The Complete Works of L M Montgomery, page 642
She made, however, no reference to the Auxiliary meeting, and when the biscuits and the maple syrup and two cups of matchless tea had nerved the elder up, his curiosity got the better of his prudence — for even elders are human and curiosity knows no gender — and he asked what they had done at the meeting.
“We poor men have been shaking in our shoes,” he said facetiously.
“Were you?” Mrs. Knox’s voice was calm and faintly amused. “Well, you didn’t need to. We talked the matter over very quietly and came to the conclusion that the session knew best and that women hadn’t any right to interfere in church business at all.”
Lucy Knox turned her head away to hide a smile. The elder beamed. He was a peace-loving man and disliked “ructions” of any sort and domestic ones in particular. Since the decision of the session Mrs. Knox had made his life a burden to him. He did not understand her sudden change of base, but he accepted it very thankfully.
“That’s right — that’s right,” he said heartily. “I’m glad to hear you coming out so sensible, Maria. I was afraid you’d work yourselves up at that meeting and let Myra Wilson or Alethea Craig put you up to some foolishness or other. Well, I guess I’ll jog down to the Corner this evening and order that barrel of pastry flour you want.”
“Oh, you needn’t,” said Mrs. Knox indifferently. “We won’t be needing it now.”
“Not needing it! But I thought you said you had to have some to bake for the social week after next.”
“There isn’t going to be any social.”
“Not any social?”
Elder Knox stared perplexedly at his wife. A month previously the Putney church had been recarpeted, and they still owed fifty dollars for it. This, the women declared, they would speedily pay off by a big cake and ice-cream social in the hall. Mrs. Knox had been one of the foremost promoters of the enterprise.
“Not any social?” repeated the elder again. “Then how is the money for the carpet to be got? And why isn’t there going to be a social?”
“The men can get the money somehow, I suppose,” said Mrs. Knox. “As for the social, why, of course, if women aren’t good enough to speak in church they are not good enough to work for it either. Lucy, dear, will you pass me the cookies?”
“Lucy dear” passed the cookies and then rose abruptly and left the table. Her father’s face was too much for her.
“What confounded nonsense is this?” demanded the elder explosively.
Mrs. Knox opened her mellow brown eyes widely, as if in amazement at her husband’s tone.
“I don’t understand you,” she said. “Our position is perfectly logical.”
She had borrowed that phrase from Myra Wilson, and it floored the elder. He got up, seized his hat, and strode from the room.
That night, at Jacob Wherrison’s store at the Corner, the Putney men talked over the new development. The social was certainly off — for a time, anyway.
“Best let ’em alone, I say,” said Wherrison. “They’re mad at us now and doing this to pay us out. But they’ll cool down later on and we’ll have the social all right.”
“But if they don’t,” said Andrew McKittrick gloomily, “who is going to pay for that carpet?”
This was an unpleasant question. The others shirked it.
“I was always opposed to this action of the session,” said Alec Craig. “It wouldn’t have hurt to have let the woman speak. ’Tisn’t as if it was a regular sermon.”
“The session knew best,” said Andrew sharply. “And the minister — you’re not going to set your opinion up against his, are you, Craig?”
“Didn’t know they taught such reverence for ministers in Danbridge,” retorted Craig with a laugh.
“Best let ’em alone, as Wherrison says,” said Abner Keech.
“Don’t see what else we can do,” said John Wilson shortly.
On Sunday morning the men were conscious of a bare, deserted appearance in the church. Mr. Sinclair perceived it himself. After some inward wondering he concluded that it was because there were no flowers anywhere. The table before the pulpit was bare. On the organ a vase held a sorry, faded bouquet left over from the previous week. The floor was’ unswept. Dust lay thickly on the pulpit Bible, the choir chairs, and the pew backs.
“This church looks disgraceful,” said John Robbins in an angry undertone to his daughter Polly, who was president of the Flower Band. “What in the name of common sense is the good of your Flower Banders if you can’t keep the place looking decent?”
“There is no Flower Band now, Father,” whispered Polly in turn. “We’ve disbanded. Women haven’t any business to meddle in church matters. You know the session said so.”
It was well for Polly that she was too big to have her ears boxed. Even so, it might not have saved her if they had been anywhere else than in church.
Meanwhile the men who were sitting in the choir — three basses and two tenors — were beginning to dimly suspect that there was something amiss here too. Where were the sopranos and the altos? Myra Wilson and Alethea Craig and several other members of the choir were sitting down in their pews with perfectly unconscious faces. Myra was looking out of the window into the tangled sunlight and shadow of the great maples. Alethea Craig was reading her Bible.
Presently Frances Spenslow came in. Frances was organist, but today, instead of walking up to the platform, she slipped demurely into her father’s pew at one side of the pulpit. Eben Craig, who was the Putney singing master and felt himself responsible for the choir, fidgeted uneasily. He tried to catch Frances’s eye, but she was absorbed in reading the mission report she had found in the rack, and Eben was finally forced to tiptoe down to the Spenslow pew and whisper, “Miss Spenslow, the minister is waiting for the doxology. Aren’t you going to take the organ?”
Frances looked up calmly. Her clear, placid voice was audible not only to those in the nearby pews, but to the minister.
“No, Mr. Craig. You know if a woman isn’t fit to speak in the church she can’t be fit to sing in it either.”
Eben Craig looked exceedingly foolish. He tiptoed gingerly back to his place. The minister, with an unusual flush on his thin, ascetic face, rose suddenly and gave out the opening hymn.
Nobody who heard the singing in Putney church that day ever forgot it. Untrained basses and tenors, unrelieved by a single female voice, are not inspiring.
There were no announcements of society meetings for the forthcoming week. On the way home from church that day irate husbands and fathers scolded, argued, or pleaded, according to their several dispositions. One and all met with the same calm statement that if a noble, self-sacrificing woman like Mrs. Cotterell were not good enough to speak in the Putney church, ordinary, everyday women could not be fit to take any part whatever in its work.
Sunday School that afternoon was a harrowing failure. Out of all the corps of teachers only one was a man, and he alone was at his post. In the Christian Endeavour meeting on Tuesday night the feminine element sat dumb and unresponsive. The Putney women never did things by halves.
The men held out for two weeks. At the end of that time they “happened” to meet at the manse and talked the matter over with the harassed minister. Elder Knox said gloomily, “It’s this way. Nothing can move them women. I know, for I’ve tried. My authority has been set at naught in my own household. And I’m laughed at if I show my face in any of the other settlements.”
The Sunday School superintendent said the Sunday School was going to wrack and ruin, also the Christian Endeavour. The condition of the church for dust was something scandalous, and strangers were making a mockery of the singing. And the carpet had to be paid for. He supposed they would have to let the women have their own way.
The next Sunday evening after service Mr. Sinclair arose hesitatingly. His face was flushed, and Alethea Craig always declared that he looked “just plain everyday cross.” He announced briefly that the session after due deliberation had concluded that Mrs. Cotterell might occupy the pulpit on the evening appointed for her address.
The women all over the church smiled broadly. Frances Spenslow got up and went to the organ stool. The singing in the last hymn was good and hearty. Going down the steps after dismissal Mrs. Elder Knox caught the secretary of the Church Aid by the arm.
“I guess,” she whispered anxiously, “you’d better call a special meeting of the Aids at my house tomorrow afternoon. If we’re to get that social over before haying begins we’ve got to do some smart scurrying.”
The strike in the Putney church was over.
The Unhappiness of Miss Farquhar
Frances Farquhar was a beauty and was sometimes called a society butterfly by people who didn’t know very much about it. Her father was wealthy and her mother came of an extremely blue-blooded family. Frances had been out for three years, and was a social favourite. Consequently, it may be wondered why she was unhappy.
In plain English, Frances Farquhar had been jilted — just a commonplace, everyday jilting! She had been engaged to Paul Holcomb; he was a very handsome fellow, somewhat too evidently aware of the fact, and Frances was very deeply in love with him — or thought herself so, which at the time comes to pretty much the same thing. Everybody in her set knew of her engagement, and all her girl friends envied her, for Holcomb was a matrimonial catch.
Then the crash came. Nobody outside the family knew exactly what did happen, but everybody knew that the Holcomb-Farquhar match was off, and everybody had a different story to account for it.
The simple truth was that Holcomb was fickle and had fallen in love with another girl. There was nothing of the man about him, and it did not matter to his sublimely selfish caddishness whether he broke Frances Farquhar’s heart or not. He got his freedom and he married Maud Carroll in six months’ time.
The Farquhars, especially Ned, who was Frances’s older brother and seldom concerned himself about her except when the family honour was involved, were furious at the whole affair. Mr. Farquhar stormed, and Ned swore, and Della lamented her vanished role of bridemaid. As for Mrs. Farquhar, she cried and said it would ruin Frances’s future prospects.
The girl herself took no part in the family indignation meetings. But she believed that her heart was broken. Her love and her pride had suffered equally, and the effect seemed disastrous.
After a while the Farquhars calmed down and devoted themselves to the task of cheering Frances up. This they did not accomplish. She got through the rest of the season somehow and showed a proud front to the world, not even flinching when Holcomb himself crossed her path. To be sure, she was pale and thin, and had about as much animation as a mask, but the same might be said of a score of other girls who were not suspected of having broken hearts.
When the summer came Frances asserted herself. The Farquhars went to Green Harbour every summer. But this time Frances said she would not go, and stuck to it. The whole family took turns coaxing her and had nothing to show for their pains.
“I’m going up to Windy Meadows to stay with Aunt Eleanor while you are at the Harbour,” she declared. “She has invited me often enough.”
Ned whistled. “Jolly time you’ll have of it, Sis. Windy Meadows is about as festive as a funeral. And Aunt Eleanor isn’t lively, to put it in the mildest possible way.”
“I don’t care if she isn’t. I want to get somewhere where people won’t look at me and talk about — that,” said Frances, looking ready to cry.
Ned went out and swore at Holcomb again, and then advised his mother to humour Frances. Accordingly, Frances went to Windy Meadows.
Windy Meadows was, as Ned had said, the reverse of lively. It was a pretty country place, with a sort of fag-end by way of a little fishing village, huddled on a wind-swept bit of beach, locally known as the “Cove.” Aunt Eleanor was one of those delightful people, so few and far between in this world, who have perfectly mastered the art of minding their own business exclusively. She left Frances in peace.
She knew that her niece had had “some love trouble or other,” and hadn’t gotten over it rightly.
“It’s always best to let those things take their course,” said this philosophical lady to her “help” and confidant, Margaret Ann Peabody. “She’ll get over it in time — though she doesn’t think so now, bless you.”
For the first fortnight Frances revelled in a luxury of unhindered sorrow. She could cry all night — and all day too, if she wished — without having to stop because people might notice that her eyes were red. She could mope in her room all she liked. And there were no men who demanded civility.
When the fortnight was over, Aunt Eleanor took crafty counsel with herself. The letting-alone policy was all very well, but it would not do to have the girl die on her hands. Frances was getting paler and thinner every day — and she was spoiling her eyelashes by crying.
“I wish,” said Aunt Eleanor one morning at breakfast, while Frances pretended to eat, “that I could go and take Corona Sherwood out for a drive today. I promised her last week that I would, but I’ve never had time yet. And today is baking and churning day. It’s a shame. Poor Corona!”
“Who is she?” asked Frances, trying to realize that there was actually someone in the world besides herself who was to be pitied.
“She is our minister’s sister. She has been ill with rheumatic fever. She is better now, but doesn’t seem to get strong very fast. She ought to go out more, but she isn’t able to walk. I really must try and get around tomorrow. She keeps house for her brother at the manse. He isn’t married, you know.”
Frances didn’t know, nor did she in the least degree care. But even the luxury of unlimited grief palls, and Frances was beginning to feel this vaguely. She offered to go and take Miss Sherwood out driving.
“I’ve never seen her,” she said, “but I suppose that doesn’t matter. I can drive Grey Tom in the phaeton, if you like.”
It was just what Aunt Eleanor intended, and she saw Frances drive off that afternoon with a great deal of satisfaction.
“Give my love to Corona,” she told her, “and say for me that she isn’t to go messing about among those shore people until she’s perfectly well. The manse is the fourth house after you turn the third corner.”
Frances kept count of the corners and the houses and found the manse. Corona Sherwood herself came to the door. Frances had been expecting an elderly personage with spectacles and grey crimps; she was surprised to find that the minister’s sister was a girl of about her own age and possessed of a distinct worldly prettiness. Corona was dark, with a different darkness from that of Frances, who had ivory outlines and blue-black hair, while Corona was dusky and piquant.
Her eyes brightened with delight when Frances told her errand.
“How good of you and Miss Eleanor! I am not strong enough to walk far yet — or do anything useful, in fact, and Elliott so seldom has time to take me out.”
“Where shall we go?” asked Frances when they started. “I don’t know much about this locality.”
“Can we drive to the Cove first? I want to see poor little Jacky Hart. He has been so sick—”
“Aunt Eleanor positively forbade that,” said Frances dubiously. “Will it be safe to disobey her?”
Corona laughed.
“Miss Eleanor blames my poor shore people for making me sick at first, but it was really not that at all. And I want to see Jacky Hart so much. He has been ill for some time with some disease of the spine and he is worse lately. I’m sure Miss Eleanor won’t mind my calling just to see him.”
Frances turned Grey Tom down the shore road that ran to the Cove and past it to silvery, wind-swept sands, rimming sea expanses crystal clear. Jacky Hart’s home proved to be a tiny little place overflowing with children. Mrs. Hart was a pale, tired-looking woman with the patient, farseeing eyes so often found among the women who watch sea and shore every day and night of their lives for those who sometimes never return.
She spoke of Jacky with the apathy of hopelessness. The doctor said he would not last much longer. She told all her troubles unreservedly to Corona in her monotonous voice. Her “man” was drinking again and the mackerel catch was poor.
When Mrs. Hart asked Corona to go in and see Jacky, Frances went too. The sick boy, a child with a delicate, wasted face and large, bright eyes, lay in a tiny bedroom off the kitchen. The air was hot and heavy. Mrs. Hart stood at the foot of the bed with her tragic face.
“We have to set up nights with him now,” she said. “It’s awful hard on me and my man. The neighbours are kind enough and come sometimes, but most of them have enough to do. His medicine has to be given every half hour. I’ve been up for three nights running now. Jabez was off to the tavern for two. I’m just about played out.”
She suddenly broke down and began to cry, or rather whimper, in a heart-broken way.
Corona looked troubled. “I wish I could come tonight, Mrs. Hart, but I’m afraid I’m really not strong enough yet.”
“I don’t know much about sickness,” spoke up Frances firmly, “but if to sit by the child and give him his medicine regularly is all that is necessary, I am sure I can do that. I’ll come and sit up with Jacky tonight if you care to have me.”
Afterwards, when she and Corona were driving away, she wondered a good deal at herself. But Corona was so evidently pleased with her offer, and took it all so much as a matter of course, that Frances had not the courage to display her wonder. They had their drive through the great green bowl of the country valley, brimming over with sunshine, and afterwards Corona made Frances go home with her to tea.
Rev. Elliott Sherwood had got back from his pastoral visitations, and was training his sweet peas in the way they should go against the garden fence. He was in his shirt sleeves and wore a big straw hat, and seemed in nowise disconcerted thereby. Corona introduced him, and he took Grey Tom away and put him in the barn. Then he went back to his sweet peas. He had had his tea, he said, so that Frances did not see him again until she went home. She thought he was a very indifferent young man, and not half so nice as his sister.
