Books: Opening a Chestnut Burr

E >> Edward Payson Roe >> Opening a Chestnut Burr

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But she met these accusations with a harshness all unlike herself.
"It's his own fault that he is not happy. He had no business to spoil
his life."

"Yes," retorted conscience, "but you have promised and purposed to
help him find the true life, and now you wish him out of the way, and
have lost one of your best opportunities and perhaps your last; for he
will not stay after Hunting comes;" and, self-condemned, she felt that
she had spent a very selfish and profitless evening.

For some reason she did not feel like staying to prayers with her
father and Miss Eulie, who now came in, but, printing a hasty kiss on
Mr. Walton's cheek, said, "Good-night. I'm tired, and going to bed."
Even in her own room there was a malign influence at work that made
her devotion formal and brief, and she went to sleep, "out of sorts."

CHAPTER XXI

PASSION AND PENITENCE

The cloud on her brow had not disappeared on the ensuing morning when
she came down to breakfast. Unless the causes are removed, the bad
moods of one day are apt to follow us into the next.

Annie was now entering upon one of those periods when, in accordance
with a common expression, "everything goes wrong," and the world
develops a sudden perverseness that distracts and irritates even the
patient.

The butcher had neglected to fill the order for breakfast, and Jeff,
also under the baleful spell, had killed an ancient hen instead of a
spring chicken, to supply the sudden need.

"Couldn't cotch nothin' else," he answered stolidly to Annie's sharp
reprimand, so sharp that Gregory, who was walking toward the barn, was
surprised.

Zibbie was fuming in the broadest Scotch, and had spoiled her coffee,
and altogether it was a sorry breakfast to which they sat down that
morning; and Annie's worried, vexed looks did not make it more
inviting. Gregory tried to appear unconscious, and directed his
conversation chiefly to Mr. Walton and Miss Eulie.

"Annie," said her father, humorously, "it seems to me that this fowl
must have reminiscences of the ark."

But she could not take a jest then, and pettishly answered that "if he
kept such a stupid man as Jeff, he could not expect anything else."

Annie was Jeff's best friend, and had interceded for him in some of
his serious scrapes, but her mood now was like a gusty day that gives
discomfort to all.

After a few moments she said, suddenly, "O father, I forgot to tell
you. I invited the Camdens here to dinner to-day."

His face clouded instantly, and he looked exceedingly annoyed.

"I am very sorry to hear it," he said.

"Why so?" asked Annie, with an accent that Gregory had never heard her
use toward her father.

"Because I shall have to be absent, for one reason. I meant to tell
you about it last evening, but you seemed so occupied with your own
thoughts, and disappeared at last so suddenly, that I did not get a
chance. But there is no help for it. I have very important business
that will take me out to Woodville, and you know it requires a good
long day to go and come."

"It will never do in the world for you to be away," cried Annie.

"Can't help it, my dear; it's business that must be attended to."

"But, father," she urged, "the Camdens are new people, and said to be
very wealthy. We ought to show them some attention. They were so
cordial yesterday, and spoke so handsomely of you, expressing a wish
to meet you and be social, that I felt that I could not do otherwise
than invite them. For reasons you understand it may not be convenient
to see them very soon after to-day."

The old gentleman seemed to share his daughter's vexation, but from a
different cause, and after a moment said, "You are right; they are
'new people' in more senses than one, and appear to me to be assuming
a great deal more than good taste dictates in view of the past. As
mistress of my home I wish you to feel that you have the right to
invite any one you please, within certain limits. The Camdens are
people that I would do any kindness to and readily help if they were
in trouble, but I do not wish to meet them socially."

Tears of shame and anger glistened in Annie's eyes as she said, "I'm
sure you know very well that I wish to entertain no vulgar, pushing
people. I knew nothing of their 'past.' They seemed pleasant when they
called. They were said to have the means to be liberal if they wished,
and I thought they would be an acquisition to our neighborhood, and
that we might interest them in our church and other things."

"In my view," replied Mr. Walton, a little hotly, "the church and
every good cause would be better off without their money, for, in
plain English, it was acquired in a way that you and I regard as
dishonorable. I'm very sorry they've come to spend it in our
neighborhood. The fact may not be generally known here, but it soon
will be. I consider such people the greatest demoralizers of the age,
flaunting their ill-gotten wealth in the faces of the honest, and
causing the young to think that if they only get money, no matter how,
society will receive them all the same. I am annoyed beyond measure
that we should seem to give them any countenance whatever. Moreover,
it is necessary that I go to Woodville."

"O dear!" exclaimed Annie, in a tone of real distress, "what shall I
do? If I had only known all this before!" Then, turning with sudden
irritation to her father, she asked, "Why did you not tell me about
them?"

"Because you never asked, and I saw no occasion to. I do not like to
speak evil of my neighbors, even if it be true. I did not know of your
call upon them till after it occurred, and then remarked, if you will
remember, that they were people that I did not admire."

"Yes," she exclaimed, in a tone of strong self-disgust, "I do remember
your saying so, though I had no idea you meant anything like what you
now state. The wretched mystery of it all is, why could I not have
remembered it yesterday?"

"Well, my dear," replied the father, with the glimmer of a smile, "you
were a bit preoccupied yesterday; though I don't wonder at that."

"I see it all now," cried Annie, impetuously. "But it was with myself
I was preoccupied, and therefore I made a fool of myself. I was rude
to you last night also, Mr. Gregory, so taken up was I with my own
wonderful being."

"Indeed, Miss Walton, I thought you were thinking of another," said
he, with a keen glance, and she blushed so deeply that he feared she
was; but he added, quickly, "You once told me that it was as wrong to
judge one's self harshly as another. I assure you that I've no
complaints to make, but rather feel gratitude for your kindness. As to
this other matter, it seems to me that in your ignorance of these
people you have acted very naturally."

"I'm sorry I did not tell you more about them," said her father. "I
did intend to, but somehow it escaped me."

"Well," said Annie, with a long breath, "I am fairly in the scrape.
I've invited them, and the question now is, what shall we do?"

The old merchant, with his intense repugnance to anything like
commercial dishonesty, was deeply perturbed. The idea of entertaining
at his board as guest a man with whom he would not have a business
transaction was exceedingly disagreeable. Leaving the unsatisfactory
breakfast half-finished, he rose and paced the room in his perplexity.
At last he spoke, as much to himself as to his daughter. "It shall
never be said that John Walton was deficient in hospitality. They have
been invited by one who had the right, so let them come, and be
treated as guests ever are at our house. This much is due to
ourselves. But after to-day let our relations be as slight as
possible. Mr. Gregory, you are under no obligation to meet such
people, and need not appear unless you wish."

"With your permission I will be present, sir, and help Miss Walton
entertain them. Indeed, I can claim such slight superiority to these
Camdens or any one else that I have no scruples."

"How is that?" asked Mr. Walton, with a grave, questioning look. "I
trust you do not uphold the theory that seems to prevail in some
commercial circles, that any mode by which a man can get money and
escape State prison is right?"

"I imagine I am the last one in the world to uphold such a 'theory,'"
replied Gregory, quickly, with one of his expressive shrugs, "inasmuch
as I am a poor man to-day because this theory has been put in practice
against me. No, Mr. Walton," he continued, with the dignity of truth,
"it is but justice to myself to say that my mercantile life has been
as pure as your own, and that is the highest encomium that I could
pass upon it. At the same time it has been evident to you from the
first day I came under your roof that I am not the good man that you
loved in my father."

The old gentleman sighed deeply. He was too straightforward to utter
some trite, smooth remark, such as a man of the world might make.
Regarding Gregory kindly, he said, almost as if it were a prayer, "May
his mantle fall on you. You have many traits and ways that remind me
strongly of him, and you have it in you to become like him."

Gregory shook his head in deep dejection, and said in a low tone, "No,
never."

"You know not the power of God," said Mr. Walton, gravely. "At any
rate, thank Him that He has kept you from the riches of those who I am
sorry to find must be our guests to-day."

The children now came in from their early visit to the chestnut-trees,
and the subject was dropped. Mr. Walton left the room, and Gregory
also excused himself. Miss Eulie had taken no part in the discussion.
It was not in her nature to do so. She sat beaming with sympathy on
both Annie and her brother-in-law, and purposing to do all she could
to help both out of the dilemma. She felt sorry for them, and sorry
for the Camdens and Gregory, and indeed everybody in this troubled
world; but such were her pure thoughts and spiritual life that she was
generally on the wing, so far above earthly things that they had
little power to depress her.

The burden of the day fell upon Annie, and a heavy one she found it.
Her lack of peace within was reflected upon her face, and in her
satellites that she usually managed with such quiet grace. Zibbie was
in one of her very worst tantrums, and when she heard that there was
to be company to dinner, seemed in danger of flying into fragments.
The thistle, the emblem of her land, was a meek and downy flower
compared with this ancient dame. When she took up or laid down any
utensil, it was in a way that bade fair to reduce the kitchen to chaos
before night. Jeff had "got his back up" also about the hen, and was
as stupid and sullen as only Jeff knew how to be; and even quiet
Hannah was almost driven to frenzy by Zibbie reproaching her for being
everything under heaven that she knew she was not. In her usual state
of mind Annie could have partly allayed the storm, and poured oil on
the troubled waters, but now disquietude sat on her own brow, and she
gave her orders in the sharp, decisive tone that compels reluctant
obedience.

The day was raw and uncomfortable, and Gregory resolved to make his
easy-chair by the parlor fire the point from which he would watch the
development of this domestic drama. He had no vulgar, prying
curiosity, but an absorbing interest in the chief actor; and was
compelled to admit that the being whom he had come to regard as
faultless was growing human faster than he liked.

This impression was confirmed when the children came tearing through
the main hall past the parlor to the dining-room opposite, which they
entered, leaving the door open. Annie was there preparing the dessert.
Country house-keepers can rarely leave these matters to rural cooks,
and Zibbie could be trusted to sweeten nothing that day.

With exclamations of delight the children clamored to help, or "muss"
a little in their own way, a privilege often given them at such times.
But Annie sent them out-of-doors again with a tone and manner that
caused them to tip-toe back past the parlor with a scared look on
their faces, and the dining-room door was shut with a bang.

Gregory was puzzled. Here was one who had foiled his most adroit
temptations, and resisted wrong in a way that was simply heroic, first
showing something very like vanity and selfishness, and then temper
and passion on what seemed but slight provocation. He did not realize,
as many do not, that the petty vexations of life will often sting into
the most humiliating displays of weakness one who has the courage and
strength to be a martyr. Generals who were as calm and grand in battle
as Mont Blanc in a storm have been known to fume like small beer, in
camp, at very slight annoyances.

Annie's spirit was naturally quick and imperious, brooking opposition
from no one. She was also fond of approbation. She rated Gregory's
hollow French gallantry at its true worth, but his subsequent sincere
respect and admiration, after their mountain adventure, had
unconsciously elated her, especially as she felt that she had earned
them well.

Thus, when he had not intended it, and had given over as hopeless his
purpose to tempt her, and dropped it in self-loathing that he should
ever have entertained it, he had by his honest gratitude and esteem
awakened the dormant vanity which was more sensitive to tributes to
her character than to mere personal compliments. The attention she had
received the day before had developed this self-complacency still
more, and the nice balance of her moral life had been disturbed.

It seems that the tempter watches for every vantage. At any rate, as
she expressed it, "everything went wrong" that day. One weakness, one
wrong, prepares the way for another as surely as when one soldier of
Diabolus gets within the city he will open the gates to others; and
Annie's temper, that she had so long and prayerfully schooled, was the
weak point inevitably assailed. She was found with her armor off. She
had closed the preceding day and entered on the present with the form
and not the reality of prayer. Therefore it was Annie Walton alone who
was coping with temptation. She felt that all was wrong without and
within. She felt that she ought to go to God at once in acknowledgment
and penitence, and regain her peace; but pride and passion were
aroused. She was hurried and worried, full of impotent revolt at
herself and everything. She was in no mood for the dreaded self-
examination that she knew must come. She was like a little wayward
child, that, while it loves its parents, yet grieves and wrongs them
by lack of obedience and simple trust, and having wronged them, partly
from pride and partly from fear, does not humbly seek reconciliation.

The obnoxious guests came, and the dinner followed. Mr. Walton was the
embodiment of stately courtesy, but it was a courtesy due to John
Walton rather than to them, and it somewhat awed and depressed the
Camdens. Zibbie had done her best to spoil the dinner, and, in spite
of Annie, had succeeded tolerably well. Only the dessert, which Annie
had made, did credit to her housekeeping. Hannah waited on them as if
she were assisting at their obsequies. Altogether it was a rather
heavy affair, though Gregory honestly did his best to entertain, and
talked on generalities and life abroad, which the Camdens were glad to
hear about, so incessantly that he scarcely had time to eat. But he
was abundantly rewarded by a grateful look from Annie.

As for herself, she could not converse connectedly or well. She was
trammelled by her feeling toward the guests; she was so vexed with
herself, mortified at the dinner, and angry with Zibbie, whom she
mentally vowed to discharge at once, that she felt more like crying
than talking graceful nonsense; for the Camdens soon proved themselves
equal only to chit-chat. She sat at her end of the table, red,
flurried, and nervous, as different as possible from the refined,
elegant hostess that she could be.

Gregory was also much interested in observing how one so truthful
would act under the circumstances, and he saw that she was sorely
puzzled continually by her efforts to be both polite and honest.

The Camdens were puzzled also, and severely criticised their
entertainers, mentally concluding and afterward asserting, with
countless variations, that Miss Walton was wonderfully overrated--that
she was a poor housekeeper, and, they should judge, but little
accustomed to good society.

"I never saw a girl so flustered," Mrs. Camden would remark,
complacently. "Perhaps our city style rather oppressed her; and as for
Mr. Walton, he put on so much dignity that he leaned over backward.
They evidently don't belong to our set."

That was just the trouble, and Mrs. Camden was right and wrong at the
same time.

Their early departure was satisfactory to both parties. Mr. Walton
drew a long breath of immeasurable relief, and then called briskly to
Jeff, who was coming up from the garden, "Harness Dolly to my buggy."

"Why, father, where are you going?" exclaimed Annie.

"To Woodville."

"Now, father--" began Annie, laying hold of his arm.

"Not a word, my dear; I must go."

"But it will be late in the night before you can get back. The day is
cold and raw, and it looks as if it would rain."

"I can't help it. It's something I can't put off. Hurry, Jeff, and get
ready to go with me."

"O dear!" cried Annie; "this is the worst of all. Let me go for you--
please do."

"I'm not a child," said the old gentleman, irritably. "Since I could
not go this morning, I must go now. Please don't worry me. It's public
business that I have no right to delay, and I promised that it should
be attended to today;" and with a hasty "good-by" he took his overcoat
and started.

Annie was almost beside herself with vexation and self-reproach, and
her feelings must find vent somewhere. Gregory prudently retired to
his room.

"There's Zibbie," she thought; "I'll teach her one lesson;" and she
went to the kitchen and discharged the old servant on the spot.

Zibbie was in such a reckless state of passion that she didn't care if
the world came to an end. The only comfort Annie got in this direction
was a volley of impudence.

"I hod discharged mesel' afore ye spoke," said the irate dame. "An' ye
think I'm gang to broil an ould hen for a spring chicken in peace and
quietness, ye're a' wrong. An' then to send that dour nagur a speerin'
roun' among my fowl that I've raised from babies--I'll na ston it.
I'll gang, I'll gang, but ye'll greet after the ould 'ooman for a' o'
that."

Annie then retreated to the sitting-room, where Miss Eulie was
placidly mending Susie's torn apron, and poured into her ears the
story of her troubles.

"To be sure--to be sure," Aunt Eulie would answer, soothingly; "but
then, Annie dear, it all won't make any difference a hundred years
from now."

This only irritated Annie more, and at the same time impressed her
with her own folly in being so disturbed by comparative trifles.

Gregory found his room chill and comfortless, therefore he put on his
overcoat, and started for a walk, full of surprise and painful
musings. As he was descending the stairs, Johnny came running in,
crying in a tone of real distress, "Oh, Aunt Annie, Aunt Annie, I'm so
sorry, so very sorry--"

Annie came running out of the sitting-room, exclaiming sharply, "What
on earth is the matter now? Hasn't there been trouble enough for one
day?"

"I'm so sorry," sobbed the little boy, "but I got a letter at the
post-office, and I--I--lost it coming across the lots, and I--I--can't
find it."

This was too much. This was the ardently-looked-for letter that had
glimmered like a star of hope and promise of better things throughout
this miserable day, and Annie lost all control of herself. Rushing
upon the child, she cried, "You naughty, careless boy! I'll give you
one lesson"; and she shook him so violently that Gregory's indignation
got the better of him, and he said, in a low, deep tone, "Miss Walton,
the child says he is 'very, very sorry.' He has not meant to do
wrong."

Annie started back as if she were committing sacrilege, and covered
her face with her hands. Her back was toward Gregory, but he could see
the hot blood mantling her very neck. She stood there for a moment,
trembling like a leaf, and he, repenting of his hasty words, was about
to apologize, when she suddenly caught the boy in her arms, and sped
past him up the stairs to her own room.

To his dying day he would never forget the expression of her face.

It cannot be described. It was the look of a noble spirit, deeply
wounded, profoundly penitent. Her intense feeling touched him, and the
rough October winds brushed a tear from his own eyes more than once
before he returned.

CHAPTER XXII

NOT A HEROINE, BUT A WOMAN

The cold, cynical man of the world was in a maze. He was deeply and
painfully surprised at Miss Walton, and scarcely less so at himself.
How could he account for the tumult at his heart? When he first saw
that outburst of passion against a trembling, pleading child, he felt
that he wished to leave the house then and forever. The next moment,
when he saw Annie's face as she convulsively clasped the boy to her
breast, and with supernatural strength fled to the refuge of her room,
he was not only instantly disarmed of anger, but touched and melted as
he had never been before.

Feeling is sometimes so intense that it is like the lightning, and
burns its way instantly to the consciousness of others. Words of
condemnation would have died on the lips of the sternest judge had he
seen Annie's face. It would have shown him that the harshest things
that he could utter were already anticipated in unmeasured self-
upbraidings.

From anger and disgust Gregory passed to the profoundest pity. The
children's unbounded affection for Annie proved that she was usually
kind and patient toward them. A little thought convinced him that the
act he saw was a sudden outburst of passion for which the exasperating
events of the day had been a preparation. Her face showed as no
language could how sincere and deep would be her repentance. He had
not gone very far into the early twilight of a grove before he was
conscious of a strong and secret exultation.

"She is not made of different clay from others," he said. "She cannot
condemn me so utterly now; and, in view of what I have seen, she
cannot loftily deny the kinship of human weakness.

"What a nature she has, with its subterranean fires! She is none of
your cool, calculating creatures, who cipher out from day to day what
is policy to do. She will act rightly till there is an irrepressible
irruption, and then, beware. And yet these ebullitions enrich her life
as the lava flow does the sides of Vesuvius. I shall be greatly
disappointed if she is not ten times more kind, sympathetic, and self-
forgetful than she was before; and as for that boy, she will keep him
in the tallest clover for weeks to come, to make up for this.

"How piquant she is! I do not fear her quick, flame-like spirit when
it is combined with so much conscience and principle. Indeed, I like
her passion. It warms my cold, heavy heart. I wish she had shaken me,
who deserved it, instead of the child, and if any makings-up like that
in yonder room could follow, I would like to be shaken every day in
the week. It would make a new man of me."

In the excitement of his feelings, he had gone further than he had
intended, and the dusk was deepening fast when he reached the house on
his return. He felt not a little uneasy as to his reception after the
rebuke he had given, but counted much on Annie's just and generous
disposition. He entered quietly at a side door and passed through the
dining-room into the hall. The lamp in the parlor was unlighted, but
the bright wood fire shed a soft, uncertain radiance throughout the
room. A few notes of prelude were struck on the piano, and he knew
that Miss Walton was there. Stepping silently forward opposite the
open door, he stood in the dark hall watching her as she sung the
following words:

"My Father, once again Thy wayward child
In sorrow, shame, and weakness comes to Thee,
Confessing all my sin, my passion wild,
My selfishness and petty vanity.

"O Jesus, gentle Saviour, at Thy feet
I fall, where often I have knelt before;
Thou wilt not spurn, nor charge me with deceit,
Because old faults have mastered me once more.

"Thou knowest that I would be kind and true,
And that I hate the sins that pierced Thy side;
Thou seest that I often sadly view
The wrong that in my heart will still abide.

"But Thou didst come such erring ones to save,
And weakness wins Thy strong and tender love;
So not in vain I now forgiveness crave,
And cling to hopes long stored with Thee above.

"And yet I plead that Thou would'st surely keep
My weak and human heart in coming days;
Though now in penitence I justly weep,
O fill my future life with grateful praise."

As in tremulous, melting tones she sung this simple prayer with tears
glistening in her eyes, Gregory was again conscious of the strong,
answering emotion which the presence of deep feeling in those bound to
us by some close tie of sympathy often excites. But far more than mere
feeling moved him now. Her words and manner vivified an old truth
familiar from infancy, but never realized or intelligently believed--
the power of prayer to secure practical help from God.

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