According to the Pattern (23 page)

Great feelings hath she of her own,

Which lesser souls may never know;

God giveth them to her alone,

And sweet they are as any tone

Wherewith the wind may choose to blow.

—James Russell Lowell

DINNER in the Lyman home was strictly a family affair the evening of the arrival home from abroad of Celia’s only brother, and they lingered late over the desert,
enjoying the luxury of asking all the questions that one
forgets to put in letters, or to answer when they are
found there.

“By the way, father, have you opened up the new
department in the business that you were speaking of
when I left?”

“Well, no, we haven’t,” answered the father passing
his cup for more coffee and helping himself to another
stem of the luscious hothouse grapes. “The fact is, I
haven’t found the right man to take charge of it yet.
When you come to think of it, my son, the right man is
a rare commodity in market now-a-days. If you had not the other department in hand so thoroughly I should be almost inclined to put you in there for a time till I could find someone else. I believe the time is ripe for such a business, but the right man has not appeared yet, and without him it would be worse than useless to attempt it.”

“I wish you could get the fellow I met over in
Paris.
He would be just the man. A keener eye for business I never saw, and I happen to know he made several points for his house when he was over there. He was a mighty fine fellow. I got in with him on the voyage by a little accident that made it rather necessary for me to give up my stateroom to a lady who was suddenly taken ill and
wanted to be next to her friends. I could not exchange
with her and so I sought the only other place left, which
was to share a stateroom with Winthrop. And he was
good company, I tell you. We grew so intimate that we took lodgings together while he stayed in Paris, which wasn’t long, so that I got to see more of him than simply as an acquaintance.”

“
Winthrop, did you say?” asked Celia, turning her
bright eyes toward her brother. “Did he live in this city?
I wonder if it was my Mrs. Winthrop’s husband?”

“Yes, he lived here—is confidential everything at Marshall & Sylvester’s, or was when he was over. His
name is Claude Winthrop. But how would you ever
know them?”

There followed a merry laugh at Celia’s expense.

“Oh, she picked them up by means of her unfortunate habit of always rushing ahead without knowing what she is doing,” said mother resignedly.

“Now, mamma, you know you approve of Mrs.
Winthrop, quite.”

“Well, she is not so bad as some; I must admit, Celia, she is quite presentable, though I don’t know but it will
encourage you in your carelessness to say so, for the next
one you take up may not be.”

“The next one she’s taken up is a
man,
mamma,” said
Marion, a fourteen-year-old girl who inherited her
mother’s face and many of her tastes and qualities, and
was not easily disconcerted. “And you’d better look out
for her or she’ll soon be putting on black and going as a missionary. He’s a minister this time.”

“
Marion!” said Celia reproachfully, her cheeks grow
ing all too rosy for comfort.

“Well, didn’t I hear you promising to go slumming
with him tomorrow? and to a meeting the next evening?
It seems to me you’re getting pretty thick when you
come to think that is the night of the Grahams’ theatre party. If I was in society you wouldn’t catch me running
off to any college settlements if I could help it. You
needn’t get mad. I thought I ought to tell mamma before
it was too late, and this is a good time for it when you
can have the opinion of the whole family on him. I have only done it for your good.”

Celia’s cheeks were very red indeed now and a suspi
cious moisture was in her eyes, though her father and brother were laughing over her sister’s pertness.

Mrs. Lyman looked searchingly at Celia. Anything extraordinary was entirely consistent with her elder daughter’s character and she appreciated to the full her younger daughter’s worldly common sense.

“What does she mean, Celia?” asked the mother commandingly.

“I suppose she means Mr. Carter, mamma,” said
Celia, almost ready to cry with vexation. She had not
intended to have her plans flaunted thus before the
whole family. “He is Doctor Carter’s brother and he is a theological student. He has been making some sociological studies in the lower quarter of the city, in the college settlement. He walked home with me from Mrs. Winthrop’s today when I took the flowers to her, you know,
and I was very much interested in the account of his
work. He asked me to go with him and the doctor
tomorrow to visit the settlement house.”

“No doubt!” answered the mother. “Of course you
were interested. I never knew you not to be where it was a case of needed discretion. And I suppose you proposed to go down there and nm the risk of bringing home the
smallpox and typhoid fever and a few other pleasant
diseases, did you?” She spoke sternly and Celia felt there
was no hope for her plans, but she put in a protest.

“Indeed, mamma, it is perfectly safe there. The doctor goes every day, and he said it was all right.
”

“Yes, and I was coming in from school when they
stood at the steps fixing it all out, and I saw them smiling
and made up my mind somebody better keep watch out, for he has been here before, and so I just stayed in the
vestibule behind the door till they—” put in the irre
pressible Marion, her eyes lit by triumph that she had
brought the culprit to justice. She could always depend
on her mother to do the right thing.

“
Marion! you may leave the room,” was the unex
pected command from the father, and Marion stopped suddenly with her cake half-way to her mouth.

“But papa, I
—
” she began with assurance.

“Leave the room! Put down that cake, and leave the room without another word,” said the father sternly.

And Marion obeyed.

But the mother was bent on searching Celia through
and through. She did not intend her plans for a brilliant marriage to be upset by any theological student.

“Celia, answer me,” she went on, “did you really
intend to go down into that awful part of the city?”

“I should like to, mamma,” was the meek answer. All she wanted now was to get quietly out of the room.

“I can see no possible harm in her going down there
if Doctor Carter is along,” spoke up the father unexpectedly. “Let her go if she wants to. It can’t hurt her.”

“Mr. Lyman, do you know what you are saying?”
asked his wife in horrified tones.

“I certainly do, Mrs. Lyman. I went down there
myself once to see a miserable old tenement I owned. Some of their people came after me and told me what a rathole it was, and kept at me till I went, and the result
was I had to tear it down and build it all over. It isn’t a
very pretty spot, but you’ll certainly find it interesting, if
that’s what you want, Celia.” 

Celia looked her gratitude to her father, and her mother sat back compelled to be resigned, but not
content.

“And what was this about a meeting on the night of
the theatre party?” she questioned, taking new fire at thought of Marion’s words.

“It was nothing but an evangelistic meeting in the
Academy of Music,” faltered Celia.

“And you promised to go?” demanded the mother.

“Yes, mother.”

“And with a nobody of a theological student?”

Celia’s gaze was on her plate where she was trying to
hide her confusion, but at this probing she roused with
a flash in her eye that reminded one of her father, and answered:

“Well, mother, I didn’t see any reason why I
shouldn’t. The doctor’s wife is going too. I have seen
that play a hundred times, and I’m bored to death with
it anyway, and besides I can’t endure Dudley Fenwick,
and I know if I went I should have to, all the evening.”

“And you can endure this poor theological student,
can you, little sister? There’s nothing like being frank. I guess I shall have to look him up.”

The brother’s tone was sympathetic in spite of the
twinkle of fun in his eyes.

“Do,” said the father. “Look him up, Howard. And meantime, mother, I think we can trust Celia not to be indiscreet. Let the child go to the meeting of she prefers, and let the matter rest until Howard gives us his verdict. There are worse people than theological students in this world, and worse places than religious meetings. It strikes me she looks a little thin these days. One theatre parry less won’t harm her.”

“Oh, very well, if you’’ll answer for the consequences,
Mr. Lyman,” said the wife with compressed lips, and she
gave the signal for leaving the table.

But Celia did not follow her mother immediately,
having no desire for a long lecture which she knew
would be hers. She was not prepared for her mother’s
searching questions. There were some things which
must be answered in her own heart first before they were brought to the light of her mother’s practical worldly tests, and she had not allowed herself to ask these ques
tions as yet. So she turned aside and lingered in the
library with her father and brother, and slipped a loving hand into her father’s as she sat on a hassock at his feet and rested her head on the arm of his leather chair.

He laid his hand lovingly on her head in recognition
of a silent bond between them and went on with his talk, while the brother, watching her, thought how pretty and graceful she was growing.

“Tell me more about this fellow Winthrop. Do you
think he could be had if we made it worthwhile to
him?”

The young man entered into a detailed description of
some business enterprises in which Claude had acted
wisely and well, and the father listened, growing more
interested with each new incident.

Finally he turned to Celia.

“And so you know the Winthrops, do you, daughter?

Tell me all you know about them. It sometimes takes
two or three witnesses to establish a fact. Are you as enthusiastic as your brother?”

Celia launched into a full description of her first
conversation with Mrs. Winthrop in church, and the
misplaced invitation.

Over the call that she and her mother made later upon
Mrs. Winthrop the father and son laughed long and
loud, and Mrs. Lyman in the parlor heard it and moved
her daintily shod feet uneasily. What new folly were
those two encouraging in Celia, now? she wondered.

Celia could talk well when she was interested, and she
felt just now that she had her audience, so she went on
to describe Mrs. Winthrop in her home, her beauty and her grace and sweetness, the evening at the Washburns’,
her own private opinion of her friend’s successes and
triumphs in society, her manner so free from all artifici
ality. Then her fall and illness. Here she hesitated. This
had been the turning-point in her own life she now
began to feel. Should she, or should she not speak of that morning and her song beside the sick-room door? With sudden resolve, glancing up quickly to see if both were
interested, she dashed in. Her cheeks glowed crimson,
for she was speaking of things she had not been taught
to think much about, and there was a constraint about
both her listeners, but their interest evidently did not
flag.

She began on the doorstep that bright crisp morning
when she had called to see how Mrs. Winthrop was, and
Doctor Carter and his brother drove up to the door. She
let them feel the hush of the sad home that had so deeply affected her. From their own knowledge of her they read between the lines how hard it had been for her to accede
to the doctor’s request and sing. She even told them of
her glimpse of the sorrowing husband and the droning
monotony of the voice that went on and on in that one
dreadful sentence about the pattern.