Annie Kilburn Part 33

"Oh, is it so bad as that?" he protested.

"It's _quite_ as bad," she insisted. "Just see what mischief I've done since I came back to Hatboro'. I took hold of that miserable Social Union because I was outside of all the life about me, and it seemed my only chance of getting into it; and I've done more harm by it in one summer than I could undo in a lifetime. Just think of poor Mr. Brandreth's love affair with Miss Chapley broken off, and Lyra's lamentable triumph over Miss Northwick, and Mrs. Munger's duplicity, and Ralph's escapade--all because I wanted to do good!"

A note of exaggeration had begun to prevail in her self-upbraiding, which was real enough, and the time came for him to suggest, "I think you're a little morbid, Miss Kilburn."

"Morbid! Of course I am! But that doesn't alter the fact that everything is wrong, does it?"

"Everything!"

"Why, you don't pretend yourself, do you, that everything is right?"

"A true American ought to do so, oughtn't he?" teased the doctor. "One mustn't be a bad citizen."

"But if you _were_ a bad citizen?" she persisted.

"Oh, then I might agree with you on some points. But I shouldn't say such things to my patients, Miss Kilburn."

"It would be a great comfort to them if you did," she sighed.

The doctor broke out in a laugh of delight at her perfervid concentration.

"Oh, no, no! They're mostly nervous women, and it would be the death of them--if they understood me. In fact, what's the use of brooding upon such ideas? We can't hurry any change, but we can make ourselves uncomfortable."

"Why should I be comfortable?" she asked, with a solemnity that made him laugh again.

"Why shouldn't you be?"

"Yes, that's what I often ask myself. But I can't be," she said sadly.

They had risen, and he looked at her with his professional interest now openly dominant, as he stood holding her hand. "I'm going to send you a little more of that tonic, Miss Kilburn."

She pulled her hand away. "No, I shall not take any more medicine. You think everything is physical. Why don't you ask at once to see my tongue?"

He went out laughing, and she stood looking wistfully at the door he had pa.s.sed through.

XXV.

The bell on the orthodox church called the members of Mr. Peck's society together for the business meeting with the same plangent, lacerant note that summoned them to worship on Sundays. Among those who crowded the house were many who had not been there before, and seldom in any place of the kind. There were admirers of Putney: workmen of rebellious repute and of advanced opinions on social and religious questions; nonsuited plaintiffs and defendants of shady record, for whom he had at one time or another done what he could. A good number of the summer folk from South Hatboro' were present, with the expectation of something dramatic, which every one felt, and every one hid with the discipline that subdues the outside of life in a New England town to a decorous pa.s.sivity.

At the appointed time Mr. Peck rose to open the meeting with prayer; then, as if nothing unusual were likely to come before it, he declared it ready to proceed to business. Some people who had been gathering in the vestibule during his prayer came in; and the electric globes, which had been recently hung above the pulpit and on the front of the gallery in subst.i.tution of the old gas chandelier, shed their moony glare upon a house in which few places were vacant. Mr. Gerrish, sitting erect and solemn beside his wife in their pew, shared with the minister and Putney the tacit interest of the audience.

He permitted the transaction of several minor affairs, and Mr. Peck, as Moderator, conducted the business with his habitual exactness and effect of far-off impersonality. The people waited with exemplary patience, and Putney, who lounged in one corner of his pew, gave no more sign of excitement, with his chin sunk in his rumpled shirt-front, than his sad-faced wife at the other end of the seat.

Mr. Gerrish rose, with the air of rising in his own good time, and said, with dry pomp, "Mr. Moderator, I have prepared a resolution, which I will ask you to read to this meeting."

He held up a paper as he spoke, and then pa.s.sed it to the minister, who opened and read it--

"_Whereas_, It is indispensable to the prosperity and well-being of any and every organisation, and especially of a Christian church, that the teachings of its minister be in accord with the convictions of a majority of its members upon vital questions of eternal interest, with the end and aim of securing the greatest efficiency of that body in the community, as an example and a shining light before men to guide their steps in the strait and narrow path; therefore,

"_Resolved_, That a committee of this society be appointed to inquire if such is the case in the instance of the Rev. Julius W. Peck, and be instructed to report upon the same."

A satisfied expectation expressed itself in the silence that followed the reading of the paper, whatever pain and shame were mixed with the satisfaction. If the contempt of kindly usage shown in offering such a resolution without warning or private notice to the minister shocked many by its brutality, still it was satisfactory to find that Mr. Gerrish had intended to seize the first chance of airing his grievance, as everybody had said he would do.

Mr. Peck looked up from the paper and across the intervening pews at Mr.

Gerrish. "Do I understand that you move the adoption of this resolution?"

"Why, certainly, sir," said Mr. Gerrish, with an accent of supercilious surprise.

"You did not say so," said the minister gently. "Does any one second Brother Gerrish's motion?"

A murmur of amus.e.m.e.nt followed Mr. Peck's reminder to Mr. Gerrish, and an ironical voice called out--

"Mr. Moderator!"

"Mr. Putney."

"I think it important that the sense of the meeting should be taken on the question the resolution raises. I therefore second the motion for its adoption."

Putney sat down, and the murmur now broadened into something like a general laugh, hushed as with a sudden sense of the impropriety.

Mr. Gerrish had gradually sunk into his seat, but now he rose again, and when the minister formally announced the motion before the meeting, he called, sharply, "Mr. Moderator!"

"Brother Gerrish," responded the minister, in recognition.

"I wish to offer a few remarks in support of the resolution which I have had the honour--the duty, I _would_ say--of laying before this meeting." He jerked his head forward at the last word, and slid the fingers of his right hand into the breast of his coat like an orator, and stood very straight. "I have no desire, sir, to make this the occasion of a personal question between myself and my pastor. But, sir, the question has been forced upon me against my will and my--my consent; and I was obliged on the last ensuing Sabbath, when I sat in this place, to enter my public protest against it.

"Sir, I came into this community a poor boy, without a penny in my pocket, and unaided and alone and by my own exertions I have built up one of the business interests of the place. I will not stoop to boast of the part I have taken in the prosperity of this place; but I will say that no public object has been wanting--that my support has not been wanting--from the first proposition to concrete the sidewalks of this village to the introduction of city waterworks and an improved system of drainage, and--er--electric lighting. So much for my standing in a public capacity!

As for my business capacity, I would gladly let that speak for itself, if that capacity had not been turned in the sanctuary itself against the personal reputation which every man holds dearer than life itself, and which has had a deadly blow aimed at it through that--that very capacity.

Sir, I have established in this town a business which I may humbly say that in no other place of the same numerical size throughout the commonwealth will you find another establishment so nearly corresponding to the wants and the--er--facilities of a great city. In no other establishment in a place of the same importance will you find the interests and the demands and the necessities of the whole community so carefully considered. In no other--"

Putney got upon his feet and called out, "Mr. Moderator, will Brother Gerrish allow me to ask him a single question?"

Mr. Peck put the request, and Mr. Gerrish involuntarily made a pause, in which Putney pursued--

"My question is simply this: doesn't Brother Gerrish think it would help us to get at the business in hand sooner if he would print the rest of his advertis.e.m.e.nt in the Hatboro' _Register_?"

A laugh broke out all over the house as Putney dropped back into his seat.

Mr. Gerrish stood apparently undaunted.

"I will attend to you presently, sir," he said, with a schoolmasterly authority which made an impression in his favour with some. "And I thank the gentleman," he continued, turning again to address the minister, "for recalling me from a side issue. As he acknowledges in the suggestion which he intended to wound my feelings, but I can a.s.sure him that my self-respect is beyond the reach of slurs and innuendoes; I care little for them; I care not what quarter they originate from, or have their--their origin; and still less when they spring from a source notoriously incompetent and unworthy to command the respect of this community, which has abused all its privileges and trampled the forbearance of its fellow-citizens under foot, until it has become a--a byword in this place, sir."

Putney sprang up again with, "Mr. Moderator--"

"No, sir! no, sir!" pursued Gerrish; "I will not submit to your interruptions. I have the floor, and I intend to keep it. I intend to challenge a full and fearless scrutiny of my motives in this matter, and I intend to probe those motives in others. Why do we find, sir, on the one side of this question as its most active exponent a man outside of the church in organising a force within this society to antagonise the most cherished convictions of that church? We do not asperse his motives; but we ask if these motives coincide with the relations which a Christian minister should sustain to his flock as expressed in the resolution which I have had the privilege to offer, more in sorrow than in anger."