A SUITOR.
Duff Salter and the ladies were sitting in the back parlor one evening
following the events just related, when the door-bell rang, and Podge
Byerly went to see who was there. She soon returned and closed the door
of the front parlor, leaving a little crack, by accident, and lighted
the gas there.
"Aggy," whispered Podge, coming in, "there's Mr. Calvin Van de Lear, our
future minister. He's elegantly dressed, and has a nosegay in his hand."
"Can't you entertain him, dear?"
"I would be glad enough, but he asked in a very decided way for you."
"For me?"
Agnes looked distressed.
"Yes; he said very distinctly, 'I called to pay my respects particularly
to Miss Agnes to-night.'"
Agnes left the room, and Duff Salter and Podge were again together.
Podge could hear plainly what was said in the front parlor, and partly
see, by the brighter light there, the motions of the visitor and her
friend. She wrote on Duff Salter's tablet, "A deaf man is a great
convenience!"
"Why?" wrote the large, grave man.
"Because he can't hear what girls say to their beaux."
"Is that a beau calling on our beautiful friend?"
"I'm afraid so!"
"How do you feel when a beau comes?"
"We feel important."
"You don't feel grateful, then; only complimented."
"No; we feel that on one of two occasions we have the advantage over a
man. We can play him like a big fish on a little angle."
"When is the other occasion?"
"Some women," wrote Podge, "play just the same with the man they
marry!"
Duff Salter looked up surprised.
"Isn't that wrong?" he wrote.
She answered mischievously, "A kind of!"
The large, bearded man looked so exceedingly grave that Podge burst out
laughing.
"Don't you know," she wrote, "that the propensity to plague a man
dependent on you is inherent in every healthy woman?"
He wrote, "I do know it, and it's a crime!"
Podge thought to herself "This old man is dreadfully serious and
suspicious sometimes."
As Duff Salter relapsed into silence, gazing on the fire, the voice of
Calvin Van de Lear was heard by Podge, pitched in a low and confident
key, from the parlor side:
"I called, Agnes, when I thought sufficient time had elapsed since the
troubles here, to express my deep interest in you, and to find you, I
hoped, with a disposition to turn to the sunny side of life's affairs."
"I am not ready to take more than a necessary part in anything outside
of this house," replied Agnes. "My mind is altogether preoccupied. I
thank you for your good wishes, Mr. Van de Lear."
"Now do be less formal," said the young man persuasively. "I have always
been Cal. before--short and easy, Cal. Van de Lear. _You_ might call me
almost anything, Aggy."
"I have changed, sir. Our afflictions have taught me that I am no longer
a girl."
"You won't call me Cal., then?"
"No, Mr. Van de Lear."
"I see how it is," exclaimed the visitor. "You think because I am
studying for orders I must be looked up to. Aggy, that's got nothing to
do with social things. When I take the governor's place in our pulpit I
shall make my sermons for this generation altogether crack, sentimental
sermons, and drive away dull care. That's my understanding of the good
shepherd."
"Mr. Van de Lear, there are some cares so natural that they are almost
consolation. Under the pressure of them we draw nearer to happiness.
What merry words should be said to those who were bred under this roof
in such misfortunes as I have now--as the absent have?"
Podge saw Agnes put her handkerchief to her face, and her neck shake a
minute convulsively. Duff Salter here sneezed loudly: "Jericho!
Jerichew! Je-ry-cho-o!" He produced a tortoise-shell snuff-box, and
Podge took a pinch, for fun, and sneezed until the tears came to her
eyes and her hair was shaken down. She wrote on the tablets,
"Men could eat dirt and enjoy it."
He replied, "At last dirt eats all the men."
"It's to get rid of them!" wrote Podge. "My boys at school are dirty by
inclination. They will chew anything from a piece of India rubber shoe
to slippery elm and liquorice root. One piece of liquorice will
demoralize a whole class. They pass it around."
Duff Salter replied, "The boys must have something in their mouths; the
girls in their heads!"
"But not liquorice root," added Podge.
"No; they put the boys in their heads!"
"Pshaw!" wrote Podge, "girls don't like boys. They like nice old men who
will pet them."
Here Podge ran out of the room and the conversation in the front parlor
was renewed. The voice of Calvin Van de Lear said:
"Agnes, looking at your affairs in the light of religious duty, as you
seem to prefer, I must tell you that your actions have not always been
perfect."
Nothing was said in reply to this.
"I am to be your pastor at some not distant day," spoke the same voice,
"and may take some of that privilege now. As a daughter of the church
you should give the encouragement of your beauty and favor only to
serious, and approved, and moral young men. Not such scapegraces as
Andrew Zane!"
"Sir!" exclaimed Agnes, rising. "How dare you speak of the poor absent
one?"
"Sit down," exclaimed Calvin Van de Lear, not a bit discomposed. "I have
some disciplinary power now, and shall have more. A lady in full
communion with our church--a single woman without a living
guardian--requires to hear the truth, even from an erring brother. You
have no right to go outside the range at least of respectable men, to
place your affections and bestow your beauty and religion on a
particularly bad man--a criminal indeed--one already fled from this
community, and under circumstances of the greatest suspicion. I mean
Andrew Zane!"
"Hush!" exclaimed Agnes; "perhaps he is dead."
A short and awkward quiet succeeded, broken by young Van de Lear's
interruption at last:
"Aggy, I don't know but it is the best thing. Is it so?"
"For shame, sir!"
"He wouldn't have come to any good. I know him well. We went to school
together here in Kensington. Under a light and agreeable exterior he
concealed an obstinacy almost devilish. All the tricks and daredevil
feats we heard of, he was at the head of them. After he grew up his eyes
fell on you. For a time he was soberer. Then, perceiving that you were
also his father's choice, he conspired against his father, repeatedly
absconded, and gave that father great trouble to find and return him to
his home, and still stepped between Mr. Zane and his wishes. Was that
the part of a grateful and obedient son?"
Not a word was returned by Agnes Wilt.
"How ill-advised," continued Calvin Van de Lear, "was your weakness
during that behavior! Do you know what the tattle of all Kensington is?
That you favored both the father and the son! That you declined the son
only because his father might disinherit him, and put off the father
because the son would have the longer enjoyment of his property! I have
defended you everywhere on these charges. They say even more, _Miss_
Agnes--if you prefer it--that the murder of the father was not committed
by Andrew Zane without an instigator, perhaps an accessory."
The voice of Agnes was heard in hasty and anxious imploration:
"For pity's sake, say no more. Be silent. Am I not bowed and wretched
enough?"
She came hastily to the fissure of the door and looked in, because Duff
Salter just then sneezed tremendously:
"Jericho-o-o-o! Jer-ry-cho-o-o!"
Podge Byerly reappeared with a pack of cards and shuffled them before
Duff Salter's face.
They sat down and played a game of euchre for a cent a point, the
tablets at hand between them to write whatever was mindful. Duff Salter
was the best player.
"I believe," wrote Podge, "that all Western men are gamblers. Are you?"
He wrote, to her astonishment,
"I was."
"Wasn't it a sin?"
"Not there."
"I thought gambling was a sin everywhere?"
"It is everywhere done," wrote Duff Salter. "You are a gambler."
"That's a fib."
"You risk your heart, capturing another's."
"My heart is gone," added Podge, blushing.
"What's his name?" wrote Duff Salter.
"That's telling."
Again the voices of the two people in the front parlor broke on Podge's
ear:
"You must leave me, Mr. Van de Lear. You do not know the pain and wrong
you are doing me."
"Agnes, I came to say I loved you. Your beauty has almost maddened me
for years. Your resistance would give me anger if I had not hope left. I
know you loved me once."
"Sir, it is impossible; it is cruel."
"Cruel to love you?" repeated the divinity student. "Come now, that's
absurd! No woman is annoyed by an offer. I swear I love you reverently.
I can put you at the head of this society--the wife of a clergyman. Busy
tongues shall be stilled at your coming and going, and the shadow of
this late tragedy will no more plague your reputation, protected in the
bosom of the church and nestled in mine."
Sounds of a slight struggle were heard, as if the amorous young priest
were trying to embrace Agnes.
Podge arose, listening.
The face of Duff Salter was stolid, and unconscious of anything but the
game of cards.
"I tell you, sir!" exclaimed Agnes, "that your attentions are offensive.
Will you force me to insult you?"
"Oh! that's all put on, my subtle beauty. You are not alarmed by these
delicate endearments. Give me a kiss!"
"Calvin Van de Lear, you are a hypocrite. The gentleman you have
slandered to win my favor is as dear to me as you are repulsive. Nay,
sir, I'll teach you good behavior!"
She threw open the folding-doors just as Duff Salter had come to a
terrific sneeze.
"Jericho! Jericho! Jer-rick-co-o-o-oh!"
Looking in with bold suavity, Calvin Van de Lear made a bow and took up
his hat.
"Good-night," he said, "most reputable ladies, two of a kind!"
"I think," wrote Duff Salter frigidly, as the young man slammed the door
behind him, "that we'll make a pitcher of port sangaree and have a
little glass before we go to bed. We will all three take a hand at
cards. What shall we play?"
"Euchre--cut-throat!" exclaimed Podge Byerly, rather explosively.
Duff Salter seemed to have heard this, for, with his grave eyes bent on
Agnes, he echoed, dubiously:
"Cut-throat!"
With an impatient motion Podge Byerly snatched at the cards, and they
fell to the floor.
Agnes burst into tears and left the room.
"Upon my word," thought Podge Byerly, "I believe this old gray rat is a
detective officer!"
There was a shadow over the best residence on Queen Street.
Anonymous letters continued to come in almost by every mail, making
charges and imputations upon Agnes, and frequently connecting Podge
Byerly with her.
Terrible epithets--such as "Murderess!" "A second Mrs. Chapman!"
"Jezebel," etc.--were employed in these letters.
Many of them were written by female hands or in very delicate male
chirography, as if men who wrote like women had their natures.
There was one woman's handwriting the girls learned to identify, and she
wrote more often than any--more beautifully in the writing, more
shameless in the meaning, as if, with the nethermost experience in
sensuality, she was prepared to subtleize it and be the universal
accuser of her sex.
"What fiends must surround us!" exclaimed Agnes. "There must be a
punishment deeper than any for the writers of anonymous letters. A
murderer strikes the vital spot but once. Here every commandment is
broken in the cowardly secret letter. False witness, the stab, illicit
joy, covetousness, dishonor of father and mother, and defamation of
God's image in the heart, are all committed in these loathsome letters."
"Yes," added Podge Byerly, "the woman who writes anonymous letters, I
think, will have a cancer, or wart on her eye, or marry a bow-legged
man. The resurrectionists will get her body, and the primary class in
the other world will play whip-top with the rest of her."
Agnes and Podge went to church prayer-meeting the night following Calvin
Van de Lear's repulse at their dwelling, and Mr. Duff Salter gave each
of them an arm.
Old Mr. Van de Lear led the exercises, and, after several persons had
publicly prayed by the direction of the venerable pastor, Calvin Van de
Lear, of his own motion and as a matter of course, took the floor and
launched into a florid supplication almost too elegant to be extempore.
As he continued, Podge Byerly, looking through her fingers, saw a
handsome, high-colored woman at Calvin's side, stealing glances at Agnes
Wilt.
It was the wife of Calvin Van de Lear's brother, Knox--a blonde of
large, innocent eyes, who usually came with Calvin to the church.
While Podge noticed this inquisitive or stray glance, she became
conscious that something in the prayer was directing the attention of
the whole meeting to their pew.
People turned about, and, with startled or bold looks, observed Agnes
Wilt, whose head was bowed and her veil down.
The voice of Calvin Van de Lear sounded high and meaningful as Podge
caught these sentences:
"Lord, smite the wicked and unjust as thou smotest Sapphira by the side
of Ananias. We find her now in the mask of beauty, again of humility,
even, O Lord, of religion, leading the souls of men down to death and
hell. Thou knowest who stand before Thee to do lip service. All hearts
are open to Thee. If there be any here who have deceived Thine elect by
covetousness, or adultery, or _murder_, Lord, make bare Thine arm!"
The rest of the sentence was lost in the terrific series of sneezes from
Duff Salter, who had taken too big a pinch of snuff and forgot himself,
so as to nearly lift the roof off the little old brick church with his
deeply accentuated,
"Jer-i-cho-whoe!"
Even old Silas Van de Lear looked over the top of the pulpit and smiled,
but, luckily, Duff Salter could hardly hear his own sneezes.
As they left the church Agnes put down her veil, and trembled under the
stare of a hundred investigating critics.
When they were in the street, Podge Byerly remarked:
"Oh! that we had a man to resent such meanness as that. I think that
those who address God with slant arrows to wound others, as is often
done at prayer-meeting, will stand in perdition beside the writers of
anonymous letters."
"They are driving me to the last point," said Agnes. "I can go to church
no more. When will they get between me and heaven? Yet the Lord's will
be done."