The White Lady

by Grace Livingston Hill

After that there were long talks with the minister on days when Barton was not suffering unusually. There were confession and forgiveness, and Si told the minister the story of his hard young life until John Endicott wondered no longer at the hold the devil had upon him, but marveled over the love of God in sparing him and giving him another chance.

  It was a poor, wrecked life, only a piece of life, that Si had to give to the Lord, but the minister made the way so plain that the poor broken creature could but thankfully accept the wonderful forgiveness and salvation.

  There came a day in the early springtime, the first communion Sabbath when the minister was able to be with his people again, when all the town was assembled in and about the pretty stone church with its scarred and mended roof. The members of the church were there, for their hearts were very tender with thanksgiving over the spared life of their beloved pastor. The people of the village were there out of sympathy with the church members and general good will toward the minister, and perhaps, too, out of curiosity, for a strange rumor had been going around town. The drugstore loungers and station devotees were there because they had been especially invited by the man who had done his best for five years to ruin them. Lying upon his bed of pain, his right hand gone forever, Si had laboriously tried to write with his left hand. He had written in ragged, irregular, almost unintelligible lines—lines that were pitiful when one remembered the bold, dashing hand in which he had formerly signed his receipts.

  “I want you to come to church next Sunday, for Jesus Christ has forgiven my sins and I am going to take Him then before men as my Lord and Savior.”

  Those were the words that Si sent out that startled many hearts. Some of them regarded the letters with horror and a half-superstitious fear, laying them aside with awe, vowing not to go near the church, and shuddering at the thought of death. Some of them drew their rough hands across their eyes and cleared a strange huskiness in their throats and said, “Gosh! But ain’t he down?” Some of them, the youngest and the older boys, looked shamed and serious and were gentle all that day. But they all came, every one of them, and took front seats like invited guests, crowding out some of the rightful occupants, much to their unrighteous indignation. They had some curiosity themselves that day and thought they had a right to first places in the synagogue, like the sulky brother of the Prodigal. But they were there and heard every word.

  Jennie had opened the window and wrapped the invalid so that no breath of cold could reach him. He lay with closed eyes, listening to the sweet sound of the music in the church over the way and letting his heart come near to the great, forgiving heart of his Maker.

  The windows of the church were open, too, and now and then Si’s old friends would glance with awe out toward the Cedars, knowing that Si would be listening. It was like a realization of the presence of the dead.

  They sang the hymn “Just as I Am,” or rather, Constance sang it as a solo. It was the first time she had sung in public since the fire. She sang every verse, and the words rang deep into the hearts of those rough men and boys on the front seats. Holly cleared his throat loudly and shuffled his big feet around. He looked down at his hands. He somehow never seemed to have realized before how poor and wretched he must seem before God.

  After the singing of those wonderful, humble words, the minister read Si’s confession of faith. It was simple, framed from the agony of his soul and body, word for word as the minister had written it down from his own lips. It sounded like Si, only a new Si, a Si that talked of things heavenly with the same voice in which he had spoken of things devilish. They had listened to him for so long that they could understand him now, even though he had been lifted to heights far beyond them. They wondered, and trembled before a God who would cast out the devil from Si. One by one every head went down, and the tears rolled down their cheeks as the minister announced that the church board had talked with the writer of that confession and felt him to be truly a Christian and he had been admitted into fellowship as a member of their church.

  There were others who stood up then as their names were called, and assented to the covenant; and as they bowed their heads and said “I will” to the solemn questions, it seemed to those men on the front seats as if they could hear the echo of another strong commanding voice from the unseen candidate for membership, saying “I will” with the rest. Then they dropped their eyes, and no man looked at his neighbor.

  That had been a wonderful day. Jimmy’s heart had fairly burst with the greatness of the occasion. He felt that new worlds were opening before him. As he walked home from church that evening at a respectful distance behind the minister and Constance, and looked up to the clustering stars, it almost seemed to him he could see angels flitting back and forth to heaven with torches, and hear their praising voices over the “one sinner that repenteth.” Jimmy felt that to be a Christian was the greatest thing in the world. Tonight there had been born within him a desire to be a minister someday like John Endicott and to “turn many to righteousness.”

  Jimmy was happy, happy, happy that night!

  It had needed only Constance’s little whispered word at the door—as he lingered to see whether there was anything more he could do for her that night—to put him into the seventh heaven.

  “Jimmy, I want to tell you that Mr. Endicott and I are to be married soon. It will be announced tomorrow, and everybody will know it, but I thought I should like to tell you myself first, because you are my friend, you know.” And she smiled her brightest smile upon him.

  Jimmy’s face had lighted up with joy. He could not think of anything nicer than to have these two, who were both so dear and so good to him, become one. He tried to stammer out his feelings, and Constance understood and added in answer to his wistful question as he went down the steps after saying good night, “Yes, of course you may tell the boys.”

  After that the days had passed in a whirl of pleasant occupations. A great many new things happened. For one thing, the Cedars took on several alterations without and within. A coat of beautiful creamy paint on all the woodwork changed the appearance of the house entirely and made the Cedars stand proudly out toward the road with a new air. Vines were trained over the pillars. The minister did that with Jimmy’s help.

  Another event was that Jimmy was to have an education. He had protested that it was hardly worthwhile and he could not be spared, also that he had had all the schooling he desired to acquire, but Constance took him into the back parlor and had a long talk with him one day, all about his hopes and plans and the man God had meant him to be when He put him into the world. Jimmy issued from that parlor a sober and thoughtful boy, resolved to have an education if it cost him his life. An education was a necessity, it seemed, and therefore, though it was a hard prospect, he meant to go through with it, and do it thoroughly, too.

  But most exciting of all was the little white cottage that was day by day growing on the vacant lot next to the Cedars.

  After many consultations with the minister and Constance, and Jennie sitting by with pink cheeks and breathless wonder, the plan was made, and Si signed a contract with a good builder to put him up the daintiest, prettiest white cottage with green blinds that a carpenter could build. It had as many bay windows as Jennie asked for, and there was a large, light room on the first floor, with windows along the entire side looking toward the Cedars. This was to be the room where Si would spend the rest of his painful days until God should say, “It is enough,” and call him up higher. Already Jennie had planned many a little comfort and pleasure to make the days of her brother bright, and in this Constance was a willing and unfailing helper.

  There was also a large wing, connected with the little white cottage. It was the delight of Jennie’s heart and had been evolved from Constance’s fertile brain. This wing contained a large room with windows all about and an inviting doorway opposite to the station platform. This was to be a dining room, and it was fully as large as the dining room at the Cedars. Back of this was a large kitchen and pantry, an
d all was to be thoroughly fitted up with conveniences for cooking on a large scale. This was to be the new restaurant, and Jennie was to run it.

  In the moments when she could be spared, she was already learning wonderful things from Norah in the art of cookery and had engaged Jimmy’s mother as a regular helper in the enterprise. Jimmy’s mother had been called in to help during the siege of nursing at the Cedars and was well trained by this time in cooking dainty things at five minutes’ notice, for the tearoom at the Cedars was still going on.

  The minister had wished Constance to close it at once, but Constance had persuaded him that it would be better for Jennie if she could take the work with a good business well started and not have a break in which travelers would find there was no place where they could get a good meal in the town. So with the help of others the work had been quietly carried on, with the expectation that Jennie would take it up when Constance was married.

  The white cottage grew and became an abode, and Jennie flitted back and forth, preparing everything, in her face a glow of joy that comes from lofty purpose. Jennie was no longer a butterfly.

  Tenderly they carried the poor, broken body of the man over to his new home and made him comfortable, and he seemed content in spite of his suffering. He was to be the brains of this new business, and Jennie was to manage everything. Sometimes it all came over him, what he had intended to do to injure these two grand souls who were caring for him now and giving him back as much of life as was in their power; then his heart was overwhelmed with gratitude. Of him truly it could be said that he was a “new creature” in Christ Jesus. Jennie marveled over it every day. His old cronies marveled every time they passed the neat white house, and Holly Beech marveled when he stepped into the sunny, airy room of the invalid to get his daily orders, for he was the general handyman, as well as admiring slave of Jennie.

  Chapter 24

  Meantime, the Cedars, its rooms left free once more, began to make changes also. The tearoom formally changed hands as soon as the new building had its long dining room plastered. After all, it did not take much work to make the great dining room into a charming living room. The little tables sank back into their proper places, the Persian rugs asserted themselves, the chairs from Constance’s sanctum, with a good many others that had been put in the third story, came in to fill the empty spaces, until in two days not a villager would have recognized the place where he had been wont to come in an ecstasy of delight for a dish of ice cream. More pictures were brought down and unpacked, and costly bric-a-brac. Rare curtains draped the windows, and a quiet elegance reigned as if by right, where a temporary democratic freedom had held sway.

  Jimmie, sent by Norah to carry some article of furniture down to the great room from the attic, paused on the threshold as he had done once before, not knowing that there had been another change, and held his breath. A chill struck him. There was a something beautiful and apart in this room now, something that made him feel he must not enter—not yet. He reasoned it all out afterward, that evening on the back doorstep. It was something that belonged to an education, and undoubtedly, he must have an education.

  During the next few days the front room, which Si had occupied, and which before that had been the library or office, became a luxurious library indeed. All the fine volumes that had been in the Wetherill house in New York took their places in well-ordered groups behind sliding glass doors about the walls. The large revolving bookcase, the great carved rosewood desk with rolling top and many drawers, the leather desk chair, all were suggestive of a minister’s study. In fact, John Endicott’s worn and much-used volumes took their places, a few every day, side by side with the Wetherill ones in leather and Russian bindings.

  Mrs. Bartlett had again become the nominal landlady of the minister, but the constantly diminishing bookcase reminded her that her time for pumpkin pies was short, and the pumpkins had not yet come. She took it out in lavishing upon him the best strawberries and peas the market afforded, and never grudging anything, even a smile now and then. She was always feeling uncomfortable about the dollar she took from Morris Thayer for his night’s lodging, and wanting to make it up in some way. The result was, she spent it a number of times over, till she was almost getting into the habit of being generous.

  The back parlor that had been Constance’s sanctum was changed into a beautiful dining room, and the dining room upstairs became, as it should be, a bedroom. The third story was put in order, and Norah began to breathe more freely and feel that things were more suited to a member of the house of Wetherill. She sadly regretted that there was so much necessary scrimping, but this was better than having Miss Constance keep a tearoom. What a pity ministers had such small salaries and had to work so hard!

  Just as spring was ripening into summer, on a rare day in the last of June, Constance was married.

  Until just at the last, it had not seemed possible to have the wedding a public affair. Indeed, both bride and groom would personally have preferred having it as quiet as possible, but there were others to be considered besides themselves. There was the loving, adoring church, all eyes and ears to see “how he looked” and “how she looked,” and “how he acted” and “what she wore,” and live over again their own private romances in the faces of this dear couple who belonged to them. The minister knew they would each one feel personally aggrieved that they could not be present, and yet he could not ask it of Constance to be married in the church, because of the state of her grandmother’s health. It was Constance who thought of it, whose quick perceptions knew how Mrs. Bartlett and Holly Beech and Jennie and all the rest would feel if they were left out, and her own heart drew her to give up her personal pleasure in the matter.

  Of course the grandmother must be present. But, as the warmer weather drew on, Mrs. Wetherill improved in a most surprising way, and Dr. Randall told Constance he did not think it could hurt her in the least to be carried over to the church for a little while. In fact, if it pleased her, it might only do her good. So, one morning when Mrs. Wetherill seemed to feel pretty well, Constance broached the matter gently, and to her surprise found her grandmother quite expecting the wedding to be in the church.

  “Of course John will want to please his people, dear,” she said, “and you should always study to please your husband. I always did. It’s right and best. Besides, I’ve had no opportunity to meet his people, and I should like to see them, they have all been so kind. Then, too, it’s not as if we were in our own home here—we’re sort of boarding—though it’s been quite comfortable all winter. You think you wouldn’t care to go back to the house in New York for the ceremony? Well, I don’t blame you. It’s been shut up so long, it would be quite a nuisance to get it into working order again, and if you don’t mind, I’m sure I do not. A wedding in a church is always proper, dear, and especially fitting for a minister. Yes, I think I might easily go.”

  And so it was settled, and the village and the church threw themselves into violent preparations for a real church wedding peculiarly their own.

  The women met and selected a committee of decoration, and the committee planned elaborate decorations that would have done justice to a third-rate undertaker. Fortunately, Jennie had been put upon the committee, and, coming in late, was rather dismayed at the arrangements. She was so far educated in taste that she now knew that Constance would not appreciate her name and the minister’s done in purple and white artificial flowers and intertwined on a background of artificial moss swinging in the air above them like a coming doom. Jennie listened and finally spoke.

  “Say, those kind of pieces are real fine, but I jest believe she’d like it better if we put real flowers around. When I come over here, I stopped and asked her what her idea was, and she said she wanted you to fix it the way you liked it, but she would suggest to just have it simple flowers and greens. She likes the flowers that grow in your gardens. Why don’t you take honeysuckles, and roses, and white pinies, and white hollyhocks, and jest fill it up all white and green
in back of the pulpit?”

  And so they planned. Jennie contrived to keep things within some bounds, though the result perhaps was not just what it would have been had Constance done it herself. But Constance loved the people, and it mattered not to her.

  The day was perfect, the sky shining clear, and the birds doing their best at the wedding march.

  They carried old Mrs. Wetherill over early in a wheeled chair and made her comfortable close to a bower of white roses, and her old eyes were not so critical as to distinguish between roses and white hollyhocks and candytuft. She had reached the stage of her journey when she was quite satisfied with things as they were and did not wish to pull them to pieces because they were not just as she had always had them.

  Jimmy stood at the front gate in a new suit earned by himself and bought in New York by Constance. He regarded the village boys on the curb in front of the church across the road with a great look of condescension. They openly admired and envied Jimmy. Why had not they carried Miss Constance’s bundles that day a year ago instead of squabbling over marbles? Then they might, too, have walked in fine array.

  At five minutes before ten the train from the city came in. Jimmy looked at the passengers scornfully. Poor things, they had to travel on! They had no knowledge of the great event about to come off, and they had no right to look so carelessly over at the crowd already standing about the church. They were outsiders.

  Two men were getting off. They were elegantly dressed; at least one was. The other had a slippery look to Jimmy.

  They glanced about to get their bearings. Then the more elegant of the two pointed over toward Jimmy and the Cedars.

  “They’ll find they’re mistook this time,” murmured the boy to himself. “No late breakfasts ner chops to be had here anymore!” Jimmy stood up straight, on guard. He enjoyed the situation. He hoped they would come over. He would show them!