Olive found Kathryn Brenton in the extreme of disarray. The littered
room was as unlovely as the careless costume, and Kathryn's personal
grooming matched them both. It really was not her fault, she explained
in fretful apology. She had not expected to see a soul, that morning;
but the maid had given warning all at once, really apropos of nothing,
and was up-stairs, packing. They were such selfish creatures. It was up
and out, at a minute's notice, and you can take care of yourself as
best you can. If she had behaved herself, and not gone off in a
tantrum, she would have been there to open the door, and then Olive
wouldn't have caught her in that old dressing gown she had put on just
for breakfast.
All this was delivered volubly in the front hall, while Kathryn closed
the door behind her guest and then drew down the blinds, by way of
hospitable intimation to any later comers that she was not at home.
That done, she led the way into the living-room, while Olive, at her
heels, registered her impression of any woman who would be willing thus
to present herself above the breakfast table to any man, least of all
her husband. However, it was plain that, with Kathryn and her husband,
the least of all had become the most, and that, too, at an epoch when,
if ever, Kathryn needed to take the very greatest care to fix upon
herself the seal of lifelong and admiring devotion. Of course, there
might be such a thing as a devotion void of any admiration. Olive
Keltridge, however, was not a woman to accept that sort of thing.
Neither, she reflected swiftly, was Scott Brenton quite the sort of man
to offer it.
Meanwhile, Kathryn, seated in a chair a good deal lower than the laws
of perfect grace dictated, huddled her shabby dressing gown about her,
ran a vaguely apologetic hand through her puggy pompadour, and went on
with her domestic narration.
"It's so queer what sets them off, Miss Keltridge. One never knows when
they will fly up in a temper; at least, the kind I seem to get. I never
have the luck you do. Why, you have had the same second girl, ever
since we moved here."
"The? Oh, Margaret? Yes, she has been with us about nine years." Olive
smiled. "She seems almost like a member of the family, by now."
Kathryn shook her head in self-pity. The self-pity loosened a little
tail of hair which arose, rampant, from the exact middle of her crown.
However, Kathryn lacked a mirror within range, and so she talked on
quite as contentedly, despite the waving, waggling tail.
"Yes, so many other people seem to get that kind of girls, so devoted
and such competent ones; but, for my part, I don't see where they find
them. I pay the very highest prices, and I always look up their
references; but they all are just alike. I have had nine different
cooks, the last five months, and each one was a little worse than--"
"I met Mr. Brenton just now," Olive cut in, with decision.
"Did you?" his wife inquired indifferently. "I didn't know he had gone
out."
"Yes." Olive's decision increased a little. "I thought he wasn't
looking very well."
"Scott? Oh, he's well enough. What should ail him?" Kathryn loosened
her soggy draperies for an instant, then tightened them in the reverse
direction. "He hasn't a worry to his name, hardly a care."
Struggle as she would, Olive knew her accent was becoming more dry with
every sentence that she uttered.
"I should have supposed the church--"
"Church? That's nothing. At least, it's only in his line of business,
the thing that he set his heart upon and trained for. I wonder what he
would say, if he had the care of this great house."
"It is larger than most rectories," Olive made polite assent.
But swiftly Kathryn retrieved her blunder.
"Of course," she added; "I always have been accustomed to a large
house. It is only that this one seems to me inconvenient. The back
stairs are so very central, and the telephones are so badly placed, one
in the study, and the other away out in the back of the hall. Really,
you would think, to see them, that the rector and the servants were the
only ones to be considered, and not the housekeeper at all."
Stolidly regardless of the criticism, Olive returned to her former
theme. She did this of a distinct purpose, too. It seemed to her to be
quite incredible that the woman before her could be blind to her
husband's haggard face. None the less, watching Kathryn, she could not
in sincerity accuse her of any shamming.
"It really has worried us, my father and me, that Mr. Brenton hasn't
looked quite as strong lately, as when he came here," she insisted.
"Oh, I think he is quite well. Men," Kathryn gave a vindictive sort of
flap to the front breadths of her dressing gown; "never know what it is
to be really ill. I tell Scott, if he were in my place--"
In mercy to probabilities, Olive interrupted.
"Saint Peter's has grown so fast, since he came here," she said.
Kathryn promptly took umbrage at the singular number of the pronoun.
"I'm sure we've done our best," she answered tartly. "It has been hard
work, though, in such a dead old town as this."
"But, with all the college girls--" Olive was beginning.
Kathryn cut her short.
"They count for nothing in the parish. They just come to church, when
they get up in season; that's about all. Of course, it would be a good
thing if they did count for more. The poor old church is in need of
something young and lively; now and then it seems to me to be fairly
doddering. Poor Scott feels it, too. He can't help it. Every man and
woman in the congregation was born, ready made, with a whole set of
prejudices, born in a rut that nothing can break down. I tell him--"
Once more Olive interrupted. Indeed, it was her only method of driving
in an entering wedge of speech.
"That is what we old New Englanders love, Mrs. Brenton," she said, with
a sweetness that was almost acid. "Remember that we and our ancestors
have lived in these same houses since King George the Third's day, and
then you will forgive us for some of our ready-made prejudices."
Kathryn glanced up suspiciously. Then she sought to flay her guest with
all discretion.
"Really? How very tiresome you must have found it!" she made answer.
"Not at all. It's the other thing that we find so tiresome," Olive
assured her, not without some malice.
"Where did you see Mr. Brenton?" Kathryn asked her quite abruptly.
"He was going to call on Mr. Opdyke."
"Reed, or the professor?"
This time, Olive's accent was not to be mistaken.
"Mr. Reed Opdyke," she said.
Kathryn ignored the rebuke completely.
"How is Reed?" she queried.
Then Olive gave it up, and left her to her chosen methods.
"About the same."
"Isn't there anything I can do for him yet?" Kathryn inquired, with an
abrupt letting down of her terse dignity. "It does seem a shame I can't
do something to help the poor fellow along, especially when it is so
many years that I have known him. It's not as if he were a mere
acquaintance, of course, and I want him to feel quite at liberty to
send for me, whenever he wants me."
"I am sure he does, Mrs. Brenton," Olive assured her, with gentle
malice, for not in vain was "the poor fellow" phrase rankling in her
mind.
"Then why in the world doesn't he send?" Kathryn asked rather
injudiciously.
Olive dodged the only direct answer she could have made.
"Perhaps he shrinks a little--" she was starting.
Kathryn, still regardless of the waggling little tail, shook her head
in vehement negation.
"Oh, he wouldn't be shy with me, Miss Keltridge. Remember, I'm quite an
old married woman now; there's no reason he should feel at
all--Besides, he sees you," she added, her voice sharpening with the
sudden recollection.
Olive laughed.
"Me? Oh, I'm totally amorphous, Mrs. Brenton, a mere lump of old
associations. It's good for Mr. Opdyke to have somebody to giggle with
occasionally."
Kathryn's voice betrayed her dislike of the flippant answer.
"Poor dear man! I guess he doesn't giggle very often. Really, Miss
Keltridge, I sometimes wonder if you realize how very sad it is."
"Very likely not," Olive said dryly.
"No; that's what I say. You see him so often that you get used to it.
It is so easy to take such things as a matter of course."
"You think so?" The dryness was increasing. "It never had occurred to
me to feel like that."
"No?" Then all at once Kathryn dropped her antagonisms and smiled
across at Olive. "Dear Miss Keltridge, I don't want to gossip; but,
between old friends like ourselves, one can speak out. Has it ever
seemed strange to you that we none of us know just what is wrong with
Reed Opdyke? Or do you know?"
"I have no idea at all."
"But don't you ever wonder?"
"No; it's not my business," Olive said curtly. Then her sense of
downright honour undermined her curtness. "Yes; after all, I suppose
that, being human, I do wonder now and then."
"Then you don't know, either?"
"How should I?"
"You see him so very often."
Olive stiffened.
"Really, Mrs. Brenton, it's not a thing one talks about."
"Oh?" Kathryn's accent was indescribable. "I supposed he'd talk to you.
Or haven't you ever asked him?"
"I have not."
Kathryn leaned a little nearer.
"After all, Miss Keltridge, doesn't that seem a little bit--"
Olive waited.
"Self--er--centred?"
"I don't see how. Mr. Opdyke would tell me, if he cared to have me
know."
"Unless he thought you would find it out by intuition," Kathryn
suggested balmily, as she leaned back in her chair and smoothed her
dressing gown.
It was with difficulty that Olive downed her amusement.
"Intuition, as a rule, doesn't count for much with spines and internal
injuries," she said.
Kathryn once more became eager.
"Then it is his spine, poor dear man?"
And once more Olive became dry.
"I should think it highly probable from the way they are treating him."
"Terrible; isn't it?" And Olive almost forgave her hostess all things,
for the sake of the one word of honest and spontaneous pity, devoid of
all "poor dears." Then her forgiveness waned. "However, if I were in
your place, I'd ask him outright what is the trouble. I think the
Opdykes owe it to their friends to speak out and end the mystery, and
put a stop to all the gossip."
"Is there gossip?" Olive queried disdainfully, as she arose.
Still seated, Kathryn stared up at her with eyes that were determined
to lose no flicker of an answering confession.
"Of course. In a case like this, there's bound to be. There's every
sort of story floating about. Some people even go so far as to say that
they only brought home the top end of him; that all that shows below
his waist is only a padded roll of blankets. That's one reason I want
so much to see him; I know I could tell whether there was any truth in
such absurd stories." She pulled herself up short; then went on with a
change of tone. "Of course, though, what I really want is to help him
pass the time, if I can. He must be very lonely for thoroughly
congenial people. Must you go? Be sure you give the poor dear man my
message. And good bye. Next time, I do hope I shall have a respectable
maid to let you out. I'm quite ashamed--Good bye."
Out on the steps in the clean February air and sunshine, Olive drew in
a deep, full breath.
"Poor, dear old Reed!" she said. And then, in quite another tone, "Poor
Mr. Brenton! How totally impossible she is!"
And, meanwhile, the "puffic' fibbous," quite unaware of their
discussion of his personality and its injuries, lay smiling mirthfully
up into the eyes of his old friend.
"Spit it out, Brenton! Rift it aff yer chist!" he adjured him.
"Something has gone bad inside your Denmark, and I'm so far kindred to
the blessed angels that I don't tell any tales."
Brenton squirmed with a physical uneasiness that was an outward and
visible sign of his spiritual one.
"What's the use?"
"Ease your mind. It's a good thing to get rid of waste matter, if 't is
waste. Else, if it's any good, it will gain value by being set forth in
order. Go ahead with your firstly. By the way, why don't you smoke?"
"Because I have a conscience," Brenton told him bluntly.
"Approaching Lent; or on my account? Don't mind me. I rather long for
the smell of the stuff, even if the taste of it is forbidden me.
Really, Brenton," and Opdyke looked up at him with singularly unclouded
eyes; "that's about my present life in epitome. I offer you the idea
for your next sermon."
"Sermon be hanged! I don't serve up my friends, by way of garnishing my
theoretical beliefs," Brenton objected shortly.
Opdyke made a wry face.
"That's where you miss your innings, then. I understand, by way of
Ramsdell, that the Methodist incumbent lately preached a sermon upon
resignation, and did me the honour of taking me, quite specifically, to
illustrate his climax. That is what I call fame, Brenton, a greater
fame than any I ever could have garnered in by way of engineering."
"Beastly thing to do!" Brenton made brief comment.
"Wasn't it? When I get on my legs again, if ever I do, I'll call him
out and lick him. By the way, the last of my cigars are in that drawer.
Don't let them spoil. Well, as I was saying, what humbugs you parsons
are!"
Brenton, digging in the chaos of the drawer before him, lifted up his
head.
"Aren't we, though!" he said, with sudden energy.
"Hullo!" Reed stared at him in astonishment. "You've found it out?"
"I have."
"How long since?"
Brenton hesitated.
"Six or eight months."
Reed laughed unconcernedly.
"Coincident with my home-coming, Scott? I hope I didn't bring the seeds
of disaffection with me. But, for a fact, is that the present row?"
"Yes."
There came a long silence. Then Reed spoke.
"Brenton, you always were a curiously constructed creature mentally.
What is the matter? Is your present ecclesiastical harness galling
you?"
"Yes." Brenton lighted a match with exceeding awkwardness.
"Bedding is inflammable, Brenton," Reed warned him. "Therefore I advise
you to keep a steady hand. I'm too big a brand for a slim chap like you
to pluck from the burning, to our mutual comfort. Apropos, there's
another grand idea for your sermon. You can suppress the naughty
nicotine motif for the theme, if you choose. But what in thunder, made
you put on the harness, in the first place?"
"Filial devotion."
"Exactly. I remember. But you chose another pattern, sloughed off the
work-horse collar of Calvinism in favour of the lighter ritualistic
bridle, if I may speak picturesquely. You made your choice. Now what's
the matter? Hitched up too short; or have you kicked over the traces?"
"No; not yet." Brenton spoke grimly, his overcast gray eyes offering a
curious contrast to the sunny brown ones of the man lying flat and
still before him.
This time, Reed looked anxious.
"I wouldn't, Scott," he said, and a little note of affection came into
his tone. "You'll sure be sorry."
"But, if I can't help it?"
"You can." Reed spoke crisply.
"I can't. The whole thing is galling me, I tell you, the whole--"
Brenton hesitated; "infernal sham." The last two words he flung out
with a heavy defiance.
"_Sham_ isn't a polite word for that sort of thing," Opdyke answered
swiftly. "You're the parson, Brenton; I am nothing but a sinner cut
down in my prime. Still, in your place, I think I wouldn't call it all
a sham. There's too much good inside it. When one has all the time
there is, one thinks it out, good and bad, to the bitter end. And
there's any amount more good than bad in the whole combination."
Brenton nodded; but the nod implied more denial than assent.
"Perhaps," he said slowly. "Still, it's any amount less provable."
"Proof be hanged! You'll never succeed in reducing the moral universe
to a set of molecular equations, Brenton. Best give it up, and take
what's left in the most thankful spirit that you can, not let the
unprovable part of it get on your nerves like this."
Brenton chewed the end of his cigar, as if it had been the cud of his
spiritual discontent.
"But, by my profession, I am here to preach the truth," he burst out at
length.
"Preach it, then," Opdyke advised him calmly.
"According to my notion, truth can always be proved."
"Prove it, then," Opdyke advised him, with unabated calm.
"It won't." Brenton spoke with the curt elision of his country
ancestry.