, and the society generally. I should
feel sorry for them if they were to lose her."
The mother spoke this sentence quietly, with the unruffled look of
peace and satisfaction on her face. No foreboding of loss came to her.
She thought, it is true, of the barely possible time when her eldest
daughter might go out from this home into some other, and have other
cares and responsibilities, but the day seemed very remote. Claire was
young, and was absorbed in her church and home work.
Apparently, even the _suggestion_ of another home had not come to her.
It might never come. She might live always in the dear home nest,
sheltered, and sheltering, in her turn, others less favored. Or in the
event of a change, some time in the future, it might be, possibly, just
from one street in the same city to another, and much of the old life
go on still; and in any event the mother could say "their loss," not
mine; for the sense of possible separation had not come near enough to
shadow the mother's heart as yet; she lived in the dreamland of belief
that a married daughter would be as near to the mother and the home
as an unmarried one. Therefore her face was placid, and she sewed her
crimson threads and talked placidly of what might have been, but was
not; the future looked secure and smiling.
"You see," she continued to the young and but half-satisfied daughter,
"it is an unusual combination of things that makes your sister so
important to this society. There are not many girls in it who have
wealth and leisure, and the peculiar talents required for leadership.
Run over the list in your mind, and you will notice that those who have
plenty of time would not know what to do with it unless Claire were
here to tell them, and those who have plenty of money would fritter it
all away, without her to guide, and set a grand example for them."
"I am not questioning her ability, mamma," the daughter said, with a
little laugh, "that is, her mental ability; but it seems to me they
ought to remember that she has a body, as well as the others. Still,
she will always work at something, I suppose; she is made in that mold.
Mamma, what do you suppose Claire would do if she were poor?"
"I haven't the least idea, daughter. I hope she would do the best she
could; but I think I feel grateful that there seems little probability
of our discovering by experience."
"Still, one can never tell what may happen."
"Oh, no, that is true; I was speaking of probabilities."
Still the mother's face was placid. She called them probabilities,
but when she thought of her husband's wealth and position in the
mercantile world, they really seemed to her very much like certainties.
And now the little coterie in the back parlor broke up in earnest, and,
exclaiming over the lateness of the hour, made haste into the snowy
world outside.
Claire followed the last one to the door; a young and pretty girl,
afraid of her own decided capabilities, unless kissed and petted by
this stronger spirit into using them.
"You will be sure to do well, Alice dear, and remember I depend on you."
This was the last drop of dew for the frightened young flower, and it
brightened visibly under it, and murmured:
"I will do my best; I don't want to disappoint you."
Then Claire came into the sitting-room, and dropped with an air of
satisfied weariness into one of the luxurious chairs, and folded her
hands to rest.
"Dora thinks you are carrying too much on your shoulders, dear." This
from the fancy worker.
"Oh, no, mamma, my shoulders are strong. Everything is in fine train.
I think our girls are really getting interested in missions now, as
well as in having a good time, that is what I am after, you know, but
some of them don't suspect it. Why didn't you come to the committee
meeting, Dora?"
"I have but just come in from Strausser's, on that commission, you
know, and I thought if I appeared, there would be so many questions
to answer, and so much to explain, that the girls would not get away
to-night."
"Oh, did you see Mr. Strausser? Well, what did he say?" And Claire sat
erect, her weariness gone, and gave herself to work again.
The door bell rang, and she was presently summoned to the hall.
"One of your poor persons," was the servant's message.
There seemed to be a long story to tell, and Claire listened, and
questioned, and commented, and rang the bell to give directions for a
certain package from a certain closet to be brought, and sent Dora to
her room for her pocket-book, and finally the "poor person" went away,
her voice sounding cheered and grateful as she said inquiringly:
"Then you will be sure to come over to-morrow?"
Dora laughed, as Claire returned to the easy chair.
"How many things you are going to do to-morrow, Claire? I heard you
promise the girls a dozen or so. And that reminds me that Doctor Ellis
wants to know if you will look in to-morrow, and go with Mrs. Ellis to
call on a new family, of whom he said he told you."
"I know," said Claire, "I was thinking about them this morning. I must
try and go to-morrow. They are people who ought not to be neglected.
Did he say at what hour? Oh, mamma, have you that broth ready for
aunt Kate? I might go around there with it now: I shall not have time
to-morrow, and I promised her I would come myself before the week
closed."
Then the fast falling snow was discussed, and demurred over a little
by mother and younger sister, and laughingly accepted by Claire as a
pleasant accessory to a winter walk; and it ended, as things were apt
to end in that family, in Claire having her own way, and sallying forth
equipped for the storm, with her basket of comforts on her arm.
She looked back to Dora to say that mamma must not worry if she were
detained, for she had promised to look in at Mr. Anstead's and make
some arrangements for to-morrow's committee meeting; and to add that
the papers in the library were to be left as they were, ready for
to-morrow.
"It is the eventful day," she said, laughingly, "our work is to
culminate then. We are to discover what the fruit of all this getting
ready is; we are to have things just as they are to be, without a break
or a pause."
"Perhaps," said Dora.
"Why do you say 'perhaps,' you naughty croaker? Do you dare to think
that anything will be less than perfect after the weeks of labor we
have given it?"
"How can I tell? Nothing is ever perfect. Did you never notice, Claire,
that it is impossible to get through a single day just as one plans it?"
"I have noticed it," Claire answered, smiling, "but I did not know that
your young head had taken it in."
"Ah, but I have. _I_ plan occasionally, myself, but I am like Paul
in one thing, any way, 'how to perform I find not.' It is worse on
Saturday than any other day. I almost never do as I intended."
"I wouldn't quote Bible verses with a twisted meaning, if I were you,
little girl. It is a dangerous habit; I know by experience. They so
perfectly fit into life, that one is sorely tempted. But I am not often
troubled in the way you mention; my plans generally come out all right.
Possibly because I have studied them from several sides, and foreseen
and provided for hindrances. There is a great deal in that. You see,
to-morrow, if I don't get through with all the engagements laid out for
it. I have studied them all, and there really _can't_ anything happen
to throw me very far off my programme."
There was an air of complacency about the speaker, and a satisfied
smile on her face as she tripped briskly away. She was a skilful and
successful general. Was there any harm in her realizing it?
Dora went back to the gentle mother.
"The house will be alive all day to-morrow, mamma. Claire has half a
dozen committee meetings here at different hours, and a great rehearsal
of all their exercises for the literary entertainment. There will be
no place for quiet, well-behaved people like you and me. What do you
suppose is the matter with me? I feel like a croaker. If Claire had not
just scolded me for quoting the Bible to suit my moods, I should have
said to her, 'Boast not thyself of to-morrow, for thou knowest not what
a day may bring forth.'"
Mrs. Benedict looked up searchingly into the face of her young
daughter, who was so unlike her sister, who took life doubtfully,
and bristled with interrogation points, and dreamed while the other
worked, and leaned on Claire everywhere and always, even as she knew
she did herself.
"Claire isn't boastful, dear, I think," she said gently. "It is
right for her to rest in the brightness of the present and to trust
to-morrow."
"Oh, she has planned to-morrow, mamma; there is nothing to trust about."
Then after a moment:
"Mamma, she is good and splendid, just as she always is, and I am
cross."
Whereupon she sprang to meet her father, and before he had divested
himself of his snowy great-coat, she had covered his bearded face with
kisses and dropped some tears on his hands.
It was after family worship that evening, when the father stood with
a daughter on either side of him, with an arm around each, that he
rallied Dora on her tearful greeting.
"Dora is mercurial," her mother said. "Her birthday comes in April, and
there is very apt to be a shower right in the midst of sunshine."
"She has studied too hard to-day," the father said, kissing her fondly.
"After a good night's rest, the sunshine will get the better of the
showers."
"They both need developing in exactly different ways," he said to the
mother when they were left to themselves.
He looked after his two beautiful girls fondly as he spoke, but the
last words they had heard from him were:
"Good-night, daughters! Get ready for a bright to-morrow. The storm is
about over."
"The storm did not trouble me," said Claire. "Real work often gets on
better in a storm; and I think we shall have a chance to try it. I
think papa is mistaken; the sky says to me that we shall have a stormy
day."
When "to-morrow" came, the sun shone brilliantly in a cloudless sky;
but every shutter in the Benedict mansion was closed, and crape
streamed from the doorknobs; and during all that memorable day neither
daughter did one thing that had been planned for the day before.