The Puritans Part 58

It is possible that Father Frontford, with all his decision, might have been unable to prevent some demonstration, but Dr. Wilson quietly remarked to his wife:--

"Elsie, we've had enough of this bishop racket. I'm devilish tired of the whole thing, and I wish you'd find a new amus.e.m.e.nt."

"But, Chauncy," she responded, "think how maddening it is to be beaten!

And as for that Fred Rangely, I could dig out his eyes and pour in hot lead!"

Wilson chuckled gleefully.

"You played your private theatricals just a little prematurely. It was devilish clever of him to get back at you that way; but that letter has made newspaper talk enough about you, and you'd better drop church politics. Isn't it time to get your stud into shape for the summer?"

Elsie shrugged her shoulders.

"I don't know. I hate to give it up while there's a fighting chance.

The campaign has been a lot of fun. However, I suppose you are right.

You have a dreadfully aggravating way of being. Besides, I am pretty tired of parsons, and horses wear better."

She therefore managed to secure a visiting English duke with a characteristically shady reputation, gave the most brilliant dinner of the season in his honor, and retired to her country place in a blaze of glory; finding some consolation for all her disappointments in the purchase of a couple of new racers with pedigrees far longer than that of the duke.

Easter came that year almost at its earliest, and it was therefore found possible to have the consecration of the new bishop in June. To it were a.s.sembled all the dignitaries of the church. Boston for a couple of days overflowed with men in ecclesiastical garb; and if the general public was not deeply stirred by the importance of the event, all those connected with it were full of interest and excitement.

Mrs. Wilson surprised her friends by returning to town and reopening her house for the consecration week. She announced to her husband her intention of doing this as they sat in the library at their country place while Dr. Wilson smoked his final pipe for the night. They had been dining out, and had driven home in the moonlight, chatting of the people they had seen and the gossip they had heard. Elsie was in high spirits, amusing her husband by her satirical remarks. At last she said:--

"I hope, Chauncy, you won't mind if I go off for a week."

"Off for a week? Where are you going?"

"Into town to open the house for the consecration of the great Bishop Strathmore."

"Well," her husband said, laughing, "I like your grit. If you can't win, you won't show the white feather."

She laughed in turn, as gleefully and as musically as a child.

"I'm going for revenge."

"Oh, that's it. Is Rangely to die?"

"Pooh, it isn't Rangely. He's too insignificant. I can snub him any time. It's better fun than that."

"Well, let's hear."

"You know that Marion Delega.s.s is to end her season with a week in Boston."

"Well? You are not going to Boston to see her, are you? You've seen her in Paris and New York enough to last, I should think."

"Oh, no; I'm going to meet her."

"Marion Delega.s.s, the most notoriously disreputable actress even on the French stage? Well, she'll be a change from your parsons."

"Luckily her last week is the week of the consecration of the heathen."

"Is she to take part?"

"Don't be flippant. I am to give Mlle. Delega.s.s a luncheon. I've arranged it by letter. By one of the most curious coincidences in the world it comes on the very day of the consecration."

"That is amusing, but I don't see that it's much of a revenge."

"No?" Elsie responded demurely, casting down her eyes. "I am so sorry that Mrs. Strathmore can't come."

"Mrs. Strathmore? You didn't ask her!"

"Why, of course, Chauncy, I wanted to show that I hadn't any ill feeling against the family of my bishop."

"To meet Marion Delega.s.s?"

"Of course. I thought it would liven Mrs. Strathmore up a little. She always reminded me of water-gruel with not enough salt in it."

Dr. Wilson burst into a roar of laughter, leaning back in his chair and slapping his knee.

"Marion Delega.s.s! Why she's left more husbands and lovers behind her than a sailor has wives! Marion Delega.s.s and that prig in petticoats!

Well, Elsie, you do beat the devil!"

"Am I to understand that you know His Satanic Majesty well enough to speak with authority?" she laughed. "What do you think now of my revenge?"

"I don't exactly see where the revenge comes in. She won't come to the lunch."

"Come? Oh, no; thank Heaven, she won't come. She'd be like a death's head in a punch-bowl. She won't come, but she'll tell that she was invited. She'll be too furious not to tell; and everybody will know that I asked her. That's all I care about."

Wilson laughed again.

"Well," he said again, "you are the cheekiest and the most amusing woman in town. You'll shock all your relations, but they must be getting hardened to that by this time."

Whether the relatives were on this occasion more or less shocked than upon others was not a question to which Elsie devoted any especial thought. She gave her luncheon, and all the world knew that she had invited Mrs. Strathmore to meet Marion Delega.s.s on the day of the consecration. Mrs. Strathmore was so enraged that she talked flames and fury, even going so far as to wonder whether there were not some possibility of excommunication; so that her tormentor was enchanted with the success of her revenge.

The consecration took place on a beautiful June day, and was as imposing a function in its line as Boston had ever seen. Trinity was crowded to overflowing, and if the ceremony was less imposing than would have been the induction of a Catholic bishop, it was impressive and dignified. The sunlight filtering through the windows of stained gla.s.s splashed fantastic colors over the long surpliced train which wound through the aisles down to the chancel, singing processionals of joyous hope; the air was full of the sense of solemn meaning; the organ pealed; the n.o.ble words of the fine old ritual spoke to the hearts of the hearers, and carried their message of a faith which took hold upon the unseen. Above all the circ.u.mstance, the form, the conventions, the creeds, rose the spirit of the worshipers, uplifted by the thrilling realization of the outpouring of the soul of humanity before the unknown eternal.

Maurice had accompanied Mrs. Staggchase and Miss Morison to the ceremony. It had been his impulse not to go, but his cousin urged it, and it needed little to induce him to go to any place where Berenice was, even though it were a church. He went with some secret misgiving lest the service should move him more than he wished; but to his satisfaction he found that while he felt aesthetic pleasure, he was inclined to be critical about the doctrine of the ritual. His satisfaction, he reflected, would have been thought amusing by Mrs.

Staggchase; but it at least a.s.sured him that he had not been mistaken in his mental att.i.tude toward the creed he had discarded.

The thing which most moved him was the sight of Philip among the surpliced deacons in the procession. Philip's face seemed to him thinner and paler than of old; he blamed himself that he had not disregarded his friend's injunction, and insisted upon seeing him. To his repeated requests Philip had returned answer that he could not bear the meeting. Maurice had come at length to feel something almost of resentment at the wall which this prohibition put between them; but to-day, seeing the white countenance, he experienced a pang of deep self-reproach. He reflected how sharply his defection must have weighed his friend down. He should have tried to comfort him; at least he should have a.s.sured Phil that in spite of whatever might come his affection would remain unchanged.

He thought lovingly of the old days when he and Phil were together, and of the plans they had sometimes made for keeping if possible together even after they went out into the world to work. He had the impatience of one who has recently put a doctrine by for the blindness, as it seemed to him, which kept Phil still in the power of the old superst.i.tion; but with his friend's white face, marked with mental suffering, there to soften him, he dwelt little on this, and much on his affection for his friend and fellow.

As Maurice brooded, watching Philip moving slowly down the aisle, Berenice bent forward to take a book from the rack, and her face came between him and his friend. The thought of Philip vanished as a shadow before a sun-burst. He was conscious only of Berenice, sitting there so near him, her dark eyes serious with the solemnity of the occasion, her cheeks tinged with a color so lovely that the lining of a sh.e.l.l or the petals of a rose were poor things with which to compare it. He forgot all else, and lost himself in a delicious, troubled dream of what might be. Surely, surely she must love him! He could not give her up; it was not possible that he should not some day win her. He fixed on her a look so ardent that it seemed to compel her glance to meet his. The flush in her cheek deepened, and he reflected with an exultant thrill that even in the absorption of a time like this he could reach and move her spirit.

The rest of the service was little to Maurice. He heard the music, listened now and then to the words which were being spoken, thought for a moment here and there upon the strangeness that these people should be consecrating Mr. Strathmore and not recognizing in the least that they were a.s.sisting at the breaking down of the church; he gave a little reflection to his own interview with the new bishop, unable completely to satisfy himself how far Mr. Strathmore was sincere and how far simply following out a policy; these and other matters floated through his mind, but they were mere trifles on the surface. His real thought was of Berenice, always of Berenice. The fluttered, troubled look which he had seen when his gaze had compelled hers, a look which seemed to him full of confession of things unutterable, full almost of appeal as if she realized that she was betraying a feeling that she feared to own even to herself, this look of a moment so fleeting clocks could hardly have measured it, filled him with a wild, unreasoning bliss. He did not again try to challenge her eyes. He sat in a dream of happiness; a vague, intangible, ecstatic sense that all was well, that the universe was in tune, and that all things were but ministers of his joy.

When the ceremonial was concluded Mrs. Staggchase went home with Berenice to lunch with Mrs. Morison. Maurice put them into their carriage, feeling that he could not let Berenice go out of his sight.

He stood on the curbstone watching the carriage as if it had set out on a voyage to regions unknown and far; then smiling at himself with a realization of what he was doing he turned back to go home himself. As he did so he came face to face with Philip.