The Attic Guest: A Novel

by Robert E. Knowles

"I'm afraid we're keeping you too much to ourselves, Mr. Ashton," Gordon suddenly broke in, offering me his arm and starting to move away; "the others will want to speak to you," as he smilingly withdrew, a light in his eyes that I could interpret quite well, lost though it was on our prosperous parishioner. Before we left, Gordon enquired quietly about Mr. Ashton, and we learned that he owned a huge factory and was quite the richest man in the church. One or two declared he ran the whole institution, and that whatever he said was law. I don't think this cheered Gordon very much.

The two years that followed were trying ones for me. It seemed as if I were on exhibition on every hand, and I felt nearly all the time as if I were at some kind of a public meeting. The church had no end of societies, especially women's societies, and they all expected me to be present on every occasion. I did my best but it was pretty hard. I memorized the little prayer Gordon had written out for me—and broke down in the middle of it the first time I tried to deliver it. It was like being lost at sea. And one of the ladies afterwards, whose husband was very rich—he made it out of lard—told me not to be discouraged; she said their previous minister's wife made a living show of herself, time and time again, before she got to be able to pray properly. So I stopped right there, without further exhibition.

I bravely attempted teaching a class in the Sunday-school. Things didn't go so badly for the first three Sundays, although the boys asked some questions that dreadfully embarrassed me; I told them they must think these things out for themselves. But the fourth Sunday two of them fell to fighting—over a big glass alley—and they had a quite disgraceful time. There was bloodshed. It really quite unnerved me, as I didn't know the minute they might break out again; so in about six weeks I gave that up.

Another thing discouraged me a good deal—and that was that we were comparatively poor. Although the congregation was composed so largely of rich people, they seemed to think—and Mr. Ashton openly avowed—that nothing injured a minister's spiritual life like having too much money. So we were kept pretty safe that way. But there was one lovely thing about the salary—and that was, the manse; within which Gordon and I made our home as soon as we came to Hertford. It seemed a little small to me in comparison with uncle's big house at home; but we fixed it up till it was as sweet and cozy as any little home could be, and Gordon's delight was something to behold. He said it was like a palace to him, and I was its lovely queen. This was very melodious to me, for when Gordon said pretty things he meant them.

However, it was rather trying, after all, to be so much harder up than many of our people. Some of these seemed to love to ask me why we didn't keep horses; and whether or not we were going to Europe this summer; and how many servants we employed. They knew right well all the time that we had enough to do to keep ourselves, and that we were about as likely to go to Mars as to Europe—it comforted me a little to know I could have gone if I hadn't fallen in love with Gordon—and as for servants, we had only our red-headed Harriet; but she was first cousin to the wife of one of the richest men in the church. Their fathers were brothers, Harriet told me exultantly; but Harriet's had remained a mechanic, while Mrs. Newcroft's had become a manufacturer. Harriet generally got one afternoon in the week off; Mrs. Newcroft soon found this out, and always chose that day to call, lest Harriet should greet her as Mary Ann—which, in my opinion, she had a perfect right to do.

It was a funny aristocracy we had in Hertford—about as cheerful, and hopeful, and mushroomy an aggregation as you could find anywhere. So different from the South, it was; wealth didn't cut much of a figure with our old Southern families. But the patricians of Hertford, for the most part, had bought their way to the seats of the mighty; and nearly all the blue blood was financially blue. Some of the grand dames had been servants themselves in their early days; which was no disgrace to them, I'm sure, only it was amusing to see how they looked down on servants now. In fact, I often felt how discouraging must have been their arduous efforts to build up an aristocracy at all; things would have gone pretty well, had it not been for some mean old outsiders who would insist on remembering back thirty or forty years. Those within the sacred circle generously forgot—each for the other. They let bygones be bygones, to their mutual advantage. But outsiders had cruel memories. Wherefore, just when they were getting their aristocracy nicely established, some of these inconsiderate old-timers would go rummaging in the past; and, the first thing we knew, they would stumble on an anvil, or unearth a plough, or a hod, or something of that kind—whereat the blue-blooded had to begin all over again. For the descendants of hod, or plough, or anvil, had somehow developed the greatest scorn for these honest trade-marks of other days.

Gordon never said much to me—I heard him use the term "Shanghai nobility" once, with a smile—but I knew how he despised it all. I could see his eye flash sometimes when some of them were getting off their little speeches, trying to let us know in what lofty society they moved and what superior folks they were. Indeed, it became more and more clear to me that Gordon was never meant to be the minister of a rich congregation at all. His father was a shepherd—it used to mortify the grandees of St. Andrew's dreadfully to hear him say so—and Gordon was full of the simple sincerity and manly independence that I felt sure must have marked his ancestors. And I don't think Gordon ever preached a sermon without unconsciously making them feel that he was independent of them, if ever a man was, which was the simple truth, for my husband had his warrant from far higher hands than theirs, and I don't think he knew what it was to feel the fear of man.

Wherefore it came about, and it is not to be wondered at, that Gordon found a great deal of his work among the poor. Little by little, to the dismay of many of the aristocrats, he added to the number of the lowly that made their church home in St. Andrew's. And he founded, and cherished, a mission chapel in Swan Hollow, one of the most degraded parts of the city. I really believe the rich were jealous of the poor, for Gordon seemed to love them best and to be happiest when he was among them. But the poor people worshipped him for it—and I believe I did too.

Oh, how I envied him! For he seemed to have a source of happiness of which I knew nothing. I can remember, when my days were full of teas, and at-homes, and all sorts of social functions, how much more full and satisfying his life seemed to be than mine. Sometimes I would get Harriet to make a little jelly, or some delicacy of that sort, for the poor sick folks he used to tell me about; but Gordon gave them his heart, his life, his love—and that made all his work a perpetual joy to him. This was the deep spring from which he drank—and I had no part in it at all. I used to punch the score cards at evening parties, and sometimes I played for the dancers as before—thus did my poor hungry heart nibble at the phantom crumbs that fell from the rich man's table. But both my heart and I were starving.

It strikes me as wonderful, now that I sit and look back upon it all, how inevitably, and by what different paths, and under what varying influences I came closer to Gordon's side.