Part 7 (2/2)
The visitors stood speechless. Mrs. Wilson broke into a gleeful laugh.
”Come,” cried she; ”now I have shocked you! Pardon me; I should have remembered--_virginibus puerisque!_ Sit down, and we will come to business.”
Both the young men flushed at her half-contemptuous, half-jesting phrase, but they sat down as directed. Mrs. Wilson took her seat directly in front of them, and proceeded to inspect them with cool deliberation.
”I am looking you over,” she observed calmly. ”I must decide what work you are fitted for before I can a.s.sign anything to you.”
Two young men do not live together so intimately, and care for each other so tenderly as did the two deacons without coming to know each other well; and Maurice was so fully aware of the extreme sensitiveness of Ashe that he involuntarily glanced at his friend to see how he bore this inspection. He resented the impertinence of the scrutiny far more on Philip's account than his own. Ashe's pale face had on it the faintest possible flush, and his always grave manner had become really solemn; but otherwise he made no sign. Wynne had a certain sense of humor which helped him through the ordeal, and there was a faint gleam of a smile in his eye as he confronted the brilliant woman before him; but he was ill-pleased that his friend should be made uncomfortable.
”Do you judge by outward appearances,” he asked, ”or have you power to read the heart?”
”Men so seldom have hearts,” she retorted, ”that it is not worth while to bother with that branch.” Then she added, as if thinking aloud, and looking Ashe in the face: ”You are an enthusiast, and take things with frightful seriousness. You must see Mrs. Frostwinch. You'll just suit her.”
Maurice could see his companion shrink under this cool directness, and he hastened to interpose.
”But Mrs. Frostwinch,” he said, ”is absorbed in Christian Science or something, isn't she?”
”Oh, dear, yes,” Mrs. Wilson answered, toying with the broad crimson ribbon which served her as a girdle. ”There is a horrid woman named Trapps, or Grapps, or c.r.a.pps, or something, that has fastened herself upon cousin Anna, and is mind-curing her, or Christian-sciencing her, or fooling her in some way; but Mrs. Frostwinch is too well-bred really to have any sympathy with anything so vulgar. She takes to it in desperation; but she really detests the whole thing.”
”But,” Ashe began hesitatingly, ”does her conscience”--
Mrs. Wilson laughed, making a gesture as if sweeping all that sort of thing aside.
”I dare say her conscience p.r.i.c.ks her, if that's what you mean; but it's so much easier to endure the sting of conscience than of cancer that I'm not surprised at her choice.”
”Besides,” Maurice put in, ”this is all done nowadays under the name of religion. It isn't as if it were called by the old names of mesmerism or Indian doctoring.”
”That's true enough,” a.s.sented she. ”At any rate Anna is mixed up with this woman, who gets a lot of money out of her, and earns it by making her think that she's better. However, Cousin Anna must be made to see that it's her duty in this case to use her influence to prevent the election of a man who would subvert the church if he could.”
”But if you are her cousin,” Ashe began, ”would it not”--
”Be better if I went to see her myself? Not in the least. She entirely disapproves of my having anything to do with the election. Besides, n.o.body can successfully talk religion to a woman but a man.”
Maurice smiled in spite of himself at the air with which this was said, but he none the less felt that Mrs. Wilson was flippant.
”What influence has Mrs. Frostwinch?” he asked.
”Well,” Mrs. Wilson answered, leaning back to consider, ”I don't know whether to say that she controls three votes in the upper house of the Convention, or four.”
The two young men regarded her in puzzled silence.
”There are at least three clergymen in the diocese that are dependent upon her,” Mrs. Wilson explained. ”There is Mr. Bobbins: he married her cousin,--not a near cousin, but near enough so that Anna has half supported the family, and the family is always increasing. I tell Anna that they have babies just to work on her compa.s.sion. I think it's wrong to encourage it, myself. Then there is Mr. Maloon; he depends on Mrs. Frostwinch to support his mission. Then there's Brother Pewtap,--did you ever know such a lovely name for a country parson?--he just lives on her with a family bigger than Mr. Robbins's. He's really a Strathmore man, but he wouldn't dare to vote against her wishes. She might manage all those votes. Besides, there's a Mr. Jewett somewhere near Lenox that she's helped a good deal; but I haven't found out about him yet.”
She rose as she spoke, and went to a writing-table fitted out with all the inventions known to man for the decoration of the desk and the enc.u.mbrance of the writer.
”I have here a list of all the clergy of the diocese,” she said, taking up a book bound in red morocco and silver. ”I've marked them down as far as I've found out about them. It's necessary to be systematic. I've done just as they do in canva.s.sing a city ward.”
Maurice regarded Mrs. Wilson with ever-increasing amazement, but, too, not without increasing amus.e.m.e.nt. He was somewhat shocked by the business way in which she treated the subject, but his heart was set on the election of Father Frontford; he was honest in feeling that the church would be injured by the election of Mr. Strathmore, and he was too completely a man not to be half-unconsciously willing that for the accomplishment of an end he desired a woman should do many things which he would not do himself. The three went over the list together, the young men giving such information as they possessed, Maurice all the time strangely divided in his mind between disapprobation of Mrs.
Wilson and admiration. Her breath was on his cheek as she bent over the book, the perfume of her laces filled faintly the air, now and then her hand touched his. He was not conscious of the potency of this feminine atmosphere which enveloped him; he did not so much think personally of Mrs. Wilson, beautiful and near though she was, as he felt her presence as a sort of impersonation of woman. He thought of Miss Morison, and warmed with a nameless thrill, of longing. Then he recalled the remark of Mrs. Staggchase that he was undergoing his temptation, and his heart sank.
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