GERALD.
It was another article of the Joppian creed, that there was no such thing
possible as a purely Platonic friendship between a young man and a young
woman; there must always be "something in it": either a mitten for him,
or a disappointment for her, or wedding-cake for all--generally and
preferably, of course, the wedding-cake;--and belonging to such
friendship as lawfully as a tail belongs to a comet, was a great,
wide-spreading area of gossip. It was only in the case of Phebe Lane that
this universal and common-sense rule had its one particular and
unreasonable exception; and it was acting upon a speedily acquired
knowledge of this by-law, that Mr. Halloway boldly pursued his plan for
metamorphosing his young friend, right under the open eyes and ears of
the Joppites. He lived so near that it was the most natural thing in the
world for him to stop for a moment's chat, as every one else did, either
inside or outside of the window as he went by; and as he was always sure
of meeting others, call when he would, it certainly never could have been
asserted of him that he went there only to see Phebe. Indeed, he often
scarcely spoke with her at all when he so dropped in, and yet out of
these frequent and informal meetings an intimacy had sprung up between
them such as Phebe at least had never known before. She submitted herself
to him docilely, reading his books patiently even when they bored her
unutterably, as not seldom happened, and endeavoring to form her opinion
straitly upon his on all intellectual questions, recognizing her own
fallibility with a humility that at once touched and charmed him. Real
humility is rare enough the world over, but nowhere is it less
conspicuously apparent than among the flourishing virtues of Joppa; and
it was not long before this fact was discovered by Denham Halloway, who,
with all his gayety and light-heartedness, was a keen and discriminating
observer of character. He was one of those interesting people whom all
other people interest; one of those who derive their peculiar charm more
from what they find in you than from what they show you of themselves,
though one might be ashamed to confess the truth so baldly. These are the
people who, without any especial gift of either mind or person, wheedle
your secrets out of you before you know it, possessing all your trust and
your liking before they have given any real evidence of deserving your
confidence, and yet, somehow or other, though rarely either great or
talented, or even heroically good, never for one moment abusing it. Such
characters are not at all unusual, yet are generally accounted so; one of
their chief qualities, according to their friends, being that they are so
unlike everybody else. But Phebe certainly had never met any one at all
like Mr. Halloway, and she was soon of the settled conviction that she
should never meet any one quite like him again. He was true to his
promise to help her; (he never made a promise that he did not honestly
try to keep;) and he applied himself to the by no means thankless task
with the good-humored directness and energy that characterized all his
actions. There was quite a number of young girls in his parish, more
proportionately than in the others. Bell Masters and Amy Duckworth had
long been hovering on its borders, and the advent of so young and
prepossessing a rector had instantly removed their last scruples as to
infant baptism, and settled forever their doubts as to the apostolic
succession. They had come in at once. It was even whispered that Maria
Upjohn had in an incautious moment confessed that she preferred the
litany to Mr. Webb's spontaneous effusions, and had been summarily sat
upon by her mother, whose Bible contained an eleventh commandment
curiously omitted from the twentieth chapter of Exodus in other versions,
and reading: "Thou shalt not become an Episcopalian, and if possible,
thou shalt not be born one." Then there were Nellie Atterbury, and Janet
Mudge, and Polly and Mattie Dexter; there certainly was no lack of active
young teachers for the Sunday-school, and Phebe was well content to
remain passively aside, as of old. But, as Mrs. Lane remarked, there were
no drones allowed in Mr. Halloway's hive, and before long Phebe found
herself insensibly drawn in to be one of the workers too, with any
amount of business growing upon her hands, and herself, under this new
and wise guidance, becoming more and more capable for it every day.
"A new broom sweeps clean," remarked Mrs. Upjohn, contemptuously, as she
heard of the stir and life in St. Joseph's heretofore-dull little parish.
"For my part, I would rather have Mr. White back--if he weren't dead. He
was a good, sensible old man, who knew his place, and was contented to
let his Church simmer in the background, where it belongs. _He_ didn't go
flaunting his white gown in people's faces every Saint's day he could
trump up, let alone the Wednesday and Friday services. Who's Mr.
Halloway? What does anybody know about him beyond that the Bishop
recommended him, as if a Bishop must know what's what better than other
people, forsooth! Don't tell me!" said Mrs. Upjohn, in unutterable scorn.
"He's a new broom, and he's raising a big dust, and I would liefer have
Mr. White back and let the dust lie,--that's all!"
But the Joppites were far from sharing Mrs. Upjohn's sentiments. Mr.
Halloway did, it is true, belong to the wrong Church, but there was a
strong suspicion among them that neither had this man sinned, nor his
parents, that he was born to so grievous a fate. It was rather his
misfortune. And as for the rest, he was thoroughly a gentleman; was
excellently well educated; and was, moreover, comely to look upon, and
eminently agreeable in his bearing. No; Joppa was far from begrudging Mr.
White his departure to the land of the blessed. It was time the good old
man went to his reward, they said.
And as to Mrs. Whittridge, Mr. Halloway's sister, who kept house for him
at the rectory, through all the length and the breadth of Joppa there
were no two opinions with regard to her. She was a woman of about fifty,
enough older than her brother to have been his mother, and she seemed
indeed to cherish almost a mother's idolatrous affection for him. She had
lost her husband many years before, and had been left with considerable
fortune and no family besides this one brother. So much information,
after repeated and unabashedly point-blank questions, had the Joppites
succeeded in extracting from Mr. Halloway, who with all his apparent
frankness was the most difficult person in the world ever to be brought
to talk of himself and his own affairs. But just to see Mrs. Whittridge,
with her sweet face and perfect manners, was to recognize her at once for
a gentlewoman in every sense of the word, while to be in her society, if
but for ten minutes, was to come very nearly to loving her. The Joppites
saw but one fault in her; she did not and would not visit. All who sought
her out were made more than welcome; but whether from the extreme
delicacy of her health, which rendered visiting a burden, or because of
her widow's dress of deepest mourning, which she had never laid aside, it
came to be an accepted thing that she went nowhere. It was a great
disappointment in Joppa; nevertheless it was impossible to harbor
ill-will toward this lovely, high-bred lady, who drew all hearts to
herself by the very way she had of seeming never to think of herself at
all. She won Phebe Lane's affection at once and forever with almost her
first words, spoken in the low, clear, sweet tones that sounded always
like Sunday-night's music.
"Do you know, Mr. Halloway," Phebe said to him one day, "I think it does
me more good only to hear your sister's voice than to listen to the very
best sermon ever preached."
"Miss Phebe," he rejoined, with a merry twinkle in his brown eyes, "if
you propagate that doctrine largely, I am a ruined man. I must hold you
over to eternal secrecy. But as regards the fact,--there is my hand,--I
am quite of your way of thinking! I am persuaded an angel's voice got
into Soeur Angélique by mistake." Mrs. Whittridge's baptismal name was
Angelica, but to her brother she had always been "Soeur Angélique" and
nothing else.
"Yes, and an angel's soul too," said Phebe.
"Even that," replied Mr. Halloway. "She is all and more than you can
possibly imagine that she is. But I positively forbid your putting her up
on a pedestal and worshipping her. In the first place, too great a sense
of her own holiness might mar her present admirable but purely earthly
management of our little household, thus seriously interfering with my
comforts. And in the second place, I feel it my duty to warn you from a
habit of canonization, which, if too extensively indulged in, will
inevitably warp your powers of frank and right judgment."
Phebe laughed, but did not forget.
One afternoon, some time later, she was at the rectory, whither she had
gone, at Mrs. Whittridge's request, to explain a new and intricate
embroidery stitch. They were upstairs in that lady's charming little
sitting-room, Phebe on a low stool by her friend's side, and Halloway had
just come in from a round of parochial visits and joined them there.
"Mrs. Whittridge," said Phebe, suddenly, "do you think it is possible to
care too much for one's friends? Mr. Halloway says one can. I know he
means that I do."
Mrs. Whittridge laid her hand caressingly on the girl's bonny brown hair.
"How can I judge, my child? I do not even know who your friends are."
"Who are they, in fact?" said Denham, drawing up a chair and seating
himself in front of the group by the table. "Oh, Miss Phebe is friends
with the entire village in a way. They all call her 'Phebe,' and keep
accurate track of her birthdays, from Dick Hardcastle up. And I am sure
she hasn't an enemy in the world. But there is this remarkable feature in
the case, that you could go over the entire population of Joppa by name
without eliciting a single thrill of enthusiasm from this really
enthusiastic young lady."
"I cannot help it," Phebe murmured, a little shamefacedly. "I bore them,
and they bore me."
"That's a point in your education I am going to take up later," remarked
Mr. Halloway, cheerfully. "The art of not being bored by people. Once
acquired, the other, that of not boring them, follows of itself. Society
hangs on it."
"I wish you would teach me that right away," said Phebe, earnestly. "I
believe I need that more than any thing else."
"Well, I will, immediately,--after supper, that is. I am exhausted now
with ministerial duties. You have asked Miss Phebe to tea have you not,
Soeur Angélique? You cannot stay? Oh, but of course you must."
"Of course she will," said Mrs. Whittridge, with her tender smile.
"Phebe only lives to give pleasure to others. Now tell me something about
your friends. Who are they?"
"I haven't any here. Mr. Halloway is quite right," answered Phebe,
locking her hands over one of Mrs. Whittridge's. "Not real, real friends.
As a child I had ever so many, and Bell Masters and I quite grew up
together, but somehow we have all grown away from each other, and--oh, I
don't know!--it seems as if there wasn't any thing in the girls here. Not
that there's more in me. They are brighter and better than I in every
way, but we don't get on together; they don't seem to have any thing to
give me, any thing they can help me to. I can't get at them. Oh! Mr.
Halloway is quite right. In all Joppa I haven't a single friend--except
just you and him."
"We are indeed your friends," said Mrs. Whittridge. "You need never
doubt that."
The girl turned and threw her arms impulsively around the other's neck.
"Oh, no, no!" she said. "I could not doubt it. I know it. I _feel_ it!
Oh, you can't guess what it is to me to know it! I have so little in my
life to make it grow to any thing, and I want so much! And you can give
me all I want--all, all; and it makes me so happy when I think of
it,--that I have got you and can have all I want!"
"And is this frantic outburst meant exclusively for Soeur Angélique?"
asked Denham. "I am green with unutterable jealousy. I thought I was your
friend too, Miss Phebe."
Phebe still knelt with her arms around Mrs. Whittridge, but she looked up
at him with her frank, loving eyes and smiled. "You know I meant you
both," she said softly.
An almost irresistible impulse came over the young man to lay his hand,
as his sister had done, on the soft, bright-brown hair. Clergymen are but
human after all. He bent forward, but only lifted one of his sister's
thin white hands and held it a moment between his. "We must both do our
best by this foolish little girl who trusts us so frankly with her
friendship, must we not, Soeur Angélique?" he said gravely.
"I for one am very glad to assume the trust," said Mrs. Whittridge.
"And won't you ever tire of me? ever? ever?" asked the girl.
"Not ever."
"You won't ever be tired helping me, or tired of having me come to you
for help, or tired of my loving you?"
"Where is your faith gone, my child?"
Phebe drew a deep sigh of content. "I am just as happy as can be," she
said. "I don't want any thing else now in the world except just Gerald."
"Ah, Gerald again. I expected that," said Mr. Halloway, raising his
eyebrows humorously.
"Gerald? Pray, who is Gerald?" inquired Mrs. Whittridge.
Her brother lifted his hands in mock amazement. "Is it possible you know
Miss Phebe so long and need ask who Gerald is? I will tell you. Gerald is
perfection individualized. Gerald has all the qualities, mental,
physical, and spiritual, that it is possible to compress into the limited
compass of even an overgrown human frame. Gerald, you must know, is
intellectual to a degree, beautiful as an archangel, adorable as--as you,
Soeur Angélique, and clever--almost--as myself."
Phebe clapped her hands and nodded, "Yes, yes, all that!"
"I can tell you all about Gerald," continued Halloway. "I have heard of
nothing else since I came. Gerald, my dear sister, is Miss Phebe's idol;
I rather think she says her prayers before Gerald's picture every night."
"Oh, please!" cried Phebe.
"But who is this Gerald?" asked Mrs. Whittridge. "Does he live here?"
"No, Soeur Angélique, and by the way he is not he at all, but she, and
will be known in history as Miss Geraldine Vernor. She lives in New York,
rolls in wealth, and is one of a large family of whom she is the
sun-flower. Let me give you her portrait as I have it from fragmentary
but copious descriptions. She is, I should say, five feet eleven and
three quarter inches in height--don't shake your head, Miss Phebe,--and
slender in disproportion. She has the feet of a Chinese, the hands of a
baby, and the strength of a Jupiter Ammon. She has hair six yards long
and blacker than Egyptian darkness. She has a forehead so low it rests
upon her eyebrows, which, by the way, have been ruled straight across
the immeasurable breadth of it with a T square. She has eyes bluer one
minute than the grotto at Capri, greener the next than grass in June,
grayer the next than a November day, and so on in turn through all the
prismatic colors. Her eyelashes are only not quite so long as her hair.
She has a mouth which would strike you as large,--it is five and a half
inches across,--but when she speaks, and you hear the combined wisdom of
Solomon, and Plato, and Socrates, and Solon, and the rest of the ancients
(not to mention the moderns), falling from her lips, your only wonder is
that her mouth keeps within its present limits. Her nose--Miss Phebe, can
it be? Is it possible you have left out her nose? Soeur Angélique, I am
forced to the melancholy conclusion that Gerald has none. Miss Phebe
would never have omitted mentioning it."
"You may make all the fun of her and of me that you like," said Phebe,
half provoked. "But there is not anybody else in the world like Gerald
Vernor. Wait till you see her. You will say then that I was right, only
that I did not say enough."
"You shan't tease her, Denham. Tell me, Phebe, where did you know this
friend so well?"
"Three years ago, when she spent a summer here, I saw a great deal of
her,--oh, it made it such a happy summer, knowing her!--and I have
corresponded with her ever since."
"Without meeting her again?"
"Oh, no. I saw her twice last summer. I went to the train both times to
see her as she passed through."
"But our trains don't pass through; they stop here."
"Yes, I know; but I went to Galilee to meet her as she passed
through there."
"Would she have gone as far as that to meet you, Miss Phebe?"
"That is very different, Mr. Halloway," answered Phebe, simply. "I am not
worth going so far for. Besides, I don't expect people ever to do as much
for me as I would for them."
"Denham, you are cruel," said Mrs. Whittridge. "Phebe, my child, your
love for your friend is to me sufficient proof that she must be lovely. I
know I should love her too."
Phebe looked at her gratefully. "Oh, you would,--you would indeed!
You could not help it. You would admire her so much. There is so
much in her."
"Ah, yes, I forgot," interrupted Denham, "I did not finish my portrait.
This marvellous being is an athlete. She can ride any Bucephalus
produced, and rather prefers to do so bareback. She is a Michael Angelo
at painting, and has represented striking scenes from his 'Last Judgment'
on a set of after-dinner coffee cups. She drives, she skates, she swims,
she rows, she sails, has a thorough knowledge of business, and is up in
stocks, is femininely masculine and masculinely feminine, scorns novels,
and can order a dinner, is a churchwoman, and dresses always in the
latest style. Is there any thing else, Miss Phebe?"
"Only one thing else that I think you have rather forgotten, Mr.
Halloway: I love her and she is my friend."
"Miss Phebe," cried the young man in instant contrition, "have I hurt
you? Have I been thoughtless enough for that with my foolish fun? You
know I did not mean it. Will you forgive me?" He held out his hand.
Phebe hesitated. "Will you not make fun of her any more? And will you
like her if she comes? You know she may come here this summer; there is
just a chance of it. Will you promise?"
"I can safely promise to like any one whom you like, I know, Miss Phebe.
Soeur Angélique, make this stubborn child give me her hand. It is not
fitting that I crave absolution so abjectly."
"You are two silly children together," said Soeur Angélique, rising and
laughing. "You may settle your quarrels as you can while I order tea."
"Miss Phebe, have I really vexed you so much?" asked the young man,
earnestly, as his sister left the room. "You must know I would not do
that for the world."
"I don't think you could hurt or vex me in any way," said Phebe,
"excepting only through Gerald. For you don't know how I love her, Mr.
Halloway. I love her with all my heart and soul, I think, oh,
more--almost more--than any one else in the world."
"I know you do," he answered. "It is a love to envy her." Phebe was still
looking up at him from her low stool, her face raised as if in appeal.
She always looked very young for her years, and now she seemed not more
than a child of sixteen in the waning light. He could not help it this
time; he laid his hand very lightly for one briefest instant on her
pretty hair. "But you will not be less friends with me because I like
_you_ best?"
"I will not ever be less friends with you," Phebe replied, soberly. "I
don't change so."
"No," he said; "I know you do not. Nor do I."
And then he moved away from her, and began telling an irresistibly comic
story about a call he had made on a poor woman that afternoon (he could
not for the life of him help seeing the ludicrous side of every thing),
and from one subject they passed to another, and when Soeur Angélique
summoned them to tea, she found her reverend brother standing in the
middle of the room in the full swing of a chorus from "The Pirates," with
Phebe whistling the liveliest possible accompaniment, and both of them
gesticulating wildly. He stopped with a laugh as his sister appeared in
the door-way.
"Don't be shocked, Soeur Angélique. I shut the window lest Mrs. Upjohn
should chance to go by and hear me. She would telegraph the Bishop. I am
only resting. It wore me out working for Miss Phebe's pardon. No; wait a
moment, Soeur Angélique. Don't let's go to tea instantly. I would rather
quiet down a little before I go in and say grace." He took up a chance
book from the table, and turning to the window to catch the light, read a
few lines to himself, then threw it down, and came forward with a smile.
"There, I am ready now. Take my arm, Soeur Angélique. Miss Phebe, will
you come, please?"