Chapter Sixteen

by Mrs. Elizabeth Prentiss
Edited by Amber Moeller

Maggie was just going to sit down to take lunch by herself a few weeks later, when, after a furious ring at the door, Annie rushed in, threw herself into a chair, and burst into a passion of tears.

"What is it, darling? Tom?" asked Maggie, tenderly.

Annie shocked her head.

"Then it's mother--or father--or one of the children," said Maggie, turning pale.

"No, no, no; it's some horrid, horrid men that Tom went and endorsed for. And they've cheated us out of everything. We're got nothing left, not a red cent."

And Annie's tears flowed like rivers.

"Oh, is that all? I thought something had happened to Tom, or that mother was dead," said Maggie, with great relief.

"I should think you might say something to comfort me!" sobbed Annie. "To think that Tom could be such a big goose! It is just like him! He'd give away his head if he could."

"Dear Annie, it isn't half so dreadful as it seems," said Maggie. "Think now how good God is to take nothing but your money."

You don't know what you're talking about," said Annie, impatiently. "Can't you think of something to say that will comfort me?"

"I wish I could, dear. If God had taken Tom and left you the money, would it have been better, do you think?"

"But why should He take either? Why couldn't He have let things go on as they were?"

"Ah, these are questions I can't answer, dear. But He knows why He does this or that. Isn't it some comfort to think that He would not have allowed this to happen unless it was good for you and Tom?"

"How can it be good for us? Just fancy now, if you had put your foot down that you couldn't and wouldn't go to live with your mother-in-law, how you would feel to have things take such a turn that you'd got to go and live with her on charity? Such a letter as she has written to me! I suppose it was too good to chance to heap coals of fire on my head to be thrown away. Just read that!" And Annie tossed a crumpled letter into Maggie's lap.

"It is a beautiful, Christian letter," said Maggie, as she returned it. "I wish Horace could see it. It would elevate Mrs. White in his opinion."

"He can see it, and welcome. Maggie Wyman, why don't you say something to comfort me, instead of magnifying Tom's mother. What have I done that I should be humbled and degraded into living on charity?"

"Annie," said Maggie, gently, "doesn't the loss of this money come as hard upon Tom as upon you?"

"I don't know. No, it doesn't. I have been poor all my life, and know just what I've got to come to; but Tom doesn't. He keeps saying he has got me, an that's enough. But he will sing another tune when he comes to sell off his horses, and wear shabby clothes, and all that."

"But you said you were to go and live with his mother."

"Yes, till we can get started on something. Tom says he's going to work. But what sort of work is he fit for? He doesn't know anything about business, and he is too old to study a profession, even if he knew enough, which he doesn't."

"I am very sorry for you both," said Maggie. "But by-and-by, when you get over this first shock, and begin to think how many things you have left, this loss will not seem so intolerable. Oh, Annie! I have stood by what I believed to be my husband's dying bed, and have looked down into such an abyss of misery! And you many depend upon it that you and Tom may yet be happy together; perhaps happier than you have ever been."

She came and tried to make Annie lean her head upon her shoulder, but Annie drew herself away with a gesture of impatience.

So the hours wore away till it was time for dinner, when Horace came home, bringing Tom with him. They had been together all day, examining papers, and looked tired and troubled. But as his eye fell upon his wife, Horace's face brightened; he knew he had come to a loving heart and a warm welcome. But Tom's face lengthened when he caught sight of Annie, who sat listlessly in a corner, and did not rise to meet him as he entered the room.

"Annie, darling," he whispered, "Horace has cheered and built me up so all day. Look up, and give me a smile, do!"

But she only burst into fresh tears.

They had doleful time at dinner; Horace and Maggie tried to keep up some general conversation, but Annie was so dismal, and Tom so absorbed in her, that the whole scene was very awkward.

"I am going to stay here tonight," she proclaimed a little later. "I am too tired to go home. As for you, Tom, you can go to your mother's if you like."

Tom's lips quivered. Wasn't it enough to become suddenly beggared; must his wife fail him, too?

Horace looked on it silent indignation, Maggie with tears of shame.

"What can we do?" she whispered.

"Nothing just yet, dear."

"Mary," said Maggie, slipping down into the kitchen, "my sister and her husband are going to spend the night here. If you will run up and light the fire in their room, I will get it ready for them."

Now Mary, usually kind and considerate, saw fit to take this inauspicious moment to rise from her seat with a fling that declared her disapproval of the announcement. It was a little thing in itself, but it hurt Maggie as a blow would have hurt her; her pride rose at its injustice, and she was just going to say, with great dignity:

"You are not to dictate whether I should have visitors or not!" when a better spirit whispered, "Hush, Maggie, hush; this is one of the occasions of which you have heard for being deaf, dumb, and blind."

So she went quietly away, Mary following noisily with the coal scuttle, and her simple little guest room soon began to glow in the cheerful light of the fire.

"I wonder what we could have for breakfast," she said, forcing herself to speak pleasantly; but Mary vouchsafed no reply. "Mary," she then said, "I did not tell you that my sister and her husband are in a great deal of trouble. And I know you always have a kind word or a kind deed for those who need it."

"It's very good you are to say so," said Mary, brightening. "I'll do the best I can for breakfast."

Mary was gained, and Maggie had conquered herself, so she went back to the parlor with a serene face, and she and Horace spent the evening in suggesting every source of consolation they could, expect the one which for a time they knew neither Tom nor Annie would seek.

It was time for evening prayers. Horace took the Bible, and without apology or embarrassment, read a Psalm, an then he offered one of his simple, child-like prayers, taking Tom's an Annie's trouble straight to God, telling Him all about it, asking what they were to do now, and especially that they might have all the imperishable riches hidden in Jesus Christ.

Tom's tears fell fast; he had never thought or cared for such riches, but he could not help feeling that Horace knew of what he spoke. And Annie ceased crying; the directness and simplicity of Horace's words went to her heart, and, for the time, hushed it.

"On the whole, Tom, you my as well stay here tonight," she said; and Tom accepted the grace thus vouchsafed, with much gratitude and humility.

"Well," said Horace, with a sigh of relief, as they left the room. "Come here, my little wife, and let me tell you how I love you, and how I pity Tom."

This tacit reproach of Annie roused all Maggie's sisterly love.

"Don't be hard on Annie, dear," she pleaded. "When she gets over the shock and comes to her senses, you'll see that there is more in her than you fancy. She is naturally energetic, and will fit herself to her altered circumstances, as soon as she realizes that she must. But I don't like the idea of their going and living on Tom's mother."

"Nor I. It is better for Tome to go to work, and carve his own way."

"But what can he do?"

"That I do not know. I think his mother may probably advance him a sufficient sum to start him in some way. He will, eventually, have all her property, you know."

"And then Annie will be rich again," sighed Maggie.

"Is there anything so dreadful in that thought?" asked Horace, laughing.

"It is not good for Annie to have every wish gratified, and to lead a gay life. It has turned her head and diverted her attention from everything but the mere outside, the mere shell."

"She has not been as happy as she fancied," returned Horace. "I remember full well how I fared when I tried to live in the world, an yet to keep on good terms with my own conscience."

"Why can't you tell her so? She likes you, an you have influence over her. She will let you say hat she would not hear from me."

"I am thinking of it. What have we got for breakfast?"

"Now, don't trouble your poor old brains about breakfast!" cried Maggie. "After knocking about the world and living at hotels, neither Tom or Annie care for anything grand."

In fact, when they all four sat together at Maggie's little round table, Tom enjoyed the novelty of its simplicity; his sorrows had not destroyed this appetite, and he was in really good spirits.

And then came morning prayers, an he found himself elevated and touched as he had been on the previous evening. He was impelled by a spirit of his own, to whisper bashfully to Annie, as he took leave preparatory to another day in Horace's office, "When we get a snug little home of our own, we'll have prayers, too, won't we?"

Annie started and colored.

Was such a proposition to come from him who had made no pretension to piety, while she, a member of the church, had never hinted at such a thing? She went to her room condemned and ashamed, realizing for the first time how she had been dishonoring Him whose name she bore.

She found Maggie making the bed.

"Dear me, don't do that, child!" she exclaimed. "It is a pity, if brought up as I was, I couldn't do it. It was selfish in me to stay here last night; you've had to make a fire, and get your pretty little room all in confusion. But you and Horace have done us good, ever so much good, and I am not going to be so naughty again."

So they parted lovingly, and after Annie had gone, Maggie thought of many things she might have said vastly better than she had said. When Horace came home at night she begged him to go, after dinner, to see Annie. She thought Tom would be with his mother, who was still confined to the house, and that he could thus see her sister alone.

But Horace hesitated.

"I should not know what to say to her," he objected.

"God will tell you when you get there, and I will be praying all the while. I am sure Annie is a Christian, but marrying a man who was not, an leading such a distracted life, and having so much prosperity, has unsettled her. Think, dear, how happy you are since you came out decidedly on the right side."

"Do you know darling, how much you have had to do with that?"

"I?" cried Maggie, astonished. "What can you mean?"

"I mean that I love you dearly, that's all," he answered, with a bright gleam like that of the time before the fever sobered him.

"Now you look like yourself again," she said, thankfully.

Horace found Annie alone, and very glad to see him, and they fell naturally and easily into the discourse he desired. He had a very straightforward, manly way of doing things he found it difficult to do so he said,--

"I have come to ask you to listen to me a little egotistical talk: may I?"

"Why, certainly," she replied. "I always liked to hear you talk."

"Thank you. When I was quite a boy my mother persuaded me to join the church; I did it partly to please her, partly because I thought it was the right thing to do. I did not expect to gain or to lose much by this step but I think now that I gained by it. For all through my college course it was a check to me; a disagreeable one, I will own; but still it kept me out of some gross vices. I read the Bible now and then, and prayed when it was perfectly convenient; and when my mother died, read more and prayed more, an amended my life in many ways. When I came to this city, I struggled into a set that I fancied represented good society; I followed their practices just as far as I dared, and if it had not been for Aunt Jane and my poor old father's prayers, should have given even the outward semblance of piety. What little I had concealed as carefully from the world about me as I should now conceal vices, if I had them."

"I have heard that you were much admired at that time," said Annie.

"I suppose I was, I certainly wanted to be. But there is not an element of real happiness in the world in which I dwelt. I had thoughtless gaiety, but not one satisfied moment. Then came the war. That sobered me. I could not dance and sing songs and flirt with pretty girls, when my country was in peril. I enlisted as a private, rose rapidly, and then you know what happened next. It gave me something I had never had--time to think; and my thoughts were full of self-condemnation. Then as I lay upon my bed in the hospital, too tired to talk or to be talked to, I heard conversation between my good old father and Aunt Jane, that opened a new world to me. They spoke of the grateful joy in God, the blessed fruits of sorrow, the delight in prayer familiar to believers, in a way to inspire even a cold heart. At that time I had never known such a joy; prayer had always been a task to me, and I had never tried to make my disappointments bear fruit. But now I lay there helpless, crippled for life, weak in body and weak in soul; mourning for my lost limb as a mother mourns for her child, finding support and comfort in nothing that was left to me. It was then I turned heart-sick to God in a way quite new to me; and I can tell you, Annie, that he who seeks Him halt and maimed does it with cries of anguish that reach His ear."

"I had no idea that you felt, that anyone felt so," said Annie. "I never realized that to lose a limb was so terrible. I have often laughed and joked about such things. But I never will again."

"I came back here a changed man," continued Horace. "But old associations still had power over me; I did not take the open, manly stand I might have done. I was ashamed of Jesus when with those who despised and forgot him. I wanted to get His sympathy with me in my trials, but I wanted to do as Nicodemus did, visit Him by night. But Maggie broke in upon that cowardice, and led me, step by step, into open acknowledgment of His claims. But still I serve Him a good deal as a slave does his master, and when I prayed, instead of finding the delight I had heard described, I felt as one does who throws missiles into an enemy's camp. But see how good he was. He came and threw me once more upon a bed of pain, made me feel as if I never should lift hand nor foot again, an then when I was beginning to get well and to snatch at the world again, He threatened to take away my Maggie. This time he broke my heart all the pieces, and then showed me what he could be to such a heart. This world was greatly changed to me before our illness; now it is quite a new one."

"But you seem cheerful, you seem happy," said Annie.

"I hope so, for I am one of happiest men on earth. I am not now afraid of evil tidings or of misfortune in any shape. I have endured, in imagination, it is true, but still I have endured, the loss of my precious wife, and have learned that in love and faith I could bear even that crowning sorrow. And now, dear Annie, you will see that having given that world a fair trial, I am justified in speaking earnestly of its imbecility in the supreme hours of life; and having tried God, I am justified in giving my testimony to His power to console the saddest heart."

"All you say is true, I daresay," said Annie. "But I don't feel it. I had a real good time in Europe, and after we got back. If things could have gone on just so, I should not have asked for anything better."

"Ah, but it is not in the order of life for things always to go on just to our minds. That is the very point. If they did, we should never ask for anything better. That is just our folly and blindness."

"After all you have said I have no doubt that if I could find a world without any trouble, I should go and live in it."

"There is such a world."

"Yes, but we can't go to it at any moment we are tired of this. There would be a great rush if we could.'

"And do you really believe, that if you went to it just to escape the troubles of life, you would be happy there?"

"Why not? The Bible says so."

"The Bibles says that the great employment of heaven is praising God. Now, suppose a crowd of people dissatisfied with what He had done with them here, rush there on that account, would His will be any sweeter to them than it was before, an would they burst forth into songs of praise?"

"Why, Horace, what a good preacher you are," cried Annie. "I had no idea you were up to it."

Horace, full of enthusiasm, sure that he should gain Annie in a single evening, felt as if he had wasted it as these words fell on his ear.

He looked at his watch, and found that it was time to go.

"I am a poor bungler," he said, "an sometimes wonder how I ever dare to try to do any of my Master's work. But we felt so sorry for you, Maggie and I."

And then he went away.

But Annie sat and pondered his words long after he had gone; she could hardly believe that Horace, usually bright even to gaiety, had uttered such serious ones.

"I suppose he is right," she said, with a sigh; "but I never did like your really good people."

And she would not listen to Him whose Holy Spirit spake within her.

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