Dr. Howe, with no thought of Mr. Forsythe's unceremonious call at the
rectory, had gone home with Mr. Denner. "One needs a walk," he said,
"after one of Miss Deborah's dinners. Bless my soul, what a housekeeper
that woman is!"
"Just so," said Mr. Denner, hurrying along at his side,--"just so. Ah--it
has often occurred to me."
And when the rector had left him at his white gateway between the
Lombardy poplars, Mr. Denner went into his library, and after stumbling
about to light his lamp, and stirring his fire to have a semblance, at
least, of cheer, he sat down and meditated further on this subject of
Miss Deborah's housekeeping.
It was a dreary room, with lofty ceilings and few and narrow windows. The
house was much lower than the street, and had that piercing chill of
dampness which belongs to houses in a hollow, and the little gentleman
drew so close to the smouldering fire that his feet were inside the
fender.
He leaned forward, and resting his elbows on his knees, propped his
chin on his hands, and stared at the smoke curling heavily up into the
cavernous chimney, where the soot hung long and black. It was very
lonely. Willie Denner, of course, had long ago gone to bed, and unless
the lawyer chose to go into the kitchen for company, where Mary was
reading her one work of fiction. "The Accounts of the Death Beds of
Eminent Saints," he had no one to speak to. Many a time before had he sat
thus, pondering on the solitude of his life, and contrasting his house
with other Ashurst homes. He glanced about his cold bare room, and
thought of the parlor of the Misses Woodhouse. How pleasant it was, how
bright, and full of pretty feminine devices! whereas his library--Mary
had been a hard mistress. One by one the domestic decorations of the
late lady of the house had disappeared. She could not "have things round
a-trapin' dust," Mary said, and her word was law.
"If my little sister had lived," he said, crouching nearer the fire,
and watching a spark catch in the soot and spread over the chimney-back
like a little marching regiment, that wheeled and maneuvered, and then
suddenly vanished, "it would have been different. She would have made
things brighter. Perhaps she would have painted, like Miss Ruth; and
I have no doubt she would have been an excellent housekeeper. We
should have just lived quietly here, she and I, and I need never have
thought"--Mr. Denner flushed faintly in the firelight--"of marriage."
Mr. Denner's mind had often traveled as far as this; he had even gone to
the point of saying to himself that he wished one of the Misses Woodhouse
would regard him with sentiments of affection, and he and Willie, free
from Mary, could have a home of their own, instead of forlornly envying
the rector and Henry Dale.
But Mr. Denner had never said which Miss Woodhouse; he had always thought
of them, as he would have expressed it, "collectively," nor could he have
told which one he most admired,--he called it by no warmer name, even to
himself.
But as he sat here alone, and remembered the pleasant evening he had had,
and watched his fire smoulder and die, and heard the soft sigh of the
rising wind, he reached a tremendous conclusion. He would make up his
mind. He would decide which of the Misses Woodhouse possessed his deeper
regard. "Yes," he said, as he lifted first one foot and then the other
over the fender, and, pulling his little coat-tails forward under his
arms, stood with his back to the fireplace,--"yes, I will make up my
mind; I will make it up to-morrow. I cannot go on in this uncertain way.
I cannot allow myself to think of Miss Ruth, and how she would paint
her pictures, and play my accompaniments, and then find my mind on Miss
Deborah's dinners. It is impracticable; it is almost improper. To-morrow
I will decide."
To have reached this conclusion was to have accomplished a great deal.
Mr. Denner went to bed much cheered; but he dreamed of walking about Miss
Ruth's studio, and admiring her pictures, when, to his dismay, he found
Mary had followed him, and was saying she couldn't bear things all of a
clutter.
The next morning he ate his breakfast in solemn haste; it was to be an
important day for him. He watched Mary as she walked about, handing him
dishes with a sternness which had always awed him into eating anything
she placed before him, and wondered what she would think when she
heard--He trembled a little at the thought of breaking it to her; and
then he remembered Miss Ruth's kind heart, and he had a vision of a
pension for Mary, which was checked instantly by the recollection of
Miss Deborah's prudent economy.
"Ah, well," he thought, "I shall know to-night. Economy is a good
thing,--Miss Ruth herself would not deny that."
He went out to his office, and weighed and balanced his inclinations
until dinner-time, and again in the afternoon, but with no result. Night
found him hopelessly confused, with the added grievance that he had not
kept his word to himself.
This went on for more than a week; by and by the uncertainty began to
wear greatly upon him.
"Dear me!" he sighed one morning, as he sat in his office, his little
gaitered feet upon the rusty top of his air-tight stove, and his
brierwood pipe at his lips--it had gone out, leaving a bowl of cheerless
white ashes,--"dear me! I no sooner decide that it had better be Miss
Deborah--for how satisfying my linen would be if she had an eye on the
laundry, and I know she would not have bubble-and-squeak for dinner as
often as Mary does--than Miss Ruth comes into my mind. What taste she
has, and what an ear! No one notices the points in my singing as she
does; and how she did turn that carpet in Gifford's room; dear me!"
He sat clutching his extinguished pipe for many minutes, when suddenly a
gleam came into his face, and the anxious look began to disappear.
He rose, and laid his pipe upon the mantelpiece, first carefully knocking
the ashes into the wood-box which stood beside the stove. Then, standing
with his left foot wrapped about his right ankle and his face full of
suppressed eagerness, he felt in each pocket of his waistcoat, and
produced first a knife, then a tape measure, a pincushion, a bunch of
keys, and last a large, worn copper cent. It was smooth with age, but its
almost obliterated date still showed that it had been struck the year of
Mr. Denner's birth.
Next, he spread his pocket handkerchief smoothly upon the floor, and
then, a little stiffly, knelt upon it. He rubbed the cent upon the cuff
of his coat to make it shine, and held it up a moment in the stream of
wintry sunshine that poured through the office window and lay in a golden
square on the bare floor.
"Heads," said Mr. Denner,--"heads shall be Miss Deborah; tails, Miss
Ruth. Oh, dear me! I wonder which?"
As he said this, he pitched the coin with a tremulous hand, and then
leaned forward, breathlessly watching it fall, waver from side to side,
and roll slowly under the bookcase. Too much excited to rise from his
knees, he crept towards it, and, pressing his cheek against the dusty
floor, he peered under the unwieldy piece of furniture, to catch a
glimpse of his penny and learn his fate.
At such a critical moment it was not surprising that he did not, hear
Willie Denner come into the office. The little boy stood still, surprised
at his uncle's attitude. "Have you lost something, sir?" he said, but
without waiting for an answer, he fell on his knees and looked also.
"Oh, I see,--your lucky penny; I'll get it for you in a minute."
And stretching out flat upon his stomach, he wriggled almost under the
bookcase, while Mr. Denner rose and furtively brushed the dust from his
knees.
"Here it is, uncle William," Willie said, emerging from the shadow of the
bookcase; "it was clear against the wall, and 'most down in a crack."
Mr. Denner took the penny from the child, and rubbed it nervously between
his hands.
"I suppose," he inquired with great hesitation, "you did not chance to
observe, William, which--ah--which side was up?"
"No, sir," answered Willie, with amazement written on his little freckled
face; "it hadn't fallen, you know, uncle; it was just leaning against the
wall. I came in to bring my Latin exercise," he went on. "I'll run back
to school now, sir."
He was off like a flash, saying to himself in a mystified way, "I wonder
if uncle William plays heads and tails all alone in the office?"
Mr. Denner stood holding the penny, and gazing blankly at it, unconscious
of the dust upon his cheek.
"That did not decide it," he murmured. "I must try something else."
For Mr. Denner had some small superstitions, and it is doubtful if he
would have questioned fate again in the same way, even if he had not been
interrupted at that moment by the rector.
Dr. Howe came into the office beating his hands to warm them, his face
ruddy and his breath short from a walk in the cold wind. He had come to
see the lawyer about selling a bit of church land; Mr. Denner hastily
slipped his penny into his pocket, and felt his face grow hot as he
thought in what a posture the rector would have found him had he come
a few minutes sooner.
"Bless my soul, Denner," Dr. Howe said, when, the business over, he rose
to go, "this den of yours is cold!" He stooped to shake the logs in the
small stove, hoping to start a blaze. The rector would have resented any
man's meddling with his fire, but all Mr. Denner's friends felt a sort of
responsibility for him, which he accepted as a matter of course.
"Ah, yes," replied Mr. Denner, "it is chilly here. It had not occurred
to me, but it is chilly. Some people manage to keep their houses very
comfortable in weather like this. It is always warm at the rectory, I
notice, and at Henry Dale's, or--ah--the Misses Woodhouse's,--always
warm."
The rector, taking up a great deal of room in the small office, was on
his knees, puffing at the fire until his face was scarlet. "Yes. I don't
believe that woman of yours half looks after your comfort, Denner. Can't
be a good housekeeper, or she would not let this stove get so choked with
ashes."
"No," Mr. Denner acknowledged--"ah--I am inclined to agree with you,
doctor. Not perhaps a really good housekeeper. But few women are,--very
few. You do not find a woman like Miss Deborah Woodhouse often, you
know."
"True enough," said Dr. Howe, pulling on his big fur gloves. "That
salad of hers, the other night, was something to live for. What is
that?--'plunge his fingers in the salad bowl'--'tempt the dying anchorite
to eat,'--I can't remember the lines, but that is how I feel about Miss
Deborah's salad." The rector laughed in a quick, breezy bass, beat his
hands together, and was ready to start.
"Yes," said Mr. Denner, "just so,--quite so. But Miss Deborah is a
remarkable woman, an estimable woman. One scarcely knows which is the
more admirable, Miss Deborah or Miss Ruth. Which should you--ah--which do
you most admire?"
The rector turned, with one hand on the door-knob, and looked at the
lawyer, with a sudden gleam in his keen eyes. "Well, I am sure I don't
know. I never thought of comparing them. They are both, as you say,
estimable ladies."
"Oh, yes, yes, just so," said Mr. Denner hurriedly. "I only mentioned it
because--it was merely in the most general way; I--I--did not mean to
compare--oh, not at all--of course I should never discuss a lady's worth,
as it were. I spoke in confidence; I merely wondered what your opinion
might be--not"--cried Mr. Denner, bursting into a cold perspiration of
fright to see how far his embarrassment had betrayed him--"not that I
really care to know! Oh, not at all!"
The rector flung his head back, and his rollicking laugh jarred the very
papers on Mr. Denner's desk.
"It is just as well you don't, for I am sure I could not say. I respect
them both immensely. I have from boyhood," he added, with a droll look.
Mr. Denner coughed nervously.
"It is not of the slightest consequence," he explained,--"not the
slightest. I spoke thoughtlessly; ah--unadvisedly."
"Of course, of course; I understand," cried the rector, and forbore to
add a good-natured jest at Mr. Denner's embarrassment, which was really
painful.
But when he was well out of hearing, he could not restrain a series of
chuckles.
"By Jove!" he cried, clapping his thigh, "Denner!--Denner and Miss
Deborah! Bless my soul,--Denner!"
His mirth, however, did not last long; some immediate annoyances of his
own forced themselves into his mind.
Before he went to the lawyer's office, he had had a talk with Mrs. Dale,
which had not been pleasant; then a letter from Helen had come; and now
an anxious wrinkle showed itself under his fur cap, as he walked back to
the rectory.
He had gone over to show Mr. Dale a somewhat highly seasoned sketch in
"Bell's Life;" in the midst of their enjoyment of it, they were
interrupted by Mrs. Dale.
"I want to speak to you about Lois, brother. Ach! how this room smells of
smoke!" she said.
"Why, what has the child done now?" said Dr. Howe.
"You needn't say 'What has she done now?' as though I was always finding
fault," Mrs. Dale answered, "though I do try to do my Christian duty if
I see any one making a mistake."
"Adele," remarked the rector, with a frankness which was entirely that
of a brother, and had no bearing upon his office, "you are always ready
enough with that duty of fault-finding." Mr. Dale looked admiringly at
his brother-in-law. "Why don't you think of the duty of praise, once in
a while? Praise is a Christian grace too much neglected. Don't you think
so, Henry?"
But Mrs. Dale answered instead: "I am ready enough to praise when there
is occasion for it, but you can't expect me to praise Lois for her
behavior to young Forsythe. Arabella says the poor youth is completely
prostrated by the blow."
"Bah!" murmured Mr. Dale under his breath; but Dr. Howe said
impatiently,--
"What do you mean? What blow?"
"Why, Lois has refused him!" cried Mrs. Dale. "What else?"
"I didn't know she had refused him," the rector answered slowly. "Well,
the child is the best judge, after all."
"I am glad of it," said Mr. Dale,--"I am glad of it. He was no husband
for little Lois,--no, my dear, pray let me speak,--no husband for Lois.
I have had some conversation with him, and I played euchre with him once.
He played too well for a gentleman, Archibald."
"He beat you, did he?" said the rector.
"That had nothing to do with it!" cried Mr. Dale. "I should have said the
same thing had I been his partner"--
"Fudge!" Mrs. Dale interrupted, "as though it made the slightest
difference how a man played a silly game! Don't be foolish, Henry. Lois
has made a great mistake, but I suppose there is nothing to be done,
unless young Forsythe should try again. I hope he will, and I hope she
will have more sense."
The rector was silent. He could not deny that he was disappointed, and as
he went towards the post-office, he almost wished he had offered a word
of advice to Lois. "Still, a girl needs her mother for that sort of
thing, and, after all, perhaps it is best. For really, I should be very
dull at the rectory without her." Thus he comforted himself for what was
only a disappointment to his vanity, and was quite cheerful when he
opened Helen's letter.
The post-office was in that part of the drug-store where the herbs were
kept, and the letters always had a faint smell of pennyroyal or wormwood
about them. The rector read his letter, leaning against the counter,
and crumpling some bay leaves between his fingers; and though he was
interrupted half a dozen times by people coming for their mail, and
stopping to gossip about the weather or the church, he gained a very
uncomfortable sense of its contents.
"More of this talk about belief," he grumbled, as he folded the last
sheet, covered with the clear heavy writing, and struck it impatiently
across his hand before he thrust it down into his pocket. "What in the
world is John Ward thinking of to let her bother her head with such
questions?"
"I am surprised" Helen wrote, "to see how narrowness and intolerance seem
to belong to intense belief. Some of these elders in John's church,
especially a man called Dean (the father of my Alfaretta), believe in
their horrible doctrines with all their hearts, and their absolute
conviction make them blind to any possibility of good in any creed which
does not agree with theirs. Apparently, they think they have reached the
ultimate truth, and never even look for new light. That is the strangest
thing to me. Now, for my part, I would not sign a creed to-day which I
had written myself, because one lives progressively in religion as in
everything else. But, after all, as I said to Gifford the other day, the
_form_ of belief is of so little consequence. The main thing is to have
the realization of God in one's own soul; it would be enough to have
that, I should think. But to some of us God is only another name for the
power of good,--or, one might as well say force, and that is blind and
impersonal; there is nothing comforting or tender in the thought of
force. How do you suppose the conviction of the personality of God is
reached?"
"All nonsense," said the rector, as he went home, striking out with
his cane at the stalks of golden-rod standing stiff with frost at the
roadside. "I shall tell Gifford he ought to know better than to have
these discussions with her. Women don't understand such things; they go
off at half cock, and think themselves skeptics. All nonsense!"
But the rector need not have felt any immediate anxiety about his niece.
As yet such questions were only a sort of intellectual exercise; the time
had not come when they should be intensely real, and she should seek for
an answer with all the force of her life, and know the anguish of despair
which comes when a soul feels itself adrift upon a sea of unbelief. They
were not of enough importance to talk of to John, even if she had not
known they would trouble him; she and Gifford had merely spoken of them
as speculations of general interest; yet all the while they were shaping
and moulding her mind for the future.
But the letter brought a cloud on Dr. Howe's face; he wanted to forget
it, he was impatient to shake off the unpleasant remembrances it roused,
and so engaged was he in this that by the time he had reached the rectory
Mr. Denner and his perplexities were quite out of his mind, though the
lawyer's face was still tingling with mortification.
Mr. Denner could not keep his thoughts from his puzzle. Supper-time came,
and he was still struggling to reach a conclusion. He carved the cold
mutton with more than usual precision, and ate it in anxious abstraction.
The room was chilly; draughts from the narrow windows made the lamp
flare, and the wind from under the closed door raised the carpet in
swells along the floor. He did not notice Willie, who kept his hands in
his pockets for warmth, and also because he had nothing for them to do.
When Mr. Denner rang for Mary, the boy said with anxious politeness,
"Was--was the mutton good, sir?"
Willie had been well brought up,--he was not to speak unless spoken to;
but under the press of hunger nature rebelled, for his uncle, in his
absorption, had forgotten to help him to anything.
Mr. Denner carved some meat for the child, and then sat and watched him
with such gloomy eyes, that Willie was glad to finish and push his chair
back for prayers.
The table was cleared, and then Mary put the Bible in front of Mr.
Denner, and Jay's "Morning and Evening Exercises," open at the proper
day. Two candles in massive candlesticks on either side of his book gave
an unsteady light, and when they flickered threw strange shadows on the
ceiling. The frames which held the paintings of Mr. Denner's grandparents
loomed up dark and forbidding, and Mary, who always sat with her arms
rolled in her apron and her head bowed upon her ample breast, made a
grotesque shadow, which danced and bobbed about on the door of the
pantry. Mary generally slept through prayers, while for Willie it was
a time of nervous dread. The room was so dark, and his uncle's voice so
strange and rolling, the little fellow feared to kneel down and turn his
back to the long table with its ghastly white cloth; his imagination
pictured fearful things stealing upon him from the mysterious space
beneath it, and his heart beat so he could scarcely hear the words of the
prayer. But Mr. Denner enjoyed it. Not, however, because prayer was the
expression of his soul; family prayer was merely a dignified and proper
observance. Mr. Denner would not; have omitted it any more than he would
have neglected Sunday morning service; but he was scarcely more aware of
the words than Willie or Mary were. It was the reading which gave Mr.
Denner so much pleasure.
Perhaps the cases he had never pleaded, the dramatic force which he
secretly longed to exert, expended themselves in the sonorous chapters
of Isaiah or in the wail of Jeremiah. Indeed, the thought had more than
once occurred to Mr. Denner that the rector, who read the service with
cheerful haste, might improve in his own delivery, could he listen to the
eloquence under which Mary and little Willie sat every evening.
To-night it was the victory of Jephtha. The reading proceeded as usual:
Mary slumbered tranquilly at her end of the room; Willie counted the
number of panes of glass in the window opposite him, and wondered what
he should do if suddenly a white face should peer in at him out of the
darkness; Mr. Denner had reached the vow that whatsoever should first
meet Jephtha,--when, with his hand extended, his eyebrows drawn together,
and his whole attitude expressing the anxiety and fear of the conqueror,
he stopped abruptly. Here was an inspiration!
Mary woke with a start. "Is it a stroke?" she exclaimed. But Willie, with
one frightened look at the window and the long table, slipped from his
chair to kneel, thinking the reading was over. The sound of his little
copper-toed boots upon the floor aroused Mr. Denner; he frowned
portentously. "_So Jephtha passed over unto the children of Ammon_,"
he read on, "_to fight against them, and the Lord delivered them into
his hands_."
When prayers were ended, however, and he was sitting in his library
alone, he said with a subdued glee, "That is the way to do it,--the one
I see first!" And Mr. Denner went to bed with a quiet mind, and the peace
which follows the decision of a momentous question.