"FRIENDS OF MAMMON."
Sin Saxon came heart and soul into Miss Craydocke's generous and
delicate plans. The work was done, to be sure. The third trunk, that had
been "full of old winter dresses to be made over," was locked upon the
nice little completed frocks and sacks that forestalled the care and
hurry of "fall work" for the overburdened mother, and were to gladden
her unexpecting eyes, as such store only can gladden the anxious family
manager who feels the changeful, shortening days come treading, with
their speedy demands, upon the very skirts of long, golden sunshiny
August hours.
Susan and Martha Josselyn felt, on their part, as only busy workers feel
who fasten the last thread, or dash a period to the last page, and turn
around to breathe the breath of the free, and choose for once and for a
while what they shall do. The first hour of this freedom rested them
more than the whole six weeks that they had been getting half-rest, with
the burden still upon their thought and always waiting for their hands.
It was like the first half-day to children, when school has closed and
books are brought home for the long vacation. All the possible delight
of coming weeks is distilled to one delicious drop, and tasted then.
"It's 'none of my funeral,' I know," Sin Saxon said to Miss Craydocke.
"I'm only an eleventh-hour helper; but I'll come in for the holiday
business, if you'll let me; and perhaps, after all, that's more in my
line."
Everything seemed to be in her line that she once took hold of. She had
little private consultations with Miss Craydocke. "It's to be your party
to Feather-Cap, but it shall be my party to Minster Rock," she said.
"Leave that to me, please. Now the howl's off my hands, I feel equal to
anything.'"
Just in time for the party to Minster Rock, a great basket and box from
home arrived for Sin Saxon. In the first were delicious early peaches,
rose-color and gold, wrapped one by one in soft paper and laid among
fine sawdust; early pears, also, with the summer incense in their
spiciness; greenhouse grapes, white and amber and purple. The other held
delicate cakes and confections unknown to Outledge, as carefully put up,
and quite fresh and unharmed. "Everything comes in right for me," she
exclaimed, running back and forth to Miss Craydocke with new and more
charming discoveries as she excavated. Not a word did she say of the
letter that had gone down from her four days before, asking her mother
for these things, and to send her some money; "for a party," she told
her, "that she would rather give here than to have her usual summer
_fête_ after her return."
"You quite eclipse and extinguish my poor little doings," said Miss
Craydocke, admiring and rejoicing all the while as genuinely as Sin
herself.
"Dear Miss Craydocke!" cried the girl; "if I thought it would seem like
that, I would send and tip them all into the river. But you,--you
_can't_ be eclipsed! Your orbit runs too high above ours."
Sin Saxon's brightness and independence, that lapsed so easily
into sauciness, and made it so hard for her to observe the mere
conventionalisms of respect, in no way hindered the real reverence that
grew in her toward the superiority she recognized, and that now softened
her tone to a tenderness of humility before her friend.
There was a grace upon her in these days that all saw. Over her real wit
and native vivacity, it was like a porcelain shade about a flame. One
could look at it, and be glad of it, without winking. The brightness was
all there, but there was a difference in the giving forth. What had been
a bit self-centred and self-conscious--bright as if only for being
bright and for dazzling--was outgoing and self-forgetful, and so
softened. Leslie Goldthwaite read by it a new answer to some of her old
questions. "What harm is there in it?" she had asked herself on their
first meeting, when Sin Saxon's overflow of merry mischief, that yet did
"no special or obvious good," made her so taking, so the centre of
whatever group into which she came. Afterward, when, running to its
height, this spirit showed in behavior that raised misgivings among the
scrupulous and orderly that would not let them any longer be wholly
amused; and came near betraying her, or actually did betray her, into
indecorums beyond excuse or countenance, Leslie had felt the harm, and
begun to shrink away. "Nothing _but_ leaves" came back to her; her
summer thought recurred and drew to itself a new illustration. This it
was to have no aim but to rustle and flaunt; to grow leaves continually;
to make one's _self_ central and conspicuous, and to fill great space.
But now among these very leaves gleamed something golden and glorious;
something was ripening suddenly out that had lain unseen in its
greenness; the time of figs seemed coming. Sin Saxon was intent upon new
purpose; something to be _done_ would not let her "stand upon the order"
or the fashion of her doing. She forgot her little airs, that had been
apt to detract from her very wit, and leave it only smartness; bright
things came to her, and she uttered and acted them; but they seemed
involuntary and only on the way; she could not help herself, and nobody
would have had it helped; she was still Sin Saxon; but she had simply
told the truth in her wayward way that morning. Miss Craydocke had done
it, with her kindly patience that was no stupidity, her simple dignity
that never lowered itself and that therefore could not be lowered, and
her quiet continuance in generous well-doing,--and Sin Saxon was
different. She was won to a perception of the really best in life,--that
which this plain old spinster, with her "scrap of lace and a front," had
found worth living for after the golden days were over. The impulse of
temperament, and the generosity which made everything instant and entire
with her, acted in this also, and carried her full over to an enthusiasm
of affectionate coöperation.
There were a few people at Outledge--of the sort who, having once made
up their minds that no good is ever to come out of Nazareth, see all
things in the light of that conviction--who would not allow the praise
of any voluntary amendment to this tempering and new direction of Sin's
vivacity. "It was time she was put down," they said, "and they were glad
that it was done. That last outbreak had finished her. She might as well
run after people now whom she had never noticed before; it was plain
there was nothing else left for her; her place was gone, and her reign
was over." Of all others, Mrs. Thoresby insisted upon this most
strongly.
The whole school-party had considerably subsided. Madam Routh held a
tighter rein; but that Sin Saxon had a place and a power still, she
found ways to show in a new spirit. Into a quiet corner of the
dancing-hall, skimming her way, with the dance yet in her feet, between
groups of staid observers, she came straight, one evening, from a
bright, spirited figure of the German, and stretched her hand to Martha
Josselyn. "It's in your eyes," she whispered,--"come!"
Night after night Martha Josselyn had sat there with the waltz-music in
her ears, and her little feet, that had had one merry winter's training
before the war, and many a home practice since with the younger ones,
quivering to the time beneath her robes, and seen other girls chosen out
and led away,--young matrons, and little short-petticoated children
even, taken to "excursionize" between the figures,--while nobody thought
of her. "I might be ninety, or a cripple," she said to her sister, "from
their taking for granted it is nothing to me. How is it that everything
goes by, and I only twenty?" There had been danger that Martha
Josselyn's sweet, generous temper should get a dash of sour, only
because of there lying alongside it a clear common-sense and a pure
instinct of justice. Susan's heart longed with a motherly tenderness for
her young sister when she said such words,--longed to put all pleasant
things somehow within her reach. She had given it up for herself, years
since. And now, all at once, Sin Saxon came and "took her out."
It was a more generous act than it shows for, written. There is a little
tacit consent about such things which few young people of a "set" have
thought, desire, or courage to disregard. Sin Saxon never did anything
more gracefully. It was one of the moments that came now, when she wist
not that she shone. She was dropping, little by little, in the reality
of a better desire, that "satisfaction" Jeannie Hadden had spoken of, of
"knowing when one is at one's prettiest," or doing one's cleverest. The
"leaf and the fruit" never fitted better in their significance than to
Sin Saxon. Something intenser and more truly living was taking the place
of the mere flutter and flash and grace of effect.
It was the figure in which the dancers form in facing columns, two and
two, the girls and the young men; when the "four hands round" keeps them
moving in bright circles all along the floor, and under arches of raised
and joined hands the girls came down, two and two, to the end, forming
their long line face to face against the opposing line of their
partners. The German may be, in many respects, an undesirable dance; it
may be, as I have sometimes thought, at least a selfish dance, affording
pleasure chiefly to the initiated few, and excluding gradually, almost
from society itself, those who do not participate in it. I speak of it
here neither to uphold nor to condemn,--simply because they _did_ dance
it at Outledge as they do everywhere, and I cannot tell my story without
it; but I think at this moment, when Sin Saxon led the figure with
Martha Josselyn, there was something lovely, not alone in its graceful
grouping, but in the very spirit and possibility of the thing that so
appeared. There is scope and chance even here, young girls, for the
beauty of kindness and generous thought. Even here, one may give a joy,
may soothe a neglect, may make some heart conscious for a moment of the
great warmth of a human welcome; and, though it be but to a pastime, I
think it comes into the benison of the Master's words when, even for
this, some spirit gets a feeling like them,--"I was a stranger, and ye
took me in."
Some one, standing behind where Leslie Goldthwaite came to her place at
the end of the line by the hall-door, had followed and interpreted the
whole; had read the rare, shy pleasure in Martha Josselyn's face and
movement, the bright, expressive warmth in Sin Saxon's and the
half-surprise of observation upon others; and he thought as I do.
"'Friends of the mammon of unrighteousness.' That girl has even
sanctified the German!"
There was only one voice like that, only one person who would so speak
himself out. Leslie Goldthwaite turned quickly, and found herself face
to face with Marmaduke Wharne. "I am so glad you have come!" said she.
He regarded her shrewdly. "Then you can do without me," he said. "I
didn't know by this time how it might be."
The last two had taken their places below Leslie while these words were
exchanged, and now the whole line moved forward to meet their partners,
and the waltz began. Frank Scherman had got back to-day, and was dancing
with Sin Saxon. Leslie and Dakie Thayne were together, as they had been
that first evening at Jefferson, and as they often were. The four
stopped, after their merry whirl, in this same corner by the door where
Mr. Wharne was standing. Dakie Thayne shook hands with his friend in his
glad boy's way. Across their greetings came Sin Saxon's words, spoken to
her companion,--"You're to take her, Frank." Frank Scherman was an old
childhood's friend, not a mere mountain acquaintance. "I'll bring up
plenty of others first, but you're to wait and take _her_. And, wherever
she got her training, you'll find she's the featest-footed among us." It
was among the children--training them--that she had caught the trick of
it, but Sin Saxon did not know.
"I'm ready to agree with you, with but just the reservation that _you_
could not make," Frank Scherman answered.
"Nonsense," said Sin Saxon. "But stop! here's something better and
quicker. They're getting the bouquets. Give her yours. It's your turn.
Go!"
Sin Saxon's blue eyes sparkled like two stars; the golden mist of
her hair was tossed into lighter clouds by exercise; on her cheeks a
bright rose-glow burned; and the lips parted with their sweetest,
because most unconscious, curve over the tiny gleaming teeth. Her
word and her glance sent Frank Scherman straight to do her bidding;
and a bunch of wild azaleas and scarlet lilies was laid in Martha
Josselyn's hand, and she was taken out again into the dance by the
best partner there. We may trust her to Sin Saxon and Frank
Scherman, and her own "feat-footedness;" everything will not go by
her any more, and she but twenty.
Marmaduke Wharne watched it all with that keen glance of his that was
like a level line of fire from under the rough, gray brows.
"I am glad you saw that," said Leslie Goldthwaite, watching also, and
watching him.
"By the light of your own little text,--'kind, and bright, and
pleasant'? You think it will do me good?"
"I think it _was_ good; and I am glad you should really know Sin
Saxon--at the first." And at the best; Marmaduke Wharne quite understood
her. She gave him, unconsciously, the key to a whole character. It might
as easily have been something quite different that he should have first
seen in this young girl.
Next morning they all met on the piazza. Leslie Goldthwaite presented
Sin Saxon to Mr. Wharne.
"So, my dear," he said, without preface, "you are the belle of the
place?"
He looked to see how she would take it. There was not the first twinkle
of a simper about eye or lip. Surprised, but quite gravely, she looked
up, and met his odd bluntness with as quaint an honesty of her own. "I
was pretty sure of it a while ago," she said. "And perhaps I was, in a
demoralized sort of a way. But I've come down, Mr. Wharne,--like the
coon. I'll tell you presently," she went on,--and she spoke now with
warmth,--"who is the real belle,--the beautiful one of this place! There
she comes!"
Miss Craydocke, in her nice, plain cambric morning-gown, and her smooth
front, was approaching down the side passage across the wing. Just as
she had come one morning, weeks ago; and it was the identical "fresh
petticoat" of that morning she wore now. The sudden coincidence and
recollection struck Sin Saxon as she spoke. To her surprise, Miss
Craydocke and Marmaduke Wharne moved quickly toward each other, and
grasped hands like old friends.
"Then you know all about it!" Sin Saxon said, a few minutes after, when
she got her chance. "But you _don't_ know, sir," she added, with a
desperate candor, "the way I took to find it out! I've been tormenting
her, Mr. Wharne, all summer. And I'm heartily ashamed of it."
Marmaduke Wharne smiled. There was something about this girl that suited
his own vein. "I doubt she _was_ tormented," he said quietly.
At that Sin Saxon smiled, too, and looked up out of her hearty shame
which she had truly felt upon her at her own reminder. "No, Mr. Wharne,
she never was; but that wasn't my fault. After all, perhaps,--isn't that
what the optimists think?--it was best so. I should never have found her
thoroughly out in any other way. It's like"--and there she stopped short
of her comparison.
"Like what?" asked Mr. Wharne, waiting.
"I can't tell you now, sir," she answered with a gleam of her old
fearless brightness. "It's one end of a grand idea, I believe, that I
just touched on. I must think it out, if I can, and see if it all holds
together."
"And then I'm to have it?"
"It will take a monstrous deal of thinking, Mr. Wharne."