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, blase 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
Angelique, 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 rôle 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?