Miss Ayr of Virginia, & other stories

by Julia Magruder

When the hymn ended, and the congregation knelt, he saw the young girl hide her face in her handkerchief for a moment, and then, quickly take up her thick veil and pin it on securely.

He let her go ahead of him on leaving the church, as he did not wish to be observed. He did not follow her home, however, but went instead to the club, and joined a group of chattering men in a bay-window, and listened for half an hour to their vapid comments on the smartly-dressed men and women who went by, feeling all the time a dull ache in his heart for that sensitive, lonely, probably unhappy girl, whose loveliness, even in her shabby clothes in that little mission chapel, made the most fashionable of the women who passed him seem trivial and vulgar by comparison.

For several days, Randall carried this lovely vision in his mind, until one afternoon, in a populous business neighborhood, he came suddenly upon a group of people assembled around the familiar horse and cart and the pair of musicians. He wanted to retreat, but he forced himself to stop and join the crowd, wondering what effect his presence would have upon her, if she should see and recognize him. So he took his place conspicuously, and listened with indignant protest as she sang, in popular style, with a vulgar abandon that made him positively furious, the familiar strains of “Ta-ra-ra-boom-de-ay!”

The voice was grating and unlovely as before, but again he felt amazed at the marvelous method of the singer, and the spirit with which she gave the song called forth an encore, after which she got out of the cart and passed around the basket. When she came to Randall, he purposely fumbled several seconds with his change, hoping that she might look up at him, but when she persistently looked down, he fancied that if she saw him, she was ashamed to reveal herself to him. Well she might be, he thought, and tossing some loose coins into the basket, he was about to walk away, when he heard a man standing near say some words to the woman as she held out her basket to him, which roused such fury in Randall’s soul, that before the insult had died upon the fellow’s lips, he found himself seized by the shoulders, and hurled aside with a blow from so powerful an arm that it sent him staggering against a tree. At the same instant, Randall saw the woman, with a movement of fright, run swiftly toward the cart. Before she reached the cart, however, the man at the piano had sprung from his place, and had rushed after the fellow whose words had caused the disturbance, but who, warned by the punishment which he had already received, had made the best use of his time and had escaped. Seeing this, the pianist turned and, coming toward Randall, said in a voice of controlled agitation, “I am very much obliged to you, sir, for what you did.”

Randall, who was in a state of disgust at the whole performance, waved aside the man’s thanks, and rapidly walked away.

During the weeks that followed, Randall was a prey to conflicting impressions, that kept him in a continual state of excitement and restlessness. He had got up an interest in the working of the mission chapel, and the evident help which it gave to those poor working people, and it pleased him to find a really satisfactory object for the expenditure of some of his spare cash, so he went to church every Sunday there, and contributed liberally to the work. He did not deceive himself as to the prime object of his attendance. He knew it was because his beautiful neighbor went there, but his interest in the work was sincere. He had more than once encountered the young girl in coming and going from the church, and upon these occasions it was his habit to lift his hat and to bow respectfully, just as it was her habit to return this greeting by a brilliant and beautifying blush. It made her adorably lovely, and as she now habitually removed her veil before entering the church, and did not replace it until after leaving, he had the full benefit of it. If he chanced to meet her on the street away from the church, she was always closely veiled, but usually he managed to bow to her, as she was entering or leaving.

But if the experiences of his Sundays gave him pleasure, it was more than counterbalanced by the pain he felt in the experiences of his week days. Try as he might to avoid the humiliating spectacle (and he did make a great effort) he was liable at any turn to run against that rusty cart, sleepy old pony, and the pair of musicians. He had had a sort of hope that the experience with the brute who had insulted the girl would stop these performances for the future, but he found that they went on just the same as ever. He could only conclude from this, that the man who performed with her was oblivious of, or indifferent to, her need of protection.

Randall did not always sit near her in church. Sometimes he even forced himself to take a seat where he could not look at her at all, but it was something to him to feel her nearness. One Sunday, however, he thought he had won the right to treat himself to an unusual indulgence of proximity, so on entering the church, after she had taken her usual place, he quietly walked into the seat on a line with her, and took his place near the end, where he was only separated from her by the partition dividing the pews. Never in his life had his manner been more quiet and composed, than as he sat there, profoundly still, with his eyes fixed attentively upon the preacher. He knew that she had recognized him, and he was perfectly confident that she blushed, but no one observing him would have seen in his manner anything but the coldest composure. It was, none the less, a very sweet consciousness to sit there quietly, close by her side, and he half fancied it was also pleasure to her. During the sermon he was acutely aware of her, and of every slightest movement that she had made in shifting her position, or moving her feet upon the footstool. And once, only once, he heard her breathe a little sigh, the sound of which stirred him to tenderness.

After the sermon the hymn was given out, and it proved to be the one that had been sung on the occasion of his first coming here. When the young girl rose with the open book in her hand, she observed that he had no book, and with a movement at once frank and timid she offered him hers, glancing up at him as she did so. He shook his head, declining to deprive her of it, but at the same time he caught hold of its extreme corner nearest him and continued to hold it so, until she saw his meaning, and took hold of the opposite corner. Then in a carefully modulated and sympathetic voice, which had great sweetness and charm without remarkable power, he began to sing. Admiring women had been touched by his voice before to-day, and it was no wonder if it touched with power the woman standing at his side. He hoped it did, at least, but he could divine nothing, as her little shabby thumb supported the book unwaveringly until the hymn was ended.

Walking homeward that day, Randall looked his present condition in the face more boldly and honestly than he had ever done before, and the result of it was that he owned that he was in love.