Part 22 (1/2)
”Ah! potatoes warmed up in cream!” he said, with hearty pleasure in his tone. ”What a mind-reader you are, to be sure!”
”I'm glad you're feeling so much better,” she said briefly, taking her seat.
”Better?” he returned. ”I'm a new being!”
She ventured to look him over more freely, upon this a.s.surance. He perceived and catalogued, one by one, the emotions which the small brain was expressing through those shallow blue eyes of hers. She was turning over this, that, and the other hostile thought and childish grievance--most of all she was dallying with the idea of asking him where he had been till after midnight. He smiled affably in the face of this scattering fire of peevish glances, and did not dream of resenting any phase of them all.
”I am going down to Thurston's this morning, and order that piano sent up today,” he announced presently, in a casual way.
”Why, Theron, can we afford it?” the wife asked, regarding him with surprise.
”Oh, easily enough,” he replied light-heartedly. ”You know they've increased my salary.”
She shook her head. ”No, I didn't. How should I? You don't realize it,”
she went on, dolefully, ”but you're getting so you don't tell me the least thing about your affairs nowadays.”
Theron laughed aloud. ”You ought to be grateful--such melancholy affairs as mine have been till now,” he declared--”that is, if it weren't absurd to think such a thing.” Then, more soberly, he explained: ”No, my girl, it is you who don't realize. I am carrying big projects in my mind--big, ambitious thoughts and plans upon which great things depend. They no doubt make me seem preoccupied and absent-minded; but it is a wife's part to understand, and make allowances, and not intrude trifles which may throw everything out of gear. Don't think I'm scolding, my girl. I only speak to rea.s.sure you and--and help you to comprehend. Of course I know that you wouldn't willingly embarra.s.s my--my career.”
”Of course not,” responded Alice, dubiously; ”but--but--”
”But what? Theron felt compelled by civility to say, though on the instant he reproached himself for the weakness of it.
”Well--I hardly know how to say it,” she faltered, ”but it was nicer in the old days, before you bothered your head about big projects, and your career, as you call it, and were just a good, earnest, simple young servant of the Lord. Oh, Theron!” she broke forth suddenly, with tearful zeal, ”I get sometimes lately almost scared lest you should turn out to be a--a BACKSLIDER!”
The husband sat upright, and hardened his countenance. But yesterday the word would have had in it all sorts of inherited terrors for him. This morning's dawn of a new existence revealed it as merely an empty and stupid epithet.
”These are things not to be said,” he admonished her, after a moment's pause, and speaking with carefully measured austerity. ”Least of all are they to be said to a clergyman--by his wife.”
It was on the tip of Alice's tongue to retort, ”Better by his wife than by outsiders!” but she bit her lips, and kept the gibe back. A rebuke of this form and gravity was a novelty in their relations. The fear that it had been merited troubled, even while it did not convince, her mind, and the puzzled apprehension was to be read plainly enough on her face.
Theron, noting it, saw a good deal more behind. Really, it was amazing how much wiser he had grown all at once. He had been married for years, and it was only this morning that he suddenly discovered how a wife ought to be handled. He continued to look sternly away into s.p.a.ce for a little. Then his brows relaxed slowly and under the visible influence of melting considerations. He nodded his head, turned toward her abruptly, and broke the silence with labored amiability.
”Come, come--the day began so pleasantly--it was so good to feel well again--let us talk about the piano instead. That is,” he added, with an obvious overture to playfulness, ”if the thought of having a piano is not too distasteful to you.”
Alice yielded almost effusively to his altered mood. They went together into the sitting-room, to measure and decide between the two available s.p.a.ces which were at their disposal, and he insisted with resolute magnanimity on her settling this question entirely by herself. When at last he mentioned the fact that it was Friday, and he would look over some sermon memoranda before he went out, Alice retired to the kitchen in openly cheerful spirits.
Theron spread some old ma.n.u.script sermons before him on his desk, and took down his scribbling-book as well. But there his application flagged, and he surrendered himself instead, chin on hand, to staring out at the rhododendron in the yard. He recalled how he had seen Soulsby patiently studying this identical bush. The notion of Soulsby, not knowing at all how to sing, yet diligently learning those sixths, brought a smile to his mind; and then he seemed to hear Celia calling out over her shoulder, ”That's what Chopin does--he sings!” The spirit of that wonderful music came back to him, enfolded him in its wings. It seemed to raise itself up--a palpable barrier between him and all that he had known and felt and done before. That was his new birth--that marvellous night with the piano. The conceit pleased him--not the less because there flashed along with it the thought that it was a poet that had been born. Yes; the former country lout, the narrow zealot, the untutored slave groping about in the dark after silly superst.i.tions, cringing at the scowl of mean Pierces and Winches, was dead. There was an end of him, and good riddance. In his place there had been born a Poet--he spelled the word out now unabashed--a child of light, a lover of beauty and sweet sounds, a recognizable brother to Renan and Chopin--and Celia!
Out of the soothing, tenderly grateful revery, a practical suggestion suddenly took shape. He acted upon it without a moment's delay, getting out his letter-pad, and writing hurriedly--
”Dear Miss Madden,--Life will be more tolerable to me if before nightfall I can know that there is a piano under my roof. Even if it remains dumb, it will be some comfort to have it here and look at it, and imagine how a great master might make it speak.
”Would it be too much to beg you to look in at Thurston's, say at eleven this forenoon, and give me the inestimable benefit of your judgment in selecting an instrument?
”Do not trouble to answer this, for I am leaving home now, but shall call at Thurston's at eleven, and wait.
”Thanking you in antic.i.p.ation,
”I am--”
Here Theron's fluency came to a sharp halt. There were adverbs enough and to spare on the point of his pen, but the right one was not easy to come at. ”Gratefully,” ”faithfully,” ”sincerely,” ”truly”--each in turn struck a false note. He felt himself not quite any of these things. At last he decided to write just the simple word ”yours,” and then wavered between satisfaction at his boldness, dread lest he had been over-bold, and, worst of the lot, fear that she would not notice it one way or the other--all the while he sealed and addressed the letter, put it carefully in an inner pocket, and got his hat.