CHAPTER VIII
She was a queen of noble Nature’s crowning,
A smile of hers was like an act of grace;
She had no winsome looks, no pretty frowning,
Like daily beauties of the vulgar race;
But, if she smiled, a light was on her face,
A clear, cool kindliness, a lunar beam
Of peaceful radiance.
—Hartley Coleridge.
To the surprise of both the friends, Anna, who had gone about her rigorous tasks unseen and unnoted hitherto, began about this time to come into a certain comparative prominence in the quiet little city.
A day or two after the evening described in the last chapter, Anna received a note from Mrs. Ingraham, the wife of a distinguished citizen of the town, a man of great wealth, and a well-known senator. The Ingrahams were, perhaps, the most highly placed family in the little town, by right of distinguished antecedents, of wealth, and of habit of life. They belonged to that singularly privileged class, which Anna Mallison had not hitherto encountered, who have both will and power to appropriate the most select of all things which minister to the individual development, whether things material, things intellectual, or things spiritual. Thus Mrs. Ingraham and her daughters were women of fashion, prominent figures at the state functions of their own state, and well known in the inner circles of Washington society. They dressed superlatively well in clothes that came from Paris. At the same time they were as much at home among literary as among fashionable folk, and Mrs. Ingraham at least was understood to be devotedly religious, with an especial penchant for foreign missions. In fine, all things were theirs.
Thus it was an event for Anna Mallison, in her dull, low-ceiled upper room, to open and read the note of Mrs. Senator Ingraham to herself,—a note written in graceful, flowing hand, on sumptuous, ivorylike paper, squarely folded, with a crest on the seal, and the faintest suggestion of violets escaping almost before perceived. The note was delicately courteous, a marvel of gracious tact. Mrs. Ingraham had heard through a friend that Miss Mallison was under appointment as a missionary to India, and had sincerely wished to meet her. On Friday evening a dear Christian worker from Boston, now her guest, was to hold a little parlour meeting at the house for the help and encouragement of friends who were interested in a higher Christian life. Would not Miss Mallison give them all the pleasure of making one of that number? Mrs. Ingraham would esteem it a personal favour; and if Miss Mallison felt that she could tell the little company something of the experience she had had in being led into this beautiful life work, it would be most acceptable. However, this was by no means urged, but merely suggested and left entirely to Miss Mallison’s preference.
The man who had brought the note waited on the narrow walk below for Anna’s answer. He wore a sober but handsome livery.
This was the first invitation of the kind which Anna had received, but she had now somewhat accustomed herself, by the advice of the Board, to speaking in women’s missionary meetings, and it seemed to her right to say yes. Accordingly, on untinted note-paper of a very common grade, she said yes in a natural and simple way, and made haste to give the note to the man at the door below, whom she felt distressed to keep waiting.
This man removed his shining hat in respectful acknowledgment as he took the note, and told Anna that Mrs. Ingraham had asked him to say, having forgotten to mention it in her note, that in case Miss Mallison would be so kind as to come, Mrs. Ingraham would send the carriage for her at half-past seven on Friday evening.
Anna felt that she ought to deprecate so much attention, and timidly attempted to do so; but the man plainly was not further empowered to treat in the matter, and, bowing respectfully, departed with Anna’s pallid, long and narrow envelope in his well-gloved hand.
When Mally came in, Anna handed her Mrs. Ingraham’s note. Mally’s face flushed noticeably as she read it. It was not easy for her to have her quiet friend thus preferred.
“You’ll go, of course?” she commented rather coldly, as she handed it back.
“Yes.”
“I should think you would by all means. Who wouldn’t? I’ve heard lots about Mrs. Ingraham; she believes in a very high religious life, you know, and those rich higher-life people live high, I can tell you. There’ll be a supper, depend on that, and it will be a fine one.”
“Oh, I don’t think there will be anything of that kind,” interposed Anna, hastily.
“You see!” cried Mally, with an air of superior wisdom and wide social experience. “Oh my! if I should tell you all I’ve heard about those Ingrahams, you’d be surprised. One night they have a prayer-meeting and the next night a dance. It’s all right, I suppose. Kind of new, that’s all.”
On the following evening, when the luxurious Ingraham carriage was driven up before Mrs. Wilson’s poor little house, many eyes peered narrowly from neighbours’ windows to catch the unwonted sight; and Anna, slipping hastily out of the Wilson door, felt an access of humility in this exaltation of herself, for such she knew it seemed to her neighbours, transient though it was. She had suffered a guilty and apologetic consciousness all day toward Mally, who had treated her with a slight coolness and indifference, which afflicted Anna keenly.
When Anna entered the hall of the Ingraham house, a small, stout woman, in a brown dress and smooth hair, came out to greet her, and took her hand between both her own, which were white and soft and heavily weighted with diamonds. Anna found the diamonds confusing, but she knew the hands were kind. Mrs. Ingraham’s manner, of sincere kindliness and dignity, put Anna wholly at her ease, and she looked about her, presently, at the subdued luxury and elegance of her surroundings with a frank, childlike pleasure. Her absolute unconsciousness of herself saved Anna from the awkwardness which her unusual height, her angular thinness, and her unaccustomedness to social contact might otherwise have produced. She wore her “other dress,” which was of plain black poplin, but quite new, and not ungraceful in its straight untortured lines; and as she entered the great drawing-room, with its splendours of costly art, and met the eyes of many people who were watching her entrance, the quiet gravity and simplicity of her bearing were hardly less than grace.
Two women, dressed with elegance and apparently not deeply touched with religiousness, commented apart a little later, having met and spoken in turn with the lady from Boston and the young missionary elect.
“What do you think of Mrs. Ingraham’s new saints?” asked one, whose black dress was heavily studded with jet ornaments.
“I like the young missionary better than the Bostonian, myself,” was the reply. The speaker had red hair and an exquisite figure. “Isn’t she curious, though?” she continued. “Manners, you know, but absolutely no manner! I never encountered a woman before, even at her age, who positively had none.”
“That is what ails her, isn’t it?” returned her beaded friend. “You’ve just hit it. And you can see that tremendously developed missionary conscience of hers in every line of her face and figure, don’t you know you can?”
“Figure, my dear? She has none. I never saw such an utter absence of the superfluous!”
Here they both laughed clandestinely behind their laced handkerchiefs.
“Do you know how I should describe that girl?” challenged the Titian beauty, recovering.
“Cleverly, without doubt.”
“I should call her a scaffolding over a conscience.”
“That is really very good, Evelyn. You can see that she is not even consciously a woman yet. She knows nothing of life or of herself or of this goodly frame, the earth, save what that New England conscience of hers has interpreted to her. Her horizon is as narrow as her chest.”
“Poor thing. How will she bear life, I wonder!” and the words died into a whisper, for at that moment the little talking, moving groups of men and women were called to take the chairs, which had been arranged in comfortable order, and give attention to what was to follow.