The White Lady (17 page)

“Jesus Christ, Thou who hast promised that where two or three are gathered together in Thy name there Thou wilt be in the midst of them, help us to feel Thy presence here tonight in this room. Let Thy Spirit brood over each heart, and impress us with Thy life that is freely given to us. Help us to take it. Help us to know if we are not taking it.”

During the rest of the opening exercises Constance watched the minister. She made up her mind that he was an interesting man.

And this was the man who had patronized her tearoom the first day of its opening. She had caught one glimpse of his face as she passed into the library through the hall. She had not connected him then with the man who had addressed her in the moonlight, and indeed had almost forgotten about that little adventure, for John Endicott had never yet made up his mind to say anything more to her about the matter. His little experience with Silas Barton on the day when he had been to the tearoom, and Mrs. Bartlett’s after-comments with pursed lips and offended air, had made him cautious of the new family. He did not care to become town talk. He would bide his time.

So Constance was having her first view of him in full bright light. She decided at once there was something fine about him that held attention. He looked like a man who would be true no matter what came.

He divided his subject that evening into three points, with a text for each. The first was
“Ye will not come to me, that ye might have life.”
He spoke very simply and searchingly about the indifference of the world to Jesus Christ and the general apathy concerning eternal life, while yet life was the thing that all were reaching after. As he talked, Constance felt that he was looking straight at her and searching into her life. She knew suddenly that hers was an empty life, an indifferent life, just the kind of life he had been describing. She listened intently to all that he said. His directness appealed to her. She was ready for the next point.

“I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly.”
The common idea that Christianity was a wearisome business was combated by the words of Jesus Himself. He was come that everyone might have life in abundance, full, free, delightful, not a poor groveling for existence. He spoke just a word on what life should be—life at its fullest—and compared it to the life that many led. Then he told of a poor, hungry wanderer whom someone brought into his house and put down to a table abundantly supplied with all the good things of the season, plenty, more than could be eaten, and in richness and variety. He showed them how that was what Jesus would do for the soul that would come to Him.

Jimmy sat there, his eyes big and round, drinking it all in, thinking of the fine meals he had had lately of Norah’s cooking and comparing them to the scanty ones that were sometimes served in his own home, where his mother could barely get bread enough to go around. Jimmy was not quite sure what part of him his soul was, but he felt that he would like to have his soul as well supplied as his hungry little stomach had been lately. A dim idea of what more abundant life might mean was dawning upon his young animal senses, and it was appealing to him through the new experiences that had been his since Constance came.

Constance looked about the room. Every eye was upon the minister. People had forgotten about everything but what he was saying. In some faces there was a wistful longing for a fuller life. Constance suddenly knew that her own heart felt a great need.

She turned back, wondering whether in this little country church, with its outlandish furnishings, atrocious music, and uncultivated people, she was to find anything that would satisfy her.

The sermon had reached the third point.

“And this is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent.”

The minister pictured a life that not even death could cause to tremble and fear because Jesus had conquered all things, even death.

The speaker’s voice changed slightly, as one will change tone to speak to another person who stands close by, and he said, “O Jesus Christ, wilt Thou show this roomful of people how much joy and comfort and
life
they might find in Thee if they will come and get acquainted with Thee, as a man talks with his friend face-to-face? Go with us this week, and help us to get hold of a different kind of life, the kind of life Thou canst give us if we know Thee. We ask it because Thou hast promised, and we trust in Thee. Amen.”

There was a solemnity that pervaded the audience even after the hymn was given out. No one looked at his neighbor, or stirred to gather up wraps. All were intent upon the hymn, which seemed to be looked for as a kind of climax to the sermon. And Constance found herself looking curiously at the words to see what the preacher had selected to finish his discourse.

As she read the words, Constance felt as if they were written for her, and she longed to be able to sing the chorus with the heartiness of the old man who sat across the aisle.

As Constance followed Jimmy down the aisle after the benediction, she was conscious of having been a part of that service more than of any service she had ever attended before in her life.

“We are glad to see you here tonight,” said the minister at the door as he reached out a welcoming hand.

“Thank you,” said Constance simply. “I have enjoyed the service.”

It was merely a pleasant thing to say, but in spite of herself Constance put more meaning into the tone than she wished to do. She did not care to have that minister see how deeply into self he had searched for her. But there came a sudden lighting of his eyes as if he had met a kindred spirit.

“Then you know Him,” he said in a low tone, for the groups about them were talking to one another at that moment and did not seem to notice. They were almost at the steps.

He looked at her almost eagerly. It seemed as if he longed to have her understand.

Constance was embarrassed. She did not know how to reply. Her face flushed.

“I am afraid not, in the way you have been describing,” she answered half shyly. Then the crowd surged between them, and she went out with Jimmy.

Jimmy was very quiet on the way home. He seemed thoughtful. At last he said, “Thet there dinner he told ’bout was like some o’ yours. Say, I guess you’re one o’ them kind of folks, ain’t you?”

Constance started in the darkness. The same question with the same taking-for-granted tone that the minister had used. Only the phraseology differed. She had been honest with herself and the minister, and confessed that she was not what she had been supposed, but now with Jimmy she shrank from saying no. She recognized a something in his voice like inquiry. She knew instantly, though she had had no experience in such things, that this little soul was reaching out after some kind of newness of life. He was as ready to take it from Jesus Christ as he had been to take it from Constance Wetherill. Her instinct told her that it might be disastrous to him to be turned aside from his search for better things. Strange to say, though she was not fully impressed that Constance Wetherill needed newness of life, she fully realized that Jimmy Watts did. Therefore she hesitated for an answer and found herself turning the question upon her interrogator.

“Are you, Jimmy?”

Jimmy kicked a stone out of his path and dug his hands deeper into his Sunday pockets in search of something familiar to help him out.

“Never knowed much ’bout sech things. I might try ef I thought I could be like him. He’s great, he is. Mebbe I’ll try,” said Jimmy. “Good night!” And he sped away into the darkness.

T
he next afternoon Jennie made her second call. “I saw you at church last night. I meant to speak to you, but you got out so quick I couldn’t. I sing in the choir. Didn’t you see me? I nodded to you twice, but you just looked straight ahead. I s’pose you didn’t expect to see me up there, did you? Yes, I sing. I’ve sung ever since I was a little mite of a thing. They used to have me sing at all the children’s concerts when I was little. They asked me to sing, and I don’t mind. It makes something goin’ on. Si didn’t like it very well when he found out I’d promised, ’cause, you see, he don’t like the minister. He says he meddles with what don’t concern him and tries to make trouble about his selling sodas on Sunday. Well, I don’t know but I ’gree with him. I’ve got a boyfriend that drives a truck. He goes all over the country and has real nice times, and he makes a whole lot of money. I wish Si had some business like that. But there’s no use talkin’, Si is awfully set. Say, why don’t you bob your hair?”

Constance hesitated. She could not tell this bobbed head that she hated it.

“I never saw any hair look prettier than yours,” went on her admirer, “and yet it isn’t like that in the fashion magazines. It doesn’t look quite fashionable to me.”

Constance smiled pleasantly. “Don’t you think it is better for people to have a little individuality in the way they dress? They can conform, of course, to the general mode of the prevailing style, but when it comes to every woman in the world cutting her hair just because someone else does, it seems ridiculous. I think it is so much better to wear things that are becoming.”

“I never thought about it that way,” said Jennie thoughtfully.

Constance ventured a little further.

“Did you ever try your hair in that new way so many girls use now, parted and waved and done in a soft knot behind? I think that would be becoming to you, and your hair seems quite long enough to do that way.”

Jennie rose and walked solemnly to a mirror that hung at one end of the room, where she surveyed herself with dissatisfaction.

Constance went on, “You should study the lines of your head and face, and try to follow them. See, you have put your head all out of proportion, letting your hair bush out that way.”

Jennie blushed uncomfortably. She had been very proud of her hair, but she admired her new friend exceedingly, and she now perceived that one or the other must go. Which should it be? She looked at the clear reflection of herself in the glass and then back to the cultured, lovely face of her friend, crowned by the soft golden-brown hair, then again to herself in the glass; and behold, she was no longer pleased with her pretty little self.

“Fix it!” she demanded, tears springing into her eyes. “Put it up like yours.”

Constance sat in dismay before her, her hands shrinking from the task put upon them. Her influence had worked with a vengeance. Arrange human hair on another head other than her own! Horrible! Her flesh shrank back from the thought. She, who had always from her very babyhood had someone to arrange her own hair whenever she chose, to be asked to arrange the hair of this coarse, possibly unclean girl! How could she?

“Won’t it fix like yours?” demanded Jennie, anxiously peering through her bushy locks, a kind of fierce desperation in her eyes. Constance was touched. She had undone this girl’s self-satisfaction and given her nothing in its place. She must help her out.

It is strange how interested Constance was in that hair after she had once conquered her aversion to touching it. The skillful fingers went to work, swiftly subduing the wiry locks to comeliness. In a few minutes Jennie stood before the glass, staring in amazement. She did not know herself.

“My land! I never knew I could look like that!” she exclaimed. “Why I look almost as good as you do. I don’t believe folks will know me. If I can only keep it like that, I’ll be satisfied. I know something about you that’s all right and I haven’t got it! Say!” she said suddenly, whirling around and facing Constance. “You’re a Christian, aren’t you? I knew you must be the minute I laid eyes on you. You make me think of the minister every time I see you. There’s something about you both that there isn’t many in this town has.”

Here was the same question again, and this time it was embarrassing. Without her own desire she had come to stand in the attitude of helper to this girl. She had seen Jennie in church and had watched her changing face as she listened to the sermon. It had been swept by many emotions, and Constance felt that here was another who needed the help of that Helper of whom the minister had spoken. Jennie had paused and was waiting for an answer, her eyes upon Constance’s face searchingly. Constance had always considered herself a Christian. Why should she not say yes? And yet she felt in her heart that she was not the kind of Christian the minister had meant when he spoke of that “fullness of life.”

“Why, yes,” said she hesitatingly, “I’m—a church member.”

“There, I knew you were! Say, then, you’ll teach our Sunday school class, won’t you?”

“Teach your Sunday school class? Oh, I couldn’t!” said Constance, aghast. This was worse than doing up hair. Was this what her new life was leading her into?

“Oh yes, you must. I thought of it myself and asked Mr. Endycut if he wouldn’t give you to us. I told all the girls in our class, and they’re just wild about you.”

“But you’ll have to excuse me,” said Constance in consternation. “I’ve never taught a Sunday school class in my life. I couldn’t think of it.”

“Well, but, you see, we all want you, and we won’t have anybody else. Old Mis’ Bartlett tried us, but she got mad the second Sunday and said we tried to insult her because we laughed when she got somebody’s name messed up. I said I knew a teacher we could get, and the girls were so pleased and said they’d all keep on coming if you’d take the class. Jimmy said he thought you ought to have a class of boys and he’d be one if you’d come teach, but I thought we’d get ahead of him asking you.”

“It will be impossible at present,” said Constance, a trifle stiffly. She longed to flee back to her old home and its safe shelter, where no young urchins nor impossible girls would trouble her with their hair and their morals. Jimmy was all right. Jimmy she was fond of, but a whole class of boys! Horrible!