She had kept her word and worked things so that Frank and Dillie had an entrée into the country club, although the younger set were as a rule frowned upon and discouraged from taking their recreation there. But as soon as her brother was fairly launched on a safe little friendship with Dillie, a sweet, shy, capable little girl of fine instincts, Constance got herself a throng of friends and began to amuse herself.
It is true that what she did was not often amusing to her, was seldom as interesting as she had hoped it would be, but it filled her days to exhaustion, so that at night she could fall asleep in spite of disturbing scripture faithfully read with eyes that blinked with sleepiness. But somehow she managed to get through time, with longer and longer intervals between thinking about Doris’s death or planning what she would say when Seagrave came home. After she had made her confession and perhaps been able to offer a few good works to offset her evil, then she would be relieved and could plunge in and be as mad as anybody.
But even though she tried hard and sometimes almost let herself go to lengths she had never allowed before, she could not seem to get the consent of herself to be anything but conservative. She always insisted on going home a little earlier than the rest of the revelers did and gave smug, virtuous excuses, where before she would not have cared what people thought of her, so she felt she was in the way she had chosen for herself.
It was one afternoon about four o’clock that she drove home earlier than usual to snatch a bit of a nap, for the evening promised to be a long one, and she was unusually tired.
She found a visitor in the living room, too late discovered to be escaped from.
“Oh, here she is now,” she heard her mother say, as she attempted to slide up the stairs without being seen.
So there was nothing for it but to go into the living room as pleasantly as she could and greet the caller. And then it was only Miss Harriet Howe, a maiden lady of uncertain age whom Constance had never quite liked. She had a sweet, subdued air about her, a little too humble perhaps, and eyes that were eager but not quite keen. Kind, loving eyes but not as discerning as they might be. She never dressed well, either, and Constance had always wondered why somebody had never suggested to her to fashion her garments a little less antiquely. Of course she was poor, but one didn’t have to be frumpy if one was poor. One could do something about it. She was a teacher of girls in the Sunday school. Constance had just escaped having to go into her class once. She was considered quite spiritual, and it was rumored that she often gave surprisingly to missions. Constance could not understand a woman who gave a five-dollar bill to a missionary collection and wore the same old hat to church for three years in succession.
Constance sat down on the edge of her chair, poised ready for flight after she had greeted the unwelcome guest, and waited. Why had this woman come to see her? She was not wont to come to their house. This must be a special call, probably to ask her to train some girls for a pageant or something.
“My dear,” said Harriet Howe eagerly, “I’m so glad to find you in. I’ve had it on my heart to come to you for several days. I didn’t know when you were due to arrive home, so I’ve just taken the chance that I’d find you here and come. I do hope I’m not hindering you at an inconvenient time.”
Constance looked at her watch as if time were a great consideration in her life. “Oh, no,” she said hesitantly. “I can spare you a few minutes before I have to go.”
“Well then, I’ll talk fast. It won’t take long,” said the little woman with a quick catch of her breath. “You see it means so much to me.”
“Yes?” said Constance unencouragingly. She did not want to be bored with getting up bazaars and pageants and things just now, not in company with this dowdy woman anyway. She would be utterly impossible to work with from an artistic standpoint.
“It’s about my Sunday school class!” said Harriet wistfully, and she spoke the word class almost with a caress. One could see by the light in her eyes that that class meant everything to the lonely, homely, elderly woman.
“You see—” She gathered breath with an effort as if she were about to run an unpleasant race but meant to do it conscientiously. “You see—I’m getting a little too old for them!” She stated the fact rapidly, as one might give a sudden jerk to a loose tooth to get it over with quickly and have it out.
“At least,” she added with a nervous laugh, “I’ve been suspecting for a long time—that is, fearing a little—that they had outgrown me and my methods of teaching. I had some reason to feel that another teacher, perhaps a younger, better-looking one, might be more to their liking. And last week I found the superintendent agreed with me. That is”—she lifted honest eyes—“he frankly told me so before I even had a chance to ask him about it, though I was considering doing so.”
“Oh,” said Constance pityingly, sorry for the woman in spite of her dislike.
“Well, then, so I told him I would pray over it, that probably he was right,” she went on sorrowfully, swallowing hard to keep a brave front. “And so, I made it a subject of prayer all last week, and the Lord showed me that I ought to give up the class.”
Her lip quivered and her glance went down briefly then up again, and the submissive smile trembled out again.
“You see, I love that class. I’ve had them for twelve years, ever since they came out of the beginner’s room. I had them in the junior department, and then when they were promoted they sent me up to the big room with my class, so you see they’re almost like my own children.”
Constance was watching the transfiguration of the plain, homely face when she spoke of her girls and marveling that a thing like a Sunday school class could become the sole interest of a life. Suddenly her heart was full of pity for this withered, faded, lonely old maiden with her few interests in life and her few contacts with society, about to lay down the most precious thing that life held for her.
“Oh, Miss Howe!” Constance said impulsively. “I don’t think you ought to give up your class if you feel that way about them. If they knew I’m sure they would say they wanted you to stay.”
“No! No!” said the little woman quickly but firmly. “They wouldn’t! They want a new teacher! They really do! I put it up to them last Sunday. I told them I’d been thinking that I’d been teaching a long time and probably needed a rest, and that I felt it would likely be good for them to have a new teacher, a bright young pretty thing that could bring them new ideas and, and—sort of new interest. And they owned it would be nice to have a change. Well, they didn’t exactly say it in so many words, but you can tell, you know. If you love somebody, you can always tell whether they are kind of tired of you or not.”
“Oh, Miss Howe!” protested Constance again, this time indignantly. “They ought to be ashamed!”
“No! Oh, no, I don’t feel that way about it. I don’t hold it against them. They are young things, and I’m an old-fashioned body. It isn’t their fault. It’s natural for them to want something new. You know some of them are only a little over sixteen, some of the girls who came in after we went into the senior department. They really aren’t to blame. And I truly feel that it is the Lord’s will that I give that class up—”
She paused to wipe away a gentle tear that had slipped out unaware.
“And what I came to say is,” she went on after a minute, “I think the Lord has laid it on my heart to ask you to take the class.”
“Oh, I couldn’t teach a class!” said Constance, aghast. “I’m not that kind. It’s utterly out of my line.”
“Oh, but the Lord’ll teach you how,” said the homely old castaway, smiling through her tears. “I’ve had that all out with the Lord. He’s made me see that He can guide you just how to teach, and there’s nobody I know that is so sweet and pretty and kind as you are. I’ve watched you ever since you were a little girl in the primary, and I used to wish so I might have you in my class. Do you know, I’ve always included you in my prayer list when I prayed for my girls, and when you joined the chu
rch at Easter I just felt it was in answer to my prayer. And I thanked the Lord—oh, how I thanked Him—that you had come! You’ve always been to me just like one of my girls, though of course I haven’t known you very well and couldn’t do anything for you but pray. Once I thought they were going to give you to me, and I was so disappointed when you were put in another class. But the Lord showed me I was being selfish and wanting all the pretty girls in my class, so I was content after that. But I’ve always loved you, and now I see the reason why. God was getting you ready to take my class when He found it was time for me to give it up, and He knew if I gave it to somebody I loved it wouldn’t be near as hard for me.”
Constance was ashamed and appalled. She watched the little, brave, smiling creature and felt a rising admiration, almost a kind of awe before the sweetness of this humble servant of the Lord.
And suddenly she saw in this despised, plain woman’s eyes a look that reminded her of the light in the eyes of the tall stranger who had talked to her of spiritual things. Were they all alike, these followers of God? Was it somehow a family likeness people got when they were really born again? As she thought of it she remembered the look in Doris’s dying eyes. Actually, Doris, too, had caught that light of exaltation just before she closed her eyes. Constance gazed at her with awe and then suddenly she roused herself to protest.
“Oh, my dear Miss Howe!” she said, gathering words in a tumult. “It’s awfully sweet and dear of you to feel that way, and I only wish I had known it sooner. I would have liked to do something in return. I would have been glad to have been in your class if it would have given you pleasure.”
“It’s all right, dearie,” said Miss Howe, smiling happily. “The Lord showed me long ago that it was all right. He wanted you to help Miss Burk in her class. She needed you, I’m sure, and I’m sure she loved you and enjoyed you quite as much as I did.”
This was a new angle to Constance. She could only stare at Harriet Howe and feel tremendously sorry for her.
“But really, Miss Howe,” she said again, “I think it’s all wrong you having to give up a class that means so much to you. The girls ought to be ashamed of themselves letting you think they don’t want you. They’re just thoughtless, I suppose, and don’t realize how rude they’re being. Would you like me to talk to them? I’d just enjoy setting them straight. I know I can make them understand.”
“No, dearie,” said Miss Howe, shaking her gray head and shutting her lips firmly, “it’s all settled. The Lord wouldn’t feel like doing it now even if they did ask me to. I can see it isn’t wise. No, I’ll just find a little spot perhaps as a helper in the primary class, or if there isn’t any place there, perhaps as assistant to the librarian, though I’d rather be telling the story of salvation because I love it; or there’s just a possibility they may want me down at the mission where it doesn’t matter whether one is old and out of date—”
“Oh, don’t, Miss Howe,” said Constance sharply, feeling as if she should cry herself now. “It’s perfectly wicked of those girls—”
“No, no, dearie, they’ve been lovely; you mustn’t think that. They all said they wanted me to stay after we’d talked about it. They explained they’d had engagements and been out late to parties was why they didn’t come very often, but I knew in my heart it wasn’t very interesting to them, and that was the real reason, though they maybe didn’t know it. They wanted to be nice. But no, listen, dearie. What I came here to say was that they and I and the superintendent all want you to take the class. We feel it is just a godsend having you come home at this time. The girls were delighted about it when I told them I was going to ask you to take my place. They have all promised to be there next Sunday to welcome you, and they say they will be regular at school every week.”
“But really, Miss Howe, I couldn’t think of doing such a thing! I never taught a Sunday school class in my life. I wouldn’t know what to say!” broke in Constance in consternation.
“Oh yes you could, Connie,” interrupted her mother. “You’d be a splendid teacher. And how it would please your grandmother! It’s what she’s been looking forward to, your coming home and taking your place in the church work the way all the family has always done. You’d soon learn how to teach. It’s something that comes easy. I used to teach myself before you children came. I didn’t always have so much time to study the lesson, of course, but when I didn’t I just took a good storybook and read to the class. They always like that and it passes the time.”
“Oh, but there are wonderful lesson helps,” said Miss Howe, looking a little troubled at the idea of a storybook in her beloved class. “I’m sure she wouldn’t be troubled with lack of time to prepare, and I’m sure she’d be a wonderful influence now she’s a church member. I’m expecting to see them all Christians when you get to teaching them, dearie. Someday we’ll see you with all your class gathered into the fold, all standing up together to confess the Lord. That will be a glad day, for I shall be sitting there in the church giving thanks and being so happy that I had a little part in laying the foundation for what you are going to do. Paul plants and Apollos waters, you know, and God gives the increase. I’ll just be happy in the wonderful work you are doing.”
Constance gathered herself once more to protest.
“But Miss Howe, you don’t understand. I’m not like what you think at all. I’m not a teacher, and I’m not a wonderful person the way a teacher ought to be. It really would be quite impossible!”
Then little, gentle Miss Howe settled down to the battle in earnest. She was quite convinced that her Lord and Master had picked out Constance Courtland to take her Sunday school class and had sent her like a prophet of old to confer the duty upon her, and she did not intend that anything should go amiss. She had come like Samuel to anoint Saul, with her cruse of oil ready and the words of blessing on her lips, and she would not be dissuaded nor turned aside from her purpose. She set gently to work to prove it all over again to the girl.
And then Constance’s mother took a hand.
“Really, Connie, you’re making an awful fuss about a little thing. Why, isn’t that the easiest and best way you could select to do church work? You don’t care for singing solos, nor making chocolate cakes for bazaars, and you know you never would be willing to go out on the every-member canvass. And of course you’ve got to do something. Now you’re a member of the church, you’ve got to do your bit. It doesn’t take your time during the week and only about an hour and a half on Sunday. It isn’t as if Sunday school were in the afternoon or even after the morning service as some have it. It’s early, half past nine, you know, and when it’s over you have the rest of the day before you. I should think it was about your best plan just to take the class and then you could feel you were doing your part and wouldn’t have to worry about anything else.”
Then occurred a diversion in the form of the stately little grandmother, arrayed in soft gray foulard silk, a sweet little lace frill at throat and wrists, and after she had greeted the caller she took her hand in the discussion.
“I’m just telling your granddaughter that she has been elected to teach my class that I’m giving up,” explained Miss Howe convincingly.
“That’s just what I’d hoped you would do, Constance,” said her grandmother approvingly. “You’re just about the age that I was when I took my first Sunday school class, and I taught forty-five years in all before I gave up my last Bible class, a little less than ten years ago. I hope you’ll have such a record, my dear. It’s the best way a young woman can devote herself to the church—teaching others the right way,” and Grandmother brought her sweet, stern lips together firmly. It seemed almost like a foregone conclusion.
Constance longed to cry out the truth, how she knew nothing to teach, didn’t want to teach, wouldn’t teach, how she wasn’t even a Christian at all. That would have stopped them! They wouldn’t have wanted her to teach if they knew she doubted the Bible and didn’t know God, nor believe in the church, nor anything.
> But her lips were sealed. She couldn’t tell them that. She couldn’t let her grandmother know right before this stranger, this sweet-eyed, homely stranger, that she had been a hypocrite the day she took those solemn vows upon herself, that she did not even respect the vows she had made, had no intention of keeping them when she made them, was only doing it for a string of pearls.
There! There were those pearls again barring her way, keeping her from telling the honest truth and appearing in no disguise. And she was a weak coward that she dared not tell the truth.
Once she even opened her lips to speak, and then she saw in quick vision the stricken look that would come into the beloved grandmother’s eyes if she did. The horrified, indignant, disgusted look that would come into her mother’s eyes. The scathing words she would speak, yes, even before a caller, if she thought her daughter had so transgressed the laws of decency and churchly etiquette.
Almost panic stricken at last because she could never confess the real reason, the only reason that would make them desist, and unable to just roughly refuse and walk out of the room, she finally promised to think it over, though she still insisted that she would not do it. And then she had the agony of sitting there and hearing her mother and grandmother and Miss Howe plan it all out for her, how she would be on hand next Sunday and meet the girls at the close of the lesson, sort of get acquainted with them and arrange things for the next week.
“Connie could have them here for pleasant little evenings, you know,” suggested her mother graciously. “Invite some of their boy friends, and a few, just a very few, of your own most intimate friends, dear”—she turned to the unwilling daughter—“and really show those girls a good time.”
MATCHED PEARLS Page 13