"I"m going to insist on coming out to help you," Mrs. Soulsby declared, "as soon as I"ve talked over one little matter with your husband. Oh, yes, you must let me this time. I insist!"
As the kitchen door closed behind Mrs. Ware, a swift and apparently significant glance shot its way across from Sister Soulsby"s roving, eloquent eyes to the calmer and smaller gray orbs of her husband. He rose to his feet, made some little explanation about being a gardener himself, and desiring to inspect more closely some rhododendrons he had noticed in the garden, and forthwith moved decorously out by the other door into the front hall. They heard his footsteps on the gravel beneath the window before Mrs. Soulsby spoke again.
"You"re right about the Presiding Elder, and you"re wrong," she said.
"He isn"t what one might call precisely in love with you. Oh, I know the story--how you got into debt at Tyre, and he stepped in and insisted on your being denied Tec.u.mseh and sent here instead."
"HE was responsible for that, then, was he?" broke in Theron, with contracted brows.
"Why, don"t you make any effort to find out anything at ALL?" she asked pertly enough, but with such obvious good-nature that he could not but have pleasure in her speech. "Why, of course he did it! Who else did you suppose?"
"Well," said the young minister, despondently, "if he"s as much against me as all that, I might as well hang up my fiddle and go home."
Sister Soulsby gave a little involuntary groan of impatience. She bent forward, and, lifting her eyes, rolled them at him in a curve of downward motion which suggested to his fancy the image of two eagles in a concerted pounce upon a lamb.
"My friend," she began, with a new note of impressiveness in her voice, "if you"ll pardon my saying it, you haven"t got the s.p.u.n.k of a mouse.
If you"re going to lay down, and let everybody trample over you just as they please, you"re right! You MIGHT as well go home. But now here, this is what I wanted to say to you: Do you just keep your hands off these next few days, and leave this whole thing to me. I"ll pull it into shipshape for you. No--wait a minute--don"t interrupt now. I have taken a liking to you. You"ve got brains, and you"ve got human nature in you, and heart. What you lack is SABE--common-sense. You"ll get that, too, in time, and meanwhile I"m not going to stand by and see you cut up and fed to the dogs for want of it. I"ll get you through this sc.r.a.pe, and put you on your feet again, right-side-up-with care, because, as I said, I like you. I like your wife, too, mind. She"s a good, honest little soul, and she worships the very ground you tread on. Of course, as long as people WILL marry in their teens, the wrong people will get yoked up together. But that"s neither here nor there. She"s a kind sweet little body, and she"s devoted to you, and it isn"t every intellectual man that gets even that much. But now it"s a go, is it? You promise to keep quiet, do you, and leave the whole show absolutely to me? Shake hands on it."
Sister Soulsby had risen, and stood now holding out her hand in a frank, manly fashion. Theron looked at the hand, and made mental notes that there were a good many veins discernible on the small wrist, and that the forearm seemed to swell out more than would have been expected in a woman producing such a general effect of leanness. He caught the shine of a thin bracelet-band of gold under the sleeve. A delicate, significant odor just hinted its presence in the air about this outstretched arm--something which was not a perfume, yet deserved as gracious a name.
He rose to his feet, and took the proffered hand with a deliberate gesture, as if he had been cautiously weighing all the possible arguments for and against this momentous compact.
"I promise," he said gravely, and the two palms squeezed themselves together in an earnest clasp.
"Right you are," exclaimed the lady, once more with cheery vivacity.
"Mind, when it"s all over, I"m going to give you a good, serious, downright talking to--a regular hoeing-over. I"m not sure I shan"t give you a sound shaking into the bargain. You need it. And now I"m going out to help Alice."
The Reverend Mr. Ware remained standing after his new friend had left the room, and his meditative face wore an even unusual air of abstraction. He strolled aimlessly over, after a time, to the desk by the window, and stood there looking out at the slight figure of Brother Soulsby, who was bending over and attentively regarding some pink blossoms on a shrub through what seemed to be a pocket magnifying-gla.s.s.
What remained uppermost in his mind was not this interesting woman"s confident pledge of championship in his material difficulties. He found himself dwelling instead upon her remark about the incongruous results of early marriages. He wondered idly if the little man in the white tie, fussing out there over that rhododendron-bush, had figured in her thoughts as an example of these evils. Then he reflected that they had been mentioned in clear relation to talk about Alice.
Now that he faced this question, it was as if he had been consciously ignoring and putting it aside for a long time. How was it, he asked himself now, that Alice, who had once seemed so bright and keen-witted, who had in truth started out immeasurably his superior in swiftness of apprehension and readiness in humorous quips and conceits, should have grown so dull? For she was undoubtedly slow to understand things nowadays. Her absurd lugging in of the extension-table problem, when the great strategic point of that invitation foisted upon the Presiding Elder came up, was only the latest sample of a score of these heavy-minded exhibitions that recalled themselves to him. And outsiders were apparently beginning to notice it. He knew by intuition what those phrases, "good, honest little soul" and "kind, sweet little body"
signified, when another woman used them to a husband about his wife. The very employment of that word "little" was enough, considering that there was scarcely more than a hair"s difference between Mrs. Soulsby and Alice, and that they were both rather tall than otherwise, as the stature of women went.
What she had said about the chronic misfortunes of intellectual men in such matters gave added point to those meaning phrases. n.o.body could deny that geniuses and men of conspicuous talent had as a rule, all through history, contracted unfortunate marriages. In almost every case where their wives were remembered at all, it was on account of their abnormal stupidity, or bad temper, or something of that sort. Take Xantippe, for example, and Shakespeare"s wife, and--and--well, there was Byron, and Bulwer-Lytton, and ever so many others.
Of course there was nothing to be done about it. These things happened, and one could only put the best possible face on them, and live one"s appointed life as patiently and contentedly as might be. And Alice undoubtedly merited all the praise which had been so generously bestowed upon her. She was good and honest and kindly, and there could be no doubt whatever as to her utter devotion to him. These were tangible, solid qualities, which must always secure respect for her. It was true that she no longer seemed to be very popular among people. He questioned whether men, for instance, like Father Forbes and Dr. Ledsmar would care much about her. Visions of the wifeless and academic calm in which these men spent their lives--an existence consecrated to literature and knowledge and familiarity with all the loftiest and n.o.blest thoughts of the past--rose and enveloped him in a cloud of depression. No such lot would be his! He must labor along among ignorant and spiteful narrow-minded people to the end of his days, pocketing their insults and fawning upon the harsh hands of jealous nonent.i.ties who happened to be his official masters, just to keep a roof over his head--or rather Alice"s. He must sacrifice everything to this, his ambitions, his pa.s.sionate desires to do real good in the world on a large scale, his mental freedom, yes, even his chance of having truly elevating, intellectual friendships. For it was plain enough that the men whose friendship would be of genuine and stimulating profit to him would not like her. Now that he thought of it, she seemed latterly to make no friends at all.
Suddenly, as he watched in a blank sort of way Brother Soulsby take out a penknife, and lop an offending twig from a rose-bush against the fence, something occurred to him. There was a curious exception to that rule of Alice"s isolation. She had made at least one friend. Levi Gorringe seemed to like her extremely.
As if his mind had been a camera, Theron snapped a shutter down upon this odd, unbidden idea, and turned away from the window.
The sounds of an active, almost strenuous conversation in female voices came from the kitchen. Theron opened the door noiselessly, and put in his head, conscious of something furtive in his intention.
"You must dreen every drop of water off the spinach, mind, before you put it over, or else--"
It was Sister Soulsby"s sharp and penetrating tones which came to him.
Theron closed the door again, and surrendered himself once more to the circling whirl of his thoughts.
CHAPTER XV
A love-feast at nine in the morning opened the public services of a Sunday still memorable in the annals of Octavius Methodism.
This ceremony, which four times a year preceded the sessions of the Quarterly Conference, was not necessarily an event of importance. It was an occasion upon which the brethren and sisters who clung to the old-fashioned, primitive ways of the itinerant circuit-riders, let themselves go with emphasized independence, putting up more vehement prayers than usual, and adding a special fervor of noise to their "Amens!" and other interjections--and that was all.
It was Theron"s first love-feast in Octavius, and as the big cla.s.s-room in the church bas.e.m.e.nt began to fill up, and he noted how the men with ultra radical views and the women clad in the most ostentatious drabs and grays were crowding into the front seats, he felt his spirits sinking. He had literally to force himself from sentence to sentence, when the time came for him to rise and open the proceedings with an exhortation. He had eagerly offered this function to the Presiding Elder, the Rev. Aziel P. Larrabee, who sat in severe silence on the little platform behind him, but had been informed that the dignitary would lead off in giving testimony later on. So Theron, feeling all the while the hostile eyes of the Elder burning holes in his back, dragged himself somehow through the task. He had never known any such difficulty of speech before. The relief was almost overwhelming when he came to the customary part where all are adjured to be as brief as possible in witnessing for the Lord, because the time belongs to all the people, and the Discipline forbids the feast to last more than ninety minutes. He delivered this injunction to brevity with marked earnestness, and then sat down abruptly.
There was some rather boisterous singing, during which the stewards, beginning with the platform, pa.s.sed plates of bread cut in small cubes, and water in big plated pitchers and tumblers, about among the congregation, threading their way between the long wooden benches ordinarily occupied at this hour by the children of the Sunday-school, and helping each brother and sister in turn. They held by the old custom, here in Octavius, and all along the seats the s.e.xes alternated, as they do at a polite dinner-table.
Theron impa.s.sively watched the familiar scene. The early nervousness had pa.s.sed away. He felt now that he was not in the least afraid of these people, even with the Presiding Elder thrown in. Folks who sang with such unintelligence, and who threw themselves with such undignified fervor into this childish business of the bread and water, could not be formidable antagonists for a man of intellect. He had never realized before what a spectacle the Methodist love-feast probably presented to outsiders. What must they think of it!
He had noticed that the Soulsbys sat together, in the centre and toward the front. Next to Brother Soulsby sat Alice. He thought she looked pale and preoccupied, and set it down in pa.s.sing to her innate distaste for the somber garments she was wearing, and for the company she perforce found herself in. Another head was in the way, and for a time Theron did not observe who sat beside Alice on the other side. When at last he saw that it was Levi Gorringe, his instinct was to wonder what the lawyer must be saying to himself about these noisy and shallow enthusiasts. A recurring emotion of loyalty to the simple people among whom, after all, he had lived his whole life, prompted him to feel that it wasn"t wholly nice of Gorringe to come and enjoy this revelation of their foolish side, as if it were a circus. There was some vague memory in his mind which a.s.sociated Gorringe with other love-feasts, and with a cynical att.i.tude toward them. Oh, yes! he had told how he went to one just for the sake of sitting beside the girl he admired--and was pursuing.
The stewards had completed their round, and the loud, discordant singing came to an end. There ensued a little pause, during which Theron turned to the Presiding Elder with a gesture of invitation to take charge of the further proceedings. The Elder responded with another gesture, calling his attention to something going on in front.
Brother and Sister Soulsby, to the considerable surprise of everybody, had risen to their feet, and were standing in their places, quite motionless, and with an air of professional self-a.s.surance dimly discernible under a large show of humility. They stood thus until complete silence had been secured. Then the woman, lifting her head, began to sing. The words were "Rock of Ages," but no one present had heard the tune to which she wedded them. Her voice was full and very sweet, and had in it tender cadences which all her hearers found touching. She knew how to sing, and she put forth the words so that each was distinctly intelligible. There came a part where Brother Soulsby, lifting his head in turn, took up a tuneful second to her air. Although the two did not, as one could hear by listening closely, sing the same words at the same time, they produced none the less most moving and delightful harmonies of sound.
The experience was so novel and charming that listeners ran ahead in their minds to fix the number of verses there were in the hymn, and to hope that none would be left out. Toward the end, when some of the intolerably self-conceited local singers, fancying they had caught the tune, started to join in, they were stopped by an indignant "sh-h!"
which rose from all parts of the cla.s.s-room; and the Soulsbys, with a patient and pensive kindliness written on their uplifted faces, gave that verse over again.
What followed seemed obviously restrained and modified by the effect of this unlooked-for and tranquillizing overture. The Presiding Elder was known to enjoy visits to old-fashioned congregations like that of Octavius, where he could indulge to the full his inner pa.s.sion for high-pitched pa.s.sionate invocations and violent spiritual demeanor, but this time he spoke temperately, almost soothingly. The most tempestuous of the local witnesses for the Lord gave in their testimony in relatively pacific tones, under the influence of the spell which good music had laid upon the gathering. There was the deepest interest as to what the two visitors would do in this way. Brother Soulsby spoke first, very briefly and in well rounded and well-chosen, if conventional, phrases. His wife, following him, delivered in a melodious monotone some equally hackneyed remarks. The a.s.semblage, listening in rapt attention, felt the suggestion of reserved power in every sentence she uttered, and burst forth, as she dropped into her seat, in a loud chorus of approving e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.ns. The Soulsbys had captured Octavius with their first outer skirmish line.
Everything seemed to move forward now with a new zest and spontaneity.
Theron had picked out for the occasion the best of those sermons which he had prepared in Tyre, at the time when he was justifying his ambition to be accounted a pulpit orator. It was orthodox enough, but had been planned as the framework for picturesque and emotional rhetoric rather than doctrinal edification. He had never dreamed of trying it on Octavius before, and only on the yesterday had quavered at his own daring in choosing it now. Nothing but the desire to show Sister Soulsby what was in him had held him to the selection.
Something of this same desire no doubt swayed and steadied him now in the pulpit. The labored slowness of his beginning seemed to him to be due to nervous timidity, until suddenly, looking down into those big eyes of Sister Soulsby"s, which were bent gravely upon him from where she sat beside Alice in the minister"s pew, he remembered that it was instead the studied deliberation which art had taught him. He went on, feeling more and more that the skill and histrionic power of his best days were returning to him, were as marked as ever--nay, had never triumphed before as they were triumphing now. The congregation watched and listened with open, steadfast eyes and parted lips. For the first time in all that weary quarter, their faces shone. The sustaining sparkle of their gaze lifted him to a peroration unrivalled in his own recollection of himself.
He sat down, and bent his head forward upon the open Bible, breathing hard, but suffused with a glow of satisfaction. His ears caught the music of that sighing rustle through the audience which bespeaks a profound impression. He could scarcely keep the fingers of his hands, covering his bowed face in a devotional posture as they were, from drumming a jubilant tattoo. His pulses did this in every vein, throbbing with excited exultation. The insistent whim seized him, as he still bent thus before his people, to whisper to his own heart, "At last!--The dogs!"
The announcement that in the evening a series of revival meetings was to be inaugurated, had been made at the love-feast, and it was repeated now from the pulpit, with the added statement that for the once the cla.s.s-meetings usually following this morning service would be suspended. Then Theron came down the steps, conscious after a fashion that the Presiding Elder had laid a propitiatory hand on his shoulder and spoken amiably about the sermon, and that several groups of more or less important parishioners were waiting in the aisle and the vestibule to shake hands and tell him how much they had enjoyed the sermon. His mind perversely kept hold of the thought that all this came too late. He politely smiled his way along out, and, overtaking the Soulsbys and his wife near the parsonage gate, went in with them.
At the cold, picked-up noonday meal which was the Sunday rule of the house, Theron rather expected that his guests would talk about the sermon, or at any rate about the events of the morning. A Sabbath chill seemed to have settled upon both their tongues. They ate almost in silence, and their spa.r.s.e remarks touched upon topics far removed from church affairs. Alice too, seemed strangely disinclined to conversation.
The husband knew her face and its varying moods so well that he could see she was laboring under some very powerful and deep emotion. No doubt it was the sermon, the oratorical swing of which still tingled in his own blood, that had so affected her. If she had said so, it would have pleased him, but she said nothing.
After dinner, Brother Soulsby disappeared in his bedroom, with the remark that he guessed he would lie down awhile. Sister Soulsby put on her bonnet, and, explaining that she always prepared herself for an evening"s work by a long solitary walk, quitted the house. Alice, after she had put the dinner things away, went upstairs, and stayed there.
Left to himself, Theron spent the afternoon in the easy-chair, and, in the intervals of confused introspection, read "Recollections of my Youth" through again from cover to cover.
He went through the remarkable experiences attending the opening of the revival, when evening came, as one in a dream. Long before the hour for the service arrived, the s.e.xton came in to tell him that the church was already nearly full, and that it was going to be impossible to present any distinction in the matter of pews. When the party from the parsonage went over--after another cold and mostly silent meal--it was to find the interior of the church densely packed, and people being turned away from the doors.
Theron was supposed to preside over what followed, and he did sit on the central chair in the pulpit, between the Presiding Elder and Brother Soulsby, and on the several needful occasions did rise and perfunctorily make the formal remarks required of him. The Elder preached a short, but vigorously phrased sermon. The Soulsbys sang three or four times--on each occasion with familiar hymnal words set to novel, concerted music--and then separately exhorted the a.s.semblage. The husband"s part seemed well done. If his speech lacked some of the fire of the divine girdings which older Methodists recalled, it still led straight, and with kindling fervency, up to a season of power. The wife took up the word as he sat down. She had risen from one of the side-seats; and, speaking as she walked, she moved forward till she stood within the altar-rail, immediately under the pulpit, and from this place, facing the listening throng, she delivered her harangue. Those who watched her words most intently got the least sense of meaning from them.
The phrases were all familiar enough--"Jesus a very present help,"
"Sprinkled by the Blood," "Comforted by the Word," "Sanctified by the Spirit," "Born into the Kingdom," and a hundred others--but it was as in the case of her singing: the words were old; the music was new.
What Sister Soulsby said did not matter. The way she said it--the splendid, searching sweep of her great eyes; the vibrating roll of her voice, now full of tears, now scornful, now boldly, jubilantly triumphant; the sympathetic swaying of her willowy figure under the stress of her eloquence--was all wonderful. When she had finished, and stood, flushed and panting, beneath the shadow of the pulpit, she held up a hand deprecatingly as the resounding "Amens!" and "Bless the Lords!" began to well up about her.
"You have heard us sing," she said, smiling to apologize for her shortness of breath. "Now we want to hear you sing!"