WITNESSING
Miss Braithwaite had to waken Cis in the morning to get her up in time
to drive with her to St. Francis Xavier’s for Mass.
It was a Mass of renunciation and espousal, a communion that pledged
Cicely to turn from her forbidden love for Rodney to allegiance to
God, yet she felt this but dimly. She went through the Mass dutifully,
but humbly; she realized that she was vowing herself and that her vow
was then accepted. Her will acquiesced, but at least one of the other
powers of her soul was atrophied. Below her surfaces pain waited her
awakening; she willed her martyrdom unfalteringly, but there was for
her none of the martyrs’ triumphant joy. Yet she received the Lord Who
had once raised a maiden from the dead, and, groping for Him, found
Him, how truly she did not then know.
“I must go to the office,” Cis said suddenly to Miss Braithwaite at
breakfast. “I wonder why I’ve only just thought of it? How could I
forget! It is half past nine already. Miss Braithwaite, what shall I
do? Ought I telephone Mr. Lucas first, ask him if he still wants me to
come? You had me excused for only one day.”
“No, my dear, I didn’t,” said Miss Braithwaite promptly. “I didn’t
specify the length of your absence. I told Mr. Lucas that Cicely Adair
was not at all well, could not possibly take up her duties, but that if
she weren’t able to resume them in less than a week he should hear from
me again. He was entirely amiable, bade me let him know, also, if you
needed anything that he could procure for you. So you are perfectly all
right to be absent again to-day. If you feel like going down to-morrow
I’ll drive you down myself; we shall see!”
“How good you are to me, Miss Braithwaite!” cried Cis. “And I never
shall be able to do the least thing for you!”
“Don’t be too sure of it!” cried Miss Braithwaite. “I have designs on
you! A girl of your sort can do no end of things for me, a proxy me,
who is far more important than the me direct. There are several things
near and dear to my heart which are more interesting and important than
a fusty, aging maiden lady, Cicely Adair. For instance, I can imagine
you giving my ragged hoodlum lads a royal good time when you’re ready
for it; my little scalawag boys whose qualities are a plaid; black and
white, good and bad, fairly evenly mixed, though I do believe that the
black has white hair lines in its blocks!”
“Orphan asylum?” asked Cis listlessly, yet her eyes had brightened
slightly.
“Industrial school, orphans or half-orphans, little boys whom we
Catholics must hold tight; if we relax in the least the devil will slip
a claw in underneath our loosened fingers!” replied Miss Braithwaite
turning toward her maid, then bringing in the mail of the first
delivery of that day.
“I was great pals with a funny bunch of newsies at home,” said Cis,
biting her lip and glancing anxiously at the small clock behind her as
the sight of the letters reminded her of the note which Rodney might
then be reading. Or had not Miss Braithwaite sent it out the previous
night? She had not asked, she did not ask now, but the letters which
Miss Braithwaite was assorting gave her the sickened feeling with which
one hears the first clods fall upon a casket which the guy ropes have
just let down forever.
“I knew you’d be great pals with that sort of youngster, Cicely,”
returned Miss Braithwaite, cheerfully adopting Cis’s terms. “Letter for
you, my dear; I had your mail sent here, from Miss Wallace’s.”
“Oh, it’s Nan!” cried Cis. “Thank you, Miss Braithwaite.”
She read her letter with a moved face and laid it down softly, stroking
the pages.
“She’ll be married on Christmas; she has hurried her arrangements
because she wants us married together. Dear little Nannie! Good little
Nan! She is happy, but she deserves to be. I hope she will be, always,”
Cis murmured, her face wistful, sad, but a gentle smile in her eyes.
“Well, dear, happiness is a term of comparison, but it usually
takes years to teach us this,” said Miss Braithwaite. “If your
little bride-friend is good, with the sort of goodness you convey
an impression of, she is likely to be happy. Enkindled people rise
to rapture, but they sink into wretchedness; it’s safer to shine by
refraction than to be enkindled, my dear.”
“How do you know the things you understand, Miss Braithwaite?” cried
Cis. “I have hardly talked of Nan to you, yet you have her measure! I
must write her, tell her. It will make her most unhappy! I don’t know
how I can tell her I’m not to be married, after all. Nan will feel
like a thief to be happy when I’m not. And she has taken the same day,
so that we could be happy together, though apart. I won’t tell her
anything except that my plan is all off, done with forever. I bought
some lovely, perfectly beautiful damask, Miss Braithwaite; three
table-cloths, napkins for each, and I’ve been doing hemstitched hems.
They were for me, you know, for--Luckily they’re not marked yet. I’m
not much good at embroidery, though I drew the threads and hemstitched
quite decently. I was going to have them marked, embroidered letters,
you know--‘_C. A._’ I’d better have them marked A. M. D.--Anne Margaret
Dowling--and send them to Nan, hadn’t I? Would that be nice? I almost
feel as though anything of mine might bring her bad luck!”
“There’s no such thing as bad luck, Cis child!” cried Miss Braithwaite,
trying not to let Cis see how much her quiet renunciation of her sweet
hopes, stitched into her linen, moved her. “I am sure that your damask
would bring Nan blessing; it is a cloth from an altar of sacrifice! It
would be a beautiful gift, child, and Nan need not know, not now, at
least, that it was at first intended for another home.”
“I’ll go around to Miss Wallace’s to-day and get it then,” said Cis
with a grateful look for her hostess. “And, Miss Braithwaite, I’ve got
to plan. I’ve a good position here, I like Beaconhite, and I’ve got to
live somewhere, but--I’ll always be afraid to walk out; I can’t meet
Rod. Don’t you think, perhaps, I’d better go away? Not home; somewhere?
And, oh, do you think Rod will try to see me? Miss Braithwaite, I can’t
see him! What shall I do?”
“I’ve been considering these points, Cis, my dear,” said Miss
Braithwaite, evidently equipped with a decision upon them. “I am sure
that Rodney Moore will try to see you once. I think that he will
come here; he will hardly attempt to say to you what he will want to
say in the street, meeting you on your way to and from the Lucas and
Henderson offices. You need not see him here; I will see him for you.
After that, I am hopeful that he will let you alone. I do not know
him, but I know human nature, and I believe that after I have seen him
for you, he will let you alone. As to keeping on with the office, that
is as you please. But, Cicely, I have a proposition which I want you
to consider; to be truthful, I do not want you to consider it, but to
take it up at once. I am a solitary woman in this great house, with no
one but servants around me. I want you to spend the winter here, with
me. I hope for your help in my schemes; Father Morley’s girls’ club,
my tatterdemalions, other things. You are young, attractive, bright;
you can do all sorts of work for these objects. Then, for me, you can
do more! Be a little fond of me, talk to me, companion me. And, last
not least, for yourself; read my books--perhaps not every one on those
shelves, but many of them; play a little, study a little, think a
great deal; you went through school, now give yourself a little riper,
deeper, higher education! And, Cis, dear, learn your faith! It seems a
pity to miss its beauty, the joy it has for you, when you’ve bravely
embraced unhappiness for it! As if you had risked your life for one
almost a stranger, as you thought, and suddenly discovered it was your
dearest, beloved friend! You’ll be delighted with the Church, my dear,
when you get acquainted with her beauty! Dear, you’ve missed happiness
and it’s hard, but happiness more profound and lasting is within your
reach; I promise it to you! Now, Cis, will you stay with me?”
“Oh, Miss Braithwaite, I’d just dearly love to!” cried Cicely,
springing up to throw herself on her knees beside Miss Braithwaite, her
radiant head on her shoulder, sobbing a little, yet with the first ray
of comforting hope penetrating her despair.
Cicely arose the next morning to resume life on its new basis,
yet under its old routine. This is, perhaps, the hardest strain
imposed upon anyone who is newly bereft, by death or by the crueller
deprivations of life. To go once more amid the familiar surroundings,
greet the accustomed faces with a surface smile, seeing with bewildered
amazement that the eyes smiling back recognize one for the same person
that they have always seen though one feels like a shade walking the
earth in the semblance of life, this is to deepen that painful sense
of remoteness from common experience, which is the lasting hallmark of
profound suffering.
It was decided that Cis was to spend the winter with Miss Braithwaite.
She was glad to accept the shelter of this house, yet more glad of
the home open to her in the affections of this clever and spiritual
gentlewoman than of the actual shelter of her dignified roof. For Cis,
to her own bewilderment, found herself with little of her natural
self-reliance. Beaten down by her recent struggle, though she had
emerged victorious, she was scarred and torn by wounds still bleeding;
she had accurately described herself to Miss Braithwaite as not knowing
“how to walk.”
Miss Braithwaite’s hand guiding her was strong and warm; she sustained
her stumbling feet, poured the wine of her wholesome, humorous point
of view into her wounds, and, at the same time, taught her to see the
Perfect Beauty which by its perfection made all else worthless.
Beyond her winter with Miss Braithwaite, Cis laid no plans; she was
not sure whether or not she should continue in Mr. Lucas’ office; for
that matter, she was not sure that she might do so. She had determined
to confess to Mr. Lucas her fault in giving to Rodney Moore the hint
he had asked for as to the final outcome of the franchise which was
agitating the public mind. She would not stay on with him unless Mr.
Lucas knew the worst of her; after he knew it the decision about her
staying was in his hands. She had notified Mr. Lucas that she would
leave him before Christmas to be married; he probably had supplied her
place from that time on. Well, all this was as it might be. Dressing
slowly, with long intervals of absent-minded gazing out of the window,
Cis was sure only that she was going to the office, confess to Mr.
Lucas, do the one thing left her honorably to do; after that--nothing
mattered greatly, anyway. She did not know, nor much care what came
after that.
Cis would not acknowledge to herself that she feared, with positively
curdling fear, meeting Rodney. She felt sure that he would try to
waylay her when she resumed her daily trips to and from the office.
It seemed to her that if she withstood him, his reproaches, but much
more his appeals--and she was sure that she could withstand them--that
afterward the feeble ray of courage within her would be extinguished;
that she had borne to her capacity.
Therefore it was an unspeakable relief to find that Miss Braithwaite
was taking her down that morning in her coupé and planning to bring her
home at night.
“You’re not quite at par, my dear, though you intend to take dictation
in regard to soaring investments,” she said. “I’m going in all sorts of
directions this morning; the Lucas and Henderson offices one of them,
so you’re to be deposited at their door with no exertion on your part.”
“Oh, Miss Braithwaite, I’ll never be able to thank you!” cried Cis.
“How you do see through people! But I don’t mind your knowing I’m a
coward.”
“A certain sort of cowardice is the highest courage, child; the courage
to acknowledge danger and flee from it. Come along, Cicely Adair! Did
you ever see that ridiculous Dollinger ballad? All about the dangerous
voyage of a canal boat of which one Dollinger was captain? The refrain
of each stanza is: ‘Fear not, but trust in Dollinger and he will fetch
you through.’ It doesn’t matter; only old fogies know it, I suppose.
Regard me as Dollinger, for I mean to fetch you through! Come, then!”
Miss Braithwaite slipped her hand into Cis’s arm and took her out
to the waiting car. Then she started off and drove Cicely to her
destination, where she left her with a heartening pat on her shoulder
and the promise to return for her at five.
Mr. Lucas looked up with a smile of greeting when he heard Cis’s light
touch on the handle of the office door, but the smile died on his lips,
replaced by a look of concern, as he started to his feet at the sight
of her.
“Why, Miss Adair, I had no idea that you had been seriously ill; I did
not get that impression from Miriam Braithwaite. Pray take my chair
till you are rested. I am profoundly sorry to see you so white and
weakened,” he cried, kindly coming forward to take Cicely’s hand and
gently force her into his own armchair.
“No. Mr. Lucas, thank you,” said Cis, resisting his kindness. “I have
not been ill. Something happened--I had a shock--I’ll be all right
soon. Mr. Lucas, before I begin to work, before you say another word to
me, there is something that I must tell you.”
“Ah!” murmured Mr. Lucas, experienced in human nature, and instantly
guessing something of what he was to be told. “I am ready to listen,
Miss Adair.”
“I was engaged to be married; I told you that I was to have been
married at Christmas; I resigned for that date for that reason,” said
Cis, plunging, without letting herself delay her confession. “Rod--Mr.
Moore, the one I was to marry--begged me to give him a hint about
the franchise. He had some money; he wanted to buy that stock if the
franchise was going through. He swore he would not let a hint of it get
beyond him; I’m sure he wouldn’t--”
“Why is everyone sure that everyone else will be more honorable in
keeping a secret than he--or she--is?” asked Mr. Lucas dryly. “I see
that you parted with mine.”
“Yes, Mr. Lucas, but indeed, indeed I held out long against it; I
didn’t want to do it; I’ve always been quite straight,” cried Cis. “But
Rod begged so hard; he told me that I was standing between him and
success. I didn’t mind scolding, but when he was hurt--Well, at last
I gave the hint he begged for, and I’ve been eating my heart out ever
since. Now that you know, I’ll feel better, and of course I’ll go right
away now; not wait till Christmas.”
“Just a moment, Miss Adair. I do not think we should be weak, any of
us; it is the ideal to be granite shafts of principle, but the sweeter
and truer the woman, the harder for her to resist the sort of plea made
you. I can see that it was hard; if it had not cost you pain to yield
you would not be confessing your misstep to me now. I must forgive it,
Miss Adair; it was a hard pull, and I’ll credit you with resistance.
It has not harmed me, you’ll be glad to know. I wondered, rather, why
there were noticeable sales of that stock on a recent date; your lover
must have had considerable to invest in it. That chapter is closed; put
it out of your mind. Now, my child, you were sent me by my brother,
as a friend, in a sense, of my niece Jeanette’s, and I have a greater
interest in you than that of a mere employer. Will you let me express
it in a question? You have spoken of your engagement, your marriage,
in the past tense. Are you not still engaged, still to be married at
Christmas?” Mr. Lucas asked his question gently, pity in his eyes.
“No, sir; it’s all over,” said Cis.
“Not because of this franchise matter? You’re not a morbid girl to do
penance, and punish a man for a thing of that sort?” cried Mr. Lucas.
“No, Mr. Lucas,” said Cis. “Rod was married; I could not marry him. He
was splendid; he told me about it. He was not going to tell me, but I
love everything straight so much that after all he told me. And then we
could not be married, you see. It was splendid; Rod was good, but still
I could not go on with it.”
“Go on with it? Rod was splendid, you say? To tell you, to _tell_
you he was married, after he had entrapped you into an engagement,
into loving him as I see you loved him? Well, hardly splendid! He did
stop short of crime, but to stop on the edge of bigamy, and to make a
girl like you suffer! I’d hardly call that splendid!” cried Mr. Lucas
fiercely.
“Bigamy?” repeated Cis. “Well, I don’t believe they call it that, but
of course it is, if you stop to think. I hadn’t thought about it just
that way. Rod was divorced; his wife was worse than dead, but she
wasn’t dead. I suppose it is bigamy.”
The word seemed to hold a horrid fascination for Cis.
Mr. Lucas fell back in his chair and stared at Cis, trying to get his
bearings.
“Divorced?” he echoed. “Oh, but, my girl, that’s another matter! Of
course remarriage is not bigamy when the state has freed a man. Then he
has no wife, so his marriage to a second one is not bigamy; it is as if
the first one were dead.”
Cis shook her head. “No, Mr. Lucas,” she said, “it really isn’t; how
could it be? Suppose I were walking with Rod, had married him, and we
met his first wife. It wouldn’t be the same as if she were dead, would
it? There’d be two of us, both alive. How do you suppose I’d feel; how
would any decent girl feel? Besides, Mr. Lucas, Rod was married by a
priest, and no one can break those marriages. I’d have had to give up
God to marry Rod, and how could I?”
Mr. Lucas frowned angrily.
“It’s that abominable Roman tyranny again,” he cried. “How in the name
of all that’s sane do those priests get hold of minds the way they do?
You poor little victim of man-made laws, posing for Divine ones, have
you wrecked your life and a man’s life for this nonsense?”
“No, Mr. Lucas,” said Cis with a weary little gasp for breath, but not
in the least shaken. “You are ever so much wiser than I, but I know
that is not true. Our Lord Himself said that a divorced person could
not be married, and what can you do when He tells you anything? I think
I can see why it has to be, because outside the Catholic Church people
keep going in and out of marriages till you’d think they’d be dizzy.
And then there are the children. No, Mr. Lucas, it’s all right, even
though it hurts. And, anyway, how could I turn my back on the Church?
God’s there.”
“You told me once that you were--what’s their term for it?--an
indifferent Catholic. That you weren’t devout like some friend of
yours, or was it Jeanette Lucas? Yet you make the choice of your Church
instead of your happiness! I see what it has cost you; your face
betrays your suffering. You, who could not stand firm against your
lover’s pleading to you to put him in the way of making money, only of
making money; who did violence to your hatred of not ‘being square,’
as you put it, you leave him, throw him over, infuriate him, wound his
pride, as well as his love of you--for no man would do less than curse
a woman for thus failing him after he had let her have the chance to
choose--all for an idea; for allegiance to a system; to keep within
a Church which was not especially dear to you! And this when the laws
of your country would justify your choosing the man, would place their
seal upon your position in society as his wife! My heavens, Cicely
Adair, what is it, what can it be that can so mold you into a Christian
martyr, singing as the wild beasts rend her?”
Mr. Lucas sat erect, frowning heavily, his eyes flashing, for
the problem before him stirred him to his depths. He had already
encountered it in his brother’s conduct; he resisted the one
explanation of it which his reason presented to him.
Cis smiled her pitiful, funny little shadow of her normal bright,
amused smile, and looked up at Mr. Lucas, saying:
“I’m not singing, Mr. Lucas, not so you’d notice it! But I wouldn’t
want the wild beasts to go off and lie down, not if it would turn me
back. You see, it’s quite easy. I mean to understand. I’ve got to stand
by, if I want God to stand by me, and what should I do if He didn’t?
And that’s not all of it. I love Rod, but God is different; you can’t
get on without Him. I think He’ll teach me to get on without Rod,
somehow. I suppose I had more faith than I knew I had. It’s all faith,
isn’t it, Mr. Lucas?”
“Yes! It is all faith, Cicely Adair!” cried Mr. Lucas, springing to
his feet. “You’ve testified to yours! I don’t mind telling you that I
think it is a great thing that you have done. I suppose I’m intelligent
enough to recognize what the loose marriage laws are doing in this
country. As a lawyer I know their effect on morals, the stability of
home, the legitimacy of children. But that a slip of a girl should
willingly throw over her strong love, her dearest hopes; a poor,
pitiful little bead of clay set herself against the mighty torrent
of evil, all because a Church tells her to, promises her heaven if
she does--good Lord! We Episcopalians discountenance divorce, but our
ministers may or may not marry divorced people, according as they are
minded. The opposition of bishops and clergy to their doing so is
straw, because there is nothing to enforce it, but you, who were not
devout, you embrace your hard lot at the bidding of your priests! As
there is a God above us, Cicely Adair, what is the power of Rome that
still can make confessors and martyrs of soft virgins?”
“The God above us, isn’t it, Mr. Lucas?” said Cicely.
Mr. Lucas stared at her a moment, then he said:
“And now it turns you into an apologist! Your answer covers all
sides of the question, admitting a premise! And the premise almost
annihilates the necessity of admission! I will look into it--” He
checked himself quickly, and said with a change of voice: “You will
stay on in my employ, Miss Adair? You will not now leave me at
Christmas? Do you feel fit to resume your desk to-day?”
“I came to work, Mr. Lucas, if you don’t mind having me after I told
the secret--”
“A closed book!” Mr. Lucas interrupted her, raising his hand
prohibitively. “I’m not afraid of the honor that would not let you
rest till you had acknowledged your weakness. I hardly think that what
I know of you would justify my doubting your fidelity.”
“Thank you, Mr. Lucas. You are as good as you can be to me! I’ll go to
work then, now. May I have till New Year’s to decide how long I’ll be
here?” asked Cis, going over to put her hat and coat away, and then
dropping into her desk chair.
“New Year’s will be time enough to decide,” said Mr. Lucas, also
resuming his desk chair. To himself he said, with an inward smile:
“I wonder if that glowing hair was given her for a nimbus? There are
easier martyrdoms than hers!”