CHAPTER II
The family consisted of four persons: Margaret Lester, widow, agedthirty six; Helen Lester, her daughter, aged sixteen; Mrs. Lester'smaiden aunts, Hannah and Hester Gray, twins, aged sixty-seven. Wakingand sleeping, the three women spent their days and nights in adoring theyoung girl; in watching the movements of her sweet spirit in the mirrorof her face; in refreshing their souls with the vision of her bloomand beauty; in listening to the music of her voice; in gratefullyrecognizing how rich and fair for them was the world with this presencein it; in shuddering to think how desolate it would be with this lightgone out of it.
By nature--and inside--the aged aunts were utterly dear and lovable andgood, but in the matter of morals and conduct their training had been souncompromisingly strict that it had made them exteriorly austere, not tosay stern. Their influence was effective in the house; so effectivethat the mother and the daughter conformed to its moral and religiousrequirements cheerfully, contentedly, happily, unquestionably. To dothis was become second nature to them. And so in this peacefulheaven there were no clashings, no irritations, no fault-finding, noheart-burnings.
In it a lie had no place. In it a lie was unthinkable. In it speechwas restricted to absolute truth, iron-bound truth, implacable anduncompromising truth, let the resulting consequences be what they might.At last, one day, under stress of circumstances, the darling of thehouse sullied her lips with a lie--and confessed it, with tearsand self-upbraidings. There are not any words that can paint theconsternation of the aunts. It was as if the sky had crumpled up andcollapsed and the earth had tumbled to ruin with a crash. They sat sideby side, white and stern, gazing speechless upon the culprit, who was onher knees before them with her face buried first in one lap and then theother, moaning and sobbing, and appealing for sympathy and forgivenessand getting no response, humbly kissing the hand of the one, then of theother, only to see it withdrawn as suffering defilement by those soiledlips.
Twice, at intervals, Aunt Hester said, in frozen amazement:
"You told a _lie_?"
Twice, at intervals, Aunt Hannah followed with the muttered and amazedejaculation:
"You confess it--you actually confess it--you told a lie!"
It was all they could say. The situation was new, unheard of,incredible; they could not understand it, they did not know how to takehold of it, it approximately paralyzed speech.
At length it was decided that the erring child must be taken to hermother, who was ill, and who ought to know what had happened. Helenbegged, besought, implored that she might be spared this furtherdisgrace, and that her mother might be spared the grief and pain ofit; but this could not be: duty required this sacrifice, duty takesprecedence of all things, nothing can absolve one from a duty, with aduty no compromise is possible.
Helen still begged, and said the sin was her own, her mother had had nohand in it--why must she be made to suffer for it?
But the aunts were obdurate in their righteousness, and said the lawthat visited the sins of the parent upon the child was by all rightand reason reversible; and therefore it was but just that the innocentmother of a sinning child should suffer her rightful share of the griefand pain and shame which were the allotted wages of the sin.
The three moved toward the sick-room.
At this time the doctor was approaching the house. He was still a gooddistance away, however. He was a good doctor and a good man, and he hada good heart, but one had to know him a year to get over hating him, twoyears to learn to endure him, three to learn to like him, and four andfive to learn to love him. It was a slow and trying education, but itpaid. He was of great stature; he had a leonine head, a leonine face, arough voice, and an eye which was sometimes a pirate's and sometimesa woman's, according to the mood. He knew nothing about etiquette, andcared nothing about it; in speech, manner, carriage, and conduct he wasthe reverse of conventional. He was frank, to the limit; he had opinionson all subjects; they were always on tap and ready for delivery, and hecared not a farthing whether his listener liked them or didn't. Whomhe loved he loved, and manifested it; whom he didn't love he hated, andpublished it from the housetops. In his young days he had been a sailor,and the salt-airs of all the seas blew from him yet. He was a sturdy andloyal Christian, and believed he was the best one in the land, and theonly one whose Christianity was perfectly sound, healthy, full-chargedwith common sense, and had no decayed places in it. People who had an axto grind, or people who for any reason wanted to get on the soft sideof him, called him The Christian--a phrase whose delicate flattery wasmusic to his ears, and whose capital T was such an enchanting and vividobject to him that he could _see _it when it fell out of a person'smouth even in the dark. Many who were fond of him stood on theirconsciences with both feet and brazenly called him by that large titlehabitually, because it was a pleasure to them to do anything thatwould please him; and with eager and cordial malice his extensive anddiligently cultivated crop of enemies gilded it, beflowered it, expandedit to "The _only _Christian." Of these two titles, the latter had thewider currency; the enemy, being greatly in the majority, attended tothat. Whatever the doctor believed, he believed with all his heart,and would fight for it whenever he got the chance; and if the intervalsbetween chances grew to be irksomely wide, he would invent ways ofshortening them himself. He was severely conscientious, according tohis rather independent lights, and whatever he took to be a duty heperformed, no matter whether the judgment of the professional moralistsagreed with his own or not. At sea, in his young days, he had usedprofanity freely, but as soon as he was converted he made a rule, whichhe rigidly stuck to ever afterward, never to use it except on the rarestoccasions, and then only when duty commanded. He had been a harddrinker at sea, but after his conversion he became a firm and outspokenteetotaler, in order to be an example to the young, and from that timeforth he seldom drank; never, indeed, except when it seemed to him to bea duty--a condition which sometimes occurred a couple of times a year,but never as many as five times.
Necessarily, such a man is impressionable, impulsive, emotional. Thisone was, and had no gift at hiding his feelings; or if he had it he tookno trouble to exercise it. He carried his soul's prevailing weather inhis face, and when he entered a room the parasols or the umbrellas wentup--figuratively speaking--according to the indications. When the softlight was in his eye it meant approval, and delivered a benediction;when he came with a frown he lowered the temperature ten degrees. He wasa well-beloved man in the house of his friends, but sometimes a dreadedone.
He had a deep affection for the Lester household and its several membersreturned this feeling with interest. They mourned over his kind ofChristianity, and he frankly scoffed at theirs; but both parties went onloving each other just the same.
He was approaching the house--out of the distance; the aunts and theculprit were moving toward the sick-chamber.