"Do you know, Bee, it seems to me after all that my experience is like
almost all religion. There are a few men and women who believe in
themselves in that self-poised way that makes it possible for them to
get on with just ethics; and there are those who can take hold of
unseen things; but for the rest of us it's necessary to have some human
being to lean on. I hope I don't shock you. I lie awake in the night a
good deal, and my mind seems clearer than it used to be. All the
religions seem to have a real, tangible human centre, a personality
that human beings can appreciate and believe in. Mrs. Crapps was so
real and so near at hand that I could have faith in her; now that that
is gone there isn't anything left for me. I can't believe in her, and
she has destroyed the Possibility of my believing in anybody else."
Berenice put out her hand in the growing dusk, caressing the thin
fingers of the sick woman.
"But--but," she hesitated, "she hasn't destroyed your faith in--in
everything, has she?"
"No, dear; she hasn't touched my belief in God; but it makes me ashamed
to see how different a thing it is to believe in what we see and touch,
from having a genuine faith in what we do not see. I have a faith in my
soul still; the other was only a faith of the body. Perhaps it had only
to do with the body, and it is not so bad to have lost it."
"Oh, Cousin Anna," Berenice murmured, tears choking her voice, "I can't
bear to see you getting farther and farther off every day, and to feel
so helpless."
"There, there, Bee," responded the other with tender cheerfulness, "you
are not to agitate yourself or to excite me. I've lived half a year
more now than the doctors allowed me, and I've enjoyed it too. Besides,
think of the blessedness of not having any pain. Do you know, the night
after Mrs. Crapps had that scene in the hotel, I was in a panic of
terror lest my old agony should come back; but it didn't. Then I said
to myself: 'Of course I couldn't suffer; I'm really dead!' You can't
think what a comfort it was."
"Oh, don't, don't!" cried Bee. "I can't bear to have you talk like
that."
"Well, then, we won't. There's something else I want to speak to you
about while I am strong enough. Do you realize that when I am gone
you'll be a rich woman?"
"I haven't thought about it. I've hated to think."
"Yes, dear, I understand; but when you are older you'll come to realize
that half of the duty of life is to think of things which one would
rather forget."
"But it could do no good to think of this."
"Perhaps not; but I want to ask you something. I know you'll forgive
me. It's about Parker Stanford."
"You may ask me anything you like, of course, Cousin Anna. As for
Parker Stanford, he's nothing more than the rest of the men I know,
only he's been more polite. We are very good friends."
"No more?"
"No more; and we never shall be."
"But he surely wished to be?" The day had darkened until the room was
lighted only by the flames of the soft coal fire which sputtered in the
grate. The cousins could hardly see each other's faces; but in the dim
light Berenice turned frankly toward Mrs. Frostwinch.
"That is all over now," responded she. "Of course to anybody else I
shouldn't own that there ever was anything; but whatever there may have
been is ended. He understands that perfectly."
For some minutes Berenice sat smoothing the invalid's hand, the
firelight glancing on her face and hair.
"How pretty you are, Bee," Mrs. Frostwinch said at length. Then without
pause she added: "Is there anybody else?"
Bee sank backward into the shadow with a quick, instinctive movement,
dropping the hand she held.
"Who should there be?" she returned.
Her cousin laughed softly.
"You are as transparent as glass," she said. "Come, who is it?"
Berenice hesitated an instant, then threw herself forward, bending over
the hand of her companion until her face was hidden.
"There isn't really anybody; and besides I've insulted him so that he
never could help hating me. No, there isn't anybody, Cousin Anna; and
there never will be. I know I should despise him if he wasn't angry;
and besides," she added with the air of suddenly recollecting herself,
"I hate him for what he said."
"That is evident," the other assented smilingly. "I could see at once
that you hated him. But who is it?"
"Why, there isn't anybody, I tell you. Of course I thought about him
after he saved my life, but"--
"Oh," interrupted Mrs. Frostwinch. "Then it is Mr. Wynne. But I
thought"--
"He isn't a priest any more," Berenice struck in, replying to the
unspoken doubt as if it had been in her own mind. "I heard yesterday
that he has left the Clergy House for good, and is staying with Mrs.
Staggchase."
"Have you seen him lately?"
"He overtook me on the street yesterday."
Mrs. Frostwinch put out her hand with a loving gesture.
"Bee," said she tenderly, "I want you to be happy. You've been like a
daughter to me ever since your mother died, and I've thought of you
almost as if you were my own child. If this is the man to make you
happy"--
But Bee stooped forward and stopped the words with kisses.
"I can't talk of him," she said, "and he will never be anything to me.
He is angry, and he has a right to be. He"--
The entrance of the nurse interrupted them, and Berenice made haste to
get away before there was opportunity for further question. In her
anxiety to know something more of Mr. Wynne, Mrs. Frostwinch sent for
Mrs. Staggchase, who came in the next day.
Mrs. Staggchase found her friend weak and frightfully changed. The
high-bred face was haggard, the nostrils thin, while beneath the eyes
were heavy purple shadows. A ghost of the old smile lighted her face,
making it more ghastly yet, like the gleaming of a candle through a
death-mask. The hand extended to the visitor was so transparent that it
might almost have belonged to a spirit.
"My dear Anna," Mrs. Staggchase exclaimed, "I hadn't an idea"--
"That I was so near dying, my dear," interrupted the other. "I am worse
than that, I am dead, really; but it doesn't matter. I want to talk to
you about Bee."
"About Bee?" echoed the other, seating herself beside the bed. "What
about her?"
"I should have said that I want to ask you about Mr. Wynne. Do you know
anything about his relations to her?"
"The only relation that he has is that of a perfectly desperate adorer.
He worships the ground she walks on, but he doesn't cherish anything
that could be decently called hope."
"Then he does care for her?"
"My dear Anna, it almost makes me weep for my lost youth to see him. He
has so wrought upon my glands of sentiment that this morning I actually
examined my husband's wardrobe to see if the maid darns his stockings
properly. Fred would be perfectly amazed if he knew how sentimental I
feel. I even thought of sitting up last night to welcome him home from
the club, but about half past one I came to the end of my novel and
felt sleepy, so I gave that up."
Mrs. Frostwinch smiled with the air of one who understands that the
visitor is endeavoring to furnish a diversion from the dull sadness of
the sick chamber.
"But Bee said he was angry with her."
"The anger of lovers, my dear, is legitimate fuel for the flame. That's
nothing. She's been amusing herself with him, and if she thinks he
resents it, so much the better for him."
"But is he"--
She hesitated as if not knowing how best to frame her question.
"He is a handsome creature, as you know if you remember him," the
visitor said, taking up the word. "He is well born, he is well bred, if
a little countrified. He's been shut up with monks and other mouldy
things, and needs a little knocking about in the world; but I am very
fond of him."
"Then you think"--
"I think that whoever gets Bee will get a treasure; but I am not sure
that she is any too good for my cousin. He hasn't much money, unless he
gets a little fortune that ought to have been his, and which he has
some hope of. I mean to give him something myself one of these days, if
he behaves himself; but of course he hasn't any idea of that."
"Bee will have all the Canton money, and can do as she likes."
Mrs. Staggchase looked down at the carpet as if studying the pattern.
"Perhaps," she returned.
"What do you mean by that?"
"If I know Maurice Wynne, the fact that she has money will make him
very slow to speak. Besides, he has a silly crotchet in his head now.
He thinks that if he tried to marry her it would look as if he had
given up his religion for her."
"Did he?"
"Bless you, no. He was simply led into the Clergy House by being fond
of a friend; one of those men that young men and old women fall in love
with. Maurice never belonged there at all. I saw that the first day he
came to stay with me at the beginning of the winter. I was abroad while
he was in college, so I never knew him except most casually before."
"But if he really cares for her he'll get over those obstacles."
"If she cares for him, he must be made to."
"I am convinced that she does," Mrs. Frostwinch said. "I am so glad you
speak well of him. I do so want Bee to be happy."
There was a long silence in the chamber. The two friends sat wrapped in
thought. They had seen so much of life, they had had so many blessings
of fortune, culture, position, wealth, that there was a grim irony in
their sitting here helpless in the face of coming death. To their
reverie, moreover, the mention of love could not but give color. No
woman has ever come to speak of love entirely unmoved, though her heart
may have been deadened or crushed beyond the power of thrilling or
quickening at any other thought. These two, who had led lives so happy,
so protected, so rich, sat there silent before the possibilities which
lay in the love of a girl; until at last both sighed, whether with
regret or tenderness perhaps they could not themselves have told.
Perhaps both remembered their youthful days; remembered how one had
lost her first love by death and the other parted from hers in anger,
making a marriage which seemed more a matter of affronting the man
discarded than of affection for the man she chose. They knew each
other's history so completely that there could be no disguise between
them. Their eyes met, and for an instant there was a suspicion of
wistfulness in the glance. Then Mrs. Frostwinch shook her head, and
smiled sadly.
"At least," she said, "I shall be spared the pain of growing old."
"After all," the other responded, "the bitterness of growing old is to
feel that one has never completely been young."
The sick woman regarded her with burning eyes.
"But we have been young, Di," she said eagerly. "Surely we had all that
there was."
"Anna," Mrs. Staggchase murmured, leaning toward her, "we know each
other too well not to say things that most women are afraid to say. We
both married well, and we have cared for our husbands and been happy.
But we both know that there was deep down a memory"--
"No, no, Di," her friend interrupted excitedly, "you shall not make me
think of that! I have forgotten all that; and I am dying comfortably.
You shall not make me think of him! Only, dear Di, I want you to help
Bee to marry the man she loves with her whole heart; that she loves as
we might have loved if"--
Mrs. Staggchase kissed her solemnly.
"I promise, Anna."
Then she rose, her whole manner changing.
"Do you know, my dear," she observed, in a tone gayly satirical, "that
I believe that Elsie Wilson is going to be beaten in her bishop
steeplechase?"
"Do you mean that Father Frontford won't be elected?"
"I mean just that. However, things are still uncertain. It will be
amusing to see what Elsie will do if she is defeated. She is capable of
setting up a church of her own."
"There are two or three men with whom I have some influence that will
go over to Mr. Strathmore if I am not here to look after them. I must
write to them to-morrow and get them to promise to hold by our side."
But that night Mrs. Frostwinch died quietly in her sleep, and the
letters were not written.