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An Alabaster Box, a fiction by Mary E Wilkins Freeman |
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Chapter 14 |
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_ Chapter XIV The Reverend Wesley Elliot, looking young, eager and pleasingly worldly in a blue serge suit of unclerical cut, rose to greet her as she entered. "I haven't been here in two or three days," he began, as he took the hand she offered, "and I'm really astonished at the progress you've been making." He still retained her hand, as he smiled down into her grave, preoccupied face. "What's the trouble with our little lady of Bolton House?" he inquired. "Any of the workmen on strike, or--" She withdrew her hand with a faint smile. "Everything is going very well, I think," she told him. He was still scrutinizing her with that air of intimate concern, which inspired most of the women of his flock to unburden themselves of their manifold anxieties at his slightest word of encouragement. "It's a pretty heavy burden for you," he said gravely. "You need some one to help you. I wonder if I couldn't shoulder a few of the grosser details?" "You've already been most kind," Lydia said evasively. "But now-- Oh, I think everything has been thought of. You know Mr. Whittle is looking after the work." He smiled, a glimmer of humorous understanding in his fine dark eyes. "Yes, I know," he said. A silence fell between them. Lydia was one of those rare women who do not object to silence. It seemed to her that she had always lived alone with her ambitions, which could not be shared, and her bitter knowledge, which was never to be spoken of. But now she stirred uneasily in her chair, aware of the intent expression in his eyes. Her troubled thoughts reverted to the little picture which had fluttered to the floor from somebody's keeping only an hour before. "I've had visitors this morning," she told him, with purpose. "Ah! people are sure to be curious and interested," he commented. "They were Mrs. Dodge and her daughter and Mrs. Dix and Ellen," she explained. "That must have been pleasant," he murmured perfunctorily. "Are you--do you find yourself becoming at all interested in the people about here? Of course it is easy to see you come to us from quite another world." She shook her head. "Oh, no," she said quickly. "--If you mean that I am superior in any way to the people of Brookville; I'm not, at all. I am really a very ordinary sort of a person. I've not been to college and--I've always worked, harder than most, so that I've had little opportunity for--culture." His smile broadened into a laugh of genuine amusement. "My dear Miss Orr," he protested, "I had no idea of intimating--" Her look of passionate sincerity halted his words of apology. "I am very much interested in the people here," she declared. "I want--oh, so much--to be friends with them! I want it more than anything else in the world! If they would only like me. But--they don't." "How can they help it?" he exclaimed. "Like you? They ought to worship you! They shall!" She shook her head sadly. "No one can compel love," she said. "Sometimes the love of one can atone for the indifference--even the hostility of the many," he ventured. But she had not stooped to the particular, he perceived. Her thoughts were ranging wide over an unknown country whither, for the moment, he could not follow. He studied her abstracted face with its strangely aloof expression, like that of a saint or a fanatic, with a faint renewal of previous misgivings. "I am very much interested in Fanny Dodge," she said abruptly. "In--Fanny Dodge?" he repeated. He became instantly angry with himself for the dismayed astonishment he had permitted to escape him, and increasingly so because of the uncontrollable tide of crimson which invaded his face. She was looking at him, with the calm, direct gaze which had more than once puzzled him. "You know her very well, don't you?" "Why, of course, Miss Dodge is--she is--er--one of our leading young people, and naturally-- She plays our little organ in church and Sunday School. Of course you've noticed. She is most useful and--er--helpful." Lydia appeared to be considering his words with undue gravity. "But I didn't come here this morning to talk to you about another woman," he said, with undeniable hardihood. "I want to talk to you--_to you_--and what I have to say--" Lydia got up from her chair rather suddenly. "Please excuse me a moment," she said, quite as if he had not spoken. He heard her cross the hall swiftly. In a moment she had returned. "I found this picture on the floor--after they had gone," she said, and handed him the photograph. He stared at it with unfeigned astonishment. "Oh, yes," he murmured. "Well--?" "Turn it over," she urged, somewhat breathlessly. He obeyed, and bit his lip angrily. "What of it?" he demanded. "A quotation from Kipling's Recessional--a mere commonplace.... Yes; I wrote it." Then his anger suddenly left him. His mind had leaped to the solution of the matter, and the solution appeared to Wesley Elliot as eminently satisfying; it was even amusing. What a transparent, womanly little creature she was, to be sure! He had not been altogether certain of himself as he walked out to the old Bolton place that morning. But oddly enough, this girlish jealousy of hers, this pretty spite--he found it piquantly charming. "I wrote it," he repeated, his indulgent understanding of her mood lurking in smiling lips and eyes, "on the occasion of a particularly grubby Sunday School picnic: I assure you I shall not soon forget the spiders which came to an untimely end in my lemonade, nor the inquisitive ants which explored my sandwiches." She surveyed him unsmilingly. "But you did not mean that," she said. "You were thinking of something--quite different." He frowned thoughtfully. Decidedly, this matter should be settled between them at once and for ever. A clergyman, he reflected, must always be on friendly--even confidential terms with a wide variety of women. His brief experience had already taught him this much. And a jealous or unduly suspicious wife might prove a serious handicap to future success. "Won't you sit down," he urged. "I--You must allow me to explain. We--er--must talk this over." She obeyed him mechanically. All at once she was excessively frightened at what she had attempted. She knew nothing of the ways of men; but she felt suddenly sure that he would resent her interference as an unwarrantable impertinence. "I thought--if you were going there today--you might take it--to her," she hesitated. "Or, I could send it. It is a small matter, of course." "I think," he said gravely, "that it is a very serious matter." She interpreted uncertainly the intent gaze of his beautiful, somber eyes. "I came here," she faltered, "to--to find a home. I had no wish--" "I understand," he said, his voice deep and sympathetic; "people have been talking to you--about me. Am I right?" She was silent, a pink flush slowly staining her cheeks. "You have not yet learned upon what slight premises country women, of the type we find in Brookville, arrive at the most unwarrantable conclusions," he went on carefully. "I did not myself sufficiently realize this, at first. I may have been unwise." "No, you were not!" she contradicted him unexpectedly. His lifted eyebrows expressed surprise. "I wish you would explain to me--" he began. Then stopped short. How indeed could she explain, when as yet he had not made clear to her his own purpose, which had grown steadily with the passing weeks? "You will let me speak, first," he concluded inadequately. He hastily reviewed the various phrases which arose to his lips and rejected them one by one. There was some peculiar quality of coldness, of reserve--he could not altogether make it clear to himself: it might well be the knowledge of her power, her wealth, which lent that almost austere expression to her face. It was evident that her wonted composure had been seriously disturbed by the unlucky circumstance of the photograph. He had permitted the time and occasion which had prompted him to write those three fatefully familiar words on the back of the picture altogether to escape him. If he chose to forget, why should Fanny Dodge, or any one else, persist in remembering? And above all, why should the girl have chosen to drop this absurd memento of the most harmless of flirtations at the feet of Lydia? There could be but one reasonable explanation.... Confound women, anyway! "I had not meant to speak, yet," he went on, out of the clamoring multitude of his thoughts. "I felt that we ought--" He became suddenly aware of Lydia's eyes. There was no soft answering fire, no maidenly uncertainty of hope and fear in those clear depths. "It is very difficult for me to talk of this to you," she said slowly. "You will think me over-bold--unmannerly, perhaps. But I can't help that. I should never have thought of your caring for me--you will at least do me the justice to believe that." "Lydia!" he interrupted, poignantly distressed by her evident timidity--her exquisite hesitation, "let me speak! I understand--I know--" She forbade him with a gesture, at once pleading and peremptory. "No," she said. "No! I began this, I must go on to the end. What you ought to understand is this: I am not like other women. I want only friendship from every one. I shall never ask more. I can never accept more--from any one. I want you to know this--now." "But I--do you realize--" "I want your friendship," she went on, facing him with a sort of desperate courage; "but more than any kindness you can offer me, Mr. Elliot, I want the friendship of Fanny Dodge, of Ellen Dix--of all good women. I need it! Now you know why I showed you the picture. If you will not give it to her, I shall. I want her--I want every one--to understand that I shall never come between her and the slightest hope she may have cherished before my coming to Brookville. All I ask is--leave to live here quietly--and be friendly, as opportunity offers." Her words, her tone were not to be mistaken. But even the sanest and wisest of men has never thus easily surrendered the jealously guarded stronghold of sex. Wesley Elliot's youthful ideas of women were totally at variance with the disconcerting conviction which strove to invade his mind. He had experienced not the slightest difficulty, up to the present moment, in classifying them, neatly and logically; but there was no space in his mental files for a woman such as Lydia Orr was representing herself to be. It was inconceivable, on the face of it! All women demanded admiration, courtship, love. They always had; they always would. The literature of the ages attested it. He had been too precipitate--too hasty. He must give her time to recover from the shock she must have experienced from hearing the spiteful gossip about himself and Fanny Dodge. On the whole, he admired her courage. What she had said could not be attributed to the mere promptings of vulgar sex-jealousy. Very likely Fanny had been disagreeable and haughty in her manner. He believed her capable of it. He sympathized with Fanny; with the curious mental aptitude of a sensitive nature, he still loved Fanny. It had cost him real effort to close the doors of his heart against her. "I admire you more than I can express for what you have had the courage to tell me," he assured her. "And you will let me see that I understand--more than you think." "It is impossible that you should understand," she said tranquilly. "But you will, at least, remember what I have said?" "I will," he promised easily. "I shall never forget it!" A slight humorous smile curved the corners of his handsome mouth. "Now this--er--what shall we call it?--'bone of contention' savors too strongly of wrath and discomfiture; so we'll say, simply and specifically, this photograph--which chances to have a harmless quotation inscribed upon its reverse: Suppose I drop it in the waste-basket? I can conceive that it possesses no particular significance or value for any one. I assure you most earnestly that it does not--for me." He made as though he would have carelessly torn the picture across, preparatory to making good his proposal. She stopped him with a swift gesture. "Give it to me," she said. "It is lost property, and I am responsible for its safe-keeping." She perceived that she had completely failed in her intention. "What are you going to do with it?" he inquired, with an easy assumption of friendliness calculated to put her more completely at her ease with him. "I don't know. For the present, I shall put it back in my desk." "Better take my advice and destroy it," he persisted. "It--er--is not valuable evidence. Or--I believe on second thought I shall accept your suggestion and return it myself to its probable owner." He was actually laughing, his eyes brimming with boyish mischief. "I think it belongs to Miss Dix," he told her audaciously. "To Miss Dix?" she echoed. "Yes; why not? Don't you see the fair Ellen among the group?" Her eyes blazed suddenly upon him; her lips trembled. "Forgive me!" he cried, aghast at his own folly. She retreated before his outstretched hands. "I didn't mean to--to make light of what appears so serious a matter to you," he went on impetuously. "It is only that it is _not_ serious; don't you see? It is such a foolish little mistake. It must not come between us, Lydia!" "Please go away, at once," she interrupted him breathlessly, "and--and _think_ of what I have said to you. Perhaps you didn't believe it; but you _must_ believe it!" Then, because he did not stir, but instead stood gazing at her, his puzzled eyes full of questions, entreaties, denials, she quietly closed a door between them. A moment later he heard her hurrying feet upon the stair. _ |
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