Part 31 (1/2)

CHAPTER XXII

It may be said with fairness that the reception given by Miss Campion for her nephew's bride left Bainbridge thoughtful. They had expected the bride to be different, and they had found her to be different from what they had expected. They could not place her; and, in Bainbridge, everyone is placed.

”I understood,” said Mrs. T. L. Lawson, whose word in intellectual matters was final, ”that young Mrs. Spence was wholly uneducated. A school teacher who met her on the train told my dressmaker that she had heard her admit the fact with her own lips. So, naturally, not wis.h.i.+ng to embarra.s.s a newcomer, I confined my remarks to the simplest matters.

She did not say very much but I must confess--you will scarcely believe it--I actually got the impression that she was accommodating her conversation to me.”

”Oh, surely not!” from a shocked chorus.

”It is just a manner she affects,” comforted Mrs. Burton Holmes. ”Far, far too a.s.sured, in my opinion, for a young bride. I hope it does not denote a certain lack of fine feeling. In a girl who had been brought up to an a.s.sured social position, such a manner might be understood.

But--well, all I can say is that I heard from my friend Marion Walford yesterday, and she a.s.sured me that Mrs. Spence is quite unknown in Vancouver society. But, of course, dear Marion knows only the very smartest people. For myself I do not allow these distinctions to affect me. If only for dear Miss Campion's sake I determined to be perfectly friendly. But I felt that, in justice to everybody, it might be well for her to know that we know. So I asked her, casually, if she were well acquainted with the Walfords. At first she looked as if she had never heard of them, and then--'Oh, do you mean the soap people?' she said. 'I don't know them--but one sees their bill-boards everywhere.'

It was almost as if--”

”Oh--absurd!” echoed the chorus. ”Though if she is really English,”

ventured one of them, ”she might, you know. The English have such a horror of trade.”

These social and educational puzzles were as nothing to the religious problem. Bainbridge, who had seen Desire more or less regularly at church, had taken for granted that in this respect, at least, she was even as they were. But, after the reception, Mrs. Pennington thought not.

”I felt quite worried about our pretty bride,” said Mrs. Pennington.

”You know how we all hoped that when the dear professor married he would become more orthodox. Science is so unsettling. And married men so often do. But--” she sighed.

”Surely not a free thinker?” ventured one in a subdued whisper.

”Or a Christian Scientist?” with equal horror.

Mrs. Pennington intimated that she had not yet sufficient data to decide. ”But,” she added, solemnly, ”she is not a. Presbyterian.”

”She goes to church.”

”Yes. She was quite frank about that. She did not scruple to say that she goes to please Miss Campion and because 'it is all so new.'”

”New?”

”Exactly what I said to her. I said, 'New?' My dear, what you do mean--new?' And she tipped her eyebrows in that oriental way she has and said, 'Why, just new. I have never been to church, you know!'”

”Oh, impossible--in this country!”

”Yes, imagine it! Perhaps she saw my disapproval for she added, 'We had a prayer-book in the house, though.' As if it were quite the same thing.”

One of the more optimistic members of the chorus thought that this might show some connection with the Church of England. But Mrs.

Pennington shook her head.

”Hardly, I think. Her language was not such as to encourage such a hope. The very next thing she said to me was, 'Don't you think the prayer-book is lovely?'”

”Oh!--not really?”

”I admit I was shocked. I am not,” said Mrs. Pennington, ”a Church of England woman. But I am broad-minded, I hope. And I have more respect for ANY sacred work than to speak of it as 'lovely.' In fact, in all kindness, I must say that I fear the poor child is a veritable heathen.”

This conclusion was felt to be sound, logically, but without great practical significance. The veritable heathen persisted in church-going to such an extent that she tired out several of the most orthodox and it was rumored that she even went so far as to discuss the sermon afterward. ”Just as if,” said Mrs. Pennington, ”it were a lecture or a play or something.”