DUSKIN (26 page)

Constance stopped humming and looked keenly from her brother to her mother.

“Never mind Ruddy Van,” she said, coolly sweeping her mother’s words aside without ceremony. “What’s this about Dr. Grant? You don’t mean to tell me, Mother, that you’ve invited him to dinner one of the few nights I have at home, when you know how I detest him?”

“No, of course not, dear!” said the mother hastily and placatingly. “Nothing like that at all. He just dropped in to see you this afternoon. He was very anxious to talk with you—” The mother stopped abruptly.

“To talk with
me
!” said Constance, narrowing her eyes and looking from mother to brother again. “What could he possibly want to talk with me about? If it’s to sing in the Easter choir or a solo, no, I won’t and that’s that! I can’t and won’t sing with that Ferran girl flatting the way she does. There’s no use asking me. If that’s what he wants I’ll slide out the back way and go over to Mabel’s for a little while. You just tell him I’ve got bronchitis or any other efficient throat trouble. I simply won’t discuss it with him. He always acts as if he wants to chuck me under the chin or pat me on the head as if I was still five. My, how I used to hate it!”

“No, dear, it’s nothing like that. He didn’t even suggest your singing.”

“Well then, what is it? Let’s get it over with.”

“Why, dear, you see they’re having a special communion service tomorrow—Easter, you know. It’s such a lovely idea, and all your Sunday school class are uniting with the church. He wanted you to join with them and make it a full class. It seems a rather lovely idea I think myself, so suitable, you know.”

“Me? Join the church? Oh, Mother! How Victorian!”

“Oh, but now, Constance, don’t try to be modern. No, wait! I really have got to tell you about it, because he may be here any minute now, and Connie dear, your grandmother has quite set her heart upon it.”

“Grandmother!” laughed Constance. “What has she got to do with it? My soul! It sounds as if my family were still in the dark ages.”

“Well, but Connie, you’ll find your grandmother is very much upset about it. You see, she’s been scolding me ever since you first went off to college that I let you go without uniting with the church. She thought it would be such a safeguard. And now that you’ve almost finished, she is determined that you shall be a member of the church before you graduate. She says she did and I did and it isn’t respectable not to. And really, my dear, I think you’ll just have to put your own wishes aside this time and humor her.”

“How ridiculous, Mother. Join the church to suit Grandmother! Just you leave her to me. I’ll make her understand that girls don’t do things like that today. Things are different from when she was young. And by the way, Mother, do you think she’s going to give me that string of pearls for a graduating present? You promised to feel around and see. I’d so much like to have it for the big dance next week. It’s going to be a swell affair.”

“Well, that’s the trouble, Constance dear. I’ve been trying to find out what she had planned, and it seems she’s quite got her heart set on that string of pearls being a present to you when you join the church. Her father gave it to her when she joined, and she has often said to me, ‘The day that Constance joins the church I shall give her my string of pearls.’ I really believe she means it, too, for she has been talking about your cousin Norma, and once she asked me if Norma was a member of the church.”

“Mercy, Mother, you don’t think she’s thinking of giving a string of matched pearls to a little country schoolteacher with a muddy complexion and no place in the world to wear them?”

“You can’t tell, my dear, what she may not do if you frustrate her in this desire of her heart. She’s just determined, Connie! She told me your grandfather had always said that he wanted to see you a member of the old church and be sure you were safe in the fold before he died, and she had sort of given him her word that she would see to it that you came out all right. Connie, you really mustn’t laugh so loud. If she were to hear you—!”

Constance stifled her mirth.

“But honestly, Mother, it’s so Victorian, so sort-of traditional and all, you know. I’d be ashamed to have it get back to college that I had had to knuckle in and join the church to please my grandmother. Why, everybody would despise me after the enlightening education I’ve had. It’s a sort of relic of the dark ages.”

“Aw, you don’t havta believe anything,” put in the brother amusedly. “Just havta stand up there a few minutes and then it’s all over. Doesn’t mean a thing, and who’ll ever think of it again? Gee, if Grandmother’d buy me that Rolls Royce I want I’d join the church any day! I don’t see whatcha making sucha fuss about.”

“Franklin! That’s irreverent!” reproved his mother coldly. “Of course Constance would do anything she did sincerely. Constance has always been conscientious. But, Connie dear, I don’t see why you object to something that has been a tradition in the family for years. Of course, you’re a thoughtless girl now, but you’ll come to a time when you’ll be glad you did it, something to depend on in times of trouble and all that. You know, really, it’s a good thing to get a matter like this all settled when one is young. And of course, you know, that college-girl point-of-view isn’t always going to stay with you. You just think you’ve got new light on things now, but when you get older and settle down you’ll see the church was a good, safe place to be.”

“Oh applesauce!” said Constance merrily. “Mother, what good has it ever done you to be a member of a church, I’d like to know? Oh, of course you’ve pussy-footed through all their missionary tea-fights and things like that, and everybody puts you on committees and things. You may like that sort of thing, but I don’t. I never could stand going to church, and as for Dr. Grant, I can’t endure his long, monotonous preaching! No really, Mother, I can’t! Let me talk to Grandmother. I’m sure I can make her see this thing straight.”

“No, Constance, really you mustn’t talk to your grandmother! Indeed, my child, you don’t understand. She’s quite in a critical state. I’m not sure but she contemplates writing Norma this evening and committing herself about those pearls. She feels that religion is being insulted by your not uniting with the old family church. And you know, my dear, in spite of all the modern talk, one really does need a little religion in life.”

“That is nothing but sentimental slush!” said Constance indignantly.

“Well, I’ll grant you your grandmother is a trifle sentimental about those pearls,” admitted the mother. “She feels that they are a sort of symbol of innocence and religion. She said all those things this afternoon. In fact, I’d been having a rather dreadful time with her ever since Dr. Grant called, until I told her that he was returning to arrange things with you and I was quite sure you would be willing to see things as she wanted you to.”

“Oh, Mother!”

“There’s the reverend gentleman now,” said Frank amusedly, gathering up his long legs from the couch where he had been stretched during the colloquy. “I’m gong ta beat it. He hasn’t got a line on me yet, not until Grand talks about that Rolls Royce, anyway.”

“Oh, Mother, I really can’t stay and see him. Let me get up the back stairs quick,” said Constance.

But her mother placed her substantial body firmly in her path.

“No, Constance, I must insist! This really is a serious matter. You are not going to let those ancestral pearls go out of the immediate family, I am sure. Listen, Connie, he’s merely coming to arrange a time for you to meet the session. It’s only a formality, you know, just a question or two and it’s over. There won’t be time for anything else. He said the session has a meeting this evening. Some of the girls will be there then.”

“Indeed I can’t go this evening,” blustered Constance breathlessly. “I’m going to that dance at the country club, and I promised Ruddy I’d ride with him in his new car beforehand.”

“Well, we’ll fix it somehow. Tomorrow morning you could go a little early, before the service. It’s only a formality anyway.”

“Oh, Mother!” wailed Constance softly as she slipped through the door. “I was going to play golf with Ruddy all tomorrow morning! Must I, Mother? Can’t I get by without it?”

“I’m afraid you must, dear,” said her mother firmly, even while she arranged a welcoming smile on her lips for the old minister who was being ushered in.

With a whispered moan, Constance had slipped up the back way to her room where she remained during the minister’s stay.

As Constance answered the call to dinner ten minutes after the minister’s departure, she saw her mother and her grandmother at the foot of the front stairs talking.

“It’s all right, Mother dear. Constance is going to join,” said Constance’s mother to the firm-mouthed little old lady in black silk with priceless lace at her throat and wrists.

The little old lady had keen black eyes, and she fixed them on her daughter warily.

“You’re sure she’s doing it of her own free will, Mary?” she asked. “I wouldn’t want any pressure to be brought to bear upon her in a thing like this.”

“Oh yes, Mother dear, I’m quite sure Constance sees the fitness of it all. Easter Sunday, too—so appropriate!”

Relief came in the bright eyes; the tenseness of the thin lips relaxed.

“Then she’ll meet the session tonight?” she asked eagerly.

“Well, not tonight,” said the mother warily. “Dr. Grant has arranged a special session meeting early in the morning before the service.”

“Oh,” said Grandmother suspiciously. “Why was that?”

“Well, he said they often did,” evaded Constance’s mother. “I think it’s most appropriate at that hour just before the service.”

The old lady studied her daughter a moment speculatively, then, apparently satisfied, she said, “Well, then I shall give her the pearls in the morning. I’d like her to wear them to the service. I’d like to see them on her the first time in the church. Easter Day. Her first communion. It will be lovely, Mary. It will be just as I have hoped and planned. Her grandfather would have liked it so.”

“Yes!” said Constance’s mother crisply. “So appropriate! And so dear of you, Mother, to give her the pearls. I’m sure she’ll be deeply grateful.”

Constance smothered a mocking smile and came ruefully down the stairs, wondering what some of her professors at college and various fellow students would think if they would know that she was succumbing to tradition and family pressure just for a string of pearls. Well, the pearls were worth it! Matched pearls and flawless. The only really worthwhile heirloom in the family. Grandfather’s taste in adornment had been severe simplicity and pearls!

The sun shone forth gorgeously on Easter morning. Constance groaned softly as she saw it, looked out from her window, and noted the far stretch of the golf links in the distance. Such a day as this was meant to play golf! And to think all the morning had to be wasted!

Yet, of course, she was to wear the string of pearls!

She went about her dressing with more than the usual care. Was she not to be the focus of all eyes today? Even the eyes in a country church, that had been her great-grandfather’s church in the past, were worth dressing for.

She picked her garments all of white—heavy white silk with a long, fitted coat, white furred to match; white shoes; even white stockings, though the suntan would have been more stylish, but she must not have the look of a sportsman this morning. Grandmother was even capable of coming right up to the front and taking those pearls off her neck during the service if she suspected all was not utmost innocence.

She dressed her golden hair demurely, in smooth braids coiled low over her ears with a little tip-tilted hat of white showing a few soft waves on her forehead. With her gold hair, the white hat, and sweet untinted cheeks and lips au naturel for the occasion, she looked like some young saint set apart from all the world.

Her grandmother felt it when she came down the stairs and met her with a sacred smile and a look of satisfaction in the keen, eager old eyes. She clasped the pearls around Constance’s neck and kissed her tenderly.

“Dear child!” she whispered. “How your grandfather used to talk about this day and pray about it!” And then, half frightened at her words, she retreated back into her silent reticence and hurried out the door to where the car waited to take them to church.

And Constance, following, felt a sudden smart of tears in her eyes in spite of her cynicism. She remembered words of one most modern professor in talking once about sacraments—how he had advised them not to throw away old sacraments, even if they meant nothing anymore, but to keep them for the sweet sentiment they had had in former years. Constance thought she understood suddenly what he had meant. She caught a brief vision of what all this meant to her grandmother and was really glad she had done it. Even without the pearls, she was glad she had done it just to please little, sweet, hard, bright, old Grandmother.

So with virtue shining from her lovely ultramarine eyes she entered the lily-decked aisles and took her place in the house of the Lord.

The windows in the old, old church were lovely Tiffany windows. They cast opalescent lights across the sanctuary and touched lightly like a halo the gold of Constance’s hair. They lighted up her unpainted face till she attained an almost holy look in her white garments, with her gold hair; her blue, blue eyes; and the pearls around her neck with twinkles of the beauties of all the world in their polished depths.

The music was angelic, and the words the monotonous old minister read and said were sonorous and musical. They meant nothing much to Constance. She was seeing herself with the pearls at the next weekend party. She was conscious of the crowded sanctuary and of being the best dressed of the whole class of which she was a member.

When the time came, she went sweetly, demurely up to the front of the church and stood with just such a prayerful attitude as did her grandmother years and years before, and people whispered, “Isn’t Constance lovely? I never knew she was so serious, did you?”

Constance stood before the altar and kept her eyes upon the white-haired Dr. Grant whom she detested, watching his lips, half fascinated, wondering if the wave in his white hair was natural, bowing her head when the prayer began, and studying the toes of two well-polished shoes and the neat creases of the cheap, dark blue serge trousers that stood next to her white suede slippers, and wondering idly who was their owner. Was the serge a bit shiny, almost shabby? That was the impression she got from her brief glance as she closed her eyes for the prayer.