A Daily Rate (22 page)

As she knocked at Mamie Williams’ door she wondered at herself for coming, and how she was to explain her visit. She decided that if any one answered she would say she had come to ask them to go out to church with her that evening, though she had hardly made up her mind before that to go herself. She felt much embarrassed at herself in that one minute after she had knocked, and heartily wished herself back to her own room. But she had not long to wait. The door was thrown open for a moment of what sounded like scuffling inside, by Mamie herself, this time without gum in her mouth, but with rather red cheeks and her hair floating in wet strings down her back over a towel. Her face and hands were a brilliant, tender pink, giving strong evidence of a severe scrubbing Celia had recommended the night before. She instantly recognized what it meant, and her heart sank that at her advice this girl was spending her Sunday afternoon in such a way. Perhaps the angels knew that by making herself sweet and clean, she was coming nearer to the kingdom of God than she had ever yet been.

The other roommate occupied a comfortable lounging spot on the bed. Her hair was tumbled and her dress loosened, and in her hand was a paper covered book. Celia had opportunity afterward to observe that it was the same one that Miss Williams had been reading the day before.

Miss Simmons did not rise from the bed, but she greeted the intruder with a languid surprise, and withal a show of pleasure that made Celia feel she was not unwelcome, and told her to sit down. She was munching cheap candy from a box which lay beside her on the bed, and she held it out at once to the guest saying:

“Sit down. Have some candy, do. I had it give to me last night.” This with a significant giggle interpolated into her natural drawl. Then looking at her roommate, she said, apologetically,

“You must excuse Mamie. She’s took an awful fit of cleanin’ up. I don’t know what she’s getting ready for, but she’s made herself a sight. Her nose’s as red’s a beet. Did you want something or did you just come in to kill time?”

Celia accepted the chair, declining the candy as graciously as possible, saying she seldom ate it, and made known her request that they would go with her that evening to meeting. She bethought herself to the service she had attended that morning, and that possibly it might interest these two to go and hear the minister who lived under the same roof with them, and urged that as an incentive, describing the pleasant room, the good singing, and perfect friendliness she had met, with an enthusiasm that surprised herself.

“I can’t go,” said Miss Simmons, promptly, “I’m expecting company.” There was the same conscious drawing in of the breath when she said this, evidently meant to express a certain and especial kind of company, that Celia had noticed in Mamie’s talk the night before. It made her heart sink with the utter uselessness of trying to work against such odds, till she remembered her new half-formed resolves, not to look ahead for results, but to do the work trusting the rest to God.

Mamie’s cheeks had grown redder, if that was possible. She was sitting on the edge of a chair with the hair brush in her hand. She seemed a trifle shy.

“It’s awful nice of you to ask us,” she said, “but I don’t know but perhaps I’m going to have company, too. It wouldn’t do to be away, though I ain’t just positive, you know.”

“Couldn’t you bring them along?” said Celia, promptly, as if it would be the most natural thing in the world to do, though her heart misgave her at the idea of taking the oily youth she had seen in the parlor waiting for Miss Simmons not long before.

“Oh, no indeed!” snickered Miss Simmons, “he wouldn’t go a step. He ain’t that kind. And besides he’d be mad, for he said he might be going to bring another fellow along he wants me specially to meet. He wants to see me very particular to-night anyway, so I couldn’t think of going out,” and Miss Simmons retired behind her book.

Mamie had meantime been puzzling over the problem of how to please herself and her new object of adoration at the same time, and seemed to have arrived at a solution.

“I don’t know but I might go after all,” she said, slowly, looking down at the toe of her shoes. “Say, Carrie, if he should come would you be sure and tell him I had gone out with somebody else?—you could tell him it was a very special friend who had invited me, you know, and he would think it was another fellah. That might have a good effect on him, you know. I believe I’ll try it this time anyway. I’ll go, Miss Murray, if you want it so much. It’s a good thing to get people jealous once in a while, don’t you think? Say, was that you down in the parlor singing this morning early? It was awful sweet! Who else was there? It didn’t sound quite like Mr. Yates, but I didn’t know any of the others sang. It wasn’t Harry Knowles, was it? He’s too young for you anyway. You don’t say it was the minister! My! He’s awful talented, ain’t he? Wouldn’t it be romantic if it should turn out you was to marry him some time? Did you ever know him before? I’ve heard of stories like that lots of times.”

Celia’s cheeks rivaled Mamie’s in hue, and her anger had risen rapidly. She did not dare trust herself to rebuke this girl, for her desire to do her good was still strong. She quickly looked about for a turn to the conversation.

“Are you fond of singing? Then come downstairs and let us sing now. I think sonic of the others are down there. We can have a very pleasant time, I’m sure. I have some Gospel song books. Put up your hair and come.” She walked to the door trying to steady her fluttered nerves, and still that queer beating of her heart, half indignation, half something else which she did not understand, and which she did not wish to countenance.

“My land!” said Mamie, beaming, “I’d come in a minute, only what’ll I do with my hair? It’s about dry, but it’ll take me an hour to do it all up after washing, it’s so tangled and slippery. Perhaps you will fix it for me. Do, that’ll be nice. Then you can show me how to do it like yours.”

Celia was dismayed. She would scarcely have chosen Sunday afternoon for a lesson in hair-dressing, but how could she refuse on that score, as the request had been put in answer to one of her own? To handle another person’s hair at any time was to her a sore trial. She shrank from contact with anyone except her nearest and dearest. But how was she to refuse? How was she to get an influence over Marine if she let her see she was unwilling to do what she asked of her? For a minute her repugnance of the coarse girl, with her coarse hair, red face and loud, grating words was so intense that she almost yielded to her desire to turn and flee from the room and shake the dust from her feet, and tell her aunt Hannah to take her away from the horrible boarders and never let her see any of them again. Then she gained control of herself, and though her cheeks were still red at memory of the careless words of the girl, she consented to undertake the hair; and even the deeply absorbed Carrie on the bed, who had been furtively watching the stranger during all, never suspected what a trial she had quietly taken upon herself.

Having undertaken the task, she did it well. She had a naturally artistic eye and hand and there was some pleasure, after the dislike had been overcome, in making Mamie’s hair look as she had often thought it ought to look. Quickly and deftly she twisted it, smoothed it here and there, and fastened it firmly, and after it was accomplished Mamie stood and surveyed herself.

“It looks awful plain,” she said, hesitatingly, “and it makes me seem queer, ‘cause I ain’t used to it, but I guess I like it. Don’t you, Carrie?”

“It looks real stylish,” answered that young woman, enviously, mentally resolving to try her own that way as soon as the others had left the room.

Celia went to wash her hands, with a heavy heart. She must certainly have mistaken that voice which she thought called her to go to that room. What had she accomplished but teaching the fashions this afternoon? How was she ever to know whether a thing was a duty or not? She went down to the parlor with her singing books, and found Mamie there before her looking pretty and a trifle shy in consciousness of her new coiffure. She was talking to the tenor brakeman who was evidently lost in admiration of her charms. She went at once to the organ and started the singing, but she found that the brakeman’s tenor was not quite so pleasant as that which had blended with her own voice earlier in the day. The other boarders heard the music, and one by one dropped in, all joining in the words when they were familiar until even Miss Burns was there. Mr. Stafford had come in also. The minister joined in the singing, though he sat in a shaded corner of the room for the most part and sang softly, as if he were weary. Celia found that her thoughts kept wandering to him and wondering what was the matter, and she grew exceedingly annoyed over this fact, as she remembered Mamie Williams’ careless words a little while before. She was glad when the tea bell rang and called them from the organ.

The church party was larger than she had expected. Mamie had wheedled Mr. Yates into being one of the number. She was the kind of girl who always wants a young man along when she goes anywhere. The other three young men joined the group also, perhaps at Harry’s solicitation, or it might be out of interest in the minister who had been singing with them.

They were starting out of the door. Aunt Hannah was behind with Harry Knowles. Miss Burns had volunteered to stay with Mrs. Belden during the evening. Celia stepped down to the pavement beside Mamie and walked on.

“Say, he’s awful nice. I like him. I wish he would marry you, ‘cause I like you both,” said romantic Mamie, in a confidential whisper.

“What do you mean? Who?” said Celia, startled, and having a vague idea of the tenor brakeman.

“Why, Mr. Stafford, the minister!” said the other girl.

“You must never say anything like that again,” she said, in a suddenly chilling tone which almost froze Mamie’s eager enthusiasm for a minute. “It is utterly absurd and ridiculous.”

She wished afterward that she could have turned it off with a laugh, and let the girl see that she had no notion of any such thing, without making such a tragic thing of it, but indeed she had felt so annoyed at the second bold intimacy of the girl, which seemed to her like the handling and mixing up of sacred things by clumsy hands untaught and unknowing what they did, that she had almost stopped in her walk and gone back to the house. However, she managed to steady her voice and her steps and keep on.

“Why?” asked Mamie, half timidly, “don’t you like him?”

“Certainly, I don’t dislike him. But neither of us have any idea of any such thing. It is very annoying to have it suggested. He is simply a boarder.” She said it freezingly.

“Oh,” said Mamie, in a frightened tone, “I didn’t mean any harm. I just thought it would be nice, that was all.” After that she dropped behind with Bob Yates who had come up, and Celia walked with aunt Hannah and Harry Knowles.

“She’s an awful queer girl in some ways,” confided Mamie to her escort a few minutes later. “I just said she and the minister would make a nice match, and she got just as mad as a hornet. My! She scared me so I didn’t know but I’d cry!” and then she giggled in a way Bob Yates much admired.

Celia sat in the meeting too much annoyed to rally her spirits and enjoy what was going on. She scarcely heard the -hymns or realized the sermon. The voice of the minister, cultured, earnest, tender, loving toward his people, awakened in her the knowledge that she was more interested in this man than she wanted to be. She did not wish to hear his voice and like it, and his sermon she knew she would enjoy and therefore tormented herself with her annoyance, so that she did not hear it, and saw between the lines in her hymn book, ever and anon, a sweet pictured face in a velvet frame. She called herself a fool, and wondered that there was anything about a man whom she had so short a time ago not even heard of, to make her feel so uncomfortable. Then she turned to watch Mamie’s face and her heart sank again as she reflected how useless it had been to try to do anything for her. True, her hair was becoming and neatly arranged, and the black eyes of the young man beside her were admiringly turned toward her occasionally, but perhaps that was only another source of harm of the poor girl. After all Celia’s resolves, her day seemed to be ending most miserably.

How could she know that at that very moment the young girl beside her was listening to the minister with undisguised amaze, as he read the words of his text, “And to her was granted that she should be arrayed in fine linen, clean and white: for the fine linen is the righteousness of saints.” She did not know about the hurried getting out of bed to read the promised verse the night before, nor how the verse itself had impressed itself upon the young girl’s mind, perhaps the more because it was about dress, and one great theme of all themes of interest to her mind;—unless perhaps one might except those of love, courtship and marriage. If Celia had been told all this, it might only have discouraged her the more that the Bible itself meant no more to Mamie than a fashion book might have done, and so it was a wise thing that Celia could not see and know until all God’s plan was worked out to the finish, and she was given eyes perfected through his teaching to understand the whys and wherefores.

The sermon which followed was simplicity itself. If Celia had not been so taken up with her own uneasy heart, she would have recognized the skill of the preacher, as he plainly and simply drew the meaning from what might have otherwise been to many minds before him an empty and meaningless passage. Even the feather-brained Mamie was able to understand and to carry away with her the few facts she had wished to know when she first read the words, together with their deep spiritual meaning. She had felt a pang of disappointment when she heard that this incomparable person, this child of luxury had spoken of, was the church, Christ’s bride, and she told herself, half enviously that she had nothing to do with the verse at all, of course. But, immediately, the preacher made it plain to everyone in the house that he and she individually did belong, ought to belong, by right were, members of that church for whom Christ died, and that it was only through their own wills that they deliberately put themselves outside its pale, that really, to every one present, it had been granted as a privilege, and it was their own fault that they did not accept and wear it. He spoke at length of the difficulty of keeping such garments white and pure in the midst of a world of work and constant contact with that which would soil, how only the children of the rich could afford to dress in a color which would so easily soil, and how only those who could go and have such garments washed in the blood of the Lamb could keep them pure and white. Then he talked about that righteousness of the saints until even Bob Yates dropped his eyes from the earnest, eloquent face of the speaker, and began to look into his own heart and wish that he might some way be different, and Mamie’s cheeks glowed and her heart beat fast. She had forgotten, for the time, Mr. Harold Adams, and even the admiring glances of her escort to church that night. She even forgot the new arrangement of her hair, and ceased to feel the back of her head, to discover how perchance it might be affecting those who looked upon her from the rear. She resolved, in some way, to discover for herself how she might wear this fine linen, and when the closing hymn was announced, she stood up with the others, and sang in a loud voice the words, meaning them in her heart more than any words she had ever sung before. She felt a strange sweet thrill of longing, new and faint, but real, as the hymn went on.