There is a sort of life of affairs, a sort of business life, of any church in any community. Thus, there may be many meetings beside that of the Sabbath day, in each church in any community. There must fall the practice of the choir, weekly, usually of Wednesday, sometimes of Saturday evenings as well, if the anthem prove especially difficult of mastery.
As to the choir proper, there must of course be the soprano—not always elocutionist, as was the soprano in this church of Spring Valley—but always well-clad, most frequently with long and glossy curls of chestnut and the most modish hat of any in the church. Most tenors are bank clerks or cashiers. It is the function of the tenor in any such choir to escort the soprano to her home. The contralto is for the most part married, beginning to show embonpoint. She is brunette, with wide and pleasant mouth; is able to make excellent currant jelly, of which she gives her neighbors generously. Her attire is apt to be not quite so well-appointed as that of the soprano, which indeed should not be expected of the mother of three, the arrangement of those white starched collars in a part of each Sunday's task. The basso may sometimes be a school teacher, yet some of the best have been owners of livery barns, no more; modest folk withal, and covetous of the back seat in the choir.
To this essential personnel of the church choir there may be added others, supplements or understudies for this or that musical part, young men with large cameo pins in their cravats, young women with spectacles. All these who sing soprano or contralto, at least all who still are young, must be taken home after services—not only the regular services of the church, but those of the choir practice midway of the week or at the week's close. And thereto, one must count the weekly prayer meetings, mostly for the old, but for the young in part.
It is, therefore, easy to be seen that the vestibule of any Spring Valley church of a Wednesday evening, sometimes of a Thursday evening, quite often a Saturday evening, and always of a Sunday evening, must hold a certain lay representation of the community. It is, or once was, one of the proper functions of the village church to act as social meeting ground. Practically all of the respectable marriages in Spring Valley actually were contracted, at least as to the preliminary stages, under the eaves of this or that church.
The vestibule was crowded this Sunday evening, as was customary, when Aurora Lane, quite alone, turned in from the sidewalk and ascended the eight broad wooden steps up to the church door. Passing thence to the inner door, she felt the silence which came upon the boys and young men who loitered there, waiting for the entrance or the exit of those of the opposite sex. She felt the stares which fell upon her—felt, rather than saw, the icy disapproval which greeted her even here, even among these. But she passed by, entered the house of worship, and sank into a seat very far back in the long, bare, ghastly, rectangular room.
Before or after the entry of Aurora Lane, there failed not in coming those who sit in judgment upon the lives of their fellows—the baker, the butcher, the school teacher, the hanger of paper, the maker of candlesticks as well. All these were here, parts of the life of this community. Miss Julia was not there, as Aurora Lane discovered. She wondered dully if it had not been her duty to go around to the library and ask for Miss Julia; but the longing for personal solitude had been as strong in her heart as the longing for silent human companionship, so she had come alone. In truth Miss Julia was recreant tonight. She was alone in her own room—alone with her diary—that is to say, face to face with the picture of the same man whom Aurora Lane had met that afternoon.
In the slowly filling pews there reigned now silence, broken only by the shuffling footfalls of the arrivals, that uneasy, solemn silence which holds those seated and waiting for the services at church. A school teacher who was born in the East somewhere leaned her head forward on the back of the seat before her, and with a certain ostentation prayed, or seemed to pray. Others would have done this very fetching thing as well, but lacked the courage, so sat coldly, stiffly, unhappily, bolt upright, awaiting the arrival of the minister.
The tenor came after a time, soon following the soprano, models alike of social graces and correct attire. They passed modestly, seemingly unregardful of the glances bent upon them. The bass singer was more conscious of his ill-fitting clothes as he hurried up the aisle, his Adam's apple agitated, betokening his lack of ease. The soprano by this time was shaking out her curls, fussing among the music sheets at the top of the organ, pushing back the stool, twirling its top about—all the while still quite highly unmindful of the gazes of the audience. The contralto came last, her brow furrowed with the thought that perhaps she had not left the cold meat on the table where her husband, the doctor, would find it when he came back from the country.
Came also in due and proper time the minister of church, the pillar of it all, bearing in his hand, rolled in its leather case, the sermon which he had written last Thursday morning—and which perforce he had been obliged wholly to rewrite since Saturday at noon! For, be sure, this sermon must take up the issues of the day—must stand for the weekly platform of the town's morality. The eyes of all now were bent upon the little roll of leather in the preacher's hand. They knew what must be there. In a way they moistened their lips. This was why the attendance was so large and prompt tonight.
But Aurora Lane, unskilled in any of these things, the prey to so many conflicting emotions at this hour, a novice in the house of God, sat silent, her hands folded, well enough aware she was not welcomed by those who saw her there, yet craving of them, dumbly, anguished, all their tolerance in her time of need.