The Stolen Singer Part 18

Even to Agatha's absorbed and preoccupied mind it presented a striking contrast to the old red house, which had received her so graciously into its s.p.a.cious comfort. She marveled that anything so fresh and modish as the house before her could have come into being in the old town. It was next to a certainty that there was a model laundry with set tubs beyond the kitchen, and equally sure that no old horsehair lounge subtly invited the wearied traveler to rest.

A cool draft came through the screen door. Within, it was cleaner than anything Agatha had ever seen. The stair-rail glistened, the polished floors shone. A neat bouquet of sweet peas stood exactly in the center of a snow-white doily, which was exactly in the middle of a shiny, round table. The very door-mat was brand new; Agatha would never have thought of wiping her shoes on it.

Agatha's ring was answered by a half-grown girl, who looked scared when she saw a stranger at the door. Agatha walked into the parlor, in spite of the girl's hesitation In inviting her, and directed her to say to Mrs. Stoddard that Miss Redmond, from the old red house, wished particularly to see her. The girl's face a.s.sumed an expression of intelligent and ecstatic curiosity.

"Oh!" she breathed. Then, "She's putting up plums, but she can come out in a few minutes." She could not go without lingering to look at Agatha, her wide-eyed gaze taking note of her hair, her dress, her hands, her face. As Agatha became conscious of the ingenuous inspection to which she was subjected, she smiled at the girl--one of her old, radiant, friendly smiles.

"Run now, and tell Mrs. Stoddard, there's a good child! And sometime you must come to see me at the red house; will you?"

The girl's face lighted up as if the sun had come through a cloud. She smiled at Agatha in return, with a "Yes" under her breath. Thus are slaves made.

Left alone in the cool, dim parlor, so orderly and spotless, Agatha had a presentiment of the prejudice of cla.s.s and of religion against which she was about to throw herself. Susan Stoddard's fanaticism was not merely that of an individual; it represented the stored-up strength of hardy, conscience-driven generations. The Stoddards might build themselves houses with model laundries, but they did not thereby transfer their real treasure from the incorruptible kingdom. If they were not ruled by aesthetic ideals, neither were they governed by thoughts of worldly display. This fragrant, clean room bespoke character and family history. Agatha found herself absently looking down at a white wax cross, entwined with wax flowers, standing under a gla.s.s on the center-table. It was a strange piece of handicraft. Its whiteness was suggestive of death, not life, and the curving leaves and petals, through which the vital sap once flowed, were beautiful no longer, now that their day of tender freshness was so inappropriately prolonged. As Agatha, with mind aloof, wondered vaguely at the laborious patience exhibited in the work, her eye caught sight of an inscription molded in the wax pedestal: "Brother." Her mind was sharply brought back from the impersonal region of speculation. What she saw was not merely a sentimental, misguided attempt at art; it was Susan Stoddard's memorial of her brother, Hercules Thayer--the man who had so unexpectedly influenced Agatha's own life. To Susan Stoddard this wax cross was the symbol of the companionship of childhood, and of all the sweet and bitter involved in the inexplicable bond of blood relationship. Agatha felt more kindly toward her because of this mute, fantastic memorial. She looked up almost with her characteristic friendly smile as she heard slow, steady steps coming down the hall.

The eyes that returned Agatha's look were not smiling, though they did not look unkind. They gazed, without embarra.s.sment, as without pride, into Agatha's face, as if they would probe at once to the covered springs of action. Mrs. Stoddard was a thick-set woman, rather short, looking toward sixty, with iron-gray hair parted in the middle and drawn back in an old-fashioned, pretty way.

It was to the credit of Mrs. Stoddard's breeding that she took no notice of Agatha's peculiar dress, unsuited as it was to any place but the bedroom, even in the morning. Mrs. Stoddard herself was neat as a pin in a cotton gown made for utility, not beauty. She stood for an instant with her clear, untroubled gaze full upon Agatha, then drew forward a chair from its mathematical position against the wall. When she spoke, her voice was a surprise, it was so low and deep, with a resonance like that of the 'cello. It was not the voice of a young woman; it was, rather, a rare gift of age, telling how beautiful an old woman's speech could be. Moreover, it carried refinement of birth and culture, a beauty of phrase and enunciation, which would have marked her with distinction anywhere.

"How do you do, Miss Redmond?"

Agatha, standing by the table with the cross, made no movement toward the chair. She was not come face to face with Mrs. Stoddard for the purpose of social visitation, but because, in the warfare of life, she had been sent to the enemy with a message. That, at least, was Agatha's point of view. Officially, she was come to plead with Mrs.

Stoddard; personally, she was hot and resentful at her unjust words.

Her reply to her hostess' greeting was brief and her att.i.tude unbending.

"I have come to ask you, Mrs. Stoddard," Agatha began, though to her chagrin, she found her voice was unsteady--"I have come personally to ask you, Mrs. Stoddard, if you will help us in caring for our friend, who is very ill. Your brother, Doctor Thayer, wishes it. It is a case of life and death, maybe; and skilful nursing is difficult to find."

Agatha's hand, that rested on the table, was trembling by the time she finished her speech; she was vividly conscious of the panic that had come upon her nerves at a fresh realization of the wall of defense and resistance which she was attempting to a.s.sail. It spoke to her from Mrs. Stoddard's calm, other-worldly eyes, from her serene, deep voice.

"No, Miss Redmond, that work is not for me."

"But please, Mrs. Stoddard, will you not reconsider your decision? It is not for myself I ask, but for another--one who is suffering."

Mrs. Stoddard's gaze went past Agatha and rested on the white cross with the inscription, "Brother." She slowly shook her head, saying again, "No, that work is not for me. The Lord does not call me there."

As the two women stood there, with the funeral cross between them, each with her heart's burden of griefs, convictions and resentments, each recoiled, sensitively, from the other's touch. But life and the burden life imposes were too strong.

"How can yon say, Mrs. Stoddard, 'that work is not for me,' when there is suffering you can relieve, sickness that you can cure? I am asking a hard thing, I know; but we will help to make it as easy as possible for you, and we are in great need."

"Should the servants of the Lord falter in doing His work?" Mrs.

Stoddard's voice intoned reverently, while she looked at Agatha with her sincere eyes. "No. He gives strength to perform His commands.

But sickness and sorrow and death are on every hand; to some it is appointed for a moment's trial, to others it is the wages of sin. We can not alter the Lord's decrees."

Agatha stared at the rapt speaker with amazed eyes, and presently the anger she had felt at Doctor Thayer's words rose again within her breast, doubly strong. The doctor had given but a feeble version of the judgment; here was the real voice hurling anathema, as did the prophets of old. But even as she listened, she gathered all her force to combat this sword of the spirit which had so suddenly risen against her.

"You are a hard and unjust woman, to talk of the 'wages of sin.' What do you know of my life, or of him who is sick over at the red house?

Who are you, to sit in judgment upon us?"

"I am the humblest of His servants," replied Susan Stoddard, and there was no shadow of hypocrisy in her tones. She went on, almost sorrowfully: "But we are sent to serve and obey. 'Keep ye separate and apart from the children of this world,' is His commandment, and I have no choice but to obey. Besides," and she looked up fearlessly into Agatha's face, "we _do_ know about you. It is spoken of by all how you follow a wicked and worldly profession. You can't touch pitch and not be defiled. The temple must be purged and emptied of worldliness before Christ can come in."

Agatha was baffled by the very simplicity and directness of Mrs.

Stoddard's words, even though she felt that her own texts might easily be turned against her. But she had no heart for argument, even if it would lead her to verbal triumph over her companion. Instinctively she felt that not thus was Mrs. Stoddard to be won.

"Whatever you may think about me or about my profession, Mrs.

Stoddard," she said, "you must believe me when I say that Mr. Hambleton is free from your censure, and worthy of your sincerest praise. He is not an opera singer--of that I am convinced--"

Susan Stoddard here interpolated a stern "Don't you know?"

"Listen, Mrs. Stoddard!" cried Agatha in desperation. "When the yacht, the _Jeanne D'Arc_, began to sink, there was panic and fear everywhere.

While I was climbing down into one of the smaller boats, the rope broke, and I fell into the water. I should have drowned, then and there, if it had not been for this man; for all the rest of the ship's load jumped into the boats and rowed away to save themselves. He helped me to come ash.o.r.e, after I had become exhausted by swimming. He is ill and near to death, because he risked his life to save mine. Is not that a heaven-inspired act?"

Mrs. Stoddard's eyes glistened at Agatha's tale, which had at last got behind the older woman's armor. But her next attack took a form that Agatha had not foreseen. In her reverent voice, so suited to exhortation, she demanded:

"And what will you do with your life, now that you have been saved by the hand of G.o.d? Will you dedicate it to Him, whose child you are?"

Agatha, chafing in her heart, paused a moment before she answered:

"My life has not been without its tests of faith and of conscience, Mrs. Stoddard; and who of us does not wish, with the deepest yearning, to know the right and to do it?"

"Knowledge comes from the Lord," came Mrs. Stoddard's words, like an antiphonal response in the litany.

"My way has been different from yours; and It is a way that would be difficult for you to understand, possibly. But you shall not condemn me without reason."

"Are you going to marry that man you have been living with these many days?" was the next stern inquiry.

A stinging blush--a blush of anger and outraged pride as much as of modesty--surged up over Agatha's face. She was silent a moment, and in that moment learned what it was to control anger.

"I have not been 'living with' this man, in any sense of the term, Mrs.

Stoddard. I will say this once for all to you, though I never would, in any other conceivable situation, reply to such a question and such an implication. You have no right to say or think such things."

"Wickedness must be rebuked of the Lord," intoned Mrs. Stoddard.

"Are you His mouthpiece?" said Agatha scornfully. But she was rebuked for her scorn by Mrs. Stoddard's look. Her eyes rested on Agatha's face with pleading and patience, as if she were a world-mother, agonizing for the salvation of her children.

"It is His command to pluck the brand from the burning," said Susan Stoddard. "UnG.o.dly example is a sin, and earthly love often a snare for youthful feet."

As Agatha listened to Mrs. Stoddard's strange plea, the instinct within her which, from the first moment of the interview, had recoiled from this fanatical but intensely spiritual woman, found its way, as it were, into the light. Such was the power of her sincerity, that, in spite of the extraordinary character of the interview, Agatha's heart throbbed with a new comprehension which was almost love. She stepped closer to Susan Stoddard, her tall figure overtopping the other's st.u.r.dy one, and took one of her strong, work-hardened hands.

"Mrs. Stoddard, this man has never spoken a word of love to me. But if I ever marry, it will be a man like him--a plain, high-hearted gentleman. There! You have a woman's secret. And now come with me, and help us to save a life. You can not, you must not, refuse me now."

The subtle changes of the mind are hard to trace and are often obscure even to the eye of science; but every day those changes make or mar our joy. Susan Stoddard looked for a long minute up into the vivid face bending over hers, while her spirit, even as Agatha's had done, pierced the hedge which separated them, and comprehended something of the goodness in the other's soul. Finally she laid her other hand over Agatha's, enclosing it in a strong clasp. Then, with a certain pathetic pride in her submission, she said:

"I have been wrong, Agatha; I will come." Agatha's grateful eyes dwelt on hers, but the strain of the interview was beginning to count. She sank down in the chair that Mrs. Stoddard had offered at the beginning of their meeting, and covered her eyes with one hand. The elder woman kept the other.

"We will not go to our task alone," she said, "we will ask G.o.d's help.

The prayer of faith shall heal the sick." Then falling to her knees by Agatha's side, with rapt, lifted face and closed eyes, she made her confession and her pet.i.tion to the Lord. Her ringing voice intoned the phrases of the Bible as if they had been music and bore the burden of her deepest soul. She said she had been sinful in imputing unrighteousness to others, and that she had been blinded by her own wilfulness. She prayed for the stranger within her gates, for the sick man over yonder, and implored G.o.d's blessing on the work of her hands; and praise should be to the Lord. Amen.

"And now, Angie," she said practically, as she rose to her feet, addressing the girl who instantly appeared from around the doorway, "go and tell Little Simon to drive up to the horse-block. Agatha, you go home and rest, and I'll get hitched up and be over there almost as soon as you are. Angie will help me get the ice-bag and all the other things, in case you might not have them handy. Come, Agatha!"

But they paused yet a moment, stopping as if by a common instinct to look at the white cross. Susan Stoddard gazed down on it with a grief in her eyes that was the more heartbreaking because it was inarticulate. Agatha remembered the doctor's words, and understood something of the friction that could exist between this evangelistic sister and the finer, more intellectual brother.