A Speckled Bird Part 6

"When I have finished trying all its gaits, and find the sum total satisfactory, I shall label it, and fit a comfortable side saddle and introduce you formally. Now, Miss Kent, come to confession. Did you see the list of pa.s.sengers who arrived on yesterday's steamer from Liverpool?"

"I did not."

"Can you recollect a certain prophecy I made at Cowes, anent a handsome naval officer who entertained us at luncheon on his father's yacht?"

"Ca.s.sandra was a woman, and men should not trespa.s.s on the one feminine right of 'I told you so,' that has descended to us intact from Hecuba's daughter. But, Mr. Noel, if you mean----"

She turned and looked up into his eyes.

"Yes, I met him this morning at the club, where Ogden introduced him, and I saved him a useless journey to Was.h.i.+ngton by telling him you were here for a few days."

"I can only say I am sorry to hear it."

"While he is in New York I must, in part, return the hospitality shown us, and your father will pay the remainder of the debt in Was.h.i.+ngton. I have arranged a dinner for this evening, and later we shall see 'Hamlet,' then a supper afterward at Delmonico's. Will you join us at the theatre, if I call for you, bringing Mrs. St. Clair as chaperon?"

"Thank you, I much prefer not to be one of the party; besides, I have a previous engagement. I am going with my cousin, Vernon Temple, to a meeting of shop girls, a sort of night school established by some of his lady friends."

"What cla.s.s does he teach?"

"I believe he 'talks' now and then on 'feminine arts,' and to-night there will be a lecture on lace making and tapestry guilds, ill.u.s.trated of course by a sketch of the inevitable Matilda and the indestructible 'Bayeux.' I am trying to cla.s.sify this new cousin, who seems to me a queer blend of mediaeval monk, pre-Raphaelite reformer, and socialist. He is altogether unlike any one I ever knew, but his beautiful, sad face reminds me of a picture I saw in Munich--a young priest administering the viatic.u.m to his dying sweetheart, whom he forsook for holy orders."

Lowering his eyelids, Mr. Herriott glanced keenly at her.

"You find Temple wonderfully magnetic at times?"

"Scarcely that. 'Magnetic' implies so much and really explains so little. When I see his ceaseless struggle to keep the heel of his spirit on the neck of his flesh, it suggests a fanatical rebellion against that equipoise G.o.d saw fit to establish. Like Joubert, 'he seems to be a soul that by accident met with a body, and tries to make the best of it.' My cousin Temple is fond of you."

"Despite much difference of opinion on many questions, our friends.h.i.+p has survived the 'storm and stress' period, and I honor a man whose battle cry for humanity is:

"'Make trade a Christian possibility, And individual right no general wrong.'

Have you noticed the expression of Mrs. Mitch.e.l.l's face when they happen to meet?"

"Haven't I! It is too funny to see her narrow her eyes and look at him as if he were some uncla.s.sified beast whose method of pouncing on his prey had not yet been warningly advertised. She is convinced he is an ecclesiastical infernal machine trying to wreck our family orthodoxy. I asked him----"

She stopped suddenly at sight of two gentlemen approaching on horseback, and Mr. Herriott smiled, as he whispered:

"Lo! the second son of a duke!"

CHAPTER VII

In a quiet and unfrequented cross street--equally remote from the thronged thoroughfares of trade and from fas.h.i.+onable avenues lined with palaces--stood the low and unpretentious Chapel of St. Hyacinth, marked by neither spire nor belfry. The old stone front receded sufficiently from the pavement to permit a short flight of shallow steps that led to an arched door in a pillared portico with a cross on its pointed roof, which hung over the entrance like a sullen, frowning brow. A northeast wind came fitfully in hissing blasts, dashed with fine sleet; but when Eglah pa.s.sed through the swinging inner door a warm atmosphere spiced with resinous incense infolded her as in a fragrant mist, through which glimmered bra.s.s lattice screens, rows of tall candles, the gilded carving of the white altar, laden with lilies, and the marble statue of the Virgin, at whose snowy feet a red light burned in a silver lamp. On each side of the wall below the bra.s.s lattice that barred the chancel was a "confessional" of dark wood surmounted by a cross, and the cl.u.s.tered lights in the centre of the concave ceiling formed a crown.

On the right and left of the altar the white surpliced choristers filled several seats, and the quivering thunder of the organ ceased suddenly, as if to listen to the marvellous voice of the boy soloist, that swelled and rose as if the singer felt himself "hard by the gates of heaven." A slender child of ten years, grasping his music with waxen hands almost infantile in size, while his head, covered thickly with s.h.i.+ning ripples of golden hair, was thrown back, and his blue eyes almost purplish, like a periwinkle, were raised in contemplation of the crown glowing above him. The colorless face was delicate and beautiful as if wrought out of ivory, and a certain pathetic sadness of expression inherent in fragile childhood was for the moment dominated by the radiant exultation of his wonderful eyes, that seemed made to dwell between the wings of a seraph.

Father Temple left the altar before which he had knelt in prayer, and advancing to the steps of the chancel, stood with one hand on the bra.s.s railing and briefly explained his unexpected presence. A telegram had summoned the rector of St. Hyacinth's to the deathbed of his father, and the request to officiate in his absence had been received too late to permit the preparation of a regular sermon; hence the patient indulgence of the congregation was invoked for some desultory remarks which might not prove entirely fruitless. After a few exordial sentences, he repeated slowly the opening ten verses from St. John xv., and waited a moment.

"For text let us consider: 'I am the true vine,' said our Lord, 'and ye, my brethren, are the branches.'"

Then followed a recitative of various selected pa.s.sages from the "Sermon in the Hospital," in tones so musical and liquid, and with a repose of manner so profound, yet full of subtle magnetism, that his audience gazed in sympathetic wonder at the slight figure clad in the sombre habit of his order--at the thin, pallid spiritual face where large, deep-set black eyes burned with the preternatural light of consecrated but consuming zeal. The folded arms attempted no gestures--what need, while that rhythmic wave of sound flowed on?--until the end, when the clasped hands were lifted in final appeal:

"... the Cross of Christ Is more to us than all His miracles.

Thou wilt not see the face nor feel the hand, Only the cruel crus.h.i.+ng of the feet When through the bitter night the Lord comes down To tread the winepress. Not by sight, but faith, Endure, endure--be faithful to the end."

Unconscious of his movement, and irresistibly drawn, the young soloist sitting in the front row of choristers had risen, and leaning far forward, looked up into the face of the priest, like one mesmerized, his parted lips trembling in a pa.s.sion of ecstasy. Then the organ boomed, and the boy fell from paradise and joined the choristers chanting as they marched away behind the uplifted cross.

A lady stepped into the aisle and touched Eglah's arm.

"So glad to see you here, Miss Kent. Shall always welcome you to my pew.

What a delightful elocutionary _tour de force_ Father Temple gave us! He would make a fortune on the stage of secular drama."

"Yes. Fra Ugo himself could scarcely have been more impressive when he talked to the sick and dying on hospital cots. To my cousin Vernon this world is only a hospital of sick souls. Mrs. St. Clair, I should like to meet that little boy who sang so beautifully. Can you help me?"

"Very easily. Come back with me now to the vestry and we may find him.

Did you notice how that lovely boy seemed almost hypnotized?"

Only two of the larger choristers lingered, chatting with the choirmaster, and as they turned toward the rear stairway leading to the street, Mrs. St. Clair exclaimed:

"Mr. De Graffenried, stop the boys. We want to see the soloist. Call him back."

"Madam, I think he is still in the chancel."

Lifting the velvet curtain that concealed the altar from their view, she beckoned Eglah to her side.

Father Temple had been detained by one of the church-wardens, and as he turned to hasten away the boy, standing near, caught the black skirt of the priest.

"Please, sir, may I speak to you?"

"Certainly. I am glad to be able to thank you for the music to-day. Your solo gave me great pleasure."

"I could have done better, but my throat is sore; it bled just now. I told n.o.body, because I am the only one who can reach that high C, and so I tried not to fail. I want to ask you how I can learn all the words you spoke? Oh, if I could, I would set them to a chant; they would lift my heart out of me if I could sing them."

"You shall have them. What is your name?"

"Leighton Dane."

Father Temple took his tablets from an inside pocket and made an entry.

"Where do you live?"

"Oh, a long way off. Far down in East ---- Street; but, please sir, if you would leave the poetry here, I could get it at next rehearsal."