THE "CHRISTMAS LADY"
"The rosy glow of summer
Is on thy dimpled cheek,
While in thy heart the winter
Is lying cold and bleak.
"But this shall change hereafter,
When years have done their part,
And on thy cheek the wintered
And summer in thy heart."
LATE the next afternoon a man and a girl were standing in the Olcott
reception hall. The lamps had not been lighted, but the blaze from
the back-log threw a cozy glow of comfort over the crimson curtains
and on the mass of bright-hued pillows in the window-seat.
Robert Redding, standing with his hat in his hand, would have been
gone long ago if the "Christmas Lady" had not worn her violet gown.
He said it always took him half an hour to say good-by when she wore
a rose in her hair, and a full hour when she had on the violet
dress.
"By Jove, stand there a minute just as you are! The fire-light
shining through your hair makes you look like a saint. Little Saint
Lucinda!" he said teasingly, as he tried to catch her hand. She put
it behind her for safe-keeping.
"Not a saint at all?" he went on, in mock surprise; "then an
iceberg--a nice, proper little iceberg."
Lucy Olcott looked up at him for a moment in silence; he was very
tall and straight, and his face retained much of its boyishness, in
spite of the firm, square jaw.
"Robert," she said, suddenly grown serious, "I wish you would do
something for me."
"All right; what is it?" he asked.
She timidly put her hand on his, and looked up at him earnestly.
"It's about Dick Harris," she said. "I wish you would not be with
him so much."
Redding's face clouded. "You aren't afraid to trust me?" he asked.
"Oh, no; it isn't that," she said hurriedly; "but, Robert, it makes
people think such wrong things about you; I can't bear to have you
misjudged."
Redding put his arm around her, and together they stood looking down
into the glowing embers.
"Tell me about it, little girl; what have you heard?" he asked.
She hesitated. "It wasn't true what they said. I knew it wasn't
true, but they had no right to say it."
"Well, let's hear it, anyway. What was it?"
"Some people were here last night from New Orleans; they asked if I
knew you--said they knew you and Dick the year you spent there."
"Well?" said Redding.
Lucy evidently found it difficult to continue. "They said some
horrid things then, just because you were Dick's friend."
"What were they, Lucy?"
"They told me that you were both as wild as could be; that your
reputation was no better than his; that--forgive me, Robert, for
even repeating it. It made me very angry, and I told them it was not
true--not a word of it; that it was all Dick's fault; that he--"
"Lucy," interrupted Redding, peremptorily, "wait until you hear me!
I have never lied to you about anything, and I will not stoop to it
now. Four years ago, when those people knew me, I was just what they
said. Dick Harris and I went to New Orleans straight from college.
Neither of us had a home or people to care about us, so we went in
for a good time. At the end of the year I was sick of it all, braced
up, and came here. Poor Dick, he kept on."
At his first words the color had left Lucy's face, and she had
slipped to the opposite side of the fire, and stood watching him
with horrified eyes.
"But you were never like Dick!" she protested.
"Yes," he continued passionately, "and but for God's help I should
be like him still. It was an awful pull, and Heaven only knows how I
struggled. I never quite saw the use of it all, until I met you six
months ago; then I realized that the past four years had been given
me in which to make a man of myself."
As he finished speaking he saw, for the first time, that Lucy was
crying. He sprang forward, but she shrank away. "No, no, don't touch
me! I'm so terribly disappointed, and hurt, and--stunned."
"But you surely don't love me the less for having conquered these
things in the past?"
"I don't know, I don't know," she said, with a sob. "I honored and
idealized you, Robert I can never think of you as being other than
you are now."
"But why should you?" he pleaded. "It was only one year out of my
life; too much, it's true, but I have atoned for it with all my
might."
The intensity and earnestness of his voice were beginning to
influence her. She was very young, with the stern, uncompromising
standards of girlhood; life was black or white to her, and time had
not yet filled in the canvas with the myriad grays that blend into
one another until all lines are effaced, and only the Master Artist
knows the boundaries.
She looked up through her tears. "I'll try to forgive you," she
said, tremulously; "but you must promise to give up your friendship
for Dick Harris."
Redding frowned and bit his lip. "That's not fair!" he said. "You
know Dick's my chum; that he hasn't the least influence over me;
that I am about the only one to stand by him."
"I am not afraid of his influence, but I don't want people to see
you together; it makes them say things."
"But, Lucy, you wouldn't have me go back on him? Dick has a big
heart; he's trying to brace up--"
"Oh, nonsense!" cried Lucy, impatiently. The fire in her eyes had
dried the tears. "He could straighten up if he wanted to. He likes
to drink and gamble, so he does it, and you keep him in countenance
by your friendship. Are you hesitating between us?" she demanded
angrily.
Redding's face was clouded, and he spoke slowly: "You wouldn't ask
this of me, Lucy, if you understood. Dick and I have been chums
since we were boys. He came to Kentucky three months ago, sick and
miserable. One day he came into the office and said, 'Bob, you 've
pulled through all right; do you think it's too late for me to
try?' What would you have said?"
"What you did, probably," answered Lucy; "but I would have profited
by the one experience, for he has hardly drawn a sober breath
since." She looked out of the window across the snowy landscape, and
in her face was something of the passionless purity of the scene
upon which her eyes rested.
"You are mistaken," he cried fiercely. "Because you have seen him
several times in that condition, you have no right to draw such a
conclusion. He is weak, nobody denies it; but what can you know of
the struggle he makes, of his eagerness to do better, of the fight
that he is constantly making with himself?"
His words fell on deaf ears.
"Then you choose Mr. Harris?"
"Lucy, this is madness; it is not like you in the least!"
The girl was cold with anger and excitement. "It is bad enough," she
said, "to know that my defense of you last night was worse than
useless, but to have you persist in a friendship with a man who is
beneath you in every way is more than I can stand." She slipped a
ring from her finger, and held it toward him. "I could never marry a
man of whom I was ashamed."
The shot went home; there was a white line about Redding's mouth as
he turned away.
"I would not ask you to," he said, with simple dignity, as he opened
the door.
"Please, ma'am, is this Miss Olcott's?" asked a trembling voice on
the piazza. A shabby woman stood looking at them with wild eyes; her
gray hair had escaped from the torn shawl that was pinned over her
head, and stray locks blew across her face.
Lucy did not recognize her. "I will speak to you in a moment," she
said.
An awkward pause followed, each waiting for the other to speak.
"I will come when you send for me," said Redding, without looking at
her, and, turning abruptly, he strode down the steps and out into
the dusk.
Lucy caught her breath and started forward, then she remembered the
woman.
"What is it?" she asked listlessly.
The woman stepped forward, and put out a hand to steady herself
against the door; her face was distorted, and her voice came in
gasps.
"You said I was to come if I needed you. It's Jimmy, ma'am--he's
dead!"
IT may be experience of suffering makes one especially tender to the
heart-aches of others; at any rate, the article that Lucy Olcott
wrote for the paper that night held the one touch of nature that
makes the whole world kin. She had taken Aunt Chloe, the old colored
servant, and gone home with Mrs. Wiggs, relieving as far as possible
the immediate need of the family. Then she had come home and written
their story, telling it simply, but with the passionate earnestness
of one who, for the first time, has come into contact with poverty
and starvation. She told of the plucky struggle made by the boy, of
his indomitable courage, of his final defeat, and she ended by
asking help of any kind for the destitute family.
A week later she sat at her desk bewildered. Her article, written on
the impulse of the moment, with the one thought of making people
understand, had fulfilled its mission. For seven days she had done
nothing but answer questions and notes, and receive contributions
for the Wiggs family. Money had arrived from all over the State, and
from every class of society. Eichenstine Bros. sent fifty dollars,
and six ragged newsboys came to present thirty cents. A lavender
note, with huge monogram and written in white ink, stated that some
of the girls of the "Gay Burlesque Troupe" sent a few dimes to the
"kid's" mother. The few dimes amounted to fifteen dollars. Mrs. Van
Larkin's coachman had to wait with her note while Lucy answered the
questions of a lame old negro who had brought a quarter.
"Maria done tole me what was writ in de papah 'bout dat pore Chile,"
he was saying. "I sutenly do feel sorry fer he's maw. I ain't got
much, but I tole Maria I guess we could do without somethin' to gib
a quahter."
So it continued. Old and young, rich and poor, paid their
substantial tribute of respect to Jimmy Wiggs.
Lucy counted up the long line of figures. "Three hundred and
sixty-five dollars!" she exclaimed; "and food, clothes, and coal
enough to last them a year!"
It was like a direct answer to her prayer, and yet this poor little
suppliant, instead of being duly exalted, put her head on the desk
and wept bitterly. Now that the need of the Wiggs family had been
met, another appeal, silent and potent, was troubling her heart.
Redding had neither come nor written, and she was beginning to
realize the seriousness of their misunderstanding.