“And how brutal,” she broke in, “how cruel and vulgar, what I said must have seemed to you!”
“I fancied,” he continued evasively, “that I had authority to set myself apart from my fellow-workmen, to be a teacher and guide to the true life. But it was a great error. The true life was the life of work, and no one ever had authority to turn from it. Christ Himself came as a labouring man.”
“That is true,” said Annie; and his words transfigured the man who spoke them, so that her heart turned reverently toward him. “But if you had been meant to work in a mill all your life,” she pursued, “would you have been given the powers you have, and that you have just used to save me from despair?”
The minister rose, and said, with a sigh: “No one was meant to work in a mill all his life. Good night.”
She would have liked to keep him longer, but she could not think how, at once. As he turned to go out through the Boltons’ part of the house, “Won’t you go out through my door?” she asked, with a helpless effort at hospitality.
“Oh, if you wish,” he answered submissively.
When she had closed the door upon him she went to speak with Mrs. Bolton. She was in the kitchen mixing flour to make bread, and Annie traced her by following the lamp-light through the open door. It discovered Bolton sitting in the outer doorway, his back against one jamb and his stocking-feet resting against the base of the other.
“Mrs. Bolton,” Annie began at once, making herself free of one of the hard kitchen chairs, “how is Mr. Peck getting on in Hatboro’?”
“I d’know as I know just what you mean, Miss Kilburn,” said Mrs. Bolton, on the defensive.
“I mean, is there a party against him in his church? Is he unpopular?”
Mrs. Bolton took some flour and sprinkled it on her bread-board; then she lifted the mass of dough out of the trough before her, and let it sink softly upon the board.
“I d’know as you can say he’s unpoplah. He ain’t poplah with some. Yes, there’s a party — the Gerrish party.”
“Is it a strong one?”
“It’s pretty strong.”
“Do you think it will prevail?”
“Well, most o’ folks don’t know what they want; and if there’s some folks that know what they don’t want, they can generally keep from havin’ it.”
Bolton made a soft husky prefatory noise of protest in his throat, which seemed to stimulate his wife to a more definite assertion, and she cut in before he could speak —
“I should say that unless them that stood Mr. Peck’s friends first off, and got him here, done something to keep him, his enemies wa’n’t goin’ to take up his cause.”
Annie divined a personal reproach for Bolton in the apparent abstraction.
“Oh, now, you’ll see it’ll all come out right in the end, Pauliny,” he mildly opposed. “There ain’t any such great feelin’ about Mr. Peck; nothin’ but what’ll work itself off perfec’ly natural, give it time. It’s goin’ to come out all right.”
“Yes, at the day o’ jedgment,” Mrs. Bolton assented, plunging her fists into the dough, and beginning to work a contempt for her husband’s optimism into it.
“Yes, an’ a good deal before,” he returned. “There’s always somethin’ to objec’ to every minister; we ain’t any of us perfect, and Mr. Peck’s got his failin’s; he hain’t built up the church quite so much as some on ’em expected but what he would; and there’s some that don’t like his prayers; and some of ’em thinks he ain’t doctrinal enough. But I guess, take it all round, he suits pretty well. It’ll come out all right, Pauliny. You’ll see.”
A pause ensued, of which Annie felt the awfulness. It seemed to her that Mrs. Bolton’s impatience with this intolerable hopefulness must burst violently. She hastened to interpose. “I think the trouble is that people don’t fully understand Mr. Peck at first. But they do finally.”
“Yes; take time,” said Bolton.
“Take eternity, I guess, for some,” retorted his wife. “If you think William B. Gerrish is goin’ to work round with time—” She stopped for want of some sufficiently rejectional phrase, and did not go on.
“The way I look at it,” said Bolton, with incorrigible courage, “is like this: When it comes to anything like askin’ Mr. Peck to resign, it’ll develop his strength. You can’t tell how strong he is without you try to git red of him. I ‘most wish it would come, once, fair and square.”
“I’m sure you’re right, Mr. Bolton,” said Annie. “I don’t believe that your church would let such a man go when it really came to it. Don’t they all feel that he has great ability?”
“Oh, I guess they appreciate him as far forth as ability goes. Some on ’em complains that he’s a little too intellectial, if anything. But I tell ’em it’s a good fault; it’s a thing that can be got over in time.”
Mrs. Bolton had ceased to take part in the discussion. She finished kneading her dough, and having fitted it into two baking-pans and dusted it with flour, she laid a clean towel over both. But when Annie rose she took the lamp from the mantel-shelf, where it stood, and held it up for her to find her way back to her own door.
Annie went to bed with a spirit lightened as well as chastened, and kept saying over the words of Mr. Peck, so as to keep fast hold of the consolation they had given her. They humbled her with, a sense of his wisdom and insight; the thought of them kept her awake. She remembered the tonic that Dr. Morrell had left with her, and after questioning whether she really needed it now, she made sure by getting up and taking it.
XV.
The spring had filled and flushed into summer. Bolton had gone over the grass on the slope before the house, and it was growing thick again, dark green above the yellow of its stubble, and the young generation of robins was foraging in it for the callow grasshoppers. Some boughs of the maples were beginning to lose the elastic upward lift of their prime, and to hang looser and limper with the burden of their foliage. The elms drooped lower toward the grass, and swept the straggling tops left standing in their shade.
The early part of September had been fixed for the theatricals. Annie refused to have anything to do with them, and the preparations remained altogether with Brandreth. “The minuet,” he said to her one afternoon, when he had come to report to her as a co-ordinate authority, “is going to be something exquisite, I assure you. A good many of the ladies studied it in the Continental times, you know, when we had all those Martha Washington parties — or, I forgot you were out of the country — and it will be done perfectly. We’re going to have the ball-room scene on the tennis-court just in front of the evergreens, don’t you know, and then the balcony scene in the same place. We have to cut some of the business between Romeo and Juliet, because it’s too long, you know, and some of it’s too — too passionate; we couldn’t do it properly, and we’ve decided to leave it out. But we sketch along through the play, and we have Friar Laurence coming with Juliet out of his cell onto the tennis-court and meeting Romeo; so that tells the story of the marriage. You can’t imagine what a Mercutio Mr. Putney makes; he throws himself into it heart and soul, especially where he fights with Tybalt and gets killed. I give him lines there out of other scenes too; the tennis-court sets that part admirably; they come out of a street at the side. I think the scenery will surprise you, Miss Kilburn. Well, and then we have the Nurse and Juliet, and the poison scene — we put it into the garden, on the tennis-court, and we condense the different acts so as to give an idea of all that’s happened, with Romeo banished, and all that. Then he comes back from Mantua, and we have the tomb scene set at one side of the tennis-court just opposite the street scene; and he fights with Paris; and then we have Juliet come to the door of the tomb — it’s a liberty, of course; but we couldn’t arrange the light inside — and she stabs herself and falls on Romeo’s body, and that ends the play. You see, it gives a notion of the whole action, and tells the story pretty well. I think you’ll be pleased.”
“I’ve no doubt I shall,” sa
id Annie. “Did you make the adaptation yourself, Mr. Brandreth?”
“Well, yes, I did,” Mr. Brandreth modestly admitted. “It’s been a good deal of work, but it’s been a pleasure too. You know how that is, Miss Kilburn, in your charities.”
“Don’t speak of my charities, Mr. Brandreth. I’m not a charitable person.”
“You won’t get people to believe that” said Mr. Brandreth. “Everybody knows how much good you do. But, as I was saying, my idea was to give a notion of the whole play in a series of passages or tableaux. Some of my friends think I’ve succeeded so well in telling the story, don’t you know, without a change of scene, that they’re urging me to publish my arrangement for the use of out-of-door theatricals.”
“I should think it would be a very good idea,” said Annie. “I suppose Mr. Chapley would do it?”
“Well, I don’t know — I don’t know,” Mr. Brandreth answered, with a note of trouble in his voice. “I’m afraid not,” he added sadly. “Miss Kilburn, I’ve been put in a very unfair position by Miss Northwick’s changing her mind about Juliet, after the part had been offered to Miss Chapley. I’ve been made the means of a seeming slight to Miss Chapley, when, if it hadn’t been for the cause, I’d rather have thrown up the whole affair. She gave up the part instantly when she heard that Miss Northwick wished to change her mind, but all the same I know — .”
He stopped, and Annie said encouragingly: “Yes, I see. But perhaps she doesn’t really care.”
“That’s what she said,” returned Mr. Brandreth ruefully. “But I don’t know. I have never spoken of it with her since I went to tell her about it, after I got Miss Northwick’s note.”
“Well, Mr. Brandreth, I think you’ve really been victimised; and I don’t believe the Social Union will ever be worth what it’s costing.”
“I was sure you would appreciate — would understand;” and Mr. Brandreth pressed her hand gratefully in leave-taking.
She heard him talking with some one at the gate, whose sharp, “All right, my son!” identified Putney.
She ran to the door to welcome him.
“Oh, you’re both here!” she rejoiced, at sight of Mrs. Putney too.
“I can send Ellen home,” suggested Putney.
“Oh no, indeed!” said Annie, with single-mindedness at which she laughed with Mrs. Putney. “Only it seemed too good to have you both,” she explained, kissing Mrs. Putney. “I’m so glad to see you!”
“Well, what’s the reason?” Putney dropped into a chair and began to rock nervously. “Don’t be ashamed: we’re all selfish. Has Brandreth been putting up any more jobs on you?”
“No, no! Only giving me a hint of his troubles and sorrows with those wretched Social Union theatricals. Poor young fellow! I’m sorry for him. He is really very sweet and unselfish. I like him.”
“Yes, Brandreth is one of the most lady-like fellows I ever saw,” said Putney. “That Juliet business has pretty near been the death of him. I told him to offer Miss Chapley some other part — Rosaline, the part of the young lady who was dropped; but he couldn’t seem to see it. Well, and how come on the good works, Annie?”
“The good works! Ralph, tell me: do people think me a charitable person? Do they suppose I’ve done or can do any good whatever?” She looked from Putney to his wife, and back again with comic entreaty.
“Why, aren’t you a charitable person? Don’t you do any good?” he asked.
“No!” she shouted. “Not the least in the world!”
“It is pretty rough,” said Putney, taking out a cigar for a dry smoke; “and nobody will believe me when I report what you say, Annie. Mrs. Munger is telling round that she don’t see how you can live through the summer at the rate you’re going. She’s got it down pretty cold about your taking Brother Peck’s idea of the invited dance and supper, and joining hands with him to save the vanity of the self-respecting poor. She says that your suppression of that one unpopular feature has done more than anything else to promote the success of the Social Union. You ought to be glad Brother Peck is coming to the show.”
“To the theatricals?”
Putney nodded his head. “That’s what he says. I believe Brother Peck is coming to see how the upper classes amuse themselves when they really try to benefit the lower classes.”
Annie would not laugh at his joke. “Ralph,” she asked, “is it true that Mr. Peck is so unpopular in his church? Is he really going to be turned out — dismissed?”
“Oh, I don’t know about that. But they’ll bounce him if they can.”
“And can nothing be done? Can’t his friends unite?”
“Oh, they’re united enough now; what they’re afraid of is that they’re not numerous enough. Why don’t you buy in, Annie, and help control the stock? That old Unitarian concern of yours isn’t ever going to get into running order again, and if you owned a pew in Ellen’s church you could have a vote in church meeting, after a while, and you could lend Brother Peck your moral support now.”
“I never liked that sort of thing, Ralph. I shouldn’t believe with your people.”
“Ellen’s people, please. I don’t believe with them either. But I always vote right. Now you think it over.”
“No, I shall not think it over. I don’t approve of it. If I should take a pew in your church it would be simply to hear Mr. Peck preach, and contribute toward his—”
“Salary? Yes, that’s the way to look at it in the beginning. I knew you’d work round. Why, Annie, in a year’s time you’ll be trying to buy votes for Brother Peck.”
“I should never vote,” she retorted. “And I shall keep myself out of all temptation by not going to your church.”
“Ellen’s church,” Putney corrected.
She went the next Sunday to hear Mr. Peck preach, and Putney, who seemed to see her the moment she entered the church, rose, as the sexton was showing her up the aisle, and opened the door of his pew for her with ironical welcome.
“You can always have a seat with us, Annie,” he mocked, on their way out of the church together.
“Thank you, Ralph,” she answered boldly. “I’m going to speak to the sexton for a pew.”
XVI.
A wire had been carried from the village to the scene of the play at South Hatboro’, and electric globes fizzed and hissed overhead, flooding the open tennis-court with the radiance of sharper moonlight, and stamping the thick velvety shadows of the shrubbery and tree-tops deep into the raw green of the grass along its borders.
The spectators were seated on the verandas and terraced turf at the rear of the house, and they crowded the sides of the court up to a certain point, where a cord stretched across it kept them from encroaching upon the space intended for the action. Another rope enclosed an area all round them, where chairs and benches were placed for those who had tickets. After the rejection of the exclusive feature of the original plan, Mrs. Munger had liberalised more and more: she caused it to be known that all who could get into her grounds would be welcome on the outside of that rope, even though they did not pay anything; but a large number of tickets had been sold to the hands, as well as to the other villagers, and the area within the rope was closely packed. Some of the boys climbed the neighbouring trees, where from time to time the town authorities threatened them, but did not really dislodge them.
Annie, with other friends of Mrs. Munger, gained a reserved seat on the veranda through the drawing-room windows; but once there, she found herself in the midst of a sufficiently mixed company.
“How do, Miss Kilburn? That you? Well, I declare!” said a voice that she seemed to know, in a key of nervous excitement. Mrs. Savor’s husband leaned across his wife’s lap and shook hands with Annie. “William thought I better come,” Mrs. Savor seemed called upon to explain. “I got to do something. Ain’t it just too cute for anything the way they got them screens worked into the shrubbery down they-ar? It’s like the cycloraymy to Boston; you can’t tell where the ground ends and the paintin’ commences. Oh,
I do want ’em to begin!”
Mr. Savor laughed at his wife’s impatience, and she said playfully: “What you laughin’ at? I guess you’re full as excited as what I be, when all’s said and done.”
There were other acquaintances of Annie’s from Over the Track, in the group about her, and upon the example of the Savors they all greeted her. The wives and sweethearts tittered with self-derisive expectation; the men were gravely jocose, like all Americans in unwonted circumstances, but they were respectful to the coming performance, perhaps as a tribute to Annie. She wondered how some of them came to have those seats, which were reserved at an extra price; she did not allow for that self-respect which causes the American workman to supply himself with the best his money can buy while his money lasts.
She turned to see who was on her other hand. A row of three small children stretched from her to Mrs. Gerrish, whom she did not recognise at first. “Oh, Emmeline!” she said; and then, for want of something else, she added, “Where is Mr. Gerrish? Isn’t he coming?”
“He was detained at the store,” said Mrs. Gerrish, with cold importance; “but he will be here. May I ask, Annie,” she pursued solemnly, “how you got here?”
“How did I get here? Why, through the windows. Didn’t you?”
“May I ask who had charge of the arrangements?”
“I don’t know, I’m sure,” said Annie. “I suppose Mrs. Munger.”
A burst of music came from the dense shadow into which the group of evergreens at the bottom of the tennis-court deepened away from the glister of the electrics. There was a deeper hush; then a slight jarring and scraping of a chair beyond Mrs. Gerrish, who leaned across her children and said, “He’s come, Annie — right through the parlour window!” Her voice was lifted to carry above the music, and all the people near were able to share the fact that righted Mrs. Gerrish in her own esteem.
Delphi Complete Works of William Dean Howells Page 336