Opening a Chestnut Burr Part 12

"It seems very different. We have an artificial-flower department in our store. There is no lack of color and form there, I a.s.sure you, but after all I would prefer your rose garden in June."

"But you would probably prefer your artificial-flower department the rest of the year," said Annie, laughing.

"Why so?"

"Our roses are annuals and are only prosaic briers after their bloom."

"Imagine them hybrid perpetuals and monthlies and you have my meaning.

But your resemblance to a rose extends even to its thorns. Your words are a little sharp sometimes."

"In the thorns the resemblance begins and ends, Mr. Gregory. I a.s.sure you I am a veritable Scotch brier. But here we are at our destination.

I wonder if you will see many old, remembered faces."

"I shall be content in seeing yours," he replied in a low tone, pressing her hand as he a.s.sisted her to alight.

If he could have seen the expression of her face in the darkness it would have satisfied him that she did not receive that style of compliment like many of the belles of his acquaintance, who would take the small change of flattery with the smiling complacency of a public door-keeper.

They were late. The good old pastor was absent, and one of the brethren was reading a chapter in the Bible. Gregory took a seat where he could see Annie plainly, and she sat with her side face toward him.

He watched her keenly, in order to see if she showed any consciousness of his presence. The only evidence in his favor was a slight flush and a firmness about the lips, as if her will was a.s.serting itself. But soon her face had the peaceful and serious expression becoming the place and hour, and he saw that she had no thoughts for him whatever.

He was determined to distract her attention, and by restlessness, by looking fixedly at her, sought her eye, but only secured the notice of some young girls who thought him "badly smitten with Miss Walton."

The long chapter having been read, a hymn was given out. The gentleman who usually led the music was also absent, and there was an ominous pause, in which the good brother's eye wandered appealingly around the room and at last rested hopefully on Annie. She did not fail him, but, with heightened color and voice that trembled slightly at first, "started the tune." It was a sweet, familiar air, and she soon had the support of other voices. One after another they joined her in widely varying degrees of melody, even as the example of a n.o.ble life will gradually secure a number of more or less successful imitators.

Gregory had seen the appeal to her with an amused, half-comical look, but her sincere and ready performance of the duty that had unexpectedly revealed itself rapidly changed the expression of his face to one of respect and admiration. Distinct, and yet blending with the others, her voice seemed both to key up and hide the little roughnesses and discords of some who perhaps had more melody in their hearts than in their tones.

Again a divine impulse, like a flower-laden breeze sweeping into a dark and grated vault at Greenwood, stirred Gregory's evil nature.

"Let her teach you the harmony of n.o.ble, unselfish living. Follow her in thought, feeling, and action, as those stammering, untuned tongues do in melody, and the blight of evil will pa.s.s from your life. Seek not to muddy and poison this clear little rill that is watering a bit of G.o.d's world. Grant that her goodness is not real, established, and thoroughly tested--that it is only a pretty surface picture. Seek not to blur that picture."

But the evil heart is like Sodom. Good angel-thoughts may come to it, but they are treated with violence and driven out. His habit of cynical doubt soon returned, and his purpose to show Miss Walton that she was a weak, vain woman after all became stronger than ever.

It seemed to have come to this, that his salvation depended on, not what Miss Walton could say or do directly in his behalf, but upon her maintenance of a character that even a sceptical world must acknowledge as inspired by heaven, and this, too, against a tempter of unusual skill and tact. She might sing with resistless pathos, and argue and plead with Paul's logic and eloquence. His nature might be stirred for a moment as a stagnant pool is agitated by the winds of heaven, and, like the pool, he would soon settle back into his old apathy. But if she could be made to show weakness, to stumble and fall, it would confirm him in his belief that goodness, if it really existed, was accidental; that those whose lives were apparently free from stain deserved no credit, because untempted; and that those who fell should be pitied rather than blamed, since they were unfortunate rather than guilty. Anything that would quiet and satisfy his conscience in its stern arraignment of his evil life would be welcome. The more he saw of Miss Walton the more he felt that she would be a fair subject upon whom to test his favorite theory. Therefore, by the time one of the brethren present had finished his homely exhortation he was wholly bent upon carrying out his plan.

But Miss Walton sat near, as innocently oblivious of this plot against her as Eve of the serpent's guile before the tempter and temptation came into fatal conjunction.

What thoughts for and against each other may dwell utterly hidden and unknown in the hearts of those so near that their hands may touch!

Conspiracies to compa.s.s the death that is remediless may lurk just behind eyes that smile upon us. Of course Gregory desired no such fatal result to follow his little experiment. Few who for their own pleasure, profit, or caprice tempt others wish the evil to work on to the bitter end. They merely want a sufficient letting down of principle and virtue for the accomplishment of their purpose, and then would prefer that the downward tendency should cease or be reversed. The merchant who requires dishonorable practices of his clerk wishes him to stop at a point which, in the world's estimation, is safe. And those who, like Gregory, would take the bloom from woman's purity and holiness in thought and action, that they may enjoy a questionable flirtation, would be horrified to see that woman drop into the foul gulf of vice.

With the blind egotism of selfishness, they wish merely to gratify their present inclinations, ignoring the consequences. They are like children who think it would be sport to see a little cataract falling over a Holland dike. Therefore, when the tide is in they open a small channel, but are soon aghast to find that the deep sea is overwhelming the land.

Gregory, as is usual with his kind, thought only of his own desires.

When he had accomplished these Miss Walton must take care of herself.

When from seeming a sweet, pure woman she had, by a little temptation, proved to be capable of becoming a vain flirt, he would go back to business and dismiss her from his thoughts with the grim chuckle, "She is like the rest of us."

And thus Annie was destined to meet her mother Eve's experience; and with the energy and promptness of evil Gregory was keenly on the alert for anything to further his purpose.

It would seem that the satanic ally in such schemes does not permit opportunity to be wanting long. The leader of the meeting again selected a hymn, but of a peculiar metre. He read only two lines, and then looked expectantly toward Annie, who could not at the moment think of a tune that would answer; and while with knit brows she was bending over her book, to her unbounded surprise she heard the hymn started by a clear, mellow tenor voice. Looking up she saw Gregory singing as gravely as a deacon. She was sufficiently a musician to know that the air did not belong to sacred music, though she had never heard it before.

In his watchfulness he had noted her hesitation, and glancing at the metre saw instantly that the measure of a drinking-song he knew well would fit the words. This fell out better than he had hoped, and with the thought, "I will jostle her out of her dignity now," he began singing without any embarra.s.sment, though every eye was upon him. He had been out in the world long enough for that.

As Annie turned with a shocked and half-frightened expression toward him his eyes met hers with a sudden gleam of drollery which was irresistible, and he had the satisfaction of seeing her drop her head to conceal a smile. But he noticed, a moment later, that her face became grave with disapprobation.

Having sung a stanza he looked around with an injured air, as if reproaching the others for not joining in with him.

"The tune is not exactly familiar to us," said the good man leading the meeting, "but if the brother will continue singing we will soon catch the air; or perhaps the brother or some one else (with a glance at Annie) will start one better known."

Gregory deliberately turned over the leaves, and to the tune of Old Hundred started a hymn commencing:

"Unveil thy bosom, faithful tomb, Take this new treasure to thy trust, And give these sacred relics room To slumber in the silent dust."

Annie had a keen sense of the ludicrous, and the transition from what he had been singing to the funereal and most inappropriate words was almost too much for her. To her impotent anger and self-disgust she felt a hysterical desire to laugh, and only controlled herself by keeping her head down and her lips firmly pressed together during the remainder of the brief service.

Even others who did not know Gregory could not prevent a broad smile at the incongruous hymn he had chosen, but they unitedly wailed it through, for he persisted in singing it all in the most dirge-like manner. They gave him credit for doing the best he could, and supposed his unhappy choice resulted from haste and embarra.s.sment. In the spontaneity of social meetings people become accustomed to much that is not harmonious.

Mr. Walton was puzzled. His guest was certainly appearing in an unexpected role, and he feared that all was not right.

After the meeting the brethren gathered round Gregory and thanked him for his a.s.sistance, and he shook hands with them and the elderly ladies present with the manner of one who might have been a "pillar in the temple." Many of them remembered his father and mother and supposed their mantle had fallen on him.

An ancient "mother in Israel" thanked him that he had "started a tune that they all could sing, instead of the new-fangled ones the young people are always getting up nowadays. But," said she, "I wish you could learn us that pretty one you first sang, for it took my fancy amazingly. I think I must have heard it before somewhere."

Gregory gave Annie another of his suggestive glances, that sent her out hastily into the darkness, and a moment later he joined her at the carriage steps.

CHAPTER XII

FOILED IN ONE DIRECTION

Gregory lifted Miss Walton very tenderly into the carriage and took his place by her side, while her father was detained by some little matter of business.

"I am not an invalid," said Annie, rather curtly.

"Indeed you are not, Miss Walton; from your super-abundance you are even giving life to me."

"I thought from your manner you feared I was about to faint," she answered, dryly.

Mr. Walton joined them and they started homeward.

"Come, Miss Annie," said Gregory (addressing her thus for the first time); "why so distant? Was I not called a brother in the meeting? If I am a brother you are a sister. I told you I would secure this relations.h.i.+p."

She did not answer him.

"I think it was too bad," he continued, "that you did not second my efforts better. You would not help me sing either of the tunes I started."

"Mr. Gregory," said Annie, emphatically, "I will never go to a prayer-meeting with you again."