The White Lady (6 page)

The train drew up at last at the quiet little station of the very small inland town where Aunt Susan lived, and Constance, weary, half sorry she had promised to stop, followed the porter from the train to the little taxi that was to carry her to her aunt’s with a wonder as to what new thing she would discover here. The taxi driver slammed the door and started his engine. The train began slowly to puff its way from the station; the taxi gave a lurch and racketed off over a humpy road to a little white house in a little quiet street, where most of the lights were out for the night and no one looked out to wonder who had come.

I
t was a quaint white house, set far back from the street, with a neat brick pavement leading from the white gate. There were green blinds at every window, and they showed up dark in the night against the white of the house.

A lamp burned cheerfully in the front room, and the muslin curtains were not too thick to show the comfort of the room beyond. It was unlike anything Constance had ever come in personal contact with before, and she paused and asked the driver whether he was sure he had brought her to the right place.

“Yes ma’am,” he responded decidedly, swinging her luggage down from the front seat. “There ain’t but one Miss Weth’rill in this part o’ the country.”

He preceded her up the walk and knocked on the front door.

A quick shaft of light streamed out as the door opened hospitably.

It was a sweet-faced old lady with fine features and a motherly air who opened the door and stood with welcoming hands stretched out to greet her. She wore a neat brown dress with sleeves that dated back beyond Constance’s memory of the fashions, and a delicate lace kerchief in folds about her neck. Her gray hair was quaintly arranged, and she was altogether unique to her city-bred niece, though to the town in which she lived, her appearance seemed not at all strange. There were many others like herself who lived and dressed as was the fashion when they were girls, and never bothered about the present mode. They wore a dress until it was worn out, and when that happened, they got another one as nearly like it as possible, even though it took more trouble than to get a modern one, because they felt more at ease in the plain garb. It was enough for the younger portion of the community to trouble about the changing seasons.

Behind her aunt, Constance saw another woman about the same age, wearing a white apron.

Miss Wetherill took her niece’s face between her two transparent little hands that made the girl think of rare, old Dresden china, and kissed each cheek.

“Dear child, you’ve come at last!” she said. Then she turned to the other woman and said, “And this is Sarah Ann.”

Sarah Ann curtsied.

“Pleased to know you,” said Sarah Ann stiffly, though she looked kindly enough.

“Well, evenin’, Mis’ Weth’rill! Evenin’, Sa’Ran!” said the taxi driver and, slamming the front door, was off into the night again.

Constance, bewildered, looked about her. She took it all in: the pattern of the hall linoleum, white and gray squares marked off with lines of black; the paper on the wall, in imitation of granite blocks; the front room and its little high “center table” with spindling legs and red cover stamped with black roses; the haircloth sofa, with hollows where many had sat, and which yet looked to be inviting and well kept; the little haircloth rocking chair drawn up to the stand; the small basket with knitting work and the few neat books with faded covers. There was an old steel engraving of
The Last Supper
hanging over the mantelpiece. She noticed the ingrain carpet, strong and sensible, and well preserved despite its ugliness; she glimpsed the dining room with its white cloth and old blue-and-white china; she caught a whiff of raspberry jam and spicy gingerbread, mingled with the aroma of coffee and perfectly fried potatoes. It seemed to her that she was stepping into a page of a story of long ago, when life was simple and there were no distressing problems to solve.

“Child, you look like your father when he was a boy.” The old lady’s voice recalled Constance to a very real present, and she looked down at the sweet little aunt with a pleased smile.

“Do I? I’m glad,” she said and stooped to kiss the sweet old face.

It was not till she was alone for the night in the little room upstairs, all white muslin, with the faint odor of lavender flowers, that she was able to collect her thoughts and realize that she was herself and this was a real house and a real life. It seemed so peaceful and quiet and out of the world. Her aunt had been sincerely glad to see her, all helpfulness and anxiety that her niece should be rested, but Constance felt that beneath it all there was something indefinable that was going to put her own life to the test, a new standard of living beside which she was not certain her own would shine. What was it? Aunt Susan had taken the large-print Testament from the high stand, read a short psalm then knelt, and in her trembling sweet voice had thanked the Lord for the dear young soul that had come under their shelter for a little time, while “Sa’Ran,” with dutifully folded hands, listened and bowed her head over her lap.

Constance had heard of people to whom religion was a living, vital thing, influencing every action of their daily lives. She had never come into personal contact with anyone who seemed to her to be moved by such springs of action. She wondered whether it was possible that any mere belief could make a monotonous life seem sweet and beautiful.

There was not much in the little white house to interest Constance. The midweek prayer meeting was the one break of the quiet in which Aunt Susan lived. It was as much a duty as it was a pleasure, and severe must be the storm that would keep the old lady away. Constance was not asked whether she would go, but was taken in a quiet, matter-of-course way, just as it was announced to her that dinner was ready. It would have been no more of a surprise to Aunt Susan and Sa’Ran if she had declined to eat than it would have been for her to decline to go with them to the prayer meeting. She had opened her lips to refuse but saw by her aunt’s face that it would be a serious breach of the decorum of the house. So she was silent and went upstairs to get ready, marveling what power it was that ruled the house. A little white satin ribbon hanging on the bureau bearing a printed Bible verse seemed to answer her as she turned on the light to adjust her hat.

“Let the peace of God rule in your hearts.”
She wondered vaguely whether it was this rule that made so quiet and peaceful a break in the previous hubbub and disappointing whirl of her life.

The prayer meeting was dull beyond expression. She had to stifle a yawn behind her glove. She wondered how Aunt Susan could have stood years of them when this, her first one, was so great a bore. She marveled once more when Aunt Susan in her prayer that night thanked her heavenly Father for “the precious meeting we have attended this evening” and asked that they all might make it a means of grace to them during the remainder of the week. What was it that made Aunt Susan feel so? Was it just that her life was so empty of all else that she could count a prayer meeting a pleasure? She could not be merely saying these things as a matter of form; her tones were too genuine, and the look on her face during the meeting had been too exalted, to be other than real.

There was much time for thought during the few days Constance spent with her aunt. Her whole mind and body seemed to be getting rested, and she was able to take up a question and think of it intelligently. Always the old house set among the dark cedars seemed to her a very possible refuge from her scorning world. Her imagination arrayed those large square rooms with costly rugs and bric-a-brac from the city home. She felt sure that her grandmother might be made happy there and kept from any great knowledge of the state of their finances.

The only point that troubled her was that same financial one. When the five thousand dollars should be exhausted—and she had no very definite idea how long it would last—how was she to earn more? Was that scheme of starting a tearoom feasible at all? What did things cost? Would people buy in that little town? She wished she had asked more questions. Of course, there were other towns where a tearoom would succeed, but then there would not be such old houses everywhere with ghosts to make the rent cheap! Perhaps it was a wild scheme, but what if it was? It suited her, and she could see no possible harm in trying it.

She began to ask questions and open her eyes to little household economies. She noted that people could dress in cotton and be just as happy as if they wore silk. At last, she surprised Sa’Ran with a request that she would teach her how to make that lovely bread, and Sa’Ran, nothing loath, immediately set about her task.

If Constance had not been a most determined young woman, and also the possessor of good brains, she would not have learned so much in the few days she remained with her aunt. But she brought her modern city methods of dealing with things to bear upon bread making, and the result was a store of knowledge that stood her in good stead later when she was ready to use it. She came to the kitchen armed with pencil and dainty tablet, and the pages that usually bore the names of society’s great lights and lists for dinners and parties, were made to tell amounts of yeast and flour and salt. Every detail Constance watched, and in her flowing hand wrote down Sa’Ran’s characteristic description of the way the bread should look when it was ready to put in the pans.

The night before she started on her way once more, having prolonged her visit three days beyond what she had at first intended, she sat with her aunt Susan late into the night, talking. The sweet old lady opened her heart to this niece and told a little of her life story of love and hope and death, with its attendant loneliness and sorrow. The plain gold ring, worn thin by the years, that gleamed on her tiny satin-skinned hand, meant years of loyalty to a dead beau, and yet there were no lines of rebellion and fretfulness written on the smooth brow. There was a light of hope and heaven in the faded blue eyes, and Constance almost envied her aunt her life and its peace and surety of heaven. She lay awake long after her aunt had left her, thinking over the whole story and wondering whether Morris Thayer would be worth being true to all those years. She decided that he would not, at least not to her.

Then step by step, for the first time in her life, she put plainly to herself what the future would be if spent with him. She knew that that was what he wanted. He had made it plain enough, but she had purposely been obtuse. She had not wanted to think of the matter before, and she did not wish to now, only the sense of something lost made her wish to find out just how much it was she had lost. For she felt he was lost to her now as much as if she had announced to him that her property was gone and he had turned on his heel and told her he could then have nothing more to do with her. Perhaps she did him an injustice to feel so sure that he would turn away from her, but at least she felt certain that his talk in the car revealed more of his true character than she had hitherto allowed herself to confess. Or perhaps she had been blinded in her luxury and ease.

Yes, if she should quietly let matters go their way, telling no one of the loss of her fortune, and marry him, there would be a fine wedding, quantities of presents, guests, and much society stir; and then there would be a fine establishment turned out by the hands of the latest decorators, in an unimpeachable part of the city, and a round of social engagements and dresses and trips to Europe. In fact, anything that anybody else had would be hers—all the things she had always had and the deference of her world. She would have a handsome husband who would be a credit to her wherever she went with him and would probably be good humored and indulgent, and bother her very little.

But her mind turned from the picture with a great weariness. There was nothing in it all to satisfy the longings that seemed to have been growing up within her during the last week. Just what those longings meant she did not understand. She only knew that life had suddenly become a more real, earnest thing to her than it had ever seemed before and that there was a zest to each new day when she awoke, and a looking forward to new delightful sensations, which she could not remember feeling since she was a little girl.

There was something else, too. A sweet influence had touched her through Aunt Susan; a desire to have a peaceful brow and to find out what it was that made disagreeable things become bearable. When she got home—or when she got a home, she corrected herself—she would look into it. She would attend church services more regularly and try to do good in some way, and see whether that would bring her any such halo of heavenly sweetness as seemed to rest continually upon her aunt’s tranquil brow. She wondered whether all churches had prayer meetings. She felt sure they had no such service in the fashionable church that she attended, though they possibly called it something else. She would look up her prayer book and try to fasten her thoughts on religious ideas. She wished Lent were not over, that she might attend those special services and give up something during the season of self-denial. Then she remembered again that her whole life now was to be one of self-denial, and she wondered whether possibly that would not work the desired effect upon her character. She would not even have the wherewithal to deny herself but must do it anyway with everything possible, if she would live at all and have the bare necessities of life.

In a little book on her aunt’s bureau she had read that God sometimes had to feed prosperity to some people in very small spoonfuls, because when they had everything they wanted they straightway forgot Him, and that loss and trouble were sometimes God’s way of calling His own to Him. She wondered whether God could be calling her. Her aunt’s gentle, wistful “God be with you, my child” when she had bade her good night, stayed with her and strengthened this impression.

It was not Miss Wetherill’s way to “talk religion” to anyone. She would not have known how, and her quavering voice might have failed her; but she lived it more than most people, and she had a way of taking it for granted that everyone else loved her Lord, and of speaking to them of heavenly things in a quiet, everyday sort of voice, as if they, too, were making heaven their goal.