AN APOLOGY AND ITS CONSEQUENCES.
It was some days after Phebe's accident before Halloway saw Gerald again.
She was generally upstairs when he called, or driving or sailing with De
Forest, who was in daily attendance upon her, paying her persistent,
blasé devotion. She was in the parlor one evening, however, sitting with
De Forest near the door, when Denham came in, but he merely bowed to her
and passed on to the other end of the room, where Mrs. Lane was seated
with Mr. and Mrs. Hardcastle. Mr. Hardcastle rose at once to receive him.
"Ah, good-evening, good-evening. Pray take a seat. I am delighted to see
you. I suppose you came to ask after our little invalid. Sad accident,
sir; sad accident, very. It has kept us most anxious and busy seeing
after her. But she is doing nicely now. We shall have her about again
before we know it." He spoke as if her recovery were altogether due to
himself, for the regularity with which he had fulfilled his neighborly
duties toward her, and he paused and looked at Halloway for a recognition
of the same.
"It will be a bright day for us all when we have her among us once more,"
Halloway said in answer to the look. "You must tell her how much we miss
her, Mrs. Lane."
"Ah, that we do," murmured Mrs. Hardcastle. "My knitting has been at a
standstill ever since the poor dear child's misfortune. I have been so
thankful her hands were spared. There's always some cause for gratitude
in every evil, after all."
"That's one way of looking at it," said Mrs. Lane, turning up the lamp
and drawing her work-basket nearer. "The Lord make us thankful for all
our mercies, but a misfortune's a misfortune, and I don't know as we're
called upon to look at it as any thing else. Won't you sit down, Mr.
Halloway?"
"Thank you, not this evening. It is nearly time for service. I only
wanted to know that Miss Phebe was doing well."
Mr. Hardcastle rose again to bow off the guest. "Sorry you can't stay,
sir. In spite of our difference of faith,--and how great it is I am in
hopes you will appreciate some day when you have come to see the errors
of the way you are walking in,--in spite of our material differences, I
say, you are always very welcome at any time. But pray don't let us
detain you from what you deem your duty."
"Mr. Halloway, a moment, please," said Gerald, rising as he was going by.
He stopped, and she came toward him holding out her hand. "I want to
thank you for your kindness of the other night. I believe I was
ungrateful and perhaps rude at the time, and I have not seen you since to
apologize."
"Pray do not speak of it!" said Denham, flushing a little as he took her
hand. "There was no occasion whatever for gratitude, and therefore no
possible lack of it. I trust you are quite well now."
"There _was_ occasion for gratitude," persisted Gerald, "or at least for
an acknowledgment of your kindness, and it is because I am ashamed of my
remissness that I take this first opportunity to thank you."
"You embarrass me," said Denham, laughingly. "I am not at all accustomed
to having public restitution made me in this manner, and especially for
purely imaginary slights. But may I not be permitted now--as a sort of
reward if you will--to inquire if you have quite recovered?"
"At least I have sufficiently recovered to retract my disbelief in
kitchen soap, and--and in your skill," she added, with a little
visible effort.
"You honor us above our deserts,--the soap and me," answered Denham,
playfully. "I don't know how deleteriously it may affect the soap, but as
for me I feel myself growing alarmingly conceited. So good-night."
"What a very elaborate apology," said De Forest, as Denham went out. "If
the offence were at all proportionate, I tremble to think of the enormity
of your crime; or is it because he is a Reverend, that you demean
yourself so humbly before him?"
Halloway was still hunting for his hat in the hall, and could scarcely
help overhearing De Forest's remark and Gerald's answer.
"I demean myself before nobody in seeking to make amends for a previous
neglect. The humiliation is in the misconduct, not in the confession of
it; and whether I owed the apology to Mr. Halloway or to a beggar in the
street, I should have made it quite the same, not at all for sake of his
pardon, but simply for sake of clearing my own conscience."
"Not at all for sake of my pardon," said Denham, as he strode on toward
the church, with the uncomfortable sensation of having been an
involuntary eavesdropper. "It is fortunate that my conceit was only
veneered on."
The following Sunday Gerald was in church both morning and evening,
sitting in Phebe's accustomed place. She was one of those noticeable
presences impossible to overlook, and as Denham mounted into the pulpit
he felt as if he were preaching solely to her, or rather as if hers were
the only criticism he feared in all the friendly congregation. He was
annoyed that he should feel so, and quite conscious at the same time that
he was far from doing his best, and once or twice he caught a flash in
the serious eyes fastened on his face, that seemed to say she knew this
last fact too, and was impatient with him for it. What excuse had any
one, in Gerald's eyes, for not doing his best always? De Forest was with
her in the evening, and as Halloway came out of the vestry after service,
he found himself directly behind them.
"He's not a mighty orator," De Forest was saying with his cynical drawl.
"I doubt if he is destined to be one of the pillars or even one of the
cushions of the church."
"He was not doing his best to-night," answered Gerald.
"Thank you," said Halloway, coming quickly to her side, anxious to
avoid further eavesdropping. "Thank you--I mean for thinking I might
do better."
"That is not much to be grateful for, I am afraid," replied Gerald,
"since it implies, you know, that you have not done well."
"I hope you like uncompromising truth, Mr. Halloway," said De Forest,
leaning forward to look at him across Gerald. "It's the only kind Miss
Vernor deals in."
"I prefer it infinitely to the most flattering falsehood imaginable,"
answered Denham.
"I believe clergymen are usually the last people to hear the truth about
themselves," continued Gerald. "Their position at the head of a
community, pre-supposes their capability for the office, and naturally
places them outside of the criticism of those under their immediate
charge, who are nevertheless just the ones best qualified to judge them.
But of course scholars may not teach the teacher."
"What an invaluable opening for you who are _not_ one of Mr. Halloway's
flock," said De Forest, "to undertake to remedy the deficiency, and to be
in yourself a whole critical public to him, a licensed _Free Press_ as it
were, pointing out all his errors with the most unhesitating frankness
and unsparing perspicuity!"
"Do you think your love of truth would hold out long under such a crucial
test?" asked Gerald, turning quite seriously to Denham. The moonlight
shone full on her clear-cut, cameo-like face. Her eyes, with their
shadowy fringe, looked deeper and blacker than midnight. It did not seem
possible that truth spoken by her could be any thing but beautiful too.
Denham smiled down at her seriousness.
"Try me."
"Well, then, it seems to me you do not often enough try to do your best.
You are contented to do well, and not ambitious to do better. You are
quite satisfied, so I think, if your sermons are good enough to please
generally, instead of seeking to raise your standard all the time by hard
effort toward improvement, and I doubt, therefore, if at the end of a
year your sermons will show any marked change from what they are to-day.
Am I too hard?"
"You are very just," answered Denham, pleasantly, though the blood
mounted to his face. "You have found out my weak spot. I confess I am not
ambitious. I aspire to no greatness of any kind."
"You have discovered the secret of contentment," said De Forest, with
effusive approbation. "I am glad to have met you, Mr. Halloway. You are
the one happy man I know."
"The secret of contentment?" repeated Gerald. "Say rather the principle
of all stagnation, mental and spiritual. Not to aspire to become greater
than one _can_ be is to fall short of becoming all that one _may_ be; to
be satisfied with one's powers is to dwarf them hopelessly."
"A powerful argument against conceit," reflected De Forest. "Still, upon
my word, I think I would as lief be conceited in every pore as eternally
in a state of dissatisfaction with myself about every thing."
"It is well, above all, I think, to have a just appreciation of one's own
powers or lack of powers," said Denham, slowly. "Ambition, without the
corresponding strength to gratify it, is a cruel taskmaster."
"How can you tell, till you have tried, that there is no corresponding
strength?" asked Gerald, turning full upon him again. How marvellously
expressive her face was, with its earnest eyes and mobile mouth! "If I
were a man,--and great heavens! how I wish I were one!--I would create
the strength if it were not there of itself. I would force myself upward.
I would never rest till I had become something more than nature
originally made me."
"Then Heaven be thanked, who has spared us the monstrosity you would have
developed into under the harrowing circumstances of a reversal of your
sex," said De Forest, devoutly.
"I was always glad you were a woman. Now I am positively aglow with
gratitude for it."
Denham was silent. They had reached Mrs. Lane's now, and Gerald and her
cavalier paused.
"I have not hurt you, Mr. Halloway, have I?" said Gerald, more gently. "I
know I sometimes speak strongly where I am least qualified to do so."
"A very womanly trait," put in De Forest. "Don't apologize for your one
redeeming weakness."
"No, you have not hurt me," said Denham, in a low voice. "I hope you have
done me good." And without adding even a good-night or a message for
Phebe, he lifted his hat and crossed over to the rectory. His sister was
not there as he entered her sitting-room, and throwing himself down on
the sofa, clasped his hands over his forehead and stared thoughtfully up
at the ceiling. She had been sitting with Phebe while the Lane household
went to its various churches, Phebe was tired, in consequence of the
entire population of Joppa having run in to ask after her between
services "on their way home," and she was not talking much. But only to
look up and smile into Soeur Angélique's sweet face was pleasure enough
for the girl, and she lay very quietly, holding a rose that Denham had
sent her over by his sister, and feeling supremely contented.
"How would you like me to read to you?" asked Mrs. Whittridge at last,
taking up a book. "Shall I try it?"
"No, thank you. I am afraid my thoughts would be louder than your words,
and I should be listening to them and losing what you are saying."
"And, pray, what are these remarkably noisy thoughts?" asked the lady.
"Let me listen and hear them too."
"I don't think I could say just what they are," replied Phebe, dreamily.
"They are running through my head more like indistinct music than like
real thoughts. And I never was clever at saying things, you know. But,
oh! I do feel very happy."
"You look so," said Soeur Angélique, tenderly. "You poor little one, is
it just the getting well again that makes you so?"
Phebe flushed ever so slightly. "I don't know just what it is," she
answered, lifting the rose to her face. "Perhaps it is only the listening
to that indistinct music. It seems to have put all my soul in tune. Oh,
dear Mrs. Whittridge, what a beautiful world this is, when only there are
no discords in one's own heart!"
A day or two went by, and Phebe, though rapidly convalescing, was still a
prisoner to her room.
"You're missing a lot of fun," said Bell Masters, sympathetically, as she
bustled in to see her one morning, and sat down by the window, pushing
back the curtain so that she could look out into the street and nod to
passers as she talked. "There's no end going on. Dear me, it's a shame to
come to you empty-handed, Phebe. I had two or three rosebuds for
you,--beauties they were too,--but the fact is I gave them away piecemeal
as I came along, and I haven't one left. It seemed as if I met every man
there was this morning. How soon do you think you'll be out again?"
"I don't know," answered Phebe, pushing a box of bonbons within reach of
Bell's easy-going fingers. "I think I might go down-stairs now, but Dr.
Dennis won't let me."
"Too bad. You'll miss Dick's coming of age, won't you? There are to
be high doings. Mr. Hardcastle is too mysterious and pompous to live.
One can't get any thing out of him but just 'My son Dick doesn't come
of age but once' (as if we thought it was a yearly occurrence), 'and
we don't celebrate it but once.' But I got hold of Dick privately and
wheedled it out of him in less than no time with a piece of soft
gingerbread. It's to be something _stunning_. His father wanted to do it
up in English style, dinner to the tenantry, and all that sort of thing,
only unluckily there wasn't any tenantry, and he had to abandon the
benevolent role and take to a jollier one. He won't show off as well, but
we'll have a deal more fun. It's to be a sort of royal picnic, but in the
evening, mind,--wasn't that a brilliant idea for the old gentleman? We
are all to go up in boats, and there are to be great rafts with blazing
torches, and a supper in the woods grander than any of Mrs. Upjohn's, and
bonfires, and the band from Galilee, and bouquets for the ladies, and I
don't know what not, and best of all, unlimited opportunities for
flirting. It's to be _the_ affair of this and every other season past or
future. It's a crying shame you can't go."
"Oh! how I wish I could!" sighed poor Phebe.
"I made pa give me a new dress for it," continued Bell, leaning forward
to pick off the biggest grapes from a bunch on the table. "I mean to look
just too-too. Mr. De Forest is going to row me up. I don't know exactly
how I made him ask me, but I did. It's such a triumph to get him away
from Miss Vernor for once, though I suspect I'll have to pay for it by
doing more than half the rowing myself. I don't suppose he would exert
his precious self to pull an oar more than five minutes at a time. Amy
tried her best to get Mr. Halloway, and so did the Dexters. The way those
girls run after him is a caution even to me; but they didn't get him.
He's monstrously clever in keeping out of people's clutches. I gave him
up long ago as a bad job. Well, good-by, Phebe. Awfully sorry you can't
go. Everybody'll be there, and it's to be the biggest lark out."
During the few days that intervened before Dick's birthday, little else
was talked of anywhere than Mr. Hardcastle's party, which was never
spoken of, by the way, as Mrs. Hardcastle's party, though upon that good
lady devolved the onus of the weighty preparations. It seemed purely Mr.
Hardcastle's affair, just as every thing did in which he was in any way
concerned. Impromptu meetings were held at every house in turn to discuss
the coming event, and the latest bits of information regarding it were
retailed with embellishments proportionate to the imagination of the
accidental narrator. Not a soul in Joppa but knew every proposed feature
of the entertainment better than the hosts themselves. The old people
said it would be damp and rheumatic and would certainly be the death of
them. The young people said it would be divine, and quite worth dying
for. The people who were neither old nor young said nobody could tell how
it would be till after it was over, and they felt it their duty to go to
look after the others. The day came, brilliantly clear and soft and
warm: such a day, in short, as Mr. Hardcastle had felt to be his due, and
had expected of the elements all along as the one token of regard in
their power to accord him, and he accepted his friends' congratulations
upon it with a grave bow which seemed to say: "I ordered it so. Pray, did
you suppose I had forgotten to attend to the weather?" The sun set in a
cloudless heaven; the evening star hung quivering over the green-topped
hills; the twilight dropped noiseless and fragrant over earth and water,
and the long-dreamed-of moment had arrived at last.
"Just let me have one more look at you, Gerald, before you start," said
Phebe, wistfully. "Oh, how beautiful you look! Nobody's dresses ever fit
like yours, and that great dark-red hat and feather,--I thought I should
not like it,--but it makes a perfect picture of you."
"For pity's sake do stop!" begged Gerald. "You know of all things I hate
compliments. Where's that boy Olly?"
"He's coming to me later. I promised to make up to him for his not going
to the party, poor little fellow."
"Phebe, dear," said Gerald, suddenly stooping to give her one of her
rare kisses, "I cannot bear to leave you all alone so. That miserable
Miss Lydia and Olly aren't any sort of company. Let me stay with you. I
had a great deal rather."
"Oh, no, no, no!" cried Phebe, almost pushing her toward the door. "I
don't mind a bit being left, and I wouldn't have you stay for anything.
How lovely of you to propose it! You are an angel, Gerald, even though
you don't like being told so, Good-by. And--Gerald,"--she had followed
her friend out into the hall, and stood leaning against the
banisters,--"Gerald, dear, will you tell Mr. Halloway I am going
down-stairs to-morrow?"
Halloway was to be Gerald's escort that evening, and stood waiting for
her now in the hall below, and looking up at sound of Phebe's voice, he
gave an exclamation of surprise and pleasure, and immediately sprang up
the stairs.
"Miss Phebe!" he said, taking both her hands in his. "How glad I am to
see you once more!"
Phebe shrank back from him with a little cry of dismay. Ah! when does
ever any thing happen exactly as we plan it shall? She had pictured this
meeting to herself over and over again during the long days of her
seclusion,--just what he would say and what she would say, and just how
she would dress on that first day when she went down-stairs. She meant
to look so particularly nice on that first day! And now to be caught in
her plain little gray flannel wrapper with its simple red trimmings, her
hair all loose and mussy, and even her very oldest slippers on,--and
with Gerald standing beside her in her rich, dainty, becoming attire as
if to make the contrast all the more painfully striking! Poor little
Cinderella Phebe! She looked up at Denham almost ready to cry, and said
never a word.
"It has been such a long, long time!" he said, still holding her hands.
"I do not know how we have made out to spare you."
"We shall not have to spare her much longer," said Gerald. "She is coming
down-stairs to-morrow."
And then Halloway dropped Phebe's hands, and turning to Gerald, held out
a hand to her.
"Forgive me for not even noticing you, Miss Vernor. At first I could
only see Miss Phebe."
"Doesn't Gerald look nice?" asked Phebe, trying to choke back the
uncomfortable lump rising so unreasonably in her throat. Halloway moved
back a little and looked at Gerald, who stood fastening her long glove,
utterly unconscious or unheedful of his scrutiny. The light in the niche
at the head of the stairs threw its full glow over both her and Phebe.
"Yes," he answered, quietly, after an imperceptible pause, and, as he
turned back to Phebe, it seemed to her that his eyes glanced over her
with a suddenly awakened consciousness of the wrapper and the tumbled
hair and even of the little worn-out slippers. "You look pale," he said,
kindly. "I know I am wrong to keep you standing here just because it is
so pleasant to see you again. And it is easier to say good-by, knowing I
have only till to-morrow to wait now. _A demain_."
"Good-night," murmured Phebe, without looking up; "good-night, Gerald."
And then she turned quickly into her room, and closed the door, and stood
stock-still behind it, holding her breath and listening intently till
she heard the front door close upon them and the last echo of their
footsteps die away in the street outside. Then she flung herself face
downward upon the bed and cried miserably to herself out of sheer
disappointment. Why did it have to be all so very, very different from
her dream?