Margaret sat reading a letter from Dr. Ely. The faint blood of returning health was deepening in her cheeks, and the glad light of her eyes intensified by emotions which the letter evidently called forth. With the freedom of the invisible biographer we will glance over her shoulder as she reads:
“I have carried for months the picture of the cosey sitting-room at Idlewild set like a gem in the silver circle of memory. It is hard, very hard, now to feel that it must be only a memory; that I shall never see it again, and never be able to picture the little feasts of reason which your letters have so charmingly described. Still, home is where the heart is, and I regard this misfortune as only a temporary interruption of your plans. I know so well the motive springs of action in your nature, that I feel sure as soon as your strength comes back on perhaps a firmer basis, the old progress will be re-established.
“I heartily indorse your move in placing Gilbert in the manual-training school, and inclose a draft for one hundred dollars to advance your efforts. You need have no hesitancy in accepting it, as I find the books are regarded by bibliophilists generally as possessing all the value I placed upon them.
“As regards Elsie’s experiment in going as a cook, there is much to be said for and against. She will be subjected in such a position to much that will tax her high spirit; but if she is equal to it she will be the gainer in conscious strength and purpose. As a financial move, even at the average wages, it is undoubtedly the best thing that could be done; for even had the way been opened, there is no such money in teaching school or standing behind the counter. It is also a safer life for a girl of her beauty, because the seclusion of the kitchen has no such temptations as beset the workers in public shops and factories. The question of caste has evidently not entered into her calculations, because she looks upon life as it is developed from the standpoint of moral worth, and she is a charming example of the revival of primitive ideas. I shall watch the outcome of the experiment with a good deal of interest, not alone because I admire the fair experimenter, but because I also look upon the move as an incipient factor in social progress. The housekeeping and homekeeping questions lie at the roots of all philosophy; for man is by no means a sublimated mortal who can exist and theorize with no provision for his material needs. Still, if I could have had my way, I should have preferred that Elsie develop her character and fitness for the world’s work under less trying circumstances. It does not seem fitting to me that women should bear the brunt of bread-winning; there is other and better work for them to do.
“As for my school and myself, I think we are both growing in strength. I should indeed be faint-hearted if I did not feel nerved for the battle when I remember the fearful odds against which you and Elsie have set yourselves. I do not prophesy much in the way of harvest for you, for I know the world better than you do. Yet I know that with you a slender sheaf of the gleanings will be as so much saved for the All Father’s granary, and I can only bid you God-speed in all you do. I know those who come within the radius of your presence are lifted, albeit unconsciously, in aspiration, and I have no wonder at all at Eph’s devotion. I look upon it as a natural result of natural conditions, and I predict that in your home in the city you will find the question of how to find room for all the demands upon your sympathies and interests a much more serious one than it is now. I shall hope to have in the future, as in the past, a full account of the progress made by all of you, and trust that in trying to fulfil the purposes that actuate you, you will not forget what is due your health.
“Sincerely your friend,
“CHARLES J. ELY.”
Margaret read the letter very slowly, evidently finding much food for thought in the lines. That it was happy thought the demure smiles that almost brought dimples in her cheeks testified.
“It wouldn’t be difficult to turn back now,” she mused, “but it would be cowardly. It will be easier too to go ahead, knowing as I do that all my efforts are watched by sympathetic eyes. The determination to stand by Elsie and Gilbert, until character shall have been formed and purposes achieved, grows heroic as I progress; for in it I already discern, thanks to Dr. Ely’s eyes, a lever for the good of others besides ourselves. Duty has always seemed so simple and necessary a thing to me, that I don’t believe I have properly appreciated Elsie’s heroism. Poor little girl! I wonder how she bears the brunt of the battle, and if that tempestuous heart of hers is in daily rebellion. Antoine!” she exclaimed aloud, “we are glad this is Sunday and that Elsie is coming home to-day, aren’t we?”
“So glad that I can’t half read,” said the boy, tossing aside his book and looking up with a smile.
“It seems to me, Antoine, the violin has leaned more to elegies and dirges than formerly. That won’t do, for I notice you are not looking as well as you were, and I fancy you are missing Elsie too much. I’ll tell you what we’re going to do. Next week I shall look up rooms in the city, near Elsie, and we will have her home every night, and you—now don’t look so disconsolate—you shall remain with us and take lessons at the conservatory. I’ve arranged it all with ma mère, and I shall see almost, if not quite, as much of you as I do now.”
Antoine did not answer until he had choked back one or two obtrusive sobs. “And ma mère?” he asked.
“She will be back and forth every day, with two homes instead of one.”
“And am I really to have lessons?”
“Really and truly,” answered Margaret.
“I don’t know how to be thankful enough,” said the lad. “But who pays for them?”
“Never mind asking questions,” said Margaret, smiling. “It is your business to accept propositions.”
“I know—it is Elsie!” he exclaimed gleefully. “She said she should dispense charity like a millionaire.”
Margaret laughed as she replied: “I don’t think Elsie’s princely income, as she calls it, will be equal to all the schemes she has in her bright head; but I know I am very glad of the prospect of having her with us once again. It’s a dull house without her.”
“And shall we have the old ‘evenings’ over again?”
“Indeed we shall, please God. We’ll take up the thread where it snapped on that awful night of the fire, only a little wiser and tenderer perhaps in our judgments.”
“How would it be possible for you to be any tenderer than you always have been?” asked Antoine.
“Because experience widens and deepens our natures, and
“‘Hearts, like apples, are hard and sour,
Till crushed by pain’s resistless power.’”
“God mellowed yours, then, in long-gone ages, for nobody ever found a hard spot in your heart.”
“A royal flatterer!” exclaimed Margaret gayly. “I shall have to kiss you for that,” and Margaret sank on her knees beside the wheel chair and printed a resounding smack upon the lad’s pale cheek.
“I’m jealous!” cried a gay voice at the door, and the next instant Elsie was on the other side of the chair and Antoine’s arms were around her neck.
“Home again! Home again!” he cried with a little break in his voice.
“For just about six hours, so tongues must fly at a mile a minute. I have heaps and heaps to tell,” and breathless Elsie sank into a chair and said nothing.
“Why don’t you tell it?” asked Antoine.
“It dwindles so when I stop to think of it. I guess it is all summed up in the statement that ‘Elsie the cook’ is very well satisfied with her place, and a good deal prouder of her two-weeks’ wages than if somebody had earned the money for her. Just see!” and emptying the contents of her purse in Margaret’s lap, she went on: “Now, I’ve come home for some music and to hear the rest of you talk. Where’s the fiddle, Antoine? Let’s wake the echoes and forget the frying-pan.”
“O Elsie, life has come back with you,” exclaimed Antoine fervently as he tuned his fiddle.
“To stay, I hope; for I don’t want to be guilty of taking life when I go again.”
An hour later everything had been forgotten in the rendering of the old hymns and psalms with which it had been their wont to delight themselves on Sunday afternoons. Margaret and Gilbert were joining in the chorus, and Lizzette was softly humming to herself in her work about the kitchen, when there came a gentle rap at the outer door. Lizzette opened it and with difficulty repressed an exclamation at sight of Herbert Lynn on the threshold. With a warning gesture he put his fingers to his lips and said in a low voice: “I did not want to interrupt the music or I should have rapped at the front door. Who is it plays and sings so charmingly?”
“Antoine and Elsie,” said Lizzette proudly.
“Elsie? I did not know she was here. I had a little leisure and concluded I couldn’t better employ it than in coming to see my old Lizzette.”
“Vous avez ze welcome, just as in ze old days. Let me get ze leetle rocker, and you sall sit by me and talk,” and Lizzette made a move to enter the little sitting-room. Herbert’s hand was on her arm in an instant.
“No, no,” he said in a whisper. “Let me sit here and listen. It will disturb them to know I am here.”
Softly and sweetly from the other room came the strain, “’Tis midnight, and on Olive’s brow,” and Herbert Lynn reverently dropped his head in his hands and listened. If there was to his critical ear a lack of technical skill, there was no lack of sympathy or feeling in every touch and tone. Neither was there lack of genius, although it was easily discernible that it was an untrained genius.
“What power Antoine gets out of the violin,” he whispered to Lizzette, who nodded and smiled in proud acknowledgment of his appreciation.
“Il a——” she began, but the music had ceased and there was a rustle of turning leaves as Margaret took up the Bible.
“On second thought,” she said, “I will ask for a subject. What shall it be, Elsie? You have been out in the world—what need has seemed greatest to you?”
“The strength to bear,” answered Elsie soberly. “It seemed easy to be patient and properly humble in this home of love and appreciation, but in this other world of place-hunting and time-serving the quick retort quite too often besieges my lips. You know, Margaret, it is only the old enemy, and as the horizon widens and I see what life might mean to me if fortune had been kinder, and I realize that I have a nature capable of profiting by the beautiful things of the world, I grow rebellious and dissatisfied. I try every now and then to imagine I am perfectly contented; but all the time I know I am deceiving myself. Help me, Margaret dear, with all your sublime patience and courage, to bear it, and not yearn after the vain things of the world.”
There was a sound of tears in Margaret’s voice as she answered: “Strength must come from within, Elsie. ‘They that dwell in His house’ know where the well of strength is, and ‘the pools are filled with water.’ As for the vain things of this world for which you sigh, the sin of it depends upon what those things are. I think I know your heart well enough to believe they are not selfish follies, but only healthy aspirations for broader fields of culture. I don’t believe in repressing such aspirations. They are as natural to natures like yours as sunshine to flowers. Aside from my unchanging faith in the beneficence of God, I have always found the thought that the duty of to-day may be the pleasure of to-morrow my greatest source of comfort. Let us work faithfully, cheerfully to-day; the way may be a little rough, but after all we shall find many things to gladden it. A note from Antoine’s fiddle, a bit of Elsie’s nonsense, have often made me smile in the midst of the moodiest repinings. Our work now, Elsie, is like the hard digging around the roots of a rose-bush; by and by we shall look up and see its crown of beauty and fragrance, and the roses will be all the sweeter because our hands have sent the thrill along their stems that roused them to life. I haven’t the least fear for my little girl when we re-establish the old home life. Discontent will be left at the door, and aspiration will find wings in Antoine’s fiddle and at the ends of her deft fingers.”
“The first day I ever saw you,” said Antoine to Elsie, “you said your ambition lay all in learning to cook like ma mère. What is the matter with it that it does not satisfy you? Is the grand art of ma mère no art after all?”
“Don’t ask such heretical questions, Antoine! Just ask ma mère if I don’t put heaps of enthusiasm in my work, and make perfect poems in pastry and sonnets in salads, whose proof is in the eating! But one may have a thousand ambitions in the course of a life-time, and to confess the honest truth—Margaret, hide your face!—I’ve just now an absorbing ambition to have a new gown in the very latest style, with velvet all over it and some genuine lace at the throat, and all those refined ladylike things that make you feel so—so satisfied with yourself! See, I bow my head and meekly await the avalanche of reproaches from this virtuous and austere household!”
“Well,” said Gilbert from his corner, “I haven’t any for you; for the threadbare appearance of my knees has filled me with a similar ambition. The fellows at the training school are mostly sons of well-to-do men, and they eye me in a way that doesn’t make me feel so—so satisfied with myself.”
In an instant Elsie jumped from her chair, and patronizingly patting Gilbert’s head exclaimed: “My dear brother, how glad I am to know I’m not the only black sheep of the family! Meg, you see what comes of letting the lambs out in the world’s pastures!”
Just then Elsie, glancing out into the kitchen, caught sight of the amused faces of Lizzette and Herbert Lynn, and consternation, fright, and astonishment so overcame her that she could only stand still and scream.
This at once brought Lizzette and Herbert to the door. “Margaret,” exclaimed Lizzette, “zis ees my old friend, mon garçon Herbeart Lynn, who coming to see his old Lizzette haf ze desire also to know her friends. He haf zair welcome, I believe?”
Lizzette looked appealingly from the white scorn of Elsie’s face to the surprise of Margaret’s; but before either had time to speak Herbert said eagerly and with flushing cheek as he glanced at Elsie: “I can explain my presence here as an involuntary listener in this way. Lizzette, as you probably know, has been more than half-mother to me. Taking advantage of a day when I felt sure of finding her at home, I came out for a little visit. As I neared the door I heard such charming music I hesitated to interrupt it, and so I crept like a culprit to the back door and listened—very reprehensibly, I know—to a discussion which was so full of strength and interest to me I had not the courage to interrupt it. Lizzette, can you not help me to be forgiven?”
“Helas,” said Lizzette. “I am ze grand culprit. I take ze pride in vat you list.”
“Lizzette’s friends are of course welcome to us, since we are trespassers upon her kindness,” said Margaret brightly. “And as we have no state secrets, I think we can forgive an unintentional listening. This is my sister, Elsie Murchison, whom perhaps you know serves your sister, Mrs. Mason, as cook.”
Margaret’s countenance hardened a trifle as she looked at the young man’s handsome face and again at Elsie’s, coldly repellant, and she laid a stress upon the last word that brought an involuntary smile to Elsie’s lips. The nod which she bestowed upon Herbert was, however, so ostentatiously distant that the pleasant augury of the smile was speedily dispelled.
“An’ zis ees my good lad Gilbeart Murchison, et zis mon garçon Antoine,” said Lizzette hastily, in an endeavor to smooth over the awkwardness of the situation.
Herbert turned quickly to the boys, and taking the proffered seat eagerly clasped Antoine’s hand in his own. “You’ve changed a good deal, my boy, since I saw you, and you are growing to be quite a musician. Your genius must be cultivated.”
“It is going to be,” answered Antoine, “thanks to my Elsie.”
Herbert glanced up as Antoine spoke, in time to see Elsie slip into the kitchen.
“Eet ees ze dinner hour,” said Lizzette, looking after her. “I sall leave you, Herbeart, in ze good care of Miss Margaret and ze boys.”
“I shall be well cared for, no doubt. I always have been in your house.”
“You have but recently returned from Europe, I understand,” said Margaret as Lizzette left the room. “Were you there long?”
“Some three years,” replied Herbert.
“Long enough, then, to become somewhat imbued with old-world ideas and customs.”
“To the extent of finding democratic America the most delightful place on earth to live.”
The air of constraint, so foreign to Herbert’s usual suavity of address, dropped off under the stimulant of Margaret’s calm eyes and interested face, and he presently found himself talking and laughing with her and the boys with the freedom of long acquaintance. In the mean time Lizzette had been bustling about the kitchen on hospitable thoughts intent, and wondering vaguely where Elsie had gone. In honor of her home-coming she had sacrificed a couple of plump chickens which she had stuffed with truffles grown in the darkness of her cellar. On the case of wooden shelves which, with the romanticism of her race, she loved to dignify with the name of “beaufet,” stood a glass bowl of snow cream flanked by a basket piled high with yellow sponge-cakes.
“Zere ees ze pineapple jelly, ze salade de cresson, ze cold sliced ham, ze duchesse potatoes, et ze cream chocolate—ah, well, Lizzette’s table ees not so empty after all.”
She was bending over the oven door, watching the browning of the chickens and letting a flood of savory steam into the kitchen, when she felt a warm kiss on her cheek. Glancing up in surprise she saw Elsie, cloaked and bonneted, before her. “Fie, fie, Elsie,” exclaimed Lizzette. “Zis vill not do. You no leave before ze dinner.”
“I must,” said Elsie, putting her hands on Lizzette’s shoulders and looking into her face with her eyes full of tears. “Don’t you see how the case stands? This ‘petit curieux’—there, don’t be angry, I can’t call him anything else—has followed me here, and if Mrs. Mason hears of it I shall lose my place. Don’t you see I could not sit at the table with him and defend myself against her attacks?”
“Oh-h!” It was a very long and expressive “oh” on Lizzette’s part, and her eyes grew round with wonder and amusement as she glanced at Elsie’s perturbed face. “I nevair vas so big dunce in my life. Haf Herbeart efer speak to you?”
“No,” said Elsie, crimsoning, “only—only looked at me!”
Lizzette burst into a laugh so resounding that it penetrated the room beyond; but Elsie’s distressed face was too much for her tender sympathies. “Ma petite fille,” she exclaimed, “how stupid ees your old Lizzette. Eh bien, I vill explain. Herbeart know not you live here; he tell me so, and I nevair know Herbeart Lynn to lie. So you see eet ees not ma petite Elsie zat bring him——”
“Lizzette! Lizzette!” cried Elsie, beside herself with mortification. “I did not mean it that way! I’m not so vain as you think; but to tell the truth he has always eyed me so, when I went to confer with Mrs. Mason, that I have noticed she was uneasy and cross when he was in the room. That is all in the world there is in it, except that as ‘Elsie the cook’ I decline to sit at table with his high mightiness. Honestly, I do not want ever to speak to him.”
“Herbeart haf ze good heart zat harm nobody.”
“That may be true; but the gulf between us is considered too wide by his circle ever to be bridged over by the commonplaces of even the simplest association. You know I am right, Lizzette, and no false vanity prompts what I say. I do want to keep my place, and Mrs. Mason would be furious if she knew I broke bread at the same table with her brother.”
“Ah, zat Helen! Oui, Elsie, vous avez raison. Zis ees too bad. Mais you sall not go hungry; here in ze pantry I set you some dinner.”
“No, Lizzette, I can’t eat,” said Elsie disconsolately. “I’ll just go down to Aunt Liza’s and stay till the six-o’clock train. Tell Meg how the case stands. I know she’ll approve my view of it.”
“Helas,” said Lizzette sorrowfully. “Ze dinner vill be spoiled for Margaret and ze rest of us; but maybe zat vill be ze best way out of trouble.”
It was growing dusk when Elsie took her seat in the car on her way back to the city. She was tired, faint, and overwrought. A disturbing influence had set again at work all those little discontents which Margaret’s calm reasoning had well-nigh dispelled, and she fairly gasped with horror when she saw Herbert Lynn enter the car and deliberately take the vacant seat beside her.
“Miss Elsie,” he coolly asked, “will you be kind enough to tell me why I am an object of such aversion to you?”
“I—I—don’t know what you mean,” she stammered helplessly.
“Aversion, Miss Elsie, is said by Webster to mean dislike, disapproval, detestation, repugnance, antipathy, abhorrence, loathing, etc., and so on. I trust you understand me now,” and he looked down on the flushing face with a marked little smile of triumph.
“The definitions are all a blank to me, and relate to nothing with which I am familiar.”
“Let me enlighten you, then. Do you think I am not aware that I drove you from the house this afternoon, and Lizzette’s delicious dinner? I am truly sorry that my mere unexpected presence in that little house should have been productive of so much mischief. I assure you I am not half as bad as I look, and I feel as penitent as a small boy who is caught stealing apples, and just about as guilty.”
Elsie sat with her face turned toward the window and made no reply. Not to be balked, Herbert went on:
“I never enjoyed—or would have enjoyed but for the unlucky fact of your displeasure—anything so much as acquaintance with your sister and the atmosphere of Lizzette’s little home. It is something new to me, and I am not so case-hardened as to be wholly insensible to it.” Still Elsie vouchsafed no word as he paused in evident expectation.
“Well, if I am to have all this conversation to myself, I shall take the liberty of saying just what I think. I think a certain Miss Elsie Murchison is decidedly unreasonable, and is determined that the culprit’s sentence shall be a severer one than he deserves. She will not even permit him to plead his cause. Nevertheless, as he is satisfied of its justice he proposes to go on. The brother of Mrs. Helen Mason, an acknowledged leader of the haut ton, is neither a knave nor a fool; at least he is not prepared to so view himself just yet, and because his well-beloved sister has certain views in accordance with the creed of her set, it does not follow that he must blindly indorse all those views. He may have sufficient independence to recognize worth when he sees it, regardless of its environment.”
Still no response from stubborn Elsie. The hot blood mounted to Herbert’s brow. Bending forward so that he might get a good view of her face, he exclaimed impetuously:
“Miss Murchison, if this is really a matter of personal dislike I have nothing further to say. Until I am satisfied that it is, however, I feel that I have a right to understand the meaning of your persistent silence.”
Thus brought to bay Elsie raised her eyes, and Herbert saw that they were full of unshed tears.
“Mr. Lynn,” she began tremulously, “it seems almost cruel in you to press me for an answer; but since you force it you shall have the plain truth. There is no personal feeling at all in the matter. I neither like nor dislike you, and simply ask to be let alone. I am your sister’s cook, between whom and Mr. Lynn there cannot be even common acquaintance.”
“My sister’s cook!” repeated Herbert. “It is as I suspected, a mere matter of pride on your part.”
“No,” said Elsie desperately. “It is a matter of bread and butter. As your sister’s cook I am earning good wages, that are of incalculable value to those I love and for whom I work. If I lose my place, it means deprivation and distress. Can you not see my reason and be generous?”
“Generous, most certainly; but not for any reason you advance. I am not under my sister’s dominion.”
“But I am; and if I in any way incur her displeasure, I shall suffer for it.”
“Not through me,” said Herbert stoutly. “I shall take good care of that.”
“You can only do it by refusing to notice me any further; a favor which I particularly request.”
“I do not know that I ever before flatly refused a lady’s request; but this time I am compelled to do so by circumstances beyond my control.”
The mischief in Herbert’s eyes was too much for Elsie’s volatile nature, and she greeted his audacious statement with a ripple of laughter which she bitterly regretted a second later.
“There!” he exclaimed. “I am glad the statuesque repose of the De Veres has been broken. I think we shall understand each other soon.”
“We do now,” said Elsie hastily. “I cannot speak any plainer.”
“Well, I can; but here we are, and while we walk the rest of the way home I’ll endeavor to be explicit. Please take my arm.”
There was no help for it. Eight or ten blocks intervened between them and the Mason mansion; it was dark and physical fear prevented Elsie’s refusal of the proffered escort.
“Now,” said Herbert as she meekly placed her hand on his arm, “things are just to my satisfaction. As regards your place, it shall be yours indefinitely so far as I am concerned. I promise not to annoy you in any way—that is, whenever I think that way is consistent with my way. I admire your sister very much, and she has already accepted my offer of comradeship, which, by the way, shows her good sense. As for her rebellious little sister, I shall be just as much her good friend as if she were forty times a queen in her own right, which she undoubtedly is. She cannot prevent my admiration of her independence and heroism if she snubs me twenty times a day, as, judging from the past, I presume she will. That, however, will be the least of my distress, so I succeed in making her believe I am not a wolf in sheep’s clothing. I assure you, upon the honor of a gentleman, that I shall be guilty of no more reprehensible act than to claim the kindly consideration of one friend for another.”
Elsie found it difficult to frame a reply. Animosity was fast breaking down before the simple, candid words, and in its place had come a not wholly definable sense of companionship that was strangely sweet.
“But the social gulf——” she began feebly.
“A fig for it! Are you not of that heretical sect which believes only in an aristocracy of moral worth and cultivated brains? Are you going to deny me the privilege of proving my claim to distinction among you? Your sister has already outlined your little evenings to me, and I am going——”
“To do what?” asked Elsie quickly.
“Look in upon you occasionally, that is all. You fancied I was going to apply for a membership. I am afraid if I should, one of its brightest members would stay away. But we are almost home, and you haven’t told me yet that you have forgiven my unintentional transgression of the conventionalities this afternoon; nor have you promised to believe in my integrity and good-will.”
“I promise on one condition,” said Elsie, stopping suddenly. “There is only half a block further; let me go alone. It would be so unfortunate for me if—if any one saw us together.”
“Certainly, if you wish it. I suppose there is no law to prevent my walking a few steps behind you.”
“I don’t think there is any law anywhere for you. Good-night,” and with Herbert’s laugh ringing in her ears Elsie hastened down the area steps and swung open the kitchen door.