CHAPTER III
It was Margaret Manning’s suggestion that it should be presented quietly. Some of the others were disappointed. Mrs. Ketchum was one of the most irate about it.
“The idea! After the school had raked and scraped together the money, that they should not have the pleasure of seeing it presented! It’s a shame! Margaret Manning has some of the most backwoods’ notions I ever heard of. It isn’t doing things up right at all. There ought to be a speech from some one who knows how to say the right thing; my husband could have done it, and would if he’d been asked. But no, Margaret Manning says it must be hung on his wall, and so there it hangs, and none of us to get the benefit. I declare it is a shame! I wish I had refused to serve on that committee. I hate to have my name mixed up in it the way things have gone.” So said Mrs. Ketchum as she sat back in her dim and fashionable parlor and sighed.
But the seven boys ruled things, and they ruled them in the way Miss Manning suggested; and moreover, Mrs. Brown and Mr. Talcut had gone over to the enemy completely since the purchase, the enemy being Miss Manning. Mr. Talcut rubbed his hands admiringly, and said Miss Manning was an exceedingly shrewd young woman, that she had an eye for business. That picture was the best bargain in that whole store.
But Margaret went on her way serenely, not knowing her power nor enjoying her triumph. Albeit she was pleased in her heart with the picture, and she thought that her seven boys had been the true selectors of it. She wrote in her fine, even hand, that was like her in its lovely daintiness, the words the committee told her to write—which she had suggested—on a white card to accompany the picture. It read, “To our beloved superintendent, with a joyous welcome home, from the entire school of the Forest Hill Mission.”
The Stanley home stood in fine, large grounds, with turf smooth as velvet and grand old forest trees all about. The house was large, old-fashioned, and ugly, but the rooms were magnificent in size, and filled with all the comforts money could buy. On one side, just off the large library and connected with the hall, had been built an addition, a beautiful modern room filled with nooks and corners and unexpected bay-windows, which afforded views in at least three directions because of the peculiar angles at which they were set. In one corner was a carved oak spiral staircase by which one could ascend to the airy sleeping room over-head if he did not choose to go through the hall and ascend the common stair. One side of the room and various other unexpected bits of wall were turned into bookcases sunk in the masonry and covered by glazed doors. The bay-window seats were heavily upholstered in leather, and so were all the chairs and the luxurious couch. Nearly one entire end of the room was filled by the great fireplace, the tiling of which had been especially designed for it. In a niche built for it with a fine arrangement for light, both by day or night, stood a large desk. It was a model working room for a gentleman. And this addition had been built by the senior Mr. Stanley for his son when he should return to take up the practical work of architecture, for which he had been preparing himself for some years.
It was here that the great picture was brought and hung over the fireplace, where it could look down upon the entire room. It was hung just the day before John Wentworth Stanley’s man arrived with his master’s goods and chattels and began to unpack and dispose things according to his best judgment.
John Stanley’s mother had come in to superintend the hanging of the picture and had looked at it a long time when she was left alone, and finally had knelt shyly beside the great new leather chair and offered a silent little prayer for the home-coming son. She was an undemonstrative woman, and this act seemed rather theatrical when she thought of it afterward. What if a servant had opened the door and seen her! Nevertheless she felt glad she had dedicated the room, and she was glad that the picture was what it was. With that Ketchum woman on the committee she had feared what the result might be when she had had the scheme whispered to her. Somebody must have fine taste. Perhaps it was that dainty, lily-faced young girl who seemed to be so interested in John’s Sunday-school class. The mother was busy in her home world and did not go into church work much. She was getting old and her children and grandchildren were all about her, absorbing her time and thought.
The man came in from the piazza that surrounded the bay window and reached around to the long French window at the side, where he had been unpacking a box. He placed a silver-mounted smoking set on a small mahogany table. Then he stood back to survey the effect. Presently he came in with some fine cut glass, a small decanter heavily mounted in silver and glasses to match. He went out and came back with their tray. Having dusted them off carefully and arranged them on the tray, he placed it first on the handsome broad mantel, and as before stood back to take a survey. He knew the set was a choice example of artistic work along this line. It was presented to his master while he was visiting in the home of a nobleman in token of his friendship and to commemorate something or other, the man did not exactly know what. But he did not like the effect on the mantel. He glanced uneasily up at the picture. In a dim way he felt the incongruity. He scowled at the picture and wondered why they put it there. It should have been hung in the hall or some out-of-the-way place. It was more suited for a church than anywhere else, he told himself. He placed the decanter tray on the little table at the other side of the fireplace from the smoking set, and stood back again. It looked well there. He raised his eyes defiantly to the picture, and met the full, strong, sweet gaze of the pictured eyes of the Master. The man lowered his eyes and turned away, disturbed, he knew not why. He was not a man who cared about such things, neither was he one accustomed to reason. He went out to the piazza again to his unpacking, trying to think of something else. It wasn’t his picture nor his decanter anyway, and he whistled a home tune and wondered why he had come to this country. He didn’t seem to feel quite his usual pride this morning in the fact that he knew his business. When he finally unpacked the wicker-covered demijohn of real old Scotch whisky that had accompanied the decanter, he carried it through the room and deposited it in the little corner cupboard behind the chimney, shut the door and locked it with a click, and went out again without so much as raising his eyes. All that day he avoided looking at that picture over the mantelpiece, and he grew quite happy in his work again and quite self-satisfied, and felt with a sort of superstitious fear that if he looked at it his happiness would depart.
There were other rare articles that he had to unpack and dispose of, and once he came to a large, handsome picture, a sporting scene in water colors by a celebrated artist. That now, would be the very thing to hang over the mantel in place of the picture already there. He even went so far as to suggest to Mrs. Stanley that he make the change, but she coldly told him to leave the picture where it was, as it was a gift, and showed him the envelope to place on the mantel directly under the picture, which contained the card from the donors.
So the man left the room at last, somewhat dissatisfied, but feeling that he had done the best he could. The night passed, the day came, and with it the new master of the new room.
“It’s really a magnificent thing, mother,” he said, as he stood in front of the great picture after, having admired the room and shown his delight in all they had done for him. “I’m delighted to have it. I saw the original on the other side. And it was good taste of them to give it quietly in this way too. But there is a sense in which this is quite embarrassing. They will expect so much, you know, and of course I haven’t time for this sort of thing now.”
“Well, I thought something ought to be done, my son,” responded the mother, “so I sent out invitations for the whole school for a reception here next week. That is, I have them ready. They are not sent out, but are waiting your approval. Tuesday will be a free evening. What do you think?”
John Stanley scowled and sighed.
“Oh, I suppose that’s the easiest way to get out of it now they’ve sent me this. It will be an awful bore, but then it’ll be over. I shall scarcely know how to carry myself among them, I fear, I’ve been out of this line so long, and they fancy me so virtuous,” and he smiled and shrugged his handsome shoulders.
“But John dear, you mustn’t feel in that way. They really think a great deal of you,” said his mother, smiling indulgently upon him.
“Oh, it’s all right; go ahead, mother. Make it something fine while you’re about it. Give them quite a spread you know. Some of them don’t get many treats, I suppose,” and he sank down in one of the luxurious chairs and looked about him with pleasure.
“This is nice, mother,” he said; “so good of you and father to think of it. I can do great things here. The room is an inspiration in itself. It is a poem in architecture.”
Then the mother left him awhile to his thoughts and he began to piece together his life, that portion he had left behind him across the water, and this new piece, a part of the old, that he had come to take up again. There hovered on the margin of his mind the image of the “ladye of high degree,” and he looked out about on his domain with satisfaction at thought of her. At least she would see that people in this country could do things as well as in hers.
Then by some strange line of thought he remembered his worriment of yesterday about that present, and how he had thought of her laugh if she should know of it. A slight feeling of pleasure passed over him; even in this she could find no fault. It was fine and costly and a work of genius. He need not be ashamed even if some one should say to her that the picture was presented to him by a mission class grateful for what he had done for it. He began to swell with a sense of importance at the thought. It was rather a nice thing, this present, after all. He changed his position that he might examine the picture more carefully at his leisure.
The fire that his mother had caused to be lighted to take off the chill of the summer evening and complete the welcome of the room, sent out a ruddy glow and threw into high relief the rich, dark gloss of the frame and the wonderful picture. It was as if the sombre, stone-arched room opened directly from his own, and he saw the living forms of the Twelve gathered around that table with the Master in the midst. But the Master was looking straight at him—at him, John Wentworth Stanley, self-satisfied gentleman of the world that he was, looking at him and away from the other disciples. Down through all the ages those grave, kind, sad, sweet eyes looked him through and through, and seemed to sift his life, his every action, till things that he had done now and yesterday, and last year, that he had forgotten, and even when he was a little boy, seemed to start out and look him in the face behind the shadows of those solid stones of that upper chamber. The more he looked the more he wondered at the power the picture seemed to have. He looked away to prove it, and he knew the eyes were following his.
The rosy glow of the firelight seemed to be caught and crystallized in a thousand sparkles on one side of the fire. He looked in passing and knew what the sparkles were, the fine crystal points of that cut glass decanter. He had forgotten its existence until now, since the day he had had it packed. He knew it was a beautiful thing in its way, but he had not intended that it should be thus displayed. He hoped his mother had not seen it. He would look at it and then put it away, that is, pretty soon. Now his eyes were held by the eyes of his Master. Yes, his Master, for he had owned his name and called himself a Christian, and no matter what other things had come in to fill his mind, he had no wish to give up the “name to live.” And yet he was conscious, strangely, abnormally conscious of that decanter. His Master seemed to be looking at it too, and to be inquiring of him how he came to have it in his possession. For the first time he was conscious, painfully so, that he had never given its donor any cause to think that such a gift would be less acceptable to him than something else. His Master had understood that too, he felt sure. He was annoyed that he could frame no excuse for himself, as he had so easily done when the gift first reached him. He had even been confident that he would be able to explain it to his mother so that she would be rather pleased with the gift than otherwise, strong temperance woman though he knew her to be. Now all his reasons had fled. The eyes of his Master, his kind, loving, sorrowing Master were upon him. He began to be irritated at the picture. He arose and seized the decanter hastily, to put it somewhere out of sight, just where he had not thought.
Now the officious Thomas, who knew his place and his work so well, had placed in the new, freshly washed decanter a small quantity of the rare old Scotch whisky that had come with it. Thomas knew good whisky when he saw—that is, tasted—it, and he was proud of a master to whom such a gift had been given. John Stanley did not expect to find anything in his decanter until he put it there himself, or gave orders to that effect. He was new to the ways of a “man” who so well understood his business. As he jerked the offending article toward him some of this whisky spilled out of the top that had perhaps not been firmly closed after Thomas had fully tested the whisky. Its fumes so astonished its owner that, he knew not how, he dropped it and it shivered into fragments at his feet on the dull red tiles of the hearth.
Annoyed beyond measure, and wondering why his hand had been so unsteady, he rang the bell for Thomas and ordered him to take away the fragments and wipe the whisky from the hearth. Then he seated himself once more till it was done. And all the time those eyes, so sad and reproachful now, were looking through and through him.
“Thomas!” he spoke sharply, and the man came about face suddenly with the broom and dustpan in hand on which glittered the crystals of delicate cutting. “Where is the rest of that—that stuff?”
Thomas understood. He swung open the little door at the side of the chimney. “Right here at hand, sir! Shall I pour you out some, sir?” he said, as he lifted the demijohn.
“HE DROPPED IT AND IT SHIVERED INTO FRAGMENTS AT HIS FEET.”
John Stanley’s entire face flushed with shame. His impulse was severely to rebuke the impertinence, nay the insult, of the servant to one who had always been known as a temperance man. But he reflected that the servant was a stranger to his ways, and that he himself had perhaps given the man reason to think that it would be acceptable by the very fact that he had these things among his personal effects. Then too, his eyes had caught the look of the Master as he raised them to answer, and he could not speak that harsh word quite in that tone with Jesus looking at him.
He waited to clear his throat, and answered in a quieter tone, though still severely: “No; you may take it out and throw it away. I never use it.”
“Yes, sir,” answered Thomas impassively; but he marveled. Nevertheless he forgave his master, and took the demijohn to his own room. He was willing to be humble enough to have it thrown away on him. But as he passed the servant’s piazza, the cook who sat resting from her day’s labors there and planning for the morrow’s menu, heard him mutter:
“As shure as I live, it’s the picter. It’s got some kind o’ a spell.”