"A gentleman in the library to see you, Miss Ware. He wouldn"t give his name. He just said to tell you that he was an old friend pa.s.sing through town, and that he couldn"t go till he had seen you."
"Who can it be?" exclaimed Mary, pulling herself slowly up from the sleepy hollow chair, much puzzled. "If it"s an old friend, it must be some one from Lloydsboro Valley. Everybody else is too far away to drop in like that. But why didn"t he send up his card, I wonder?"
"Probably because he wants to surprise you," answered Mrs. Blythe. "If it"s any one you"d care to invite to dinner, feel perfectly free to do so."
With a word of thanks and a hasty peep into the mirror, Mary started down stairs, wondering at every step whom she would find. Time had been when she would have pictured an imaginary suitor waiting for her below, for it had been one of her pastimes when she was a child to manufacture such mythical personages by the score. What they were like depended on what she had just been reading. If fairy-tales, then it was a blond-haired prince who came to her on bended knee to kiss her hand and beg her to fly with him upon his coal-black steed to his castle. If she had been dipping into some forbidden novel like _Lady Agatha"s Career_, then the fond suppliant was a haughty duke whom she spurned at first, but graciously accepted afterward. Through many a day-dream, slender lads and swarthy knights in armor, dauntless Sir Galahads and wicked St.
Elmos had sued for her favor in turn, with long and fervent speeches.
She did not know that there was any other way. And it had always been in moon-lighted gardens that these imaginary scenes took place, with nightingales singing in rose vines and jessamine arbors.
She had quit dreaming of such things since she came to Riverville.
Romance had little place in the hard, sad world with which her work brought her in contact. So no such fancies pa.s.sed through her mind now as she went down the stairs; nothing but a keen curiosity to know which of her old friends it was who waited below.
Dusk had fallen early that gray November evening, but the library was aglow with the cheerful light of an open fire. Some one stood before it, gazing down into the dancing flames, a tall, familiar figure, broad-shouldered and erect. There was no mistaking who it was waiting there in the gloaming. Only one person in all the world had that lordly turn of the head, that alert, masterful air, and Mary acknowledged to herself with a disquieting throb of the pulses that he was the one person in the world whom of all others she wished most to see.
"Oh, Phil!" she cried happily from the doorway.
He had not heard her coming down the stairs and along the hall, so softly was it carpeted, but at the call he turned and came to meet her, both hands out, his handsome face suddenly radiant, as if the sight of her brought unspeakable pleasure. Not a word did he say as he reached out and took her hands in his and looked down into her upturned face.
But his eyes spoke. Their very smile was a caress, and the strong, warm hands clasping hers closed over them as if they had just found something that belonged to them and were taking undisputed possession.
There was no need for him to tell her all that he had come to say. She felt it throbbing through the silence that was as solemn as a sacrament.
Their eyes looked into each other"s searchingly. Then, as if from the beginning of time they had been moving towards this meeting, he announced simply, "I"ve come for you, dear. I"m starting on a new trail now, and I can"t go without you."
If that first hour of their betrothal had little need of words, there was call for much speech and many explanations before he bade her good night. Mary learned first, to her unbounded amazement, how near he had come to asking her to marry him more than two years before, when he parted from her in Bauer.
"But you were not more than half-way grown up then," he said. "I realized it when I saw you romping around with Norman. I couldn"t say anything then because it didn"t seem fair to you. But I had to bind you in some way. That"s why I made you promise what you did about letting me know if any other man ever crossed your trail. I wanted to claim you then and there and make sure of you, for I"ve always felt in some way or another we belonged to each other. I"ve felt that ever since I first knew you, Little Vicar."
There flashed across Mary"s mind the remembrance of a conversation she had overheard on the porch at The Locusts one night, and of Phil"s voice singing to Lloyd, to the accompaniment of a guitar:
"Till the stars are old, And the sun grows cold, And the leaves of the Judgment Book unfold."
But if the faintest spark of jealousy glowed in Mary"s heart, it was extinguished at once and forever by another recollection--a remark of Phil"s as they once waited on the side-track together, going up to Bauer after the San Jacinto festival. It was just after she had confessed to the unconscious eavesdropping that made her a hearer of that song.
"Yes," he said, "that time will always be one of the sweetest and most sacred of my memories. One"s earliest love always is, they say, like the first white violet in the spring. But--_there is always a summer after every spring, you know._"
Who cares for one little violet of a bygone spring when the prodigal wealth of a whole wonderful summertime is being poured out for one? So when Phil said again musingly, "It does seem strange, how we"ve always belonged to each other, doesn"t it?" Mary looked up with a twinkling smile to say:
"How could it be otherwise with _Philip and Mary on a shilling_?" And then she showed him the old English shilling which she wore on her watch-fob, the charm which she had drawn from Eugenia"s wedding cake. To Phil"s unbounded amus.e.m.e.nt she told the story of dropping it into the contribution plate that Christmas service, and getting lost in the streets of New York in trying to rescue it from the bank where it had been taken for deposit.
CHAPTER VII
HER GREAT RENUNCIATION
Mary went back to her work next day, but not to the same old treadmill.
It could never be that again. The thought that Phil was waiting for her, working to provide a home for her, glorified the most commonplace day, and came between her and her most disagreeable tasks. It was uppermost in her mind when she made her visits to the tenements, and often caused her to pause and ask herself why the G.o.ds had picked her out to make her the most blessed among mortals. What had _she_ done that life should bestow so much more on her than it had on poor Dena and Elsie Whayne?
Somehow the sharp contrast between her lot and theirs hurt her more each time that it was forced upon her notice. It began to make her feel personally responsible, if not for the difference between them, at least for making that difference less. Why she owed it to them to do anything to make their lives more livable, she could not tell, but the obligation to do so weighed upon her more heavily every day.
Maybe if her endeavors had not been so effectual she might not have felt the obligation so keenly, but she could not fail to see the difference that her visits made to the families in the Row. Sometimes she counted over the things she accomplished, as one might count the beads of a rosary, not from any sense of pride in what she had done, but as a sort of self-justification; asking herself, since she had done that much, could more be reasonably expected.
It was through her efforts that Dena was sent to a hospital and some one provided to take care of the invalid father and demented mother. It was because she had interested charitable people in their behalf that Elsie Whayne found a home in the country once more, and old Mrs. Donegan"s eyes had such skilful treatment from a specialist that she was able to use them again. There were a dozen instances like that, but best of all, she realized that she was responsible in a direct way for the miraculous change that took place in Diamond Row itself.
The morning that Phil went away she was too much occupied to care for such trivial matters as the daily papers. She did not even glance at the Riverville _Herald_ to see if it mentioned the fact that she had taken Mrs. Blythe"s place on the programme. It was not until late that afternoon that she found there was quite a glowing tribute to her ability as a speaker. Sandford Berry had written it. He had also done more. In a way they have in newspaper offices he had taken the paper that Mary loaned him, traced the article denouncing Burke Stoner to its source, and found that the man who had written it was now a prominent lawyer in Riverville. He had been employed on the editorial staff of the _Herald_ for a short time ten years before. Armed with permission to use his name if necessary, in verifying the article, Sandford Berry had electrified the town the morning after Mary"s talk, by printing her description of Diamond Row, and her burning appeal to the people of Riverville to rise up and wipe out the disgrace in their midst. She had not mentioned Burke Stoner"s name, nor was her name mentioned in connection with this article. It was for political reasons solely that the _Herald_ made capital of it, stringing sensational headlines across the front page in startling black letters: "One of to-morrow"s candidates responsible for death of one tenant and maybe two. Shameful condition of Tenth and Myrtle Street tenements, from which millionaire owner collects many thousands a year rental."
There was a picture of Burke Stoner, surrounded by a circle of condemning snapshots of the bas.e.m.e.nt room which had filled Mary with such horror on her first visit, the stairway labelled "Death-trap of ten years" standing," and a portrait of little Terence Reilly, reproduced from the first paper.
Next morning Sandford Berry called her over the telephone to say gleefully, "Well, it did the work! Coming as it did the last minute before election it simply wiped Stoner off the map. He was defeated overwhelmingly, and, between you and me and the gate-post, it was your speech that did it. I took the liberty of appropriating it without giving you any credit, for I knew that you wouldn"t want to be mixed up in a mess like that. Didn"t I tell you that you"d be the biggest beacon fire in the lot when you once got a-going? Well, you"ve started a blaze now that"ll rage a bit. Tell Mrs. Blythe that she"ll have no trouble now in getting the city ordinance she wanted, providing building inspectors.
This Board of Aldermen is hot for it, now that Stoner is out of the way, and losing this election is going to cripple his influence through all this part of the state. It"ll help the bill you want to put through the next session more than you realize. You didn"t have any idea how far your little candle was throwing its beams when you made that speech, did you, Miss Mary? Well, it"s indeed a good deed you did for this naughty world."
"That"s just Orphant Annie"s extravagant way of putting things," thought Mary, as she hung up the receiver. "My part in it wouldn"t have amounted to a row of pins if he hadn"t written it up so vividly with all those scare headlines. But, still, I _did_ start it all," she acknowledged to herself, "and it"s something to have done that."
For a moment she was elated by the sense of power that thrilled her. But the thought that followed had a queer chilling effect. If she could start such forces in motion for the betterment of the human beings around her, had she any right to turn her back on this work which she knew she was called to, just as definitely as Joan of Arc was called to _her_ mission?
Phil"s coming had made her forget for a little s.p.a.ce what she had been so very sure of for many months, that she had been set apart for some high destiny, too great to allow her own personal considerations to interfere. Now, at his call, she was about to forsake her first tryst and turn to him. In just a little while she would leave it all and give herself wholly to him. Was it right? Was it right?
That question troubled her oftener as the days went by. Not when his letters came and his strong personality seemed to fold protectingly about her while she read, shutting out the doubts which troubled her.
Not when she sat with his picture before her, tracing its outlines over and over with adoring eyes. Not when she gave herself up to dreams of the little home he wrote about frequently. The little home she would know so well how to make into a real hearts" haven. She blessed the old days of hard times and hard work now, for the valuable lessons they had taught her.
But "is it right? Is it right to fail in the keeping of my first tryst for this one of purely selfish pleasure?" she asked herself when she saw the changes that were being wrought in Diamond Row. Before the winter went by it had been transformed. It was not the sting of defeat which drove Burke Stoner to do it, nor the sting of public opinion aroused against him, but the pride of his own daughter, a girl of Mary"s age, when she learned the facts in the case.
She chanced to be in the audience the day when Mary made her appeal, and unaware that it was her father"s property that was being described, was one of the most thoroughly aroused listeners in the whole audience. But when she saw her father"s picture in the paper next day, set in the midst of others, proclaiming him a disgrace to good citizenship, her mortification at being thus publicly shamed was something pitiful to see. Hitherto it had been her pride to see his name heading popular subscription lists, and to hear him spoken of as the friend of the poor, on account of liberal donations.
n.o.body knew what kind of a scene took place when she read the condemning headlines, but it was reported that she locked herself in her room and refused to see her father for several days. She was his only child and his idol, and she had to be pacified at any cost. So she had her way as usual, this time to the transforming of the whole of Diamond Row, and the comfort of its inmates.
It began with drains and city water-works to supplant the infected cistern. It moved on to paint and plaster and new floors, to the putting in of a skylight in two dark rooms, and the cutting of windows in the third. And, more than that, it led to the opening of both skylight and windows into the sympathies of Burke Stoner"s petted daughter, and led her out of her round of self-centred thoughts to unselfish interest in her unfortunate neighbors. It is a question which of the two gained the greatest inrush of sunshine by those openings.
Mary, watching all this, felt alternately exultant that she had been the means of starting these blessed changes, and depressed by the thought that she would be doing wrong if she turned her back on the opportunity of continuing such work. Thanksgiving went by and the first of December.
As the shops began to put on holiday dress Mary began to be more depressed than ever. The burden of her poor people pressed upon her more sorely each day that she listened to their stories of the hard winter and their struggle to make both ends meet. But more depressing still were the times when old Mrs. Donegan begged her to come often, and called down the blessing of all the saints in the calendar upon her head, and told her tearfully that it would be a sorry day for the Row that took her away from it.
"It"s G.o.d"s own blessing you"ve been to the whole tenement!" she proclaimed volubly on every occasion, and, remembering the changes that had been brought about directly and indirectly by her efforts, Mary knew that it was so, and felt all the more strongly that she would be doing wrong to abandon the work.
Mr. Blythe was able to be out again by Christmas time. The two boys came home for the holidays, and for two weeks Mary helped with the entertaining that went on in the big house. There was no question now of her going back to the boarding-house at Mrs. Crum"s. Mrs. Blythe said that having once experienced the comfort of having a daughter in the house, she could not dispense with her. She could go off to the capital now with a free conscience, leaving Mary in charge of the establishment.
So, in January she went, and for several weeks waited for the bill to come up before the Legislature; busy weeks in which she was occupied all day long in making new friends for her cause.
Then she wrote home cheerfully that the bill had come up. There had been much opposition, and it had been cut down and amended till it would fit only the larger cities of the state. They had gained only a part of what they had asked for, but that was something, and they would go on awakening public sentiment until the next session, and bring it up again. The fight would have to be made all over again, but they would make it valiantly, hoping for absolute victory next time. She would be home in a few days.
Up till this time Mary had not realized how anxiously she was looking forward to the pa.s.sage of the bill. Upon its fate depended her own, for as one draws straws to decide a matter, she had made up her mind to let its outcome settle the question which had troubled her so long. If it went through successfully, and the State thus proved that it was fully awake to its duty, then she would feel that her obligation was ended.
That was the specific work she had pledged herself to do. But if it failed--well, it would break her heart, but she"d have to keep the tryst, no matter what it cost her.
Her intense desire for its success gradually led her to feel that it was a.s.sured, and the news of only a partial victory left her as undecided as before. To escape the mood of depression which seized her the snowy Sunday night before Mrs. Blythe"s return, she put on her wraps and slipped out to a little church in the next block, hoping to find some word to quiet her unrest, either in song, service or sermon. She sat listening almost feverishly till the minister announced his text: "_No man, having put his hand to the plough, and looking back, is fit for the kingdom of G.o.d."_
It was a sermon extolling sacrifice. The minister, a young man with a thin, earnest face and deep-set eyes that burned like two dark fires, seemed to know no call of the flesh. It was all of the spirit. One after another he cited the examples of the Father Damiens, the Florence Nightingales of the world, till the whole n.o.ble army of martyrs, the goodly company of the Apostles were marshalled before Mary"s accusing conscience, and she felt herself condemned as unfit to stand with them, wholly unfit for the kingdom. The closing hymn was as accusing as the sermon:
"The Son of G.o.d goes forth to war. Who follows in His train?