CHAPTER VII
The visit of the “ladye of high degree” to America was delayed by wind and tide and circumstance until the late fall, and in the meantime the people of America had not stood still for her coming.
Among other things that had been done, there had been put up and fully equipped a sort of club-house belonging to the Forest Hill Mission. It does not take long to carry out such schemes when there are two earnest persons with determination and ability to work like John Stanley and Margaret Manning.
The money for the scheme had come in rapidly and from unexpected sources. Margaret declared that every dollar was an answer to prayer.
The house itself was perfectly adapted for the carrying out of their plans of work. There were reading-rooms and parlors where comfort and a certain degree of refinement prevailed. There was a gymnasium in which the privileges and days were divided equally between men and women, and where thorough instruction was given. There were rooms in which various classes were carried on evenings for those who had no chance otherwise, and there were even a few rooms for young men or young women, homeless and forlorn, where they could get good board for a time, and the whole was presided over by a motherly, gray-haired woman and her husband, whose hearts were in the work, and whose good common sense made them admirably fitted for such a position.
But amid all these plans and preparations for better work John Stanley had found opportunity to speak to Margaret Manning the words which had won her consent to make his home bright by her presence and his heart glad with her love.
Their wedding cards had traveled across the ocean, passing midway the steamer that carried a letter from the “ladye of high degree,” saying that she was about to embark on her trip to America and rather demanding John Stanley’s time and attention during her stay near his home. She had been used to this in the days when he was near her home, and he had been only too glad to be summoned then.
His letter waited for him several days while he was away on a short business trip, and it came about that he opened it but three days before his wedding day. He smiled as he read her orders. He was to meet her at the steamer on the fifteenth. Ah! that was the day when he hoped to be a hundred miles away from New York, speeding blissfully along with Margaret by his side. He drew a sigh of relief as he reached for pen and paper and wrote her a brief note explaining that he was sorry not to be able to show her the courtesies he had promised, but that he would be away on his wedding trip at the time. He afterward added an invitation from his mother, and closed the note and forgot all about the matter.
And so it was that the “ladye of high degree,” instead of being met with all the devotion she had expected,—and which she had intended to exact to its utmost,—found only a brief note with a paltry invitation to his wedding reception. She bit her lips in vexation and spent a disagreeable day in a New York hotel, making all those who had to do with her miserable. Then she hunted up the names of other acquaintances in America, noted the date of that reception, and made up her mind to make her haughty best of it; at least, when she returned home there was the laird and the earl and the poor duke, if worst came to worst.
The Stanley home was alight from one end to the other, and flowers and vines did their best to keep up the idea of the departing summer indoors that night when John Stanley brought home his lovely bride.
It was a strange gathering and a large one. There were present of New York’s best society the truest and best of men and women, whose costumes and faces showed that their purses and their culture were equally deep. And there were many people, poor and plain, in their best clothes it is true, but so different from the others that one scarcely knew which costume was more out of place, that of the rich or of the poor.
It had been John Stanley’s idea, and Margaret had joined in it heartily, this mingling of the different classes to congratulate them in their new life.
“They will all have to come together in heaven, mother,” John had said in answer to Mrs. Stanley’s mild protest at inviting Mrs. Cornelius Van Rensselaer together with Joe Andrews and the mill girls from the mission. “That is, if they all get there, and in my opinion Joe Andrews stands as good a chance as Mrs. Van Rensselaer. What is the difference? It will only be a little in their dress. I think all of our friends are too sensible to mind that. Let them wear what they please, and for once let us show them that people can mingle and be friends without caring for the quality of cotton or silk in which each one is wrapped.”
The mother smiled and lifted her eyebrows a little. She could imagine the difference between those mill girls and the New York ladies, and she knew her son could not, but her position was established in the world, and she was coming to the age when these little material things do not so much matter. She was willing that her son should do as he wished. She only said in a lingering protest, “But their grammar, John. You forget how they murder the king’s English.”
“Never mind, mother,” he said, “I shouldn’t wonder if we should all have to learn a little heavenly grammar when we get there before we can talk fittingly with the angels.”
And so their friends were all invited, and none belonging to the Forest Mission were omitted. Mrs. Ketchum, it is true, was scandalized. She knew how to dress, and she did not like to be classed among the “rabble,” as she confided to a few of her friends. “However, one never knew what Margaret Manning would do, and of course this was just another of her performances. If John Stanley wasn’t sorry before very long that he married that woman of the clouds, she would miss her guess.”
She took it upon herself to explain in an undertone to all the guests, whom she considered worthy of the toilet she had prepared, that these “other people,” as she denominated the Forest Hill Mission, pointing to them with her point lace fan with a dainty sweeping gesture, were protégés of the bride and groom, and were invited that they might have the pleasure of a glimpse into the well-dressed world, a pleasure probably that none of them had ever had before.
The “ladye of high degree” was there, oh, yes! Her curiosity led her, and her own pique. She wanted to see what kind of a wife John Stanley had married, and she wanted to see if her power over him was really at an end.
The rich elegance of her wonderful gown, ablaze with diamonds and adorned with lace of fabulous price, brushed aside the dainty white of the bride’s and threatened to swallow it up out of sight in its own glistening folds.
But the bride, in her filmy white robes, seemed in no wise disturbed, neither did her fair face suffer by contrast with the proud, handsome one. The “ladye of high degree,” standing in the shadow studying the sweet bride’s face, was forced to admit that there was a superior something in this other woman that she did not understand. She turned to John Stanley, her former admirer, and found his eyes resting in undisguised admiration on the lovely face of his wife, and her eyes turned again to the wife and saw her kiss the wrinkled face of an elderly Scotch woman with beautiful, tender brown eyes and soft waving hair. The neat, worn brown cashmere dress that the woman wore was ornamented only by a soft ruffle about the neck. The hair was partly covered by a plain, brown bonnet with an attempt at gala attire in a bit of white lace in front, and the wrinkled, worn hands were guiltless of any gloves, but one of those bare hands was held lovingly between the bride’s white gloves, and the other rested familiarly about the soft white of the bride’s waist. There was a beautiful look of love and trust and appreciation in both faces, and instinctively this stranger was forced to ask the other onlooker, “Who is she?”
“One of God’s saints on earth,” came John Stanley’s voice in answer. He had been watching the scene and had forgotten for the moment to whom he was talking. Not that he would have disliked to speak so to the “ladye of high degree” now, for he was much changed, but he would not have thought she would understand.
“She is just a dear woman in the church whom my wife loves very much. She is a natural poet soul, and you may be sure she has been saying something to her which would be worth writing in a book, and which she will always remember.”
And then the “ladye of high degree” turned and looked at her old acquaintance in undisguised astonishment. John Stanley must have noticed this and been embarrassed a moment, but Mrs. Ketchum came by just then to be introduced, and she proved to be the kindred spirit for whom this stranger had been searching. From her was gained much information, some of which astonished her beyond belief. She made one or two more attempts to rally her power over John Stanley later in the evening, but she too had fallen under the spell of the lovely woman whose eyes her husband’s followed wherever she went, and she finally gave it up.
The final surprise came to the stranger guest late in the evening, as she was making her way through John Stanley’s study to the cloak room. She had been told by the voluble Mrs. Ketchum that this room was Mr. Stanley’s “den.” She had also noticed during the evening at different times that people stopped opposite the picture that hung on the wall over the mantel. She had not before been in a position to see what this picture was for the crowd, but she had supposed it some master-piece that Mr. Stanley had brought home from his travels. Her curiosity, or her interest, or both, led her to pause now alone, and to look up.
As others were held under its spell, so was this woman for a moment. The beauty and expression of the work of art caught her fancy, and the face of the Master held her gaze, while her soul recognized and understood the subject. In great astonishment she glanced around the room once more and back. Could it be that John Stanley kept a picture like this in his den? It was not like the John Stanley she had known.
And then a soft, little, white-gloved hand rested on her shoulder, and a sweet, earnest voice said: “Isn’t it wonderful? I’m so glad to be where I can look at it every day as much as I wish.”
“THE ‘LADYE OF HIGH DEGREE’ . . . SAW THEM STANDING ALSO.”
Turning she saw the bride standing by her side. She scarcely knew how to answer, and before she could do so she noticed that another had entered the room, and she knew instinctively that Mr. Stanley had come.
“That is one of my treasures. Are you admiring it?” he said in the strong voice that seemed so unlike his old one, and the guest murmured something about the picture, and looking about uneasily excused herself and slipped away.
They stood a moment before the picture together, the husband and wife. They were tired with the evening’s talk, and a sight of this refreshed them both and gave the promise of future joy.
The “ladye of high degree,” passing through that hall, having purposely come by another route from the cloak room rather than through the study, saw them standing also, and understood—that she did not understand, and went out into the night with a lonely longing for something, she knew not what.
As the two stood together the husband said: “Do you know, dear, that picture has made the turning point in my life. Ever since it came in here I have felt that his presence was with me wherever I went. And I have you to thank for it all. And through it I have gained you, this richest, sweetest blessing of my life. Do you know, I found a verse in my Bible to-day that it seems to me fits me and that picture. It is this: ‘The angel of his presence saved them. In his love and in his pity he redeemed them.’ ”
GABRIEL THE ACADIAN
BY
EDITH M. NICHOLL BOWYER
| LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS | ||
| “ ‘It is a heretic name!’ exclaimed Le Loutre” | [3] | |
| “Suddenly the girl raised her head” | [27] | |
| “M. l’Abbé commands” | [42] | |
| “But Gabriel had neither eyes nor ears for the priest” | [69] | |
| “ ‘Wild Deer; tell Wild Deer’ ” | [82] | |
| “Far away at the mouth of the inlet . . . lay three small ships” | [91] | |
| “ ‘And thou wilt make me a traitor too!’ he cried” | [120] | |
| “They sat down side by side before the empty hearth” | [131] | |
“ ‘It is a heretic name!’ exclaimed Le Loutre.”
There is a history in all men’s lives,
Figuring the nature of the times deceased;
The which observed, a man may prophesy,
With a near aim, of the main chance of things
As yet not come to life; which in their seeds
And weak beginnings lie intreasured.
—Shakespeare, Henry IV.