THE CHURCH OF THE UNITED BRETHREN LOSES ITS PASTOR.
Up at French Cross Miss Gastonguay was playing dominoes with Aurelia Sinclair, who could never be induced to engage in a game of cards.
Chelda sat at a little distance, her hands folded in her lap, a far-away look in her eyes.
Presently Miss Gastonguay good-humouredly addressed her. "You appear so still, child, that I guess you must be restless. Did you expect any one this evening?"
"No, aunt."
"I thought Mr. Huntington said he would be up," observed Aurelia, timidly.
One of Chelda's peculiarities was a most Indian-like unsmilingness. However, at this remark, she favoured her guest with her nearest approach to an amused contraction of her features.
"What do you want, Prosperity?" asked Miss Gastonguay, pointing a double-six domino at him as he appeared in the doorway.
"Miss Chelda, ma'am. The old black woman from the parsonage would like to see her."
Chelda rose, and walked carelessly to a small reception-room off the hall. She only stayed a short time, and, on coming back, twirled a small note in her fingers, and sank into her former seat.
"There is no one ill at the parsonage, is there?" asked Miss Gastonguay.
"No, aunt.—Mr. Huntington has gone to Boston. Aurelia was right. He did speak of coming here this evening, and has written a line to explain his non-appearance."
"This is surely very sudden," said Miss Gastonguay, curiously. "What does he say?"
"You may read the note."
"Read it to me, child, I haven't my glasses."
"'Dear Miss Chelda:—I am leaving for Boston with Mr. Mercer. I will write from there and express my regret at not seeing you and your aunt.'"
"'Yours truly, B. H.'"
"Very abrupt," remarked Miss Gastonguay, "and very much in the nature of a farewell. Do you suppose he is not coming back? Taking Justin Mercer with him looks like it. That worthy young man may want to convey his body around the world by way of doing good to his soul."
Chelda did not venture any supposition of her own. She stared curiously at Aurelia, whose face had gone from crimson to a deathly pallor.
Miss Gastonguay's anxious and critical attention was diverted from her niece. "Good gracious!" she exclaimed, "the girl is going to faint."
Before she finished her sentence Aurelia had fainted, and falling forward crashed the inlaid domino table to the floor, and broke a portion of its dainty top.
"Here, Prosperity," called Miss Gastonguay, "some water quick,—and take that table away so she won't see it. Bother the girl, why doesn't she pray and fast less and eat more, so as to keep strength in her body."
In a few minutes Aurelia revived, and in a pitiful, trembling voice apologised for the trouble she had given.
"Fudge and nonsense!" said Miss Gastonguay. "We all have times when if we don't faint we'd like to. Here, drink this; and, Prosperity, go telephone to Doctor Sinclair that his daughter is going to stay here all night. Don't say she doesn't feel well."
"I had rather go home," said Aurelia, feebly.
"You'll stay here. We'll put you to sleep in the Marie Antoinette room off mine, and I'll call to see how you are through the night. Chelda, you see to getting her to bed now. I have some letters to write."
Chelda willingly assumed the care of the suffering girl, who had suddenly become possessed of a peculiar attraction for her. Her black eyes fastened themselves on the pale face on the sofa cushion. Not a look, not an action escaped them, and she made not the slightest effort to control her eagerness as she hung over her guest.
"Your distress is mental, not physical," she murmured, when Miss Gastonguay and Prosperity had left them. "Tell me about it."
Aurelia, naturally frank, was in her state of exhaustion doubly open to persuasion, and yet her bloodless lips could not frame the secret of her distress.
"It is Mr. Huntington," said Chelda, "you are sorry to think he has gone away."
"Sorry!" and Aurelia made a weak gesture expressive of lack of appropriateness in the adjective. Then, coaxed and allured by Chelda, she whispered a tearful tale of a hopeless infatuation for the young clergyman.
"Did he know it?" asked Chelda.
Aurelia opened wide her innocent blue eyes. "Oh, no, no,—how could he?"
Chelda pressed her handkerchief to her lips. Aurelia herself was the only person in Rossignol unaware of her childishly open admiration for the handsome young man. "How could you reconcile it withyour conscience?" she asked, mildly, "to fall in love with a man who never showed you the slightest attention?"
"I could not—I did not," and Aurelia tried to hide her distressed face against the back of the sofa. "I knew it was wrong. I have suffered, oh, how I have suffered! And I prayed about it, but I couldn't seem to help it. He was so—so attractive, and he was in such trouble."
"Did you ever pray for him?" asked Chelda, in her gently inquisitorial manner.
"Every day of my life—every hour."
"Did you tell him?"
Aurelia shrank from her. "How could I do that? We never talked about anything but the Sunday school and the mothers' meetings."
Again Chelda's face contracted with amusement, and, leaving her, she went away to have a bed made ready for her.
Twice a day a woman from one of the neighbouring cottages was permitted by Miss Gastonguay to come in and give to Chelda, who was not a champion for the rights of men, any services that she might require. But the woman was not allowed to sleep under the roof, and Chelda was now in haste to find her before she left for the night.
In a short time Aurelia was comfortably installed in bed. Chelda in morbid curiosity hung over heras long as she could extort a remark from her. But when the sleeping-draught administered by Miss Gastonguay began to take effect, the young lady sought her own room, detained first by Miss Gastonguay, who asked, with determination, "What does this mean?"
"What, aunt?"
"You know. Mr. Huntington's departure. Are you worrying about it?"
"A little, aunt, not much."
Miss Gastonguay had her glasses on, and she looked straight into Chelda's eyes. There was no veil over them now. They had never appeared more clear, more honest, more heart-whole.
"I never understand you," she said, impatiently. "I thought you were beginning to take an interest in that young man. He seems to have been dangling about you a good deal lately."
"Well, to tell the truth, I was beginning to like him a trifle, but this settles it," and she scornfully filliped the note she still held in her hand. "He does not know his own mind. He is as fickle as the wind. Really, I do not think I care to marry."
"Child, I would like to see you with a husband and children of your own. The Gastonguays are dying out."
"What does it matter who comes after us?"
"Well, please yourself, I don't want to get rid ofyou," and Miss Gastonguay went thoughtfully to her own room.
Chelda locked her door, picked a disfiguring thread off a delicately woven rose on the carpet, moved about the room with exceeding quietness and stealthiness, stopped occasionally before the dark reflection in her mirror, but in no way gave outward signs of any violent internal emotion.
After a time she put her hand to her throat as if something choked her. A turn of her head had entangled a jewelled pin in the lace about her neck. With infinite patience she detached the pin, then standing with her eyes fastened on it as they had been fastened on Aurelia's face, she gently insinuated its point under the velvety olive skin of her wrist.
One drop of blood came, then another and another, until finally, from the little slit that she continued lengthening, a soft continuous flow of crimson fell on the roses of the carpet.
This was barbarous,—a lapse into the torture customs of her forefathers. It did not hurt her, but her feelings were too fine to permit the disfigurement of her carpet, and, getting a basin of water, she went on her knees and carefully removed the stain.
Then walking back on her heels she gazed steadfastly at the reddened water. The towel fell from her hands, every muscle in her body relaxed. After the lapse of a few mesmerised minutes she fellheavily to the floor, her face turned up to the French cupids on her ceiling.
Hour after hour she lay there. The wind blew in through an open window on her rigid limbs, occasionally a distant bell chimed the hours from the town, but she neither felt the wind nor heard the bell. She had not fainted. Her senses were painfully, acutely alive, yet she paid no heed to any of the sounds of the night, and only stirred when darkness passed away and morning came, and a knock at her door proclaimed the arrival of Prosperity on his tour of arousing the family and depositing the hot water pitchers outside their bedrooms.
She must get up, or her aunt would come to seek her. She gradually raised herself, stood upright and motionless for a few minutes, then began a short halting approach to a mirror. One step at a time she took, and sometimes her reluctant feet carried her backward. The nearest mirror to her was one set in the wall, and surrounded by a carved wreath of flowers. It was small, yet it would serve her purpose.
At last she arrived before it. She shut her eyes to put off the moment for glancing into it. When she did look, when she saw what was revealed, she struck it sharply with her hand and cracked the oval face across its delicate curve.
However, the shock was over. Her fertile brainmust now plan a way to shield herself from the outward avowal of her night of repressed mental anguish.
She went boldly up to a cheval-glass, and pulling the long pins from her hair, let it fall down over her gown. Its luxuriant masses were streaked with gray. In front, where it was brushed back from her aching forehead, it was snow-white. In a few short hours she had added ten years to her age.
She went to her dressing-table. In a drawer there was a bottle from which she had been in the habit of taking a few drops daily to spread over one tiny gray patch that had persistently grown over one temple. She held the bottle up to the light. There was not much in it, yet she would see how far it would go. With a steady hand and without wasting one drop she quickly stained the locks most in need of disguise. There was not enough left to colour all her length of hair. Seizing a pair of scissors, she remorselessly cut away the soft gray strands and set a match to them in the fireplace, and responded calmly to her aunt's impatient summons. "Presently, aunt, presently, don't wait for me."
"Did you not sleep well?" asked Miss Gastonguay, when she finally made her appearance at the breakfast-table.
"So soundly that I did not turn on my pillow."
"You look fresh and alert," said Miss Gastonguay,complacently. "How are you, Aurelia?" and she addressed her still nervously upset guest.
"I am better," said the girl, "but I think I would like to go home, please."
"Very well, I'll drive you down as soon as we finish breakfast. Prosperity, order the carriage, the victoria—"
"Aunt," said Chelda, "this coffee is delicious. Will you please give me another cup?"
"Certainly. I wonder what Derrice Mercer is doing while her husband is away?"
"Rebecca told me that she is staying at the parsonage," replied her niece.
"Mrs. Negus has enough to do without taking care of her. Suppose we have her up here, Chelda?"
"An excellent plan, I should like it above all things," said the young lady, with unusual sprightliness.
"I'll go ask her this morning," said Miss Gastonguay. "I want you to know her better, Chelda. Aurelia, you must come up while she is here."
"Thank you," murmured Aurelia, choking over a morsel she was forcing herself to eat, "but I shall be very busy with church work for some time to come."
Miss Gastonguay said nothing more at the time, except a warning, "Moderation, Aurelia, moderation," but when she left the girl at her own door she whispered, "Keep up a brave heart, you'll get over this in time; and don't torture yourself. You've done nothing wrong. Half the girls in town are red-eyed this morning."