II
The young couple bought a small house on the outskirts of the city, some distance beyond the Nye, where it flows at right angles with its original course, and in the general region of fastidious growth, but in a settlement of inexpensive villas to one side of the trend of fashion. The bridegroom had not forgotten his liberal intention to begin housekeeping on a somewhat more ambitious scale than his salary as a clerk had warranted. He was now the senior partner in the firm of Stuart & Robinson, lumber dealers, which had been in existence six months. He had parted from his employers, Toler & Company, on the first of January, because of their refusal to accede to his demands, and had been able to persuade the comrade with five thousand dollars, to whom he had referred at his first meeting with Constance to enter into a business alliance. Robinson was three years his junior, and without commercial experience, but eager to turn the windfall, which had come to him through the death of an aunt into a cool million. What could be more natural than to take advantage of the experience which Stuart offered him—an experience which gave promise of swift and lucrative operations in the near future?
It was a very modest establishment, from the standpoint of affluence. A neat little house of eight rooms supplied with modern improvements, and, though one of a builder's batch, designed with some regard for artistic effect, which indicated that a preference for harmonious beauty was working in the popular mind of Benham against the idols, colorless uniformity and bedizened ugliness. To the bride, whose experience of housekeeping was limited to a country town where colorless uniformity ruled undisturbed and modern improvements were unknown, the expenditure of her nest-egg of five thousand dollars in this complete little home seemed an investment no less enchanting than wise. Five thousand for the house, with a subsequent mortgage upon it of one thousand for the purchase of the furniture and to provide a small bank balance for emergencies. This was her contribution to the domestic partnership, and she rejoiced to think that her ability to help to this extent would leave Emil a free hand for the display of his business talent.
The basis of a newly married woman's peace of soul is trust. She feels that the responsibility is on her husband to make good the manly qualities with which she has endowed him, and because of which she has consented to become his mate. Occasionally during the first few months of her married life Constance laughed to think that all her maidenly eagerness to solve the riddle of life brilliantly, and all her profound searching of the mysteries of the universe should have ended in her becoming an every-day housewife with dustpan and brush, and the wife of one who, to all outward appearances, was an every-day young man. But her laugh savored of gladness. She had given herself to him because she had faith that his energy, self-reliance, fearless humor and sympathetic hatred of shams would distinguish him presently from the common herd of men, and vindicate her infatuation. She had given herself to him, besides, because he loved her—a delightful consciousness. Accordingly, she enclosed herself in the web of happiness which her confidence in him had spun about her, and took up her domestic duties with light-hearted devotion.
Nevertheless, no woman emerges from her honeymoon with exactly the same estimate of her lover as before. If nothing else, she has seen his mental and moral characteristics in their undress, so to speak, and become habituated to their sublimity. We may be no less fond of a person whose anecdotes have grown familiar to us, and analogously a wife does not weary of her husband's qualities merely because they have lost the glamor of novelty. On the contrary she is apt to continue to adore them because they are his. Still she feels free to scrutinize them closely and—unconsciously at least—to submit them to the test of her own silent judgment. She discovers, too, of course, that he has sides and idiosyncrasies the existence of which she never suspected. Ordinarily she finds to her surprise that his attitude in regard to this or that matter has shifted perceptibly since marriage, so that, instead of being lukewarm or ardent, as the case may be, he has become almost strenuous or indifferent in his attitude. Hence she divines that during their courtship some of his real opinions and tendencies have been kept in retreat.
Constance sensibly had decided in advance that Emil was not perfect, so she was prepared to discover a blemish here and there. In spite of her happiness it became obvious to her during the first six months of their married life that the self-confidence which had attracted her verged at times on braggadocio, and moreover that opposition or disappointment made him sour and morose. If his affairs were prospering, his spirits rose, his wits scintillated, and he spoke of the world with a gay, if sardonic, forbearance, which suggested that it was soon to be his foot-ball. But if matters went wrong, he not only became depressed, but was prone to dwell upon his own ill-luck, and inveigh bitterly against the existing conditions of society. She had noticed from the first days of their acquaintance that there appeared to be an inconsistency between his eagerness to grow rich and his enmity toward the capitalists of Benham; but she had gathered that he was merely eager to put himself in a position where his sympathy for the toiling mass could be fortified by the opportunities which wealth would afford. But now that his feverish absorption in business had apparently banished all interest in philanthropic undertakings from his thoughts, the inconsistency was more conspicuous.
Constance spoke to Emil about this at last. Naturally, she broached the topic when he was in one of his sanguine moods. In response he took out his pocket-book and asked her how much she required, having jumped to the conclusion that she was beating around the bush and had some particular object of charity in view.
"You don't understand, exactly, Emil," she answered. "I'm not asking for money; I was merely hoping that having me to provide for isn't going to cut you off from your former associations—to lessen your sympathy with political movements for the protection of the people such as you used to take part in before we were married."
Stuart frowned, and thrust his hands deep into his pockets as he was apt to do when he felt his oats. "You don't seem to realize, Constance, that a man starting in business needs all his energy and watchfulness to avoid having his head thrust under water by the fellows who are on the surface of the commercial whirlpool and who don't want company. When I've got the sharks in my line of trade where I want them, which is, metaphorically speaking, at the bottom of the pond, it'll be time enough to take up politics. You'd like to see me in Congress some day, wouldn't you? Well, that will be plain sailing for me in this district as soon as I control the lumber business of Benham, little saint."
This sounded plausible, and did not seem to admit of argument, provided the consummation of the business supremacy indicated by her husband was not deferred too long. She dismissed the matter from her mind for the time being. It was less easy to dispose of another tendency which had revealed itself in unmistakable guise since their marriage, and this was Emil's indifferent attitude, not merely toward her form of religious faith, but toward all religion. Within a short time after their acquaintance began she had discovered that he was not an Episcopalian, and that his views regarding the spiritual problems of the universe were not those of orthodox Christians. But on the other hand, although he was fond even then of blowing down her card-houses, as he called them, with an occasional blast of scientific truth, he had been ready to accompany her to church and had never seemed lacking in reverence. She had asked herself the question why she should stifle her love for him merely because his conception of the eternal mysteries did not coincide with her own, and she had answered it by the independent assurance that his attitude toward life was the important consideration. She had even been fascinated by his broad outlook on the universe, with his flashing eyes and his righteous contempt for some of the dogmas of the sects. He had seemed to her imagination at such times almost as a reforming archangel purging away the dross of superstition and convention from the essentials of religious faith. He did not believe in the miracles, it is true, because he regarded them as violations of the laws of the universe; but was he not a firm believer in the spirit of Christian conduct?
She had reasoned thus as a maiden, and had never doubted the soundness of her self-justification. But the sequel was disturbing to her peace of mind and to her hopes. It was not Emil's refusal to go to church, nor his dedication of the Sabbath to mere rest and recreation which distressed her, but his scornful tone in regard to any form of religious ceremonial; his scornful tone toward her own reverence for the faith in which she had been educated. Even the term of endearment which he coined for her, "little saint," was a jocose and condescending appellation reflecting on her susceptibility to ideas which clever people had discarded as fatuous. She could have borne without complaint going to church alone had he been willing to respect her opinions as she respected his. But on her return from service he was sure to greet her with some ironical jest which made painfully clear that he regarded her habit of worship as a sign of mental inferiority. His own habit on Sunday was to remain in bed until after the church hour. Then he would establish himself in a loose-fitting woolen garment, which he called his smoking-jacket, on the porch or in the sitting-room and read the Sunday papers, with a pipe in his mouth. Sometimes he played on his violin, and by the time Constance returned he was ready for a short walk, ostensibly for the sake of exercising a small black and white terrier. His wife could not accompany him on this stroll, for she could not neglect their mid-day dinner, and when he sat down at table he was apt, if the weather was fine, to refer pathetically to the sin of having wasted it in the city. "If only you were content, little saint, to worship nature with me," he would say, "we would get away into the country with a luncheon basket the first thing in the morning and make a day of it in the woods."
There was something winsome in this proposition, especially as the inability to enjoy an outing because of her reluctance to renounce church worship seemed to spoil his day in a double sense. For, as a consequence, he ate a huge Sunday dinner, including two bottles of beer, smoked more than his wont, and after a tirade against the evils of monopoly or some kindred topic invariably fell into a heavy slumber on the lounge, from which he did not awaken until nearly sunset.
"Another Sunday wasted," he more than once remarked by way of melancholy comment on this state of affairs.
No wonder that Constance was perplexed as to her duty. Since coming to Benham she had been a member of Rev. George Prentiss's parish. Her mother was of English descent, and Constance had been brought up in the Episcopal faith. At Colton there had been no church of that denomination, and to attend the Episcopal service one had to drive or walk two miles to a neighboring village. It had often seemed to Constance more important to remain at home with her invalid mother than to take this excursion. Consequently, during her girlhood, she had been irregular in her attendance at church. Frequently, in order to be able to return home more speedily, she had worshipped at the Methodist or Unitarian meeting-house in the village. Sometimes she had stayed away altogether; therefore she understood the fascination of communion with books or with spring buds or autumn leaves as a substitute for worship in the sanctuary. Her untrammelled experience had made her open-minded and independent, but on the other hand the difficulty of kneeling at her own shrine had nourished her sentiment for the Episcopal faith, so that she had rejoiced spiritually in the opportunity, which her residence in Benham afforded, to become a regular and devoted member of Mr. Prentiss's flock. Moreover, the vital character of St. Stephen's as a religious body had appealed to her. The little church near Colton had been a peaceful and poetic, but poor and unenterprising establishment. Contrasted with it, St. Stephen's appeared a splendid and powerful influence for righteousness, stirring deeply her æsthetic sensibilities, and at the same time proving its living, practical grasp on human character through its able pastor and active organization. St. Stephen's never slumbered; St. Stephen's prided itself on its ardent faith and essentially modern spirit; and St. Stephen's, by common acceptance, was synonymous with its rector, Rev. George Prentiss.
Mr. Prentiss had grown up with the church. That is, he had been curate to the Rev. Henry Glynn, an Englishman who had selected Benham as a promising pasture for the propagation of the Episcopal faith beyond the pale of the mother country, who had gone forth into the wilderness and had lived to see a goodly flock of sheep browsing beneath his ministrations. Mr. Glynn was a pioneer, and had gone forth in the early seventies when Benham was in the throes of rapid progress and extraordinary development from month to month. His mission had been to spread the tenets of his sect by the zeal and eloquence of his testimony, and to provide a suitable edifice for the human souls attracted by his teachings. In his time the congregation forsook the small and primitive structure, erected in hot haste within a year of his arrival, for a commodious and sufficiently æsthetic building. Before his death, which occurred prematurely, Benham had become a large and important municipality. His successor found himself not only the pastor of the leading Episcopal Church of the city—which had also in the process of social evolution become the most fashionable and probably the richest church in the city—but a shepherd in a wilderness of a different sort. In other words, he was brought suddenly face to face with the problems which confront earnest spirits eager to redeem human nature in a huge industrial community. The former wilderness had blossomed, even with the rose, but the thistles, tares, and rank grass which fought for mastery with the wholesome vegetation had revolutionized the soil. There were scores of saloons in Benham; there was a herd of immoral women on the streets of Benham; and, most perplexing problem of all, perhaps, there were, only a mile apart, the picturesque neighborhood of the Riverside Drive with its imposing, princely, private mansions, and Smith Street, boulevard of unwholesome tenement-houses, garnished with rumshops and squalid lives—contrast repugnant and disconcerting to American ideals, and to him as an American.
But Rev. George Prentiss was not the man to shrink from deep and important responsibilities. On the contrary, it might be said of him that he revelled in them. The consciousness that, in spite of Benham's mushroom-like growth as a proud testimonial to the sacredness of institutions established by the free-born, the city had begun closely to resemble large cities everywhere was sobering, but on the whole, inspiriting to him as a worker. His mission was clearly disclosed to him—a mission worthy of the energies of a clergyman eager to bring his church into closer touch with everyday life and common human conditions. For Mr. Prentiss as an American and a churchman was ambitious for the future of the Episcopal faith. His predecessor and friend had seen in their pastorate only a glorious continuation of English orthodoxy—a spiritual revolt from dissent, transcendentalism and cold, intellectual independence, which would, in the end, gather sixty million people into a Protestant fold, national in its title and dimensions. Mr. Prentiss shared this delectable vision, but he would not have American Episcopacy a mere blind imitation of the mother church or a colonial dependency. He felt that it behooved those of his faith on this side of the Atlantic to gird their loins zealously, and to guide their sheep fearlessly, receiving with respectful attention the interpretations of the spiritual lords of Great Britain regarding dogma, but exercising intelligent discretion in regard to their adoption. This attitude, which might be called patriotism, in some sense reflected the pride which Dante, that stern censor of prelates, condemns. Was the Church of England to prescribe doctrine to the thriving, hardy child of its loins forever? Surely not, now that that child, waxing in size and resources and dignified with power, promised soon to rival its parent. It was agreeable to the rector of St. Stephen's to reflect that the tide of fashion was bearing the children of Unitarian and other indeterminate faiths into the fold of the true and living church of Christ. It was also agreeable to behold in his mind's eye that church—the American church—taking advantage of this splendid opportunity and accepting with fearless and uncompromising zeal the challenge of infidelity and materialism. The people were tired, he believed, of intellectual, spiritual dissipation, in which each soul formed its own conception of God, and defined the terms of its own compact with Him. They were welcoming fervor, passion, color and all the symbols of a faith which beholds in man a miserable sinner redeemed through the blood of Christ. If the people of his nationality had been reluctant in the days of their early history, when population was sparse and sin was kept at bay by primitive economic conditions, to admit that man was a sinner, could they doubt it now? Was not Benham with its bustling, seething, human forces an eloquent testimonial to the reality of evil and the intensity of the struggle between the powers of darkness? The Church's mission—his mission—was to take an active part, in a modern spirit, in the great work of regeneration by bringing light to the blind, sympathy and relief to the down-trodden and protection to the oppressed.
Mr. Prentiss had carried his theories energetically into practice. He had striven to make St. Stephen's a tabernacle for the prosperous and the fortunate and also for the desolate and the friendless. His wish would have been to see them intermingled at morning service without regard to vested rights, but his wardens assured him that the finances of the church could not be conducted successfully except on the basis of inviolable pew ownership until after the morning service had begun. But he was able to throw the church open in the afternoon to the general public, and to reserve in the morning certain gallery and less desirable benches for the accommodation of young men and women students who wished to worship regularly and could not afford to hire seats. If it was at first a tribulation to him that his congregation was rich and fashionable and a little stolid, their liberality on collection days was a great compensation, for it gave him scope for extending his influence along the line of his ambition by the establishment of the mission church, known as the Church of the Redeemer, in the heart of Benham's arid social quarter, as an adjunct to St. Stephen's, and to be maintained by the generosity of that body of Christians. When this undertaking was in full operation, under the direction of a competent curate, Mr. Prentiss experienced fewer qualms as he looked down from his reading-desk at the gay bonnets and costly toilets of his own parishioners. He had been assured by several women active in church work that the independent poor were not fond of worshipping where their clothes would show at a disadvantage. As a Christian who was an American, he deplored the formation of classes in the sheep-fold of the church; yet he reasoned that the preferences of human nature could not be ignored altogether in a matter of this kind, and it was evident that his parishioners preferred to worship God in full possession of their property rights, surrounded by their social acquaintance. There was a zest, too, in the knowledge that he was the rector of the important and powerful people of the city, and that he had the opportunity to denounce the commercial spirit of the age in the presence of men like Carleton Howard, the millionaire, and women like his sister, Mrs. Randolph Wilson, and their friends. If he could reach their hearts, what might he not hope for? Obviously by the support of this class the Church could not fail to increase its revenues and extend its power. The triumph of the Church was after all, for him, the essential thing—the illumination of the souls of men through faith in the Christian ideal. So with this end constantly in view, Rev. George Prentiss ministered to his well-favored congregation in St. Stephen's, and vicariously, and often by personal service, conducted a crusade against ignorance and sin in the Church of the Redeemer and its neighborhood.