Dominie Dean: A Novel

by Ellis Parker Butler

IX. LUCILLE HARDCOME

IN spite of all his efforts David could not shake off his pitiful little burden of debt. After little Alice 'Thusia bore him two more children; they died before the month, and the last left 'Thusia an invalid, and even Doctor Benedict lacked the skill to aid her. A maid—hired girl, we called them in Riverbank—became a necessity. The church did what it thought it could, gave David a few more dollars yearly, and sympathized with him.

To David the misfortune of 'Thusia's invalidism came so gradually that he felt the weight of it bit by bit and not as a single great catastrophe. She was “not herself” and then “not quite well” and then, before he was fully aware, he was happy when she had a “good” day.

'Thusia did not complain. With her whole heart she wished she was well and strong, but she did not allow her troubles to sour her mind or heart. Mary Derling and Rose Hinch came oftener to see her. 'Thusia, unable to do her own housework, had more time to use her hands. Once, when some petty bill worried David, she asked if she could not take in sewing, but David would not hear of it. There are some things a dominie's wife cannot be allowed to do to help her husband. About this time 'Thusia did much sewing for the poor, who probably worried less over their finances than David worried over his, and who, as likely as not, criticized the stitches 'Thusia took with such loving good will.

David was then a fine figure of a man in the forties. Always slender, he reached his greatest weight then; a little later worry and work wore him down again. If his kindly cheerfulness was at all forced we never guessed it. He was the same big-hearted, friendly Davy he had always been, better because more mature. As a preacher he was then at his best. It was at this time Lucille Hardcome's life first brought her in touch with David.

Lucille was a widow. Seth Hardcome and his wife, Ellen, had long since left our church in a huff, going to another congregation and staying there. Lucille was, in some sort, Seth's cousin-in-law, however that may be. She came to Riverbank jingling golden bracelets and rustling silken garments, and for a while attended services with Seth and his wife, but something did not suit her and she came to us. We counted her a great acquisition, for she had taken the old Ware house on the hill—one of the few big “mansions” the town boasted.

In a few weeks after her arrival Lucille Hardcome was well known in Riverbank. She had money. Her husband—and Riverbank never knew anything else about him—-had been an old man when she married him. He had died within the year. No doubt, having had that length of time in which to become acquainted with Lucille's vagaries, he was willing enough to go his way. Within a month after she had installed herself in the Ware house Lucille had her “hired man”—they were not called “coachmen” until Lucille came to Riverbank—and a fine team of blacks. Her low-hung carriage was for many years thereafter a common sight in Riverbank. As Lucille furnished it her house seemed to us palatial in its elegance. It overpowered those who saw its interior; she certainly managed to get everything into the rooms that they would hold—even to a grand piano and a huge gilded harp on which she played with a great show of plump arms. All this mass of furnishings and bric-à-brac was without taste, but to Riverbank it was impressive. She had, I remember, a huge cuckoo clock she had bought in Switzerland, but which, being of unvarnished wood, did not suit her taste, so she had it gilded, and hung it against a plaque of maroon velvet. She painted a little, on china, on velvet and on canvas, and her rooms soon held a hundred examples of her work, all bad. Unless you were nearsighted, however, you could tell her roses from her landscapes even from across the room, for she painted large. It was the day of china plaques, and Lucille had the largest china plaque in Riverbank. It was three feet across. It was much coveted.

On her body she crowded clothes as she crowded her house with furnishings. She was permanently overdressed. She was of impressive size and she made herself larger with ruffles and frills. Her hair was always overdone—she must have spent hours on it—and if a single hair managed to exist unwaved, uncurled or untwisted it was not Lucille's fault. Yet somehow she managed to make all this flummery and curliness impressive; in her heart she hoped the adjective “queenly” was applied to her, and it was! That was before the days of women's clubs, but Lucille had picked up quite a mass of impressive misinformation on books, painting and like subjects. In Riverbank she was able to make this tell.

With all this she was politely overbearing. She let people know she wanted to have her way—and then took it! From the first she pushed her way into prominence in church matters, choosing the Sunday school as the door. The Sunday school fell entirely under her sway in a very short time, partly because Mrs. Prell, the wife of the superintendent, had social ambitions, and urged Mr. Prell to second Lucille's wishes, and partly through Lucille's mere desire to lead. She began as leader of the simple Sunday school music, standing just under the pulpit and beating out the time of

“Little children, little children,
Who love their Redeemer—”