In a quiet and unfrequented cross street--equally remote from the
thronged thoroughfares of trade and from fashionable avenues lined with
palaces--stood the low and unpretentious Chapel of St. Hyacinth, marked
by neither spire nor belfry. The old stone front receded sufficiently
from the pavement to permit a short flight of shallow steps that led to
an arched door in a pillared portico with a cross on its pointed roof,
which hung over the entrance like a sullen, frowning brow. A northeast
wind came fitfully in hissing blasts, dashed with fine sleet; but when
Eglah passed through the swinging inner door a warm atmosphere spiced
with resinous incense infolded her as in a fragrant mist, through which
glimmered brass lattice screens, rows of tall candles, the gilded
carving of the white altar, laden with lilies, and the marble statue of
the Virgin, at whose snowy feet a red light burned in a silver lamp. On
each side of the wall below the brass lattice that barred the chancel
was a "confessional" of dark wood surmounted by a cross, and the
clustered lights in the centre of the concave ceiling formed a crown.
On the right and left of the altar the white surpliced choristers filled
several seats, and the quivering thunder of the organ ceased suddenly,
as if to listen to the marvellous voice of the boy soloist, that swelled
and rose as if the singer felt himself "hard by the gates of heaven." A
slender child of ten years, grasping his music with waxen hands almost
infantile in size, while his head, covered thickly with shining ripples
of golden hair, was thrown back, and his blue eyes almost purplish, like
a periwinkle, were raised in contemplation of the crown glowing above
him. The colorless face was delicate and beautiful as if wrought out of
ivory, and a certain pathetic sadness of expression inherent in fragile
childhood was for the moment dominated by the radiant exultation of his
wonderful eyes, that seemed made to dwell between the wings of a seraph.
Father Temple left the altar before which he had knelt in prayer, and
advancing to the steps of the chancel, stood with one hand on the brass
railing and briefly explained his unexpected presence. A telegram had
summoned the rector of St. Hyacinth's to the deathbed of his father, and
the request to officiate in his absence had been received too late to
permit the preparation of a regular sermon; hence the patient indulgence
of the congregation was invoked for some desultory remarks which might
not prove entirely fruitless. After a few exordial sentences, he
repeated slowly the opening ten verses from St. John xv., and waited a
moment.
"For text let us consider: 'I am the true vine,' said our Lord, 'and
ye, my brethren, are the branches.'"
Then followed a recitative of various selected passages from the "Sermon
in the Hospital," in tones so musical and liquid, and with a repose of
manner so profound, yet full of subtle magnetism, that his audience
gazed in sympathetic wonder at the slight figure clad in the sombre
habit of his order--at the thin, pallid spiritual face where large,
deep-set black eyes burned with the preternatural light of consecrated
but consuming zeal. The folded arms attempted no gestures--what need,
while that rhythmic wave of sound flowed on?--until the end, when the
clasped hands were lifted in final appeal:
"... the Cross of Christ
Is more to us than all His miracles.
* * * * *
Thou wilt not see the face nor feel the hand,
Only the cruel crushing of the feet
When through the bitter night the Lord comes down
To tread the winepress. Not by sight, but faith,
Endure, endure--be faithful to the end."
Unconscious of his movement, and irresistibly drawn, the young soloist
sitting in the front row of choristers had risen, and leaning far
forward, looked up into the face of the priest, like one mesmerized, his
parted lips trembling in a passion of ecstasy. Then the organ boomed,
and the boy fell from paradise and joined the choristers chanting as
they marched away behind the uplifted cross.
A lady stepped into the aisle and touched Eglah's arm.
"So glad to see you here, Miss Kent. Shall always welcome you to my pew.
What a delightful elocutionary _tour de force_ Father Temple gave us! He
would make a fortune on the stage of secular drama."
"Yes. Fra Ugo himself could scarcely have been more impressive when he
talked to the sick and dying on hospital cots. To my cousin Vernon this
world is only a hospital of sick souls. Mrs. St. Clair, I should like to
meet that little boy who sang so beautifully. Can you help me?"
"Very easily. Come back with me now to the vestry and we may find him.
Did you notice how that lovely boy seemed almost hypnotized?"
Only two of the larger choristers lingered, chatting with the
choirmaster, and as they turned toward the rear stairway leading to the
street, Mrs. St. Clair exclaimed:
"Mr. De Graffenried, stop the boys. We want to see the soloist. Call him
back."
"Madam, I think he is still in the chancel."
Lifting the velvet curtain that concealed the altar from their view, she
beckoned Eglah to her side.
Father Temple had been detained by one of the church-wardens, and as he
turned to hasten away the boy, standing near, caught the black skirt of
the priest.
"Please, sir, may I speak to you?"
"Certainly. I am glad to be able to thank you for the music to-day. Your
solo gave me great pleasure."
"I could have done better, but my throat is sore; it bled just now. I
told nobody, because I am the only one who can reach that high C, and so
I tried not to fail. I want to ask you how I can learn all the words you
spoke? Oh, if I could, I would set them to a chant; they would lift my
heart out of me if I could sing them."
"You shall have them. What is your name?"
"Leighton Dane."
Father Temple took his tablets from an inside pocket and made an entry.
"Where do you live?"
"Oh, a long way off. Far down in East ---- Street; but, please sir, if
you would leave the poetry here, I could get it at next rehearsal."
"My little man, how do you know it is poetry? The words do not rhyme."
"Rhyme? I do not understand that word--but I feel poetry. I always know
it by the way my blood beats, and the little shiver that runs down my
back, and the joy that makes me cry sometimes."
"I will send you a printed copy, in care of the rector. Dear child, God
has given you a wonderfully sweet voice, and I am glad you use it in His
service."
He laid his thin hand on the boy's golden head, and smiled down into the
wistful blue eyes, where tears glistened.
The childish fingers, holding two snowy spikes of Roman hyacinth, were
lifted and placed on the priest's hand, pressing it timidly against his
curls.
"Thank you, sir. Please take these. They smell like the heavenly
gardens, and I have nothing else to give."
"Were they not on the altar?"
"Yes, I slipped out two from the cluster there."
"Then they belong to God. By what right do you touch sacred gifts
brought to Him?"
"They were mine. I bought them last night and laid them yonder when I
came to-day--and God can spare just two, when I have nothing else to pay
you with. Did you--oh! did you think I--stole--them?" A sob shook him,
and tears followed.
Father Temple stooped and drew the little white-robed form to him,
pressing the head against his breast.
"Forgive me, I did not quite understand; and I am sure the dear Father
knows what is in your grateful heart. God bless you and keep you. I
shall put the hyacinths between the leaves of my Bible."
Eglah stretched an arm across Mrs. St. Clair's shoulder and dropped the
curtain.
"Come away. Some other time I may talk to him, not now."
The following day Eglah returned to Washington, and two hours before the
departure of the train she drove to Twenty-third Street, where she and
Mrs. Mitchell usually made their purchases of damask, ribbon, and lace.
While the latter bent over boxes of wools and crochet cottons, Eglah
seated herself at the handkerchief counter. When she had selected the
desired number, the saleswoman filled out her index sheet and rapped
sharply with her pencil.
"Cash! Here, cash!"
Several minutes elapsed.
"These cash boys are so tiresome. Cash, cash! I had to report one last
week. Cash--here he comes at last. Now, do hurry up; you are a regular
snail."
In the boy who hastened away Eglah recognized the soloist of St.
Hyacinth's, and noticed a bandage around his throat. When he came back
with the parcel and counted the change into the palm of the saleswoman,
Eglah touched his arm.
"I heard you sing yesterday, and want to tell you how much I liked your
voice."
"Thank you, ma'am, I----"
A spell of coughing interrupted, and she noticed how wan and weary he
looked, and how heavy were the greyish shadows under his lovely eyes.
"I am afraid you are not well to-day. Are you an orphan?"
"Oh, no. Mother is living, and she says a mother is worth forty
fathers."
"Will you tell me her name, and where she lives?"
"Mrs. Nona Dane, and she has the glove counter at ----, Fourteenth
Street."
At this instant the floor-walker strode forward, and a frightened
expression crossed the boy's white face as he turned quickly, but Eglah
laid a detaining hand on his head as, rising, she confronted the
floor-walker.
"If he loitered it is not his fault; I kept him. If he missed a call I
am to blame. Good-bye, Leighton; shake hands. When I come back to New
York I hope to hear you sing again at St. Hyacinth's; and if I miss you
here, I shall buy elsewhere."
His hot fingers quivered in her clasp, and, pressing a folded bill into
his hand, she joined her foster-mother and left the store.
"What a frail, beautiful boy, and what genuine golden hair! Looks as if
it had been dipped in a pot of gilt. Dearie, don't you think it a shame
these young children are chained up in stores when they ought to be
romping and playing ball?"
As their carriage turned from Twenty-third Street toward Broadway, that
always crowded angle was even more than usually thronged, and during the
brief pause Mr. Herriott came out of Maillard's with a box of bon-bons.
"I am just going to the ferry to wait for you. Are you not too early, or
has my watch gone astray?"
"Come with us, Mr. Noel, we have ample room. Yes, it is early; but of
course at the last minute I must needs shop on the way."
As he seated himself in the carriage he handed a package to Eglah.
"The latest Paris 'Revue,' and your favorite _marron glace_ and
chocolate."
"Thank you heartily, for both. I wonder if I ever shall cease to be a
spoiled child--in your eyes?"
"Whatever you may be in my eyes, you certainly will always remain."
"How discouraging, that you should feel quite hopeless of any
improvement in me. Driver, I wish to stop in West Fourteenth Street,
at ----. Gloves, Mr. Noel, always gloves."
"Will you bet a pair of best driving gauntlets that I cannot tell you
exactly why you go there to-day?"
"Certainly; silk-lined, fur-tipped gauntlets. I told you my errand was
gloves; pray what other reason?"
"You are going to get a glimpse of 'Juno.'"
"Juno? Nearly everything comes to New York sooner or later, but really I
never imagined she could step out from the books of mythology. I hunt no
goddess. When you pay your wager, be sure to select delicate fawn color,
that will match my spring jacket."
"The debt is yours. Confess, Eglah--honor bright--you are curious about
the woman who sells gloves in Fourteenth Street."
"I will present to you a witch's skirt, cap, and broomstick. But why
'Juno'?"
"The matter was thrashed out at the club last week, where Vandiver told
us some artist had compared her to a print of the Ludovisi Juno hanging
in Goupil's window. Hence her elevation to Olympus."
"Then you know all about her?"
"On the contrary, I never saw her; but she seems to be the magnet
drawing people to----just now."
The carriage stopped, and Eglah walked into the department store.
"Come in, Mr. Noel, and pick out your gauntlets."
"Not to-day. Juno indulged in tricks that made even Jupiter keep one eye
on her wiles, and I shall merely admire at a safe distance."
In front of the glove counter half a dozen women clustered, and on the
outside of the group three men lounged--one evidently a foreigner, with
bushy beard, coarse, hairy hands, and furtive eyes, small even behind
very large spectacles. Among several busy saleswomen it was easy to
discover the centre of attraction--a finely developed form, tall and
graceful in every movement, and a face of surpassing beauty, lighted by
dark violet eyes, flushed with the glow of perfect health, and crowned
by a braided mass of glittering yellow hair heaped high on a shapely
head, that held it as an empress wears her tiara. In its vivid coloring
the face suggested a tropical flower, but, looking closer, one thought
of a frozen tulip under a sheet of ice, so hard was the cold gleam of
the defiant eyes and the proud compression of red lips that had
forgotten how to smile, that seemed never to have known curves of
tenderness. While Eglah waited, the foreigner leaned across the counter.
"Some black silk gloves. Number eight and a half."
"In the next room. Men's department."
"You got the papers for the league?"
"Yes, that is all arranged. Meeting will be at ten o'clock to-night. You
can't talk here."
He touched the rim of his hat and walked away, and she looked toward
Eglah.
"Grey kid gloves, stitched with white silk."
"What size?"
"Five and a quarter."
The voice had a sharp metallic ring, with an impatient inflection, and
as she turned, lifting her arms to a box on an upper shelf, all the
lovely outlines of her figure were shown most advantageously, and Eglah
glanced over her shoulder at Mr. Herriott. He was watching the woman
behind the counter with an intensely curious expression, as though
disagreeably perplexed. She found the desired number.
"Shall I stretch them?"
"No, it is not necessary."
"Do you wish them fitted on your hands?"
"I will not give you that trouble. What is the price?"
"It is part of my business to fit them. Two dollars and a quarter. Here,
cash!"
Eglah's desire to mention the chorister of St. Hyacinth's was quickly
extinguished by the pronouncedly repellent bearing that plainly
proclaimed all intercourse must be restricted to the business of the
counter, and as she returned to the carriage, Mr. Herriott said:
"Well, you college girls are nothing if not severely classical, so I
presume you will offer a ewe lamb, all garlanded with willow and
dittany, and prinked out in pomegranate blossoms, on the Junonian
altar."
"I am glad Jove tied her hands and hung her up above the earth and below
the heavens, with anvils on her ankles, where she could do no more
mischief. That goddess of yours has the most cruelly cold, hard face I
ever looked at, and yet--in a way--so beautiful. Evidently she has not
even the shadow of a soul--must have given it all to that angelic boy?
What is her history? Of course she has one."
"It has been said happy women have none, and in this case adversity must
have curdled very early the stream of her youthful joys. Vandiver
investigated her--from a distance he says, as she froze him when he
attempted acquaintanceship. He has a protege in the constabulary who
learned through police channels all that she will allow to be known of
her life. Some years ago she drifted here from the far West--part of the
human flotsam annually stranded in this city, and she found work in a
cloak manufactory. Later she incited a strike among the cloak cutters,
which resulted disastrously for the workers, and when all the strikers
submitted, she alone was refused re-employment, and doors were closed
against her. She secured a position in a large bric-a-brac
establishment, but when a valuable antique vase disappeared, she was
suspected and arrested. While in prison a day and night awaiting trial,
the vase was found in a pawnbroker's shop, and the colored porter of the
bric-a-brac dealer acknowledged the theft. The firm very honorably made
ample public retraction of the unjust charge, and endeavored to
compensate and appease the injured woman, but she shook the dust of the
house from her feet and betook herself to Brooklyn. Recently she
accepted her present place."
"Do you mean to imply that she is--is--Bohemian?"
"That depends upon your interpretation of a very flexible term. I am
told she conducts herself with strict propriety, reports Mr. Dane dead,
and receives attentions from no one; but she is avowedly a socialist of
the extreme type: belongs to labor organizations, attends their
meetings, makes impassioned addresses, and, in fine, is a female Ishmael
whose hands are much too pretty for such savage work. Did you notice an
odd-looking, shambling man with preposterous spectacles who spoke to
her? He is an agent of a band of Russian Nihilists seeking aid from
sympathizers here. She is reported as possessing some education,
advocates 'single-tax' and all the communistic vagaries that appeal
to the great mass of toiling poor, the discontented and morose, as
colored balloons captivate the fancy of children at a circus door.
She frequents a hall down on the East Side, where at night the clans
of the disgruntled assemble, and long-haired men and short-haired
women--who absolutely believe that the only real 'devil is private
property'--denounce wealth and preach their gospel of covetousness. Here
we are at the ferry, and just in time to meet the boat."