The Transfiguration of Miss Philura.
by Florence Morse Kingsley.
CHAPTER ONE
Miss Philura Rice tied her faded bonnet-strings under her faded chin with hands that trembled a little; then she leaned forward and gazed anxiously at the reflection which confronted her. A somewhat pinched and wistful face it was, with large, light-lashed blue eyes, arched over with a mere pretense at eyebrows. More than once in her twenties Miss Philura had ventured to eke out this scanty provision of Nature with a modic.u.m of burned match stealthily applied in the privacy of her virgin chamber. But the twenties, with their attendant dreams and follies, were definitely past; just how long past no one knew exactly--Miss Philura never informed the curious on this point.
As for the insufficient eyebrows, they symbolized, as it were, a meagre and restricted life, vaguely acknowledged as the dispensation of an obscurely hostile but consistent Providence; a Providence far too awful and exalted--as well as hostile--to interest itself benignantly in so small and neutral a personality as stared back at her from the large, dim mirror of Cousin Maria Van Deuser"s third-story back bedroom. Not that Miss Philura ever admitted such dubious thoughts to the select circle of her conscious reflections; more years ago than she cared to count she had grappled with her discontent, had thrust it resolutely out of sight, and on the top of it she had planted a big stone marked Resignation. Nevertheless, at times the stone heaved and trembled ominously.
At sound of a brisk tap at her chamber door the lady turned with a guilty start to find the fresh-colored, impertinent face of the French maid obtruding itself into the room.
"Ze madame waits," announced this individual, and with a coldly comprehensive eye swept the small figure from head to foot.
"Yes, yes, my dear, I am quite ready--I am coming at once!" faltered Miss Philura, with a propitiatory smile, and more than ever painfully aware that the skirt of her best black gown was irremediably short and scant, that her waist was too flat, her shoulders too sloping, her complexion faded, her forehead wrinkled, and her bonnet unbecoming.
As she stepped uncertainly down the dark, narrow stairway she rebuked herself severely for these vain and worldly thoughts. "To be a church member, in good and regular standing, and a useful member of society,"
she a.s.sured herself strenuously, "should be and _is_ sufficient for me."
Ten minutes later, Miss Philura, looking smaller and more insignificant than usual, was seated in the carriage opposite Mrs. J. Mortimer Van Deuser--a large, heavily upholstered lady of majestic deportment, paying diligent heed to the words of wisdom which fell from the lips of her hostess and kinswoman.
"During your short stay in Boston," that lady was remarking impressively, "you will, of course, wish to avail yourself of those means of culture and advancement so sadly lacking in your own environment. This, my dear Philura, is pre-eminently the era of progressive thought. We can have at best, I fear, but a faint conception of the degree to which mankind will be able, in the years of the coming century, to shake off the gross and material limitations of sense."
Mrs. Van Deuser paused to settle her sables preliminary to recognizing with an expansive smile an acquaintance who flashed by them in a victoria; after which she adjusted the diamonds in her large, pink ears, and proceeded with unctuous tranquillity. "On this occasion, my dear Philura, you will have the pleasure of listening to an address by Mrs.
B. Isabelle Smart, one of our most advanced thinkers along this line.
You will, I trust, be able to derive from her words aliment which will influence the entire trend of your individual experience."
"Where--in what place will the lady speak--I mean, will it be in the church?" ventured Miss Philura in a depressed whisper. She sighed apprehensively as she glanced down at the tips of her shabby gloves.
"The lecture will take place in the drawing-room of the Woman"s Ontological Club," responded Mrs. Van Deuser, adding with austere sweetness of tone: "The club deals exclusively with those conceptions or principles which lie at the base of all phenomena; including being, reality, substance, time, s.p.a.ce, motion, change, ident.i.ty, difference, and cause--in a word, my dear Philura, with ultimate metaphysical philosophy." A majestic and conclusive sweep of a perfectly gloved hand suggested infinity and reduced Miss Philura into shrinking silence.
When Mrs. B. Isabelle Smart began to speak she became almost directly aware of a small, wistful face, with faded blue eyes and a shabby, unbecoming bonnet, which, surrounded as it was on all sides by tossing plumes, rich velvets and sparkling gems, with their accompaniments of full-fleshed, patrician countenances, took to itself a look of positive distinction. Mrs. Smart"s theme, as announced by the President of the Ontological Club, was Thought Forces and the Infinite, a somewhat formidable-sounding subject, but one which the pale, slight, plainly dressed but singularly bright-eyed lady, put forward as the speaker of the afternoon, showed no hesitancy in attacking.
Before three minutes had pa.s.sed Miss Philura Rice had forgotten that such things as shabby gloves, ill-fitting gowns, unbecoming bonnets and superfluous birthdays existed. In ten minutes more she was leaning forward in breathless attention, the faded eyes aglow, the unbecoming bonnet pushed back from a face more wistful than ever, but flushed with a joyful excitement.
"This unseen Good hems us about on every side," the speaker was saying, with a comprehensive sweep of her capable-looking hands. "It presses upon us, more limitless, more inexhaustible, more free than the air that we breathe! Out of it _every_ need, _every_ want, _every_ yearning of humanity can be, must be, supplied. To you, who have hitherto led starved lives, hungering, longing for the good things which you believe a distant and indifferent G.o.d has denied you--to you I declare that in this encircling, ever-present, invisible, exhaustless Beneficence is already provided a lavish abundance of everything which you can possibly want or think! Nay, desire itself is but G.o.d--Good--Love, knocking at the door of your consciousness. It is impossible for you to desire anything that is not already your own! It only remains for you to bring the invisible into visibility--to take of the everlasting substance what you will!
"And how must you do this? Ask, and _believe that you have_! You have asked many times, perhaps, and have failed to receive. Why? You have failed to _believe_. Ask, then, for what you will! Ask, and at once return thanks for what you have asked! In the asking and _believing_ is the thing itself made manifest. Declare that it is yours! Expect it!
Believe it! Hold to it without wavering--no matter how empty your hands may seem! _It is yours_, and G.o.d"s infinite creation shall lapse into nothingness; His stars shall fall from high Heaven like withered leaves sooner than that you shall fail to obtain all that you have asked!"
When, at the close of the lecture, Mrs. B. Isabelle Smart became the center of a polite yet insistent crush of satins, velvets and broadcloths, permeated by an aroma of violets and a gentle hum of delicate flattery, she was aware of a timid hand upon her arm, and turned to look into the small, eager face under the unfashionable bonnet.
"You--you meant religious gifts, did you not?" faltered the faint, discouraged voice; "faith, hope and--and--the--the being resigned to G.o.d"s will, and--and endeavoring to bear the cross with patience."
"I meant _everything_ that _you_ want," answered the bright-eyed one with deliberate emphasis, the bright eyes softening as they took in more completely the pinched outlines and the eager child"s look shining from out the worn and faded woman"s face.
"But--but there is so much! I--I never had anything that I really wanted--things, you know, that one could hardly mention in one"s prayers."
"Have them now. Have them all. G.o.d is all. All is G.o.d. You are G.o.d"s.
G.o.d is yours!"
Then the billowing surges of silk and velvet swept the small, inquiring face into the background with the accustomed ease and relentlessness of billowing surges.
Having partaken copiously of certain "material beliefs" consisting of salads and sandwiches, accompanied by divers cups of strong coffee, Mrs.
J. Mortimer Van Deuser had become pleasantly flushed and expansive. "A most unique, comprehensive and uplifting view of our spiritual environment," she remarked to Miss Philura when the two ladies found themselves on their homeward way. Her best society smile still lingered blandly about the curves and creases of her stolid, high-colored visage; the dying violets on her ma.s.sive satin bosom gave forth their sweetest parting breath.
The little lady on the front seat of the carriage sat very erect; red spots glowed upon her faded cheeks. "I think," she said tremulously, "that it was just--wonderful! I--I am so very happy to have heard it.
Thank you a thousand times, dear Cousin Maria, for taking me."
Mrs. Van Deuser raised her gold-rimmed gla.s.ses and settled them under arching brows, while the society smile faded quite away. "Of course,"
she said coldly, "one should make due and proper allowance for facts--as they exist. And also--er--consider above all what interpretation is best suited to one"s individual station in life. Truth, my dear Philura, adapts itself freely to the needs of the poor and lowly as well as to the demands of those upon whom devolve the higher responsibilities of wealth and position; our dear Master Himself spoke of the poor as always with us, you will remember. A lowly but pious life, pa.s.sed in humble recognition of G.o.d"s chastening providence, is doubtless good and proper for many worthy persons."
Miss Philura"s blue eyes flashed rebelliously for perhaps the first time in uncounted years. She made no answer. As for the long and presumably instructive homily on the duties and prerogatives of the lowly, lasting quite up to the moment when the carriage stopped before the door of Mrs.
Van Deuser"s residence, it fell upon ears which heard not. Indeed, her next remark was so entirely irrelevant that her august kinswoman stared in displeased amazement. "I am going to purchase some--some necessaries to-morrow, Cousin Maria; I should like Fifine to go with me."
Miss Philura acknowledged to herself, with a truthfulness which she felt to be almost brazen, that her uppermost yearnings were of a wholly mundane character.
During a busy and joyous evening she endeavored to formulate these thronging desires; by bedtime she had even ventured--with the aid of a stubbed lead-pencil--to indite the most immediate and urgent of these wants as they knocked at the door of her consciousness. The list, hidden guiltily away in the depths of her shabby purse, read something as follows:
"I wish to be beautiful and admired. I want two new dresses; a hat with plumes, and a silk petticoat that rustles. I want some new kid gloves and a feather boa (a long one made of ostrich feathers). I wish----" The small, blunt pencil had been lifted in air for the s.p.a.ce of three minutes before it again descended; then, with cheeks that burned, Miss Philura had written the fateful words: "I wish to have a lover and to be married."
"There, I have done it!" she said to herself, her little fingers trembling with agitation. "He must already exist in the encircling Good.
He is mine. I am engaged to be married at this very moment!"
To lay this singular memorandum before her Maker appeared to Miss Philura little short of sacrilegious; but the thought of the mysterious Abundance of which the seeress had spoken, urging itself, as it were, upon her acceptance, encouraged her. She arose from her evening orisons with a glowing face. "I have asked," she said aloud, "and I _believe_ I shall have."
Mademoiselle Fifine pa.s.sed a very enjoyable morning with Miss Philura.
To choose, to purchase, and above all to transform the ugly into the beautiful, filled the French woman"s breast with enthusiasm. Her glance, as it rested upon her companion"s face and figure, was no longer coldly critical, but cordially appreciative. "Ze madame," she declared, showing her white teeth in a pleasant smile, "has very many advantage. _Voila_, ze hair--_c"est admirable_, as any one may perceive! Pardon, while for one little minute I arrange! Ah--_mon dieu!_ Regard ze difference!"
The two were at this moment in a certain millinery shop conducted by a discreet and agreeable compatriot of Fifine"s. This individual now produced a modest hat of black, garnished with plumes, which, set lightly on the loosened bands of golden-brown hair, completed the effect "_delicieus.e.m.e.nt!_" declared the French women in chorus.
With a beating heart Miss Philura stared into the mirror at her changed reflection. "It is quite--quite true!" she said aloud. "It is all true."
Fifine and the milliner exchanged delighted shrugs and grimaces. In truth, the small, erect figure, in its perfectly fitting gown, bore no resemblance to the plain, elderly Miss Philura of yesterday.
As for the face beneath the nodding plumes, it was actually radiant--transfigured--with joy and hope.