OUT IN THE WORLD.
I AM not sure that I would, even if I could, give you a detailed
account of the days which followed.
What is the use of trying to live pain over again on paper? Yet some
people need practice of this sort to enable them to have any idea of
the sorrows of other hearts.
I wonder if you ever went through a large, elegantly furnished house,
from room to room, and dismantled it? Packing away this thing as far as
possible from curious eyes, soiling the velvet, or the satin, or the
gilding of it, perhaps, with bitter tears while you worked; marking
that thing with a ticket containing two words which had become hateful
to you, "For sale;" hiding away some special treasure in haste, lest
the unexpected sight of it might break a heart that was just now
bearing all it could. Has such experience ever been yours? Then you
know all about it, and can in imagination follow Claire Benedict from
attic to basement of her father's house; and no words of mine can make
the picture plainer. If it is something you have never experienced, or
even remotely touched, you may think you are sympathetic, and you may
gravely try to be, but nothing that printed words can say will be apt
to help you much in realizing the bitterness of such hours.
Isn't it a blessed thing that it is so? Suppose we actually bore on
our hearts the individual griefs of the world? How long would our poor
bodies be in breaking under the strain? "He hath borne our griefs and
carried our sorrows." It took the Infinite to do this.
Through all the miseries of the two weeks during which the process
of dismantling went on, Claire Benedict sustained her character for
self-reliance and systematic energy. She stood between her mother and
the world. She interviewed carmen, and porters, and auctioneers, and
talked calmly about the prices of things, the thought of selling which
made her flesh fairly quiver.
She superintended the moving of heavy furniture, and the packing of
delicate glasses and vases, after they had been chosen from the home
treasures at private sale.
She discussed with possible purchasers the value of this or that
carpet, and calculated back to see how long it had been in use, when
the very bringing of it into the home had marked an anniversary which
made her cheek pale and her breath come hard as she tried to speak the
date.
There were some who tried to shield her from some of these bitter
experiences. There were kind offers of assistance; made, it is true, in
the main, by those who were willing, but incompetent; but Claire was
in the mood to decline all the help she could. Do her best, there was
still so much help actually required, that it made her blush to think
of it.
"There are a hundred things they want to know," she would explain to
those who begged her not to tear her heart and wear her strength
by walking through the rooms with those who had come to purchase,
possibly, certainly to see, and to ask. "There are a hundred things
they want to know that only mamma or I can tell them. It shall never
be mamma, and I would rather face them and wait on them alone, than to
creep out at call, like an ashamed creature, to answer their demands.
There is nothing wicked about it, and I ought to be able to bear what
others have had to."
Nevertheless, it was cruel work. She knew when the two weeks of private
sale were over, and she stood battered and bruised in soul, over the
forlorn wrecks of the ruined home, that she had not understood before
what a strain it was to be. She had almost borne it alone. It was true,
as she had said, that it must be either mamma or herself. Those who in
all loving tenderness had tried to help, realized this after the first
day. "I don't know, really; I will ask Miss Benedict," was the most
frequent answer to the endless questions. Dora's pitiful attempts to
help bear the burden seemed to give her sister more pain than anything
else. And one day, when to the persistent questioning of a woman in a
cotton velvet sack, about the first value of a Persian rug of peculiar
pattern and coloring, Dora dropped down on a hassock in a burst of
tears, and sobbed: "Oh, I don't know how much it cost; but I know papa
brought it when he came from Europe the day I was fourteen. Oh, papa,
papa, what shall I do!" Claire came from the next room, calm, pale,
cold as a statue, just a swift touch of tenderness for Dora as she
stooped over her, saying--
"Run away, darling, I will attend to this," then she was ready to
discuss the merits, possible and probable, of the Persian rug, or of
anything else in the room. When the woman in the sham velvet bunglingly
attempted to explain that she did not mean to hurt poor Dora's
feelings, she was answered quietly, even gently, that no harm had been
done, that Dora was but a child. When the woman was gone, without the
Persian rug--the price having been too great for her purse--Claire
went swiftly to the sobbing Dora, and extracted a promise from her that
she would never, no, never, attempt to enter one of the public rooms
again during those hateful two weeks, and she kept her promise.
The next thing, now that the private sale had closed, and Claire
could be off guard, was house-hunting. Not in the style of some of
her acquaintances, with whom she had explored certain handsome rows
of houses "for rent," feeling secretly very sorry for them that they
had to submit to the humiliation of living in rented houses and be
occasionally subject to the miseries of moving. Claire Benedict had
never moved but once, which was when her father changed from his
handsome house on one avenue to his far handsomer one on a grander
avenue, which experience was full of delight to the energetic young
girl. Very different was this moving to be. She was not looking for
a house; she was not even looking for a handsome half of a double
house, which wore the air of belonging to one family; nor could she
even honestly say she was looking for a "flat," because they must, if
possible, get along with even less room than this. To so low an estate
had they fallen in an hour!
You do not want me to linger over the story, nor try to give you any
of the shuddering details. The rooms were found and rented, Claire
adding another drop to her bitter cup by seeking out Judge Symonds as
her security. They were moved into; not until they had been carefully
cleaned and brightened to the best of the determined young girl's
ability. Two carpets had been saved from the wreck for mother's room
and the general sitting-room; and a pitiful, not to say painful,
effort had been made to throw something like an air of elegance around
"mamma's room." She recognized it the moment she looked on it, with
lips that quivered, but with a face that bravely smiled as she said:
"Daughter, you have done wonders." She wanted, instead, to cry out:
"Woe is me! What shall I do?"
This little mother, used to sheltering hands, had been a constant and
tender lesson to Claire all through the days.
She had not broken down, and lain down and died, as at first Claire
had feared she would; neither had she wept and moaned as one who would
not be comforted. She had leaned on Claire, it is true, but not in
a way that seemed like an added burden; it was rather a balm to the
sore heart to have "mamma" gently turn to her for a decisive word, and
depend on her advice somewhat as she had depended on the father.
It had not been difficult to get a promise from her to have nothing
to do with the dreadful sales. "No, dear," she had said quietly, when
Claire made her plea, "I will not try to help in that direction; I know
that I should hinder rather than help. You can do it all, much better
than I. You are like your father, my child; he always took the hard
things, so that I did not learn how."
The very work with which the mother quietly occupied herself was
pathetic. It had been their pleasure to see her fair hands busy
with the bright wools, and silks and velvets of fancy work, such as
the restless young schoolgirl was too nervous to care for, and the
energetic elder daughter was too busy to find time for. It had been
their pride to point to many delicate pieces of cunning workmanship,
and say they were "mamma's."
"So different from most other mothers," Dora would say, fondly and
proudly.
But on the morning that the sale commenced, the mother had gone over
all the wools, and silks, and canvas, and packed them away with that
unfinished piece of crimson; and thereafter, her needle, though busy,
took the stitches that the discharged seamstress had been wont to take.
Claire found her one day patiently darning a rent in a fast breaking
tablecloth, which had been consigned by the housekeeper to the drawer
for old linen. Scarcely anything in the history of the long, weary day
touched Claire so much as this.
Such power have the little things to sting us! Some way we make
ourselves proof against the larger ones.
There had been very little about the experiences of these trying
weeks that had to be brought before the family for discussion. They
were spared the pain of argument. There had not been two minds about
the matter for a moment. Everything must go; the creditors must be
satisfied to the uttermost farthing, if possible. That, as a matter of
course. Never mind what the law allowed them. They knew nothing about
the law, cared nothing for it; they would even have given up their
keepsakes and their very dresses, had there been need, and they could
have found purchasers.
But there had been no need. Disastrous as the failure had been, it was
found that there was unincumbered property enough to pay every creditor
and have more furniture left than they knew what to do with, besides a
sum of money; so small, indeed, that at first poor Claire, unused to
calculating on such a small scale, had curled her lip in very scorn,
and thought that it might as well have gone with the rest.
There came a day when they were settled in those ridiculously small
rooms, with every corner and cranny in immaculate order, and had
reached the disastrous moment when they might fold their hands and do
nothing. Alas for Claire! If there was one thing that she had always
hated, it was to do nothing. She was almost glad that it was not
possible for her to do this. The absurd little sum set to their credit
in the First National Bank, of which her father had for so many years
been a part, would barely suffice to pay the ridiculously small rent of
these wretched rooms and provide her mother with food and clothing. She
must support herself. She must do more than that: Dora must be kept in
school. But how was all this to be done?
The old question! She had puzzled over it a hundred times for some poor
woman on her list. She thought of them now only with shivers. Executive
ability? Dear! yes, she had always been admired for having it.
But it is one thing to execute, when you have but to put your hand
in your pocket for the money that is needed for carrying out your
designs; or, if there chance not to be enough therein, trip lightly up
the great, granite steps of the all-powerful bank, ask to see "papa"
a minute, and come out replenished. It was quite another thing when
neither pocket nor bank had aught for her, and the first snows of
winter were falling on the father's grave.
She had one talent, marked and cultivated to an unusual degree. She
had thought of it several times with a little feeling of assurance.
Everybody knew that her musical education had been thorough in the
extreme, and that her voice was wonderful.
She had been told by her teachers many a time that a fortune lay locked
up in it. Now was the time for the fortune to come forth. She must
teach music; she must secure a position in which to sing on a salary.
Claire Benedict of two months ago had been given to curling her lip
just a little over the thought that Christian young men and women had
to be paid for contributing with their voices to the worship of God on
the Sabbath day. The Claire Benedict of to-day, with that great gulf
of experience between her and her yesterday, said, with a sob, that
she would never sneer again at any honest thing which women did to earn
their living. She herself would become a salaried singer.
Yes, but how bring it to pass? Did you ever notice how strangely the
avenues for employment which have been just at your side seem to close
when there is need? More than once had representatives of fashionable
churches said wistfully to Claire: "If we could only have your voice in
our choir!" Now, a little exertion on her part served to discover to
her the surprising fact that there were no vacancies among the churches
where salaried singers were in demand.
Yes, there was one, and they sought her out. The offered salary would
have been a small fortune to her in her present need; but she could not
worship in that church; she would not sing the praises of God merely
for money.
There was earnest urging, but she was firm. There was a specious hint
that true worship could be offered anywhere, but Claire replied:
"But your hymns ignore the doctrine on which I rest my hope for this
life and for the future."
It was a comfort to her to remember that when she mentioned the offer
to her mother and sister, and said that she could not accept it, her
mother had replied, promptly: "Of course not, daughter." And even Dora,
who was at the questioning age, inclined to toss her head a little
bit at isms and creeds, and hint at the need for liberal views and a
broader platform, said: "What an idea! I should have supposed that they
would have known better."
But it was the only church that offered. Neither did Claire blame them.
It was honest truth; there was no opening. A year ago--six months
ago--why, even two months ago, golden opportunities would have awaited
her; but just now every vacancy was satisfactorily filled. Why should
those giving satisfaction, and needing the money, be discharged,
to make room for her who needed it no less? Claire was no weak,
unreasoning girl who desired any such thing.
As for two months ago, at that time the thought of the possibility of
ever being willing to fill such a place had not occurred to her.