The Story of a Whim (11 page)

And Christie echoed the cry too deeply to be able to smile over it.

Victoria had laid her plans carefully. She arranged to spend more time with Hazel than she had been doing, pleading a headache as an excuse from going out for a ride in the hot sun, and sending Mrs.
Winship in her place more than once. She found that Hazel had no intention of opening her heart to her; so she determined to make a move herself.

Hazel had been very quiet for a long time. Victoria thought she was asleep until at last she noticed a little quiver of her lip and the tiniest glisten of a tear rolling down the thin white cheek.

Without seeming to see she got up and moved around the room a moment, and then in a cheery tone began to tell her story.

"Hazel, dear, I'm going to tell you where I went last Sunday. It was so interesting! I wandered off alone out into the country,
and by and by I heard some singing in a little log cabin by the road, and I slipped into the yard behind some crape myrtle bushes all in lovely bloom, where I was entirely hidden.

"I looked through a crack between the logs, and there I saw three rows of black children, and some
older people, too, and at the organ—for there was a nice organ standing against the wall—sat Mr. Mortimer, that young man we met in the parlor the other evening, Mrs. Boston Mortimer's nephew, you know. There were some other white young men, too; and they were all singing.

"And after the singing there was a prayer. One of the young men prayed. It was all about being forgiven for mistakes and sins, and not being worth
Christ's saving. It was a beautiful prayer! And, Hazel, it was Christie Bailey who prayed!"

Hazel caught her breath, when she heard of Christie's prayer, and a bright flush glowed on her cheek; but Victoria went on:

"Then he taught the lesson, and he did it well. Those little children never stirred, they were so interested; and just as they were singing the closing hymn I came away in a hurry so they would not see me."

Victoria had timed her story from the window. She knew the carriage had returned and that Mother
Winship would soon appear at the doorway. There would be no chance for Hazel to speak until she thought about the Sunday school a little while. The footsteps were coming along the hall now, and she could hear Ruth calling to Hazel's brother. She had one more thing to say. She came quite near to the couch, and whispered in Hazel's ear:

"Hazel, I don't believe he has deceived you about everything. I believe you have done him a great deal of good. Don't fret about it, dear."

Hazel was brighter that evening, and often Victoria caught her looking thoughtfully at her. The next day when they were left alone she said, 'Tell me what sort of lesson they had at the Sunday school, Vic, dear."

And Victoria launched into a full account of the blackboard lesson and the queer-shaped cards, which she could not quite see through the crack,
that were passed around at the close, and treasured, she could see. Then cautiously she told of the interview with Mr. Mortimer and his account of Christie's throwing the bottles out the door. The story lost none of its color from Victoria's repetition of it; and, when she finished, Hazel's eyes were bright and she was sitting up and smiling.

"Wasn't that splendid, Vic
?" she said, and then remembered and sank back thoughtfully upon the couch.

Victoria was glad the others came in just then and she could slip away. She had said all she wished to say at present, and would let things rest now until Saturday evening when Christie came.

Victoria had arranged with Mrs. Winship to stay upstairs and have dinner with Hazel on Saturday evening while the family with Ruth Summers went down to the dining-room. She also arranged with the head waiter to send up Hazel's dinner early. And so by dint of much maneuvering the coast was clear at seven, Hazel's dinner and her own disposed of, and the family just gone down to the dining-room, where they would be safe for at least an hour.

It was no part
of Victoria's plan that Mother Winship or Tom or the Judge should come in at an inopportune moment and complicate affairs until Hazel had had everything fully explained to her. After that Victoria felt that she would wash her hands of the whole thing.

Mother
Winship had just rustled down the hall, and Victoria, who had been standing by the hall door, waiting until she should be gone, came over to where Hazel sat in a great soft chair by an open fire of pine-knots.

"Hazel," she said in her matter-of-fact, everyday tone, "Christie Bailey has come to know if he may see you for a few minutes. He wants to say a few words of explanation to you. He has really suffered very much, and perhaps you will feel less humiliated by this whole thing if you let him explain. Do you feel able to see him now?"

Hazel looked up, a bright flush on her cheeks.

Victoria betrayed
by not so much as the wavering of an eyelash that she was anxious as to the outcome of this simple proposal. Hazel's dear eyes searched her face, and she bore the scrutiny well.

Then Hazel
sighed a troubled little breath, and said: "Yes, I will see him, Vic. I feel quite strong tonight, and—I guess it will be better, after all, for me to see him."

Then Victoria felt sure that it was a relief to have him come, and that Hazel had been longing for it for several days.

Christie came in gravely with the tread of one who entered a sacred place, and yet with the quiet dignity of a "gentleman unafraid." Indeed, so far had the object of his visit dominated him that he forgot to shrink from contact with the fashionable world from which he had been so entirely shut away for so long.

He was going to see Hazel. It was the opportunity of his life. As to what came after, it mattered not, now that the great privilege of entering her presence
had been accorded him. He had not permitted himself to believe that she would see him even after he had sent up his card, as directed, to Miss Landis.

Victoria shut the door
gently behind him, and left them together. She had prepared a chair not far away, where she might sit and guard the door against intrusion; and so she sat and listened to the far-away hum of voices in the dining-room, the tinkle of silver and glass, and the occasional burst from the orchestra in the balcony above the dining-room. But her heart stood still outside the closed door, and wondered whether she had done well or ill, and feared—now that she had done it—all evil things that can pass in review at such a time for judgment on one's own deeds.

Christie stood still before Hazel. The sight of her so thin and white, changed even from a week ago, startled him,—condemned him again, took away his power of speech for the moment.

She was all in soft white cashmere draperies, with delicate lace that fell over the little white wrists as petals of a flower. Her soft brown hair made a halo for her face, and was drawn simply and carelessly together at the back. Christie had never seen anyone half so lovely. He caught his breath in admiration of her. He stood and did her reverence.

For one long minute they looked at each other, and then Hazel, who felt it hers to speak first, as she had silenced him before, said, as a young queen might have said, with just the shadow of a smile flickering over her face, "You may sit down."

The gracious permission, accompanied by the slight indication of the chair facing her own by the fire, broke the spell that bound Christie's tongue, and with a heart beating high over what he had come to say he began.

And
the words he spoke were not the carefully planned words he had arranged to set before her. They had fled and left his soul bare before her gaze. He had nothing to tell but the story of himself.

"You think I have deceived you," he said, speaking
rapidly because his heart was going in great, quick bounds; "and because I owe to you all the good that I have in life I have come to tell you the whole truth about myself. I thank you for having given me a few minutes to speak to you, and I will try not to weary you. I have been too much trouble to you already.”

"I was a little lonely boy when my mother died—" Christie lowered his head as he talked now, and
the firelight played fanciful lights and shades with the richness of his hair.

"Nobody loved me that I know of, unless it was my father. If he did, he never showed it. He was a silent man, and grieved about my mother's death. I was a homely little fellow, and they have always said I had the temper of my hair. My aunt used to say I was hard to manage. I think that was true. I must have had some love in my heart, but nothing but my mother ever called it forth. I went through school at war with all my teachers. I got through because I naturally liked books.
”

"Father wanted me to be a farmer, but I wanted to go to college; so he gave me a certain sum of money and sent me. I us
ed the money as I pleased, sometimes wisely and sometimes unwisely. When I got out of money, I earned some more or went without it. Father was not the kind of man to be asked for more. I had a good time in college, though I can't say I ranked as well as I might have done. I studied what I pleased, and left other things alone. Father died before I graduated, and the aunt who kept house for him soon followed; and, when I was through college, I had no one to go to and no one to care where I went.”

"Father had signed a note for a man a little before he died, with the usual result of such things, and there was very little remaining for him to leave to me. What there was I took and came to Florida, having a
reckless longing to see a new part of the world, and make a spot for myself. I never had known what home was since I was a little fellow, and I believe I was homesick for a home and something to call my own. Land was cheap, and it was easy to work, I thought, and my head was filled with dreams of my future; but I soon saw that oranges did not grow in a day and produce fortunes.”

"Life was an a
wfully empty thing. I used sometimes to lie awake at night and wonder what death would be, and if it wouldn't be as well to try it. But something in my mother's prayer for me when I was almost a baby always kept me from it. She used to pray, 'God make my little Chris a good man.'”

"I began to get acquainted with a lot of other fellows in the same fix with myself after a while. They were all sick of life,—at least, the life down here, and hard work and interminable waiting. But they had found something pleasanter than death to make them forget.
”

“I
went with them, and tried their way. They played cards. I played, too. I could play well. We would drink and drink, and play and drink again—"

A little moan escap
ed from the listener, and Christie looked up to find her eyes filled with tears and her fingers clutching the arms of the chair till the nails were pink against the fingertips with the pressure.

"O, I am doing
you more harm!" exclaimed Christie. "I will stop!"

"No, no," said Hazel. "Go on, please;" and she turned her face aside to brush away the tears that had gathered.

"I was always ashamed when it was over. It made me hate myself and life all the more. I often used to acknowledge to myself that I was doing about as much as I could to see that my mother's prayer didn't get answered. But still I went on just the same way every little while. There didn't seem to be anything else to do.

"Then the night before Christmas came. It
wasn't anything to me more than any other day. It never had been since I was a mere baby. Mother used to fill my stocking with little things. I remember it just once.

"But this Christmas I felt particularly down. The orange-trees were not doing as well as I had hoped. I
was depressed by the horror of the monotony of my life, behind and before. Then your things came, and a new world opened before me.

"I wasn't very glad of it at first. I am afraid I resented your kindness a little. Then I began to see the something homelike they had brought with them, and I could not help liking it.
But your letter gave me a queer feeling. There seemed to be obligations I could not fulfill. I didn't like to keep the things, because you wanted a Sunday school. I was much more likely to conduct a saloon or a pool-room at that time, than a Sunday school.

"Then I hung that picture up. You know what effect it had upon me. I have told
you of my strange dream or vision or whatever it was. Yes, it was all true. I never deceived you about that or anything else except that I did not tell you I was not what you supposed. I thought it might embarrass you if I did so at first, and then it seemed but a joke to answer you as if I were a girl. I never dreamed it would go beyond that first letter when I wrote thanking you."

His honest eyes were on her face, and Hazel could not doubt him.

"And then, when the writing went on, and the time came when I ought to have told you, there was something else held me back. Forgive me for speaking of it, but I am trying to be perfectly true tonight.”

You remember in that second letter that you wrote me, where you told me that you were praying for me, and—you—" Chri
stie caught his breath, and murmured the words low and reverently, "You said you loved me—"

"Oh!" gasped Hazel, clasping her white hands over her face, while the blood rushed up to her very high temples and surged around her little seashell ears.