University of Virginia Library

13. CHAPTER XIII.
OUR “EVENING” PROJECTED.

“WELL, Harry,” said Eva, when they were seated
at dinner, “Alice was up at lunch with me this
morning, in such a state! It seems, after all, Aunt Maria
could not contain her zeal for management, and has been
having an admonitory talk with Jim Fellows about his
intimacy with Alice.”

“Now, I declare that goes beyond me,” said Harry,
laying down his knife and fork. “That woman's impertinence
is really stupendous. It amounts to the sublime.”

“Does n't it? Alice was in such a state about it;
but we talked the matter down into calmness. Still,
Harry, I 'm pretty certain that Alice is more seriously interested
in Jim than she knows of. Of course she thinks
it 's all friendship, but she is so sensitive about him, and
if you make even the shadow of a criticism she flames
up and defends him. You ought to see.”

“Grave symptoms,” said Harry.

“But as she says she is not thinking nor wanting to
think of marriage—”

“Any more than a certain other young lady was, with
whom I cultivated a friendship some time ago,” said
Harry, laughing.

“Just so,” said Eva; “I plume myself on my forbearance
in listening gravely to Alice and not putting in any
remarks; but I remembered old times and had my suspicions.
We thought it was friendship, did n't we, Harry?
And I used to be downright angry if anybody
suggested anything else. Now I think Allie's friendship

for Jim is getting to be of the same kind. Oh, she
knows him so well! and she understands him so perfectly!
and she has so much influence over him! and they
have such perfect comprehension of each other! and
as to his faults, oh, she understands all about them!
But, mind you, nobody must criticise him but herself—
that 's quite evident. I did make a blundering remark
or so; but I found it was n't at all the thing, and I had
to beat a rapid retreat, I assure you.”

“Well, poor girl! I hope you managed to console
her.”

“Oh, I was sympathetic and indignant, and after she
had poured out her griefs she felt better; and then I put
in a soothing word for Aunt Maria, poor woman, who is
only monomaniac on managing our affairs.”

“Yes,” said Harry, “forgiveness of enemies used to
be the ultima thule of virtue; but I rather think it will
have to be forgiveness of friends. I call the man a perfect
Christian that can always forgive his friends.”

“The fact is, Aunt Maria ought to have had a great
family of her own—twelve or thirteen, to say the least.
If Providence had vouchsafed her eight or nine ramping,
roaring boys, and a sprinkling of girls, she would
have been a splendid woman and we should have had
better times.”

“She puts me in mind of the story of the persistent
broomstick that would fetch water,” said Harry; “we
are likely to be drowned out by her.”

“Well, we can accept her for a whetstone to sharpen
up our Christian graces on,” said Eva. “So, let her go.
I was talking over our projected evening with Alice, and
we spent some time discussing that.”

“When are you going to begin?” said Henry. “`Well
begun is half done,' you know.”

Said Eva, “I 've been thinking over what day is best,

and talking about it with Mary. Now, we can't have it
Monday, there 's the washing, you know; and Tuesday
and Wednesday come baking and ironing.”

“Well, then, what happens Thursday?”

“Well, then, it's precisely Thursday that Mary and I
agreed on. We both made up our minds that it was the
right day. One would n't want it on Friday, you know,
and Saturday is too late; besides, Mr. St. John never
goes out Saturday evenings.”

“But what's the objection to Friday?”

“Oh, the unlucky day. Mary would n't hear of beginning
anything on Friday, you know. Then, besides,
Mr. St. John, I suspect, fasts every Friday. He never
told me so, of course, but they say he does; at all events,
I'm sure he would n't come of a Friday evening, and I
want to be sure and have him, of all people. Now, you
see, I've planned it all beautifully. I'm going to have a
nice, pretty little tea-table in one corner, with a vase of
flowers on it, and I shall sit and make tea. That breaks
the stiffness, you know. People talk first about the tea
and the china, and whether they take cream and sugar,
and so on, and the gentlemen help the ladies. Then
Mary will make those delicate little biscuits of hers
and her charming sponge-cake. It's going to be perfectly
quiet, you see—from half-past seven till eleven—
early hours and simple fare, `feast of reason and flow
of soul.'”

“Quite pastoral and Arcadian,” said Harry. “When
we get it going it will be the ideal of social life. No
fuss, no noise; all the quiet of home life with all the
variety of company; people seeing each other till they
get really intimate and have a genuine interest in meeting
each other; not a mere outside, wild beast show, as
it is when people go to parties to gaze at other people
and see how they look in war-paint.”

“I feel a little nervous at first,” said Eva; “getting
people together that are so diametrically opposed to each
other as Dr. Campbell and Mr. St. John, for instance.
I'm afraid Dr. Campbell will come out with some of his
terribly free speaking, and then Mr. St. John will be so
shocked and distressed.”

“Then Mr. St. John must get over being shocked
and distressed. Mr. St. John needs Dr. Campbell,” said
Harry. “He is precisely the man he ought to meet, and
Dr. Campbell needs Mr. St. John. The two men are
intended to help each other: each has what the other
wants, and they ought to be intimate.”

“But you see, Dr. Campbell is such a dreadful unbeliever!”

“In a certain way he is no more an unbeliever than
Mr. St. John. Dr. Campbell is utterly ignorant of the
higher facts of moral consciousness—of prayer and communion
with God—and therefore he doesn't believe in
them. St. John is equally ignorant of some of the most
important facts of the body he inhabits. He does not
believe in them—ignores them.”

“Oh, but now, Harry, I didn't think that of you—
that you could put the truths of the body on a level
with the truths of the soul.”

“Bless you, darling, since the Maker has been pleased
to make the soul so dependent on the body, how can I
help it? Why, just see here; come to this very problem
of saving a soul, which is a minister's work. I insist
there are cases where Dr. Campbell can do more towards
it than Mr. St. John. He was quoting to me only yesterday
a passage from Dr. Wigan, where he says, `I
firmly believe I have more than once changed the moral
character of a boy by leeches applied to the inside of
his nose.'”

“Why, Harry, that sounds almost shocking.”

“Yet it's a fact—a physiological fact—that some of
the worst vices come through a disordered body, and
can be cured only by curing the body. So long as we
are in this mortal state, our souls have got to be saved
in our bodies and by the laws of our bodies; and a doctor
who understands them will do more than a minister
who doesn't. Why, just look at poor Bolton. The
trouble that he dreads, the fear that blasts his life, that
makes him afraid to marry, is a disease of the body.
Fasting, prayer, sacraments, couldn't keep off an acute
attack of dipsomania; but a doctor might.”

“Oh, Harry, do you think so? Well, I must say I do
think Mr. St. John is as ignorant as a child about such
matters, if I may judge from the way he goes on about
his own health. He ignores his body entirely, and seems
determined to work as if he were a spirit and could live
on prayer and fasting.”

“Which, as he isn't a spirit, won't do,” said Harry.
“It may end in making a spirit of him before the
time.”

“But do n't you think the disinterestedness he shows
is perfectly heroic?” said Eva.

“Oh, certainly!” said Harry. “The fact is, I should
despair of St. John if he had n't set himself at mission
work. He is naturally so ideal, and so fastidious, and so
fond of rules, and limits, and order, that if he had n't
this practical common-sense problem of working among
the poor on his hands, I should think he would n't be
good for much. But drunken men and sorrowful wives,
ragged children, sickness, pain, poverty, teach a man the
common-sense of religion faster than anything else, and
I can see St. John is learning sense for everybody but
himself. If he only do n't run his own body down, he 'll
make something yet.”

“I think, Harry,” said Eva, “he is a little doubtful

of whether you really go with him or not. I do n't think
he knows how much you like him.”

“Go with him! of course I do. I stand up for St.
John and defend him. So long as a man is giving his
whole life to hard work among the poor and neglected
he may burn forty candles, if he wants to, for all I care.
He may turn to any point of the compass he likes, east,
west, north, or south, and wear all the colors of the rainbow
if it suits him, and I won't complain. In fact, I
like processions, and chantings, and ceremonies, if you
do n't get too many of them. I think, generally speaking,
there 's too little of that sort of thing in our American
life. In the main, St. John preaches good sermons; that
is, good, manly, honest talks to people about what they
need to know. But then his mind is tending to a monomania
of veneration. You see he has a mystical, poetic
element in it that may lead him back into the old idolatries
of past ages, and lead weak minds there after him;
that 's why I want to get him acquainted with such fellows
as Campbell. He needs to learn the common sense of
life. I think he is capable of it, and one of the first
things he has got to learn is not to be shocked at hearing
things said from other people's points of view. If these
two men could only like each other, so as to listen tolerantly
and dispassionately to what each has to say, they
might be everything to each other.”

“Well, how to get a mordant to unite these two opposing
colors,” said Eva.

“That 's what you women are for—at least such women
as you. It 's your mission to interpret differing
natures—to bind, and blend, and unite.”

“But how shall we get them to like each other?” said
Eva. “Both are so very intense and so opposite. I
suppose Dr. Campbell would consider most of Mr. St.
John's ideas stuff and nonsense; and I know, as well as

I know anything, that if Mr. St. John should hear Dr.
Campbell talking as he talks to you, he would shut up
like a flower—he would retire into himself and not come
here any more.”

“Oh, Eva, that 's making the man too ridiculous and
unmanly. Good gracious! Can 't a man who thinks he
has God's truth—and such truth!—listen to opposing
views without going into fits? It 's like a soldier who
cannot face guns and wants to stay inside of a clean,
nice fort, making pretty stacks of bayonets and piling
cannon balls in lovely little triangles.”

“Well, Harry, I know Mr. St. John is n't like that.
I do n't think he 's cowardly or unmanly, but he is very
reverent, and, Harry, you are very free. You do let Dr.
Campbell go on so, over everything. It quite shocks me.”

“Just because my faith is so strong that I can afford
it. I can see when he is mistaken; but he is a genuine,
active, benevolent man, following truth when he sees it,
and getting a good deal of it, and most important truth,
too. We 've got to get truth as we can in this world,
just as miners dig gold out of the mine with all the
quartz, and dirt, and dross; but it pays.”

“Well, now, I shall try my skill, and do my best to
dispose these two refractory chemicals to a union,” said
Eva. “I 'll tell you how let 's do. I 'll interest Dr.
Campbell in Mr. St. John's health. I 'll ask him to
study him and see if he can 't take care of him. I 'm
sure he needs taking care of.”

“And,” said Harry, “why not interest Mr. St. John
in Dr. Campbell's soul? Why should n't he try to convert
him from the error of his ways?”

“That would be capital,” said Eva. “Let each convert
the other. If we could put Dr. Campbell and Mr.
St. John together, what a splendid man we could make
of them!”

“Try your best, my dear; but meanwhile I have
three or four hours' writing to do this evening.”

“Well, then, settle yourself down, and I will run over
and expound my plans to the good old ladies over the
way. I am getting up quite an intimacy over there;
Miss Dorcas is really vastly entertaining. It 's like living
in a past age to hear her talk.”

“You really have established a fashion of rushing in
upon them at all sorts of hours,” said Harry.

“Yes, but they like it. You have no idea what nice
things they say to me. Even old Dinah quivers and
giggles with delight the minute she sees me—poor old
soul! You see they 're shut up all alone in that musty
old house, like enchanted princesses, and gone to sleep
there; and I am the predestined fairy to wake them
up!”

Eva said this as she was winding a cloud of fleecy
worsted around her head, and Harry was settling himself
at his writing-table in a little alcove curtained off
from the parlor.

“Do n't keep the old ladies up too late,” said Harry.

“Never you fear,” said Eva. “Perhaps I shall stay
to see Jack's feet washed and blanket spread. Those are
solemn and impressive ceremonies that I have heard described,
but never witnessed.”

It was a bright, keen, frosty, starlight evening, and
when Eva had rung the door-bell on the opposite side,
she turned and looked at the play of shadow and fire-light
on her own window-curtains.

Suddenly she noticed a dark form of a woman coming
from an alley back of the house, and standing irresolute,
looking at the windows. Then she drew near the
house, and seemed trying to read the name on the doorplate.

There was something that piqued Eva's curiosity

about these movements, and just as the door was opening
behind her into the Vanderheyden house, the strange
woman turned away, and as she turned, the light of the
street-lamp flashed strongly on her face. Its expression
of haggard pain and misery was something that struck
to Eva's heart, though it was but a momentary glimpse,
as she turned to go into the house; for, after all, the woman
was nothing to her, and the glimpse of her face was
purely an accident, such as occurs to one hundreds of
times in the streets of a city.

Still, like the sound of a sob or a cry from one unknown,
the misery of those dark eyes struck painfully to
Eva's heart; as if to her, young, beloved, gay and happy,
some of the ever-present but hidden anguish of life
—the great invisible mass of sorrow—had made an appeal.

But she went in and shut the door, gave one sigh and
dismissed it.