Читать книгу Red and Black - Grace S. Richmond - Страница 6

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MRS. HODDER, housekeeper at the manse, breathed a heavy sigh as she poured the minister’s breakfast coffee. He looked up, as she had known he would; his ear seemed to be sensitive to sighs.

“It’s queer, how things go for some people,” she said. “I can’t get over feeling that a body should have Christian burial, no matter what the circumstances is.”

“Tell me about it,” said Black promptly. Mrs. Hodder was not a talker—he did not think she was a gossip. She had been selected for him by his good friend Mrs. Lockhart, who had had in mind the necessity of finding the minister a housekeeper built on these desirable lines. Mrs. Hodder came as near such lines as seemed humanly possible, though she had her faults. So had the minister, as he was accustomed to remind himself, whenever he discovered a new one in his housekeeper.

So Mrs. Hodder told him, and as he listened a peculiar frown appeared between his eyebrows. The thing she told him was of the sort to touch him to the quick. The moment he had finished his breakfast—which he did in a hurry—he went into the study, closed the door, and called up a certain undertaker, whom—as is the case with the men of Black’s profession—he had come to know almost before he knew the leading men of his church.

“Oh, that’s nothing that need interest you, Mr. Black,” replied the man of gloomy affairs, in the cheerful tone he employed out of working hours. “It’s out in a community where there isn’t any church—folks are dead against the church, at that. Nobody expects any service—there won’t be but a handful there, anyhow. There’s only the girl’s grandmother for relatives—and the thing’s best kept quiet. See?”

“I see. What time are you to leave the house?”

“Ten o’clock. But you——”

“There wouldn’t be any actual objection to my coming, would there, Mr. Munson?”

“Why—I suppose not. They simply don’t expect it—not used to it. And in this case—if you understand——”

“I do understand—and I very much want to come. The trolley runs within two miles, I believe.”

“Why—yes. But I can send for you, if you insist—only—you know they’re poor as poverty——”

“I want the walk, and I’ll catch the trolley—thank you. If I should be a bit late——”

“Oh, I’ll hold the thing for you—and—well, it’s certainly very good of you, Mr. Black. I admit I like to see such things done right myself.”

The conversation ended here, and Black ran for his trolley, with only time to snatch a small, well-worn black leather handbook from his desk. He had no time for a change of clothes—which he wouldn’t have made in any case, though he was not accustomed to dress in clerical style upon the street, except in so far as a dark plainness of attire might suggest his profession rather than emphasize it.

He had two minutes to spare on a street corner, waiting for his car. On that corner was a florist’s shop. Catching sight of a window full of splendid roses he rushed in, gave an order which made the girl in charge work fast, and managed to speed up the whole transaction so successfully that when he swung on to the moving step he had a slim box under his arm. Only a dozen pink rosebuds—Black had never bought florist’s roses in armfuls—but somehow he had felt he must take them. How account for this impulse—since the Scotch are not notably impulsive? But—right here it will have to be confessed that Black had in his veins decidedly more than a trace of Irish blood. And now it’s out—and his future history may be better understood for the admission.

Some time after Black had caught his trolley, R. P. Burns, M.D., brought his car to a hurried standstill in front of Jane Ray’s shop in the side street, and all but ran inside. The shop was empty at the moment, and Jane came forward at his call. He put a quick question:

“Have you heard anything of Sadie Dunstan lately?”

“Nothing—for a long time. I can’t even find out where she has gone.”

“I can tell you—but it will startle you. There’s no time to break it gently, or I would. She got into trouble, and—came home to—die.”

Jane was looking him straight in the face as he spoke, and he saw the news shock her, as he had known it would. Sadie Dunstan was a little, fair-haired girl who had been Jane’s helper in the shop for a year, and in whom Jane had taken great interest. Then she had gone away—West somewhere—had written once or twice—had failed to write—Jane had unwillingly lost track of her. And now—here was Burns and his news.

“Where is she? Is she—still living?” Jane’s usually steady voice was unsteady.

“No. She’s to be buried—within the hour. I just found it out—and came for you. I thought you might like to go.”

“I’ll be ready in three minutes. I’ll lock the shop——”

Thus it was that two more people were shortly on their way to the place where little Sadie Dunstan, unhonoured and unmourned—except for one—lay waiting for the last offices earth could give her. But she was to have greater dignity shown her than she could have hoped.

“I did try to make a real woman of her,” said Jane, in a smothered voice, when Red had told her what he knew of the pitiful story. Passing the small house that morning he had seen the sign upon the door, and remembering Jane Ray’s lost protégée, had stopped to inquire. A neighbour had given him the tragic little history; the old grandmother, deaf and half blind in her chimney corner, had added a harsh comment or two; and only a young girl who said she was Sadie’s sister and had but an hour before suddenly appeared from the unknown, had shown that she cared what had happened to Sadie.

“You did a lot for her,” asserted Burns. “I think the girl meant to be straight. This was one of those under-promise-of-marriage affairs which get the weak ones now and then. Poor little girl—she wouldn’t have wanted you to know—or me. She didn’t give me a chance—though there probably wasn’t one, anyway, by the time she got back here. I’ve had her under my care many a time in her girlhood, you know—she was a frail little thing, but mighty appealing. This younger sister is a good deal like her, as she looked when you took her first.”

“I knew she had a sister, but thought she was far away somewhere.”

“In an orphanage till this last year. She’s only sixteen—a flower of a girl—and crying her heart out for Sadie. The grandmother’s a brute—the child can’t stay with her.”

“She’ll not have to. I can make it up to Sadie—and I will.”

Burns looked at the face in profile beside him. Jane Ray had a profile which might have been characterized as sturdily sweet; the lines were extremely attractive. Jane’s quiet dress, the simple hat upon her head, were the last word in expensive, well-conceived fashion, but Burns did not know this. He only knew that Miss Ray always looked precisely as she ought to look—very nice, and a little distinguished, so that one noticed her approvingly, and people who did not know her usually wondered who she was. He was thinking as he glanced at her now that if she meant to make it up to Sadie by taking her young sister under her care, that sister would have an even better chance than Sadie had had—and lost.

“I wish we had brought some flowers,” Jane said suddenly, as the car flew past the last houses of the main highway and began to climb the hills into the country backroads. “This is such a benighted little spot we’re going to—they may not have any at all.”

“Doubt it. But there wasn’t time to hunt up flowers if we wanted to get there. Munson’s in all kinds of a hurry to get this thing over. It’s his busy day—as usual, when it happens to be a poor case. We’ll do well if we make it now. Not much use in coming—there’ll be no service. But we can at least see the box go down!”

He spoke grimly. But Jane had caught sight of a rose-bush in a dooryard crowded with white roses, and cried out imperiously:

“Stop one minute, please, Doctor Burns. I’ll buy those roses or steal them. Please!”

The brakes ground, and Jane was out before the car stopped, pulling out a plump little purse as she ran. A countrywoman hurrying to her door to protest angrily at the spectacle of a girl filling her arms with white roses was met with the call: “I’m going to give you a dollar for them—please don’t stop me. It’s for a funeral, and we’re late now!”

“Highway robbery,” commented Burns, as Jane sprang in beside him. “But she’d have sold you her soul for a dollar—and dear at that.”

“Oh, don’t talk about souls, up here,” Jane protested. “If your fine new man at the Stone Church wanted a job worth while he’d leave the smug people in the high-priced pews and come up here to look after barbarians who’ll bury a poor girl without a prayer. Don’t I know, without your telling me, that there’ll be no prayer?—unless you make one?” She looked at him with sudden challenge. “I dare you to!” she said, under her breath.

Burns’ hazel glance, with a kindling fire in it, met hers. “I take the dare,” he answered, without hesitation. “I know the Lord’s Prayer—and the Twenty Third Psalm. I’m not afraid to say them—for Sadie Dunstan.”

The cynicism in Jane’s beautifully cut lips melted unexpectedly into a quiver, and she was silent after that, till the car dashed up the last steep hill. They came out at the top almost in the dooryard of a small, weather-beaten cottage in front of which stood an undertaker’s wagon, two men, and half a dozen women. These people were just about to go into the house, but stood back to let Doctor Burns—whom all of them knew—and Miss Ray—whom one of them knew—go in ahead.

As she went up the steps Jane braced herself for what she must see. Little fair-haired Sadie—come to this so early—so tragically—and nobody to care—nobody to say a prayer—except a red-headed doctor, whose business it was not. At least—she had an armful of white roses. She wanted to take one look at Sadie—and then lay the roses so that they would cover her from the sight of the hard eyes all about her. She would do that—just that. Why not? What better could she do? She drew her breath deep, and set her lips, and walked into the poor little room....

The thing she saw first was a glowing handful of wonderful pink rosebuds upon the top of the cheap black box—one could not dignify it by any other word than Burns had used—which held the chief position in the room. And then, at the foot of the box, she saw a tall figure with an open book in his hand come to do Sadie Dunstan honour. Jane Ray caught back the sob of relief which had all but leaped to her lips. She had not known, until that moment, how much she had wanted that prayer—she, who did not pray—or thought she did not.

Mr. Munson, in a hurry, watch in hand, allowed the few neighbours who had come barely time to crowd into the small room before he signalled the minister to go ahead and get it over. He was not an unfeeling man, but he had two more services on for the day—costly affairs—and both his assistants were ill, worse luck!, and he had had to look after this country backwoods burial himself. He had noted with some surprise the appearance of Doctor Burns and Miss Ray, though there was no use in ever being surprised at anything the erratic doctor might do. As for Miss Ray—he admired her very much, both for her charming personality and her business ability, which compelled everybody’s respect. He wondered what on earth brought her here—what brought all three of them here, slowing things up when the body might have been committed to the dust with the throwing of a few clods by his own competent fingers—and everybody in this heathen community better satisfied than the Stone Church man was likely to make them with his ritual. Thus thought Mr. Munson in his own heart, and all but showed it in his face.

But Black, though he held his book in his hand, gave them no ritual—not here in the house. He had meant to read the usual service, abbreviating and modifying it as he must. But somehow, as he had noted one face after the other—the impassive faces of the few men and women, the surlily stoic one of the old grandmother, the tear-wet one of the wretched young sister in her shabby short frock—and then had glanced just once at the set jaw of R. P. Burns and the desperate pity in the dark eyes of Jane Ray, he had felt impelled to change his plan.

Red, listening, now heard Black pray, as a man prays whose heart is very full, but whose mind and lips can do his bidding under stress. It was a very simple prayer—it could not be otherwise because Black was praying with just one desire in his heart, to reach and be understood by the one real mourner there before him. It is quite possible that he remembered less the One to whom he spoke than this little one by whom he wanted to be heard. It was for the little sobbing sister that he formulated each direct, heart-touching phrase, that she might know that after all there was Someone—a very great and pitiful Someone—who knew and cared because she had lost all she had in a hard and unpitiful world. And speaking thus, for her alone, Black quite forgot that Red was listening—and Red, somehow, knew that he forgot.

Jane Ray listened, too—it was not possible to do anything else. Jane had never heard any one pray like that; she had not known it was ever done. It was at that moment that she first knew that the man who was speaking was a real man; such words could have been so spoken by no man who was not real, no matter how clever an actor he might be. Something in Jane’s heart which had been hard toward any man of Black’s profession—because she had known one or two whom she could not respect, and had trusted none of them on that account—softened a little while Black prayed. At least—this man was real. And she was glad—oh, glad—that he was saying words like these over the fair, still head of Sadie Dunstan, and that the little sister, who looked so like her that the sight of her shook Jane’s heart, could hear.

Jane still held her roses when, after a while, the whole small group stood in the barren, ill-kept burial place which was all this poor community had in which to bestow its dead. It was only across the road and over the hill by a few rods, and when Mr. Munson had been about to send Sadie in his wagon, Black had whispered a word in his ear, and then had taken his place at one side of the black box with its glowing roses on the top. Red, discerning his intention, had taken two strides to the other side, displacing a shambling figure of a man who was slowly approaching for this duty. Mr. Munson, now seeing a revealing light, waved the unwilling bearer aside, and himself took the other end of the box. Together the three, looking like very fine gentlemen all—in contrast to those who followed—bore Sadie in decorum to her last resting place.

Now came the ritual indeed—every word of it—brief and beautiful, with its great phrases. When Mr. Munson, clods in hand, cast them at the moment—“ashes to ashes, dust to dust,”—Jane flung her white roses so swiftly down after them that the little sister never saw the dark earth fall. Then she turned and took the trembling young figure in her own warm arms—and looking up, over Sue’s head, Jane’s eyes, dark with tears, met full the understanding, joyfully approving eyes of Robert Black....

Striding down the hill, presently, having refused the offer of Mr. Munson to take him back in his own small car, Black was passed by Red and Jane, with a shabby little figure between them. At the foot of the hill the car stopped, and waited for Black to catch up. He came to its side, hat in hand, his eyes friendlily on Sue Dunstan, who looked up at him shyly through red lids.

“Will you ride on the running board—at least till we get to the trolley?” offered Red. “I thought you had gone with Munson. What’s the matter? Was he in too much of a hurry to look after the minister?”

“No, he asked me. But I want to walk, thank you. I’m pretty fond of the country, and don’t often get so far out.”

“It was very good of you to come,” said Jane Ray, gravely. “It—made all the difference. Mr. Munson told us he didn’t ask you—you offered. But it’s impossible not to wonder how you knew.”

“My housekeeper came from somewhere near this region—she told me. It was very easy to come—easier than to stay away, after knowing. What a day this is—and what a view! Don’t let me keep you—good-bye.” And he turned away even before Red, always in a hurry though he was, would have suggestively speeded his throbbing motor—a device by which he was accustomed to make a get-away from a passer-by who had held him up. As he went on Red put out an arm and waved a parting salute to the man behind him, at which Black, seeing the friendly signal, smiled at the landscape in general, addressing it thus:

“You wouldn’t do that, Red-Head, if you weren’t beginning to like me just a bit—now would you?”

The car was barely out of sight when he heard a shriek behind him, and turning, found himself pursued by one of the women who had been in the cottage. She was waving a parcel at him—a small parcel done up in a ragged piece of newspaper, as he saw when he had returned to meet her. She explained that it contained some few belongings of Sue Dunstan which the girl had forgotten.

“They ain’t much, but she might want ’em. She won’t be comin’ back, I guess—not if that Miss Ray keeps her that kept Sade before. She better keep a lookout on Sue—she’s the same blood, an’ it ain’t no good.”

“Thank you—I’ll take this to her,” Black agreed. His hat was off, as if she had been a lady, this unkempt woman who regarded him curiously. He was saying to himself that here was a place to which he must come again, it was so near—and yet so very, very far.

She would have stayed him to gossip about both Sadie and Sue, but he would have none of that, turned the talk his own way, and presently got away as adroitly as ever Red had done, leaving her looking after him with an expression of mingled wonder and admiration. Somehow he had given her the impression of his friendliness, and his democracy—and yet of the difference between herself and him. There was, once, a Man, beside a wayside well, who had given that same impression.

Until late evening he was busy; calls—a manse wedding—a committee meeting—an hour’s study—so the rest of the June day went. But just as dusk was falling he tucked the newspaper parcel under his arm and went down Jane Ray’s side street. He did not know at all if she could be found at this hour, but he had an idea that Jane lived above her shop, and that if she were at home a bell which he had seen beside the door would bring her.

The shop was softly lighted with many candles, though no one seemed to be inside. When he tried the door, however, it was locked, and he rang the bell. A minute later he saw Jane coming through the shop from the back, and the suggestion of the hostess moving through attractive apartments was more vivid than ever. The door opened. Black held out his parcel.

“I’m sorry to bother you at this hour, Miss Ray, but I believe it’s something the little girl left behind, and I thought she might want it to-night. I couldn’t get here earlier.”

“Oh, thank you! Won’t you come in a minute and see Sue? I’d like you to see how different—and how dear—she looks. She’s just back in the garden.” Jane’s expression was eager—not at all businesslike. She might have been a young mother offering to show her child.

“Garden?” questioned Black, following Jane through the candle-lighted shop.

“Actually a garden. You wouldn’t think it, would you? But there is one—a very tiny one—and it’s the joy of my life.”

At the back of the shop she opened a door into one of the most inviting little rooms Black ever had seen—or dreamed of. Not crowded with antiques or curios—just a simple home room, furnished and hung with the most exquisite taste—a very jewel of a room, and lighted with a low lamp which threw into relief the dark polished surface of a table upon which stood a long row of finely bound books. But he was led quickly through this—though he wanted to linger and look about him—through an outer door of glass which opened directly upon the garden. Well!

“It’s not very much,” said Jane, “as gardens go—but I’m terribly proud of it, just the same.”

“It’s wonderful!” Black exclaimed. “What a spot—among all these old brick buildings! Why—it looks like an English garden; every bit of space used—and all those trim walks—and the seat under the trees. Great!” And his eye dwelt delightedly on the box borders filled with flowers, on the tall rows of blue delphiniums and hollyhocks against the walls, on the one great elm tree at the back of it all beneath which stood a rustic seat.

“But here’s something better yet,” said Jane’s voice quietly, beside him, and she brought him out upon the narrow, vine-hung porch which ran all across the back of the house. Here, on a footstool beside a big chair, sat Sue Dunstan, a little figure all in white, with hair in shining fair order as if it had just been washed and brushed, and shy eyes no longer red with tears. And Sue looked—yes, she looked as if she had forgotten everything in the world—except to love Jane Ray!

And then—she recognized the man who had stood at her sister’s feet that morning and said strange words which had somehow comforted her. A flood of colour rushed into her cheeks—she crouched upon the footstool, not daring to look up again. Black sat down in the chair beside her—he knew Jane had been sitting there before him. He said Miss Ray had let him come out for just a minute to see the garden, and wasn’t it a beautiful garden? He had known a garden something like that once, he said, and never another since, and he wondered if he could make one like it behind his house. Sue wasn’t sure—she shook her head—she seemed to think no one but Miss Ray could make such a garden.

Black didn’t stay long—he knew he wasn’t expected to. But he had made friends with Sue before he went—poor child, who had no friends. And he almost thought he had made friends with Jane Ray, too. Somehow he found himself wanting to do that—he didn’t quite know why. Perhaps it was because she was very evidently a friend of Red. Yes—he thought that must be the reason why she interested him so much.

As they came back through the shop Jane paused to snuff a flaming candle with an old pair of brass snuffers—her face was full of colour in the rosy light—and remarked, “I’m going to have an exhibition of war posters some evening before long, Mr. Black—for the benefit of French and Belgian orphans. Would you care to speak of it among your friends? I think you saw some of the first posters I received. I have more and very wonderful ones now—many of them quite rare already. I want to attract the people with plenty of money—and some interest in things over there.”

“I’ll be delighted to mention it in church next Sunday,” Black offered promptly.

“Oh—really?”

“Why not?”

“I don’t know why not. I supposed you would. Your church people—they don’t like——”

“Don’t they?—I’ll be all the more delighted to mention the war posters, then. Thank you for giving me the chance. And for showing me the garden—and Sue. She’s a lucky girl—and so are you, aren’t you?—to have such a chance. You’ll make the most of it. Miss Ray, I think Sue never heard of—Somebody she ought to know. She needs Him—even more than she needs you. Teach her the story of Him—will you? You don’t mind my saying it? You couldn’t mind—you care for her! Good-night!”

Jane Ray looked after the tall figure, striding swiftly away up the side street through the June twilight.

“You certainly aren’t afraid,” she thought, “to say exactly what you think. I like you for that, anyhow.”