A "FANATIC."
I DO not suppose people realize how much such things influence them.
For instance, Alice Ansted was the sort of girl who would have been
ashamed of herself had she realized how much more important a person
Claire Benedict was to her as soon as it became known that she belonged
to the Boston Benedicts. But the fact was very apparent to others,
if not to Alice. She had been very glad, before this, to have Miss
Benedict enjoy the comforts of the house, but now she hovered about
her, and gave her crumbs of personal attention, and found a fascination
in hearing her talk, and, in short, was interested in her to a degree
that she could never have been simply in the poor music-teacher.
She brought her work one morning, and sat by the luxurious chair where
Claire had been imprisoned, with her injured foot skillfully arranged
on a hassock.
"How pretty it is," Claire said, watching the crimson silk flowers grow
on the canvas under skillful fingers; "do you enjoy working on it?"
The tone of voice which answered her was dissatisfied in the extreme:
"Oh, I suppose so; as well as I enjoy anything that there is to do. One
must employ one's self in some way, and we live such a humdrum life
here that there is chance for very little variety. I am puzzled to know
how you manage it, Miss Benedict; you have been accustomed to such
different surroundings. This is a sharp enough contrast to Chester.
Have you been in Chester yet, Miss Benedict? Well, it is just a nice
little city; hardly large enough to be called a city. The society is
good, and there is always something going on, and when I come out here
I am at an utter loss what to do with myself. But then, Chester is very
far from being Boston, and if I had had the advantages of Boston all
my life, as you have, I feel sure I could not endure a month of South
Plains. It is bad enough for me. How do you bear it?"
Claire could only smile in answer to this. There were circumstances
connected with her removal from Boston which were too keenly felt to
touch with a careless hand. She hastened to ask questions.
"What is there pleasant in Chester? I have promised myself to go there
some Saturday, and see what I can find in the library."
"Oh, there is a very fair library there, I believe, for a town of its
size, but I never patronize it; we have books enough. By the way, Miss
Benedict, you are welcome to the use of our library. Papa will be
glad to have some one enjoying the books. The girls have as much as
they can endure of books in school, and Louis is not literary in his
tastes; I am almost the only reader. Mamma is so busy with various city
benevolences that, what with her housekeeping and social cares, she
rarely has time for much reading. Oh, Chester is well enough. There are
concerts, you know, and lectures, or entertainments of some sort; one
can keep busy there, if one accepts invitations. But, to tell you the
truth, the whole thing often bores me beyond endurance, and I am glad
to get out here to be away from it all. I don't like my life. I think
I have talents for something better, if one could only find what it
is--the something better, I mean."
There was a pretty flush on her discontented face as she looked up
eagerly to see how this confidence was being received. Claire's face
was gently sympathetic, and grave. Alice took courage.
"Mamma laughs at me, and says I am visionary, and that I want to have
a career, and that I must be content to fill my sphere in life, as my
ancestors have done before me; but really I am not content. I don't
like the sort of life spread out before me for generations back;
marrying, you know, and keeping up a handsome house, and receiving and
paying visits, and giving a grand party once a year, when you are sure
to offend somebody to whom you were indebted in some way, and whom you
forgot. Now, do you see any particular enjoyment in that sort of thing?"
"No," said Claire unhesitatingly, "I do not."
"I'm real glad to hear you say so. Mamma thinks it is dreadful to be
discontented with one's lot; but I am. I would like a career of some
sort; anything that would absorb me. And yet I don't want to be poor. I
should shrink from that. Do you really find it easier to get along with
life, now that you have not time to think, as you used?"
Another question to be gently put aside. What did this girl know of the
charmed life which she had lived at home, and of the father who had
been its centre? She could not go into the depths of her heart and drag
out its memories, unless there were a very grave reason for so doing.
"I have always lived a very busy life," she answered, evasively; "but
before I can help you with any of my experiences, I must ask one
question: Are you not a Christian, Miss Ansted?"
Apparently it was an amazing question to the young girl. Her cheeks
took a deeper flush; she let her canvas half drop from her hand, and
fixed inquiring eyes on her questioner.
"Why, yes; that is, I suppose I am, or hope I am, or something; I am a
member of the church, if that is what you mean."
"It is not in the least what I mean. That is only the outward
sign--worthless, if it is not indeed a sign of union with Christ. Such
a union as furnishes a career, Miss Ansted, which alone is worthy of
you. Such a union as carries you captive--making your time and your
money, and your talents, not your own, but his. There is nothing
dissatisfying about such a life, my friend. It almost lifts one above
the accident of outward surroundings."
There was an undoubted amazement expressed on Miss Ansted's face now.
"I don't in the least understand you," she said. "What has my being
a member of the church to do with all this time which lies on my
hands just now, I should like to know. If you mean mission bands and
benevolent societies, and all that sort of thing, my tastes don't lie
in that direction, in the least. Mamma does enough of that for the
entire family; she always has some poky board meeting to attend. I have
sat shivering in the carriage, and waited for her last words so many
times, that I am utterly sick of the whole thing. Oh, I am a member, of
course, and give money; that is all they want. But you are mistaken in
supposing that these things help me in the least."
"I don't think so," Claire said, unable to help smiling over the
darkness which had so misunderstood and misinterpreted Christian work,
and yet feeling that it called for tears rather than smiles; "these
things are only more of the 'outward signs.'"
They were interrupted then, and Claire was not sorry. She wanted to
think over her ground. There was no use in casting these pearls of
truth before Alice Ansted, she was too utterly in the dark to see
them. A young lady she was, well educated, in the common acceptation
of that term, accomplished, so far as music and French were concerned,
skillful as regards embroidery and worsted work; but evidently the
veriest child as regarded the Christian life, though she had been a
member of the visible church for years. If she were to be helped at
all, Claire must come down from the heights where she walked and meet
her on some common ground.
"I wonder how the old church would do?" she asked herself. "I wish I
could get her interested in it, both for her sake and for the sake of
the church."
Had she heard the report given below of this brief conversation, she
might have been discouraged, for she was but a young worker after all,
and had not met with many rebuffs.
"Mamma, she is a regular little fanatic," so Alice affirmed. "You ought
to have heard her talk to me! It sounded just like quotations from that
old book of sermons that grandma used to pore over. I didn't know what
she meant."
"Probably she did not either," was the comment of this Christian
mother. "Some very young people occasionally fall into that style,
talking heroics, using theological terms of which they can not grasp
the meaning, and fancy it a higher type of religion. She will probably
know both less and more as she grows older."
Then was Miss Benedict's pupil, Ella, emboldened to come to the rescue
of her teacher's reputation:
"But, mamma, she is not so very young. I saw her birthday book, and the
date made her twenty in September."
"Indeed!" said Mrs. Ansted, with amused smile, "that is quite a
patriarchal age. She certainly ought to be well posted in all
theological dogmas by this time. My dear, it is one of the worst ages
for a young woman--if she isn't absorbed with an engagement by that
time to fancy herself superior."
"Oh, mamma! you don't know Miss Benedict. She doesn't fancy herself
superior to anybody. She is just as sweet and lovely as she can be. All
the girls like her, and I think she has the nicest religion of anybody
I know!" This outburst was from Fannie.
"Very well, dear," answered the mother complacently; "admire her as
much as you like. She is quite as safe a shrine as any for a young girl
like you to worship at. You must always have some one. I am glad the
girls like her, poor thing; her life must be doleful enough at best.
It is certainly a great change." And the benevolent mother sighed in
sympathy. She was glad to be able to put what she thought was a little
sunshine from her elegant home into the poor music-teacher's lot. She
even wondered, as she waited for her carriage to drive down town,
whether the sprained ankle were not a providential arrangement to
enable her to give a few days of rest and luxury to this unfortunate
girl.
This thought she kept quite to herself. She did not quite accept such
strained and peculiar views of Providence. It savored a little of
fanaticism--a thing which she disapproved, and Mr. Ansted disliked; but
then, some people thought such things, and it was barely possible that
they were sometimes correct.
She went out to her carriage still thinking these thoughts, and Claire,
watching her from the upper window, said to herself:
"I wonder if I can help her? I wonder if God means me to? Of course, I
am set down here for something." _She_ had no doubt at all about the
providence in it.
The son of the house had added one sentence to the family discussion:
"You might have known that she would be a fanatic, after you found
that she was Sydney Benedict's daughter. He was the wildest kind of a
visionary. Porter was talking about him to-day. He knew them in Boston.
He says Benedict gave away enough every year to support his family in
splendid style. They are reaping the results of his extravagance."
This is only one of the many different ways which there are of looking
at things.
Nevertheless the fair fanatic seemed to be an attractive object to
the entire family. Louis, not hitherto particularly fond of evenings
at home, found himself lingering in the up-stairs library, whither he
had himself wheeled the large chair with the patient seated therein.
As the days passed, she persisted in making herself useful, and Ella
and Fannie, under her daily tuition, were making very marked progress
in music, as well as in some other things that their mother did not
understand about so well. It was on one of these cosey evenings that
Louis occupied the piano-stool, he and Alice having been performing
snatches of favorite duets, until Alice was summoned to the parlors.
"Come down, won't you, Louis? that is a good boy. It is the Powell
girls, and Dick will be with them, I presume." This had been Alice's
petition just as she was leaving the room.
But Louis had elevated both eyebrows and shoulders.
"The Powell girls!" he repeated. "Not if this individual knows himself!
I never inflict myself on the Powell girls, if there is any possibility
of avoiding it; and as for Dick, I would go a square out of my way any
time, to save boring him. Excuse me, please, Alice; I am not at home,
or I _am_ at home, and indisposed--just as you please; the latter has
the merit of truth. It is my duty to stay here and entertain Miss
Benedict, since the girls have deserted her.
"I have no doubt that you would excuse me with pleasure, but
nevertheless I consider it my duty to stay!" This last was merrily
added, just as Alice closed the door.
Claire did not wait to reply to the banter, but plunged at once into
the centre of the thought which had been growing on her for several
days.
"Mr. Ansted, do you know, I wish I could enlist both you and your
sisters as helpers in the renovation of the old church down town?"
"What! the old brick rookery on the corner? My dear young lady, your
faith is sublime, and your knowledge of this precious village limited!
That concern was past renovating some years before the flood. It was
about that time, or a little later, that my respected grandfather tried
to remodel the seats, and raised such a storm of indignation about his
ears that it took a century to calm the people down; so tradition says.
Whatever you undertake to do will be a failure; I feel it my duty to
inform you of so much. And now I am burning with a desire to ask a rude
question: Why do you care to do anything with it? Why does it interest
you in the least? I beg your pardon if I am meddling with what does not
concern me, but I was amused over the affair when the girls came home
and petitioned to join the charmed circle. Why a lady who was here but
for a passing season or so, should interest herself in the old horror,
was beyond my comprehension. Is it strictly benevolence, may I ask?"
"I don't think it is benevolence at all. It is a plain-faced duty."
"Duty!" The heavy eyebrows were raised again. "I don't comprehend you.
Why should a stranger to this miserable, little, squeezed-up village,
and one who by all the laws of association and affinity will surely not
spend much of her time here, have any duties connected with that old
box, which the church fathers have allowed to run into desolation and
disgrace for so many years, that the present generation accepts it as a
matter of course?"
"Will you allow me to ask _you_ one question, Mr. Ansted? Are you a
Christian?"