Dr. Lavendar's People Part 1

Dr. Lavendar's People.

by Margaret Deland.

THE APOTHEOSIS

OF THE

REVEREND MR. SPANGLER

I

Miss Ellen Baily kept school in the brick bas.e.m.e.nt of her old frame house on Main Street.

The children used to come up a flagstone path to the side door, and then step down two steps into an entry. Two rooms opened on this entry; in one the children sat at small, battered desks and studied; in the other Miss Baily heard their lessons, sitting at a table covered with a red cloth, which had a white Grecian fret for a border and smelled of crumbs. On the wall behind her was a faded print of "Belshazzar's Feast"; in those days this was probably the only feasting the room ever saw--although on a thin-legged sideboard there were two decanters (empty) and a silver-wire cake-basket which held always three apples. Both rooms looked out on the garden--the garden and, in fine weather, _Mr. David Baily!_ ... Ah, me--what it was, in the dreary stretches of mental arithmetic, to look across the flower-beds and see Mr. David--tall and dark and melancholy--pacing up and down, sometimes with a rake, oftener with empty hands; always with vague, beautiful eyes fixed on some inner vision of heart-broken memory. Miss Ellen's pupils were confident of this vision because of a tombstone in the burial-ground which recorded the death of Maria Hastings, at the romantic age of seventeen; and, as everybody in Old Chester knew, Mr.

Baily had been in love with this same seventeen-year-old Maria. To be sure, it was thirty years ago; but that does not make any difference, "_in real love_," as any school-girl can tell you. So, when David Baily paced up and down the garden paths or sat in the sunshine under the big larch we all knew that he was thinking of his bereavement.

In the opinion of the older girls, grief had wrecked Mr. David's life; he had intended to be a clergyman, but had left the theological school because his eyes gave out. "He cried himself nearly blind," the girls told each other with great satisfaction. After that he tried one occupation after another, but somehow failed in each; which was proof of a delicacy of const.i.tution induced by sorrow. Furthermore, he seemed pursued by a cruel fortune--"Fate," the girls called it.

Elderly, unromantic Old Chester did not use this fine word, but it admitted pursuing disaster.

For instance: there was the time that David undertook the charge of a private library in Upper Chester, and three months afterwards the owner sold it! Then Mr. Hays found a job for him, and just as he was going to work he was laid up with rheumatism. And again Tom Dilworth got him a place as a.s.sistant book-keeper; and David, after innumerable tangles on his balance-sheet, was obliged to say, frankly, that he had no head for figures. But he was willing to do anything else--"_any_ honest work that is not menial," he said, earnestly. And Tom said, why, yes, of course, only he'd be darned if he knew what to suggest. But he added, in conjugal privacy, that David ought to be hided for not turning his hand to something. "Why doesn't he try boot-blacking?

Only, I suppose, he'd say he couldn't make the change correctly. He doesn't know whether two and two make five or three--like our Ned."

"Why, they make four, Tom," said Mrs. Dilworth. And Thomas stared at her, and said, "You don't say so!"

There had been no end of such happenings; "and none of them my brother's fault," Miss Ellen told the sympathetic older girls, who glanced sideways at Mr. David and wished that they might die and be mourned as Mr. David mourned Maria.

The fact was, the habit of failure had fastened upon poor David; and in the days when Miss Ellen's school was in its prime (before the new people told our parents that her teaching was absurdly inadequate), he was depending on his sister for his bread-and-b.u.t.ter. That Miss Ellen supported him never troubled the romantic souls of Miss Ellen's pupils any more than it troubled Miss Ellen--or Mr. David. "Why shouldn't she?" the girls would have demanded if any such rudely practical question had been asked; "he is so delicate, _and he has a broken heart!_" So that was how it happened that the pupils were able to have palpitating glimpses of him, walking listlessly about the garden, or dozing in a sunny window over an old magazine, or doing some pottering bit of carpentering for Miss Ellen, but never losing his good looks or the grieved melancholy of his expression.

Miss Ellen had been teaching for twenty years.

It is useless to deny that, unless one has a genius for imparting knowledge, teaching is a drudgery. It was drudgery to Ellen Baily, but she never slighted it on that account. She was conscientious about the number of feet in the highest mountain in the world; she saw to it that her pupils could repeat the sovereigns of England backward. Besides these fundamentals, the older girls had Natural Philosophy every Friday; it was not, perhaps, necessary that young ladies should know that the air was composed of two gases (the girls who had travelled and seen the lighted streets of towns knew what gas was), nor that rubbing a cat's fur the wrong way in the dark would produce electric sparks--such things were not necessary. But they were interesting, and, as Mrs. Barkley said, if they did not go too far and lead to scepticism, they would do no harm. However, Miss Ellen counteracted any sceptical tendencies by reading aloud, every Sat.u.r.day morning, Bishop c.u.mmings on the Revelation, so that even Dr. Lavendar was not wiser than Miss Ellen's girls as to what St. John meant by "a time, and a time, and a half of a time," or who the four beasts full of eyes before and behind stood for. For accomplishments, there was fine sewing every Wednesday afternoon; and on Mondays, with sharply pointed pencils, we copied trees and houses from neat little prints; also, we had lessons upon the piano-forte, so there was not one of us who, when she left Miss Ellen's, could not play at least three pieces, viz., "The Starlight Valse," "The Maiden's Prayer," and "The Last Rose of Summer."

Ah, well, one may smile. Compared to what girls know nowadays, it is, of course, very absurd. But, all the same, Miss Ellen's girls knew some things of which our girls are ignorant: reverence was one; humility was another; obedience was a third. And poor, uneducated folk (compared with our daughters) that we of Old Chester may be, we are, if I mistake not, glad that we were taught a certain respect for our own language, which, though it makes the tongue of youth to-day almost unintelligible, does give us a joy in the wells of English undefiled which our children do not seem to know; and for this, in our dull Old Chester way, we are not ungrateful. However, this may all be sour grapes....

At any rate, for twenty painstaking years Miss Ellen's methods fed and clothed Mr. David. Then came the winter of Dr. Lavendar's illness, and the temporary instalment of the Reverend Mr. Spangler, and Ellen Baily realized that there were other things in the world than David's food and clothes.

Dr. Lavendar, cross, unbelieving, protesting, was to be hustled down South by Sam Wright; and the day before he started Mr. Spangler appeared. That was early in February, and Dr. Lavendar was to come back the first of May.

"Not a day sooner," said Sam Wright.

"I'll come when I see fit," said Dr. Lavendar. He didn't believe in this going away, he said. "Home is the best place to be sick in. The truth is, w.i.l.l.y King doesn't want me to die on his hands--it would hurt his business," said Dr. Lavendar, wickedly; "I know him!"

But to Mr. Spangler Dr. Lavendar said other things about w.i.l.l.y, and Sam Wright, too; in fact, about all of them. And he pulled out his big, red silk pocket-handkerchief with a trembling flourish and wiped his eyes. "I don't deserve it," he said. "I'm a dogmatic old fogy, and I won't let the new people have their jimcrackery; and I preach old sermons, and I've had a cold in my head for three months. And yet, look at 'em: A purse, if you please! And Sam Wright is going down with me. Sam ought to be ashamed of himself to waste his time; he's a busy man. No, sir; I don't deserve it. And, if you take my advice, you'll pray the Lord that your people will treat you as you don't deserve."

Mr. Spangler, a tall, lean man, very correctly dressed, who was depended upon in the diocese as a supply, made notes solemnly while Dr.

Lavendar talked; but he sighed once or twice, patiently, for the old man was not very helpful. Mr. Spangler wanted to know what Sunday-school teachers could be relied upon, and whether the choir was very thin-skinned, and which of the vestry had chips on their shoulders.

"None of 'em. I knocked 'em all off, long ago," said Dr. Lavendar.

"Don't you worry about that. Speak your mind."

"I have," said Mr. Spangler, coughing delicately, "an iron hand when I once make up my mind in regard to methods; firmness is, I think, a clergyman's duty, and duty, I hope, is my watchword; but I think it best to canva.s.s a matter thoroughly before making up my mind."

"It is generally wise to do so," said Dr. Lavendar, very meekly.

"Of course," Mr. Spangler said, kindly, "you belong to a somewhat older period, and do not, perhaps, realize the value of our modern ways of dealing with a parish--I mean in regard to firmly carrying out one's own ideas. I suppose these good people do pretty much as they please, so far as you are concerned?"

"Perhaps they do," said Dr. Lavendar, very, very meekly.

"So, not wishing to offend, I will ask a few questions: I have heard that the parish is perhaps a little old-fashioned in regard to matters of ritual? I have wondered whether my ca.s.sock would be misunderstood?"

"Ca.s.sock?" said Dr. Lavendar. "Bless your heart, wear a pea-jacket if it helps you to preach the Word. It will only be for ten Sundays," he added, hopefully.

The Reverend Mr. Spangler smiled at that; and when he smiled one saw that his face, though timid, was kind.

So Dr. Lavendar, growling and scolding, fussing about Danny and his little blind horse Goliath, and Mr. Spangler's comfort, was bundled off; and Mr. Spangler settled down in the shabby rectory. His iron will led him to preach in his surplice, and it was observed that a silver cross dangled from his black silk fob. "But it's only for ten weeks," said Old Chester, and asked him to tea, and bore with him, and did nothing more severe than smile when he bowed in the creed--smile, and perhaps stand up a little straighter itself.

This, of the real Old Chester. Of course the new people were pleased; and one or two of the younger folk liked it. Miss Ellen Baily was not young, but she liked the surplice better than Dr. Lavendar's black gown and bands, and the sudden sparkle of the cross when Mr. Spangler knelt gave her a pang of pleasure. David, too, was not displeased. To be sure, David was rarely stirred to anything so positive as pleasure.

But at least he made no objections to the cross; and he certainly brightened up when, on Sat.u.r.day afternoon, Mr. Spangler called. He even talked of Gambier, to which he had gone for a year, and of which, it appeared, the clergyman was an alumnus. Miss Ellen had a pile of compositions on the table beside her, and she glanced at one occasionally so that she might not seem to expect any share in the conversation. But, all the same, Mr. Spangler noticed her. He was not drawn to the brother; still, he talked to him about their college, for Mr. Spangler believed that being agreeable was just as much a clergyman's duty as was changing the bookmarks for Advent or Lent; and duty, as Mr. Spangler often said, was his watchword. Furthermore, he was aware that his kindness pleased the silent, smiling woman seated behind the pile of compositions.

It pleased her so much that that night, after David had gone to bed, she went over to Mrs. Barkley's to talk about her caller.

"Well, Ellen Baily," Mrs. Barkley said, briskly, as Miss Baily came into the circle of lamplight by the parlor-table, "so you had a visitor to-day? I saw him, cross and all."

"It was a very small one," Miss Baily protested, "and only silver."

"Would you have had it diamonds?" demanded Mrs. Barkley, in a deep ba.s.s. "Oh, well; it doesn't really matter; there are only nine more Sundays. But Sam Wright says he shall mention it when he writes to Dr.

Lavendar."

"I suppose Dr. Lavendar saw it before he went away," Ellen said, with some spirit.

"Well, if he doesn't take his religion out in crosses, I suppose it's all right. But he's not a very active laborer in the vineyard. I suppose you know about him?"

"Why, no," Ellen said; "nothing except that he supplies a good deal."

"Supplies? Yes, because his mother left him a house in Mercer, and enough to live on in a small way; so he likes supplying better than taking a charge where he'd have to work hard and couldn't have his comforts."

"Why doesn't he take a charge where he could have his comforts?"

"Can't get the chance," Mrs. Barkley explained, briefly. "Not enough of a preacher. And, besides, he likes his ease in Zion. Rachel Spangler's old house, and her Mary Ann, and his father's library, and--well, the flesh-pots of Mercer!--and supplying, just enough to buy him his ridiculous b.u.t.toned-up coats. That's what he likes. I suppose he uses the same old sermons over and over. Doesn't ever have to write a new one. However, he's here, and maybe Old Chester will do him good.

Ellen Baily, did you know that we have a new-comer in Old Chester? A widow. I don't like widows. Her name's Smily. Foolish name! She's staying at the Stuffed Animal House. She's Harriet Hutchinson's cousin, and she's come down on her for a visit."

"Maybe she'll make her a present when she goes away," said Ellen, hopefully.

"Present! She needs to have presents made to her. She hasn't a cent but what her husband's brother gives her. He's a school-teacher, I understand; and you know yourself, Ellen Baily, how much a school-teacher can do in that way?"

Miss Ellen sighed.