6. A Meeting By Chance

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_ Came, then, into the lives of these two, to work wide and immediate changes, the Rev. John Fithian, a curate of the Church of the Lifted Cross--a tall, free-moving, delicately spare figure, clad in spotless black, with a hint of fashion about it, a dull gold crucifix lying suspended upon the breast: pale, long of face, the eye-sockets deep and shadowy; hollow-cheeked, the bones high and faintly touched with red; with black, straight, damp hair, brushed back from a smooth brow and falling in the perfection of neatness to the collar--the whole severe and forbidding, indeed, but for saving gray eyes, wherein there lurked, behind the patient agony, often displacing it, a tender smile, benignant, comprehending, infinitely sympathetic, by which the gloomy exterior was lightened and in some surprising way gratefully explained.

By chance, on the first soft spring day of that year, the Rev. John Fithian, returning from the Neighbourhood Settlement, where he had delighted himself with good deeds, done of pure purpose, came near the door of the Box Street tenement, distributing smiles, pennies, impulsive, genuine caresses, to the children as he went, tipping their faces, patting their heads, all in the rare, unquestioned way, being not alien to the manner of the poor. A street piano, at the corner, tinkled an air to which a throng of ragged, lean little girls danced in the yellow sunshine, dodging trucks and idlers and impatient pedestrians with unconcern, colliding and tripping with utmost good nature. The curate was arrested by the voice of a child, singing to the corner accompaniment--low, in the beginning, brooding, tentative, but in a moment rising sure and clear and tender. It was not hard for the Rev. John Fithian to slip a cassock and surplice upon this wistful child, to give him a background of lofty arches and stained windows, to frame the whole in shadows. And, lo! in the chancel of the Church of the Lifted Cross there stood an angel, singing.

The boy looked up, a glance of suspicion, of fear; but he was at once reassured: there was no guile in the smiling gray eyes of the questioner.

"I am waiting," he answered, "for my mother. She will be home soon."

In a swift, penetrating glance, darting far and deep, dwelling briefly, the curate discovered the pathos of the child's life--the unknowing, patient outlook, the vague sense of pain, the bewilderment, the wistful melancholy, the hopeful determination.

"You, too!" he sighed.

The expression of kindred was not comprehended; but the boy was not disquieted by the sigh, by the sudden extinguishment of the beguiling smile.

"She has gone," he continued, "to the wedding of Sir Arthur Coll and Miss Stillison. She will have a very good time."

The curate came to himself with a start and a gasp.

"She's a bridesmaid," the boy added.

"Oh!" ejaculated the curate.

"Why do you say, 'Oh!'" the boy complained, frowning. "Everybody says that," he went on, wistfully; "and I don't know why."

The curate was a gentleman--acute and courteous. "A touch of indigestion," he answered, promptly, laying a white hand on his black waistcoat. "Oh! There it is again!"

"Stomach ache?"

"Well, you might call it that."

The boy was much concerned. "If you come up-stairs," said he, anxiously, "I'll give you some medicine. Mother keeps it for me."

Thus, presently, the curate found himself top-floor rear, in the room that overlooked the broad river, the roofs of the city beyond, the misty hills: upon which the fading sunshine now fell. And having gratefully swallowed the dose, with a broad, persistent smile, he was given a seat by the window, that the beauty of the day, the companionship of the tiny craft on the river, the mystery of the far-off places, might distract and comfort him. From the boy, sitting upright and prim on the extreme edge of a chair, his feet on the rung, his hands on his knees, proceeded a stream of amiable chatter--not the less amiable for being grave--to which the curate, compelled to his best behavior, listened with attention as amiable, as grave: and this concerned the boats, afloat below, the lights on the river, the child's mother, the simple happenings of his secluded life. So untaught was this courtesy, spontaneous, native--so did it spring from natural wish and perception--that the curate was soon more mystified than entertained; and so did the curate's smile increase in gratification and sympathy that the child was presently off the chair, lingering half abashed in the curate's neighbourhood, soon seated familiarly upon his knee, toying with the dull gold crucifix.

"What's this?" he asked.

"It is the symbol," the curate answered, "of the sacrifice of our dear Lord and Saviour."

There was no meaning in the words; but the boy held the cross very tenderly, and looked long upon the face of the Man there in torture--and was grieved and awed by the agony....

In the midst of this, the boy's mother entered. She stopped dead beyond the threshold--warned by the unexpected presence to be upon her guard. Her look of amazement changed to a scowl of suspicion. The curate put the boy from his knee. He rose--embarrassed. There was a space of ominous silence.

"What you doing here?" the woman demanded.

"Trespassing."

She was puzzled--by the word, the smile, the quiet voice. The whole was a new, nonplussing experience. Her suspicion was aggravated.

"What you been telling the boy? Eh? What you been saying about me? Hear me? Ain't you got no tongue?" She turned to the frightened child. "Richard," she continued, her voice losing all its quality of anger, "what lies has this man been telling you about your poor mother?"

The boy kept a bewildered silence.

"What you been lying about?" the woman exclaimed, advancing upon the curate, her eyes blazing.

"I have been telling," he answered, still gravely smiling, "the truth."

Her anger was halted--but she was not pacified.

"Telling," the curate repeated, with a little pause, "the truth."

"You been talking about me, eh?"

"No; it was of your late husband."

She started.

"I am a curate of the Church of the Lifted Cross," the curate continued, with unruffled composure, "and I have been telling the exact truth concerning----"

"You been lying!" the woman broke in. "Yes, you have!"

"No--not so," he insisted. "The exact truth concerning the funeral of Dick Slade from the Church of the Lilted Cross. Your son has told me of his father's death--of the funeral, And I have told your son that I distinctly remember the occasion. I have told him, moreover," he added, putting a hand on the boy's shoulder, his eyes faintly twinkling, "that his father was--ah--as I recall him--of most distinguished appearance."

She was completely disarmed.

When, after an agreeable interval, the Rev. John Fithian took his leave, the boy's mother followed him from the room, and closed the door upon the boy. "I'm glad," she faltered, "that you didn't give me away. It was--kind. But I'm sorry you lied--like that. You didn't have to, you know. He's only a child. It's easy to fool him. You wouldn't have to lie. But I got to lie. It makes him happy--and there's things he mustn't know. He must be happy. I can't stand it when he ain't. It hurts me so. But," she added, looking straight into his eyes, gratefully, "you didn't have to lie. And--it was kind." Her eyes fell. "It was--awful kind."

"I may come again?"

She stared at the floor. "Come again?" she muttered. "I don't know."

"I should very much like to come."

"What do you want?" she asked, looking up. "It ain't me, is it?"

The curate shook his head.

"Well, what do you want? I thought you was from the Society. I thought you was an agent come to take him away because I wasn't fit to keep him. But it ain't that. And it ain't me. What is it you want, anyhow?"

"To come again."

She turned away. He patiently waited. All at once she looked into his eyes, long, deep, intensely--a scrutiny of his very soul.

"You got a good name to keep, ain't you?" she asked.

"Yes," he answered. "And you?"

"It don't matter about me."

"And I may come?"

"Yes," she whispered. _

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