 | CHAPTER VII.
A CONSPIRACY. Opening a chestnut burr |  |
7. CHAPTER VII.
A CONSPIRACY.
WHEN Miss Walton returned to the parlor her
father said: “Annie, I am going to trespass
on your patience again.”
“Beware,” she answered, with a little piquant
gesture, and was soon reading in natural, easy tones,
without much stumbling, what must have been Greek
to her.
Gregory watched her with increasing interest,
and another question than the one of finance involved
in the article was rising in his mind.
“Is this real? Is this seeming goodness a fact?”
It was the very essence of his perverted nature to
doubt it. Now that his eyes were opened, and he
closely observed Miss Walton, he saw that his prejudices
against her were groundless. Though not a
stylish, pretty woman, she was anything but a goodish,
commonplace character that he would regard as
part of the furniture of the house, useful in its place,
but of no more interest than a needful piece of cabinet
work. Nor did she assert herself as one of those
aggressive, lecturing females whose mission it is to
set everybody right within their sphere.
And yet she did assert herself; but he was compelled
might, or the perfume of a rose. He had resolved
that very day to shun, avoid, and ignore her as far
as possible, and yet, before the first evening in her
presence was half over, he had left a magazine story
unfinished—he was watching her, thinking and surmising
about her, and listening, as she read, to what
he did not care a straw about. Though she had not
made the slightest effort, some influence from her
had stolen upon him like a cool breeze on a sultry
day, and wooed him as gently as the perfume of a
flower that is sweet to all. He sneeringly said to
himself, “She is not pretty,” and yet found pleasure
in watching her red lips drop figures and financial
terms as musically as a little rill might murmur
over a mossy rock.
From behind his magazine he studied the group
at the opposite table, but it was with the pain that
a despairing swimmer, swept seaward by a resistless
current, might see the safe and happy on the
shore.
Gray Mr. Walton leaned back in his chair, the
embodiment of peace and placid content. The
subject to which he was listening and kindred topics
had so far receded that his interest was that of a
calm, philosophic observer, and Walter thought, with
a glimmer of a smile:
“He is not dabbling in stocks or he could not
maintain that quiet mien.”
His habits of thought as a business man merely
made it a pleasure to keep up with the times. In
two worlds where the questions of earth are growing
vague and distant and those of the “better
country” more real and engrossing, for Walter
observed, later in the evening, that he took the
family Bible with more zest than he had bestowed
on the motive power of the world. It was evident
where his most valued treasures were stored. With
a bitter sigh, Walter thought:
“I would take his gray hairs if I could have his
peace and faith.”
Miss Eulie to whom he gave a passing glance,
seemed even less of earth, or earthly, in her nature.
Indeed, it appeared as if she might never have more
than half belonged to the material creation. Slight,
ethereal, with untroubled blue eyes, and little puff
curls too light to show their change to gray, she
struck Gregory unpleasantly, as if she were a connecting
link between gross humanity and spiritual
existence, and his eyes reverted to and dwelt with
increasing interest on Miss Walton. There at least
was youth, health, and something else—what was it
in the girl that had so strongly and suddenly gained
his attention? At any rate there was nothing about
her uncanny and spirit-like—nothing that made a
bad man think of dying.
And yet he could not understand her. Could it
be possible that a young girl, not much beyond
twenty, could be happy in the care of orphan children,
in the quiet humdrum duties of housekeeping,
and in reading stupid articles through the long,
rural tea-drinkings, and country walks and rides?
With a grim smile he thought how soon the belles
he had admired would expire under such a regimen.
Could this be good acting because a guest was present?
If so it was perfect, for it seemed part of every
day life.
“I will watch her,” he thought. “I will solve
this little feminine enigma. It will divert my mind,
and I've nothing else to do.”
“My daughter spoils me, you see, Mr. Gregory,”
said Mr. Walton starting up as Annie finished the
theory that would make everybody rich by the
printing-press process.
“Don't plume yourself, papa,” replied Annie,
archly, “I will make you do something for me to
pay for all this.”
With a humorous look he replied: “No matter,
I have the best of the bargain, for I would have to
do the `something' any way. But what do you
think of this theory, sir?” And he explained, not
knowing that Walter had been listening.
The gentleman were soon deep in the mysteries
of currency and finance, topics on which both could
talk well. Annie listened with polite attention for
a short time—indeed Gregory was exerting himself
more for her sake than Mr. Walton's—and she was
satisfied from her father's face that his guest was interesting
him, but as the subject was mainly unintelligible
to her she soon turned with real zest to
Miss Eulie's fancy-work, and there was an earnest
of stitches. Walter noted this and sneeringly
thought to himself, with a masculine phase of justice
often seen:
“That's like a woman. She drops one of the
deepest and most important subjects of the day—
(and he might have added as explained by me)—
and gives her whole soul to a bit of thread lace;”
and he soon let Mr. Walton have the discussion all
his own way.
In furtherance of his purpose to draw Annie out
he said, rather banteringly:
“Miss Walton, I am astonished that so good a
man as your father should have as an ardent friend
the profane and disreputable character that I found
living in the cottage opposite, on the day of my
arrival.”
“Profane, I admit he is,” she replied, “but not
disreputable. Indeed, as the world goes, I think old
Daddy Tuggar, as he is called in this vicinity, is a
good man.”
“Oh, Annie?” said Miss Eulie. “How can you
think so! You have broader charity than I. He is
breaking his poor wife's heart.”
“Indeed,” said Annie dryly, “I was not aware
of it.”
“I too am astonished,” said Walter, in mock
solemnity, “How is it that a refined and orthodox
young lady, a pillar of the church, too, I gather, can
regard with other than unmixed disapprobation a
rule of Lindley Murray at every breath?”
“I imagine the latter offence is the more heinous
in your eyes, Mr. Gregory,” she said, scanning his
face with a quick look.
“Oh, you become aggressive. I was under the
impression that I was making the attack and you on
the defensive. But I can readily explain the opinion
which you, perhaps not unjustly, impute to me. You
and I judge this venerable sinner from different
standpoints.”
“You explain your judgment but do not justify
it,” replied Annie quietly.
“Annie I don't see on what grounds you call
Daddy Tugger a good man,” said Miss Eulie emphatically.
“Please understand me Aunty,” said Annie
earnestly. “I did not say he was a Christian man,
but merely a good man as the world goes; and I
know I shall shock you when I say that I have more
faith in him than in his praying and Scripture-quoting
wife. There, I knew I would,” she added as she
saw Miss Eulie's look of pained surprise,
Mr. Walton was listening with an amused smile.
He evidently understood his quaint old friend and
shared Annie's opinion of him.
Gregory was growing decidedly interested, and
said: “Really Miss Walton, I must side with your
aunt in this matter. I shall overwhelm you with
an awful word. I think you are latitudinarian in
your tendencies.”
“Which Daddy Trugger would call a new-fangled
way of swearing at me,” retorted Annie, with her
frank laugh that was so genuinely mirthful and contagious
that even Aunt Eulie joined in it.
“I half think,” continued Annie, “that the
churchmen in the ages of controversy did a good
deal of worse swearing than our old neighbor is
guilty of when they hurled at each other with such
bitter zest the epithets Antinomian, Socinian, Pelagian,
Calvanistic.” etc.
“Those terms have an awful sound. They smite
my ear with all the power that vagueness imparts,
and surely must have caused stout hearts to tremble
in their day,” said Walter.
“I have got you off the ground of currency and
finance now,” said Annie, archly, “and I shall leave
you to imagine that I know all about the ideas
represented by the polysyllabic terms of churchmen's
warfare.”
He looked at her a moment in comic dismay.
Really this country girl was growing too much for
him in his game of banter.
“Miss Walton I shall not dispute or question
your knowledge of the Socin—cin—(you know the
rest) heresy.”
“Alas!” put in Annie quietly, “I do know all
about the sin heresy. I can say that honestly.”
“I am somewhat inclined to doubt that,” he said
quickly; then added in sudden and mock severity,
“Miss Walton, if I were a judge upon the bench I
should charge that you were evading the question
can you regard Daddy Tugger as a good man? As
evidence against him I can state that I do not
remember to have had such a good, square cursing
in my life, and I have received several.”
This last expression caused Miss Eulie to open
her eyes at him.
“Not for your sake, sir,” said Annie with a
keen yet humorous glance at him, “who as judge
on the bench have your verdict written out in your
pocket, I fear, but for Aunt Eulie's I will give the
reasons for my estimate. I regard her in the
light of an honest jury. In the first place the term
you used, `square,' applies to him. I do not
think he could be tempted to do a dishonest
thing; and that as the world goes, is certainly a
good point.”
“And as the church goes, too,” put in Walter,
cynically.
“He is a good neighbor, and considerate of the
rights of others. He can feel, and is not afraid to
show a sincere indignation when seeing a wrong
done to another.”
“I can vouch for that,” said Walter. “I shall
steal no more of your apples, Mr. Walton.”
“There is not a particle of hypocrisy about him.
I wish I could think the same of his wife. For some
reason she always gives me the impression of insincerity.
If I were as good as you are, Aunty, perhaps
I would not be so suspicious. One thing more,
and my eulogy of Daddy—the only one he will ever
friendship, and that is more than you can say of a
good many.”
“It is indeed,” said Walter with bitter emphasis.
“I should be willing to take my chances with Daddy
Tuggar.”
“You had better not,” said Annie, now thoroughly
in earnest.
“Why so?”
“I should think memories of this place would
make my meaning clear,” she replied gently.
“Gregory's face darkened and he admitted to
himself that most unexpectedly she had sent an arrow
home, and yet he could take no exception.
His indifference toward her had vanished now.
So far from regarding her as a dull, good, country
girl with a narrow horizon of little feminine and
common place interests, he began to doubt whether
he should be able to cope with her in the tilt of
thought. He saw that she was quick, original, and
did her own thinking—that in repartee she hit back
unexpectedly—in flashes like, as the lightning leaps
out of the clouds. He could not keep pace with her
quick intuition.
Moreover, in her delicate reference to his parent's
faith she had suggested an argument for Christianity
that he had never been able to answer. For a
little time she had caused him to forget his wretched
self, but her last remark had thrown him back on his
old doubts, fears, and memories that were fast becoming,
in the main, painful. As we have said, his
lowered at the fire.
Annie had too much tact to add a word. “He
must be hurt—well probed indeed—before he can
be well,” she thought.
Country bed-time had now come, and Mr. Walton
said, “Mr. Gregory, I trust you will not find our
custom of family prayers distasteful.”
“The absence of such a custom would seem
strange to me in this place,” replied Walter, but he
did not say whether it would be agreeable or distasteful.
Annie went to the piano as if it were habit, and
after a moment selected the tender hymn—
“Come ye disconsolate.”
At first, Walter, in his morbid sensitiveness, was
inclined to resent this selection as aimed at him, but
soon he was under the spell of the music and the
sentiment, which he thought were never before so
exquisitely blended together.
Miss Walton was not very finished or artistic in
anything. She would not be regarded as a scholar
even among girls of her own age and station, and
her knowledge of classical music was quite limited.
But she was gifted in a peculiar degree with tact, a
quick perception and power of interpreting the language
of nature and the heart. She read and estimated
character rapidly. Almost intuitively she
saw people's needs and weaknesses, but so far from
making them the ground of satire and contempt
words she was one of those Christians who in some
degree catch the very essence of Christ's character,
who lived and died to save. She did not think of
condemning the guilty and disconsolate man that
brooded at her fire-side, but she did long to help
him.
“I may never be able to say such words to him
direct,” she thought, “but I can sing them, and if
he leaves our home to-morrow he shall hear the
blessed truth once more.”
And she did sing with a tenderness and feeling
that Walter had never known before. In rendering
something that required simplicity, nature, and
pathos no prima donna could surpass her, for though
her voice was not powerful and had no unusual compass,
it was as sweet as that of a thrush in May.
Only deaf ears and a stony heart could have
remained insensible, and Gregory was touched. A
reviving breath from Paradise seemed to blow upon
him and gently urge, “Arise, struggle, make one
more effort and you may yet cross the burning sands
of the desert. It is not a mirage that is mocking
now.”
As the last words trembled from the singer's lips
he shaded his eyes with his hand as he leaned his
head upon it, but Miss Eulie saw a tear drop with
momentary glitter into his lap, and she exulted over
him as his good angel might.
If penitent tears could be crystallized they would
be the only gems of earth that angels would covet,
that they caused to flow on earth set as gems in their
“crown of glory that fadeth not away.”
Mr. Walton, in reverential tones, read the fifty-third
chapter of Isaiah, which, with greater beauty
and tenderness, carried forward the thought of the
hymn; and then he knelt and offered a prayer so
simple and childlike, so free from form and cant, that
seemed to come so direct from the heart, that Walter
was deeply moved. The associations of his early
home were now most vividly revived and crowned
by the sacred hour of family worship, the memory
of which, like a reproachful face, had followed him in
all his evil life.
When he arose from his knees he again shaded
his face with his hand to hide his wet eyes and
twitching muscles. After a few moments he bade
them an abrupt “good-night,” and retired to his
room.
At first they merely exchanged significant
glances. Then Miss Eulie told of the tear as if it
were a bit of dust from a mine that might enrich
them all. For a while Annie sat thoughtfully gazing
into the fire, but at last she said:
“It must be plain to us that Mr. Gregory is not
a good man—that he has wandered farther from his
old home in spirit than he has been absent in body;
but it seems equally evident that he is not happy
and content with being a bad man. He seems suffering
and out of health in soul and body. Perhaps
God has sent him to us and his childhood's home
tender and considerate. He is naturally proud and
sensitive, and is morbidly so now.”
“I think he is near the Kingdom,” said Miss
Eulie with a little sigh of satisfaction.
“Perhaps all are nearer than we think,” said
Annie in a musing tone. `God is not far from any
one of us.' But it is the curse of sin to blind. He
has, no doubt, been long in reaching his present
unhappy condition, and he may be long in getting
out of it.”
“Well, the Lord reigns,” said Mr. Walton sententiously,
as if that settled the question.
“Dear old father,” said Annie, smiling fondly at
him, “that's your favorite saying. You have a comfortable
habit of putting all perplexing questions into
the Lord's hand and borrowing no further trouble.
Perhaps that is the wisest way after all, only one is a
long time learning it.”
“I've been a long time learning it, my child,”
said her father. “Let us agree to often carry his
case to the throne of mercy, and in His good time
and way our prayers will be answered.”
If Mr. Walton could have seen the future, might
not even his faith have shrank back appalled?
But thus in quaint old scriptural style they conspired
for the life of their unconscious guest. This
was in truth a “holy alliance.” How many dark
conspiracies there have been, resulting in blood,
wrong, and outrage, that some unworthy brow might
of earth! Oh, that there were more conspiracies
like that in Mr. Walton's parlor for the purpose of
rendering the unworthy fit to wear the crown
immortal!
| CHAPTER VII.
A CONSPIRACY. Opening a chestnut burr | |