Silver Wings (13 page)

“Contact?”

“Contact!”

The engine spoke, throbbed, the great bird rose into the silver sea of air, and he was off.

They watched him a moment till he was a mere speck in the moonlight, and then they hurried off to get his picture in the morning papers.

S
abbath at Briarcliffe had not been a restful day.

To begin with, there had been a match between two world-famous golf players at the country club, and the young people trooped downstairs noisily, much earlier than they would have under any other consideration. But early as they were, they did not get down in time to see John Dunleith and eat breakfast with him. Only Neddy had that honor. Both Neddy and John were gone long before the golfers put in an appearance.

“I’m going to Sunday school with John,” explained Neddy when his sister wanted him to play a set of tennis with her so she would keep in good form. “John hasta teach a class, an’ we havta be there early.” He spoke with importance, as if his duties as attendant on his cousin were of the nature of a religious ceremony.

“Great cats!” said Doris, twisting her lips into a grimace of contempt. “Run right along, then, buddy, and don’t soil your hands.”

Diana came down a little later than the rest, having attained a dress suited either to the country club or an elaborate church affair. It had taken her some time to decide upon it, but it was as effective in its way as the fishing outfit had been, and every bit as costly. A white dress so simple and so ravishing that any woman would have known it could only be achieved by one of the great dressmakers of Paris. White shoes and a wide-brimmed white hat with a single great white velvet rose poised on its brim. A white and golden girl she was, and strangely, her eyes had gold lights in them, too. Lovely eyes that could tantalize and yet could look so genuine.

Amory had her breakfast in the sunny breakfast room by herself, for everybody else ate in the big dining room. It was the only place where there was room enough for the whole group.

Amory had inquired of Christine concerning churches. She had a fancy to hear John Dunleith preach, but Christine had no idea which church it might be.

“There’s the Episcopal, of course, that’s the big lovely church about a quarter of a mile up the road. But he’s not there, I’m sure, for he doesn’t wear the collar for it. And there’s the Presbyterian church a little farther on, but it’s quite the richest church outside the Episcopal. I’d not think he’d be preaching there. There’s a Baptist over at Raleigh Heights that they say is much liked, and there’s a Methodist up the road the other way that has more members than any church around. They are quite fine churches, but I can’t say which it is would have him. Though he does seem a nice young man. But I’m sure if he were at all great, Madam would have made them all go to church, and there’s not one of them started, as far as I can see.”

“Of course there’s the chapel, down in the village,” added Christine as a second thought. “He might be there.”

Amory decided to try the chapel. She would likely find it if she walked long enough, and at least she would find some service somewhere to break the monotony of the dull day in the great strange house. She was not used to having Sunday just like any other day. It made her quite unhappy. The name “chapel” sounded as if there might be a simple service that would seem more homelike than any of the other churches described. So Amory took her quiet way down the long drive and out the wooded gateway, into the road where she had arrived but a few short days before.

Diana lay in the lounging chair on the terrace and watched her go with narrowing eyelids and thoughtful expression. Presently, she dismissed Fred and a youth named Clarence who were hovering around her anxious to be of service, saying she wanted to write some letters and might come to the country club later. She slipped into the house but emerged as soon as the young men were out of sight, and looking stealthily about to make sure no one saw her, she followed the path that Amory had taken. She was thinking perhaps that John Dunleith had told Amory where he was going to preach. Leave it to Diana to think out a way!

She was carrying a worn but expensively bound little prayer book. It did not fit the chapel to which she was going, of course, but she did not know that, and as it fitted the role she was playing, what did it matter? She had found it deep in a lower shelf of the library the night before, having hunted it out for the occasion.

In due time Amory arrived at the chapel that Christine had sketchily described, and was further assured by seeing the bulletin board in front that announced: “The Rev. John Dunleith will preach all this month.”

The children were pouring out of the Sunday school as she arrived. They did not go away but presently turned and went back in again as if they loved it, hurrying to get seats.

Amory slipped through the young throng and took a seat in a corner near the back. She would rather see than be seen. She felt strange and lonely. But a plain woman in a rusty black gown reached out a friendly hand and smiled, another woman handed her a hymnbook and said it was a pleasant day, and somehow her frozen little self felt happier about going to church in a strange place.

There was scarcely an interval after she was seated until a wheezy little organ up in front began to play, and the congregation rose and sang with a will.

It was not until the sermon had begun that Diana Dorne came daintily in, pausing in the doorway, a lovely picture, clasping the worn prayer book in her hands. Diana certainly knew how to get herself up. There was a soft flush on her cheeks, put there by skillful fingers, and the golden lights in her eyes played wistfully from under the golden lashes. Four men were instantly on their feet offering their seats, and Diana, smiling graciously, accepted one from the best-looking man, though it required five people to stand to let her in. She swept the congregation with a sweet, humble look that apologized publicly and bounteously for having disturbed their worship. She gave the impression of an earnest worshipper, arriving late through no fault of her own.

When the little hush occasioned by her coming had ceased, the voice of the preacher was heard once more. But Diana, lifting her golden gaze, saw to her chagrin that he did not seem to have noticed her entrance at all. He was talking earnestly, quietly, without a particle of self-consciousness or awkwardness, as if he had something of the utmost importance to tell.

As on the fishing expedition the day before, she discovered that she did not figure at all in his calculations. She was, as it were, as if she were not. Her lovely dress and stylish hat, imported from Paris, were wasted on him. They were wasted on this audience, too, she perceived as she looked around her. No one was looking her way any longer, in spite of the disturbance she had made getting seated. There were girls of her own age there, dressed in flimsy silk or simple cotton frocks, with cheap little hats and strings of glass beads, who cast no envious eyes toward her. Not even the handsome young fellow who had given her his seat was looking at her now. He was standing back by the door because there was no other vacant seat, and he was earnestly listening to the preacher. They were all listening as if their lives depended on it. What could he be saying that interested them all so much? She set herself to listen also. Surely the poor nutty cousin from out west could not have anything important to say. Of course he was good looking, and rather intriguing, but these people did not look as if they were so much interested in him, in his personality, as they were in his theme.

When Diana at last settled down to really listen, she turned in on the most extraordinary sentence. It almost seemed as if he were directing it straight to her own thoughts, for she had been preening herself on her lovely white garments and wishing he would look up and see how well she was looking, how fitly dressed for the day and the service.

“And the fine linen is the righteousness of the saints.” That was the startling thing he was saying. She looked down quickly at the Paris creation she was wearing. Of course a man wouldn’t know its lovely dull sheen was silk, not linen. But surely, he was not talking to her, there in public, about her dress! Yet he said it in that quiet conversational tone, just as he spoke when he sat fishing. It arrested her attention.

“The fine linen,” went on the clear quiet voice, “is God’s righteousness put upon our moral nakedness to cover it from sight forever. Christ has cleansed us by His blood and then put this lovely garment of His righteousness about us to fit us to come into the presence of God.”

Diana suddenly shivered under her pretty white silk, and her self-centered soul shrank within her. The presence of God! Why did he want to talk about a terrible thing like that? This was a glorious day. He had been speaking of a lovely dress, and then he mentioned the presence of God in the same breath! Moral nakedness! What a phrase that was! What an extraordinary person he was anyway! This was no country gawk, no ignorant fanatic. This was a man with a brain, a man who could use words, and hold people!

She looked around upon the rapt company. Poor old women with toil-worn hands and threadbare garments, giddy young girls, young men from all walks of life, older men, businessmen, all listening as if their very lives depended upon his words.

And now he began to speak of One who was coming pretty soon, a bridegroom, of nobility perhaps, coming for His bride. It sounded like a story, but she could not quite get the thread of it. Was that the little Whitney secretary sitting over in the opposite corner? The bold creature! Was she presuming to follow around a nephew of the house? Yet, of course, Mrs. Whitney had rather discounted him and had placed this girl by his side at dinner. How she was listening! She would be good looking if she had a little more style! Had John Dunleith asked her to church?

She shot another quick look at Amory and was puzzled by the sweet attention in her face. When she turned her giddy mind back to the sermon again, the minister was speaking of one who was to stand upon the Mount of Olives, and something in the way he said, “It may be very soon now,” reminded her of what Mrs. Whitney had said about this young man having strange notions about the end of the world.

Diana’s eyes narrowed and she studied him through her golden lashes, with an odd jealous pang at her heart. She felt that she must begin to get in some real personal work that very afternoon. She could not be balked in public this way, having the whole house party jeering at her whenever she failed to bring the young minister to task. She must learn not to boast. That was a bad move last night, when she had sent him for her shawl, and he returned it through Neddy, right before them all.

And suddenly she saw Neddy sitting up in the front seat, with a dignity that sat strangely on his remarkably clean face. He was actually listening, too, with round eyes of real interest. And in a flash she knew that she herself must be interested in what the minister had to say or she would never find a point of contact.

So she set herself to listen intelligently and found herself astonished again at the words of wisdom he was speaking—words that searched her and pierced the shallowness of her soul, so that she was relieved when the service came to a close.

They sang a strange hymn at the end. They all burst forth into it like a triumphant shout. Someone gave her a book, and she read the words:

What did they mean? It must be that end-of-the-world stuff. What a shame that such an interesting young man should be part of a fanatical cult like this! Perhaps she could help to save him from such things and bring him back to normal once more. He seemed to have good common sense in other ways, and he certainly was a gentleman! She would see what she could do!

When the service was over she stepped back into the far end of the pew and waited, looking toward the pulpit and watching John Dunleith, smiling, and trying to catch his eye across the crowds.

The people were pressing up around him, shaking his hand and smiling, and some of them were actually weeping through their smiles as if they were happy tears. Neddy stood close by him with an important little air of ownership about him, and basked in the smiles that were left over from the worship of his idol.

She must cultivate Neddy. Candy would do it. All boys loved candy! For at any cost she must win her wager that she had so lightly made, to enslave this young man to herself. It was a new thing for her to have to work hard to get any young man to fall at her feet.

So she stood and waited for him near the church door, watching him interestedly, showing him as plainly as she could that she was waiting there for his escort.

Once she looked with a quick searching eye to the corner where Amory had been sitting to see if the other girl waited also, but Amory had slipped out as soon as the service was over and was halfway home by this time.

Diana had not seen the hostile eyes of Neddy as he caught sight of her. Neither did she hear the quick caught breath and the low spoken words, “Aw, gee! Let’s beat it, pard! The enemy’s got an ambush!”

But John Dunleith had not needed the warning. He knew when the exquisite golden girl had entered. He knew, too, how little she had heard of what he had tried to say, and even though he had no eyes in the back of his head, he knew that she was standing now, with that expectant expression on her face, waiting for him to come out. His mind was working on the idea even as he answered the questions of the eager ones who wanted to know more about what he had told them that morning.

A sweet old lady in a gray dress and a little gray hat that suited her face but was not at all stylish slipped into the seat in front of where Diana stood waiting and took her astonished and reluctant hand warmly.

“We’re glad to see you here, my dear!” she said tenderly. “If you don’t mind my saying it, you look like a white flower yourself. I was watching you while the minister was talking and I couldn’t help thinking you looked as if you were wearing that white linen of Christ’s righteousness that he talked about. I felt as if I just wanted to slip over here and put my fingers on your pretty dress and see if it was linen!”